Education
RO38-02

Abraham

So, before Abraham, all humanity was one stream of gentiles with no differentiation. After Abraham, there was the new stream of humanity known as the Jews, for the explicit purpose of bringing the authority of God on this earth – to establish the kingdom of God on the earth to replace the kingdom of man. In other words, the world was to have a human viewpoint replaced by divine viewpoint.

This plan of God for establishing His kingdom authority on the earth was presented as a promise to Abraham to become heir of the world. This promise, or this covenant, with Abraham included a Savior for eternal life. This was involved in the promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing to all nations.

In Galatians 3:8, Paul explains that to us when he says, "And the Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the gentiles through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all nations be blessed.'" So, here you have this phrase: "In you shall all nations be blessed" specifically identified by Paul here in Galatians as being an expression relative to the gospel. When all nations were going to be blessed in Abraham, God meant: "I am going to send you a Savior that will resolve the sin problem so that people can have absolute righteousness in order to enter heaven.

So, Abraham indeed was given the gospel. Abraham was told how to be born-again. And he believed the promise that God gave him. He was born again. And Paul has been showing us how, consequently, Abraham was justified simply by faith, apart from words.

Circumcision

You will notice that this is true of circumcision; that is, circumcision is a human work, even though God commanded it. Every now and then, somebody comes along with this matter of water baptism, and says, "Well, yes, water baptism is something people do, but you can't call that a human work, because God commanded it." The idea is that if God commands it, then it's no longer a human work. And when you confront people who say, "Well, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and have water baptism to be saved," you say, "Well, water baptism is something man does. That's a work. An unbeliever can do it. A believer can do it. That's how you know, it's a human work." They'll say, "Oh, no. God commanded it."

Well, you see here that Paul has come down very hard on something that was clearly commanded. As a matter of face, God said to the Jew, "If you, as a male, are not circumcised, all of the blessings to the nation have been removed from you. You will not enjoy the national blessings of a Jew." But that did not mean, Paul said, that circumcision was part of salvation.

So, don't be trapped up when somebody comes along and says, "Well, water baptism is commanded, and the Lord's Supper is commanded, and the mass in the Roman Catholic Church holds this. Jesus says, 'You must eat My flesh and you must drink My blood.'" He very clearly said that. But obviously, it's a ritual after salvation. It is not a human work that provides the step to salvation. So, just because God commands it does not mean that it is not a human work. Paul makes it clear that circumcision, which was commanded, was indeed a human work.

All features of the promise which was given to Abraham were given by grace, and were received by faith. And that's the point that we're going to make here. Paul is established that human rituals are not involved, and human works are not involved in salvation in any way.

Now he is going to one more point to establish the fact that Abraham was saved by faith, and that is this business of promise. How did Abraham get this this promise, and how do he realize the fulfillment of this promise? Did Abraham do anything to get this promise? Did Abraham do anything to have it fulfilled? And he's using this as an example of justification by faith.

So, Abraham had no ground for personal boasting in his salvation, or this privileged position that was his as the father of a new stream of humanity. He didn't earn it. Abraham was justified by faith in the promise of a coming messiah. That's what Paul says. God explained the gospel to him, and Abraham believed it. And Paul's point is that if Abraham had tried to earn salvation through good works, he never would have been justified. Salvation by faith and by works are mutually exclusive. You cannot mix even one human good work with grace, and be saved, because Paul says then you have neutralized grace. It's always one or the other.

So, if you slip in water baptism, or if you slip in the mass, you have condemned yourself to hell, unless in the providence and the grace of God, somehow, you have trusted and leaned upon Christ, and have done the water baptism and the mass as an incidental because you were told to do it, and were not really trusting in that.

Salvation by Grace Alone

So, Abraham is in fact the great rallying point of everybody who has been justified by faith, and that includes the Jews and the gentiles. In that respect, Abraham is our father also.

The kingdom of man now dominates the earth under Satan's authority. This has had various expressions over the centuries before and after the flood. Mankind obviously advanced civilization tremendously in subduing the earth, but in total disorientation from the realities of divine viewpoint. He was always in rebellion against God, and always fighting against the divine institutions. The kingdom of man, consequently, has been characterized by tyranny and by loss of freedom by various systems of trying to force unity in order to organize society without God.

Evolutionary Humanism

The Inerrancy of the Bible

Education

That is why every dictator that has ever come on the scene, including the ones that are in existence today, takes over a nation, and what's the first thing they do? What's the first thing Mussolini did? What's the first thing that Hitler did? What's the first thing that the communists do? They immediately zero in on the children. They immediately take over the kids, because they know that that's where it's to be won and lost. It's not on the adults. The adults aren't going to go this way or that way. But the kids don't know anything.

