In this audio message, Scott Brown discusses the topic biblical counseling. He explains how it is important to approach modern issues through the lens of Scripture. Sometimes, we can create a label for a so-called "syndrome" when in actuality, it is something the Bible clearly calls a sin.

John 16:13 (NKJV) - "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come."

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is pleased to present Elder Training. This message is entitled, Biblical Counseling, and is hosted by Scott Brown. Okay, so tonight we're on to two books by David Palleson, one, Seeing with New Eyes and Speaking the Truth in Love. These two books are the fruit of really a movement that began 40 years ago. I guess I'll mark the beginning of the movement with the publication of Jay Adams' book, Competent Counsel.

God did a wonderful thing. He showed a man how the church had been drifting into secularism, into adopting the worldly language and the categories of pagan psychologists and philosophers. And, you know, it dawned on him and he wrote a book and it shook the world. It started up what is now called the Biblical counseling movement, of which you can find proponents in thousands of churches across America today. There are a number of moves back to the sufficiency of scripture in the latter part of the 20th century that are bearing tremendous fruit right now.

And I think that's one of the most important ones is to look at how do you actually help people's lives if it's out of man's wisdom. We have warnings in scripture that say if it's the wisdom of men it's a trap, it's a snare, it ends in destruction, it needs to be the wisdom of God. With the New Theta counseling movement there was just this great shift from throwing out the psychology and all this other garbage that had been built up since Freud and going back and saying, no, God understands what man needs and man does not understand what man needs. Man's fallen. We need God to tell us what we need.

Amen. You know, just tonight and about an hour ago, I was reading to my family Jeremiah chapter 10 part of our reading for the day and we read the words do not learn the way of the Gentiles for the customs of the peoples are futile and God showed that principle to Jay Adams and something happened. You know, at around the same time Henry Morris was doing the same thing with the doctrine of creation. These are blessed movements and we in the family-related church movement, which seeks the sufficiency of Scripture for church and family life. We really are sort of Johnny-come-lately in a lot of ways.

This is just another area that Scripture is beginning to speak to. At least, I mean, we are understanding that Scripture speaks to it. And perhaps God will work a revival in the same way that God did with Jay Adams and Henry Morris. And when we think about these things, all of these things, in the end they go back to replacing God. When you start to look at the psychology movement, the idea of the psychology movement is there is a different savior.

If you just say the right words to people, if they just remember their history, if they remember what happened to them when they were a youth, when they have this and that, all the usual psychology stuff, in the end what they're saying is there's a savior other than Christ. Christ is what we need for our problems and psychology says no all we need is knowledge, all we need is understanding, all we need to do is look back instead of looking towards Christ and with the creation movement the same thing. Let's replace the creator with science because all these movements are movements, I mean they're returns to movements that we're intentionally trying to destroy aspects of God. Psychology is the Savior, evolution is the idea that God is the Creator. And we need to go back and say, no, God is God and we're dishonoring Him and we're removing His glory when we let these movements replace him and usurp what he has done.

Yeah, amen. In the book, Weed in the Church, we have a whole chapter on how this happened in the discipleship of the younger generation. How educational revolutionaries really co-opted the doctrine of the church and the way that God had established for churches and families to operate in terms of education. Right, and I think specifically when you look at the roots of that, the roots of that go back to the idea that education is the Savior. That's really where the Sunday School movement starts is that Jesus Christ is not the Savior in the Sunday School movement, education is.

No, education has never saved anyone. You can be a very smart person who still is going to hell, still has all the same problems, still has sin devouring your life. You need Christ to change those things. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what John Dewey was doing with public education to say that all you had to do is pour fax into children's brains and you'll get some kind of advanced society look around buddy it in an event society that will fix man's problems it hasn't worked for a while And the odd thing is that God even in His wisdom even curses those things. So we've been a hundred years saying that education saves and what it's done is produced to completely uneducated people.

God does have a sense of humor. Yeah. Oh my. Well, so here we are with David Palleson. David Palleson, I believe, was converted in the mid 80s, I think it was in 1985.

And then God connected him with a number of other men who began to write and to begin to speak. And they established an organization called the CCEF, which I believe is based in Pennsylvania. They've trained a lot of people. We've sent people there to grow in their understanding of how to bring the therapy of God into church relationships. OK, so David Pallason's seeing with new eyes.

Let's look at the preface. There are a couple of things here that I've marked out. He says, instead of psychopathology and syndromes, we see sins against this person. And we see sufferings that are trials revealing our need for a true Deliverer and a Judge. Instead of proposing that some psychodynamic insight, met need, altered self-talk, or behavioral re-habituation will cure us, we receive God's actual mercies as our salvation.

Instead of defining change as an intrapsychic, psychosocial or biological process of, quote, healing or, quote, growth, We define change as turning to a person whom we trust, fear, obey and seek to please. That's a brilliant statement. It really is. And we've lived in a psychological environment where people have the wrong names for things. And even when we consider salvation, Salvation is changing from a position where your life is about glorifying yourself by choosing who you will give glory to.

And salvation is about saying that it's all about God and it's about giving glory to God. And so counseling has to be the same thing. That's the cure. The cure is to say it's not about me, it's about God. That's really the whole point of the book, seeing with new eyes and it's the eyes of God.

I mean Dan that's the whole point of the book. And so, Palison's objective is to help us to see people and their troubles in the light of Scripture and biblical language rather than if you want to call it the light of Freud and Rogers and all these these guys that had absolutely no idea what they were doing but to see people from God's perspective. Yeah, and you look at these men, you know, you consider Freud, Freud is almost completely disregarded now because even his followers recognize that the path that he was putting people on didn't help anybody. And so they constantly move away from their position, but their basic understanding is the same. It doesn't require God to change people.

Man can change people with the power of the words. Yeah. So, you know, what Paulus is setting up here in the preface is that biblical language goes head to head with psychological gobbledygook. And he doesn't use the word gobbledygook. He's far more erenic and respectful.

But The point is that… Perhaps too, a renegade respectful, but that's just my opinion. So in this first book, he states it there on page 7. This first book, Seeing with New Eyes, focuses on the conceptual. It unfolds Scripture's view of people and of problems. So that kind of sets it up right there.

So let's go into the introduction, the gaze of God, and he says... And as we usually say about this time, if you have any questions or comments or thoughts that you want to share with everybody else, please please email them in or whatever you do to send them in you guys should know how by now so he says this seeing this gaze means to wake up from our fantasies fictions and nightmares to see things as they are in fact. God has the real take on things and God teaches us His gaze. I think when we when we think of the the extent of that we need to understand that when we think of love we don't understand what love is when we think of hatred we don't understand what that is when we think of righteousness we don't understand what that is we don't understand what it to be a son, all these things. The only way that we can understand what these things are really supposed to be and what they're really supposed to look like is to see it the way that God sees it.

And sanctification is the process of seeing it the way God sees it and then acting on it, not just understanding it but acting on it. Yeah. And I mean, think of this in terms of church shepherds. You know, what does this mean? It means that God opens the eyes through His Word to show us what's going on in people's lives.

You know, how do you look at turmoil or how do you look at things going on in people's lives. The only way you can do it is by cleaving to the biblical categories and have His gaze upon it, as Paulson says. And it's really crucial as an elder to understand that's your goal. Your goal isn't even to fix their problem. Your goal is for them to see things the way that God sees things.

And fundamentally that means that you give the same advice without using scripture, without going back to scriptural references, and you give it with doing those two things and the one you are furthering what your charge is from God and the other you can actually be fighting against even though you're giving biblical advice. If you give biblical advice but extracted from it being from the Word of God you end up not being the blessing that you should be to your people. When we shepherd what we need to be doing is helping them think the way God thinks. Helping them see their problems in the light of how God sees their problems and not just how a righteous man, a Godly man, their elder sees their problem. Who cares how the elder sees their problem?

It should line up with the will of God. But the important thing is for them to see it the way God sees it. Yeah, yeah. And this is what he calls thinking Christianly about things, to help people think Christianly. To think Christianly, he says on page 10, is to think God's thoughts after him.

