well thank you very much it's very gracious uh words and I'm just thrilled to be here and to be a part of your walk uh with Jesus some people kind of find find it a little odd that a philosophy Professor should do all the things I do in particular that I should be such an explicit uh Advocate and follower of Jesus Christ but uh that's because of a peculiar past that we have in our culture the truth of the matter is when the Christian Gospel came into the Greco Roman world it was understood to be answering the questions that the philosophers were asking and especially in the 2 and third Century of Western history the intellectuals converted in Mass precisely because and they said because the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the background from the people of Israel and the Old Testament answered the questions that at that point philosophers had been trying to answer for 500 years or so um today we live in a situation where um the culture has more or less taken Jesus and put him aside um you don't think of Jesus as being particularly intellectual or intelligent you think he's nice but not smart and if you ask a group of unsuspecting people who's the smartest person in the world they won't think of Christ they'll think of Bill Gates and Einstein maybe or some of the others that now are on the um Horizon of the intellectual life but they don't don't think of Jesus and so when we come with the message of Christ into our world uh we get recategorized and what one of the main things that I want to do this morning especially is to try to shift that back and help us see uh Jesus Christ in a different kind of way uh the theme that we're following here is the Divine conspiracy and we're going to be talking about dimensions of that uh as we go along I've put up on the screen um and I I wonder if someone wants to do something about this message that's being sent to me sorry don't how about don't display this message again let's do that I've put up here a couple of passages from Paul's letters because Paul was the one who really came to understand the the place of Christ uh in world history and uh if you just look at Colossians chapter [Music] 1 verse 13 speaking of Christ for he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transform transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son you want to note the occurrence of the word Kingdom there uh Paul understood how the kingdom worked and what the kingdom was and where Christ stood in relationship to it in his beloved Son we have Redemption the Forgiveness of sins and he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation Now watch how Christ is being pushed out to be inclusive of everything for by him all things were created both in the heavens and on Earth visible and invisible whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things have been created by Him and for him uh that's pretty inclusive isn't it all things have been created by Him and for him and he is before all things he's prior to all things and and in him everything holds together that is to say the order that is in the chair you're Seated on is Christ in action and then he goes on to say he is also the head of the body the church and he's the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that he himself self might come to have first place in everything now see that is the picture of Christ that impressed these people uh who made up the first century Christian body this is how they thought about him and this is how we must think about him today if we're going to understand reality reality because that's what this is all about is about reality and he goes on to uh spell that out just a word or two from Philippians because this puts the drama in a little different way Philippians 2:5 have this attitude in yourselves which is also in Christ Jesus who although he existed in the form of God and we have to talk about that at some length later on the form of God did not require regard equality with God a thing to be held on to now this is one of the most amazing things in all of the cosmos what he did he emptied himself taking the form of a bonder servant and being made in the likeness of men this mind that was in Christ Jesus was one that arose out of a community which we call the Trinity and the absolute stunning quality of love and Trust in that Community was that one who had it all could turn it all loose in confidence that he lost nothing he emptied himself took the form of a slave took the sh the shape the condition of human beings and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on the cross now you see the meaning of the Cross is it is the ultimate point of emptying out of one who was equal with God laying that down turning it loose in death on the cross and now that cross became the center point of the Divine conspiracy someone asked me a few days ago why did Jesus die on the cross I said so Mel Gibson can make that movie see and that's true it's profoundly true Jesus planned it and brought it off and All Through the Ages that has stood there as a high point in human history the cross now think about that see what is God doing does it that way who would have chosen to do it that way no one and of course that's for our benefit because that is where we are in Union with God and Union with Christ and where we walk forward in what he's doing now as we join him on the cross see the real ity of Christ and the cross in human history is what brings us into the flow of the single greatest force in human life which is the cross and believing that totally flips everything upside down it affirms a kingdom which is eternal and different from anything that human now then therefore God has highly exalted him verse 9 of Philippians 2 and bestowed on him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow those that are in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father when I was younger and a great deal meaner than I am now I used to believe that this was a picture of Christ standing with his foot on the neck of every resisting person and making them say you're [Applause] Lord I I don't think that's the picture at all I think the picture here one is going is going to be one of great relief where even the people who have not accepted him will thank God that he is who he is and that the world is a reflection of that kind of God so now when we think of the Divine conspiracy we're thinking of God In Action in history and this is a description of the central personality of God in action and history and that is Jesus Christ now Jesus himself taught mainly about the kingdom of God it was on the Assumption of course that he and his father and his Spirit were king but in MA Matthew 13 you have these wonderful Parables of the kingdom of God um you know that Jesus mainly spoke about the kingdom of God that's what he talked about or in the Matthew version the kingdom of Heavens that was his gospel we'll talk more about that later but one of the ways that he taught