The Word, the Mind, and Feelings

Transcript

GRM 1192
07/22/2018
The Word, the Mind, and Feelings
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

I want to continue a little bit of the discussion we’ve been having about the gifts of the Spirit. There are some issues that come up with this that have to do with interpreting the Scripture, and I’ve had some questions and comments come in on that, so I’m really dealing with some of those, but I thought I’d do it from up here because I want to go through some things, and then put something on the screen. Our differences within evangelism, just to limit it to that right now, have to do with how we approach the Scriptures. Sometimes a comment about maybe we’ve been talking too much about hermeneutics, and I can appreciate that, but if we don’t have a clear grasp and understanding of how we interpret the Scripture and understand some of the changes that are going on, it leads to confusion.

This is basically how the Evangelical Church drifts off track, not just by deciding they won’t obey the word of God or they’ll deny it’s Scripture or we’re going to purposely make errors in handling it, but as we talked about in our study even earlier today with Revelation. God’s word is true, and since it is His word, it is true, and it must be handled correctly, so that is very important.

I started by talking about some of the matters that came out of a book titled, Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit, edited by Sawyer and Wallace. It’s a book, primarily the bulk of the contributors to this book are from Dallas Seminary. Professors who got their degrees, their doctorates from their and so on, and some of the change going on within evangelicals and evangelicalism. One of the editors writes that through certain experiences he went through, “I found the bible was not adequate. I needed an existential experience of the Holy One. Quite frankly, I found that the bible was not the answer. I found the Scriptures to be helpful, even authoritatively helpful as a guide, but without “feeling” God.” That word “feeling” he’s got in italics. “The bible gave me little solace,” so this emphasis we’re moving subtly perhaps, but clearly, from a dependence on the objective truth of the word, to a subjective emphasis on our feelings.

Now our feelings and emotions are part of our lives, and it would be a rather bland life if there were no emotions involved in our lives. We want to be careful, the order is the mind, the actions, the emotions and when we put our emotions, at the top then we inject subjectivity into it. How do you feel about this? Do you feel like God’s working in your life? I feel differently than you about this. Well, where is the objective authority outside of ourselves? That’s the subtle change-taking place. I noted this same person, just review that shared with you as we began this focus in the evenings, saying that really, we need outside input, so the white evangelical community needs to “learn,” (again in italics) from the black evangelical community. The Holy Spirit does not just work on the left-brain. In other words, we’re too rational. We try to be too objective, and then men have failed to listen to women, in our midst, and how can you go wrong with making a statement like that today, so when you don’t listen to the women, you’re not to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Now you see each of this, nothing wrong with learning from all races as we study the bible, and their insights as they study the Scriptures, but we’ve injected subjectivity into it. The bible in and of itself is not objective truth that you learn what God has said, His will, just from the Scripture. You have to have different perspectives, women, different races and so on as though the bible is not fixed objective truth outside of ourselves, but it will be subjective dependent on who is speaking, so now we’re again floating and they admit this. We have to get input from these people, from these people, from these people, because there’s a subjectivity to it. You know, I think clearly it’s getting more serious. In our tradition, background where we would be and where Dallas Seminary had been in its past, in our tradition we have often effectively locked God into the pages of the text of Scripture. Now what do you mean, we’ve locked God into the pages? How are you going to know anything authoritatively and objectively about God unless it comes through the Scripture? Of course, we have personal experiences, but I have to evaluate my personal experiences through the word of God. Otherwise we have this whole spirit world out there that you’re aware of that can give experiences, let alone just the experiences and emotional actions of our lives.

One of the men they quote as an elder statesman in evangelism says, “One of the banes of modern evangelism is rationalism.” Now the problem is we approach Scripture too rationally. Let me let you see what it goes on to explain. “For something to be considered “truth,” (again emphasized) it had to be true at all times for all people in all places, that’s bad.” Now wait a minute, is this not truth, eternal truth for all people in all places at all times? That’s a bad thing. Part of the problem with scholars is they have to study so broadly, much of those even within evangelism have done so much study outside of Scripture they begin to reinterpret Scripture from what they studied outside of Scripture, so you read a lot about the Enlightenment and Scottish rationalism. Well now, the bible was objective truth before the Enlightenment, before Scottish rationalism, and realism and all of those philosophical concepts.

