I don't know. Chapter 10, Second Corinthians, Chapter 10. Let's read this section again. Now, I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent and bold toward you, but I beg you that when I am present, I may not be bold with the confidence by which I intend to be bold against some. You think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Now, I'm not going to go back through the passage tonight if you want to listen to those lessons there on our Internet site. But what I want to do tonight is kind of go into an extended application that works from this passage. Paul used this military metaphor. War. Weaponry. to teach the Corinthians about Christian sanctification. For those of you who have been to my home more recently, I have a picture framed on the wall that my wife surprised me with for our anniversary, and it's my favorite picture by Remington, the fellow that did all the Western pictures. It's called Dash for the Timberline, and it shows these Cowboys on horses in the background just just pick up that there's some Indians chasing them and they are running fearing for their life in a life or death dash for the woods where they can get some shelter. And I say to people that's a metaphor for life because life in many ways is that way. It's difficult isn't it. We have enemies that are after us. in the evil one in the world we live in our own sinful loss. And we are always in a battle for our spiritual life in a way. I understand that Christ has secured us and we are encouraged and we are we're confident in him not ourselves. But life is nonetheless a battle. It's interesting because we don't want it to be a battle. We don't like conflict. We don't we don't like that which causes us to have to labor and work and be concerned but but nonetheless it is and for a believer it it in many ways is doubly so because of the opposition that we face. So I think it's an appropriate metaphor that he uses here when he describes this issue of our sanctification but with this metaphor of war. He reminded them that spiritual progress in this existence is not made through sinful or earthly type types of means and weaponry. He he he's talking about this issue. Another way we could put it other sanctification is self reformation. He's working on himself and he and he's teaching them to work on themselves. And so he exemplified them and he described to them. The basic process of self-reformation of Christian sanctification that every believer entered into when they believed in Christ. And it's captured really in verses four and five for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God. Now it's he's very hopeful. He's confident. But nonetheless he's describing a very difficult situation. But mighty God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. I'm going to try to use this tonight in hopes that it'll be helpful to all of us if I can do it. Let's see. Computer go. It's not working. It worked great while ago. Now, see, when you come into the room, it has an effect. It worked great. All right. Wonderful. All right. Let's see if we can get this going. So in this whole idea of the military theme, he brings out this issue. I'm pointing at the wrong thing that went too far. This primary weapon in this war is truth. It's truth. Now, automatically, you know, you're in a realm that's very difficult. Because you're in the realm of the inner person. You're in the realm of the mind. If there's anything we all struggle with, it's keeping our minds active. On the right kind of things. Young people. How many of you would rather play a video game than study a physics test physics physics text textbook. Is there anybody here would rather study the physics textbook. That's OK if you raise your hand that's fine. All right. Why is it that we're that way. Well we're lazy in our minds aren't we. So not only do we have this this thing that wars against us in the realm of holiness because of our own lusts, our own desires, our own weaknesses. We also have, in addition to this, this creaturely limitation that we don't like to think seriously about things. Too often, I know some people, they're wired differently, and that's wonderful and that's great, but I think for the most for most of us, We'd much rather do something that's simple mentally than something more difficult. Some of the hardest work we ever do is the mental work, keeping ourselves disciplined, keeping ourselves thinking and thinking logically and seriously about issues. So he takes this military theme and he brings us to this concept of the weapon that he uses in personal reformation. He uses this weapon when it comes to dealing with false teachers. He's using this weapon when it comes to correcting the church. And it's we know that he says elsewhere that he speaks the truth in love. Now, that's what separates Christianity out from other approaches, when you think about what we say, and it is well with my soul. He says here, my sin or the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord on my soul. Your attention is taken in this and these lyrics to Christ. It's taken your attention is taken off of the earthly issues and put on the one who died for you. In other words, your attention is taken, first of all, to his love for you, his provision to you and his grace before the issue of obligation is brought out. Now, you know, when we're in the realm of truth, we're in the realm of obligation. But obligation for the Christian is always in this context of the wonderful grace of God. I don't come to you as a preacher and say, do this, do this, do this and add a huge burden to your life that you cannot bear. I come to you with a context, don't I? So here's a God who has provided for you what you most needed if you're a believer. He is not withheld from you the thing that he most loved in his son. And then he says to you, if I have not