Well, good morning everyone. It's good to see you here after a beautiful wedding. The courageous are here bright and early. Good job getting here. Well, we were to pray this morning and I had this beautiful opportunity to share a little bit about what's going on in Brazil. I don't want to be extra repetitive. I didn't prepare any major PowerPoint presentation. Didn't know exactly what equipment we would have. But I would just like to reintroduce a little bit about what we are doing there in Brazil over the past seven years. I was invited to teach at the seminary there in Recife, northeast Brazil, Pernambuco, right along the Atlantic. It's the most eastern part of South America, so the closest to Europe. Very hot region, poor part of the country. The north, northeast is definitely poorer than Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the south and the deep south where a lot of German immigrants. It's almost a different country way to the deep south of Brazil from considering the north, northeast. Vast, it's as large as the United States. So this past, actually in January, we were able to take a trip all the way down to Sao Paulo by car. It's a beautiful country if you ever want to. Have a great drive. That would be something to do. Beautiful landscapes, mountains, and all sorts of things to see in Brazil. What have we been doing? We've been then training in the seminary levels. And since I was one of the first professors in this department or in this area, this field of study, there was a lot of invitations. So we did a lot of traveling. Leah staying back in Recife and taking care of the kids. And so that continues on. And now we've branched off. And a few years ago, a group came to me and said, hey, we have this piece of land that we really want to use for the glory of God, but we're not missionaries. We're just businessmen. and we really feel bad in our conscience because it's kind of been sitting here for a while, and it used to be an orphanage that belonged to the church, and it's not anymore. It hasn't been for decades. So we're wondering if you could do something. They knew I had connections to that land. I was born on that property. My parents are missionaries there, and some of the old orphans remember dad and mom very well. And so there was this familial connection, historical connection with that. And so they asked me, we took on the challenge. One major, well, one recent difficulty we've had as far as just denominational lines, our little denomination wasn't too happy about some of the decisions that they made at the Supreme Council just with allowing, in certain unique circumstances, women to preach. way out in the, there was a whole bunch of regulations over it, but it kind of got regulated in to being a possibility, and that caused a lot of You know, discussion, even in their own denomination, there's a lot of, you know, heat over that issue and difficulties, much like it is here as well, as you very well understand. And so our denomination being very small took a stand against that. And so relations are a little bit tense. And so in the regular graduate program, I believe that's the main reason I will not continue in the main graduate program at the seminary. However, at the post-graduate, well they call it post-graduation, it's something like continuing studies. I'm still the professor of biblical counseling there at the seminary. Now other seminaries aren't involved with that debate and so we still teach at various other seminaries. There's a a seminary online called the Reformed Theological Seminary of, it's FITREF, Faculdade Internacional de Teologia, the International Reformed College. And so that's been a neat place to be able to teach at. Portuguese-speaking people all over the world teach Introduction to Biblical Counseling on that. and that college as well as biblical spirituality or, you know, I would much prefer to call it something like a course on progressive sanctification. And so we also do that and Word of Life calls me often to go speak. They have a little outlet there in Brazil. They've been there for about 40, 50 years and have done a good job in promoting the evangelical gospel in Brazil. And in those kinds of countries, when the gospel arrived much later than it has here, those denominational divides weren't as strong. Baptists and Presbyterians, you know, 50, 60 years ago, they were all friends and, you know, they're all, in a sense, against the Roman Catholic, monolithic, Christian, you know, emphasis. So there's a lot of still communion and friendship between those denominations. So we continue on with that and so back to the land. We've prayed a lot about it and worked pretty hard trying to implement then a project called the Soli Dei Eugloria project. Initially it was called the Sola project, I was thinking, you know, I could use that terminology. But after talking to various Brazilians, they were like, that doesn't really work in our culture. That means the bottom of your foot or of the shoe. And so it doesn't, you know, they won't make that connection. But Soli de Eugloria is a little bit easier. And so we have basically, I have five different pastors. At the current time, supervising and being involved with this ministry, I call them advisors or counselors to the ministry. They're from various denominations in Brazil. And then we also have four, including myself, so three other men, one elder, one pastor, and one just local church member who are the actual board of this project to make it a legal institution in Brazil. And so our plan is fourfold. One is to train pastors and leaders in biblical counseling. So now that we have a location, a piece of land there in Northeast Brazil, right outside of the big city, travel, you know, it's probably 10-mile drive, very close, but you'll get into a more foresty, nature-friendly place. And so it's an attractive place to go as far as the city dwellers are concerned. And so to train these men who actually come from much farther away and even the poorer parts outside of the coastal regions, if you go into the interior, then you're really getting into the often more dry areas and much more