Grace and Ignorant Intellectuals
RO79-01

© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1977)

Please open your Bibles to Romans 6:19-23 as we begin a new section. This is the first part on the subject of "Two kinds of slavery."

The apostle Paul has been dealing in this with the attack made in verse 15 – that being under grace and not under law means that a person is free to do evil. And Paul has responded to that with that characteristic phrase: "By no means." That is not the case at all. Paul's answer is that a Christian under grace is under as much a restraining authority as the unbeliever is under the restraining authority of the sin nature. The Christian is under the restraining the authority of the absolute righteousness of God.

Slavery

Paul uses the well-known institution of human slavery to illustrate his point in this matter. Slaves have no free will. They must obey the authority of the slave master. Everyone is born into the human race as a slave of the sin nature. We have a natural compulsion to evil. Those who have believed the pattern of doctrine known as grace salvation through faith, apart from human doing, have been made slaves of God's absolute righteousness.

So, a Christian is, in point of fact, Paul emphasizes, transferred from one authority to another authority: from the authority of the sin nature to the authority of God's righteousness. While Christians then have been emancipated from the authority of the old sin nature, they have, on the other hand, been enslaved to the authority of divine righteousness. They are not lawless or without authority.

Paul's point, thus, is that a Christian still does not exercise his own will, but must obey a new master: God who demands righteousness. It is true that a Christian can disobey his new master, and can resort to the evil propensity of the sin nature. But a sinning Christian will be disciplined by God, his new slave master, until he acts and righteousness. God, as a slave master, will demand proper response, even as sin, as a slave master demands proper response.

So, we begin with verse 19, with Paul pausing to explain to us why he has used an illustration which, in some respects, does not seem suitable when you talk about the liberty and freedom of grace, to be using an illustration drawn from human slavery. So, in verse 19, he begins with the phrase, "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh." This word "speak" looks like this in Greek: "lego." This is the word for "speaking" or for "saying" in the Greek language which stresses the content of what is said rather than stressing the words themselves (the actual words that are used). So, Paul is referring back to these verses 16-18 in which he has been using this illustration of slavery. And he is saying, "I'm talking about this, and I'm talking about the content." He's referring to the content in verses 16-18 – not the actual words that he used as such.

We have the contrast drawn here with another Greek word which looks like this: "laleo." "Laleo" also means "to say," but this is the word that stresses the actual words that are used.

So, the Greek has a way of saying it both ways. If you want to say, "I'm talking about the content," he says it one way. If he says, "I am stressing the particular actual words," then he says it another way. And that very often gives us considerable spiritual illumination of what God the Holy Spirit has recorded.

For example, if you'll turn for a moment to John 12:49, we can illustrate the two uses of these words for "say:" Jesus says, "For I have not spoken of Myself (or that is, from Myself), but the Father who sent Me. He gave me a commandment what I should say." And there it is this word "lego," stressing the content. Jesus says, "God the Father gave Me the content of what I should deliver to you." And then the last phrase says, "And I should speak," and that uses this word "laleo," stressing the words. So God the Father, just as to the writers of Scripture, gave to Jesus Christ, in His humanity, not only the content of information that He was to deliver to people, but even gave Him the guidance of the specific words in which He was to deliver it.

Now, that's a fantastic revelation. Jesus Christ spoke to us. And when you read His words, you are reading content from the mind of God as information. You are reading words that God has selected so that that content can be accurately delivered, and thus accurately understood.

So, people who make fun of the technique of preaching which takes the people of God back to the language in which the Bible was originally written, are people who do not understand how critical that technique is to coming to an understanding of the Word of God. You, as an individual believer, have no way of knowing that you have what God thinks on a subject unless you have it from the words that God has used. That is the only way that you can say, "I am listening to the authority of God. I am not listening to some preacher's opinion."

Women in Churches

Turn to 1 Corinthians 14:34. Here's another example of the difference between the uses of these two words: "Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak." There the word "to speak" is this word "laleo," which is the word for the actual words used. It is not permitted for a woman, when the congregation has gathered for official worship, to speak (to use words). Actual getting up and talking is what is emphasized here. But they are commanded to be under obedience as also says the Law," referring here to the Law of Moses. And the word "says" here is "lego" – using the word that stresses content.