withheld to you withheld from you, my son himself, will I not then provide for you everything that you need? So there's our confidence, and we so we approach this whole issue of obligation, duty, Christian warfare, sanctification, self-reformation in this context that someone has shed their blood in my behalf. that Christ has provided a pardon for my for my iniquity so that truth is not dry. Truth is exhilarating. It's it's it's wonderful to meditate on these concepts like justification that that talk about not just some kind of root rote dry ivory tower speculation. That a bunch of intellectuals just sitting dandy about. But it's words that contain. Issues of love and provision. So that when the when the word justification is said. You have to ask yourself this, does it kind of just shut you off of another big word? Or does it exhilarate your heart? Does it does it fire your concern? For for Christ's glory, does it does it move you in holiness? Now, so what you have to do is you have to train yourself that when your pastors use those words, you think about particular things. You think about imputed righteousness. You think about a righteousness that's not your own, that's alien to you, but that's put on your account. You think of when I think of the word justification, I encourage you to do the same thing. I cannot think of the word justification without thinking of the word reconciliation. I was an enemy. In justification, I became a friend. God's wrath was upon me. In justification, his love and affections have been shown to me. So it's in that context that we approach this kind of this issue of personal reformation of sanctification. And Paul exemplified that he disciplined himself for the apostolic ministry with the truth. He disciplined himself to labor for the well-being of the Corinthian church. So when he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, explaining how he was working with himself, explaining how he would work with the false teachers, explaining how he would work with the Corinthians themselves by the spirit, he captures in short form here What we are involved with. What I must do, what you must do in this whole issue of. Beginning to work on ourselves to think like a Christian. Becoming a Christian is not. God. Imposing a feeling or experience upon you. That now takes you living into higher planes. I understand there's there's elements of Christianity that want you to think that way. You may have a feeling you may have an inclination to want to think that way. The reality is. God calls you to do what he says here. Cast down arguments cast down every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That means you've got to know something about God. You've got to know something about doctrine and bring every thought into captivity to Christ. That means that you have a born again soul. That, so to speak, sits in judgment of everything you think. And everything you speak and everything you do. And that soul that's born again, being conformed to the image of Christ, must bring every thought in captivity to Christ. Now, that's what he's talking about here. That's your job here. That's what he calls you to do. His weapon is truth, the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Christ. Schaeffer called it true truth. Some people, other people call it biblical truth. Other people call it God's truth. I'm not real comfortable with any of those phrases. I understand them. I've used them myself. It's truth. We're going to distinguish, and I suppose we would say that it's that which has come to us through special revelation. That has been inscripturated in what we call the Bible, so you and I must develop this same habit that he developed with himself, that he was calling the Corinthians to develop this habit of questioning ourselves, examining ourselves, sitting in judgment over ourselves and teaching ourselves to replace every thought that goes through our mind that's inconsistent with God, what is consistent with Christ, with truth. So I've got to know the truth, you've got to know the truth. Now, this is a constant labor. This is a constant labor towards personal reformation, towards sanctification, it deals with a thought life, it deals with the habits, it deals with discipline. It deals with every relationship you're in. If you're a man married to a woman. You've got to learn to bring every thought about that woman in captivity to Christ, if you're a woman married to a man. You've got to learn to bring every thought in captivity to Christ. If you're if you're a young person in school. Whether you're in an institutional school or you're at home being homeschooled, you've got to bring every thought in captivity if you're a believer in obedience to Christ about school. So this is very pervasive. You're all you're sitting here tonight. You've got thoughts going through your head, every one of you do. You're creatures made in the image of God, you can't you can't stop thinking. Sometimes we wonder, but no. All right. Well, you can't stop thinking, can you? But your job is to bring every thought in captivity and obedience to Christ so you can sort your life out that way. What what are my what are my relationships? OK, I have a relationship as a as a husband. I have a relationship as a father. I have a relationship as a brother. I have a relationship as a son. I have a relationship as a church member. I have relationship as a fellow pastor. I have all these different relationships. And in all those different relationships, there are obligations given to me in the scriptures, and I sort that all out, bringing every thought and captivity. To Christ, now there's there's the summary in short form of sanctification now. This process. lays out for us the Christian approach. Now, ready? I'm going to I'm going to put you to sleep right now. If you're not asleep, I'm going