Which, he says, it just puts you in such a superior position. On page 12 he says, the most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing, what sin is. And of course he's quoting Dieter Bonhoeffer on that. Right, and fundamentally the only way we know what sin is, is to have fear of God.

So when, in Proverbs where it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, I mean that's what the writer of Proverbs is saying, what Bonhoeffer is saying. Without those things you can't understand the world because the world is for the glory of God. The world was created by God for His purposes. You can't understand who you are because you don't understand who God is. You can't understand righteousness because you don't understand who God is.

Fear the Lord is the beginning of all these things. So a man who fears God has more wisdom and more knowledge than the most educated psychiatrist. Amen. And, you know, that's the confidence that we have. As church shepherds, we know that we have something that's far superior.

We have the Word of God that's sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts down into the finest places of need. It heals, it blesses, and it illuminates the things that need to be illuminated. And fundamentally, we also have one other thing that's really important is that we're under shepherds and we have the good shepherd Right. So when we go and we point these things out and we go to somebody and and it's a fearful thing when people are Dealing with serious problems in their lives and as a shepherd You have to deal with people that have really serious issues that that the choices they make are going to affect their children their grandchildren They're going to have serious repercussions for decades to come and you walk into that situation They're looking to you for advice And if you're not standing on the Word of God and standing on your own wisdom.

Boy, what a responsibility that is. I don't want that responsibility. I want it to be the responsibility that I go to Scripture. I try to understand Scripture the best I can. And I trust that the Holy Spirit will give me the words because He loves His children.

Amen. Amen. So let's go to the next chapter or next part here. Part one, Scripture opens blind eyes and then he he works through Ephesians in helping us to understand how to proceed with scripture. And then he says, Paul writes in the first and second person, you hear him talking with you as if he were saying God predestined us to adoption.

I give thanks for you. You were dead in your sins. We have received an inheritance. Pray for me." Ephesians expresses a three-sided encounter between God, Paul, and his hearers. And so here, Pauluson is trying to illustrate the very personal nature of the Bible, that it is between particular parties that the conversation in Scripture is.

I really thought this was helpful. It really helped me see how much personal appeal there is in Scripture. And I preached through the book of Ephesians before and I didn't see that before. He says in page 23, Imagine that in 1905 God had promised your great-grandparents that someday he would give their descendants a model T Ford, a radio communication system using Morse code and a biplane. When he decided to deliver in 2003 he gave you a Dodge Viper, a satellite-linked cell phone, and an F-117A stealth fighter.

Promise was fulfilled in ways beyond imagination. What He is saying is that God delivers the things that are really beyond our comprehension through His Word. The goodness of the promises. I was a little uncomfortable with his language because he almost makes it as if the promises aren't literally fulfilled, but they are. God is very precise in his language.

It's one of the things that I see in myself and in those around us in our culture is that we tend not to be precise and God fulfills his promises but his promises have extensions which I think is the point that that he's trying to make have extensions and have a far greater fulfillment than in our limited imaginations that we imagine. Yeah. Hey, so Jason, welcome. Jason told us he was going to be a little bit late, and so prophecy fulfilled. But you're a lot earlier than you said you'd be.

So anyway, great to have you. Thank you. Yeah. We're all excited for Jason. We're gearing up.

We're getting ready to help him a little bit here because he's going to go plant a church in the springtime. And so this is a very, very happy occasion. In some ways, Jason and I have been going to church together for 20 years It's just not a very pleasing thought for me. We've had quite a wonderful run together sometimes more wonderful than others, but yeah he and I've been okay but it's the other people yeah the under other under and wonderful zone so pray for us on this you know we were seeking families who will join him About ten minutes away from where we're meeting So we're very grateful for it. We need to divide our ministry so that better shepherding can take place So, let's see any more here in this in this chapter, you know, he's working with Ephesians He says on page 24 the scope of application and the depth of implication multiply as Paul re-reads the Old Testament and Gospels through the glory of the reigning Christ.

What Paul is encouraging us to do is to counsel really in the way that we see the Apostle Paul, to think of Scripture the way the Apostle Paul did, to think of the conversation pattern that the Apostle Paul has in the letter. And so he says, may we do something like what Paul did, even with Ephesians. And so what he's saying is that there's really a very therapeutic counseling-oriented process going on where Paul is speaking very personally to people. Pauluson is saying that the Bible is very personal and that's the essence of counseling. I think one of the other points that he's making with Paul is Paul takes these things that you don't necessarily see as him applying.

How do you decide whether you should pay a pastor or not? Well, don't muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain. And when we read Paul, we're supposed to understand that this is how you, you know, 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 where it says, you know, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works. When we think of that, it doesn't specifically say anywhere in the Old Testament whether you should pay a pastor or not. But Paul says, you find the verse that applies principally, and you take it, and you say that this is the principle here.

And in counseling, this is what you have to do all the time because none of the situations that people confront you with and say what do I do about this. Do you open the Bible and say oh look at this. I mean some of you do. I want to kill my father. Don't do it.

Other than things like that that are really simple The vast majority of counseling is taking scripture and saying, no, this is the principle of scripture. This is what I see in scripture. This is why I think you should do it because in these verses, David wasn't speaking specifically to what you're going through, but I think the principle is the same and here's how it applies. That's what Paul does. Paul can do it more authoritatively than we can because he was an apostle.

It really helps. But on the other hand, Paul is also teaching us how to do this. I mean, he is an instructor and he's our instructor and how to deal with scripture. So in this chapter, and that's really kind of what he's saying, look at the way that the Apostle Paul is using the Old Testament, the Gospels, and use that as a pattern in your conversation with people in counseling. This last statement on page 30, I'm arguing that good living, preaching, praying, counseling, conversing, teaching, meditating, and singing all do something with Scripture.

So for Pauluson that's the therapeutic process. It takes Scripture and folds it into all the thinking that goes into helping people see with new eyes. So then, chapter 2, who is God? In this chapter, of course, continuing with Ephesians, he talks about the way that God is explained in Ephesians. This quote on page 40 really is kind of off point, but I just really liked it, so I put it in there.

I just loved what he said about his pastor. My pastor's way of praying for people had a profound effect on me. He would never close a conversation by saying, I'll be praying for you about this. Instead, he would say, let's ask God right now to help you. And you know, Paulus of course is drawing from Ephesians and saying this is kind of the style that Paul is working with here.

It's very active. He says, I pray for you. And He lists all these things that he says about his relationship with him. And I think what he's trying to do is make a point there that's similar to the point that I was trying to make earlier that Mike Brewer has a question on, which is, Dan, is your point in counseling with scripture to help the hear and know the words are from scripture, not from our minds. Are you suggesting some of the Christian counseling seems to extract a principle and apply it without making an appeal to its sources?

And I'm not even saying that it's wrong to do that at times, but what I'm saying is as an elder, Our goal is for them to understand where the power comes from. The power doesn't come from the wisdom that we have. The power doesn't come from the strength that we say it. And it's the same thing with praying. It's saying the power comes from God.

When you go back and say, I see your situation, here's the scripture verses that I say apply to your situation that I think you should consider what we're saying is it's God that can Help you not us and that we can only help you because God has helped us and God has given us wisdom And if the wisdom is from us, it's worthless. It's only if it's from God and in counseling we need to be pointing them to this. It's the old saying of, is it better to give a man a fish, or is it to teach him how to fish? And in counseling, we should be teaching them how to fish. How do you fish biblically in biblical counseling?

You teach them how to open the word of God and say, what should I now do? How do I answer this question? And the way to do that is not just by answering the question for them. Instead, the way to do it is by showing them how you do it, how you come up with the answer, and point them to scripture so that they know it's not of your own authority. So rather than acting like it's three easy steps to the solution to your problem, it's an acknowledgment that what is required is divine intervention.

God intervening in the situation to set things right. And I love the way Jason, how he says that. I mean, we've got it up on the screen. Never forget that you have someone to bring to the people you counsel. That's about as non-formulaic as you can get in a lot of ways.