It is truth for all times, for all people. We would say this is truth for the people of Israel, truth for the Church in the New Testament, its truth for us today. What else do we have if that’s not the case? It is almost unbelievable to me. They go on about common sense realism and all of that, the method of this objective rational approach to Scripture, propositional truth. The statements of Scripture are truth; this is true. It’s the word, of the God, who cannot lie. The method assumed that there was objective truth available to man and such truth was unchanging.

Well my whole ministry’s been based upon the fact there is objective truth available to man, and this is unchanging truth. Can you see how the world’s thinking comes? We have this kind of debate going on and I don’t want to wander off, but we talk about men being appointed to the Supreme Court. Should they interpret the Constitution as the original authors intended, or shall they make the changes they think are more applicable and workable for today? Basically, that’s what these men are doing with the bible. You just don’t come to it and say we want to interpret it historically, grammatically. One of the principals “Authorial Intent,” understand it as the original writers wrote it. We’re just following what the world does and say, well we don’t have to think this is objective truth, and this truth was unchanging. Well now, we’re on a sea of uncertainty. Who decides? What is truth? These men say, well you move to your experiences. You know emotions have a place. These men complaining, I had no emotional connection. The order is the mind, the actions and the emotions. Just a few verses of Scripture.

Come to Romans chapter 1 and you can get a concordance, and look up the word “mind,” and just see what the bible says about the mind and sometimes it talks about the heart. Obviously, it’s using the heart interchangeably with the mind, and sometimes these are just expressions that are referring to that which is within us. We love the Lord with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, with every part of our inner being we love Him, and there is emotion in that, but emotion divorced from the mind is just floating. I feel like I love this person. You know, a guy sees a beautiful girl on TV and I’m in love. Sometimes it’s joking but that’s how the world does, there is an erotic kind of love and there is a place for erotic love in our lives as believers. For example, in the marriage context and the Song of Solomon talks about that but we start with our mind. We try to bring our young people when they say they’re in love. Have you thought this through? Have you considered this? Well none of that matters, I’m in love. Well you don’t just fall in love with biblical love, particularly agape love, which is an “other centered” love, doing what is best for them. I sometimes have said it is a love of action but actions alone—it is a love that comes from within. It is a decision that I make, in my mind, in my heart, in my soul within.

Romans 1:28 and you have the good use of the mind and the bad. In Romans 1:28 we read about, “they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, and out of that depraved mind, they do those things, which are not proper.” They see the unbeliever then functions with a mind that is in control, and because it is depraved and cut off from God, it does those things, which are not consistent with the will of God. This is contrasted, come over to Romans chapter 12. After He unfolds the doctrine of our salvation in full detail, he comes to chapter 12 and says, “therefore, I urge you brethren by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the making new of your mind.” That’s how you know what the will of God is, we go into His word and examine it, and the work of the Spirit enables us to understand it, and then we act upon it and do what God would have us do, those things which are pleasing to Him. Out of that are to flow our emotions.

Come over to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10. “Now I exhort you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, that you be made complete in the same mind in the same judgment.” That begins here. It doesn’t say that you all feel the same thing. We are all on the same page in understanding what God has said, what God wants, and we won’t go through the whole list of verses I have on the mind, contrasting the mind of the world with the mind of the believer. Once you bypass the mind and your emotions become the basis of your decision—emotions come and go. What do you do, you wake up one morning and say you know it’s been a tough week, I don’t think I’ve felt like I’m in love with my spouse, humph, well don’t feel like I’m in love. What’s that mean? That’s how the world does, they fall in and out of love. You probably don’t love somebody you don’t know at all. There are decisions made, and actions—that’s just a work of the devil to move us out onto a sea of uncertainty.