Now you can go back to the Law of Moses and say, "Now where does the Old Testament say that a woman is to be under obedience to her husband?" If you did so, you would not find these actual words that Paul is using here, but you would find this actual content. Paul says, "The content of what the Law says of a woman's place in subjection to her husband, and in subjection in spiritual things, when the congregation gathers in official session for information from God, the content is there." And the implications of that are that a woman is not to stand up and speak. Therefore, the way she is not to speak is that she just doesn't use words. I think all of you can see that if a woman does not use words, she's not going to speak.

So, the Bible very carefully uses this word that the woman is not permitted to speak. She's not permitted to get up and say one word. So, when Catherine Kuhlman stands up, and takes her Bible in hand, or any of her ilk in the charismatic movement of the women preacher group, and she begins teaching and instructing, she is out of line with the content of what the Old Testament had said relative to the role of women, and out of line with the specific statement here of the apostle Paul in the New Testament that she is speaking words. When he says, "They are to be silent," he means they are not to use any words. They are not to do the teaching. They are not to do the speaking.

I realize that the president of the United States, Mr. Carter, has said that at this point he does not agree with the apostle Paul in what he has taught about women. That, of course, crushes as all of us tremendously because we thought Paul knew what he was talking about. The fact is, we even thought God the Holy Spirit knew what He was talking about, and he even took the trouble to use these kinds of specific, detailed words. But I think God the Holy Spirit knows what He's talking about.

Libido

If you want to turn back to the Law, to where this content is, you'll find it is Genesis 3:16. Genesis 3:16 says, "Unto the woman, He said (this was God's judgment because of her part in the original sin), "I will greatly multiply your sorrow in your conception. You shall bring forth children. Childbearing will be a painful process. And your desire shall be to the husband, and he shall rule over you. The Hebrew word, therefore, "desire is the Hebrew word to "teshuqah" and "teshuqah" means "yearning" or "longing." And there is within the heart of every woman, a yearning and a longing for fulfillment, which can only be fulfilled in her right man. This quality is known as "libido." That's our word for it. The same Hebrew "word for it is "teshuqah" (Yearning). It crops up in girls around the age of 12, and then it kind of cools off, and then it crops up pretty heavily at ag16, at which point a lot of them make the serious mistake of getting married, and getting into horrible marriages. And they have to try to survive that. Every parent has to say, "Now, how can I help my girls survive from 16 on to 20?" She kind of cools off a little, but then she gets hit around 20 and 21 in a really big with the "teshuqah" quality. She just wants a man. This is a natural God-created desire for fulfillment, but she can't make the decision between something like 16 and 21-22 very well, and make it right.

So, a lot of the disasters of marriage come just because here is a divine compulsion that somebody has not trying this girl how to control. So, every parent has to say, "Now how am I going to help her to control?"

For example, you're going to have a train that runs away, and this train does not have brakes, and you're at the top of a hill. And you're going to say, "Now, how can I keep this train from going downhill and being on a runaway? And you think this over. It doesn't have brakes. This girl doesn't have any control. She's 16 to 20, and she has no built-i controls that doesn't have brakes. How am I'm going to keep her from running away. There's something that's going to be a disaster (a crash).

Dating

Well, you might say, "I know how to keep the train from being a runaway. Don't let it get started downhill on that track. Isn't that simple. Parents have to think of all the ways to keep their daughters from getting themselves on the track where there's a runaway, like pairing off with one boy, and being cozy with one person, instead of with a group of kids, and dating before they're out of their high school years. One of the biggest human viewpoint factors in our society is to let the kids date when they're in high school here. These children, they don't even know what's going on. Some of these kids are 16- and 17-year-olds, and you're still telling them to wipe their nose, and to get their teeth brushed. But they're going to have dates.