He animates the proceedings because he is up to something in the lives of the counselor and the counseled alike. So we're bringing something far greater than a list of five, three or four things to do. And again, that should give great comfort. I don't know how these psychiatrists do it, where they give this advice that doesn't help people year after year after year. Their families continue to fall apart.

Instead, when we go to counsel, we go knowing that the great comforter is there, the great physician is there. He can do it. He can solve the problem. All we can do is speak and trust that God is the one that solves their problems. And we should never be taking credit for it.

Instead we should be pointing the credit to God constantly. I don't know if you saw the illustration on page 37. He gives an illustration of how do you explain something, how do you explain a wave. And he gives this mathematical formula in the middle of page 37. There are different ways that you can explain anything.

What Paulus is helping us to see is that when we're explaining God we have to be very careful to explain him as he really is. What one of his points is that the Apostle Paul in Ephesians uses a very unusual technique, unusual to us. And I'll just read it at the top of page 36. He says, consider that in these mere 155 verses there are a hundred and twenty direct references to Jesus Christ, 80 references to God the Father, 15 references to the Holy Spirit. In addition, Paul talks to quote you over 80 times and about us 45 times.

So God appears about one and a half times perverse and you are talked to almost once perverse. Paul is compelled to mention Christ and you in almost every sentence. It's not hard to get what this letter is about. I thought that was a really important insight that just, you know, as an exegete, you know, Pauluson has made the, you know, careful, really helpful exegetical observations that help us understand Paul's technique with the Ephesians. And Larry Sides has a comment.

In John 5, 39, and 40, Jesus said to the Jews that they searched the scriptures for life but refused to come to Him that they would have life. One danger of biblical counseling is to only use the tremendous principles of scripture without connecting them to the living Word, who alone can convict, enlighten and change. Right. And if you're in. Yeah, there's there's biblical counsel that people give to people that that ends up making their life better.

But it doesn't end up saving their life. They still end up in hell. And if we're not calling them to repent if we're not calling them to God then we really haven't helped them in the end that's the first help they need and when Jesus talks about don't cast pearls before swine I think that's the proper context and interpretation of that verse is if they're unclean, they don't need to know how to fix their marriage. What they need to know is that God rules in heaven and they need to repent and turn to the living God and they can be saved through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they need more than how to fix their marriage.

And maybe the conversation starts with how to fix their marriage. But if all you're doing is sticking with throwing pearls before swine, you need to get them to stop being swined and instead be repentant sons of God. Yeah. Yeah. Amen.

Hey, Larry, I'm really glad you're on the line. Larry Sides, you know, he's spending his life in the realm of biblical counseling, and I know you've kind of walked through the growth of this great movement. So anyway, I just want to acknowledge, Larry, you're doing this every day, and we appreciate it. Okay, so that's that chapter. Let's move on to chapter 3.

Godly roles and relationships Ephesians 5 21 through 6 9. So he says in 59 Ephesians offers sanity and wisdom to enable the people of God to grow up into oneness and maturity. This chapter is about the relationships that God has ordained by the creation order, by his commands, by the various functions that are in the local church, and the natural relationships that we have by virtue of who we are as you know father, mother, husband, wife, that whole thing. He says in page 62, you are a we. And so, you know, he's using this language to just help us to understand that, you know, we're in relationship, you know, how do we proceed, you know, with people who we're seeking to be a blessing to in our counseling?

In dealing with any counseling issue, there's always the fact that a person always has a whole myriad set of relationships in their life. They have an employer, they have a husband, they have a wife, they have a child, they have all these other things, and you can never deal with that without understanding how all these things are interacting and all these different relationships are interacting. Yeah, And so, you know, he says, you know, we all have a common call from God defining us as peers with each other, that we have a focus within our primary relationships. And then most of us wear multiple hats. Sometimes we're called to lead, other times submit, and we play a lot of different roles and we have various responsibilities in those roles.

And of course, you know, this is where lives malfunction is when they get out of order in any of the various roles that they have. So let's see what else to maybe cover here. Oh yeah, yeah, they don't see how obedience leads to freedom from sin and to freedom for love, courage, and purposeful living. So you know in this chapter he's he's talking about calling people to obedience to live according to the pattern that god's established for them and we tend to in the modern church and to define freedom as being free from from all rules free from all restrictions which isn't freedom it's licentiousness. And what he's saying is true freedom is to obey God because then you're free to rejoice in the things that God has given and not be constantly dealing with the effects of sin.

We constantly will, but we should be turning from our sin and turning towards God if we want a happy life, if we want joy, if we want to see the blessings of God. We need to be obeying that this isn't somehow that we win these things from him but he's a father that delights to give his children good gifts. And it's interesting he points out one of the most critical areas of harmony between people and that is the area of submission. People don't want to submit each other. So he talks about the role of submission and that everyone submits to someone and you know to throw off the principle of submission is really to throw off the wisdom of God.

And he gives the I really like this illustration these five illustrations he gives beginning on page 71, where he just talks about different people in a workplace and the various roles and responsibilities that each person has. I mean, he uses this to illustrate that there are reciprocal responsibilities that people have in various stations in life or by virtue of their gender or whether they're married or not, things like that. That understanding submission and authority is really, really important in relationships. It's just important for us to always remember that and to teach that too, is that man in his natural state abhors authority because we all want to play God. We all want to be the ultimate authority.

And when we submit to God, when we repent and turn towards God, fundamental to that is that we are saying that we are going to submit to God. When we submit to God, it means that we also submit to those authorities that God has put into our lives. Because the reason that a child should submit to their father is not because somehow their father is special, but because God appointed them as an authority, and it represents God's authority. So submission in all the relationships for a Christian is just so important because it really is one of the most obvious reflections of what a relationship really is with God. Are we holding them off at arm's length or are we saying, yeah, I'm submitted to God, so I'll submit.

Even when I look at them and say they're a bad authority, I'll recognize that they can do nothing, nothing unless God allows them. Right. So in these five illustrations at the end of it, he says, subjects of God who are also subjects have a particular responsibility to submit to those who govern them pay taxes obey laws treat with respect in our example all five Persons are called to stand under local regional and national government So anyway, just to kind of underline, that's the main thrust of this whole chapter, and that we all live under particular responsibilities based on how God has appointed in different aspects of life. So then he moves off of Ephesians to Psalm 131 and here he comes into the whole subject of turmoil in people's lives, the turbulence in people's hearts because of the problems that have beset them and the difficulties that come upon them. And he talks about the man in Psalm 131 that This man isn't noisy inside.

He's talking about the God who helps those who are under pressure, having difficulty, and that there's an inner life that God has for His people. And part of counseling is to help people find that. And of course he quotes the psalm. This is such a beautiful psalm. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul.

And then he begins to unpack, you know, some of the real reasons for turbulence. He says, faith delivers you from your biggest problem, a proud self will. David says to the Lord, I'm not self-trusting, opinionated and headstrong. I am not superior to others. I am not attempting the impossible." He's just dealing with this problem that we all have and that people in our churches have where they are not composed in quieted in their souls.

I try to think of this when we're together as a church, that there are people out there in that congregation today that who are struggling. They have fears, they have things falling apart, They failed in a number of different ways. They may have you know financial threats They you know, they they may be going through a time of turmoil in their marriage and they're really discouraged So there's turbulence there. I Can't remember who it was who said preach to broken hearts because that's what you have out there a lot we have to be very aware of that so anyway he's bringing up Psalm 131 to help us understand how to comfort the brokenhearted I like what he says to compose your soul means literally to level it. Bulldoze the building side.

Get a grip. When Jesus said, peace be still to the stormy lake, he smoothed the turbulence. To quiet your soul means to silence the noise and the tumult, to your desires, fears, opinions, anxieties, agendas, and irritabilities. And then I think one of the really very insightful lines in this chapter is, most of the noise in our souls is generated by our attempts to control the uncontrollable. You know we lose something, we aren't able to achieve something, and we have turbulence.

