Transcript Hypocrites and Backsliders

Hypocrites and Backsliders
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Spiritual Death Conclusion
Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• So, what does this long study of Spiritual Death
have to do with our study of Hypocrites and
Backsliders?
• Everything!
• For it is the Believer whose walk is just like the
Unbeliever's walk that is what we define as a
Hypocrite or a Backslider.
• The only difference between the 2 is the status of
Fatherhood, to whom you belong, and to whence
you will go upon physical death.
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• For those who are certain that people who live the
life of "unrestrained uncleanness with insatiability"
as amplified in Romans 1: 29-32 are Unbelievers, I
point to just one phrase in our study:
• "Do not keep on walking as the other Gentiles
keep on walking."
• If it were not possible for a Believer to conduct
their life like an Unbeliever, Paul would not have
exhorted them (and us) to stop doing so.
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Spiritual Death
• Insist here means "to invoke as a witness" rather
than "to act as a witness."
• In the Lord means in communion with the Lord.
Paul speaks as one who had access to the mind of
Christ, knew his will, and could therefore speak in
his name.
• The exhortation is to no longer live as the Gentiles
do.
• The word translated live literally means "walk."
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Spiritual Death
• "To walk," in Scripture, includes all the manifestations of life,
inner and outer, seen and unseen.
• It does not merely express the outer, visible action.
• People are said to walk with God, which refers to the secret
fellowship of the soul with its Maker, more than to the outer
life.
• So here the walk which the apostle tells us to avoid is not
only the visible actions which characterize the Gentiles, but
also the inner life which the outer actions reveal. (Hodge)
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Spiritual Death: Eph 4:17
• "He then says, do not imitate the unbeliever. "Do not walk
as the Gentiles walk".
• These Gentiles are unbelievers who are in a frantic search
for happiness.
• The more they search, the more they seek, they cannot get
it.
• They see a woman, and they reach for her, and happiness
is gone; they see a bag of money and reach for it, and
happiness is gone.
• How many times have you said, “If I just had this or that, I
would be happy.” (Thieme)
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Spiritual Death: Eph 4:17
• And since you acquired it, have you been happy?
• No, you were just as miserable.
• The Gentiles are making a frantic search for
happiness.
• There is Religion, a member of the opposite sex,
friends, money, things, food and drink,
achievement, power, and the details of life.
• These are the things which they chase after.
(Thieme)
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The Sequence of Pre-Fall Understanding
SC
Attribution
Mood
Beliefs
Attitude
Knowledge
Divine Viewpoint
The Event
Perception
Appraisal Filter
Representation
Cognitive Response
The Volitional
Interlude
Emotional Reaction
OR
Rational
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Emotional
The Event
The Sequence of Post-Fall Understanding
SC
Attribution
"Their
Mood
Understanding
Beliefs
became
Attitude
Darkened"
Knowledge
______________
Divine Viewpoint
Perception
Appraisal Filter
Representation
The “Obedience”
Response
The Volitional
Interlude
Communion
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OR
The “Disobedience”
Reaction
Separation
Spiritual Life: Eph 4:20
• (4:20, 21) "and ye did not so learn the Christ, if so be ye
did hear him, and in him were taught, as truth is in Jesus "
• The “ye” (humeis) is emphatic.
• It is, “As for you, in contradistinction to the Gentiles yet
unsaved.”
• The Greek order of words is, “But as for you, not thus did
you learn the Christ.”
• The aorist tense marks a specific time.
• It was at their conversion. Vincent says: “The phrase learn
Christ occurs nowhere else. Christ does not stand for the
doctrine of Christ; but Christ is the subject of His own
message.”
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Spiritual Life: Eph 4:20
• Expositors says: “Nor can it be taken to mean
‘learned to know Christ.’ Christ must be taken as
the object of the learning, and the form ‘the Christ,’
especially looking to the following ‘Jesus’ (v. 21),
probably indicates that the official sense is in view
here.…The Christ, the Messiah. He personally—
that was the contents of the preaching which they
heard, the sum of the instruction they received and
the knowledge they gained then.”
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Spiritual Life: Eph 4:21
• if so be ye did hear him, and in him were taught,
as truth is in Jesus;
• “If so be” is ei, a particle of a fulfilled condition.
• The a.v. translates as if it were ean (ἑu945 ν), the
conditional particle of a hypothetical case.
• This particle ei (εu7984 ) is used with the indicative mode
which implies the truth of the supposition.
• The translation should read: “If as is the case.”
• They had heard.
• Expositors says: “The point, therefore, is this—‘if, as I take
it to be the fact, it was He, the Christ, that was the subject
and the sum of the preaching which you heard then.’ ”
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Spiritual Life: Eph 4:20
• “By Him” is en autoi, “in Him.”