Public Schools

Christian Schools

In this city, we have a pastor or two that's just like that. They don't have their own Christian-based schools, but they promote Berean Christian Academy. I take it that the reason these people do it is because they really know what's going on. Parents don't know. They look at you and say, "Oh, my kids go to public school, and they turned out OK. Well, my kid wanted to go to the public school." Oh, is that right?

You better think it over if you haven't understood that evolutionary humanism is what Satan is propagating in our society today, and that if there was no public school system, his hands would be tied. Do you realize that? When churches were sponsoring schools, this nation was at the peak of its glory. Why? Because the minds of our children were being indoctrinated in divine viewpoint. But when education moved away from church direction, and became a state-sponsored operation, so that no spiritual implications could be put in except in a kind of a fringe way, then Satan was able to make forward progress in using the educational system of this nation for his goals. That is what is taking place.

The Wisdom of our Time

Daniel said that somebody is going to be living in a time like that. Consequently, in our society, people of learning are the authoritative voices in all matters. You and I listen to the people of training. You and I listen to the people of education. They are the authorities who speak.

Now, just how smart are the wise men in today's world? Our young people are impressed by these wise men, and the adults are awed by these wise men. Our secular educational system, based upon evolutionary humanism, is producing these wise men of our day. That is the place that the scientists are coming from. That is the place that the theologians are coming from: the businessmen; the politicians; and, the social leaders. All of these wise men whose voices we listen to are the products of our educational system. Our society is impressed by what they say.

Education has as its goal to instill the philosophies; the ideas; the customs; and, the culture of the adults and the kids. That's what education is all about. It's to instill an attitude (a viewpoint) in the children which the adults hold. In other words, it gives you a view of the world, and a view of life. It gives you a sense of values. And the view is Satan's evolutionary humanism.

Consequently, modern education nurtures rationalism; materialism; collectivism; evolution; and, relativism – everything that we call human viewpoint. And God is ignored, and biblical revelation is completely rejected in all of this. They do not consider that the Bible has anything to say at all relative to education.

So, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, "But the natural man (that is, the unsaved man) does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." And the people who are the wise men of our society do not discern spiritual things. Consequently, the things of God to them are foolishness.

Agnostics

Students are trained for various professions by our educational system: for occupations; and, for vocations. But they're never trained for a living. They have no guidelines of divine viewpoint as to what on earth to do with that science they learn; with that skill they develop; or, with that technique the learn. They are not trained for living. And false values are perpetrated for that. History is distorted; psychology is warped; and certainly, art is perverted. We have a mixture of truth with a great deal of error.

So, what do we have from the wise men of our age? Well, like any tree, you can know it by its fruit. What do we have today? We have people who are confused; who are unhappy; who are fearful; and, who are frustrated. If you saw the television program the other day, you saw and you heard right from the mouths of young people (teenagers on up) that suicide was a normal part of their lives, and a normal part of their thinking, and that that was a normal option for making choices in life, and for making decisions for solving problems. Here you saw these young, promising kids talking on the screen about suicide as a part of their lifestyle. Of course, that's the number one cause for death among young people: suicide.

So, the tree of the wise men of our day is not very hot after all. The world is divided against itself in chaos, and freedom is on the run everywhere. Society is filled with what? It is filled with: broken homes; juvenile delinquents; crying; insanity; racial hatred; riots; wars; and, death. All of this is the consequence of our educational system. Where personal honesty? Where is truthfulness? Where is justice? We don't have to look very far to see how corrupt business is. We don't even have to look as far as that to see how corrupt politics is.

Anita Bryant was on a program the other day. She turned Dade County, Florida around on its stand on homosexuality, where it had approved it. They had a referendum, and the people disapproved the ordinance, and they rejected homosexuality, in large measure because of Anita Bryant's campaigning. On the program the other day, she told what has happened to her. Her life has been threatened. By what? By perverts that God condemns; and, by the kind of thing that took place in Sodom and Gomorrah such that God wiped it off the face of the earth. So, she stands up to campaign for what? Again, for the preservation of the minds of our kids, because it's not just homosexuality in itself. The issue that was at stake here was that homosexuals could be school teachers. That's what the issue was. Therefore, they could influence an attitude in the minds of the children in Florida. She told how it has devastated her career and her profession; how she is being avoided; and, how companies don't want to use her to sponsor their ads, and so on – and the things she's been doing. It has closed her life down because she stood for righteousness.