You have to be aware of it, because believers get to, you know, this is too much detail on how to study the bible. Why can’t we just read the bible? Well because we have to understand it as God gave it. We have to be careful. Here we have men who claim to be within the evangelical camp, they would present the gospel clearly, but they’re saying don’t be fixed on the bible as objective unchanging truth. Now wait a minute, you were removing the foundation and where will we go from here, so mind, action, emotion and we find that grows. You decide to do the right thing entreating this person and often then the emotions come and that’s true in our relationship with God. Agape love, which is the prime love in the bible. The various forms of the word, “agape” are used like 350 some times in the New Testament compared to like, I don’t know, I can’t remember for sure off hand, like two dozen plus times of the related word, philia, phileo, related words. This love is a love that focuses on what is good for the other person. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” “by this we know love, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Come to 1 John, chapter 4, just as an example. Come down to verse 8, verse 7 says “beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” We’re talking about this supernaturally produced love, the fruit of the Spirit is love. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” This in His very nature His very character. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him and this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, sent His Son to be the propitiation” that’s a love that acted for our good. There was nothing incomplete in God. Nothing that God needed, but He acted on our behalf and we know love because of what He did for us. He loved us so, verse 11 “if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” Connected to that action He’s talking about action. Back in chapter 3 verse 16, “we know love by this, He laid down His life for us; we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Verse 18 “let us not love with word or with tongue but in, deed and truth” and on it goes, verses you’re familiar with, we transfer things to being an emotion and emotions are unsure.

Now I was asked about this, if I would address the writings of John Piper. This will probably relate more to the college young people than to some of you, although John Piper’s writings have had some popularity and they’re not all bad. He has become known for his view on Christian Hedonism. Comes from the Greek word but hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure. Let me read to you what an encyclopedia or a dictionary says about hedonism. Webster dictionary says, “it’s the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good of life.” Then another encyclopedia says, “Hedonism is a school of thought that argues that the pursuit of pleasure and intrinsic goods are the primary or most important goals of human life. A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure but when having finally gained that pleasure, happiness remains stationary.” Ethical hedonism is the idea that all people have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. Interestingly we’ve been talking about the Babylonian system. This is from this secular encyclopedia. In the original old Babylonian version of The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written soon after the invention of writing, Siduri gave the following advice. “Fill your belly day and night, make merry, let days be full of joy, dance and make music day and night.” These things alone are the concern of men and then the comment is this may represent the first recorded advocacy of hedonistic philosophy. Interesting the connection to Babylon.

John Piper has written and his book, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. I can’t tell you the people who have asked me about this over the years. On the back of the book it says, “The pursuit of pleasure is not optional, it is essential,” and basically what he does is adjust the emphasis on hedonism to make it a Christian value. The original book on this came out in 1986, that’s over 30 years ago. I have yet to meet my first Christian Hedonist who did not get that idea from John Piper, which just raises a red flag to me--people getting this out of Scripture. Let me read you what he--it tells how he was converted to Christian Hedonism. It started when he was in school in college, then in seminary, and he began to have concerns about his desire to be happy, his desire to have that fulfillment, doing things for his own pleasure, and that wasn’t the way he ought to be pursuing life as a Christian.

“Then I was converted to Christian Hedonism. In a matter of weeks, I came to see that it is unbiblical and arrogant to try to worship God for any other reason than the pleasure to be had in Him. Let me describe the series of insights that made me into a Christian Hedonist. First, during my first quarter of seminary, I was introduced to the argument for Christian Hedonism in one of its great exponents, Blaise Paschal. He wrote, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.” “The cause of some going to war, others avoiding it, (and so on, so on) this is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”

Paschal, as many of you are aware of, many of you have read more of him than I do, was a 17th century genius, inventor, mathematician, philosopher, theologian, Roman Catholic, but he had some differences with Roman Catholicism and was bringing in some of the insights of the Reformers from the previous century. He’s in the 1600’s, Reformers in the 1500’s. Well He said, “Wait a minute, I had these thoughts about happiness. Then I read this French philosopher theologian (whatever) and he said what I had been thinking. Well that moved me along. Then I read C. S. Lewis and I read something he said and that seemed to be saying that happiness and pleasure ought to be our goal, and he said, “Never in my whole life had I heard any Christian like Lewis say, “we ought to be pursuing pleasure.” That ought to be a red flag. I am not a great C. S. Lewis fan myself, so that’s how he gets here.