The Authority of the Husband

God knows that they need the guidance. And it's up to parents to say I've got ahead this character off at the pass. And these parents come to me wringing their hands with the problems that have developed in the lives of their kids, and where their kids are, and how they're acting. And it's hard for me to be sympathetic for them because I know that these pathetic creatures did not take the trouble to say to themselves, and to think through for themselves ahead of time how they were going to preclude their children from getting in a position where they were on a runaway track. If you don't have the brains as a parent to know that that's the way you avoid problems, by not opening the door to them in the first place, you're not very bright to begin with. God says in the Old Testament that this principle that the woman is going to be fulfilled in her man, and he in turn will rule over her. That rule means that she does what he tells her to do. Rule means he's under his absolute authority. Rule means that he's the master and she's the slave. That's what rule means.

While you stop vibrating for a moment, just remember that the offensiveness of that concept, and it is offensive, in our day, is only because of the human viewpoint that has absorbed the mentality of American womanhood. We are a nation lost from the anchor point of God. Therefore, we don't know up from down anymore in any human relationship whatsoever. We are an evil oriented people in these relationships.

The apostle Paul, here in this simple little way, is using Greek words to make something that is so clear on the pages of Scripture. You can't read this in the Greek text and not understand that women are not to be in positions of authority over men. The way this is described is that they are not to use words because authority is expressed in words. Authority is exercised in words. Can you imagine a military situation where an officer exercises authority without using words? It is words that are the vehicle of authority, and that is why the apostle Paul says, "She does not use words," because that fulfills the content of what the Law has said.

In 1 Timothy 2:11-12, you had this principle summed up, and it's a good one for us to pause periodically to consider: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." There it is. Mr. Carter knows something that we don't know why this is not true, but until we catch up to his wisdom, we're just going to have to sort of go along with God, do the best we can: "I don't permit a woman to teach" (that is, to teach a man) or to exercise authority). I do not permit her to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence (not to use words)." The apostle Paul in another place, in 1 Peter says, "If you want to win your unsaved husband, and if you want to win your carnal husband, do it without words.

I'm amazed how into Christians who should know better, and I'm running into them all the time, particularly women, are actually trying to resist this principle of Scripture. They are actually women who have written books to prove that none of this means what it sounds like it means. Isn't that wonderful? None of these things mean what they says. And I'm having books recommended for my reading that will help me to see that Paul does not mean that women cannot be pastors of churches; that women cannot be spiritual leaders over men; that women cannot be teachers of men in spiritual things, and so on. And when you look at the Word of God and what it very clearly says, "You get a new respect for what it means to be a slave of the sin nature' what fools it makes of us; how it distorts our thinking; what arrogance it creates in us; what vileness it brings forth; and, what catastrophe's it brings into our lives, because we don't want to believe and accept what God has so kindly informed us so that we know what reality is.

Anybody who tries to break this relationship, as the feminist (or the women's enslavement) movement tries to do, can't win because it's against reality. When you read things like this isn't the same as reading that with your fancy new car, you must do certain things to it in maintenance to receive maximum service from it. This is a manual. This is how people work. This is how human relationships are structured. And you're not going to get around God. I don't care how you don't like it. I don't care how your teenage daughter objects to the fact that you say, "Just be a nice girl, and enjoy your girlhood with all the kids, and we'll let you worry about having a boyfriend later when you're growing up, and you're out of high school, and you can handle that stuff a little more. But right now your "teshuqah" is showing all over, and your libido is just flashing all over, all of us know what's happening to you, and we're going to try to help you sweat it through. You're a junkie on love, and we're going to help you through it. And just don't make any bones about it." And she might be able to survive.

Boys, I don't quite have this problem. They get into it a little later, but they're certainly quite happy to take advantage of any girl that is dumb enough to play house with them.

Paul is stressing here in these words then the content of his illustration rather than the terminology itself. When he says, "I speak" I'm referring, Paul says, to the content of this illustration I have used. This words "lego" is in the present tense, and it means that Paul constant action in this case is implied here in this way. Paul is doing the talking, and it's indicative. And it's a statement of fact.