What does that tell you about our society? It should make you have the same reaction that the book of Revelation says that God has toward the church at Laodicea, which represents our society today. And the picture we have in there is of a vomiting God. That's exactly what God says. He just throws up. It must be pretty bad. That's the kind of a perverted society we have.

Now, where did we get that? It's because education instilled this in the minds of our kids, and created a tolerance toward it. So, the Bible's estimate of man's education is very low indeed. We've already learned here in the first chapter of Romans what God's estimate was of it. Romans 1:21-22: "Because when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God; neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." So, the wisdom of man, demonstrated there in these verses, is a degenerative wisdom. God does not honor it at all.

You have a splendid example. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 3:18: "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may be wise." Verse 18 says that purportedly smart people of our day need to turn to biblical ideals to get smart – these very things that they call foolish.

Verse 19: "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He has taken the wise in their own craftiness.'" What the world calls being smart, God calls folly. And He traps the smug intellectuals in their own craftiness.

Verse 20: "And again the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise. They are vain. Verse 20 says that the thinking of the wise men of our day is nothing. God, who knows things as they really are, sees that man's reasoning is futile and ridiculous. The Christian does not need to be impressed by the unregenerate thinking of the wise men of our day, educated in the system of evolutionary humanism.

Verse 21: "Therefore, let no man glory in men, for all things are yours." That's talking about you as a Christian. All of God's wisdom is ours, and we have it in doctrine.

Verse 22: "Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come: all are yours." Again, he is declaring to us in this verse that all the realities of the universe are ours through God.

Verse 23: "And you are Christ, and Christ is God's." We belong to the source of truth.

The Millennium

Revelation 19:15-16: "And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron. And He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His vesture and on His thigh a name written: 'King of Kings and Lord of Lords.'"

People are going to experience a golden age of peace, prosperity, justice, and well-being. But they're going to have to be forced to it. They're going to have the greatest era in human history they've ever had, but they're going to have to be forced to it by a rod of iron rule on the part of Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder we make such poor choices today such that when we have that kind of an option, humanity can't grasp it, but has to be forced to it. Then knowledge is going to become a reality. The millennium will become the age of telling it like it is – the age of real divine viewpoint.

As you know, when the millennium begins, there are no unbelievers. When the millennium begins, they're all saved, born-again people. And one of the first things that's going to happen is reeducation in the minds of believers. Some of you are going to be way ahead of the game. Some of you are going to need a whole lot less education in the millennium than most of the church members are going to require. That is because you have had opportunity of doctrine extended to you, and you've responded to it. But for most of the believers, the great minds of that age are all going to be filled with false knowledge of every kind imaginable at the start of the millennium. Errors of all kinds will be in peoples' minds as a result of their evolutionary humanism in secular education.

So, what is true appears is a fable. Errors are viewed as the latest advancement in learning.

Open Classrooms

The public school just gave some tests in the mathematics area, and their kids scored way below the norm. Do you know what the administration did? It called the teachers up on the carpet. But some of the teachers were talking back, and they were telling them, "We'll tell you why we are scoring so poorly in the Irving schools in mathematics. It is because of this packet-teaching. It is because of the open classroom – the socialistic atmosphere which is created by being a part of a mob; a part of a mass; and, the loss of individuality, and thus of the desire of a student to achieve, and to stand out, and to accomplish.

Here's what Congressman Collins says: "'After a $3 million study in three years, the federal government now has documented proof that basics are better,' US Representative Jim Collins said recently in reference to a study completed by the United States Office of Education." Now, we knew that all along here at Berean Christian Academy. What could we have done had they given us the $3 million. We could have given them the results, and saved them the time; and, we'd have done something for education with that money.

"'The study was based on data from 9,200 children who were followed from third grade to the sixth grade. They were divided into two groups: one receiving a traditional education (such as we have at BCA); and, the other being taught in an open classroom with new techniques in reading and arithmetic. The results are dramatic,' Collins said. 'In all of the 100 participating cities, children taught by the basics far outscored those who were taught the fun way. This was true even though the per-pupil costs were made much higher for the free-and-easy group who were showered with teaching aides; audio visual gadgets; and, other devices intended to make the children feel better about school.'

"Collins is an advocate of removing federal influence from primary and secondary schools, and letting local school boards decide how their students will be taught. In particular, he has supported judging educators by their results rather than by how innovative they are, or how many advanced degrees they have."

That's well put. These educators are actually the wise men of our day. We try to tell people: "You're doing a terrible thing to let your child be over there in that humanistic system. You do a terrible thing to let your child ever walk into an open classroom." But are people listening to us? No, because the wise men (the professionals, supposedly in education) are the ones who are promoting this madness. And so people listen to them.

