Reading - Transcript Conclusion

Steve - Well, Henry, this is session number nine. And  

Henry - Our mini course is coming to an end. I'm kind of sad about it. It's fun to  be over 60 Now in my 60s decades to join me. Yeah. Come on the waters not so bad, I guess not. So here we go.  

Steve - So critical Grace theory, why all of the some of the questions we've been trying to answer a why all this social unrest going on over these topics. And why  all the narcissism, the selfishness, the self absorbedness that seems to be a  part of all of this, why, why are we experiencing all this? 

Henry - we live in a culture that has let go the belief in God. 

Steve - number two, let go of the belief in the Bible and therefore, any sense of  truth. Number three, let go of the community called the church. Number four, let  go of our belief in the need for grace. Let go of our belief in the acceptance of  the work of Jesus on the cross. people have let go of God, people let go of truth  people have let go of the church. So they don't have community we've let go the sense of the nuclear family. Some people don't have strong families, they don't  have extended families They don't have close friends.  

Henry - There's abuse. There's exploitation, sex trafficking. One terrible atrocity  after the other I mean, it was in my father's lifetime was in World War II. The  Holocaust there's the Vietnam War that we were young enough, I mean, we  weren't quite young enough to be in it, but many of you are watching you served Iraqi wars, there's conflict, atrocities all over the world abortion some atrocities  don't aren't considered atrocities. And we have political unrest in my lifetime, like I've never seen before there's political unrest. It doesn't seem to be going away.  

Steve- It doesn't seem like things are evolving to get better 

Henry - and so interesting, in some ways, political conflict theory says  everything must fall apart to get better, but then evolution theory is everything is  getting better. And I mean, do they really, really know? The apostle Paul, in  Romans 1, the very place that the Reformation started was Romans 1 with  Martin Luther. And just knowing, discovering faith, grace through faith in Christ  Jesus. The apostle Paul looks at this way I believe. Maybe we're gonna have  the answer come into our cloud by a wooden copy. So Romans 1, see if this  passage sounds like today. The wrath of God. Romans one chapter 18. Romans 1:18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness  and wickedness of men, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Since what may be known of God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities. His eternal powers  and divine nature has been clearly seen, being understood from what has been  made, so that men are without excuse. We'll stop there commentary. The  apostle Paul says that there's a God problem at the core of all human problems. 

Steve - and in some ways, there shouldn't be No, it's the people as the actively deny him. Right? It's not like you know, people just don't believe in God you got  to work out right?  

Henry - I mean, even incredible. No excuse barred examples like back to  Genesis 4, how could Lamech only a few generations Adam is still alive. And  then he writes a song about mocking Cain. You know Cain's avenged seven  times in Genesis 4. I will be avenged 77 times. And here this abuser, this great  man doesn't even believe there is a God and Adam is still alive, he probably  think I'm a crazy old man in the corner. Who's talking like this and how quickly  the heart and this is suppression by wickedness. But like we don't want there to  be a God, right? If you don't want a god, you want to try to figure out a way to  eliminate his memory. For although they knew God, let's just sat Lamech, and  maybe us today all included as a culture, humanity, an unbelieving community,  that neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to him. Notice, no gratitude.  But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. What do you make of that, that actually, do people who run away from God who put God  their life there and to get dark and toward God?  

Steve - I think it sounds like a subtle slide, right? You first start here, and then it  gets darker, and darker and darker. And the further you go, it gets darker. You  know, just all of a sudden, there's no God. And so we see people who they just  stopped going to church.  

Henry - And they claimed to be from the highest accredited Ivy League schools, or wait a minute. Although they claimed to be wise. They became fools and  exchanged the glory of their mortal gods for images made to look like mortal  man, birds, animals, and reptiles  

Steve - elevate the Earth, we elevate all the things we're doing, those become  our gods. Because there's nothing else, we elevate humanity in and of itself,  right, and we got to get to Mars, and we got to keep humanity.  

Henry - Right. And then at that point, critical pleasure theories come in. And  therefore, God gave them over in their sinful desires of the heart to sexual  impurity. So they've degraded their bodies of their bodies with one another, they  changed the truth of God for a lie in worship, and serve creative things rather 