And then he uses the word "after the manner of men." This is actually one word in Greek. It's "anthropinos." Now you can see that it has this word on purpose in there, which is the Greek word for man (not really man as a male– but mankind0. It is the generic term for "humanity." and "anthropinos), and it is an adjective, and it really means "in fashion" or "belonging to man. Ge's referring to the human practice of slavery, which New Testament readers understood well. And Paul means that he's using an illustration drawn from the ordinary affairs of human beings – things that people can relate to.

Now this is an important point because it stands first in the great sentence. If you had a great Bible before you this morning, as some of you do, you will notice that that stands first in the sentence, and that's a place of emphasis. Paul want to stress, humanly speaking now: "I'm talking from the frame of reference that people can understand. And his point is "I'm not quite conveying what is true. And you might wonder why am I talking about the richness and the freedom of the position of grace in terms of slavery. But I can convey something to you by using slavery as an illustration, because it's a human point of reference that you can understand.

So, Paul says, "I'm using this illustration, though you may wonder why I'm doing it, because you and I can relate to this in our human experience. So, he means, humanly speaking. We would say, "I speak this in human terms." And he does this for a reason. He says, "I do this because. The word because it is the preposition "dia," which introduces the reason for illustrating the position of grace with the human experience of slavery. Because of what? Because you have an infirmity which is an "asthenia." "Astheneia" actually comes from two words. The first part here is this letter "a." In the Greek language grammar, is called an alpha privative, which means that it's a negative. The 'a' indicates negative. The last part of the word here comes from the word "sthenos," which means "strong." So, the "a means negative, and we translate it as "weakness" or "frailty." The word connotes "an inability to produce results." It connotes "limitations."

So, Paul says, "I'm using an illustration which on the surface might not seem to be a proper illustration from the point of view of human experience, because you have a limitation upon you, and this limitation is in your (that is, the referring to the Roman Christians) 'flesh'. 'That is the word "sarx.". This is a noun. It refers to the Roman Christians as human beings in their natural fallen and condition in sin. This is simply referring to the human being part of the Roman Christians – their status as human beings who have a fallen sin nature. Their humanity has been distorted and limited by the evil of the sin nature. They are functioning on human viewpoint.

Paul recognizes that man by nature finds it hard to grasp and to accept divine viewpoint concepts. God's method of grace is alien to fallen man, and he readily distorts the idea of grace into the concept of license to do evil. That is the attack in verse 15. Please remember that all through the rest of this from verses 15-23, Paul is taking up this question (this attack), and he's answering it.

Grace as Slavery Conveys Authority but not the Freedom of Grace

So, he's still answering the attack that if you are under grace and not under law, you can do any evil thing you want to do. Grace as slavery conveys the authority concept, but not the freedom of grace. So, the illustration is limited. Nevertheless, Paul's point in using the slavery illustration is to make it clear that even though you are a Christian under the freedoms of grace, you are under authority. And that's the problem. The problem with society today is the problem of authority. Wherever we turn, the issue is authority. By what authority are certain things being done? By what authority are they properly and rightly done? By what authority are they permitted to be done? No matter where you look, it's an issue of authority. The apostle Paul is meeting this attack that grace means you can sin like the devil by say "No." While you are under authority, when you are a slave of sin, you are also under authority when you are under grace, because grace is a different kind of slavery. It's another slavery condition.

So, the Christian, while still enslaved, has different results.

Paul slavery illustration conveys the believer's position, which resulted from God's judicial solution for the old sin nature problem. I remind you again that we are in this current section and we have been since Romans 5:12, dealing with God as judge, solving the problem of sin, solving the problem of the sin nature; and, solving the problem of our propensity to evil. Very shortly now, when we get to Romans 7:7, we're going to start dealing with the solution for the sin nature in our experience. And that's going to be a very fascinating area of Scripture– how we deal with this thing in our personal experience (our acts of evil) and how we cope with it.

However, right now, God is still trying to tell us what is true about us apart from anything you do. That's what you must understand. We're still talking about what God as Judge, has taken over, and solved the problem of enslavement, of the sin nature. Now, whether you're a good Christian; a bad Christian; an ignorant Christian; or, an instructed Christian is beside the point. God is saying, "I want to tell you what your status is before Me so that you'll understand that." And we go from there.

