I'm going to talk about the six attitudes towards the Bible. I'm sure there are a lot of attitudes out there that we're not aware of, but they're all subsets of this, I'm sure. Let me see if this thing works. Yay. Okay. For an introduction, let's just consider for a moment, you know, man has so little time and so many important questions to settle before he's gone. He's got questions about the universe, what's around him. You know, is there a God or not? What's this thing, time? I mean, we're stuck in time. We just can't let go of it. So, what are you going to do with it? And then, what's after this? What is truth? What's life all about? The paramount question is, where does he go for answers in the time that he has? The simple facts are that a man is born, physically dies, physically returns to Earth. His lifespan may be, oh, the stick men are back, by the way. The lifespan, you know, maybe 70, maybe 90. You don't know. It could be 30. Good to go tomorrow. So the questions still come up. Is there a God? Is there life after death? Is there a heaven? If so, how do I get there? Is there a hell? If so, what do I do to avoid it? And then, of course, we claim all the answers are in the Bible, the Word of God. Let me read an article I read recently regarding the Bible. The Bible is a good book. It's far from being a history book, but it does at least give us a peek at the lives and thought patterns of the people and societies that existed way back when. It can give us an appreciation for the efforts of the ancient historians who verbally passed on the stories, legends and traditions from generation to generation until a written word came into being. It can give us insights into religious beliefs and politics that were prevalent in various times in our history. It can provide at least a glimpse of who we are, I'm sorry, of who we were. Too often I think we forget to step back and look at the bigger picture. We focus so heavily on individual chapters and verses of the Bible that we miss much of the really good pertinent information that this book contains. Sure, it was written a long time ago by and for people of that time, and it reflects only that level of understanding of life and all its components that existed during those times. If we can work our way past the historical inaccuracies, the misconceptions, the rules, and the purposeful embellishments, we'll find a lot of good basic guidance on living productively and happily in the 21st century. Well, I got this off of the internet. The article's source was todayswoman.net. But it tells you right away what people, there's an attitude. If you can get past all this stuff that the Bible has in there, you might be able to grab this kernel of truth in there. Well, I think we'll see as we go along that there's a lot of other attitudes out there that are very similar. The Bible has been the most abused and misused book to prove or approve of the most absurd thinking, grotesque behavior, bizarre cults, and religions for centuries. It is misunderstood, shunned, ignored, belittled, trivialized, and hated. And yet this book is the most seriously studied, the widely disseminated, critically examined word for word, phrase by phrase, verse by verse of any book ever written. It's been annotated, commented on, given birth to lexicons, dictionaries, concordances, maps, charts, historical background related cultures by the most scholarly of men. So why all this fuss about one book? because some people insist that it is and has the authority as the Word of God. So we are troublemakers. In introducing this thought of God versus man, we want to see God's Word and then we see all of the human knowledge that comes in through theology, philosophy, science, history, and literature. Libraries are full of them. How many libraries do we have? We went down to San Antonio. I went into Borders Books down there. Molly was looking around in the religious section and I was up there having coffee. And she brought me one book that made any sense out of that whole section. Just amazing. And I saw the same thing when we went to Barnes & Nobles. So it's really scary out there as far as finding the truth. But anyway, that's what we're what we're up against. God versus man and and human knowledge. General revelation when it every time that we think about general revelation and human knowledge. The general part of this is in the sense that it is knowledge available to all men. So that number one, they know about God through creation, which is not enough to save them, but it is enough to condemn them. And men know about God through history, the providence of God, they see how things have been moved around, how things have been moved around in history, and they have to come to a point that feeds into their general knowledge of God. Preservation, holding the universe and humans together, what keeps us here on this earth? Why don't we just fly off? The whole universe thing is just beyond comprehension. Conscience, and this is where it really hits home. There is no Hebrew word for conscience in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word is translated heart or mind through progressive revelation the New Testament Greek word which I can't pronounce is the word for conscience and is defined as the consciousness of anything and the soul as distinguished between what is morally good and bad prompting the former to shun the latter commending one and condemning the other. It is received from God, but can be informed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, or informed by God's word. And we see that in Romans 12 too. By reading, studying, and or being taught God's word, we move Our conscience moves from the world's standards to God's standards. And he's the one