poverty in those areas. And so those pastors don't have a lot of finances to go to a big city to stay there for four or five days, maybe to take a modular course in biblical counseling at the seminary. Seminary has its cost. You would stay on the seminary property So we can offer this course to them at a much cheaper price. And so it's the same materials. They enjoy going there. We've been doing that over a year now, almost two years. And once again, they're really, really enjoying it. Last time we had marriage and family course and they were able to bring their wives and kids. Like I said, it's a big piece of property. It's kind of like a campground. There's dormitories, so there's plenty of room for everyone there. So training in biblical counseling. Secondly, we want to promote a biblical worldview. And so that leaves it wide open as far as what we can really teach on and train people in. The third aspect would be using this land to benefit the churches in whatever way they want to use it. So if they want to do a retreat, if they want to do some evangelistic outreach, and we would like to work in connection with them, maybe encouraging them to come alongside some events, something like a race. I know in America they have what they call the Spartan races. I've never really been involved with it. The boys were going to try to do one this summer. It got canceled because of the COVID. I guess it's a pretty fun event, but do something like that where we get the kids out and then we could do some evangelism with the churches. I mean, there's soccer possibilities, there's basketball we could develop in the future and all sorts of things. So we would like to make it a really neat place, a fun place for the youth of various churches to come together, get to know one another and be able to be in a healthy environment. and be able to just do those kinds of activities. So we want to let the churches use this property for their various events and activities, and we hope that that will help us maintain the property if you make it self-sustaining. They would rent the property and then, you know, we could use that to pay the man who works there and takes care of the place on a daily basis and do all the upkeep that's necessary. And then finally, we want to, what's the fourth aspect here? We want to actually, yeah, provide a refuge for people who are suffering. Basically, the focus currently is for pastors and leaders who are suffering with emotional problems, as they call them. Maybe they're having financial distress. The ministry, there's a few pastors here, know some of the difficulties It's certainly in a third world. The stresses financially and just the pressure of the people expecting the pastor to do everything often break these guys down and they don't really have many places to go. Even in the Presbyterian world where there's a presbytery, there's supposed to be a secretary of pastoral affairs who's supposed to take care of these issues, but he's generally a pastor. in every circumstance. I know he's a pastor of a local church himself, and so he's designated as pastoral affairs committee president or whatever, but practically it just doesn't work. They really can't spend the time necessary to take these guys aside and pray with them and walk through their issue and encourage them and talk to them and weep with them and confront them. and just help them walk through this issue. And so we would like to provide a place like that. It's pretty unique, I would say. There is actually, however, down in Sao Paulo, deep south, another professor, pastor, who's doing the same thing, and he's just bombarded. He's actually asked me to go help him many years ago. And at the time, we just couldn't do that. So we do believe that it'll pick up a lot of, well, a lot of speed ministerially speaking. You know, we're thankful for these opportunities the Lord has given to us. We appreciate your prayers. And once again, so we received this land after decades kind of of it being abandoned over the past couple years. We've had to use a lot of energy to and really even financial resources to try to get it up to where it needs to be, to where it's safe, to where it's, you know, livable, it's suitable for people to sleep there and etc. We actually, the boys learned how to do some welding, trying to make bunk beds, triple bunk beds, so we could put in the dormitories. We actually hired a welder, but he taught them how to, their boys were right by his side, and so they actually got to make some neat things that way. Labor in Brazil is much cheaper than what it is here, so you might think, well that's a tremendous amount of cost, but a welder would be very, very reasonable in American standards. What's not cheap, however, is equipment. So that's kind of the dividing line. And labor, we can get tons of labor. We can't really get much equipment. So it's labor intensive. to keep up a place like that. That's where I would like to invite you all to come. Please, we would love to have anyone, families, maybe a single guy who wants to see another part of the world and spend some energy. Help us do some work and we'll also show you around the town and let you have a good time on the beaches or whatever you'd like to do, go surfing. The church would like to organize an event to go see another part of the world. I think it's a great learning experience for young people as well. see realities in other parts of the world. So brothers and sisters, once again, that's what we're doing in Brazil. We're involved with a local church. A Greenville graduate named Pastor Paulo Brasil. I don't know if you ever met Paulo Brasil. We were with him for the past six years in the city, just assisting him. And often when he was gone, we'd preach. And he taught a Sunday school class for them and would do counseling as well. for their church. Just this past year, as we moved out of the center of the city, we live in Aldea now, we did join another church. My family joined another church, and we're helping them now implement a vision for biblical counseling, and the same thing occurs. I'm kind of an invited co-pastor or something like that. They don't