• It is, “in Him you were instructed.”
• Expositors says: “en autoi (in Him) is not to be
reduced to ‘by Him,’ or ‘about Him,’ or ‘in His
name,’ but has its proper sense of ‘in Him.’
• The underlying idea is that of union with Christ.
• The ‘taught,’ therefore, refers probably to
instructions subsequent to those which were given
them at their first hearing.
• It was in fellowship with Christ that they received
these instructions.”
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Spiritual Life: Eph 4:20
• Vincent comments on the words “as the truth is in Jesus.” “As
corresponds with not so. Ye did not in such a manner learn Christ if ye
were taught in such a manner as is truth, etc. Render, as Rev., as truth
is in Jesus. Schaff paraphrases: ‘If you were taught so that what you
received is true as embodied in the peronal Saviour.’ ‘Taught in the
lines of eternal fact and spiritual reality which meet in Him’ (Moule).
Jesus is used rather than Christ; the historical rather than the official
name. The life of Christianity consists in believing fellowship with the
historic Jesus, who is the Christ of prophecy.”
• Translation. But as for you, not in this manner did you learn Christ,
since indeed, as is the case, you heard, and in Him were taught just as
truth is in Jesus.
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Spiritual Life
• Romans 8:1-8 (YLT) 1 There is, then, now no
condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk
not according to the flesh, but according to the
Spirit; 2 for the law of the Spirit of the life in Christ
Jesus did set me free from the law of the sin and
of the death; 3 for what the law was not able to do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God, His own
Son having sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, did condemn the sin in the flesh,
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Spiritual Life
• 4 that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled
in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but
according to the Spirit. 5 For those who are
according to the flesh, the things of the flesh do
mind; and those according to the Spirit, the things
of the Spirit; 6 for the mind of the flesh is death,
and the mind of the Spirit - life and peace; 7
because the mind of the flesh is enmity to God, for
to the law of God it doth not subject itself, 8 for
neither is it able; and those who are in the flesh
are not able to please God.
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Spiritual Life
• So, how does this study of Spiritual Death relate to
our study of Hypocrites and Backsliders, if, “You,
unlike the Unbelievers, have not so learned
Christ”, and, “that the righteousness of the Law
might be fulfilled in us”?
• How?
• Look at the next phrase in Romans 8:4:
• “who do not walk according to the flesh, but
according to the Spirit”
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Soul Diagram
Thinking
Decidin
g
Being
“and breathed into him the breath of lives
and man became a living soul.” Gen 2:7
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The Unbeliever
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Old (Adam Genes) Man
SIN Nature
Soul
Human Good
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Sins
The Believer
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• A Hypocrite is a Believer who, "due to the
ignorance that is in them" becomes "separated
from the life from God", EVEN THOUGH they
have the "life from God" in them.
• This they do, by “walking in the flesh”
• The process is only a little different - the
Unbeliever having no 'Regeneration Resource' in
them, have only their two Sinful Nature options
(Human Good and Human Bad) to rely upon; but
the Believer must make a volitional choice to
“Walk in the flesh” in order to enter the domain of
the Sinful Nature.
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The Sin Nature
Area of Weakness
Hebrews 12.1
Personal Sins
W
Sins borne at the
cross – 1 Peter 2.24
Weakness
Trend toward
Lasciviousness
Mark 7.21-23
Area of Strength
Isaiah 64.6
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SIN NATURE
Strength
S
Human Good
Trend toward
Asceticism
Hebrews 6.1
Rejected and
condemned at the
cross – Titus 3.5
Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• This Volitional Choice may be done in ignorance ignorance of what sin is, but it is a free-will choice,
nonetheless.
• So, knowingly or unknowingly the Believer
becomes a Hypocrite by choice.
• What is a Hypocritical Believer known as?
• A "Carnal Christian", a "Fleshly" Christian, is a
Christian who is unaware of their own faults (or
what to do about it), their own "beam in their own
eye", and marches on as if they are faultless.
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The Event
Perception
Appraisal Filter
The Sequence of Temptation for the
Christian
SC
Attribution
Mood
Beliefs
Attitude
Knowledge
Divine
Viewpoint
Representation
The “New Man”
Response
The Volitional
Interlude
Spirituality
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OR
The “Old Man”
Reaction
Carnality
Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• Once they begin that march, they must march in
step to the drum of the Sinful Nature, which
quickly searches out blame for a similar fault in
someone else.
• Is this not the perfect description of the Hypocrite one who is guilty of the same thing he or she
condemns?
• How does it happen?
• It is quite simple and goes back to our study of the
Sinful Nature and its 2 tendencies: 1.) Human
Good and, 2.) Human Bad.
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• As you will recall, there are these 2 aspects of
each of our Happiness Attainment Motivators
(HAM's, aka "Lusts of the Flesh").