that does it, we don't. But God moves us in that direction if we're faithful. Our culture feeds into this. Western culture, modernism, and the growth of liberalism, especially in education, have impressed upon young, fresh minds propaganda ideas that promote an oversensitivity to the environment. Global warming, individual rights over parents' rights, the evolutionary thinking of mankind, the rights of animals over man's rights. Capital punishment is wrong. New ways of speaking have been instituted. We're height talents now. We're not short. We're physically challenged. We're not crippled. We're mentally challenged, educationally challenged, and we're all challenged in some way. So this is the way to speak on and on. As long as people feel good about themselves, we can lower the grading scores so that no one has to fail and even not keeping score at a game so nobody loses. in our political correctness. Be tolerant of people and their ideas. Be willing to compromise your position for the sake of unity. Be willing to accommodate all other beliefs. Create within yourself a relational sensitivity. That is, all ideas have merit. Always accept another viewpoint as true because truth is relative. And for growth, Try to incorporate beliefs as you come upon them. And we'll see this later on in Thomas A Kempis, where the whole philosophy of finding truth comes out, where you look in this book, and you look in that book, and you look over here, and oh, by the way, that book over there, the Bible has some truth in it too. So collect all those things because eventually you're going to come up with something. Well, we're going to differ with that. The Bible is a witness to itself. The Bible's witness to itself is that it's God's word. Our understanding of God and of salvation he offers mankind in Christ is all very dependent on how much men believe and know the Bible. God has revealed himself in a number of ways in creation, in history, in miracles, in visions, giving directly to the prophets. Primarily he has revealed himself in the person of Christ, the living word and the Bible. If men reject the Bible outright or do not hold the Bible in high esteem as the inspired and inerrant word of God and fail to understand it properly, that is with interpretation and application, then they will turn to other sources as their authority, that is, human reason, science, church tradition, mysticism, experiences, and so forth, for what they hold on to for truth. Recall what we learned about conscience. It is that rule or grid by which we judge right and wrong, good or bad, to be believed or to be shunned. The Bible is the rule of faith. It is the standard to which our consciences must conform, not the other way around. Its authority must be the final say. That was one of the cries of the Reformation, wasn't it? Sola Scriptura, that is, Scripture alone. The thing that escapes us in everyday in our mode of thinking and planning is remembering who we are in this universe. We are in a creature-creator relationship. And by doing that, as soon as we come into being, as soon as we're born, we have that creator-creature relationship, don't we? It's something that we that we will see later on that as believers we come into a second relationship. Let's look then at the six views of the Bible. We'll talk about rationalism, we'll talk about mysticism, neo-orthodoxy, Romanism, cultism, And finally, conservative Protestantism. And all of these are in contrast with the Word of God. So let's begin with rationalism. Rationalism. The philosophy behind rationalism is the theory that the exercise of reason, rather than the acceptance of empiricalism, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides the only valid basis for action of belief, action or belief. And that reason is the prime source of knowledge and of spiritual truth. The rationalistic approach towards the Bible may be extreme or moderate. And in the extreme form, it denies divine revelation and represents the belief of atheists and agnostics. Moderate rationalism may admit divine revelation, but tends to accept only those parts of divine revelation that personal reason approves. Under this approach, the Bible is not viewed as authoritative, but the moderate rationalist seeks to eliminate or honor various scriptures as he may choose. This is often the attitude of modern liberals. which you will find in a lot of your theology books. The issue in rationalism is that the mind is supreme and becomes the final authority. So keep that in memory that the mind holds the supreme authority. In mysticism, mysticism falls into two classifications. You have a false mysticism and a a true mysticism. But in general, the fundamental premise in false mysticism is that divine revelation is not limited to the Bible, but that God continually gives new truth beyond the Bible. In the final analysis, false mysticism makes human experience supreme. One's personal experiences become the final authority rather than the Bible. If it fits with one's experience, then it is accepted as valid. If it does not fit one's experience, it is rejected as invalid. For this kind of mystic, the Bible is not complete or final. God is still in the business of giving truth if one is only receptive to his revelation. Those holding to some form of false mysticism believe spiritual truth is being added beyond scriptures. This type of false mysticism is seen in the ideas of pantheism, modern-day spiritualism, Seventh-day Adventists, New Thought, Christian Science, Mormonism, Quakerism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the writings of Thomas Aquinas. And I'd like to read an excerpt from Thomas Aquinas It's his famous writings on the imitation of Christ It's in his fifth chapter and he