What’s significant, I want you to note, this doesn’t come from an exegetical study of Scripture. This is my problem, Piper and others within the covenantal framework. Piper’s identified farthest away on the spectrum from dispensationalism, closest to covenantalism. We’ll talk about covenantalism in detail in one of our future evenings but a covenantalist, whatever their stripe, interrupts the bible historically, grammatically, theologically, and this is what Piper has done. He formed his theology from his philosophical and psychological reasoning. They developed a theological concept, so here’s how you get led into this. He wants to give a definition. He says, “Fresh ways of looking at the world do not lend themselves to simple definitions,” so he acknowledges the way he’s looking at this is new. He calls it “fresh.” It’s something people haven’t really found in Scripture. Philosophers all the way back to the early Babylonians in the Epic of Gilgamesh have promoted it but this is a fresh way of looking at the world.

“A whole book is needed so people can begin to catch on,” now it doesn’t say a more serious study of Scripture. His book, this one has 350 pages; this is the second edition, 10 years after the original. “The whole book is needed so people can begin to catch on. Quick and superficial judgments will almost certainly be wrong. Beware of conjecture about what lies in the pages of this book! To surmise that here we have another spin off from modern man’s enslavement to the centrality of himself will be very wide of the mark. Ah, what surprises lie ahead!” Anyway, you’re in now, don’t form your opinion because it’ll take a whole book for you, and what he’s going to do is massage your thinking and his use of Scripture, I’ll say more about that in a moment, so that you will end up where he is.

I told you and he studied at Fuller where I studied for a little while and left because I said, “I was concerned that if I exposed myself to that kind of teaching, regularly-- it begins to affect your thinking,” so he has determined. You know what he has been thinking, what he has read, a Roman Catholic philosopher theologian, and an English theologian, boy now I’ve got the answer! Now it will take me a whole book to bring you along so he’s going to give you Christian Hedonism as philosophy of life, built on the following five convictions. “The longing to be happy is a universal experience, it is good not sinful.” Now you see what we’ve done? Rght away we’ve moved from the objective propositional statements of Scripture to some kind of feeling.

I went on and checked in some dictionaries and encyclopedias on happiness and I must agree, you know it’s somewhat of an indefinable concept. Are you happy? You know if I ask, don’t raise your hand, but if I say everybody who’s happy tonight, raise your hand. Well what do you mean? I’m going through some difficulties or there’s some problems, or you know, I don’t know, it’s sort of a down day, I wasn’t feeling so great. Are you happy? Happy-happy-happy wasn’t there a TV program where the guy said happy-happy. Yes, you know, those guys--my kids gave me a t-shirt happy-happy-happy. Well you know, what does that mean? There was a person in Denver, a lady who had a large church, the happy church, but the first principal is, the longing to be happy is a universal experience, it’s good, not sinful. I don’t doubt everybody wants to be happy however you define that.

“We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy as though it were a bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and the most enduring satisfaction.” Now he’s getting you ready because he’s going to then massage this to getting this satisfaction in God, so we take this concept to the world and somehow, when he’s done, it will be a biblical thing--and the other points. Now he goes on, “The root of the matter, this book will predominately be a meditation on Scripture. It will be expository rather than speculative.” I do not believe it’s expository. It is a case of historical, grammatical, theological interpretation. He has decided what he wants to find there, and you know what happens when people come to Scripture with their mind set on wanting to find something, they find it. The cults are a great example for that. “If I cannot show that Christian Hedonism comes from the bible I don’t expect anyone to be interested, let alone persuaded. There are a thousand “man-made” philosophies of life. If this is another, let it pass, there’s only one Rock, the Word of God. Only one thing that ultimately matters, glorifying God the way He has appointed. That is why I am a Christian Hedonist.”

I just pulled out one example from the Scripture. Turn in your bibles to Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 17. I find Piper very difficult to read, so I don’t read him unless I’m doing it because I have to, because of the way he uses Scripture. He is not committed, to consistent historical, grammatical interpretation, a literal interpretation. He studied under Daniel Fuller. Daniel Fuller went and studied overseas. Some of you have read the book Reforming Fundamentalism by Marsden. Daniel Fuller was the son of Charles Fuller who had “The Old Fashion Revival Hour.” With his money from the Revival Hour, they started Fuller Seminary but Daniel Fuller, his son, went overseas and studied under Karl Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy. It’s not the Scripture that’s authoritative it’s the experiences that the Scripture directs you to, but at any rate how you hang around with the wrong people, you get influenced. We had an article in the newsletter a week ago on that.