So fundamentally it's that that we don't have sufficient faith right Because faith is that we trust God and we trust God that all things work together for good. So in those times, yeah, there are painful times, there's difficult times, but Paul who says he's content in all things, right? That contentment comes from a trust in the living God. That God is doing what is good even when you look at it and say, this doesn't look good. We still by faith, we trust that God is doing what is good.

And you only understand what it means when it talks about a weaned child with his mother until you have been around an unweaned child with his mother who's even a little hungry and There's no other way to describe an unweaned child with his mother than agitated. They can't stop moving, squirming, because they have this unmet need and they're unweaned. And so until they get it, they cannot be quiet. You know what, I'll just read the Psalm. Lord, my heart is not proud and my eyes are not haughty and I do not go after things too great and too difficult for me.

Surely I have composed and quieted my soul like a weaned child on his mother, like a weaned child on me is my soul. Israel, hope in the Lord now and forever. So he's dealing with this whole thing of how do you deal with turbulence in people's souls. And Basically what he's saying is that you deal with turbulence in people's souls with the Word of God like how about Psalm 131? You know if you want to comfort someone who has Noise in their soul then you you have to do it with the only thing that can comfort them and that's the Word of God.

And some of it starts with 131.1 right where it says, Lord my heart is not hot in nor my eyes lofty. And part of it in counseling is to point out people their pride. I mean, that's where a lot of our tumult comes from, is from the pride that we have, that we think we can solve our own problems, that we think that we should have gotten something that we didn't get, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And part of it is just to point back to who they really are, they are but dust, except for God's grace. He calls it vain glory.

You have turbulence in your soul, you can usually trace it to some vain glory, right? Or haughty eyes on page 79. And He talks about, you know, the person who says, is it too much to ask? I want the church to thrive and my sermon to go well. It's for God after all.

And he says, the truth is, you know what, the reality is I want my way. I want the goodies. I want glory. I want God to do my will I want to be God doesn't everybody okay so you know he penetrates down to the real reason for turbulence we care too much about ourselves we're trying to protect ourselves and we don't like anything that threatens you know the perfections that we want to try to maintain before people so he he quotes that song be still my soul be still my soul the Lord is on thy side Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide.

In every change he faithful will remain. Be still my soul, thy best, thy heavenly friend. Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end." And he quotes several verses of the song. It's a beautiful song. So he talks about, in personalizing this psalm on page 86, he says that you need to identify the ladders to nowhere that a priety racks.

I thought this was really classic. Where do you raise up ladders of achievement? How do you go for victory, for grades, for promotion, for the big church, for the idealized devotional life? Where do you clamor up ladders of acquisition, ladders of appetite, ladders of avoidance? And he says, you know, pride sets up these ladders and that's really the bottom line of most of the disquiet that we find in our souls.

So then move on to the next chapter, chapter 5, Why Me? Comfort from Psalm 10. Now, he starts out with this story of a woman who had suffered some very heartbreaking losses, and her husband betrays her and divorces her and leaves her with the deprivations that sin would do. So she's victimized, right? That's the main thing that he's talking about.

And how do you deal with people who've been victimized? He says, go to Psalm 10. Again, to help people pick up the pieces, to help people figure out how to go forward when they've genuinely been wronged, especially in the most fundamental relationship of husband and wife. You know, what do you do? Well, you have to take them to Scripture.

He says Psalm 10 guides the person into knowing God in the midst of being violated. And then he moves through the psalm to follow the flow and the texture of the text in really an exegetical way. And he uses this psalm to help us know how to walk people through how to think about their problem so that they think about it properly. The opening cry, verse 1, Where are you? And then Psalm 10, 1 says, Why do you stand far off, O Lord?

Why do you hide in times of trouble? And then number two, analyze harmful people. They're proud, willful, godless, and predatory. Verses two through 11. This is on page 95 and down at the bottom of the page and then he just continues to unpack this passage and just to continue to outline the point that Psalm 10 is really speaking from the standpoint of the innocent victim who's relying on God and he says, you know, there are people who are innocent How do you help people get through their calamity when they really are innocent?

I mean Psalm 10 is also useful for the other side too when you're counseling the guy who did it because you know it says he has said in his heart God hath forgotten he hideth his face and he will never see it. I mean that is very useful when you're talking to the person who is sinning against his wife also. I mean Psalm 10 is very useful in that case as well. Yeah And then you know the third sort of act cry to God cry out to God act to aid the hurting twelve through fifteen arise O Lord O God lift up your hand do not forget the afflicted and then for confident affirmation, the Lord will right the wrongs. And that's verses 16 through 18.

The Lord is King forever and ever, nations have perished from His land." So all of these things designed to give perspective to the person who's been abused. I love this quotation by John Newton here at the bottom of 101. These inward trials I design from sin and self to set thee free, to break thy schemes for earthly joy, that thou mayest find thy all in me." Our trials are meant to wean us from false promises and things like that, and to wean us from the world to help us not to find our joy and earthly things anymore which don't satisfy anyway. So Ron Doran has something here. I'll just read it.

I think it's interesting that when we Look at the life of the Apostle Paul. We see a life that showed a consistent and Christ-like example of deep and selfless concern for everyone he served. His prayers were marked by an overflowing with thanksgiving and concern for the Church of Jesus Christ. Paul was not ashamed to express his love openly for the people for whom Christ died. Paul was willing to endure the sufferings inflicted for the sake of the church.

Paul was willing to deny himself making whatever sacrifices were necessary for the people of God. One of Paul's highest concerns was the present and ultimate salvation of the people of God. Paul felt and acted Like a godly parent toward the church of Jesus Christ Wow, I'll tell you that's that that sounds like a sermon for the love the church conference to me It really does that that is rude. That is really wonderful Thank You Ron. Yeah, that's that's exactly what what Paul was doing You know for the church And as an elder, that's what an elder's responsibility is, is to not...

And this is another reason why you go back to Scripture. It's because it's not to point to you. It's to point to God and also to speak to them because out of love for them, you desire them to be glorifying God. You desire them to be walking in God's ways, that your desire is to serve them. And anybody who's trying to be an elder because of the position or anything else, his soul will be the one that needs to be quieted, his soul will be the one that needs to be comforted, because it would be a very stressful position except for the fact that you're desiring to help these people.

That's why you're sacrificing your time and your energy. He quotes the Heidelberg Catechism, the beginning of it, which I just love this. You got to read the rest of it. I just included this short beginning. What is your only comfort in life and death?

That I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ and it just continues on with more beauty just like that in this chapter here you know Pauluson is trying to to help us understand there's only one comfort in life and death, and that is the Lord Jesus. Counselors, elders, friends do their best work when they point people back to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of their trials so that they find true comfort. The Old Testament prophets said, you heal my people lightly. What Paul is talking about is not light healing, it's deep healing that goes to the innermost being. So that's the end of this chapter.

We'll pick up in chapter 6 with Luke 12 when we come back in about 5 minutes. So thanks for the conversation and we'll continue in just a few minutes. Okay, welcome back to David Pauluson, Seeing with New Eyes. We're trying to learn how to be of greater benefit to our people by learning how to use scripture to learn how to reflect the structure and the thrust of scripture to help people understand their problems. We'll just start out here with a note from Kevin Fowler.

Doesn't Paul express a disquieted soul regarding the unsaved Jews, the struggles of the churches, etc. How do we distinguish between righteous concern for people whom we care deeply about and see their need to change and prideful motives in trying to change them by even using scripture. So you want to take a crack at that question? The first thing that I'd do is read the beginning of Romans 9 where he's quoting about a disquieted soul regarding the unsaved Jews. Whereas as I say, the truth in Christ I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for I could wish that myself or a curse from Christ for my brother and my kinsmen according to the flesh.

And I guess when I read that the word disquieted you know being stormy and tossed about there's There's difference between mourning over something. We should all look at the sin that's around us in the world and mourn over it. But when I mourn of the sin that I see in Wake Forest, that doesn't mean my soul is disquieted. I would just put those in different categories. I'm not disquieted.