Unless those people happen to be in the church where they're getting God's viewpoint on these things, they don't know what's going on. They're incapable, consequently, of making any decisions. Truth is being made to appear as a fable, and error as the latest advancement in learning. Mis-education even holds the minds of the teachers captive, and they are in turn mis-educating our children.

Well, in the millennium, the educated are going to have to unlearn error and be educated in truth. In the millennium, the first thing that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to set up is a huge program of reeducation from human viewpoint to divine viewpoint. A huge program of reeducation is going to be one of the first things the Lord is going to have to do.

So, why be oriented today to something that someday you're going to have to reverse and straighten out? 1 Corinthians 1:18-29 and 1 Corinthians 2:6-9 tell us about the foolishness of that. What an era of education there is ahead for the world in the Kingdom of God, when all learning and all knowledge is going to be compatible to divine viewpoint; to theistic creationism; and, to doctrine. Christian schools do it now. That's why they should be supported. That's why they should be promoted, because they're the preserving salt. This nation is going to stand or fall on what we do to the minds of our children. You today can think in the way that Christ is going to be reeducating the millennial world by the Word of God – by doctrine.

We tell you that you must live on the basis of the Word of God daily; and, that you should set aside time, whether you're driving your car, or wherever it is, to take in doctrine every day. The reason for that is made very evident to me all the time, because I'm in the business of listening to tapes of studies that we made, maybe a year-and-a-half or longer ago, in the process of editing tapes and listening to the materials before we put them out in production. And what I discover is that I'm listening to tapes up there, and our editors have the same problem. I have to warn the editors about this all the time. They forget to edit, and they start listening to the information: "I didn't know. I forgot about that." And I'm sitting down and listening: "That's good. I wouldn't have said! I didn't know that! I'm glad to get that straight." I turn it back, and pretty soon I'm sitting there listening to this tape to get this information in my mind.

What's happening? Why do you have to listen to tapes? Well, you say, "I sat here and heard them made the first time." Yeah, but you had the problem that Peter recognized believers had. So, Peter wrote them two letters, and Peter knew that somebody was going to say, "Peter, we've heard all this in your two letters, and we heard all this that you said." Peter says, "I know, and I'm going to tell you I'm doing it."

2 Peter 3:1: "This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both of which I stir up your to minds by way of remembrance, that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the apostles of the Lord and Savior. I stir up your pure minds (your divine viewpoint oriented minds) by way of remembrance." You can't remember it all. And some Sunday, some very vital divine viewpoint principle is taught that will mean worlds in your life. But someplace farther down the line, you'll forget it. It slips away from you. But if you've listen to the material again, you're constantly refreshing. You're constantly keeping your reservoir of viewpoints filled up. And when you listen to a tape, you learn it better when you listen to the same tape, because after a while, you know what's coming. You get used to a tape, and you know what's coming next. This is coming next, and this is coming next. The very fact that it's the same way every time seals it into your memory, and puts it down into your soul where it's usable.

So, just because you've heard it the first time doesn't mean that you should not listen. It's by way of stirring up your minds to remembrance. So, I'd suggest that you go up there; take the first tape out on the Philippians series; and say, "I'm going to do the whole advanced Bible Doctrine series again, or whatever; and, start in and start listening. You don't have to listen to the whole 45 minutes. Listen to part of it. Separate it as it's convenient to you. But I know that in a group like this, there are some people here that do not listen to the Word of God every day. There are some people here that do not get into the word every day. And there are some people here that consequently, are not feeding on the Word of God, and their spiritual lives are being hurt by it. They are not thereby capable of coping with the evolutionary humanism which is thrust upon us from every direction, not the least of which is television, which has reached a new low of wasteland and of degradation this season than ever before.

You may be a hotshot making money, and you may be a hot shot that's important in your community, and that people stand up and listen to, and that's impressive, but this is not where it's at, friend. When it's out there on the other side, and when you're out there in the Lord's presence in eternity, that's where it's going to be. And the only way you are going to be a substantial, well-rewarded person there is because you said on the Word of God. That's the fuel, and you fed on it day-by-day.

So, I'd suggest that you storm up to that tape room, and get yourself operational, because it's very hard to keep your thinking straight, when many of us are the products of public school education, and we've had to do our unlearning now. The whole world is going to have to do it when Abraham's promised kingdom is brought about.

