Thank you, Nancy. I hope that's a prayer that all of us share with her. May God show us
how to live in deed and in truth. I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to
Psalm 8, the Book of Psalms and the Eighth One, written by David.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth, who hath displayed thy splendor
above the heavens. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes thou hast established strength
because of thine adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider
thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained,
what is man? What is man that thou dost take thought of him, and the son of man that thou
dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him a little lower than Elohim. Here probably
referring to the angels. Thou hast made him a little lower than the mighty ones, and dost
crown him with glory and majesty. Thou dost make him to rule over the works of thy hands.
Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths
of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, O Yahweh, our Adonai, how majestic is thy name in all the
earth. Have you ever asked yourself the question, why are so many Christians losing their battles
in Jesus Christ? Have you ever asked yourself the question, why do I lose so many battles
in my life if I am a victor in Jesus Christ and if he has won the war for me? Why do Christians
lose? The answer is that there are some who don't realize they are at war in the first
place. If you don't realize you are at war, it is easy to lose. Then there are others
who know they are at war, but they are ignorant of the nature of the war they are in. And
then there are those who don't grasp anything about their identity or their authority in
Jesus Christ as victors in him. Because of this, I want to spend several weeks on the
theme of spiritual warfare. I am calling it the invisible war. We need to understand that
we are at war. We need to understand something about that battle that we are all in. And
third, we need to understand who we are in Jesus Christ so that we can be victors and
not losers. Now as I say that, there are probably some thoughts going through minds here that
say something like this, I don't need this kind of a theme. This doesn't apply to me.
And if that's the case, I am not at all surprised. Because if there is any theme that the enemy
wants you to be ignorant about, it is the one we are going to talk about in the next
few months. Today we are going to look at a foundational truth, a biblical view of reality.
This foundational message will help us to understand why the idea of spiritual warfare
seems so foreign to us. It is not foreign to everybody here. There are some who are
listening to me who have experienced such bizarre occurrences in their lives that they
have never told anybody to this day about them. Some of you have had experiences that
if you shared with somebody, you are afraid they would say you are crazy. Some of you
have seen things, others of you hear voices. A survey was done on Christian college campuses
some time ago and it revealed that a great number of those students hear voices on a
regular basis. But you have never told anybody that, unless they label you as nuts, or psychotic,
or schizophrenic, or some other label. Where do these things come from? How do you explain
the bizarre things that happen to us? The answer is found in spiritual warfare, this
invisible war that is taking place around us all the time. We are not born with an understanding
of reality. We learn what the world is like as we grow up, or at least we come to a perception
of what the world is like. Our problem is that our perception of reality may not be true.
What happens when a person or a whole generation grows up learning lies? The resulting view
of reality is inaccurate and false. Reality is unreal, it doesn't truly fit. But that
perception that the person has is that it is reality. Let me illustrate it this way.
We have an airplane pilot sitting in the cockpit. He is flying in the clouds. He can't see a
thing out there. So he is doing what he has been trained to do, he is relying on his instruments.
But his instruments have not been calibrated properly. They weren't set right. So he is
flying along thinking everything is just great. His reality is inside that cockpit. He is
going by the instruments that he has learned to trust. He doesn't realize they are not
set according to what is true. The result of that is tragedy. I want to submit to you
that we have for the most part a whole generation or more in our nation that has been raised
on lies and thinks it perceives reality when in fact it is lost. It has lost its way and
everything is fine inside the cockpit. But one of these days, true reality, real reality
is going to appear. And then it is going to be too late. There is going to be disaster.
Charles Kraft writes, we see the world both physical and all other aspects of it as we
have been taught to see it. It is part of our world view to assume that our way of seeing
the world is right. We from western nations bordering the North Atlantic have been taught
or allowed to assume that our perception of reality is the same as the absolute reality
itself. This is the problem of world view. As we think about world view, what does that
word mean? It is not a very difficult concept really. A world view is the grid by which
we interpret what happens to us. As I said before, we are not born with that grid. It
forms as we grow up. Based upon that grid, we then interpret things that we see and hear
and experiences we have according to that world view. A world view is a framework for
us understanding the world around us. There are four world view questions which if you
answer will expose what your world view really is. First of all, what is real? What is real?
Secondly, who am I? Third, what is the world about? And four, how do I explain events?