have an exact title for me, but that's what they would call me, pastor, and all those things. So, just a little bit of flavor of what we're doing in Brazil. Once again, thank you so much for being with us, for praying with us, and helping us. It's a tremendous encouragement to us. I would like to now, for the rest of the time now, is it to 1030 or about that time. I'd like to share with you maybe a little bit more theological issue right now. This is just something that we would teach at maybe an introductory seminary class. I was actually able to teach this at a secular university, well, just the state university. This one here is the federal university of Pernambuco, which is the state in which we work there in Brazil, Pernambuco. And one of the professors there is a Christian, and he actually is a member of our church. And he asked me to come. teach at the psychology department to do a lecture there. It wasn't a tremendous amount of students, but there was probably, I don't know, about 12 to 15 students and people in the little classroom there. And I brought this lecture comparing biblical counseling and what we're doing in the seminary and in the local church with secular psychologist, so I kind of wanted to present to these students something of a biblical worldview. So I'd like to do that really quick with you. There's about 30 of them, so if we spend a minute or two on each one, I think we'll be Okay, go ahead and go to the next slide. Let's see if that'll work. There you go, yes. And sorry, it's in Portuguese, so this is just more of a visual to help me, but there's some images that might help solidify a few things in your mind. First of all, just what this discussion is about. We want to talk about a Christian worldview, a biblical worldview, a Reformed view of everything. And generally speaking, as we talk about that, we speak of three things, of history. What's your view of history? And for the Christian, we have that history, our view of history defined by God's Word. We have the creation, we have the fall, and we have redemption. And we need to compare that with a secular view of history. What does that look like? And then secondly, we have quickly just philosophy. What are the main ingredients of just a philosophical viewpoint on things? And there's these big words, metaphysics and epistemology and ethics or morality. And so comparing a Christian worldview with this secular worldview. How do we think about these things? And we could also look at just some principal worldviews that exist out there in the world. And then finally, just comparing these things, psychology basically uses a secular view of life, where biblical counseling is going to counsel from a biblical worldview. So to show these people kind of some of the basic or presuppositional issues, often it's the first time they've ever been confronted with these ideas. In fact, we can go to the next slide. I was talking to one professor. He was actually a Christian. He was actually a pastor, but he was a In Brazil, a pastor doesn't earn very much money, and so often they'll have a second job, or that'll be their primary job, and they'll be a pastor as a secondary job, unfortunately. He was a professor of political science, and I stayed at his house one night, and I heard he was kind of like a leftist teacher of politics there, because basically they all are. And I presented these ideas to him, and here's a PhD professor, Christian, And he said to me, I've never heard that. And so often they just haven't thought deeply enough about these kinds of issues. And so history, let's look at that issue first. We have Genesis 1, 1 through 2, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's our view of how things happen, how they started, that's how this world began, and it's so important as far as a worldview to understand where we came from and what initiated all of life and really all of reality. And so we proclaim our historical convictions by the word of God. It's based upon revelation, that which God revealed to us. And so we have Genesis, and then we see the fall of Genesis chapter three. What happened to man? How did everything get perverted and twisted? And why are things bad? And why is there evil in this world? Historically speaking, the fall explains that. Romans 1 talks about how they transformed the truth of God into a lie and they worshiped the creation. rather than the Creator. And so this, once again, explains our problems as human beings. And unless we understand the gravity of this first sin and its consequences over all life, it'll be very difficult for us to understand the view of salvation and what is the answer to man's problems if we don't first understand the problem itself. And so once again, in the future, at the end of the slides, we'll talk about the difference between psychology, a secular view of how to help man, and biblical counseling, which is a Christian or biblical perspective on how to help them. If the secular person doesn't understand the problem, nor the answer, then how will they actually help the human being? And so, it's a really stark confrontation against the whole theory and the whole study if they take God and His Word away from those theories that they're developing. And obviously, finally, historically speaking, we have redemption in Christ, Romans 3. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. by grace alone we are justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Okay, that's the history. Very important, they basically don't know much about the history except to say that there's some primordial slime that we evolved out of there. They really don't go into those topics, I believe. I've tried to engage and understand, what would you say about history? just from reading books and things, they don't really want to go to that area. They don't want to go to the transcendent or things we don't really understand. And to push them to answer those questions and for them to acknowledge openly, we really don't know, I think is very helpful for us as Christians to do. And it helps us young people, I like to share this with young people in Brazil, because often when they go to the university and they hear all these PhD professors with this big language and all these big ideas and big words and big books that they've written, we're often very impressed with all their knowledge. But when we can, even as a young person, in a sense, confront them and say, but you don't know the basic foundational issues of life, where we came from, what's your historical view of human life, and what's the future, and if they live in the beginning and the end in this vacuum of knowledge. It kind of takes away their clout in our minds and helps to encourage the young person. So it's important for us to see this clearly so that we're not overwhelmed with all the big words that we'll get in the college and university. level. So we want to do a preemptive strike against all the ideological and all the, you know, just all their theories that are against God and against His people. We want to do a preemptive strike, say, this is what they're going to present to you, young people, and here's why it's wrong. And so a really good view of biblical worldview is important for young people. One other thing we like to do on the camp is to have a week where we'll bring some great pastors who understand these issues deeply and we'll be able to share it with these kids. Hey, this is just a week before you go to college. We really want you to understand these things and get the churches involved, send their kids. to come and hear these things as well. Okay, now we've talked about history, let's go to philosophy quickly, and we'll use this big word, metaphysics, Christian metaphysics. Basically, we're getting this from Genesis 1-1, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, all it is, the universe. So there's two things in our view, in our metaphysical view of things. There's God, dos, okay, that's God. And you can understand the bottom word, the universe, the universo. There's God and the universe in our philosophical starting point as Christians. a personal God who made all things, is creator of the universe. And so good and evil, for example, can be defined because God has made all these things. Now you see that there's an infinite distance between God and the universe, creator and creature. He is infinitely beyond us. And this has astounded philosophers down through the recent centuries, and so much so that they say, see, he's beyond us, so we shouldn't even worry about him. And basically, that's the whole idea behind secularism. He's irrelevant to science, philosophy, history, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, anthropology, because he's beyond our limits. He's infinite if he exists, and we're finite, and there's a huge gap there that we can't surpass. And that simple thought has really devastated Europe and just It's really a huge foundational piece behind unbelief in the modern world. And obviously, by God's grace, however, we know that God can speak into his universe and into his creation. He can do that because He's infinite. And so because we are limited by finiteness does not mean that God is limited to our finiteness. He can reach down and speak to the human creature because He's the Creator and He's God. And that's how the Word of God reveals this to us. And so for us, we start off with this philosophical position. And we can go to the next slide. For the unbeliever, however, when we talk about, and I guess there's, go ahead and flip through, I guess it's gonna give you a photo, yeah. Okay, they start with man. Basically, they start with, their metaphysical foundation is, in the beginning, well, we don't really know, but we'll just insert man and the creature. And so they really elevate the creature to the position of Godhead. They really make divinity man. They make into the ultimate authority the creature when they start from this. Now this is very interesting and something we really should press them upon. They believe this. But is this scientifically proven? That man is the initiator of all things? Certainly not. So they believe it by faith. Now, they would hate for you to bring that up, I believe. I believe the professors, the PhDs would get really angry with you if you challenged on them. How do you know this? Please give me a reason for this." And their ultimate standing ground is just going to be their own word, the word of man, the word of the creature. We affirm it. And that's it. And so that's not a very profound, and we should show their nudity, and especially for our own minds, we should see it very clearly. This isn't very amazing or impressive. So very simple things like good and evil, for example, in this view of the world and of life, they can't give to us a standard for good and evil. Basically, you'd have to say your DNA, programmed by blind chance, makes you do what you do. So it takes away human responsibility, love, liberty, ethics and logics are all basically, the foundation of these things is all destroyed. And so they start with man and everything else, you can just keep flipping through those options. God and art and culture, keep flipping through, but yes, truth, pleasure, literature, science. I think I'm just trying to think of all the words I can. They're gonna base all those different disciplines upon this worldview. Man is the ultimate authority. Okay, we can go quickly then to the next slide. We can compare then basic concepts and ideas and the two worldviews. Someone like Professor Cornelius Van Til, or maybe someone like Francis Schaeffer would develop this kind of idea. Let's take the first in the blue. There you have big words, big ideas. God, first of all. Well, what would the Christian worldview say on the, let's see, that's your left, right? The Cosmovision Christian, the Christian worldview, what would we say about God? Well, he's self-sufficient. He doesn't need anything under Him. He is triune. Now, the secular worldview would say about God, well, He doesn't exist, or if He does, He's really not important at all for anything. That may be a deistic view of God. Then what about man? Man, in the Christian worldview, he's created. He's dependent. Now it's interesting, we just, here in Seattle, one of