Breaking Down Strongholds

SERMON: 2011-03-20--ac1161--breaking-down-strongholds SOURCE DURATION: 00:38:36.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The sermon begins with expository material in segment [0]. The speaking portion of the sermon concludes at segment [31] (00:02:01.000). The subsequent segments are covered by a sustained acoustic music interval and consist of sung lyrics/worship song, which marks the end of the main spoken sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:35:02.600-00:38:34.820 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- A stronghold is a system of beliefs and ideas that people often use both individually and corporately to justify unbelief and sin. And as I pointed out last week, nobody can live for long with a belief system that says, "This is how I ought to be living," and a lifestyle that actually falls far short of that. And whenever we find ourselves in that kind of situation, where there is that big a gap between what we believe and what we do, there's one of three things that's going to happen. Either we split, that is to say we compartmentalize, and Colonel Russell Williams was a prime example in recent history here of how cleverly that can work, or we have to bring our lifestyle up to match our belief system. That's very difficult to do for most people, and so typically what happens, of course, is that we bring down our belief system until it matches our lifestyle. And so he said last week, "The thief has reasons for his thievery. "The murderer can give you a thousand reasons "why he was justified in his murder, "and the adulterer can give you many, many reasons "why adultery in his situation was not only justifiable "but was actually a good thing to be doing." It's what the Bible calls an inversion of Biblical values. And our job as God's people when we're filled by the Holy Spirit is not only to identify those arguments out there that people use to justify their unbelief, but to actually be able to speak into it in such a way that they are left speechless. And that, again, is what Paul talks about in these verses that we've read a few moments ago from 2 Corinthians 10. Let me read them once again. "Though we live in the world, we do not wage war "as the world does. "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world." That is to say, it's not violence. It's not power. It's not guns. On the contrary, the weapons that we use have divine power to demolish strongholds. He goes on to say we demolish what? Every argument, every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Who of us knows that some of the biggest battles that wage in the world are not battles fought with guns and with ammunition and with soldiers? They are the battle in the universe and in the world for the hearts and the minds of men. And ever since Satan came to Eve back in Genesis chapter 3, challenging the authority of God's word when he said, "Has God really said?" Satan has been hard at work developing philosophies of life, creating arguments and ideas that people use then to justify their unbelief and to justify their disobedience. We all do it one way or the other. We all fall victim to thoughts and ideas that are strongholds that will not yield to the authority of Christ. And Christ not only wants to bring them down in our lives to take every thought captive to obey Christ, but he also wants us then to be able to speak into the ideas, the arguments, and the strongholds that live in the world to bring them down until everybody is left without excuse. I believe that before Jesus comes back, every argument that has been raised, every obstacle that has been raised against the knowledge of God will have been demonstrated for what it is and will have been destroyed so that everybody stands speechless before God. Nobody is going to go into eternity thinking that they were right after all and God was wrong. Every thought will be taken captive to Jesus. So in this little mini-series that we're doing in the broader context of the Book of Acts then, we've begun to address what I believe are three major strongholds in the world's thinking that many people use to justify their unbelief and their disobedience. And the first one that we touched on last week is that the Bible is not scientifically sound, particularly as it relates to matters of origins. That is to say, more and more, people are using what they believe are the discoveries of modern science to say the Bible is not accurate, the Bible cannot be trusted in its history, and so therefore we don't have to believe it in terms of what it says about human relationships, about human sexuality, about how we do life and the family. We can just reinvent everything that needs to be reinvented for our own sake and for our own pleasure. And so one of the arguments that you and I need to be able to address then is this whole question of origins in the universe and how much of science appears to be at odds with what many of us believe is biblical revelation. And so last week I gave you the first of three things, three observations I want to make about that that will hopefully help us not only to settle these issues in our own hearts and minds, but help our children when they go to university, because I'll guarantee you every kid of yours that goes to university is going to be presented in most settings, including, unfortunately, some Christian colleges, a largely secular view of the origins of life. And you and I need to understand that, and we need to be able to think our way through that a little bit. So last week, then, I said that there is no such thing as pure science. That is to say, we like to think of science as an objective study of the facts, where every scientist brings his own presuppositions to the table. Those presuppositions in the world today are naturalism and materialism. That is to say, what you see is all that exists. It is immediately at odds with Scripture that says that God has created things that are seen and things that are unseen. There is as big a universe around you that is unseen as there is a universe that you can see. And so those presuppositions, together with uniformitarianism, that says the same processes that are taking place today have always taken place historically, make for a preselection process by which we buy into a given interpretation of the facts. And so that which does not agree with us, we write off. That which does agree with our underlying presuppositions, we embrace. Quick example, I gave you one last week, I'll give you another one this week. There is a place in the world