Look at Hebrews 13:17. “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.” Now there are two commands in this verse, obey and submit. Believers are commanded, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account that they may do this with joy, so the two commands are obey and submit. It’s a command to believers to submit to their leaders, and if you don’t obey and submit to them, they won’t be able to do their leadership with joy, but with grief. I can speak as a member of the Board of Elder, when a significant part of the body is in rebellion against the leaders, leading the people is a burdensome task. Study Moses with Israel in the Old Testament, grumble-grumble-grumble, murmur-murmur-murmur. Moses, this is not a pleasant task. God why did you place this on me? It’s not something I was looking for, it’s unpleasant, but if they do, what God says then it’s a joyful task to be a leader God has appointed, and someday they will give an account, of their leadership and the people’s followship.

I want you to put this on the screen; I had them print this out from a page in John Piper’s book. How he interprets this, and I didn’t pick this out because this is the worst possible example. I figure, how am I going to pick out a verse? I don’t want to keep going through verses. I just opened up his book to a page, read what he said about that verse, said I’ll use that one, read the context to make sure it was fitting. You see what he says about it. Here’s his commentary on Hebrews 13:17. You have Hebrews 13:17 before you in your bible. “Now if it is not profitable for pastors to do their oversight sadly instead of joyfully, then a pastor who does not seek to do his work with joy does not care for his flock. Not to pursue our joy in ministry is not to pursue the profit of our people.” What’s that got to do--it seems that the commands God has given here are to the people, but since this has the word joy in it, and remember we’re pursuing pleasure, we’re pursuing joy, he twists the whole verse around. Somehow, what this verse is about is if pastors aren’t doing their ministry with joy as the goal, then they’re not doing it for the profit of the people.

Now wait a minute, that’s not what that verse is teaching, who won’t it be profitable for? He says at the end of the last statement, “Not to pursue our joy in ministry is not to pursue the profit of our people.” The verse says, it won’t be profitable for the people if they don’t submit and obey. Somehow, this is how Scripture keeps constantly--you think well, let me think about this. Now he’s saying this, I guess you could say I want to do my ministry with joy because that’ll mean the people are submitting to me, and I want to do it with joy because it won’t be profitable—so when I get done rearranging the Scripture, I say yeah, I can see it. This is how it goes through 350 pages and pretty soon he has you thinking and approaching Scripture like he does, but that is not historical, grammatical interpretation. This verse is giving specific commands to God’s people to submit to the leaders that he appoints, so that there is joy in doing their leading, it’s not a burden.

The people determine this, not the leaders. Somehow this verse is about, see again, we’re pursuing joy, we have a hedonistic philosophy, so I say it’s such a burden to read through 350 pages because you have to stop with every verse and say wait a minute. Is this what this verse is saying? You don’t want to be led along, because pretty soon, you’ll--this is how these men often get affected, they go study under men--this is what happened to Daniel Fuller. Go study under Karl Barth in Europe. You come back to Fuller Seminary you have adjusted your thinking. George Eldon Ladd went and got his doctorate at Harvard, a man he studied under, he didn’t even want to admit how his theology had gotten altered.

This is a serious matter. This is directly contrary to the word and I took this from another book, Future Grace done by John Piper in 95. He wrote His first book on Desiring God in 1986. He revised it in 1996, 10 years later. That’s the way you keep selling books, you keep making a little change and say there’s a revised edition. He wrote Future Grace in 1995. Now listen to this. I want you to see how he defines faith. “What then is the common essential element in all, saving faith? What is the common essential element in all, saving faith?” He says, “I have been putting it like this for some years. The essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. The essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus that’s the common essential element in all saving faith; it is the embracing of spiritual beauty that is the essential core of, saving faith.”

