Chapter 6: “Summary and Application: God’s Self-Attesting Authority” or God doesn’t need anyone to agree with Him in order to be Right.

• All knowledge is through Christ.  Therefore our knowledge of the truth depends on God having known it first.  The only way we can know it is by beginning with the fear of the Lord and submission to Him
• Any Philosophy that does not presuppose God and the truth of His word is vain, empty, useless deception.  By suppressing the truth and instead choosing to rely upon created man’s reasoning, the mind is darkened and can only reach futile conclusions.  God will make such wisdom to be foolishness.
• Trying to be neutral between assuming God to be true and not assuming him to be true is the same as trying to serve two masters and is sin.
• Neutrality would fill the Grand Canyon to God’s truth that separates a Christian from a non-christian.  Anyone believing this actually is believing something that is hostile to his faith.
• The Christian is a “new man”, therefore his thinking is also renewed.  His thought is therefore to be maintained in subjection to his Lord Jesus and what He said, rather than the thinking of the world.  The Christian rejects the myth of self-sufficiency and seeks to love God with all his mind and to bring Him glory.
• Two choices, either to ground your thought in Christ’s word and receive the treasures of wisdom that are promised, or to follow the thoughts of men and be deluded and robbed of those treasures.
• Therefore God, through His word has absolute authority and is the final criterion of truth.
• When Jesus taught, he taught with self-attesting authority, meaning he did not need to appeal to any higher authority to validate what He said (Matt 7:29)
• The Word of God must be the standard to which all other ideas are compared
• False ideas are a test to know whether we truly love God (Deut 13:1-4)

• “To the law and the testimony! If they speak not according to this Word, surely it is because there is no light for them.” (Is 8:20)
• We must hold fast to our faith (Heb 10:23)
• “I the LORD speak the truth; I declare what is right.” (Is. 45:19)
• “Let God be true though everyone else were a liar” (Rom 3:4)
• God’s word is the foundation of our life (Mt 7:24-25)
• We are not in a position to question God’s truth (Rom 9:20)

Chapter 5: “Revelation as the Foundation of Knowledge” or You didn’t figure this out on your own

We must apply our hearts to God’s knowledge if we are to know the certainty of His truth (Pr 22:17-21)

• Philosophers deny that there is absolute truth, but the God says that the Bible can make us “know the certainty of the words of truth) (Pr 22:20-21)
• To grasp it, we must “apply your mind to My knowledge)  (Pr 22:17b)

Because God’s knowledge is came first and is ultimate, man can only know what God already knows.  Therefore we must think God’s thoughts after him so that “in your light do we see light” (Ps 36:9)

Understanding and knowledge of the truth are the promised results when we make God’s word the basis of our presuppositions, our starting point for all intellectual activity

•  “The LORD my God lightens my darkness” (Ps 18:28)
• “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Ps 119:130)
• “Attend unto my wisdom, incline your ear to My understanding in order that you may preserve discretion and in order that your lips may keep knowledge” (Pr 5:1-2)

Christians who pursue knowledge from a worldly perspective think they are smart because through their own efforts they have “figured out” a lot of stuff and understand to a large degree a lot of the teachings of the Bible.  They are actually deluded.

• Self-sufficiency is false.  Without Christ, we can do nothing.  (John 15:5)
•  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge”.  All knowledge, even scientific knowledge (Pr 1:7)
• “Talk no more proudly: let not arrogance come from your mouth, for Jehovah is a God of knowledge” (1 Sam 2:3)
• “He who teaches man knowledge – the LORD – knows the thoughts of man” (Ps 94:10)
• “What do you have that you have not received?” (1 Cor 4:7)

When men are not proper stewards of what God has given them (such as scholarly ability), then God will take away even what they previously possessed (by making that ability useless, empty)

Chapter 4: “The Mind of the New Man Rooted in Christ” or How is the Christian’s thinking to be different?

Since neutrality is actually unbelief, Paul instructs Christians to be rooted in Christ and to avoid the assumptions of unchristian thinking (Col 2:8)

When Col 2:6 says “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him”, what does this actually mean?

• We did not become Christians through our own intellectual understanding because
• The world in it’s wisdom does not know God (1 Cor 1:21)
• The world considers the cross to be foolishness (1 Cor 1:18, 21)
• Therefore we received Christ through faith that was given to us by the Holy Spirit
• We now have the mind of Christ through the Spirit ( 1 Cor 2:12-16)
•  We can now understand things freely given us by God (1 Cor 2:12)
• Our faith rests not on the wisdom of men but the power of God (1 Cor 2:5)
• As a Christian, Jesus is now LORD over all things in our life, therefore
• We must love him with all things, including his mind (Matt 22:37)
• All thoughts are to be brought captive or in subjection to him ( 2 Cor 10:5)

• Therefore, the Christian’s walk will not honor the thought patterns of worldly wisdom, but will instead submit to the authority of Christ in all areas of thought and knowledge.
• This means our presuppositions are that the Word of God is true, God is true and God is supreme and we are none of those things.
• If we believe these things we will be rooted in Him and will be able to hold steadfast in the faith

God speaks through the Bible.  Therefore, the Bible does not admit that man has any ability or authority to judge what it says.  Instead it speaks with absolute authority.  It expects us to understand that we, along with our intellect, were created by God and are therefore inferior to God and must be subject to the authority of God.

As a result, the Christian and non-Christian systems of thinking cannot co-exist, because one assumes that God exists and the other does not.  Neutrality is not possible.

Just ask...

Key thoughts from various messages on prayer...

God wants us to ask Him for whatever we need.

"Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. " (John 14:13-14)


"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." (John 15:16)


"In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."  (John 16:23-24)


So does Jesus really mean anything?  Like as in ANYTHING?  No, of course not.  You may pray that you would be more powerful than God.  Denied.  You may ask that a certain sin would be okay just one day a week. Denied.  Obviously, the "whatever" that is underlined in the verses above are qualified by those parts of the verses that are bolded.


If the request will bring glory to God, fruit in our lives and joy to us through increasing the glory of God, then anything that meets those criteria will be answered.


However, there is an interesting link in these prayers with the purposes of God...


"In the whole land, declares the LORD, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people'; and they will say, 'The LORD is my God.'" (Zechariah 13:8-9)


Ignore for the moment the specific context of which historical even this is referring to and focus on what God is saying.  The third that is saved, these are already His people.  They are the remnant.  They have just seen everyone else destroyed.  Yay for being saved right?  But then God immediately puts THEM into the fire, on purpose, to refine them and test them.  Why?  So that they will call upon God.  Why? So that He can answer them!


How important is it to God that we pray to Him, and not just pray to Him, but ask Him for help in our lives?  Very important!


Psalms 107 gives four illustrations of God's great lovingkindess towards His people.  In each of the four scenarios in the psalm, there are four stages: predicament, plea, deliverance, and thanksgiving.  The scenarios may simultaneously represent specific events, symbolic events in the life of Israel, and the situation that every sinner finds themselves in.  In every case, they did the same thing, 


"Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress." (Psalm 107:6,13,19,28)


In each case, nothing had changed in their circumstances.  They didn't try to "get it all worked out" first.  They just cried out to God where they were and He answered them.  How great is our God? He is incredibly great and marvelous!  In the words of verse 2 in Psalms 107,

"Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble." (Psalms 107:2)
Amen!  Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!