the interesting places around the world going on right now, they just made the autonomous zone, and it's very interesting they used that word, you know. It's going right back to the initial fall and rebelling of man where he cried out, I am an autonomous being, I don't need God, I'm a law to myself, and we can do this without God. And basically, the Christian worldview Concerning man, anthropology, no, we don't agree with that. We are created, we're dependent, we need God for all sorts of things. Of course, they would say man is not created, he is independent, and he's autonomous. What about the reality about cosmos, about nature? the heavens and the earth. What the Christians say, well, it's created, it's ordained by God, it's sustained by God on a daily basis. His providence cares for all these things. Well, what does the unbelieving world say? A secular worldview? The universe is not created. It's independent and it's self-sustainable. Okay, let's go to the next slide. Okay, truth for us. God is truth. The Word is truth. Truth is given by God. It's revealed to human creatures. For the unbelieving worldview, for the secular worldview, that which controls our universities, truth for them is without God, and it's relative to man. So maybe in China they have a truth because it's relative to that man in China, and then in another part of the world it's relative to him, and maybe it's relative to your age, and to your culture, and to your historical moment, but there is no absolute truth. And that's really what guides our universities today, as you all well know. Now, for many young people, I know that you all have been studying, a lot of you were homeschooled, and you studied all these sorts of things. Remember, in Brazil and other countries of the world, these things are very new. Very few people would understand these things. Now, thankfully, there's a lot of growth in Reformed theology, and these young people are studying incredibly. If you go to a private school in Brazil today, pretty much around the whole country, private school, I'm not talking about public schools. Private schools are pretty expensive, and so you're going to be at another social level. They're very intense. The competition to get into college and to get into engineering, into law or medicine is extremely intense. And so they're all, in a sense, vying and competing for those top positions, and you have to qualify. by taking a very large exam to get in these colleges. And depending upon your grade, you will be able to get into those top coveted spots. And then you have the various universities that are more coveted because some are free. The federal universities are free. And so those are the You know, if you go number one at the Federal University of Pernambuco, that means you're one of the brightest kids in the whole state. And so, I mean, it's just really unimaginable how intense. It really, it's almost idolatrous the way these kids study from morning till night to be able. So, all that to say, yes, there's an idolatry factor behind all that, however, These kids are amazingly translating materials. They know English very well. They're bringing a lot of materials into Portuguese. Their Puritans are being translated. And so they're growing rapidly. And I think God's using at least their brains to help us bring good information. So these kinds of things are growing by God's grace. Knowledge, let's go to authority. For the Christian, God is our authority. Revelation is our authority. For the unbeliever, for the secular worldview, maybe they would say reason is their final and ultimate authority, or some kind of philosopher, philosophies. And what about ethics for us? To do what is right is to do what God has revealed. He's said it. Now for the unbeliever, what's right? Now these people who are governing Chad and in this autonomous zone, they really think they're doing right because it's based upon, they don't have an authority telling them what is right. Okay, let's go to them, just the next slide. We'll quickly go through this slide. In fact, we can even almost skip this one, just go through those. Once again, when God is the center of your foundation of everything else, everything else is going to be based upon Him, but when man is the center, which it is in a secular worldview, then all those other things are going to be based upon man. Okay, let's slide through. Let's go to, quickly, Another philosophical component called epistemology. I'm sure you guys maybe have word of that word. How do you know truth? How do you know anything? So the Christian has a belief about that, and so does the unbeliever. The secular world has a belief, a theory, about how do you know. Sadly, for the unbelieving world, their knowledge is kind of like that little candle. Yes, there's common grace and God reveals certain things, but as Christians, We understand that God is the knower of all reality. All the facts are first known by God. And so when we do away with the ultimate fact giver, we hide him away from our minds, all we're left is the little candle, the little tiny light of reason. And so we forget the broader and the fuller implications and meanings really of everything. And so, how do you know is an important issue? Let's go to the next slide. Psalm 19 says, as you all very well know, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaim his handiwork. And so, in one sense, yes, nature and science is declaring the glory of God. It's saying something about God's reality. There is no speech nor are there words where whose voice is not heard and so the voice is everywhere. In the words to the end of the world in them he has set a tent for the sun which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber like a strong man runs his course with joy. this kind of knowledge is really everywhere and every morning the sun arises and it's obeying and it's following its set pattern and the standard that has been set for us. So every day as we see that happening, we can understand things about this world and even the unbeliever can see that because the voice goes throughout the whole world. However, Verse seven