where there is a stone drawing, if you can believe this, of dinosaurs. A stone drawing that was clearly made by human beings. Now, if you know anything at all about modern science, then dinosaurs and humans did not coexist. Now, there have been many of those drawings that have been proven to be forgeries because people buy into the gullibility of Christians who want to prove their point of view, but there is one in particular that so far has stood the test of science. So what do you do with it? Well, if you're a creationist, you say, "See, I told you so." If you're a strong evolutionist, then you look at that and you say, "Well, I can't explain it." There's probably a natural explanation for this, and so your underlying presuppositions determine your interpretation. I'm not even saying who's right or wrong in this particular instance. I'm simply saying you see what you are predisposed to see. Does that make sense? And even the most unbiased people have their biases. So now you add to that that research grants in universities are typically given to people who support the company. That is to say, the dominant view. And if you add to that the fact that tenure in universities is often given to those who subscribe to the company line, then you see how that becomes a self-sustaining system that knows how to weed out its critics. And so bias is present, even though people will often say it is not. So it's helpful to know that there's no such thing as pure science, which brings us then to a second conclusion, and that is that very knowledgeable people often disagree on the interpretation of data. Very knowledgeable people often disagree on the interpretation of scientific data. And I can give you a good example that was in the news just two weeks ago. The name Richard Hoover. Strike a chord with anybody? Richard Hoover is a scientist with the NASA Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama. And he was in the news a couple of weeks ago because he claims to have found the evidence of bacterial life in an asteroid. Do you remember the news story? Richard Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center claims he found fossils that look like the remnants of bacteria in at least two meteorites. His research paper published online Friday in the Journal of Cosmology concludes that these must have come from outer space. Well, if you have followed the news story, then almost immediately there was a huge backlash from his own organization. His claim has since been roundly disputed by other scientists. There has been no one in the scientific community, certainly no one in the meteorite analysis community, that has supported these conclusions. NASA Astrobiology Institute Director Carl Pilcher said on Monday. The simplest explanation from Mr. Hoover's measurement is that he's measuring microbes from Earth. They are contamination. But Mr. Hoover says chemical analysis makes it unlikely that it is contamination. He says they are indigenous fossils from outer space rather than anything found on Earth. And so here you have a fascinating conflict between scientists in the same organization looking at the same data. The one says this is proof of extraterrestrial life. The other is saying you're out of your mind and then challenging his credentials and challenging his methodology and how he conducted his research. Now, here's my point. Forget for a moment about whether there's life in outer space or not. This guy's been looking for this for years and years. And the Journal of Cosmology sounds like it's a pretty professional journal, but it's been dedicated to having ET called home for many years already. So that's simply the reality. But my point is this. Whenever scientific claims are made, there is often significant controversy. And that's the nature of science because you posit a hypothesis. You try to demonstrate your hypothesis. Somebody else tries to disprove your hypothesis. And the idea is that eventually truth gets established, and that becomes then sort of the standard understanding until somebody else comes along again and new data emerges and the whole picture changes. But here's what I'm trying to say. Unless you are very knowledgeable in a given field, have exposed yourself not only to both sides of the story, but are smart enough to figure out the ins and the outs of both stories, you are in no position to determine who's right or who's wrong. Does that make sense? And so you hear one person's argument, and it sounds persuasive. You hear another person's argument, and it sounds persuasive. And none of us is expert enough in most issues to reach a conclusion because things change, and they change all the time. I was thinking about this the other day. I remember in my lifetime the theory of tectonics, which is the moving of earth plates, was laughed out of court as being a scientific impossibility. Any of you remember that? Back in the '60s, that was pooha'd as nonsense. Well, talk to the folks in Japan today and see if that is nonsense. Where did this 8.9 or 9 on the Richter scale earthquake come from? Well, I can tell you from a scientific point of view. Japan sits on the Pacific tectonic plate. The North American plate is over top of it, and the Pacific plate is trying to move under the North American plate. Pressure builds up over many, many years, and in the earthquake, this plate let go and rose into the air, which not only caused the earthquake, but raised the water and made the tsunami, which has been so highly destructive. Scientific theories, you don't know what they all mean unless you have an expert who can tell you which is which. And that is why Anthony Flew's book There Is God, How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, in my judgment, is rather critical, because Anthony Flew has been recognized as one of the foremost atheist philosophers in the world. He has written numerous books to convince people that God is not. But because of the discoveries of modern science in recent years, he has moved from being an atheist, one who doesn't believe in God, to becoming a deist, not a Christian, but he acknowledges there is a God, and in his book, he gives the reasons why. And two reasons in particular stand out. One reason is, he says, there is no known scientific explanation for what we call human consciousness. But even more importantly, in my judgment, he says, there is no known scientific explanation for how inorganic material-- that is, matter that is not alive-- can become organic material. There is no known cause for the start of the universe by itself, and there is no known