(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

We’ve already understood that no one can read the Bible or hear the Bible read without hearing God’s voice. And often, when leading us, the Holy Spirit will bring a Scripture to our remembrance. ^{(John 14:26)} And yet we may or may not recognize God’s voice. We may or may not acknowledge God as He reveals truth, doctrine, and the history of the world through Scripture. We may fail to acknowledge Him whether we’re reading Scripture, we’re hearing Scripture read, or the Holy Spirit is bringing Scripture to our remembrance. And when the Holy Spirit brings a Scripture to our remembrance, it’s revelation. It isn’t the same as us remembering something. The Holy Spirit brings it to our remembrance, so we aren’t the ones remembering, but the Holy Spirit gives us understanding. Not only so, but even when we read Scripture or hear someone reading Scripture, the Holy Spirit gives us the meaning. He pulls our fleshly veils away so we can understand the revelation He gives.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Let’s consider how drastic a move by God to send His own Son to die on our behalf. If there was another way, God would have found it and used it. Jesus prayed as He was in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asked the Father if there was any other way. There was none.

The way before us is narrow. We find many opportunities to leave the way.

We’re born again. That part was easy. Growing up is another matter. Most of the New Testament is about growing up. Only a few verses of the New Testament deal with being born again. We had to be born again. That was absolutely vital. Now, we must grow up into the Head. That is absolutely vital.

We would all love it if our journey was just a single step with no chance to make any mistakes or to sin. However, we have no other way. God must allow Satan to test and try us. We must be faithful. And every stronghold in each of our minds must fall one by one. God won’t force it. We must submit to each new milestone on our journey with Him.

So our vision becomes clearer with each new submission. The Holy Spirit purifies us each time we listen to and obey the King of kings. He speaks the Word. Christ is the Word. Faith comes. Christ authors the faith. Faith gives us access to His grace. Grace does His works through us. That’s the gift of righteousness. Christ works through us. God won’t force His gift on us. We must stop fighting Him. We yield the members of our bodies to his righteousness. When we yield, the Sower sows the Seed. The Seed is the Word. Christ is the Word. The Seed is Christ. God is constantly sowing Christ into our hearts as He leads us in the simple, everyday things of life. Does the Seed fall on the good ground or the path, the rocky ground, or among thorns? When it falls on good ground, the Holy Spirit is forming Christ in our hearts, and the flesh is dying away.

“But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Proverbs 4:18 King James Bible

As a result, certainty follows obedience, and it begins as God speaks to us and we acknowledge Him. Personal yielding is the first level of submission to God, but it’s possible to resist what God tells us, so it’s possible to resist this certainty.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

If faith is divine certainty that comes when God speaks, how can we have better discernment as we mature in Christ? Isn’t faith the absolutely certain proof of what we haven’t yet seen with our physical eyes? And doesn’t faith come to us the moment we first acknowledge God’s voice and hear Him? Wouldn’t that faith be total and complete right from the start?

While faith is absolute right from the start, the human mind is deceitful and desperately wicked. Satan is a deceiver. Deceivers can pretend to be the voice of God. We don’t wrestle with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in the high places.

We walk from one level of faith to a higher level of faith as we mature. We become better acquainted with Christ as we walk with Him in submission and obedience to His leading, teaching, and correcting. The Holy Spirit forms Christ more fully in us and the sinful nature diminishes. That’s what maturity is. With less sinful nature and more of Christ’s nature, maturity helps us discern. It helps us know what comes from our own minds and what comes from God.

“And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Peter 4:18 King James Bible

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Divine Revelation and Certainty

We’ve established that faith is divine certainty. And yet God tells us to walk from faith to faith. That implies a faith that progresses to higher and deeper levels in Christ. That means we go from one level of faith to a higher level. From this level, we proceed higher by grace. And grace is through faith. As we yield, the Holy Spirit changes us. And we advance to an even higher level of faith. We proceed because the Holy Spirit uses this method to transfigure us as the Holy Spirit purifies Christ in our innermost minds. Purification is holiness. To put it another way, Christ becomes more fully formed in us as the polluted, natural, carnal mind gradually dies away. And as Christ is formed and the carnal mind dies, our thinking becomes clearer, and the scope of certainty we know by faith is wider and more encompassing.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

At some point in our lives, we wanted to know Jesus, and now that we know Him, we want to know Him more fully. So we don’t pretend to be satisfied before it makes sense to be satisfied, but we’ll be satisfied when we awake with His image and likeness.

