Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible> continue sermon Q and
Speaker 1 00:00:08 A I'm pastor Michael. I'm here with pastor Craig, pastor Alex, September 5th, 2021. We launched our series on the spiritual war. And so today, pastor Craig, I've got a question for you. Why doesn't God allow people to experience the spiritual
Speaker 2 00:00:24 Realm more clearly.
Speaker 3 00:00:28 That is a very good question. And I'll tend to I've yes. I've often thought the same thing. Like if God would convince us a little bit more of the other universe that we can experience, maybe our faith would be stronger, right? Like just send an angel to me, you know, tell me what's going to happen. Profit. Seem to be pretty good with angels. When they show up, they only seems to put gas in their tanks. So it wouldn't do the same thing for us. There's an aspect though, that as revelation of God has happened through time, we are required to live by faith to a certain degree. And I think my guests as to a good answer for this one would be that I think if we are given angels, if we are given glimpses into the spiritual realm, like this would become a danger for us for several reasons.
Speaker 3 00:01:16 First we have a tendency to like angels more than God, so I can have an angel pal and he, and I can get along. He'll understand me. I, I kinda like having an angel Powell. Everybody's got angels on their shells. Everybody's got their guardian angel, you know, they're BFFs forever. So we, we kind of relate to that because angels do what we need them to do. God doesn't work that way. So when God operates, he expects us to live by faith and adjust to his time. So it's almost like, I think it would be a detriment to us because we would become dependent on these angelic beings and give them the authority that only belongs to God. And we would be required to look to live a little less by faith. We could also end up worshiping angels, which has happened in the past. Uh, it's even referred to in scripture. Um, we have a tendency to, to kind of give a little more credence to things that we don't understand, supernatural things. And so I think all of that just becomes an aspect of confusion for us, and it takes away our greatest, uh, aspect of life that we have with God. And that is living by faith. Yeah. Yeah. It's really
Speaker 4 00:02:22 Interesting as you're talking about that, I mean, even in the first century, there was this overwhelming fascination with angels and trying to attribute names and different things with that. And it developed into this cult in and of itself. And the writer of Hebrews actually has to even deal with this idea and contrast this AME angelic cult and say, well, no, your faith is in Jesus. It's not right. Well,
Speaker 3 00:02:46 This is what Paul said, right? When he said, this is the gospel you're supposed to be preaching. If somebody tells you a different gospel, even if it's an angel, don't believe them. So because in our human nature, we have a tendency to a lot of credence to spiritual stuff that we don't understand. So God has given us again in our revelation, he's given us his son he's revealed to son in times past Hebrews. One says he's spoken to us to prophets through angels and things like that. But in these days, he's spoken to us through his son. So we don't need, we don't need all of that stuff when they didn't have scripture and they didn't have the revelation of God and they didn't know who Jesus was. We're on the other side of that now. And God simply says, walk by faith. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:03:25 I'm surmising my brain. What it would be like. So think about all the false pastors, you know, they are preaching false gospels or quasi or gospels, and imagine demons masquerading as angels of light, you would actually have a hard time figuring out who to trust, who not to trust and how it all work. And I could imagine just the confusion would be exponential at that point. And you can really, if salvation is a gift from God, um, just because you're able to see the angelic world world does not make any single person more inclined to trust in Christ. And so that, I mean, think about just I'm processing out loud here, but the devil had access to the presence of God in all of his good and glory and he's still rebelled. So to think that if we just saw the spiritual realm, that we'd be more inclined longer in our faith, we're actually not, which actually makes us give glory to God. So,
Speaker 3 00:04:17 Which is true too, because of the angels were present at the birth of Christ. They saw all his miracles, they saw way more than we, they saw him raised from the dead and they choose still to be on the wrong side.
Speaker 1 00:04:27 So here's a surmise for a moment. Um, so there's, there's the idea that, okay, God has withheld the spiritual realm so that it's more by faith. We don't need it protects us, but is it possible that we are not given access to spiritual realm because, because of our sin, we cannot. So I, again, like I'm thinking out loud, like, is this because of sin has God withholding that because of the reality and weight of that. Um, so for example, Paul, I'm thinking of everybody, Isaiah, every time there's a vision. Every time they get insight into the third heaven where God dwells. So it's a vision like they don't actually get brought there. John had a vision, Paul had a vision say I had a vision. I it's, they're never quite there. And I wonder, I wonder if that's, because there's something about our sin nature in this body of flesh that prevents access to the spiritual realm and that kind of fullness. Right. And again,
Speaker 4 00:05:19 This is surmising, right? But like, I would guess there is, there's something about fallenness that pre like there is a perception perhaps even that we are meant to have, like there are eyes that we're meant to see, right. But, uh, when, when you know, human beings fell in the garden and Adam and Eve sinned, like somehow that perception they're cast out. Like they just can't see the realities that exist
Speaker 3 00:05:44 To take that even further. Paul has given a vision into heaven and he says, there's glories there. I don't have words for God. I can't explain this. John has given the whole revelation and he's talking about Hornets and flying and stuff. And he obviously any describes God as having a sword out of his mouth, which obviously is not, you know, not a God doesn't have a sword coming in. There are just some things I think in our fallenness that we're not able to perceive about spiritual hand. And when we try to, we mess it up, which is why we do boards. And all of that becomes very attractive to us because if we can understand a part of the spiritual realm, it taps into our fallenness, not into our redeem nature. Right.
Speaker 1 00:06:21 Huh? That's that's nuts. Like John doesn't know what he's saying. So he uses the best illustration in the human world that he has, but it doesn't work. Right. So no I've seen nor ear heard the, but the heart of nor the heart of man, imagine what the Lord has prepared for those. Exactly. And Paul said that as somebody who actually had the vision to that experience, right. Yeah. All right. Well that, that is actually really helpful. So thank you guys. We have more to come on. Ville church sermon, Kewanee.