IQ

The problem with human understanding is not IQ capacity. It's the capacity (it's the ability to grasp spiritual truth). This is what Paul pointed out in 1 Corinthians 2:14, when he said, "But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." When you talk about spiritual things to the average unbeliever, or to the carnal Christian, he thinks that the stuff is foolishness. He thinks it's stupid; he thinks it's nonsense; and, he recoils from it. But that doesn't mean he's an ignorant person. If you were to give him an IQ test, this guy come out 125, or maybe 150. He'd come out a good chunk of intelligence.

That's not his problem. But he has an incapacity to grasp spiritual phenomena. Before the fall, Adam had no problem understanding everything that God brought relative to spiritual matters. Adam had full capacity to enter into all spiritual phenomena. But once the fall took place, a very terrible thing happened to man's mentality. It got warped and distorted from reality. It just got twisted away. So, man looks at things, and his spiritual vision is so distorted that an inversion takes place. What he should love, he hates. What he should hate, he loves. He gets the thing all mixed up. Everything comes out backwards.

The most devastating effect of the fall was the effect upon the mentality of the soul – the capacity to communicate with God, and the capacity to learn and to function on spiritual things. And you and I are not free of that inherent limitation, even as believers. The worst thing that happened to us in the fall was up here in the head – the mentality of the brain being twisted so that it could not grasp and understand God's divine viewpoint.

Ignorant Intellectuals

So, the world today is filled with ignorant intellectuals. Here is a new term that I just came up with, and I think you'll hear it frequently. They are ignorant intellectuals. It's not a matter of IQ. Very, very smart people are ignorant people relative to what is real. They are ignorant intellectuals when it comes to reality. And I used to try to point this out in the 1960s when we've have some college kids come up, and they'd be so impressed, and they'd go to state universities, and some of them were really brainy kids we had around here (and there are would not anything wrong with the kids we have now), but I mean, they were brainy then, too.

Anyway, we had these kids and they were so caught up with the revolts and the moratoriums, and the marching in the streets, and the anti-Vietnam movements. And the arguments of these kids, I discovered again and again, as they came home, and they'd be back home visiting the church service. They would tell me the things that they were involved in, and their sympathy for these students. And their defense was, "These are terrifically intelligent kids. I mean, these are the best ideas we have on campus." And I would try to point out to them that is not a matter of IQ. It's a matter of the capacity to discern reality, which only a spiritual frame of reference enables you to do, and that they were dealing with ignorant intellectuals.

Once you grasp the principle of ignorant intellectuals, you'll never again be bowled over by somebody who has a lot of degrees, and a lot of education, and a lot of exposure to experience, who can speak with authority, but who speaks with ignorance in spiritual matters. Your human IQ will not cut it with God.

So, today the world is filled with these ignorant intellectuals. Human viewpoint is distorting the thinking of people from truth in all areas. Just look at the relation between the sexes. Do we need to see what the ignorant intellectuals have done there – these women who were at the forefront of these women movements? These are high-IQ girls. These are intellectuals, but they are ignorant women, and there's no other word to describe them. But if you came up to them and said, "My lady, you are an ignorant person," they would recoil in indignation. But by God's standard, that's all they are. On the human level, they are smart, but on the spiritual level, they are stupid. They are ignorant, intellectual.

Eternity

Thus they are championing causes that the Word of God says, "If you do this, you hurt yourself. If you try living like this in relations between men and women, you will destroy yourself. You will cut yourself out of fulfillment. And the worst part of all will come out in eternity. Please don't kid yourself and don't try to kid me either, that we don't have this streak running wide and big through Christian women as well. It's there. And if it's not dealt with, it leads to self-destruction.

Human Government

Look at the role of human government. Our government is filled with ignorant intellectuals, and they are completely distorting the reality and the purpose of government in what they are trying to do with government that the Word of God forbids and never permitted government to do. Look at the economic system. We have ignorant intellectuals who actually think that it is better for us to live under socialism in a communal system than the free enterprise system. We have ignorant intellectuals who are constantly haranguing away at big business. And most people today do not know that big business on the average has a 5% profit margin. After all the millions and billions of dollars that big corporations deal with, when it comes right down to the profit that's left over, after all the reinvestment, and the coming up of better lifestyles for us, the money they take home to spend at Six Flags over Texas is 5%. You can even get more than that in a savings account, if you're dumb enough to put your money in a bank savings account, or even a savings alone, instead of putting it in gold and silver. You can get more than 5% there. But look at all the mouthing we have against big business, which is what makes jobs, and has given us our lifestyle.