“As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” ~ Psalm 17:15 King James Version

 

“. . . to be conformed to the image of His Son . . .” ~ Romans 8:29 Berean Study Bible

 

“. . . looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory . . .” ~ 2 Corinthians 3:18 Holman Christian Standard Bible

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Godly Thinking

The alternative to ungodly thinking is, of course, godly thinking. Only by godly thinking can we know anything, but we can’t have godly thinking without acknowledging God’s active role in our thought processes through revelation.

For instance, only by revelation do we know Scripture is God’s word. Only by revelation can we know God speaks through the Bible, observation, and every other method mentioned in the Bible. Also, it’s by revelation we know Scripture is without error. We can’t understand these realities by axioms or presuppositions. Both axioms and presuppositions consist of made-up stuff. Made-up stuff can’t prove anything. Without proof, we can’t have precise and accurate knowledge of anything with certainty. Through Scripture, God keeps telling us to listen to Him, and He speaks the same into our innermost beings. But listening to God and acknowledging God is contrary to the fallen human nature. “For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what’s right, but I can’t carry it out.” ^{(Romans 7:18)} Still, we choose to listen to Him and yield ourselves to Him even though our fleshly natures resist Him.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Secularists have been fighting a culture war for many decades, and no one resisted them. The New Age networking movement helps in this effort. Christians have stepped back to let ungodly people control. As we’ve already discovered, ungodliness destroys sound reasoning. Why have we turned over control to secularistic thinkers who refuse to acknowledge the spiritual element of thinking? Christians have often yielded in response to coercion from ungodly thinkers who wrestle for control. A lukewarm church willingly followed the fleshly path set by the ungodly.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

If ungodliness was merely non-belief and without any agenda, ungodly thinkers wouldn’t be trying to make converts. And yet, they are trying to make converts. Ungodly thinkers wouldn’t have a position to defend, but they’re zealous to defend their position. They’re making their case on every medium. Ungodly thinkers wouldn’t try to control the message, but they do try to control the message.

Consider whether there’s any aspect of mass communication where ungodly people and ideas don’t dominate. Ungodly persuaders use mass communication as a weapon. They use news media, social media, entertainment, and education as weapons. Museums, libraries, and social media also act as their brainwashing tools.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Ungodly persuaders have been successful in pushing their ungodly religion in government and public schools. And, as we’ve just detailed, they push their ungodly religion using the deceptive phrase “separation of church and state,” but they twist the meaning of this phrase by making two claims. First, they falsely claim to have no opinion and no religion. Second, they falsely claim ungodliness is the default position.

By making these two claims consistently and forcefully, they’ve successfully violated the establishment clause of the U. S. Constitution. Similar efforts have succeeded in other countries. They established a religion. They made ungodliness the state religion. It’s the de facto established state religion. They could do it easily since no one was opposing them. The government-funded ungodliness. They taught it in public schools for many decades. Because they’ve successfully used this tactic, the Government uses coercive force against godly people and brainwashes their children.

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Don’t believe the lies of the ungodly. Jesus is exclusive. Only the God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth in six days. Jesus alone is our Savior from sin, death, the power of the devil, the influence of the culture, and the foolishness of our fallen minds.

(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Just as with all strongly held ideas, Secularism considers Secularism to be the best way. Secularists argue for Secularism. They defend Secularism if anyone speaks against it. Secularists believe in dogmatically Secularism just as Relativists believe dogmatically in Relativism. Secularists accept all ideas as long as those ideas are Secularistic.

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