If you think about those four questions and write down answers, you will uncover what
your world view really is. I want you to know that your world view is very important because
it influences everything about your life. Your world view influences everything about
your life. That is why it is so important that your world view aligns with the word
of God. As we think about this, I want us to consider this morning first some world
view alternatives. Basically, there are two views of the world. There is the spiritualistic
view and the materialistic view. Those accepting the spiritualistic view believe that ultimate
reality is spiritual and not physical or material. Ultimate reality is spiritual. That is where
it gets its name. Whether that ultimate spiritual reality is a personal God as in the Christian
view or it is an impersonal God as the Buddhists view it, the commonality is that ultimate
reality is spiritual and immaterial. Most of the five billion people in the world hold
to some form of the spiritualistic world view. Major religions of the world have this basic
view in common. Even though there may be vast differences in their other theology, underneath
it they have this world view that ultimate reality is found in the immaterial world, in
the spiritual world. Let me give you some examples of those who accept the spiritualistic
world view. First there are those who believe in animism. This is the most common world
view. It is the belief of tribal peoples of the world and it is the belief of Islam as
a matter of fact. Animism. The idea is that spirits inhabit all things. The rocks and
the trees and the water and that chair and that light up there, spirits inhabit everything.
And religion or life is about pleasing those spirits or trying to keep them off your back.
Animism. Then there is pantheism. The belief that God is everything and everything is God.
Multiplied millions of people in the world accept that as their world view. That is one
reason that there is starvation in India. Lots of cows walking around, they won't kill
them because those cows are gods. God is in everything and everything is God. Not only
do Hindus believe this, but parts of Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, accept this idea
that everything is God and God is everything. Then there is mysticism. Or we might call
it magic or sorcery. This is a world view of some. It basically has two parts. There
is witchcraft, the Wiccan religion. It is pre-Christian in the sense that it existed
long before Christ came to the earth. Those who practice witchcraft believe in the forces
of nature. And these forces are spiritual to them, so they are under the spiritualistic
world view, you see. On the other hand, you have a post-Christian group called Satanists.
Now they exist primarily to mock Christianity and to worship the devil instead of Christ.
They likewise believe in spirits, so they are spiritualistic. But they are under the
category of mysticism or the magic world view or sorcery. Of course there is deism. Deism
is what many of our founding fathers in America believe. The idea is that God is a personal
God, but he created the universe and then left. He went off somewhere and has left the
universe to wind down according to the natural laws that he left in place. So you can't
really know this God, whoever he is. He created us, but we can't know him. And so you see
that our documents in the founding of our nation speak of God as our creator and we
as creatures and so on. Now some of them are also theists, which is the next group, but
deism was really prominent in America 200 years ago. Then there is theism, and that's
what we accept. Theism believes that God is a transcendent and eminent, eternal and personal
being. God is transcendent in the sense that he exists above, beyond, and separate from
his creation. He is transcendent. He is different than we are. He is not created. He is the
creator. But God is also eminent, which means that he is a part of his creation. He is not
off somewhere. He is with us. It's not that the creation itself is God, but he is in his
creation everywhere. He is eminent. And then of course he is eternal, and God is personal.
He is a person. He has the elements of personality. So those are some of the sub-views that fall
under spiritualistic worldview. You didn't know there were so many, did you? There is
another worldview that is in our world today. It's called the materialistic worldview. And
as you might expect, it's just the opposite of what I've described. Those who are materialists
believe that ultimate reality is in material things, in physical things, not in the spiritual.
The children of the materialistic worldview include communism, or Marxism, atheism, and
the one that controls our culture, evolutionism. Dr. Ed Murphy says that there are five important
conclusions that result from the materialistic worldview of reality. Number one, the universe
is a cosmic accident that has no ultimate purpose. And so astronomers discover that
the universe, they say, is billions and billions of years old. Matter has always existed. It
exploded into its present form, and someday it's going to come back together, but matter
has always been here. And it's all just accidental. We don't understand where it came from. It
has no purpose to us at all. Secondly, human life is a biological accident that has no
ultimate significance. Our ancestors washed up on some primordial shore and began evolving,
and so here we are today. And it's all accidental. There is no real significance to human life
beyond that. Third, life ends forever at death for each individual form of life, including
humans. In other words, when you die, that's it. There's nothing beyond that. That's the
materialistic worldview. Fourth, mind has no separate existence or survival apart from
the brain. In other words, the ability to think and to reason that we have is simply
the reaction of chemicals and electrical impulses in our brain. And when our brain dies, we're
done. There is no mind that goes beyond that. Basically, man is a machine. And when the
machine stops, that's it. And fifth, humanity's intuitive historical belief in an ultimate
mind or spirit or God who is behind, within, and outside of the physical universe is a
form of self-deception. In other words, if you accept the Christian viewpoint, you are
self-deceived. And until the last two months, this has been the position, the official position
of psychiatry and psychology. If you believe the Christian worldview, you have a mental
illness. You are deceived because that is absolutely impossible for a God to exist beyond
the materialistic world. This is all there is. There is no God by supposition, by presupposition.