begins, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. So when you're talking about man and anthropology and the soul, we really depend and we need the word of God and natural revelation is certainly not enough. And so God is the one who has made all those things. In Psalm 19, we see the creator and the creature, those two spheres. signify for me, I learned this from other professors, a great deal. That's biblical worldview, God and distinct from his creation. Now the unbeliever is just that one brown circle, you see it? And they believe that once again because they're examining all of life and reality based upon Romans 1, 18. Romans 1, 18-32, they have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And they do not worship the Creator, but they rather worship the creature. The creature, the creation, has become the ultimate authority, has become God. And so when they interpret any fact as they're examining the soul of man, the problems of life, ethical, moral dilemmas, they're examining that as if man was ultimate authority. And so their interpretation of the facts are colored by their faith commitment. I believe in man. as ultimate authority. And so Romans 2 as well talks about this. And so if we love them, we should try to explain these things to them so they can see it. Now once again, I tried to do this when I used to work at UPS with guys, and this kind of confrontation will make them pretty upset. If they think they're wise and knowledgeable, and you confront them with this, with their faith commitments, that's where they really get conscientious, and they feel the heat of their philosophical bankruptcy. They don't have anything really undergirding their whole view, and to once again show that to them, it really can cause some despair, and they don't really want to go into despair at times. Next slide, please, brother. What the unbeliever tries to do is to say, the creature going up to God of their deus, he tries to say, you know, this trinity, this triune being, we can't go there. We can't see him. We can't judge if he is acceptable to our standards of reason. And for that reason, once again, they would say that he's irrelevant to us as man and as far as our studies go, because there's just the impossibility of going and judging and rationally putting him on the judgment seat. And so we'll just ignore him and not deal with him. But as we know, the triune God, He is transcended. Yes, of course man can't go there and do that. But because they don't have that ability, they say then that the creation, all the universe, it's a closed system. It's just us here. There's no transcendent being controlling us, informing us, guiding us. History, we really don't know where it's going, and that's how they view, next slide please, that's how they view the created reality. It's a closed system. Now that's not the Christian view though of reality of the creation. God actually can come down. And that's what he's done through revelation, by speaking to man. That's what he's done by grace in the gospel. That's what he's done in the incarnation. God has come down and explained to us the essential things of life. And so once again, this is the huge collision and the disagreement between the believing and unbelieving world at the most basic levels. Next slide, please. And so you just have this word you guys all know very well, this unbelieving view of things. There are systems that are mutually exclusive. They can't work together. They fall apart if they try to become one. And now, unfortunately for us as Christians, we have this whole biblical worldview. However, often in our daily speech, in our marriages, in our thoughts, in the way we act, we're not faithful to our actual faith commitments, right? So we're wishy-washy, we're not perfectly sanctified, we don't live consistently with our worldview, and thankfully, I think we could say, the unbeliever as well is not very faithful because sometimes, you know, he's a kind person, and he believes that you should be kind one to another. for some reason he gets that that does actually work better, but it doesn't work according to his system because we're just a chaotic mess of, you know, atoms that there's no real meaning or purpose in anything, so why is kindness better than non-kindness? Maybe selfishness is better, but thankfully often, at least in the Christian culture historically, the unbeliever will often have similar views to the believers. So we would say that they steal, right, from our worldview and they live their lives off of those realities and presuppositions that don't belong to them. Okay, let's go to the next one. Now, when we think about the Bible and the unbeliever looking at revelation in God's Word, We should, once again, remember these two systems of faith and thought as we go to God's Word. The one system, the Christian world, is revealed in God's Word, and then we get it from God's Word, and we go back to God's Word, and we say, what is truth? God's Word is truth. Now, the unbeliever doesn't do that. His ultimate judge and authority is human reason, autonomous reason, reason distinct from being submissive to God's Word and His Law. It's human reason alone that is the final authority. And as they go to the Bible, they will then judge the Bible according to their standards of human reason. Therefore, 120 years ago, even the Presbyterian world was all caught up in this huge raging debate as the unbeliever took this progressive, modern look at the Bible using reason as the final arbiter and authority. They looked at the Bible and they said, well, miracles. Under the bar of reason today, miracles we don't see happening. We can't put it in a scientific university laboratory. And so that's outside of the possibility for us to consider that as being truthful. So miracles are out. Therefore, the virgin birth is out. of true, you know, mindful and astute political debate, but no, we don't talk about these things in the educated world and resurrection and incarnation that God became man, though certainly these are all very miraculous events, revelation that God's speaking and revealing his will to man. Of course, now these things are all