I trust God. I rest on God that He will do what is good and what is right and what is just. And so I can rightly look and mourn over the ravages of sin around me and at the same time not be disquieted. I don't think that those two are axiomatic that they're the same. Right.

Yeah, you know, in the previous chapter he's talking about vainglory. Vainglory, pride, you know, losing things you got so attached to, God tearing them from your hands so that you don't find pleasure in those things but him. I think those are two different kinds of categories that he's dealing with. Paul says, I wish I would plug my eye out for you. That's not vainglory, that's a whole different category of grief.

Troubles befall people and we're troubled, we cry, it hurts us when people are hurt that's a different kind of struggle of the soul than what he's talking about here. In 1 Timothy 6, 6 he says, but godliness with contentment is great gain. And I don't think that the mourning he's talking about, the dealing with the struggles of the churches, all those things mean that he's Not a godly man with great contentment So let's just move through some things in this chapter for this reason. I say to you do not worry about your life As to what you will eat he's saying That Even if you don't have a lot of money or as much as you think you need, money is still not your life. And then Jesus final comment offers one more reason why not to worry.

A worrier is storing treasure in the wrong place. Where do you store your treasure? In iffy things or certainties. So helping one another to understand where we're piling up our treasure is a big part of counseling. And if you look at the whole counsel of scripture, what you, at least I see, and maybe it's an incorrect interpretation on my part, But what I see in a lot of ways is it's harder to be rich than it is to be poor That there's a lot more Those are a snare and too often we look and complain about what what financial things we don't have it instead of saying Thank God that he hasn't given me all these things.

It would be a snare to my soul. That instead He is merciful and He has kept these things from me that would not help, that they would hurt me. And part of that goes back to the same thing, the same idea of we need to talk to the people about being content where God has them. That God is the good father. He is the perfect father who is chastising his sons.

He's instructing his sons. He's creating disciples that will look like the only begotten son. He's about that work. They Both need to turn from their sin when they see their sin, but at the same time they need to be satisfied with where God has them. Because God is wiser than they are.

I really liked how he gave this checklist toward the end of the chapter beginning in page 122 where he just walks through a sort of a process. Name the pressures. You know, you always worry about something. What is it? You have to be able to describe what it is that's bothering you.

And then identify how you express anxiety. And then ask yourself, you know, why am I anxious? And then which promise of Jesus speaks to you most? And you know, go to your father, talk to him. Your father cares for the things you worry about he knows that you need many things cast your cares on him and then give do and say something constructive care for someone and he ends with It is your father's pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Your father is God, don't worry. And these are, this is balm for the soul here. And there's a question up there from Zachary. What is the difference between worrying and being precautious? Which is a great question.

Yeah. I mean, it really is. And I'll give you my definition. And these two wiser men may have better definitions than mine. But my definition would be worrying is where you're concerned about it with no ability to do anything.

Being precautious means that you are taking cautions, right? That you're doing things ahead of time. And so it is completely legitimate and valid to be about doing the things that you should be doing. Now you can also do it to the point where you're just you're doing it out of panic, but worrying Fundamentally is saying I mean worrying is when you've done all taken all the precautions that you can you say it's in God's hands I'm fine with it. Whatever God will do We're not to worry.

It is valid for us to consider the times. It's valid for us to look and to plan and to try to be as wise as serpents and general as doves. Those are valid things for us to do. But they all involve doing. If all we're going to do is sit there and think oh, what's going to happen?

What's going to happen? That's worrying and that that's sinful, right? So dance sounds so much like a puritan. They are always saying Duty is ours results are God's and when you're taking precautions you're doing your duty and leaving the results to God. When you're worrying, you may be doing your duty, but you also think the results are yours, which is why you're biting your fingernails.

Right. And inherently, worrying is not about doing your duty. That's just so you're taking precautions at the same time that you're worrying. You know, he is some great language here. Fending off the barbarians in your mind.

I just like that title. I thought that was fantastic. And he, he quotes Proverbs 25, 28. Which offers a description of what happens with anxiety. Like a city that's broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit.

And these barbarians are always at the gate so we have to we have to fend them off you know through the control of the Lord you know in our lives one of the things that's so central to this is the fear of the Lord the fear of the Lord frees us from all manner of other fears and to the extent that we find ourselves worrying or people that were canceling worrying probably drilling down into a lack of the fear of the Lord is an appropriate place to go. And that manifests itself in so many ways, right? It can be that we're fear of where our next meal can come from, it can be that we're afraid of what people will say to us, it can be that we can all those things end up being the same thing, just like Jason said. It's that we don't fear God enough, and we fear the things of this world more than God. We need to counsel people that, no, all they need to do is fear God, and everything else will take care of itself.

Not that we don't do our duty, but that manifests itself because the fear of God means that you do what God asked you to do, right? So part two reinterpreting life. I really like this chapter. I mean this this section and It's all about asking the question why? That's the way he he begins, you know this whole section He's talking about here assigning the reason for things, which is really, I mean this is really, really important because people in our churches, we ourselves, we miss the cure because We answer the question of why wrongly and he's putting his finger on that and he's He's now going to take on different kinds of problems and he's going to expose the bankruptcy of some of the language that psychology has taught us to use in answering the question of why.

Why is this happening to me? Why do I feel this way? What's going on? And of course he's going to advocate that God sees into the real reasons so that the question can be answered with the right language. So let's move into these chapters here.

The next nine chapters are about this whole subject. I really thought this is a very insightful section. So, X-ray questions. Now, the question why launches a thousand theories of human nature. And here's this long quote.

He said, did you become fixated somewhere on the hierarchy of need? Are you genetically hardwired toward aggression? Are raging hormones the culprit? Do your instinctual psychic impulses conflict with the dictates of society? Have your drives been reinforced by rewarding stimuli?

Are you an Aries with a Jupiter rising? Are you an adult child of unhappy and determinative traumatic experience? Are you compensating for perceived inferiorities, seeking to acquire better self-esteem? Did a demon named addiction infiltrate a crevice in your personality? Did you have a failure of willpower?

Are you ignorant of good doctrine? Are you temper mentally melancholy or sanguine pessimist or an optimist an introvert or an extrovert? Are you immersed in the ideological false consciousness that characterizes your social class? Does your self-talk? Misrepresent the bases for identity and self-worth?

I did that, thought that, felt that, because people relentlessly try to determine the underlying reasons for what appears on the surface. Okay, so let's just talk about this for a minute. So obviously, you know, if you've been to these pagan universities and you've read some of these loser psychiatrists, you know where a lot of these statements come from. Okay, Freud, Rogers, all over the place. And then he immediately follows that up on page 130 by introducing the concept of functional gods so he cuts through all the psychobabble and gets right to the point which is often it's idolatry yeah there's a quote Jason on that one these questions reveal functional gods What or who actually controls their particular actions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, memories, and anticipations.

Note that functional gods in a particular situation often stand diametrically opposed to the professed God. I'd probably state that stronger than that, right? They always stand diametrically opposed because that's what idols do. They always stand, if you say anybody else is sovereign, then you're rejecting God and that's idolatry. And when you put the blame any place other than this is what God has decreed, this is my sin, this is where I am, if it's not about you and your relationship with God it is idolatry.

This section, Pauluson, is totally deconstructing modern psychology. When you do that, you've taken on quite a beast. And that's what he's doing. In chapter after chapter, he continues to just chip away at modern psychology. The citation on page 134 is a great example of it.

How often have you heard people speak of their problems in terms of felt needs, problems in their marriages or problems of children in terms of felt needs. He says, in most cases a person's felt needs are slang for idolatrous demands for love. Okay? Understanding, a sense of being in control, affirmation and achievement. We're back to vainglory again it seems like.

But here, you know, Palleson is taking the wrecking ball and he's blowing through felt needs you know all all kinds of stuff and so we'll just keep walking through it here you know he says first my rule of thumb is a two-fold question. What lies and what lusts are being expressed through this sinful pattern of life? And Larry Seid says these reasons are essentially culturally creative ways of saying the woman you gave me, she gave me and I ate. This is really the psychological answer to the why question. Yeah, that's I think that's a very insightful.