writes about reading Holy Scripture Before I do that, excuse me Let me take a moment and fill you in who Thomas the Campus is. Theories most popular at the moment ascribe the imitation to two or three men, members of the Brethren of Common Life, an association of priests organized in the Netherlands in the latter half of the 14th century. That Thomas Kemmerchen of Kempen or Thomas the Campus, as he is now known, later translated the composite of their writings, essentially a spiritual diary, from the original Netherlandish into Latin. That he did that is generally admitted by scholars. This Thomas, born in the year 1380, was educated by the Brethren of Common Life, moved in to join their community, and was ordained priest. His career thereafter was devoted to practicing the counsels of spiritual perfection and to copying books for the schools. From both pursuits evolved the imitation of Christ. As editor and translator, he was not without faults, but thanks to him, the imitation became and has remained after the Bible, the most widely read book in the world. Truth, and this is from an excerpt of his fifth chapter, in fact this is his fifth chapter, truth not eloquence is to be sought in reading the holy scriptures and every part must be read in spirit in which it was written for in the scriptures we ought to seek profit rather than polished diction. Likewise we ought to to read simple and devout books as willingly as learned and profound ones. We ought not to be swayed by the authority of the writer, whether he be great literary light or an insignificant person, but by the love of simple truth. We ought not to ask who is speaking, but mark what is said. Men pass by, but the truth of the Lord remains forever. God speaks to us in many ways without regards for persons. Our curiosity often impedes our reading of the scriptures. When we read to understand and mull over what we ought to simply, which ought simply to read and pass by. If you would profit from it, therefore read with humility, simplicity and faith and never seek a reputation for being learned. Seek willingly and listen attentively to the words of the saints. Do not be displeased with the sayings of the ancients, for they were not made without purpose. I don't want to comment on this other than to express the sorrow that I feel for those who, like me, read this book over and over again as a devotional for years, thinking how profound these thoughts were. and using them to promote myself before God and to gain His favor knowing nothing of justification by faith as I do now and is revealed in God's Word. Many have been misled and again it's just one book of many and as long as you keep reading and holding on to whatever truth you come by then the idea is to put all these little pieces of truth together until you come up with God, I guess but it's very sad. True mysticism. There is, however, a form of true mysticism which stems from the indwelling and teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. True mysticism is the elimination of the mind of believers by the Holy Spirit to enable them to grasp the ideas and truths of the gospel. True mysticism subjects our experiences to the judgment of scripture. Jude 3 is quoted here. Beloved, when I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. Dr. Fruchtenbaum points out in his commentary on June 3. The term, the faith, refers to the whole body of truth, the whole body of truth that has already been delivered once and for all to the church by the apostles, meaning the Bible is complete and final. So we're not looking for, we're not looking for truth anywhere else but the Bible. That's why I'm referring back to people like Thomas and Kempis and those who are always searching for quote truth. They're looking for it in the wrong places. Understanding the illumination in his book, The Handbook of Theology, Dr. Enns writes, even while applying proper hermeneutics and methodology, there is a divine element to understanding God's truth. The believer is aided by the Holy Spirit's ministry of illumination in guiding the believer to an understanding of divine truth. So, the thing we have to do is to get into the Bible and then let the Holy Spirit, well, first of all, be in fellowship and then read the Bible and then the Holy Spirit's ministry of illumination can take place. another quotation I have here is for whom men know thoughts of men for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God this is out of first Corinthians 2 11 to 13 now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words." So a true mystic, in the biblical sense, believes that the Bible is our final authority and seeks to always judge personal experience by the Bible. He did not allow experience to take precedence over the Bible, nor does he judge the Bible or what is biblical by his experience. And I think that's what I did for many years. If I didn't feel good about reading the Bible, that was that. It was just another book anyway, so find one that moves you. All right, let's take a look at Romanism. In Romanism, the Roman Catholic Church is both the channel of divine revelation and its final authority for how the Bible is to be interpreted in faith and practice. Since the Bible is the product of the church, and since scriptures are obscure, another teaching of Romanism, only the church can properly interpret the scripture. In Romanism, the Bible is viewed as incomplete There is more truth available, but it can only come through the church. Furthermore, the traditions of the church are, along with the Bible, a source of divine revelation. Ecumenical councils and popes have, from time to time, made pronouncements that are considered infallible and therefore binding on church members. Particularly