impossible to happen in a scientific and modern view of the world, well, so then all those things are cast and put in doubt. And therefore, we just mentioned the very essential things of the gospel. If these things are done away with, then we really are lost and have no hope. And so, next slide please, as Francis Schaeffer once put it, When faith and reason are strongly divided, reason will then become very powerful and will eat up faith. Maybe your kid's like, do you remember the game Pac-Man? This kind of reminds me of that game Pac-Man. And reason, autonomous reason, man's reason, will go and eat up It'll become stronger and faith kind of disappears from the cultural scene and from the university professors. You know, they don't talk about these things anymore. And so then when you go study something like psychology, under all these presuppositions, you're going to have theories about man. the psyche of man, the soul of man, the mind of man, that are very distinct and different from the perspective of God's Word. And so if God does not control reason, which we believe in, we believe in reason, we believe in math and science and all these things, but under the authority of God, well they don't have reason under the authority of God, so it becomes autonomous reason, and really it becomes divine, it becomes the highest, and really it becomes something to worship, and the creature becomes, in the mind of man, the absolute or the creator, which is exactly what Romans 1 talks about. We can go to the next slide. Once again, we'll skip through some of these just for the sake of time. Come try to bring this to a conclusion. If you could skip, well, let's leave that one there just for a second. So all facts, you know, let's say we're at a university now, we're studying all sorts of facts of nature, history, of man, we're studying the animal kingdom, we're studying the stars. What does it all mean? What does it all signify? And really the answer for man is, we really don't know. And so we want to show them that. And obviously for God, when he is the interpreter of all facts, as the next slide will show, the Christian worldview, you have God and the universe, and then everything, the Bible and nature and man and all these things. We can know these deep and basic issues because God, the Creator, has spoken about the Word, about nature, and about man to us. And so we can know these things. And so we're interpreting the reality that God has made. Let's go to the next slide. Anything then for the secular mind, anything that they study, once again, if you ask them what it means teleologically, and in the final view of this thing, what does it signify? What's the importance of human life, of that thought, of the animal kingdom? What's the importance of it all? They once again would say, well, we don't know. But as a Christian, we want to say everything is related finally to the consummation, to the glory of God, to the cross, to the work of Christ. And so everything then becomes important to us and something meaningful for us to study. Next slide. And we can see that once again. They really don't know. what each ingredient signifies and what's it related to. And so therefore, what's the importance of it? But for the Christian worldview, we know that the final point of history is the consummation is the glory of Christ and the crown of Christ. And so all these facts of creation are related to the consummation in God's glory. Let's go to the final element then. Ethics, another huge philosophical thing, and we can just summarize this by saying the secular worldview, maybe you've seen this in English somewhere, Bob Marley said nothing is wrong if it makes you happy And Hitler said, right on, dude. I love that philosophy. And that's one of the great dangers of a secular view of ethics and morality. It doesn't have any underpinnings except man's satisfaction. So really, you can open up the world to all sorts of abuses. We don't even need to talk more about ethics. Let's go to the next slide. Anthropology. I guess I threw one extra one in here. What is man? Every worldview has an understanding as well about man. What is his nature? Is he only body and material, or does he have a spiritual dimension to him? And now, obviously, when we start talking about the difference between psychology, secular psychology, and biblical counseling, we're going to have some really distinct views, and anthropology is where a huge battle lies concerning these things. what is your origin, and what exists after life. All kinds of questions will be answered according to your worldview. You can go to the next slide. These are the principal worldviews that you have. There's about 12 of them. Some Christian philosophers would outlined for us. I'm not going to go through them. And you can really help people figure out what their worldview is by asking them several questions. If they answer yes to this and, oh, well, so you're a deist, and they answer no, you can track it down. And this is in English. I translated this into Portuguese. So I know you can find this online. What is your worldview? You could probably just find that. I can help you if you want to. Please, next slide. And so we'll conclude it then talking about psychology versus biblical counseling and their two views. I only have a couple minutes. What are the objectives, first of all, for biblical counseling with our Christian worldview? Please go to the next slide. The objectives then for biblical counseling with this person that we're dealing with. We're sitting down by them. and we're talking to them. When we're talking about against psychology, we're talking about the person who sits with another person to counsel them. We're not talking about scientific studies of the brain. If that's called psychology, we have no real criticism of that. We actually want to know those same things. They're looking into the microscopes and seeing the cells. We love all that stuff and we want to have all that true science before us, and we want to be able to read it, and etc. But when they go to counsel people, what are the goals? For the biblical counselor, our goal is this. We want this