cause for life emerging because of the chances of even the most simplistic amino acid, which are the building blocks of material, arising, as we've all been taught in our biology classes and in our science classes, out of that prime ordeal ocean with lightning and all. He says the possibility of that happening, and other scientists, including non-believing scientists, all confirm that the likelihood of that happening is less than the number of particles in the universe. Now, you put that in your pipe and smoke it. And the odds are becoming extremely, extremely impossible. So there's no such thing as pure science. Different scientists interpret data differently, and so we have a hard time knowing which is which unless we are fully exposed to it. What I like about Anthony Flew's observation is that here's a man who has studied the field extensively in the course of his life. And he says, "This now is where the evidence has led me. There is God." And I hope and pray that one day he will come to find Jesus. As the one through whom God made everything. Well, one final point then, and it'll take me a little while to talk about that, and that is the fact that there is room for different interpretations in the origins of life. There is room for different ways of understanding the book of Genesis. To simplify things, there are three schools of thought among Christians about the origins of life. Let me run those past you as quickly as I can. There is a group of people called Young Earth Creationists. And Young Earth Creationists take the story in Genesis 1 and 2 of how God made the world very literally. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then in six days, he made all the universe and many of the geological things that we cannot explain or that science explains as having been around for millions and millions of years, or in fact formed, according to Young Earth Creationists, by the Flood. And the Flood was a catastrophic event that totally changed the makeup of the world. And there are some significant factors to contend that are not so easily explained away. And I'll quickly show you two shots of that. A number of you here will remember the Mount St. Helens volcano blowing up in the United States back in the early '80s. And what you see here is a picture of a Mount St. Helens rock deposit more than 25 feet in thickness, containing upwards of 100 thin layers accumulated in just one day on June 12 of 1980. So what we're talking about here on this picture, you see that here's the bottom of these layers, and here is the top of that layer. These 25 feet of many multiple layers of rock were deposited in one day. Isn't that interesting? One day. Not over millions and millions of years, as geologists today almost universally believe one day by one catastrophic event as opposed to a uniformitarian process. One other quick slide similar to that. This is known as a little Grand Canyon, and this thing is 140 feet deep from here to here. And this Grand Canyon was formed on March 19 of 1982 when a small eruption of the volcano melted the snow that had accumulated in the crater over the winter, and the resulting mud flow eroded a canyon system up to 140 feet deep. It's been called the Little Grand Canyon, and the small creek that now flows through the bottom would appear to have carved this canyon over a great length of time, but this unique event has demonstrated that rapid catastrophic processes were instead responsible for this canyon. Now, again, there will be many people that challenge those findings, but I'm saying that young creationists who believe the world is about 6,000 years old have scientific reasons for their convictions, and there are many more. That's one group of people. They're known as the YEC folks, in short. Just about everybody hates them, but they have significant influence. Then there are old Earth creationists, and old Earth creationists believe the universe is many millions or billions of years old, and there are two groups of old Earth creationists. The first are known as gap theory creationists, and the gap theory stipulates that there is a long break of time between Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2, and Genesis 1, verse 3. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. "Now, the earth was," or it could be translated, "became formless and empty. "Darkness was over the surface of the deep, "and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters." And old Earth creationists believe there was an original creation in the universe made many billions of years ago, lining up with what scientific discoveries are telling us today, but that something happened to that creation, perhaps with the fall of Satan, and that prehistoric animals and fossils and Lord knows whatever else were part of that creation, and that then God made a recreation in the biblical story. And old Earth creationists believe, then, that you can hold on to scientific discoveries on the one hand and the biblical record on the other hand. Those are the gap theorists. It was made popular particularly back in 1909 when the Schofield Bible used it as one of the footnotes in its story. It's not so popular today, but there are those who pursue it. And then a second component or interpretation or school of thought among old Earth creationists is a thing that is known as progressive creationists. And progressive creationists interpret the days of Genesis not literally, but long term, and they believe that God created the universe and then over a long period of time created different forms of life ending up with man. And if you're familiar with Hugh Ross' Reasons to Believe, he is of that school of thought. He says the Big Bang Theory supports the biblical idea that God created the heavens and the earth, that he stretched it out. We live in an expanding universe. And he believes, in fact, that there was life and death and the plant and the animal world until God created Adam and Eve. And then when Adam and Eve fell into sin, death came to the human race. That is his position. And you can search for debates between him and other people on YouTube. And they're fascinating to listen to and to observe. So there's young earth creationists. There are old earth creationists. And then, of course, there are what's known as theistic evolutionists. And theistic evolutionists accept the theory of evolution as the mechanism that God has chosen for the development of life on earth from a single common ancestor. And once again, there are two schools of thought. There is a school of thought that says God is actively