objectionable is the concept that the church can supersede scripture itself. As a part of this approach to divine revelation, tradition must also be examined and should be studied in the light of important scriptures. I don't have it on there, but Galatians 1.14 reads, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen. being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. Second Thessalonians 2.15 reads So then brethren stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. So what they're trying to say is remember what we've talked to you about. Don't be listening to the false prophets and the false teachers. Come back to what we have talked to you about. In his earthly ministry Christ repeatedly had to contradict the traditions of men in the affirmation of the truth of the word of God. So Romanism says the Roman Catholic Church is the supreme authority. Neo-Orthodoxy Karl Barth from 1886 to 1986 often viewed as the father of neo-orthodoxy. And by the way, I think he picked it up from Kierkegaard from his existentialism and brought it into religious realm. I believe that the basis of authority is the Word. Yes, but for Barth, the Word was mainly Christ. The Bible only witnesses to the Word and only becomes authoritative when it speaks to the individual. This means that the Bible's witness to Christ is fallible. The individual must determine what is the Word of God within the Bible and what is not. To clearly grasp what it is and what it is not, there is need for some type of divine encounter In short, this means the individual becomes the final judge as to what in the Bible is the Word of God and what is not. Since in Neo-Orthodoxy the encounter is primary, the encounter actually becomes the authority and anyone can have his or her encounter and come up with totally different conclusions. And that's where I think a lot of our discussions come, you run into them yourself when you have people sitting around in a quote Bible study and they'll say, well, what do you think that means? Yeah. OK. Yeah, I had an encounter last night. Something else to watch out for. Now we're going to look at cultism. Many of the cults teach that the Bible, along with some other writing, is supreme and authoritative. A key characteristic of the cult, however, is that though they may claim to believe the Bible is God's Word, they either affirm another writing as having equal authority, or raise the other writing as more important or authoritative than the Bible itself. The perfect illustration of this is Mormonism and the Book of Mormons. which Mormonism views as inspired. Christian science views Mary Baker Eddy's book, The Key to the Scriptures, as equally inspired. In the final analysis, the Bible is not the only authority. And, matter of fact, it is relegated to a lower position of importance. And I think you've run into that too, where people say, you know, the Bible, yes, and my founder's writing. They're the same. We'll bring these together. So what does that do to the Bible? Well, it does the same thing the Catholic Church did in Council of Trent. If we're going to raise church tradition to the level of Bible, the Bible doesn't mean anything. So in this, the cults say that the Bible must be interpreted in light of their founders' work. The founders' work is supreme authority. You see that in the Mormons, Christians, Zionists, Islam. and Jehovah's Witnesses, among others. Okay, now we come down to the good stuff. Conservative Protestantism. The orthodox position holds, one, that the Bible is infallible Word of God and the ultimate authority of faith and practice. And wasn't that what Sola Scriptura was all about in the 1500s. They told the Catholic Church to fly a kite, take your authority elsewhere, because we're holding on to this book. The next thing that is held, the Bible is inspired in the original autographs and is without error. This means that while it records the lives of Satan who deceived Eve in Genesis 3, It records it as a lie. So it's not trying to hide anything. It just says, OK, you lied. We're going to print it. So now everybody knows that the Bible is true and everything it affirms to be true. So there we go into creationism and all of the evolutionary problems that the world has. Thus the Bible is supreme and the final authority for faith and practice. So that's the bottom line. Also, the conservative or orthodox position of Protestantism, I'm sorry that I have to be so precise in that because Protestantism to me meant just a whole array of things that when I first encountered it, it just sounded, yeah, that's right. But the more I got into it, and I'm saying, whoa, let's see, they're Protestant. Well, what's the difference between this Protestant and that Protestant? Oh, OK. So finally, you start shifting all this stuff out until you finally come down to who believes in the Bible as a final word and who does not. So that's where it really rests. Anyway, from the Orthodox point of view, regarding rationalism, the position is, concerning the mind or reason, it must be subservient to the Word of God. If the mind is thinking in terms that are contrary to Scripture, it is not the mind that judges Scripture, but the Scripture judges the thoughts of the mind." So again, we talked earlier about our conscience, God moving from the worldly standard to a godly standard. This is what we're talking about here. Regarding mysticism. Concerning the experience of mysticism, the Bible is the final judge of experience. And experience cannot determine the truth of scripture. So no matter what you feel, no matter what you experience, a high or a low, it doesn't make any difference. It's not going to change the word of truth. Concerning Romanism. It is not the church that determines