There is no God. Thus, humanity's corresponding belief in human uniqueness, dignity, purpose,
and survival beyond death is a non-real view of reality. Any idea that a person lasts beyond
death is just non-real. It's ignorant to the materialistic worldview. Now, the materialistic
worldview, or the naturalistic worldview as it's sometimes called, leads to a philosophy
of life that is called nihilism. Nihilism means nothingness. It's the philosophy of
nothingness. This philosophy was espoused by a man whose name you might have heard somewhere
along the line, the name of Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a German atheist who died in 1900.
He boasted, God is dead and we have killed him. His philosophy of life results in no
ethical values at all except what is good to each individual. You decide what is good
for you, I'll decide what's good for me. Now, does any of this begin to sound familiar?
You see, this is the whole worldview that controls our culture. And so what I'm telling
you this morning is that you and I have been reared in a culture and an educational system
for the most of us that has lied to us about what reality is. That's why spiritual warfare
seems so far out. Have you been to an art gallery recently to look at modern art? So
called? You look at it and say, I don't understand that. You know why that is? You have something
up here, you have a brain. You say that doesn't mean anything and you're absolutely correct
and that's what the artist wants you to know because his philosophy is that life is nothing
and he reflects it in his art. Life has no meaning, therefore he scribbles all over this
canvas and calls it art. And our world applauds and says, isn't that marvelous? It's nihilism
and it comes out of the worldview of our culture. So our music comes out of that as well. One
of the most famous musicians in grunge rock killed himself two days ago. Why? He was simply
living out his philosophy of life which he has sung to your children. Which says that
life is meaningless. Be angry, rebel, do something, but in the end it's all nothing anyway. And
finally, practicing what he believes, he put a shotgun to his head. You understand how
this is relating to the world that we live in? The current western view of reality is
the materialistic one. It arose out of the enlightenment, which might better be called
the endarkenment. The enlightenment, ladies and gentlemen, was an absolute disaster to
humanity. But it is applauded in our schools and our universities as being the greatest
thing that has happened to man in his history. But the enlightenment was an absolute disaster
because it exalted human reason above divine revelation and exalted man to the center of
the universe and has led man to nothingness. Our worldview today says that the universe
is a closed system. The events that take place around us are uniform cause and effect relationships
which are entirely predictable. This happens and this results and because that happened
this results and on and on it goes. And there is no possibility, according to this worldview,
of some transcendent reality like God intervening. Because God just can't exist, you see. Because
what's real is what's material. And it results in ethical relativism where there is no object
right and wrong and what is good is what's good for each individual. Does this have any
relationship to the abortion debate? And choosing what is good for me, the right to choose,
the right to privacy? Does this have any relationship to Dr. Kvorakian and those who believe in
assisted suicide? Life is meaningless. I mean if life has no purpose and it ends at death
and it's all meaningless anyway and you're in pain, the absolute most reasonable thing
in the world to do is to kill yourself. If you accept that worldview. Kvorakian is right
on target with nihilism, with the materialistic worldview. Maybe this helps you understand
a bit of what you see happening in our culture and you're trying to say where in the world
is this stuff coming from? Well though we have been taught these kinds of lies, many
of us have also been taught the Bible through the years and so we have enough of that that
this other stuff doesn't make sense. But for those who have not had the Bible, all of this
other stuff just fits right in. It's all they know. They're the pilot in the cockpit,
their instruments are wrong, they're flying to disaster and don't even know it. There
are two tiers of reality to Western thinking as it evolved. First there's the spiritual,
let's say it's up here. This is religion, this is where there's faith and there are
miracles and the sacred and other worldly problems. And then down here is the material,
here is science, here is sight and experience, the natural order, that which is secular and
this worldly problems. The Western worldview separated these two through the enlightenment
and now it's come to the point of declaring what is up here in the spiritual as being
mythical. It doesn't really exist. And what is scientific, what is material is truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's the philosophical reason why they don't want creation science
in public schools. You don't want to teach kids myths. You want to teach them the truth.