It just goes right back to the dawn of mankind. It's amazing how many departures from God go back to that part of scripture. You know, in our book on the discipleship of youth and the chapter on history, we say this problem really goes back to the conflict in the garden. Did God say? Is God true or not?

It goes back to questioning God's methods and ways. Right, and as you look through these, I had, you know, before Larry made that comment, I had thought about even just, you know, you read these, are you genetically hard-willed towards aggression? In other words, are you controlled by your parents' genes? Raging hormones, the culprit. Are you controlled by your flesh?

Do your instinctual psychic impulses conflict with the dictates of society? I guess this is, are you controlled by the spirits of the air? All of these are basically saying something's in control other than God. Yeah. Fundamentally that's what all these are saying which is the same thing that Adam said in the garden.

Yeah. She was in control. It was her fault. So you've got these 35 questions And if you were reading this like I was reading this I'm thinking how can you ever remember all this, especially if you're in a counseling situation. But as you read through them you start grouping them in your mind.

And the truth is you can boil these down to about half a dozen. And there's a string of questions starting with number 24 on page 137 that gets to the heart of it. What do you pray for next? What do you think about most often next? What do you talk about next?

How do you spend your time? They probably should have had another one that says, how do you spend your money? But it's getting to the heart of, what are you investing in with your life? How is your time spent? How is your money spent?

What is your mind dwelling on? If you start grouping all these other ones under those headings it's pretty easy to categorize them that way. Yeah, these are great questions to try to get to the answer why, why. And notice you know the the questions always They're really designed to take you to your idol, to your functional God, to the sin that's underlying it all. And fundamentally, I think, in counseling, one of the important things to do is to understand that almost never the problem that is manifest that the people have been driven to the point that they come and talk to somebody that's almost never the problem that that is really the problem that they need to deal with that's almost always a symptom that they don't like of their real problem and so as you talk to them I mean I I don't ever really look at any of these questions, but as I talk to them, the discussion is about how did you get there, and then how did you get there, and so on.

And you keep kind of walking back that chain of their symptom to try to get to where is their idolatry that they're really causing the symptom. And maybe multiple steps back, but it's kind of, I tend to ask the why question through the problem that they present rather than coming up with a list of 34 questions. They've usually given you a starting point, Hang there and move from there. Right. Let's just step back for a second and talk about this, how this practically works in church life.

Here are a couple of ways. One is when you're among the congregation, an elder should be very prayerful to try to discern where the where the devil is harassing the people because he is harassing them and you know what if he's not you're you're not doing a good job as a shepherd so you know, in the personal conversations that you're prayerfully seeking to see where the harassment is coming from and to understand that These are the problems of the flock. These are the things that we're here to deal with. On a Sunday morning, an elder, he needs to be just very proactive and aware of things that might be happening in that church and making sure your questions, your relationships are at a level that allow the detecting of these things. I mean, if you're going in and you're talking about the ball game or their business or different things like that, you will often not ever get it.

This is the tragedy of the shallow kind of church life where it's sort of like a boys club, you know, where guys are getting together and they're talking about a bunch of trivialities. It's not good for the flock to do that. And it's not loving either. And it's when we talk back at the example of Paul and the love that he showed for the churches when we think about that right to talk to somebody about sports and stuff instead of actually trying to talk to them about where they are in their lives right Our desire as shepherd should be to shepherd our people to greener pastures. We can only do that if we actually care what their lives are like.

We can actually see where their problems are, or we can speak to them, or we can tell them the good things of God that they need to hear. And if we're wasting our time talking about trivialities, I mean, we need to be in there and Desiring to love our people and talking to him about the latest sports game is not really loving our people He uses this Illustration I really like this illustration. He was talking about sitting on a hill overlooking like seeing a powerboat You know speeding across the water and you can see I mean you can see what's happening. You can see the outward behavior From the dock, but he says but to truly understand and help the powerboat you must converse about the invisible and the invisible there's a lot going on you know under the hood and under the transom of that boat that's really where the story is and people are like that there are things going on underneath You might see them and they might seem like they're functioning just from the outward appearances, but there's something more. There's something going on inside.

So on page 140, when he's under the heading of establishing a plan for change, I thought the second point he makes is really valuable. So I'll just read the paragraph. It says, second, the verbs that relate people to God must become an active part of your thinking. People are always doing something with God. Human beings either love God or despise Him and love something else.

We take refuge in God or flee from Him and find refuge in something else. We set our hopes in God or we turn from Him and hope in something else. We fear God or we ignore Him and fear something else. Scripture will come to life in new ways as you develop an alertness to how the man before God verbs play out in real life. Such perspective grants powerful insights both for evangelistic counseling and for helping the Saints grow.

And the reason I like to paragraph so much is it keeps us in a counseling situation for either doing this ourselves or allowing the person we're talking to to painting a picture of circumstances completely devoid of God. And we have to slow down, stop, and ask what's happening with God here. God really is in this picture. Where is He and how is this person relating to God? And also, Jason, he follows it up with this next point that you've just talked about.

By seeing the God relatedness of all motivation, you see that what is wrong with us calls for a God related solution. The grace, the peace, the power, the presence of Jesus Christ. And so, you know, he's just constantly bringing us back to the person of Christ as really the solution for everything. So let's move on to the next chapter, chapter eight. I'm motivated when I feel desire.

So he comes, I really like, he's kind of got this irreducible question to get at all kinds of, you know, real problems going on. He says the simplest way to discover why a person does, says, thinks, or feels certain things is to ask what do you want? You know What's driving you? What are you trying to achieve with this? And then he says, but naming what you want is the easy part.

The harder part is this. How should you now interpret what you've identified? Naming is not the same as Understanding what your wants mean and how you should evaluate them. So he's bringing up this Remember what we're answering the question. Why why?

Why are these things happening in people's lives? I mean, I actually find that a lot of times you get, I won't use the word lies because frequently they're unintentional, but when you ask that question and they say, well, I want such and such, take that with a grain of salt when you're counseling. Take it with a really big grain of salt. And frequently they'll say, I want such and such. And a lot of times, you can turn around and say, well, if you did this, you would get that.

Why don't you just do that? And they'll go, no, I'm not going to do that. Well, you just found that what they said they really wanted wasn't really what they wanted. A lot of times, people don't really understand their own motivation or they're not going to be open and forthright about their own motivation. And so even the question, it's not always the easy part to get them to truly name what they want.

Sometimes that can be a lot more challenging. So Pauluson says that so concisely on 146 the last sentence before before the new section he says God must show us how to properly interpret our wants because we are compulsive misinterpreters. We don't want the true interpretation. It's too threatening to the pursuit of godless autonomy that is our deepest darkest and most persistent and most inadmissible passion. Yeah, yeah.

He quotes Maslow right above that, what Jason was just reading. And again, you know, he's pointing out the misleading principle that Maslow, you know, wrought upon the world is these needs which are essentially deficits in the organism, empty holes so to speak, which must be filled up for health's sake, and furthermore must be filled from without by human beings other than the subject that I shall call deficits or deficiency needs." Now, Pauluson is, he's going to move, turn from the wrecking ball to the atomic bomb to go after this problem. He does it in a number of ways, you know, in the coming pages. But again, the question is why? And then Maslow says, well, it's because you have empty holes that need to be filled by other persons.

That's your problem. Your holes aren't being filled. And people often think that's really the root of their problem. So then he gives these 15 questions to probe the world of our desires. And these are biblically oriented questions.

How does the New Testament commonly talk about what's wrong with people? So if you want to answer why, you have to find out what the Bible says about what's wrong with people. And then he points out the lusts of the flesh or the heart of it. Why do people do specific ungodly things? The Bible speaks to it.

But what's wrong with wanting things that seem good? But often the object of desire is good and the evil lies in the lordship of the desire. And then he concludes this idea, in other words the evil in our desires often lies not in what we want but in the fact that we want it too much so you know this is the whole thing of ruling desires that he that he talks about and that the biblical counseling crowd likes to talk about it so it's a very important principle. Any thoughts on this, guys? I guess that's a no.