to do it. This process establishes, lays out the Christian approach to philosophy. Yeah, OK. All right. How many of you enjoy studying philosophy? All right, there's a few of you. All right. Now, how many of you Our philosophers. Why are you grinning? Every one of you are philosophers. I understand, you know, you've not written a philosophy text, there's no you know, there's no doctoral dissertation, I can go and find and find your name on it. But every one of you are philosophers and every one of you live by a philosophy of life. You're a creature made by God in his image. This is the way you were made. To kind of put together in your mind a framework of how you approach life. To think about all the things that are involved in that framework, truth and morals and values and all the things that go with it, and then you live by that. You've never written it down, you've probably Never sit down and talk with somebody about it, but you're a philosopher. And you live by a philosophy, an unspoken philosophy of life. Now, when I speak of philosophy, I'm speaking of that which somebody embraces as true. Now, just for a minute here, I'm not talking about What is necessarily true or not? I'm just talking about what people in their minds set up as true. Can you set up something false as true in your mind? Yes, you can. So. What have you got to do? Well, since you are a philosopher and you have a philosophy of life by which you live, in other words, you have established in your thinking there are things that are true and I'm going to function based on those things that are true. You've got to subdue your philosophy. Bring every thought captive to Christ. Now, you think about this, there's you. A lot of you have jobs. On that job, one of the most important things going on, that job is that you are a person of integrity, right? You're not a thief. You're not a liar. You're not taking advantage of the company in an unlawful way. Now, why are you a person of integrity? Is it that you function by? Well, honesty is the best policy. That's a philosophical statement. Or is it that you function by? I'm sorting this out. I have got to live to the glory of God. God, in his law, says you shall not steal and you shall not lie. You shall love your neighbors yourself. So integrity has to do with me bringing glory to my creator. Do you see the difference between those two? They both arrive at integrity. They're both philosophical ways of looking at a philosophical framework. One is taken captive. To God, to Christ, one is you've destroyed the arguments that were against God, and by the way, If all you do is honesty is the best policy, that is a philosophy that is contrary to God. It's a mechanistic approach to life. It's a life that leaves God out and makes you the end of all ends. All right. You see, you got to see the difference between those two. That's just one example. All right. So we're speaking here of philosophy, that which you embrace as true so that you live by it. Now, what I want to do tonight is approach this process of sanctification, of taking every thought captive. I want to approach this whole issue of philosophy building from a little bit different direction, just a little bit. I want to consider it from the viewpoint of one who is in the process of building their philosophy. In hopes that will help you kind of sort some of the pieces out yourself, and we're probably not going to finish tonight, but But so we'll come back to it later on. I mean, next week. So I want you to consider this whole issue of building a philosophy from the standpoint of what components are involved. How do I go about assembling a philosophy of life now, everything I'm going to talk about, you have already done. The question is. You haven't done it the way I'm going to talk in the detail. I'm going to talk about it. You haven't done it with the the stark contrast that I'm going to make, but you've done it nonetheless. And what you what I want you to do is I want you to think back through some of those processes. You know why? Because you are a child of God. Because you have been graced with the presence of God in your life. And because he says, take every thought captive and make sure it is brought into obedience to Christ, even though you're sitting there saying, I'm not this educated. I haven't gone to school and taken these kind of courses. That doesn't matter, you're a philosopher, you've got a philosophy of life, you've got to tear it apart to some extent. and examine it by the word of God, because it affects and influences everything you do in this life. Everything. OK. Let me see if I can make my thing work here. The first question we want to ask, then, is this question of authority. You took my class on developing a worldview. This question is a question that you got very used to. I see it as the most fundamental question that you've got to deal with. Everything you do in life. Whether you answer whether you ask that question in particular or not. In fact you answer that question and you function based on your answer. By what authority do you believe what you believe or by what authority do you do what you do every. Everyone believes everything they believe. Based on some authority. Now. What. Authorities do you have to work with. I'd like to have some input here from. Now Malaysian ground rules. Just for a moment. For the sake of conversation and what we're doing here right now, you cannot say the Bible. We all agree the Bible is a source of is an authoritative source. All right. Don't say the Bible for a minute. Don't say, you know, special revelation. What other sources do human beings look to for an authority? Where do they look as a source for truth? And other what other places do that maybe. And I want you to think for a minute maybe about some places that you know you have looked. All right. Jack the law. What law. OK. Our country's judicial law. All right. Yes. Your own conscience. All right. Yes. Leslie. Huh. Science. Yes. Yes. Science. Your neighbor's conscience. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Victor. Your parents. Paul. Public opinion. You bet. They ever swayed you about anything. Think about public opinion is sometimes it sways and you don't know it sways you. All right. All right. All these different sources of truth, all these these different places that we might look to books. You know, that old adage that that has almost reached proverb status, sarcastic proverb status in our in our language. Well, if it's if it's written, it's true. Right. You know, newspapers and books and magazines and stuff. All these things that we sometimes grab hold of and use now. The point about this issue of authority is you have to make an assessment. And whether you sit down and consciously sort that out you make those assessments all the time. Maybe you, you know, thought through a particular aspect science. Let's just take science for a minute. Maybe you sat down and when it was a high school or college and you sorted through some of the philosophical issues to do with science as a source for truth and you came to the conclusion, you know what, science is trustworthy. You probably don't go through that process again. Unless something happens in your life to stop you and make you think it just becomes Kind of a, you know, a shortcut. I'm not picking on Leslie, I'm just taking that as an example, and you have these shortcuts in your mind. Now, what I'm saying is you've got to identify those shortcuts. Because you've got to take every thought captive. And you've got these shortcuts in your head. Some are good and some are bad that you need to sort through. All right now let's keep going here. You do not do anything without submitting to an authority. You always have an authoritative source at least in your estimate your assessment. You always have an authoritative source whether it's true or false. For your ideas for your thinking. And from there to your very words that you say and the way that you say them. To whom you say them. And then from there to your deeds and your actions, what you involve yourself in. What you're aggressive about and what you're passive about. It affects everything in your life. Your beliefs morals values your standard of judgment all have to do have what is what is to you an authoritative source. Now do you begin to see some of the problem if you as a human being have the various places that you can have as an authority source and you sit and make assessments of those authority sources. What do you tend to do? Well, you tend to pick and choose the ones you like. You see why you've got to take every thought captive. Your every thought, your every word, your every decision follows from the authority to which you submit. So if you're assessing these different places where authority, you know, brings information into your life and brings so-called truth into your life. And you're saying, well, I like that one, I like that one. You become eclectic. And you've got this inconsistent mismatched. Framework philosophy of life that you sit as the almighty judge of. And Christ comes in the middle of your life. And he says, now I want you to do what I say. Now, do you see what you see this, do you see why he says this in his commandment that you don't read it again, verse five, casting down arguments, have you ever argued with God? Well, I don't know who you are, but I tell you what I have. And it's a losing proposition, isn't it? But I have this this philosophy, this framework that I work by. And oh, by the way, I didn't bother to check with God on all of it when I put it in my head and I started operating by it. But that doesn't matter, because now I'm a born again believer now. I have this thing called grace in my life. Now I have the spirit of God. I have truth. And so he says to me, cast down every argument, Larry. And you've got to do the same thing. Every argument in your head, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, that's your job. I know it's hard. I know it's comprehensive. I know it touches on everything in your life. I know it's not comfortable. I know it challenges things that you've held in your mind. Some of you for maybe 30, 40, 50 years. This is biblical sanctification. This is biblical self-reformation. And this is what he's called now again. Don't get lost here. It's in the context. Of the one who shed his blood for you. It's in the context. Of the God who understands your life better than you will ever understand your life. It's in the context of the one who gives you truth, doctrine, promises, commandments based on his pursuit of his glory, which is for your good. Now, if you refuse to follow one authority, you by default choose to follow another authority. There's no neutrality. You can't say, well, OK, I'm sorting all this out. And I can see that there's this one or two areas of my life that I I'm just not bringing in captivity to Christ. But but but wait a minute. But there's all these other areas that I have brought in. Now, do you see what you're doing if you do that? You're still retaining one authority. That's there because you're refusing to bow before the authority of God. And you put yourself in this very inconsistent position. Now, it gets worse than that, doesn't it? Because wherever you do that, you're hanging on to idolatries. And you're making yourself God over this issue instead of God being God over this issue. This is why he communicates to us this way, because you're a sinful human creature, you're not naturally consistent in your submission to his authority. Matter of fact, you're not usually consistent to submission to any authority and you're very eclectic usually. And that's where it gets hard. Your sinful heart