These people are objecting. That's ignorant intellectuals, and they're out to beat big business bloody. And our young people think that that's wonderful. There's such a hatred against making profit in this country. It's ignorance of economics.

Education

We have ignorance on authority lines. I don't have to spell that out to you. There are schools in this country where teachers cannot tell students what to do without finding themselves shot or clubbed and beaten at the end of class. There are schools in parts of the country where they have to have policemen patrolling the halls to protect the teachers from the students. What in the world has happened to the authority system? Are the schools are run by ignorant low-IQ people on the school boards and on the faculty. No, they're ignorant intellectuals, folks?

This is what Paul is saying. You have an innate built in structure through your slavery that is in nature, that makes you an ignorant intellectual.

Public School Textbooks

We have educational goals, we have this same thing. Where are we going in education? We've gone over that many times. Some of you may have received the newsletter from the Gablers at Longview who analyzed the textbooks that our Texas children are using in public schools. This month, the state adopting agency has to make the decisions, and the Gablers have been raising Cain down at Austin again this past summer, because I want to read you a little bit of what is in the textbooks that the kids in our public schools study.

I want to read you some of this to the "American Citizenship Program," published by "Scholastic magazine." And the Gablers say. The text discusses the world population problem in such a way that students will feel responsible, and will be tempted to approve limitations such as, 'Should Governments try to limit the number of children a family can have to two, and punish parents who have more? If so, how should such parents be punished? Should they be jailed? Should they have to pay a fine? Or should they have to pay a special tax on every additional child beyond the government limitation?"

Now why are such unconstitutional ideas being implanted in the minds of children in schools? From American government, Webster McGraw-Hill says, "One threat to a president's safety is the easy availability of handguns. Strict legislation to control handguns would help protect the president as well as other people." How ignorant do you have to be to think that if you take guns away from people, the criminals who want to do the assassinating will not have them anymore?

Socialism

Socialism is not depicted as a failure. It always is in practice. The book says under a picture, "Norman Thomas being arrested in 1925. For many years, the Socialist Party was considered to be a radical party." Is a socialist party no longer considered to be radical? By whose viewpoint? American Government, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston says, "Some of these opponents view women as helpers to their husbands. They do not see them as independent individuals. But this view not only restricts the rights of married women. It also ignores the millions of women who are not married and will never marry." Now that match that up against what you just heard from Scripture today. On what right now some ignorant intellectual have to be interjecting these viewpoints in the minds of high school students.

The books on health came under attack too. Here's one: Help for Living for Today and Tomorrow, published by Laidlaw Brothers: "Give your students an opportunity to role play people drinking at social gatherings. Some of the students can play nondrinkers; others moderate drinkers; others heavy drinkers; others responsible drinkers; and, others alcoholics. What kind of a class exercise is that? Here is a teacher. We're going to have a lesson on alcohol today. How many of you want to be social drinkers only? How many you want to be light drinkers? How about if you want to be drunks?" "Me, everybody wants to be drunks. OK, now let's all do it. We're going to gather here. We're at a social party, and we're going to play roles. Well when you play roles, what you do is you program the subconscious. Remember those lessons we had in Philippians, and then when the opportunity for a drink comes, bingo, you practice what you've been programed to do. Ignorant intellectuals have written these books with a purpose.

I'm not talking about the Ayatollah Khomeini made business over there and his set up. I'm talking about the United States of America, the land of the free, the home of the brave, the citadel of ignorant intellectuals. And this is the stuff that your kids are reading in public school textbooks. These are the brand new textbooks, by the way, in case some of you thought, "Oh, well, we're through with that ignorance. That we've had in the past."

