Charles E. Whisnant pastor/teacher of Rivers of Joy Baptist Church outline from January 23 2010

2. RELIGION IS REALLY JUST ANOTHER SYSTEM WORKED OUT BY MAN TO SET ASIDE THE TRUTH AND THE WORSHIP OF THE ONE GOD.

3. The historical development of religion is not evidence of man’s progress but of his depravity and rejection of God. INTO AN IMAGE1504 MADE. For an image in the form of corruptible man.<br />A visible manifestation of an invisible and heavenly reality (Hebrews 10:1. <br />Picture, image painted or engraved on a small wooden object. <br />God said in Genesis 1:26 that man is made in the likeness of God. There is to be one image ordained by God to represent Him. To form any other image as a representation of God is a violation.<br />It is absolutely essential that we constantly compare our own concept of god against the reality of who god is as revealed in his word; we can also be guilty of worshipping a self-made god.<br />And of birds, and four-footed animals and crawling creatures<br />The point here is there is this downward progression of men. <br />By refusing to acknowledge the true, infinite and incorruptible God, he devolved to the lack of common sense and emptiness of idol worship.<br /> HYPERLINK quot;
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Filtered Listening, 4: Feeling or Thinking<br />from Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile<br />1 person liked this<br />Much of our sermon listening is intuitive. We sorta “feel” our way through the sermon, registering reactions and thoughts along the way. This sometimes means that we’re being led by our feelings as we listen.<br />Feelings are a gift from God. Used properly, they are for our good and help us to commune with our wonderful God. Fear, for example, may alert us to the danger of sin. Or, empathy may help us to care for others in need. When our feelings are rightly tuned to God’s word and Spirit, they are allies in the quest for godliness and joy.<br />But, like the rest of our nature, our feelings are also fallen. Sin corrupts our emotions. This means, then, that a godly monitoring of our feelings is necessary. For not every emotional reaction is a godly reaction. We may tend to over-react at times, and at other times to under-react. Or, we may react with the wrong emotion given the situation. Perhaps a situation calls for sadness, but in our sin we respond with anger. And sometimes, we may become emotionally numb. Our feelings may become impaired as a result of prolonged hurt, depression, or other causes.<br />However our emotions are responding on a Sunday morning, we may be sure of this: as listeners, we feel. And how we feel may hurt how we listen.<br />Leading or Following<br />One critical question to ask ourselves as we listen to a sermon is: What am I feeling about what I’m hearing? <br />Now, I’m not asking, “What do you think?” That’s an important question, too. But our thinking often follows our feeling, so that our feeling leads us in our thinking. When that happens, our feelings may distort the truth or prevent us from giving careful attention to the word of God as it’s preached.<br />Perhaps an example would help. Some time back, our Wednesday night Bible study devoted some time to thinking about the doctrine of election. Now, if there is a word that elicits emotion, it’s “election.” Just raising the topic makes some people red in the face. I can understand why. When I first began to see and understand the implications of God’s sovereign election, my first reaction was not a happy embrace. I dug in my heels, clenched my jaws, and kicked against the idea that God had chosen me before I chose Him and without regard to anything in me. In retrospect, I was offended. Then I was angry with “that kind of God.”<br />So, when we came to this topic in Bible study, I’d had enough personal emotional experience with this topic to know any consideration wouldn’t be a simple matter of “cool, calm, and collected” analysis. People would feel things.<br />At one point I asked the group, “What are you feeling as we talk about this?” A couple people volunteered: Anger. Resentment. Confusion. Doubt. Emotions were as varied as the people in the room. But nearly everyone was feeling something.<br />As we processed our feelings, we realized that our feelings were leading our thinking. Some were prepared to reject or simply not bother with the Bible’s teaching because the emotions were too strong. Seeing the influence of our emotions allowed us to step back from them, not assume our emotions were communicating truthfully, and look afresh at the Scripture. Some people still wrestled with the implications of election, but gradually their thinking took the lead in their reaction. As that happened, bit by bit they were able to say, “Yes, I see this is what the Bible teaches. Yes, I know God has included this in the word for my good. Yes, I know that embracing all God’s truth grows me spiritually.”<br />And over time, some people have seen their emotions change as they have come to first understand the Bible’s teaching about election, and then see the wonderful implications regarding God’s unconditional love for us, our assurance in Christ, and our confidence in evangelism and missions. But all those things were missed as long as emotion reigned in Bible interpretation.<br />So it is with listening to preaching. Our emotions may lead and mislead us. We need to ask, “What am I feeling?” And then ask, “Is what I’m feeling an appropriate response to God’s word and the God of the word?” ”Is it helping me to understand and draw near to God, or is it preventing understanding and fellowship with the Lord?”<br />The Garbage That Ruins Our Listening Filter<br />We live in a hyper-sensual and hyper-emotional age. There’s a lot of noise in our environment, noise that screams, “Listen to us!” Sometimes the noise is self-talk. We listen to ourselves feel, but we don’t process it. We accept the feeling as final and authoritative.<br />“What feels right” may claim first place in our listening and decision-making process. Even as Bible-believing Christians, we can be primarily drawn to an emotional experience of the faith. When we have a good emotional experience, we “feel like” we’ve worshiped. If the experience is “ho-hum” or even difficult, we don’t “feel like” we’ve served the Lord.<br />When emotion is king, we’re prone to enslave our listening and our thinking. In a hyper-emotional age, knowing what to feel when can be quite bewildering. The saturation of emotional messaging creates human emotional pendulums that swing from manic to catatonic. Balance becomes elusive.<br />Conclusion<br />When we come to church on Sunday morning, we’re a bundle of nerves, full of unprocessed emotion, and brimming over sensitivities. Someone once described emotion as thought sped up really fast. I think they’re wrong about that. That’s why we often apologize for emotional responses by saying, “I wasn’t thinking.” And that’s a clue that when our feelings–particularly sinful feelings and feelings incongruous with the text–take over, we should put everything in slow motion and think it through. Sit still. Get some company. And imbibe the word of God with the mind of Christ.<br />Other Posts in this Series:<br />Filter 1: True or False<br />Filter 2: The Source<br />Filter 3: Applications<br />Filtered Listening, 4: Feeling or Thinking is a post from: Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile<br />