will assume the position of final authority unless you control it. Now, this is why. You see, I'm trying to think how how to do this. This is why you can have somebody who's faithful to church and I'm not picking on anybody in this room right now. OK, but just think about this is why you can have somebody who's faithful to church carries out what looks like all the trappings of being a Christian. But harbors within their heart a love of sin of some sinful situation. Some simple path or or several things. And they can they sort this out and they don't they don't think about it as clearly as they should, but they sort this out. Well, I'm going to live under this authority in this area, this area, this area, but I'm going to reserve this area for this authority. They're not bringing every thought into captivity. So if you refuse to follow one authority, you by default choose to follow another authority. You can't let yourself off the hook, so to speak. You've got to call your sin what it is. And any of those thoughts you're not bringing in captivity to Christ are, in fact, defiant. Idolatries against God. Now, what will that do with you? Well, if you think along those that direction, it'll cause you to really fly to Christ. Because you will see in yourself the idolatries that are in front to God. And you will see in yourself the times when you bow before some authority other than the Lord God's authority, when when instead of casting down the arguments, Instead of casting down the high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, you agree with them and it's really sick. If you have any Christian sense, you're sickened by it because you know. This is defiance and rebellion. Well, then you have to learn to deal with that and make your thoughts think along the Christian way, OK? This eclectic mismatch of authorities, that's what is going to happen when you don't follow what the scriptures are saying. This is essential to your thinking as a Christian. That you realize that this is a situation you're in now. Let's go, let's go one more step here. How do you know that the that you fought the authority you follow is trustworthy? And how can you prove this? Is that uncomfortable? Should we even be thinking about this? I think we should. All right. Every idea that goes to your head, every part of your philosophy, every part, everything that goes in to make up your worldview. begins with with an unprovable assumption. Unprovable in the sense that it's what is called by philosophers, OK, I'm going to risk losing you again, but I want you to think about this. It's called by philosophers a self-attesting idea. It's a self attesting idea is a presupposition. It's something I cannot prove but I just simply work with. There's the word if you the phrase the self attesting idea if you think about that. We do this in many minor ways every day. OK. I go to Larry Shaw and I say, bro, Larry, I need to borrow your trailer. He's got a really good utility trailer. Maybe you didn't want me to advertise that. All right. And Larry doesn't say to me, well, Larry, we need to have a chat here. You got a valid driver's license. Do you have a hitch on your car? Larry, show me how good you are backing this trailer up. We don't we don't do that. Maybe Larry should be. But you see we make a lot of these assumptions. We don't we don't look for proof of these things. I say to Larry I need to borrow your trailer. He says brother he says I'd love to let you borrow it. Here it is. Take it and go. Unless Steve's got it. All right. Maybe is it over your house right now. Yeah. OK. All right. Now. So with those minor type issues it's really not a big deal is it. And we do that all the time. Ladies, have you ever gone to a beauty salon? And and have a lady work on your hair. That you didn't know. You had to do it sometime in your life, right? You had to break into that first time I went to somebody who I didn't know, and I let her work on my hair or him. I don't know. I'm not, you know. Now, We're just talking about hair there. Now, you may have done a few things like, you know, I wonder, you know, you talked to a friend, you know, somebody said, hey, this is a good place to go. With hair, it's not a big deal, is it? I know it's a big deal for a while if they mess it up until it grows out and you can deal with it again. All right. Now, what about something like creation? Can you prove that God created the world? Do you believe that God created the world? Why do you believe God created the world and why in the world do you believe something you can't prove? Well, the truth is, we all believe things we can't prove. People who say they can prove everything they believe are deceived and they're trying to deceive you. What we're talking about is this thing called a presupposition, something that is supposed before something that we believe or suppose in advance. Again, minor issues. We do this all the time. Have you ever. filled a tire with air. When you feel a tire with air, do you sit there shaking, wondering if this tire is going to blow up and kill you? Yeah, you're laughing because you've done that maybe. Maybe you have one blow up. All right, that thought may run through my mind, but you know what? The next thought that runs through my mind, wait a minute. You know, this is an American time. This thing is well constructed. I don't need to worry about this. Pump that baby up, put it on the car and go. We do those kind of things all the time, every day, but notice what it says in the next one. To require or involve necessarily as an antecedent condition. In other words, there are things that everybody presupposes when it comes to the big issues that they cannot prove. There's no way they can prove. Something that's believed implicitly before and therefore ultimately without proof. Now, we're going to the very essence of philosophy