than the Creator who is forever praised. Because of, because almost like, you  know, we have our little theory, number one, number two, number three, it's like  we're hearing that number three, because of this God gave them over to their  shameful lusts, another words pleasure. Even their women exchanged natural  relations for unnatural ones. In the same way men abandoned also abandoned  natural relations with women, and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men  committed indecent acts with other men receiving themselves the due penalty  for their perversion. Now, it's here probably, I think we've skated through most of the waters that Abby's worried about throughout this class. That, you know, it's  like, you know, we haven't really made any judgments on anybody. And actually,  we still are not. This is a description of what happens to a society that gets  further and further away from God. We're not evolving into something better. The design of one man, one woman binary of children, a family of being the steward  of Minister the earth, is that the worldview, the narrative, that's the way it was set up, in some ways with God. Things sort of expand out and people now just go  after their own pleasures is more of a description to not judge anybody better  then number four he says. They did not seem it worthwhile to retain the  knowledge of God. He gave them over to deprived mind to do what ought not to  be done. And then look at this lesson, they became filled with every kind of  wickedness, evil breathing depravity. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceipt  and malice. There are gossips, slanders, God haters, insolent, arrogant,  boastful, they invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parent, parents.  There are senseless, faithless, heartless ruthless, although they know God's  righteous decree that those who don't do such things deserve they they're not  only continue to do these various things, but also approve of those who practice  them. You know, I find it interesting. In the earlier part of his description here,  he's talking past tense, to people way in the past, then he shifts the Greek to  the present. To basically see the chaos of the Roman Empire with the chaos by  which the gospel entered into the world, and it was the cast by which the gospel  began transformation, and we won't read them now, but the next several  chapters are all about critical grace theory, right? Who shall separate us from  the love of Christ. Now there are therefor, no condemnation for those who are in  Christ Jesus. In the point that I think it's so fascinating, and I'm so hopeful about  for ministry, for Christianity are the very time the gospel gets introduced into  society. This is, this is the world. This is the world. Which sounds like our world.  And we get to be alive. For now, right, and we're not going to judge someone,  because there was somewhere on this list, we are all on this list. Romans all  actually says, Where's their advantage? This is how we're unrighteous and then  there is no one righteous. No not one. There's no one who understands no one  who seeks God all have turned to become worthless. Therefore, no one will be  declared righteous in reserve, instead of observing the law, where the law will be become conscious systems. And we know as we're sitting here finishing this 

whole critical grace theory, it is grace is all grace. It is Jesus Christ is not us.  Whoever you are, and wherever you are in list, wherever you are, in any of  these various worldviews. Jesus is the only hope.  

Steve - and we want to, in some ways, looking at these difficult topics that are  current, and creating so much disruption. And divisiveness can be discouraging  and depressing, depressing. But I think, you know, I guess what you're trying to  say with this, this was written during a time where the gospel was just taking off,  right? Don't be discouraged by these things that are going on. Because these  are the very things that kicked off the gospel in the first place, the background,  the backdrop, and we have been deemed worthy to exist at a time where we're  perhaps kicking off the gospel in new and fresh ways that will transform the  world. So, you know, be encouraged. And if you're studying and taking classes,  and you're interested in ministry, and you're wondering what God's calling is,  and these things have been discouraging you and depressing, you know, things  going wrong in this world, turn that around and see this as the Battle cry. Or the  you know, that God is calling you to sign up. And he's viewing you as worthy. 

Henry - all of this. We have been asked to Romans, and hope does not  disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy  Spirit. He has given us I mean, the battle is raging hope is more than a Holy  Spirit is with us.  

Steve - And Romans 12 talks about how the gifts are given to each one,  because there's things that have to be done against the backdrop of all this  chaos,  

Henry - right? I mean, all of these metaphors, slaves to righteousness, an  illustration from marriage, struggling with sin, like in chapter seven, I mean, the  apostle Paul goes. We're not hypocrits. When I have them you want to do you  don't do the good or evil you do. You don't want to do I mean the whole thing  here. But sin is still lucky enough of creating chaos in our own lives. And then  we wonder at times you wonder, as a minister, I wonder like, what is going on?  And then we get What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body  of death, my own chaos, my own sin. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ  our Lord. Therefore, chapter eight, there is no therefore no condemnation for  those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law, the spirit  of life, set me free from the law of sin and death. That's critical grace theory at  it's purest form. And then, you know, as it goes through, we're more than  conquerors. And then talks about some of the philosophy God's sovereign  choice or what about the Jews in there? Those are all issues relavent in the  early days of Christianity, and then in chapter we have we're now living 

sacrifices As our worship loves for the day is near, let no debt remained  outstanding, except the debt from Grace, to love one another. And then going to  the end, you see ministers of the gospel and chapter 15 are I therefore I'm  convinced my brothers 15 Verse 14, that you are full of goodness, competent in  knowledge and competent to instruct one another. And that's you as an active  Christian or as a minister you are, that's why you study, you take these classes.  I mean, all of Romans is about critical grace theory. And we just save this to the  last. So I'd say, when you do your next Bible, study at Romans or get into a  Bible study, you will be prepared. So any concluding comments about this  journey we've had together in those critical grace theory class? Well, I  

Steve - think you know, what, the one thing that I take away from it, are taken in thinking about and studying this is how when you let go of God, everything  unravels and how Grace actually puts all the pieces together, it actually makes  sense out of things. It takes strands that seem to be opposed to one another,  mysteriously, weave them together. Right? So I guess it's back to that walk with  God. You know, we can argue about all the different Catholic theories but the  most important thing is that you have a walk with God and your personal life,  your walk with God in your marriage that you have a walk with God in your  family that you're supported by good friends and a church that you're connected  to. And then you share it with others. This closing  

Henry - Lord, we thank You for this class mini course, on Grace. The Amazing  grace how sweet the wretch like me I once was lost but now I'm found was blind. But now but now I see in Jesus amen.