I’m not even sure what this is saying. It’s been years since I read the whole book and I go back, and would I tell somebody when you present the gospel--What is saving faith? Well let me put it simply for you. It is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. Is that going to bring a person to salvation, being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus? It is the embracing of spiritual beauty that is the essential core of saving faith so tomorrow night when they go out door to door to share the gospel, they ought to say we want you to embrace the spiritual beauty, being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. You see, it’s become some kind of romantic talk. I don’t even know what to make of it. This writing has great popularity among university students, and Piper is popular with them, even though he’s an old man like me. He’s three years younger but he’s over 70. This is where you get to, what happened to the clarity of the word of God? Like the Philippian jailer, “What must I do to be saved?” Embrace all the beauty of God in Jesus. Oh! “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” See I end up now with these philosophical psychological concepts that we have developed the theology. Then we come to Scripture and we begin to rework in little ways. I’m taking all the time. I repent, so forgive me.

Piper knows this because he criticizes this kind of action in other people. I read you in our last time, Gregory Boyd’s book, Open Theism where Boyd decided, and it becomes a philosophical, psychological concept that becomes his theological basis. He didn’t believe God was a God of violence, sort of like Piper. He thought about it you know, and you like pleasure and you pursue pleasure and philosophers have said that’s what we do, so that can’t be a bad thing, so then I come to Scripture with this idea and all of a sudden I’m finding it there.

Boyd decided God’s not a God of violence. He’s a God of love, a God of kindness. God doesn’t want to see people perish, therefore all the violent portions of Scripture credited to God must be understood, as not the writings of men telling you about God, but writings of men telling what men have done. You begin to rework the Scripture to fit your theology.

Piper edited a book along with a couple of other men, critiquing “Open Theism” and he warns, “The stunning thing about open theism in American Christianity is how many leaders do not act as though it is a departure from historic Christianity, and therefore a dishonor to Christ and pastorally damaging.” Well he already told us his view of Christian Hedonism is something “fresh,” it’s new, in Christianity, in any exegetical Christianity, but Boyd is, this is, this shouldn’t be happening in American Christianity when Boyd does it.

Then he goes on talking about, I’ll just jump on this article, “The failure of many Christian leaders to see the magnitude of error in open theism has left churches and denominations and schools with no clear boundary between what is tolerably Christian and what is not.” Then he says what his concern, Boyd claims to be evangelical. Evangelicals in the churches begins to accept him because, you know, he can make sense, if you’ll just let him read the book. I read you from his book, he says, “Now don’t start out thinking this is heretical.” You have to follow me on this, I’ll explain it to you. Just like Piper starts out in his, don’t make up your mind ahead of time. Piper doesn’t realize he does the same thing that he criticizes Boyd for, he goes on to talk about the grounds, and I don’t have time to read a lot to you but here’s Piper’s warnings about Boyd’s corruption of the word. “Evangelical denominations and educational institutions move away from orthodox Christian faith not in obvious giant steps but for lack of vigilance over incremental defections from biblical truth.” Note that the way we get lured away is by incremental—like I said those little subtle changes is what effectively leads believers away from biblical truth. “Each progressive deviation seems too small to justify a confrontation. It doesn’t seem worth the controversy and tension.”

He battled this in his denomination; Piper did because when he was part of the group that wanted to discipline Boyd and exclude him for his heresy, the denomination voted no, it’s not that serious. Now he’s writing to say what happened, incremental, “If history tells us anything (and this is Piper’s evaluation) it’s that theological drift occurs almost imperceptibly over long periods of time. One little change here another there.” Yeah, he sees it in others. I think that’s exactly what he’s doing. “False teaching can come from a godly person whom God is using for other good purposes. Harmful teaching does not generally originate in people who are unqualified to teach and lead people to Christ . . .” and he quotes Acts 20:30 “from among your own selves men will arise.” Serious and damaging error generally starts in the teaching of an otherwise sound and helpful leader.

Well, I say John Piper, you ought to read your critique of Gregory Boyd then go back and look at your writing. There’s a reason the church hasn’t promoted Christian Hedonism. It doesn’t come out of the bible. It come out of your philosophical, psychological reasoning and then seeing how that could fit into a theology, then coming to Scripture, and beginning to make the incremental adjustments and this begins to pervade. Piper has many other serious defections. He is a believer in the continuation of the spiritual gifts that we would hold some are not present. We’ll talk about that, there are other areas. He’s covenantal, premillennial covenantal, post-tribulational so prophetic portions of Scripture, his whole handling of Scripture gets affected.