Creation science belongs to the spiritual realm, you see, that doesn't really exist.
It all comes out of the worldview of our culture. Our nation was founded on the materialistic
worldview, even if it was deism in part. But now that has changed to a materialistic worldview
and that folks is the heart of our cultural war that we're engaged in today. Now I don't
have time to talk about it except to mention it, but there is a new worldview that is emerging
very rapidly in the last ten years. You see the nihilism and the materialism that the
West has adopted has led to nothingness quite naturally and that doesn't satisfy the heart.
We are created for something more than that, though they don't want to say it in those
terms. And so there is a new worldview emerging called the New Age worldview and it is sweeping
into our public schools. Do you know that there's curriculum in some public schools
today teaching them how to have spiritual experiences, accepted seances, how to curse
somebody under witchcraft. You see there under New Age there is again a wedding of the spiritual
and the material in the Western worldview except they're tying in to the dark side of
what is spiritual instead of God. Well having talked about the false alternatives, let's
talk about the worldview actuality before we go. We get this out of Psalm 8. What is
the truth? How ought we to see the world from a biblical perspective? If some of what I
have picked up as I have grown up is an error, how do I get that flushed out and begin to
live on what is biblical? We don't have time to expound the Psalm but just look at it with
me and notice first of all that there is a spiritual reality. Oh Yahweh, God's personal
name, Adonai, God's title of greatness. How excellent is your name? There is God. And
not only is there God but there are angels according to verse 5. God has created man
a little lower than the angels. They're part of the spirit realm too. Is there material
reality in the biblical worldview? Yes. He talks about the field and the seas and fish
and all kinds of animals so there's animate and inanimate physical reality. So you've
got these two again. What brings them together? The answer is humanity. You see man is part
spiritual and part physical. We are made by heaven out of the elements of the earth. So
we link together the spiritual and the physical. That's the biblical view of reality. The
result is that we are affected by what happens in both of these other dimensions. We are
affected by what happens in the spiritual realm which the Bible in Ephesians at least
calls the heavenlies. And we are affected by what happens on the earth. We are related
to both realms. We learn of the spiritual through revelation from God, the Bible. We
learn of the material by science and our senses. That is the worldview actuality. Spiritual,
material and humanity linked to both of them. Now let's try to close with some applications
of this worldview. To do that let's go back to our four worldview questions. The first
question is what is real? What does our culture say? What is real is what is material. The
Bible says what is real is God. God being defined as an infinite, eternal, supreme and
personal spirit who has disclosed himself to man through the Bible as well as through
his creation, history, conscience and ultimately in the incarnation of the Logos, the Word
Jesus Christ. So what is real? The answer is very simple and extremely profound. God.
There is where we begin with our presuppositions in our worldview. God is what is real. He
is the ultimate reality. Second question, who am I? Well according to this psalm we
are made by God. He has made us a little lower than the angels. We're not on the same
level as the angels in God's order. We're a little lower than the angels. We are specially
created people made in the likeness of God with emotion, will and intellect and we are
responsible for the choices that we make in life. This is very important. It means that
we have value because we are. Not because of what we do or don't do, but because of
what we are. We are the created beings of God. And even in the most depraved of human
beings there is still that image of God, however perverted and twisted it may be, because there
is still the element of personhood there. You are important to God. You are one who
is filled with dignity. Yes and perhaps depravity as well until the redeemer comes and saves
you from your sin. But you have dignity as a created being. And yet there are vast numbers
of people who have thoughts going through their minds constantly. You are nothing. You
are worthless. You might as well end it right now. Just go out and kill yourself. Your life
has no significance. Nobody cares. God can never accept you if God exists. And some of
you are struggling with those thoughts today. You need to understand that those thoughts
can arise from yourself. They can also arise from and be magnified by angelic creatures
who are seeking to destroy you as one who has great value to God. We are going to talk
about that more in spiritual warfare. What is the world about? Well the revelation of
the scriptures provides a context for understanding how the world came to be, how it got into
its present condition and where history is heading. Just to sum it up, what is the world
about? It is about the glory of God. It is about God fulfilling his purpose. About God
giving significance to his creation because it is his. How do I explain events as the
outworking of God's eternal and good purposes? You see God is ultimately sovereign and in
control of everything, even my pain. And I may not understand that. I may not be able
to comprehend why. But I can know this, that there is a God who is good, who is in control.
