The Times They Are A-Changin’ | Faith | frontiersman.com – Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
In 1963 Bob Dylan wrote a hit song entitled, “The Times They Are A-Changin’. No doubt the times today are changing. We live in the days of the Great Reset led by Klaus Schwab. My grandfather died in 1999. He never heard the statement, “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.”
Way back in 1966 a professor at the University of Pennsylvania began to sense a great change. Philip Rieff said that there have been four types of people in the world….
First, there was Political Man in ancient Greece and Rome. Under the influence of Plato and Aristotle people identified with their city-state. He referred to this as Political Man.
Second, the middle ages gave rise to Religious Man. People were Catholic or Protestant. They identified with their church. They observed the holy days. They identified with their religion.
Third, years later the industrial revolution produced Economic Man. People were known by their trade guild or their labor union. People quit school at age 15 and worked in a steel mill for the next 30 or 40 years.
Fourth, Rieff said that Political Man and Religious Man and Economic Man have given way to Psychological or Therapeutic Man. People now identify with their feelings. If you asked your great grandfather, “Do you find fulfillment in your work?” he would probably have been very surprised at the question. He might have replied, “Well, my work enables me to put shoes on my children’s feet. It enables me to put a roof over my wife’s head. It puts food into my children’s mouths. I guess I find fulfillment in my work.”
If you ask a young person today, “What do you want to do with your life?” They might say, “I don’t know what I feel like doing. I don’t know what excites me. I’m not sure.” That, my friend, is Psychological Man!
In the past a person went to school to learn a standard to conform to it. When I was in elementary school, we learned what it meant to be a good patriotic American. We were expected to meet the standard. If not, Coach So-And-So was present with the board of education to encourage us! Today children go to school to express themselves. They attend school to find themselves. Again, that is Psychological or Therapeutic Man.
May I propose today that what is needed today is a fifth type of person? Today we need Biblical Man. Our families and our state and our nation need people who are dominated and controlled by the Word of God. Ephesians 5:18 says, “Do not be drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” The parallel passage is Colossians 3:16, “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you….”
If a person puts enough alcohol into their body, the result is dissipation or a lowering of inhibitions. If a person puts the Word of God into their mind, their behavior will change. That is what it means to be filled with the Spirit!
God told Joshua, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and you will have success.” In ancient times people always read out loud. Not departing from a person’s mouth means to be read the Bible. We must read and meditate on God’s Word.
Psalm 1 makes an amazing promise. The person who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night, “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.” There is an old saying, “If your Bible is falling apart, your life won’t be.”
Our Lord Jesus said in John 15:7, “If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” To abide in Christ is to meditate on God’s truth.
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. Verses 1 and 2 state, “How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart.” The word blessed means “to be envied.” It is one person looking at another person and saying, “You are squared away. You are an amazing person. I want to be like you.” The blessed person walks or follows God’s truth.
How does Biblical Man respond? What does he look like? First, he reads the Bible. Read God’s Word in a systematic, organized way. Job read the Bible before he ate food in the morning (Job 23:12). Every day read the Bible. Make this a habit or pattern in your life.
Second, study the Bible. Read with a pen and paper in hand. Underline key words. Note the subject and verb in each verse. Highlight key words to show the cause and effect relationships. Understand the purpose for each Book. Break the verses down into paragraphs. Go deep. Don’t just skim across the surface.
Third, interpret the Bible. Purchase a good study Bible. Satan’s lie is, “The Bible is complicated. You must be a seminary professor or missionary to understand it.” No! If you can read the newspaper and understand it, you can read and understand the Bible.
Fourth, apply the Bible. We read and study and interpret God’s truth in order to know God better. Eternal life is knowing God (John 17:3). Obey the Bible. Do what it says and the result will be transformation!
Ethan Hansen is a pastor at Faith Bible Fellowship in Big Lake.
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