What’d I say--I appreciate, I quoted you Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy is a full covenantalist, amillennial. He’s written a book that keeps getting recommended everywhere, even by Dallas Seminary, but he says my system of interpretation is historical-grammatical-theological. That’s where Piper is. You determine your theology then as Piper says, “Now I have to come to Scripture, and see if this fits.” When you come to Scripture like that, you find it there. These aren’t men, who say I’m disregarding Scripture. They have come up and this is--he’s very intelligent, he is a scholar. You notice so much of this corruption comes from scholars. We need to be careful. I appreciate scholars who use the intellectual ability God’s given them, so the rest of us can appreciate and learn, but only when they’re faithful to the Scripture. When they start moving away from that faithfulness, from beginning with Scripture, you make saving faith something of an emotion, and translate it into finding all your satisfaction in pleasure in God through Christ. I don’t even know what that means.

When I went to the altar in the old fashion days in an old fashion camp meeting and responded, came up, people kept asking, I’m kneeling at the altar, asking well Lord does that--they kept asking me. Do you feel like you’re saved? I don’t think so. Well pray some more brother and they kneel down. I’m a young boy, about the third time I realized, I’m not going to be able to leave this place until I say yes, so I was ready. The fourth time they said to me, do you feel like your saved, I said, yes! Everybody exploded. I didn’t feel any different. I really believe God saved me the first time I bowed and acknowledged my sin and—feelings came along the way.

Well I’m seriously concerned for the church. People leave the church and they’re upset about something. They don’t agree with me, I can’t sit down and have a conversation, well let’s look at the Scripture and see what it says. No! I feel differently than you. Well it doesn’t matter how we feel. If I’m wrong, I have to make a correction. If you’re not biblical, you have to make the correction, but if we’re both committed to the word of God as the absolute final authority, we have to come to it, it is objective truth outside of ourselves. No matter how I feel, I’m going to have to change some of my feelings if they don’t coordinate with what this word says that’s why I start with the word. You have to be very careful. Emotions are strong.

Very difficult when the devil leads people into these emotional experiences to get them out. You can’t! I can’t tell you what’s coming out of the background. I do, people say, “You can’t tell me that emotional experience wasn’t real!” I’m sure it was real, I can say it’s not biblical. Where is this? Think the devil can’t play with our emotions can’t move us, and I’m concerned. Where’s the church going to be? Where will Indian Hills be if the Lord doesn’t come down the road? If we don’t hold firm that this is God’s eternal unchanging propositional, the statements of Scripture themselves are true, and we can understand determine the truth by accepting it at face value. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t take work, but I have to understand it as God gave it as the original authors intended it. Not the way, well you know I think we live in a different day.

This is how people are coming to a different view on homosexuality, sex outside of marriage. Well you know this is a different day. The bible was written at a different time. You know we have to have feelings for these people. Piper, some of you have shared with me some of his radio program. When it came to asking about sex and marriage, he gets a homosexual guy from England who’s an Anglican to come and say how you can be a celibate, and experience because you’re like Jesus who wasn’t married. What happened with just going to 1 Corinthians 7 and say single life is part of God’s plan for some? Somehow now you’re chasing around here and talking about how wonderful this man’s explanation is and he doesn’t even use Scripture. He’s telling you how he feels and approaches it as a celibate homosexual. Once you start to wonder from Scripture, you don’t know where you’ll end up, so we want to be careful to be faithful to the truth.

All right, I won’t talk about hermeneutics any more tonight and at most one more week. Not for at least another month, but we will move on, but it’s foundational, once the hermeneutics are gone, we’re just battling out here over things we can never settle.

Let’s pray together: Thank You Lord for Your word. Lord these are matters that sometimes, as was expressed, they seem not that important not that different, and little by little, incrementally, we are led away from the clarity of the truth of Your word. The beauty, of having truth that is unchanging, that is eternally true, that was given for us to understand, to enjoy, to bring us into a relationship with You, but Lord it does fill our emotions. It directs our lives but Lord foundational to it all, is the knowledge of the truth that gives us the knowledge of You that’s settled and sure in the fluctuating experiences of our lives, and even in the ups and downs of our emotions. We thank you for your grace in Christ’s name. Amen.






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