This is what's coming up. Here's one published by Houghton Mifflin investigating your health. Communes are introduced as one of four types of family groups in order to present varying lifestyles. The text lists four reasons in favor of communes, and only one against. In favor of communes, rent is cheaper. That's true – you live in a cave. Greater social aspects. That's right. You don't have to have just your own wife or husband. Sharing child rearing responsibilities. You let them run all around the case. Children will have other children for playmates. That's true. Lots of them.

Against commune type: if membership changes a lot, adults and children may become insecure and confused. Well we can live with that, can't we? Now this is what your high school kids are sitting and learning in the latest textbooks on health.

Scott Forseman, 1979: "Health: the Way of Life." "Try to keep a dream log. Before going to bed, place a pencil and paper nearby. Write down whatever you remember. If you do not wake up after your dreams, try setting your alarm clock to wake up two hours after you usually fall asleep or dream." Educational goals are completely gone right now.

Thank God that we have at least two very powerful sources in our country now that are producing Christian textbooks, and one of them is going at it in a magnificent way. They're both doing a good job, but one of them is really producing high-quality intellectual Christian textbooks. And it's fantastic. We have a ninth grade science book now that is geared entirely to presenting science from the frame of reference that Galileo and Newton and Kepler and Faraday and all the great men of science who began with the frame of reference that God is out there, and it brings to tears to our eyes when we see His wonders through our telescopes and discover His marbles in our laboratories. And He is there; we glorify Him; the heavens declare His handiwork; and, we're delighted that we're part of his family, and that God is an orderly God. Therefore we can learn how to make things work. There are rules, and there are natural laws, and they'll work.

Well, here's a science book that's written from that point of view. It'll never get in the public schools. It's got all the high quality of science information, but it's got the perspective. And certainly ignorant intellectualism is clearly evidenced in religion and the Bible. There we have a man at his finest distortion and his finest confusion.

The Bible says that ignorant intellectuals have the hardest time becoming spiritually intelligent and entering heaven. So, in 1 Corinthians 1:26, the apostle Paul makes this sobering statement: "For you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many might, not many noble are called God. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world, the things which are despised, that God chosen; and, things which are not to bring to nothing things that are; that no flesh should glory in His presence."

The Grace System of Perception

It's not the people with the high IQ that are going to make it with God. All of you are acquainted, I trust by now, with the great system of perception. I'll not go through the stages of that. But the basic principle that that teaches is that spiritual things are not dependent upon your intellectual IQ. Spiritual things are the result of your being willing to be open to instruction of doctrine, and to be positive toward what you have been taught. Therefore, everybody, no matter what his IQ, starts at an even level there. It makes all IQs equal. It overcomes the natural blindness and distortions. Divine viewpoint is attacked as a system very often that people cannot live by.

This is one thing I notice it as one of the attacks against Berean Memorial Church. From time to time, somebody will say, "Oh boy." They'll come to a service, and I hear this pretty regularly: "Nobody can live like that." They'll sit in the service and they'll hear us talking about things you've today: "Nobody can live like that." What are they saying? Right away I know that here's a slave – a poor, pathetic slave of the propensity to sin, which is within us, and their mind comes up with human viewpoint distortions of reality. And then God says, "This is normal." This is reality. This is the way people function."

The people say, "People can't live like that," meaning that they, as slaves of the sin nature cannot live like that. And when they come into a place like this, and they hear the principles of divine viewpoint laid out to them, it is foolishness. It is nonsense, it is impossibility.

Reversion

So, the apostle Paul has begun his explanation of why he's using this illustration by pointing out that there's a weakness within us as human beings when it comes to grasping spiritual phenomena; to acting upon spiritual phenomena; and, perhaps worst of all, to staying with the spiritual phenomena that we have grasped. That perhaps is the worst problem of all – that we, who are members of the family of God, even when we get hold of reality, we are prone to the reversionism that destroys it all again.

So, the apostle Paul says, "I have to talk to you in a way that conveys the realities, even though maybe the illustration isn't quite fitting." We'll go on with this next time. From here, he comes now, in the rest of this verse, to applying this principle of slavery to our situation in the past and in the future.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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