• The HAM's are:
• Sexual
• Chemical
• Religious
• Approbation
• Power
• Materialism
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• Each of these 6 have their Human Good and their
Human Bad side.
• If a Hypocrite has a problem with a particular
HAM, say, Sex; he or she will likely commit a sin
of a sexual nature, causing the exit from the "life
from God" that is resident in each Believer, and is
called the "Reservoir of Righteousness" in our
studies.
• When exiting the Reservoir of Righteousness, the
Believer becomes Carnal, or dominated by the
Sinful Nature and its HAM's.
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• Since the HAM relevant to the sin (Human Bad) in
our example is Sexual, the most likely place for
the area of Human Good to pop up is the Sexual
HAM.
• Because all sins by the Believer result in
conviction by the Holy Spirit, the Carnal Believer is
now faced with dealing with Guilt.
• Because of Ignorance, the Carnal Believer fails to
recognize the need for (if even the existence of)
the Recovery Technique known as "Confession",
or "Rebound".
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• The means to Recover the "life from God" that is
resident in the Human Spirit of every Believer,
called the Reservoir of Righteousness, or, in
classic Christian terms, "Walking in the Spirit"
(Spiritual Orientation) and "The Word in you"
(Doctrinal Orientation), is the use of the Grace
Recovery Technique of 1 John 1:9.
• "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness."
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• Being ignorant that he has committed a sin, or
ignorant of the Grace Recovery Technique of 1
John 1:9, the Carnal Believer is forced to rely on
his Sinful Nature Compensation Technique, which
is to try to attempt to assuage Guilt with Blame.
• So, the Carnal Believer finds someone or some
group to blame for their own sexual misconduct,
and voila!, they become an instant Hypocrite,
"saying one thing and doing another", or, trying to
remove the "splinter" from someone else's eye,
while unaware of the 2X4 in their own eye.
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Hypocrites and Spiritual Death
• Now, as the Carnal Believer sinks deeper and
deeper into his HAM's, his Hypocrisy will expand
into ever more arenas.
• If he is a "well-rounded sinner", he will exhibit
Hypocrisy in all 6 of the HAM's, but if he is a
"specialist sinner" he may have only 2 or 3 areas
in which he will excel as a Hypocrite.
• The worst of all are those who top off their
Carnality with the HAM of Religion, making their
Hypocrisy all the worst, as they try, through selfjustification, to be the "Best Christian that they can
Be".
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Backslider - Mechanics
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1. Ignorance of Doctrine in them
2. Alienated from the Life from God (Out of Fellowship)
3. Understanding Darkened (Mind of the Flesh)
4. Heart Hardened - Stubbornness
5. Lifestyle of Futility of the Mind (Walk of the Unbeliever)
6. Past Feeling - Insensitive (Result of Stubbornness)
7. Give themselves over (Frantic Search for Happiness)
8. Lascivious - Unrestrained
9. Unclean - Impurity
10. Greedy - Insatiable
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Backsliders and Spiritual Death
• So, what about "Backsliders"?
• How does our study of Spirritual Death relate to
them?
• Much the same way, in fact, almost always in the
same way as one becomes a Hypocrite.
• Or, at least that is how it starts out, but the
Backslider fails to ever recover from their first sin
that takes them out of fellowship with the Father,
and they progress along in their Carnality, living in
the resources of their HAM's - both Human Good
and Human Bad.
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Backsliders and Spiritual Death
• They reverse the process that we saw in the
Unbeliever, whose Hardness of Heart, their
Stubbornness, leads to their Ignorance, which
leads to their alienation form the life of God, which
leads to their darkened understanding and that to
their futility in their thinking.
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Backsliders and Spiritual Death
• The Backslider, now "walking as the Gentiles
walk, in the futility of their minds", the HAM's and
the Human Good and Human Bad associated with
each, begins to lose their Doctrinal Orientation
(darkened understanding), then their alienation
from the life from God (Spiritual and Doctrinal
Orientation), produces greater ignorance, resulting
finally, in "Hardness of heart", or Stubbornness
towards God.
• They have completely "reversed" the process, and
have entered into Backsliding, or "Reversionism".
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Backsliders and Spiritual Death
• The Backslider, or "Reversionist", has become just
like an Unbeliever, in fact, the scriptures teach,
even worse than an Unbeliever.
• These are those who have left the Ministry to
become Atheists, for example.
• Their unhappiness has grown and their Stubborn
rejection of God becomes more vehement even
than the Unbeliever (Hebrews 6:4-10).
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Spiritual Death
Being and doing
No!
Mind of
the spirit
"Understanding Darkness
= Appraisal
process
Mind
of the
Flesh
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Resides
in Flesh