the meaning of the Bible, but rather the Bible determines the proper place of the church. And that's where it really came home to me that a local church as we have here is so meaningful because it is set up the way the Bible wants it to be. And so I'm most pleased to be here. Regarding neo-orthodoxy, concerning the encounter, a man does not need a unique encounter before he can comprehend what the Word of God, what is the Word of God in scriptures. So, I mean, the truth stands for itself whether you encounter it or not in that term. It'll be there, and what I have found is you have to read it over and over and over and over again until finally you say, oh yeah, I understand that now. Regarding cults concerning the issue of cults the answer of orthodoxy is that the Bible and the Bible alone is supreme and the 66 books of scripture are all that has been inspired by God in written form. Any other writing is the writing of a false prophet or false prophetess. We who hold to the supremacy of the Bible believe that knowledge is subject to the Bible and there is no inner light that adds revelation beyond the Bible. In religious life, everybody's looking for some kind of really neat experience. So you get on your knees and you pray for hours and you fast and you do other things, you know, trying to get God's attention. Well, it doesn't work that way. So I'm glad to see that, to even read about this position. Why do we want to hold this position? Well, Hebrews 4.12 says, For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." That's pretty encompassing. In John 5, verse 39 and following, Christ said to the leaders of the Jews, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these that testify about me. So, one of the things that you have to keep in mind is that the Bible is talking about Christ and He was there when creation was. You read that in John. So, another one would be John 6.38 when Simon Peter answered to him, Lord to whom shall we go? You have the word, the return of life. In other words, there isn't I have no other place to go. And I think people who find true Bible churches like we have here have found gold and they may not know it, but it is true. Just as Peter said, you know, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and this is where you're going to find it. To continue with thoughts on this conservative Protestant position, Dr. Ryrie writes, Conservative eliminates liberalism's humanistic and subjective basis of authority and Protestantism removes the church as a base of authority. So one would agree that orthodoxy is that branch of Christendom which limits the ground of religious authority to the Bible. The scriptures contain the objective revelation of God and are therefore the basis of authority for the conservative Protestants. To be sure, understanding God's revelation in the Bible involves using rational processes of a redeemed mind a commitment of faith in matters not revealed or understood, a dependence on the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit, a conscience clear before God, and some insight into the lessons of history. So, yes, there are things that we need to have, certainly the redeemed mind, and that's what we appeal to people. If they don't understand scripture, they don't understand truth, They need to come to the Lord first and be saved in order to be reborn. In order to get into the position where they can have this redeemed mind and gain insights into scripture. Again, why is this position? Well, one is relationships. When we are born, all men have a creature relationship. without exception. That's just the way it is. They may deny it, but they know it deep in their heart. However, believers, by grace, through faith alone and Christ alone, have another relationship. They become a child of God. It's a father-child relationship. And so we're going from what everybody has up here to a very special relationship here. And this is where we want everybody. So when everybody's talking about, I can't find truth. I don't know what it is. I'm lost. I'm just confused. Well, it simply means they don't know who God is. They don't know what He has for them. They don't know that salvation is available for them. If this happens, then that's a whole new realm. So now, a child of God is saved by faith alone in Christ alone. It's a judicial declaration of a new relationship. God says, you are special. You now believe in my son. You accept what I have done for you through him. You are now my child. You are no longer in this I shouldn't say that. You are, along with this creature-creator relationship, you are now my child. And I'm going to treat you as a child. You will always be my child. That's our security. So, you know, when we get a whipping, when we step out and just plain disbehave, God comes after us. And it's at that time that we need to have that change of heart and say, Father, I'm sorry. Okay, and now you're back into fellowship. All right, that's where you want to be. Because what we do, we go in and out of fellowship all day, don't we? And this is what Jeremy's been trying to teach us about the overcomer, right? That's what this thing is here. We're in fellowship and we're trying to overcome and we want to abide. Remember that word? That's what we want to abide. Because that relationship as father-son or father-daughter, right here, is what the basis of our judgment before Christ is going to be. So when he comes back for us and we're raptured, that's going to be one of the questions. He knows all about this. So it's not only that we want to stay out of trouble, right? We want to please our Father. That's the idea. He has done so much for us. Now, how can I react? How can I respond as a child of His? I know it is pleasing to