involved in the process. That is to say, he uses evolution, he guides it, and he has led it in such a way that you and I, you know, we came from the primordial ooze by way of the zoo. We're here. So that's one school of thought. Another school of thought is that God built in an evolutionistic potential, that he, in fact, set it all in motion and then stood back and he watched it happen. Now, please understand, there are thoroughly committed Christians who buy into one or another of these schools of thought. There are reasons for doing that. Personally, I'm very comfortable with a young creationist point of view. I have no trouble believing that God created the world 6,000 years ago and that he made the world in six days the way the Bible would appear to teach. I won't stumble if you want to be an old earth creationist or if you want to believe in theistic evolution, because at the end of the day, we're not saved by our observations or beliefs about the origins of life. But regardless of what you believe about origins, there are three issues, and I'm going to wind up with this, there are three issues that I think are insurmountable to virtually any other interpretation than a literal reading of Scripture. Let me give those to you. First of all, the Genesis story puts an emphasis on every creature being created how? After its kind. We know from human experience that while there is development possible within a given kind of life form, it's very hard to move beyond that. And so if you cross a donkey with a horse, you get a mule, but a mule is infertile. There appear to be limits established in nature that say you cannot move from one species to another. And I know that people often claim that there are all kinds of intermediary forms that have been found, but I know of one man who went to every museum in the world that teaches evolution to find evidence of transitional fossils and has never been able to find them. And the lack of transitional fossils continues to be a significant issue in terms of the evolution of life. There ought to be a lot more in-between forms than have ever surfaced. But there's another reason that after one's kind is important biblically, and that's this. When the creation story says that God created everything after its kind, I think the Lord is making a spiritual observation. And what he is trying to teach his people is that there are distinct separations for God's people between themselves and the world. This is a whole broad subject in itself, but Israel was to be the unique people of God. And you become part of the unique people of God not by crossing over through myriads of stages from a pagan to becoming a believer. No, there is a cut and dry transition which ultimately is performed by the cross of Christ. So that's one reason that I think we have to struggle with that issue. The second issue that we have to struggle with is that according to the New Testament, there are two historical people, and the whole Christian faith hinges on the reality of Adam and Eve and their fall into sin. And closely tied into that, then, is the fact that according to Scripture, the rest of the world groans under the travail of sin because of Adam and Eve's sin. And so if Jesus is the second Adam, who's come to restore everything, and if in the new creation the child plays with a serpent and the wolf and the lion lie down together and there is shalom and peace in God's holy mountain, when God restores all things, is it possible then to say that there was tooth and claw in the world? Was there death and destruction in the world before Adam and Eve fell into sin? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? I don't care much how the world was put together or the process that God used to get us there. And if you're comfortable with one of those other theories and you can square that in your own mind before God, personally, that's fine with me. But you've got to get around what the Scripture has to say about the historicity of Adam and Eve. Because almost inevitably, when you move away from a literal understanding of Genesis 1 and 2, that is where people end up. And if you're a reader of our denominational magazine The Banner, then you will have seen the flap in its pages about two professors at our denominational college who in their writing have begun to challenge the historicity of Adam and Eve. And now, of course, they're really having to backtrack because that attacks the very foundation and the very heart of the Christian faith. And thank God, so far, our denomination in terms of its confessional stance makes no bones about the fact that God is the creator of all things regardless of the process that he might have used, but Adam and Eve were historical figures from whom the human race has descended so that by Christ and his sacrifice on the cross, the human race can also be restored. That make sense? Stand with me as we pray. Lord, we acknowledge that our understanding of you, the universe, and how you've made it is by definition limited. We see in a mirror dimly. And, Lord, we pray that that search will never lead us to a place where we deny our faith, think we don't need you, and can do it on our own. May that search instead lead us to greater worship, greater adoration, greater love for you, the Lord our God, who has made all the universe and everything in it, including us, and who, when the person of Jesus came into the world to redeem us from all the chaos that our sin has brought into the world, and who promises that one day he's going to come again and reclaim the world as his own and create a new heaven and a new earth. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen and amen. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:35:02.600; remove through 00:38:36.000] It has always been you You have always been Kingdoms rise and fall Yours will never end It has always been you Before the world began You chose us as your own And before you now we stand We honor you Esteem you Replace you at the center In all of life we defer To your rule and reign It has always been you It will always be you And it's you here and now we adore It has always been you You have always been Kingdoms rise and fall Yours will never end It has always been you Before the world began You chose us as your own And before you now we stand We honor you Esteem you Replace you at the center In all of life we defer To your rule and reign It has always been you It will always be you And it's you here and now we adore [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:38:36.000; resume after this marked segment]