was by means of Parables and uh figures of speech so what's the kingdom of God like well the kingdom of God is like a kind of life and um here he says in Matthew 1331 the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed little fetty seed a man sews it in his field it is smaller than all other seeds and see that's that's Christ pouring himself out that's Christ dying on the cross it's hard to get more insignificant than that but that's the way the kingdom is the Kingdom from the human point of view looks like like nothing very small very insignificant it is smaller than all other seeds but when it is full grown it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches little little bitty seed it grows and then another parallel he draws is in verse 33 the kingdom of of Heaven is like leaven leaven is yeast it's a kind of thing that grows and takes over it's very like a virus but it grows and it penetrates the Kingdom of Heaven is like leavon which a woman took and hid in three pecs of meal or about a bushel and she hid it there until every part of the meal or dough was leavened leaven Works quietly just keeps growing just like that Mustard Seed so now um that's what we want to think about the Divine conspiracy when I was uh in the process of publishing the book The Divine conspiracy I had intended to entitle it the kingdom among us because that's what it's really about the kingdom among us but um editors and Publishers have ideas about titles and they didn't like that um for one thing they were worried about queendom and not just kingdoms and other things that came up they didn't like it and so there was discussion about it and then one day after another discussion by telephone with them which led nowhere as I walked back to my study the Lord said to me the Divine conspiracy now I had never thought of that had never occurred to me I wasn't trying to think about it uh but that's the way it comes sometimes the Lord does talk to people and uh so I turned around in midcourse and went back to the telephone and called them and said the Divine conspiracy and they said the Divine conspiracy and that was the end of the discussion but I do think it is a wonderful concept to cover the kingdom of God the Divine conspiracy is basically God's plan and process of overcoming evil with good in human history and that is what he's doing and that is why the cross and that is why the resurrection now um we need to talk about knowledge because that's what we bring is knowledge uh and we need to understand what knowledge is because that's the battle we're in when we bring the message of the Divine conspiracy and um uh if you don't understand what knowledge is you really I think won't know how you stand in the battle the constant problem for human life is to find an adequate basis for life in knowledge in other words we need to know what we're doing and by and large we suffer from a lack of knowledge and most of all from a lack of knowledge of God what is God and what is God doing now of course we have to know things like where food comes from and what's likely to harm us or help us and uh how to get about in the world and deal with issues of life that's that's certainly important and um the story of human progress has been a story of progressive knowledge so that we can do more and more and more things the things we can do now that even that a person uh who has almost no means at all the things they can do now compared to what people could do in the days of Alexander the Great it just transformed uh beyond recognition uh we're used to it of course uh and we know more and more uh what to do but we also on the on the side of research we're constantly researching more and more what to do we know for example that we're not exactly the head of the food chain perhaps something more in the order of a virus or bacteria the head of the food chain and they'd like to eat us and so we're in a constant battle trying to head them off and get something that will stop them and then they're fighting back by adapting and adjusting so the stuff that we learn to use to stop them won't stop them much anymore and so there a constant battle uh food armaments terrorism for example exists today because of the increase of knowledge for most of human history you could not blow up a bunch of people at the same time and if you were going to hurt people you had to get close to them now you can blow up a lot of people at the same time and you don't even have to be in the area to do it uh and all of that is knowledge you see and um so uh knowledge is absolutely Central and what we bring when we talk about Jesus Christ and what he's doing is knowledge of reality now bear with me and let's work this through we know something when we're able to represent it as it is that's knowledge we know something when we're able to represent it as it is on an adequate basis of thought and experience so we don't just bring things that happen to be true guesses but it is based in experience and thought and in the case of the teachings that we bring as Christians to the world or as followers of Christ to the world in the case of those it involves a tradition that involves the Bible and involves the church and church history it involves the community of thought and experience that now exists and so knowledge is a communal kind of thing now there are traps in that that we'll talk about later but that's important to understand so when we come with the message of Christ we come out of that context of Bible Church history and of course the overarching presence of the spirit and our best experience and thought ourselves uh as we go along now knowledge involves truth and that's why it's so important is because you you could have a true belief but not know right you could you could guess and be right you might um think in terms of an investment and you might invest your money in it and you might be lucky uh and be right and get rich but it wasn't because you knew it was because you just happened to be right so you can't guide Life by what happens to be true we can't go by guessing because the thing about guessing is you never know whether or not it's true until it's all over and guessing about God of course uh is something that is extremely hazardous for your health uh because if you're wrong in that case you're in real trouble uh but that's true of everything that is important in life we need knowledge and not just truth but truth is why knowledge is so important it is an uh it is what enables us to deal with um reality in a way way that is good for us shall we say an idea or a belief is true if what it is about is as that idea or belief represents it so for example take John 3:16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him puts their confidence in him will not perish but have everlasting life now that's a big idea and often when we're sitting around talking about all religions being the same I will raise the question if it seems appropriate uh is there a another religion