I guess that's a no. Oh, brother. So there's a question up here, or there's a statement by Kevin Fowler, I want a pill of wisdom that is guaranteed to take away the consequences of the undesirable situation I find in myself. In one form or another, people are asking for this. Yeah, they want some magic.

I mean, why is the pill industry such a fantastic business to be in? Because people just want a pill. They want something to fix, something they can put in their mouth to fix the problem rather than to deal with the real problem. So he says on 152, wise counseling must reinterpret that experience into biblical categories. And He quotes John Calvin Describing how cravings boil up within us and how the mind of man is a factory of idols What a classic What a classic statement the mind or the heart of man I think is what Calvin said is that out is is a factory of idols And in terms of moving things back into biblical categories One of the things I really appreciated about what Pallesin did in this chapter is he insists on the biblical language we can't have biblical categories unless we're prepared to accept the biblical language and he actually on number five on 151 has the question is the phrase lusts of the flesh useful in practical life and counseling?

And I went into reading this paragraph expecting him to back off the language and say it's not relevant, it's not comprehensible in our culture today, and He does none of that. He is happy to embrace the biblical language. And he says it's actually very useful in you know jerking people out of the psychological whatever that is out there and forcing them to think in terms of the Bible. He brought me back to my days raising little children at the bottom of 151 when he said you know in our family we began teaching our children about the I-1's before they were two years old and you know for example analyze any argument or outbursts of anger and you will find ruling expectations and desires that are being frustrated. He says in 152 up on the screen, certainly one particular craving may so frequently appear that it seems to be a root sin.

Love of mammon, fear of man and craving for approval. Love of preeminence or control, desire for pleasure and so forth, can dictate much of life. But all people have all the typical cravings. And I would argue that there is one root sin, rebellion to God. Rebellion, yeah.

I mean, that's the root sin. That's the sin. It just manifests itself in a whole bunch of different ways. But in the end, there is one root sin. It's rebellion to God.

And he's talked quite a bit about it in this chapter. But he names it on 152, distorted interpretations. And this is so important in any counseling, just to recognize that for a number of reasons, self-deceit can be one of them, posturing can be one of them, but often we're getting distorted interpretations of things. So we need to be on the lookout for that because all of us do it. We all sanctify our reasons for why things are the way they are.

And so I think Dan talked about it in terms of taking things with a grain of salt. But certainly, we have to understand that often we get distorted interpretations. And I think this gets right to what Calvin was saying. You have to reshuffle the deck and sort things back into biblical categories. And he talks about that here in 155.

Many counseling systems are obsessed with locating the reasons for current problems in the distant past and a century time right you find you find that the answer on place the bible's world view is much more straightforward sin Emerges from within the person what a novel idea you have to go back You know to all these different experiences the sin is in you and and just one comment on that I mean in we just have to understand even sincere christians they have been so ingrained with this thought that that is their knee-jerk reaction I'm doing this because my father did it. I'm doing this because this happened to me. I'm doing this, but I mean this is just what even most churches talk about. And so we need to get away from that and we need to be, note, your problem is you. Yeah.

And he's going to say, you know, the problem with you is that you have all these felt needs and they're driving you. They're driving you crazy. And he says, you know, most Christian counseling books follow this pattern. They just follow right in the heels of the secular psychologists. And then he gives an example on page 164.

For example, many people teach that we have an empty love tank inside and our craving for love must be met or we are doomed to a life of sin and Misery and then he's going to not very many pages Go after a particular book That presents this whole idea the five love languages and that people's problems you know are related to their empty love tanks and they need a human being to come fill them if they ever have any hope so come fill my love tank it's kind of a nice idea when you think about it And I mean when you think about this, I mean in terms of especially as an elder, what you have to understand is if you want to be popular with the people, all you have to do is blame it on other things, right? The problem is that your wife's not loving you the way that she should. Hey, the guy that you tell that to is going to really like you you're not going to help him He's still gonna have the same problems a year from then But but the message that no the problem is you're not doing what you should be doing typically isn't a popular one Yeah, but it is the one that we need to be saying because it's the one that helps.

You need to repent and turn towards God. So let's cruise on here. Chapter 9, God's Love Better Than Unconditional. You know, I'm just not aware of, maybe there are people out there who've taken this idea on, but he takes on the idea of unconditional love. I thought this was really helpful.

You've heard the term unconditional love so many times. You grew up in evangelicalism. You know, accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior because his love is unconditional. I mean how many times have you heard that? And so he takes that phrase on.

Let's have a sermon on agape. There you go. So he's like, I'd like to propose that God's love is much different and better than unconditional. Unconditional love, as most of us understand it, begins and ends with sympathy and empathy, with blanket acceptance. It accepts you as you are with no expectations.

You in turn can take it or leave it. And then he says, God cares too much to be unconditional in His love. God's love is active. He decided to love you and He could have justly condemned you. He's involved.

He's merciful. He's not simply tolerant. He hates sin, yet pursues sinners by name. God is so committed to forgiving and changing you that he sent Jesus to die for you. And so these are some of the things that he's using to try to demonstrate that the term unconditional doesn't quite get at the theological principle that's there.

I think he really pinpoints in on 169 where he says under the heading unconditional love carries cultural baggage Pauluson says this, It is wedded to a philosophy that says love should impose no values expectations or beliefs on another He says God's love is to hate has hate in it to hatred for evil Whether done to you or by you God's love demands that you respond to it by believing trusting obeying giving Thanks for the joyful heart working out your salvation with fear Delighting in the Lord. I mean, I mean this is really an important point, you know, we can go through Deuteronomy. There are a couple of places in Deuteronomy where the judgment of God is upon the people because they did not love Him with joy in their hearts. So God's love is not unconditional at all. It demands subservience, repentance, And all kinds of things like that if you love him you'll keep his commandments.

That's conditionality Also on 169 this page that talks about the cultural baggage that comes with with this term palaces says this But unconditional love used with the meaning the term now carries is a more subtle deceit. It keeps company with teachings that say to people, peace, peace when from God's holy point of view there is no peace if you receive blanket acceptance you need no repentance you just accept it it fills you without humbling you it relaxes you without upsetting you about yourself or thrilling you about Christ right as opposed to probably better better way to think of it is not unconditional love, but very conditional love that God fulfills the condition. So He says, you know, if you love Me, you will obey My commandments. So he's the father that chastises you so that you obey his commandments so that you love him And so it is very conditional but it's not by our strength that we fit we fulfill the condition It's by God's strength that he causes us to fulfill the condition and he supplies his son to keep the whole law for us because we've broken them. He says here in 169, deep down you're OK.

God accepts you just as you are. God smiles on you even if you don't jump through any hoops. You have intrinsic worth. God accepts you, warts and all. You can relax.

Bask in his smile and let the basically good real you emerge This is a philosophy Utterly at odds with God's real love. So I really I like this section in here He's you know deconstructing something that needs to be really identified so then next chapter chapter 10 what if your father didn't love you how many times have you heard this this is another really helpful chapter you know what do you do when people you know well their their love cups are empty that's you know where this is all going you can't really appreciate God as father if you had a poor relationship with your human father you know I bump into this idea from time to time in men who come to our church and they say, oh if I only could have had a father like you had, Scott, then everything would be fine. Well that's, you know, that really misses the point. And also, you know, men, you know, they live years just thinking, you know, that they just can't attain because their father wasn't a good father. That's really, I mean, Paulson is just going to say this is just completely untrue.

And fundamentally what it's saying is that, I mean, that is an insult against God, because God gave each one of us our fathers. So when we say, oh, I can't do anything because Dad was distant and mean, or whatever it says up there, I mean, as soon as we say that, what we're really saying is, boy, God really messed up. God just, you know, if God would have done the right thing, I'd be fine. Let's stop blaming God. So he says, if your father is abusive, critical, neglectful or selfish, are you prevented from knowing God as a loving father?