Now, just to tie this up, I want to look at the divine replacement that God has for the kingdom of man. It began, of course, with the call of Abraham. Abraham lived in Ur on the plain of Shinar where the Tower of Babel stood in the land of the Chaldeans on the Euphrates River. Abraham's family worshiped idols, Joshua 24:2 tells us. The family was descended from the line of Noah's son, Shem. They were Shemites. The gentile Abraham was positive toward the evidence of a true God in the midst of the sophisticated idolatry that he lived in in Ur. God revealed himself to this positive gentile Abram, and Abram was born again. That's what Romans 4:3 has told us. In Acts 7:2, Steven reiterates that fact. God called Abraham to leave Ur and his family, and to move to a land called Canaan. We had this in Genesis 12:1, Acts 7:3, and Hebrews 11:8.

The promise to Abraham was that he was to become heir of the world. The call to move from earth, consequently, was accompanied by certain promises which were made by God to Abraham. These were promises relative to the establishment of God's rule on this earth, the kingdom of God on the earth. So, we refer to this as the Abrahamic Covenant.

The Abrahamic Covenant

Land

So, the establishment of the Kingdom of God on this earth began with promising to this new family line (this new breed of humanity) a land which they would possess forever.

A Seed

They would say, "What's your name?" He would say, "Abraham." They would say, "Oh, father of many nations. Do you have a big family then?" And he would reply, "No, I don't have any children." They would say, "You don't have any children, but you're father of many nations." And they made fun of poor Abraham. And this poor dude was 100 years old. You don't start many families at 100 years old. His wife was 90. She was not what we call a spring chicken either.

So, these people got a lot of razzing about this: the father of many nations, with no children. This was humiliating to Abraham. We're going to find what he did about that. But God said, "I'm going to give you a seed. One day he took him out of his tent, out there under that Syrian sky. For all we know, God may have appeared to him in the form of the angel of Jehovah in the theophany, and stood next to him, and said, "Abraham, look up there. Do you see the Milky Way? Do you see that splash of stars? Start counting. That's how great your descendants are going to be someday." God promised to give him a seed.

This was confirmed later in the Davidic Covenant. And you may read about that in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, because this seed was going to involve the governmental authority of the Davidic lines.

Blessing

Each of these factors indicated something very specific as the promise that God gave to Abraham, which was going to be the basis of bringing the Kingdom of God on this earth. The promise of land meant that ownership was unconditional. The possession would be based on obedience. When they were not obedient, He'd take them out of the land. But it would be their land forever. The seed was based upon the fact that they would have a house; that is, a dynasty. They would have a kingdom, and they would have a throne. They would have a ruler. The blessing meant that there would be the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There would be a new nature; a new heart; and, a new mind. And there would be forgiveness of sins.

All of that would be based upon this Abrahamic Covenant. This covenant was repeated several times to Abraham to encourage him as he had his pilgrim walk through the land of Canaan. He never inherited any of this land himself. When his wife died, he had to buy a little piece of land to bury her. But it was confirmed again and again (Genesis 12:6-7, Genesis 13:14-17, Genesis 15:1-21, Genesis 17:1-19, Genesis 22:15-18, Genesis 26:3-4, Exodus 6:2-8). These were repeated confirmations of this Abrahamic Covenant.

These verses are the pivotal verses of Scripture. This promise to Abraham was unconditional. The only condition was that he would accept the offer. Once he accepted the offer, and demonstrated it by moving out of Ur of the Chaldees, it was in effect. He believed God; he moved out; and, the covenant was in effect. This covenant will be fulfilled, though it has not been yet. The ultimate fulfillment is up to God alone. It is not dependent on Abraham's character, or Abraham's obedience, or that of his descendants. It is only dependent upon the character and the promise of God.

Abraham is going to be a blessing to all nations because the Kingdom of God is going to come upon this earth through him. He was the channel of the Savior. He was the channel of the written Scriptures. He was the channel of blessing on gentiles, particularly those who blessed Jews. Don't ever mistreat a Jew. This rule still holds, and you'll get in a lot of trouble if you go abusing and persecuting Jews.

So, Abraham left Ur and followed the Fertile Crescent route into Canaan. He became a believer. He was born again, and he became the first Jew. He is called Abraham the Hebrew. The word Hebrew means "the one who has crossed over." He chose to cross over from Ur, the area of human viewpoint darkness, into the land of promise, the area of divine viewpoint.

The Friend of God

He became the heir of the world by faith in God's promise apart from his works. You and I are going to share in that heirship, because as his spiritual descendants, we're going to have a primary role to play in this millennial kingdom ourselves. But it's all based upon believing what God has said.

So, refresh your minds by way of remembrance of what doctrine says to you, and you'll go a long way toward being reeducated that most of society who are believers are going to have to experience in the millennium. As a matter of fact, if you go far enough ahead, you'll probably end up being the teachers. It is the Word of God. Stay with it.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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