person to love God above everything else. Okay? That's like one of our goals with this person, this human life. We also want him to learn how to love his neighbor. Why? Because that's what God's Word teaches us. We want to help teach this person to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever. That's our goal with this individual, even in that moment of his life that he's passing through all these difficulties. We want to present every man mature, full, complete. perfect in Christ, as the Apostle Paul had that as his objective as a preacher of the gospel. We want him to use his heart, his head, and his hands. We want the whole person to be functioning in all those different aspects to be going in the same direction, to honor God, to glorify God, to love God. What else do we have as far as goals and objectives? We want to see the image of God restored and grown and matured in this human life. The image of God restored. Wow. We want to see sanctification. We want to see growth. We want to see the fruits of the Spirit. These are some of the objectives and goals as we sit down with that person. Now, let's talk about the objectives and goals based upon a secular worldview of what a secular psychologist would do with that person. Well, maybe they would seek behavioral salvation through reconditioning. See, they actually do have kind of a little gospel message in their theories. We're going to help you, and your great prosperity and salvation in life will be by changing some of these habits through these mechanisms that will teach you, and your life will be freer, and you'll be happy. And that's really the point. They want to make people feel good and happy. And honestly, today, I've tried to, at least in Brazil, and I'm sure it's true here, and in fact, it might be a dying profession in all these other states, because they've just, they've kind of run out of, the world view is empty, and so they really don't know what to do with man. Usually in Brazil, they'll sit down, and they'll say, how can I help you? What do you want? And so the desire of the patient becomes the goal of the therapist. And if you want to be a homosexual, that feels free in your thoughts and your actions, then I can, through techniques, I can help you feel better, because that's his goal. It's a humanistic priority. If it's a medical model, maybe their goal and their salvation theory is to help correct the misaligned chemicals in the brain. And so, once again, they would have different goals, maybe, based upon their theory. Next slide, quickly. Anthropology. What are their views about man? Well, for the biblical counselor, we know that he was created in the image of God. We know that he is not autonomous. We know that he's a sinner and depraved, and he's responsible for his sin. We know that he's a worshiper. He seeks after from his heart, and he either worships God or the whole creation. We know that he is to be submissive, that he is to practically adore God, and he's supposed to be obedience-oriented in his life to the principles of God's Word. And we also believe that the controlling center of man's life is his heart. Now, what about the unbelieving world? What do they think about man? Well, he's an animal, really. He's a progressed animal. He's a victim of his environment. He is a autonomous creature. There's no law beyond him that he must submit to. He can kind of create his own laws and own reality. And his problem, basically, is his poor social conditioning. And so if we could just change the environment, the educational, you know, and the housing that he lives in, then man would prosper. And so we see this all played out into the politics of our day as well, right? And he's controlled really by conditioning through reward or punishment, or you could say that tests and the taking of pills is going to be the answer. And so we'll just conclude with this word, and I would once again present this. This is something one of my, well, let's just say mentors, Jay Adams, actually spoke about as he went back to the university in which Freud initially taught there in Europe. And he challenged this whole audience with this question, what do you want to change them into as you sit with them? change them into what? And their answers are really various. And honestly, they don't have an answer to that question because there's no absolute goal for them. And he said, see, that's the exact problem. Of the 300 or more theories that you have here in this audience, you're all fighting against one another about the proper and appropriate goal. So there's no authoritative, even voice amongst men. There's no honest direction about what is true and what is right and what is good for man, but now I want to provide for you the answer. And the answer for human life is Jesus Christ. And you need to know Him, and you need to love Him, and that is the goal for human life. And that's why you all should become biblical counselors, because you know these truths. And so that is how he finished his talk there at the university, and that's how I'll finish. mind as well. So continue on studying God's Word, understanding man, understanding marriage and family, understanding even emotions, and all these things. Try to understand them all from a biblical view of life. What do we love? What do we cherish? And how does that impact my emotional life, my desires, my relationships, and everything that I do? Let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, we praise you. We thank you for your word. We praise you for revelation. We praise you that you are a God who speaks, that you are a God of miracles, of great power, and you sustain this whole universe by the might of your hand and even our own lives, ourselves. Everything is in relationship with you, Lord. And so we submit to you. We ask that you would be worshiped and adored according to your word this day, and that we would honor you with our lives and that you bless All of us, as we seek to glorify Your name, Lord, forgive us of our many sins against You, we pray and thank You for the cross of Christ and His grace. For this reason, we worship You this day. In Jesus' name, amen.