You must first experience a corrective human relationship in order to make God is my father a nourishing reality. So now there has to be someone to fill your love tank, a father somewhere, or you're just completely hopeless. Your dad was distant and mean. And then this whole idea of re-parenting. Such re-parenting not only despises the word and the spirit, it merely replaces one false image of God with a different one you know he gets kind of cheeky here do people come to know this God because human counselors skillfully reparent them no the very attempt to make that a counseling paradigm is idolatrous but it provides for a lot of billable hours yeah that's right so yeah I you know any more to say on this this chapter here there really is a lot here but you know I think we've I think we basically you know basically covered the point you know yeah I thought it was I thought it was helpful on 173 where he broadens that out because the point on 173 is God is more than just your father, he's also your king, he's also your shepherd, he's also your master, your savior and do you have to have a positive experience with all of these things that represent God?

Or you can't have a healthy relationship with God. He's just just pointing to the absurdity. Yeah Yeah, do you have to have a good King, you know, do you have to yeah, absolutely So next for next chapter human defensiveness He says my goal in this chapter is to improve both the science of understanding people and the technology of trying to help them by focusing on terminology and Its impact on both now. I mean palaces been talking about terminology through this whole book He says Christians have been forced to discuss human problems in the distorted terminology of secularized psychology. For example, how common and insidious is the use of the nomenclature for improved self-esteem?

The theoretical freight of these, and then he gives a bunch of examples, of these 15 samples carry in psychology, the Freudian, Vander and theory can mask the fact that these supposed mechanisms can be described in very untechical terms. We wear masks, we duck, we weave, we dodge the light of self-knowledge in honesty before God. We wear fig leaves. You know, it's interesting, he brings this down to an ancient heresy called Pelagianism. So maybe we can just talk about that for a few minutes.

How does Pelagianism somehow enter in to the discussion of helping people deal with their problems? So I'm going to take the liberty to just totally derail the discussion for a minute and take us back 60 seconds into the last chapter because I'm thinking about how we portrayed that chapter and I'm thinking people on the other end of the line are probably thinking that we don't see any link between the behavior of a father and the gospel and that is really not the argument that we're making. We believe very strongly that God gives fathers to children To be a proper representation of the gospel But what we're saying is to the extent that fathers fail at that and they all fail at that That God is sufficient and able to make up for any lack of a father so that it's not Crippling to not have a good father but at the same time we have a duty as fathers God has set us in our positions to be a proper reflection of the gospel. So Pelagianism. So I mean fundamentally although going back to the chapter that talked about, you know, you need to go to why.

Plagianism is the idea that man is basically good, that there's nothing wrong with him. And fundamentally, that's the theology that drove all those questions of the, I forget what chapter it was, but fundamentally it's, well, if something went wrong, it must be that, what was it, Aries as in Jupiter's rising in Aries or whatever it was? Right, it has to be something else because man is basically good. That is not the position of scripture. That is not the position of God.

Man isn't basically good. Man is wicked from the womb. Yeah, and that's why we say that, because that's what scripture says. So let's move on and the ambiguously cured soul he talks about this woman whose psychotherapy was mingled with mythology, psychobabble and a faulty view of her personal history and a faulty view of her heart And he goes back to Pelagianism to deal with this. And he says this, you know, she's an ambiguously cured soul.

Her story captures the therapeutic action, the therapeutic inaction, when it mingles with Christianity into a syncretistic psychotherapy. This is what the ministry of the word competes with. And we don't have time to go through this whole story, but as Amelia tells her story, you can tell she does not even understand what's going on. She's been misled about what's going on in her soul. But I mean one thing that in the book that and he's done that in a couple places and he does it here that that concerns me.

One of the things if you talk to an Amelia is you should say hey if if your life is surrounding lesbian fantasy Don't sit there and think you're a believer, and he basically goes. I know she's a sincere believer We should be more blunt than that and say God says no fornicator will be in heaven. I mean we need to call people to repentance into a true saving faith. They may already be saved but let's not ever give somebody a security of salvation security that they are in the body of Christ when their life does not look like it. Our job then is to say repent and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't trust that you walked an aisle ten years ago. Believe in God now. Repent from your sin now. Listen to the warnings that Paul gives us about who will be in heaven and who won't. The unrighteous will not be in heaven.

God changes people. When the Holy Spirit indwells their heart, they change. That's fundamental to the Gospel. Otherwise it's not that great of news if we stay the same. So then we cruise to Chapter 13, What Do You Feel?

So he talks about feelings. You know, we need to penetrate the smokescreen of language to discern what people truly mean when they use feeling language. They need, the need for an objective moral evaluation is obscured when anger is viewed as simply a feeling. If anger is a feeling that happens to me, then it's intrinsically legitimate, just as when I cut my finger I feel hurt. So when you offend me, I feel angry.

And he says a biblical understanding of feelings lets us look behind the often deceptive language of daily life. And then chapter 14, love speaks many languages fluently. And he's talking about here Gary Chapman's book the five love languages. He spends lots of time to try to talk about What faulty thinking is their very popular book, you know? You know did very well out in the marketplace and He says this could it be that deep inside hurting couples exists an invisible and emotional love tank with its gauge on empty?

Could the misbehavior, withdrawal, harsh words and critical spirit occur because of that empty tank? If we could find a way to fill it, could the marriage be reborn? Could that tank be the key that makes marriage work? So that's again we're back we're back to the whole felt needs problem and then he quotes Chapman again you know saying misbehavior in children and teenagers can be traced to empty love tanks. Haven't you found that true, Jason, with your children?

It's their love tanks. It's their love of themselves. They're being showered. They're being seen everywhere. And he says, I'm telling you, we're flowing enough.

They're speaking the wrong, they're speaking the wrong love language. He says, you know, Gary Chapman's world seems so sunny and so easy in comparison. The problems of life seem so fixable, his advice so doable. A bit of education, a bit of self effort are all that's needed for life to sing. The marriages in this book don't need Jesus blood sweat and tears the people don't need help and power from outside themselves in order to Even to stumble in the right direction.

They don't need Jesus to come back because the current fixing is adequate So there you have it Again, you know this whole book is about using the wrong language To talk about human problems. We have a book. It's the Bible. That's what we need to use and I Think palestin has used so many different ways to tell the story of why it's so important that we need to use scripture. So here's why Pauluson takes on the book.

It's on the bookshelf of almost every evangelical. I have one on my bookshelf. We studied it years ago. There are some strengths to the book and Pauluson points them out, but the core premise of the book takes you in the wrong direction. And the point is, for prospective elders, you will have people in your congregation who have read this book and they love it and they want to talk about it and educate everyone else as to the contents of it right And when you believe in the sufficiency of scripture, you have to ask yourself the question, how did God miss telling us about this love tank?

Yeah. I mean, Chapman's saying everything is about this love tank. And God never mentioned it a single time. Wow. I just wish that God was smarter than Chapman.

So just to end, we're at the end of the rope here Mike Brewer says he wants her to speaker say when people come visit me I tell them I'm a gifts person So have we just truly realized our whole evening? I don't know. But anyway, hey, great book. You know, we didn't get to speak the truth in love, which is really neat. I mean, speaking the truth in love is about relationships in the church.

And it's, you know, how it works. Let me just flip over. I guess we don't really have time. Speaking the truth in love. How do we live together?

How will we live together? And how do we help each other? That's what that book is about. I recommend it highly. Hey, God bless you guys.

Thank you so much for listening Hey pray pray for us as we distribute a weed in the church and The film divided that God would give it wings And would help us to answer all the questions that are going to come to us once it goes out God bless you. Thanks so much. So Jason, could you just close us in prayer? Heavenly Father we thank you that you have given us a word that is sufficient for all these things Help us to honor you and all the counsel that we give to our brothers and sisters. Help us to have you at the center of all our counsel that we wouldn't be guilty of self-help but that we would be pointing people to repentance from sin and turning to you.

You are a mighty God who can deliver. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen. The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life, and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches. For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org.

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