Him because He tells me in Scripture. And so that's why I go back and I read and I study. And I want to change my heart about this matter because it's wrong. I get back in here and I'm telling them, I'm sorry, let's do this thing over again according to your will, not according to my will. And now we're in fellowship. But anyway, this is where we are as a believer. And it's a wonderful relationship. So stepping back a little bit, how are we going to live out this new relationship? Well, once again, we have physical birth. Now we have spiritual birth. So now we're saved. We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins. We believe that 2,000 years ago, outside of me, Christ died. I didn't have anything to do with that. But I can believe that because scripture says it's true. So he died for my sins. He died for our sins. So if I believe that, then I have a new relationship. Well, what happens then? Ah, see, now I have this kind of time in here with this, whatever this thing is, right? Well, that's pretty much what I had before on the other slide. You go in and out of fellowship here, right? But the idea is that you stay abiding in here as many times and as often as you can. And you confess your sins every day. I'm a sinner saved by grace. Fred used to tell us that all the time. It's true. But this sanctification process, it's not something that we do, but we want to have the willingness to be a child of God and to be in His favor, and He will do the work. It's not something that we're going to say, well, I got to check this thing off, and I got to check this thing off, and I got to help this old lady across the street, and I got to go visit this person. It isn't that at all. It's a mindset. I am a child of God. How can I respond to a loving and kind father? He provides for me. I came into this world without anything. I'm going to go out of this world without anything. So what's it all about? Well, fortunately, we're in a church that explains that to us. And so being in a relationship of father-son, father-daughter, We have something to really look forward to. That's what that thing is all about. Fellowship and overcoming. We want to be with Christ in his kingdom. We want to be in New Jerusalem. We don't want to be outside the gates looking in. We want to be inside looking out. Not everybody is going to be happy. That's not even a question. But because of our dedication to the Father, because we're so appreciative of what He has done, and we love Him, and He loves us more than we ever loved ourselves, we want to be with Him, and that's how we're going to do it. See how greater love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God, and such we are. Is the Bible being followed today? Well, we looked at this earlier when I talked about justification by faith, and obviously it isn't. Many of these people have gone astray, and it didn't take them very long. It happened right in here, and they're over here. And they're still going that direction. I mean, they'd rather work their way to heaven, like these people, than to accept the truth of God and continue in the scriptural truth. And that's a very sad thing. And again, I have nothing but sorrow for these people who are people who cannot change. That's the key. They cannot change because this is the way it's always been. My grandmother, my grandfather went to this church and if it was good enough for my daddy, it's good enough for me. So I'm going to stay here. Right or wrong, that's my church. Well, I don't know how to deal with that except to pray for that person that God would enlighten them or cause something to happen in their life that they would question that to bring them into a scriptural-based church. Anyway, the answer to that is no. That's the short answer. In conclusion, these human views influence the Orthodox believer every day by appealing to the mind, pride, emotions, self-worth, self-determination, self-importance, and self-absorption. These lead away from the relationship we have with the living and true God. They are, in fact, idols. Remember what God said? The very first thing he said was, you shall not have a strange God before me. Well, is this not a strange God? They can't recognize a true God. So, from our point of view, it's an idol. 2 Peter 2. If I have it up here, no. Second Peter 2.2 says, I'm sorry, Second Peter 2.1-3 reads, But false prophets also rose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them. bringing swift destruction upon themselves and many will follow their sensuality and many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be maligned and in their greed they will exploit you with false words. And that's exactly what's happening in many organized religions today. So in conclusion, taking the The Word of God regularly changes our frame of mind about truth. The earth really was created 6,000 years ago, not a billion years ago. Man was created in the image and likeness of God, not evolved from apes. The flood changed the topography of the earth. This is not an evidence of evolution. And man is a responsible sinner, not a victim of the environment. Contrary to humanistic belief, Man is not getting better. Man is born spiritually dead, and cannot understand spiritual things. He still lives less than 100 years, and he still has the same questions. So as children of the Father, we want to study the Bible to understand what it is revealing, who He is, who His Eternal Son is, who the Holy Spirit is, what His plan is, what he has done, what he is doing, what he wants for us in eternity future. As we understand the answer to these questions and realize the relationship he has provided, we will want to walk in by faith, trusting in our loving father's provision and not by sight.