building. We're going to the very essence of sanctification and I would contend with you. I would encourage you to think along these lines. That's a better way to put it that you need to think about this and you need to think about it carefully. Just let me extrapolate just for a moment. If in fact you know I don't mean that in the sense that it's doubtful. I'm just making an argument. If in fact God created all that is. It belongs to him. And he is more powerful than you can even begin to conceive of. How dare you not do exactly what he says? You think you're playing with dangerous stuff when you're playing with stuff in this life, but when you're dealing with truth. And you're dealing with God being your creator and God owning your life, who are you to tell him what's best for you? Do you see how this works out? Now, I'm just making I just I'm I'm just making an illustration that's true. But that's the illustration. All right, so. We have this this this issue that we work from presuppositions, things that we cannot prove or we don't bother to prove. On the lesser level, but on the bigger level, we are in the realm of dependence when we're in the realm of creation, when we're in the realm of existence, when we're in the realm of the purpose of life. We're dealing with things we can't prove. So there are presuppositions that we make in our framework, our philosophical framework for which we approach life. Now, I'm just going to throw this out there, we'll come back to it later. Everybody does this. Even unbelievers do this. Unbelievers assume things they cannot prove. And by the way, without thinking about, you know what most of them, almost every one of them, I've never met one who doesn't. You know what they assume? And they won't articulate this way, they'll even deny it. They assume there's a God who's in charge of this world, who's keeping this world in place. And ordered and maintained, they'll never say that to you. They'll say things like they believe in evolution. And this is just we're just random here. And, you know, it's just chance. But you know how, you know. They agree more with you than what they agree with themselves. What was that? Oh, is the phone sound like wind chimes? All right. I'm sorry. What do they do in the morning when they get ready to go to work? Most of them, not all of them, they make coffee. They pour a cup of coffee without even thinking about it, they drink that cup of coffee. They're assuming without ever realizing it, that coffee did not turn into hydrochloric acid. If we live in a chance universe, why shouldn't it turn into hydrochloric acid? If it's just all random chaos. But if there's an intelligent sovereign God who created coffee. And he keeps this universe maintained. Hey, I don't need to worry about that coffee in the morning. OK, I want to pay attention. You know something about the water. You know, if I turn on the faucet, it comes out brown. I probably not going to make coffee with it. All right. But you see, I make the coffee. I wake up in the morning. My wife makes the coffee. I wake up in the morning and I kind of stagger out the kitchen. I pour myself a cup of coffee and man, I just love that first drink of coffee. I don't even think about it. Why? I make presuppositions. And so does everybody else in this world. But I'm inconsistent. Now. How can we know that a basic assumption is true? And that's where I want to go next week. It's almost 8 o'clock. I'm going to stop right here. We'll review, bring you back up to speed, hang on to this. You want to read my notes, you're welcome to, whatever will help you. How can you know that a basic assumption is true? What factors do you have to put into play? What factors do you put into play? When you're coming to this conclusion, something is true. Well, you're going to ask yourself some questions, what is the source? What are the definitions of the terms and where did those definitions come from? This is why this whole discussion over marriage is just absurd. Well, you know what we're arguing over? We're arguing with the definition of a word. You turn in your dictionary and look up the word marriage and you know what your dictionary will say. A union between a husband and a wife or a man and woman. Now people in the in the United States do not realize what they're dealing with. They're messing with our language. And if definitions. Are completely willy nilly at our whim changeable. You can't talk to another human being that you chew on that for a while. But if definitions are changeable no words you use mean the same thing to another human being. All right. That's the thing. OK. How can you know that a basic assumption is true. We'll talk about that next week. I hope that you. Let me see if I got this right. Bingo. I hope you'll think about this. I hope you will look at yourself. If you're thinking to yourself, Pastor, you left me, this is just too difficult. Go to those verses, open your Bible, get along with God and pray. Father, help me understand what it means to cast down every argument that's against you. Help me understand what it means to bring every thought into captivity. You have, if you're a believer, the spirit of God living within you. I am not saying that because you have the spirit of God, therefore, you can be mentally lazy and everything will be fine. No, what I'm saying is Because you have the Spirit of God by the gracious work of your father dwelling within you. One of the things he does is gives believers understanding of the text. So pray that he'll help you understand, pray that he'll help you build a philosophy of life that's biblical. A worldview that's based on the Scriptures. And not just a worldview in which you can go talk to some evolutionist and make sham out of his arguments, but so you can subdue you. In every area of your life, because that's where it counts.