And yet aren't we brought up to say to people, good luck? Well fortunately, hey there is
no such thing as fortune or luck. They are myths. There is only providence, God's providence.
How do we interpret events? As a battle between the cosmic forces of God and the fallen creature
Lucifer. God has established the rules for this battle and both sides operate within
those boundaries. God will ultimately demonstrate his wisdom through the execution of his victory
and won at the cross. But for the present time there is a cosmic battle going on and
ladies and gentlemen because we as human beings are linked to the spiritual realm, we are
involved in that battle and whether we want to be or not is not even the issue. We are.
Some people like to think, well if I just stay ignorant of it, the devil will leave
me alone. He's got you right where he wants you. And leave you alone is the furthest thing
from his mind, let me tell you. The need we have is to become equipped to do battle.
And it begins with understanding our world. Some people reject the whole concept of spiritual
warfare because they have bought into the lies of the western civilization. We need
to get back to what the Bible says reality is. Dr. Ed Murphy in the handbook for spiritual
warfare says, the biblical world view dimension can be expressed in one statement, present
reality exists in a state of cosmic earthly conflict or spiritual warfare. That's reality.
So our attempt in the next few weeks is going to be to discover what reality is according
to the Bible. What is our need? Our need is number one to repent of our error in world
view. To examine the way that we think and the way that we interpret events around us
and to see where we have based our lives upon what is untrue. To repent of that, to flush
it out. To do that, secondly, we need to pray for discernment. That we may not be deceived.
And third, as we begin to grasp what the biblical world view is, we need to practice it. We
need to incorporate it into our lives and not continue to live like that pilot who is
in his cockpit heading for disaster. Let's allow the instruments of our lives to be recalibrated
according to the word of God and our study of it together so that we may fly through
this life victoriously. Now some people get very scared when you talk about spiritual
warfare. Folks, there's nothing to be scared of. There's something to be vigilant about,
but nothing to be scared of. Because Jesus Christ has already won the war. We're involved
in skirmishes. There are very real battles that we face, but the war has already been
decided and the Bible has already declared who wins, we win. There's nothing to be scared
of. And greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. We are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. He is the one who always leads us in triumph. And so we approach
this theme and this subject humbly, asking God to teach us. But we also approach it with
confidence, knowing that in Jesus Christ we are victors, because he is the victor. And
that as we get equipped to win, to fight this battle, we will win some of the battles that
we constantly lose now. That's my goal and I hope you share that with me. Our God is
a God who reigns. He is an awesome God. He is majestic above the heavens. Let's worship
him right now. Oh Lord, Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Lord, in principle we do at this moment repent of the false ideas that we have gleaned as
we have grown up. Show us where we have believed lies and built our lives on them. And we pray
that as we learn what true reality is that we will know how to incorporate that and we'll
know so that our lives will be based upon the truth. We worship you as the one who is
the victor. And we press on in our search for the truth because you have commanded us
to do that and because you reign above all things. Amen.
Let's stand together and sing about our awesome God.
Right now I'd like to ask these folks to come forward so that we can extend the right-handed
fellowship to you. John Hennessy, Steve and Ann Lomb, Jim and Deb Kaufman, Eric Crane,
Deb Lonson, Catherine Murkey, Tim Larson, Krista and Tim Larson, Paul Peterson, Bruce
Devon Olson, Dennis and Sharon Bryan. If you'll come and form a line right here we will come
by afterward and greet you. We welcome you into our church. And we're going to sing
again this chorus. Can we throw it back up there? I want you to notice that chorus that
says our God, that's where we start, is an awesome God. We're not just singing a chorus,
we're singing reality. He is an awesome God who reigns from heaven above. That's reality.
And notice what kind of a God he is, why he's powerful, loving, awesome. Let's sing again
what reality is.
Our God is an awesome God who reigns from heaven above.
Our God is an awesome God. Our God is an awesome God.
God bless you, thank you for being here. Come by and greet these new members right after
you have been dismissed. God bless you.