that says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and suddenly there's a silence in room you see that's that's a watershed issue on the nature of God is God really like that does God really love the world and does God really act in the world in that way now is that true now you you see if that is true everything is changed if that's true everything is changed if that's true then I can trust God uh and I can trust him with everything so that means that I don't have to run my life and fight with others over the bones of life like two dogs in an alley you see I that means that I can release my life into God's hands I can trust him that means I can do what he says in confidence that uh it's a good thing and not just something designed to make me miserable and so the idea here turns out to be extremely important uh towards truth truth so going along with that now why do people perish for lack of knowledge well they perish to make it very short and sweet because if you don't have knowledge reality will run over you or desert you or leave you out whereas if we act with knowledge and Truth our actions harmonize with reality otherwise not or they do it just by chance so this now is is why it is so important for us to get the right take on what God is doing on there being a God on the nature of the world that we live in there are really three background stories in our culture today uh one is the idea that the natural world or the the visible world is all there is we can't see all of it but that's all there is that's called naturalism it is the guiding philosophy of a major segment of our culture and mostly of our universities is naturalism that's why for example in no area of competence today is not knowledge of God required you won't get a question about God in any PHD examination in any field possibly not even in religion and that's naturalism naturalism basically says the visible world is the only world nothing more to it than what is physical and uh the the other popular idea is what I call the Nirvana View and the Nirvana view is also what we call near a new age it's the idea that the that the world that we see is an illusion and that the real world is a world of nondifferentiation uh where uh for example you and I are not distinct we're actually the same and I I have students at USC that have come in and present this line to me I say do you mean that you are identical with the waste basket and they will say yes they're committed to that idea of non-differentiation and uh the then the third view you have the naturalist view the Nirvana view the third view is the theistic view that's the one that our culture came out of and of course there's a very strong representation of of that now and those views dominate the discussions the theist itic view generally now is pushed to one side or treated treated as some odd cultural artifact but the very idea that the Ultimate Reality is a God and that this God is a God who is all powerful and all loving see that is not thought of as knowledge now whether or not we're right or wrong about that is the great question one of the things that sticks in the throat of many people is that Christians talk as if somehow there is an ultimate difference in where you wind up that if you believe certain kinds of things you will not be okay you understand what I'm saying that's one of the things that really sticks in the craw of many people in our culture today and we're not going to be able to go into all of that and why that's true uh in these times we have together though when we come to question period you may actually want to raise those questions and if you do that's fine but the fact is now that reality is totally unyielding to false belief truth is unforgiving it does not change if you have certain opinions no one has ever made a belief True by believing it belief are true or not in terms of the reality which they represent so if we get it wrong we're in trouble and I often Define reality as what you run into when you're wrong because university has a real problem coming to grips with reality and truth and our culture does also but if you believe there is gas in your tank and there's no gas you will run into reality probably in the form of your car stopping on the freeway or somewhere and then you will have to have help now truth on the other hand frees you from bondage to reality you disagree with see if you if you are true in your belief then you will sail down the highway you will not need any help you'll get where you want to go you'll be able to turn around and come home you will experience wonderful freedom because you you're the truth of your belief that you have gas in your tank will facilitate your operation and you will not wind up in disagreement with reality so now it's important for us to understand that because when we come talking about Christ and his kingdom and the Divine conspiracy the primary issue is truth is it truth or is it falsehood now Babel represents human efforts to see succeed by human abilities and uh the human beings want to run their world and be uh in charge and we want to do that corporately and if you go back to the old story in Genesis 11 what you see here is people who on the basis of the quite mistaken knowledge that they had um decided on a policy they were going to build a tower that would uh give them an identity first of all and uh allow them to know who they were well we're the people with the tower and but that Tower also they thought would take them into a different realm the realm of the Gods and they actually believe this but it represents the human efforts to succeed without God the human effort to uh find the knowledge that we need and carry on in a way that uh we will be successful leaving God out they had no idea of what they were doing uh it is of course pathetic uh but then we have to recognize that today the Babel of today is the secular knowledge system of the universities and professions and that operates in our culture on this idea that often comes up in terms of separation of church and state that's a very confused idea uh and I don't want to try to analyze it here but just to say this that if it was assumed that the church had Essential Knowledge of life without which human beings could not live well or live at all there would be no question of separation of church and state the idea of separating Church from State which means separating religion from political processes that whole idea is predicated on the idea that religion has nothing to say about reality and if it were thought that for example if you practiced a certain kind of religion that would substantially transform the human situation uh there would be no issue about separation of church chur in State anymore than there's an issue would be an issue about separating physics from state right there wouldn't be a question and some of you may I know you couldn't possibly remember but several years ago the Maharishi uh wanted to bring in Transcendental Meditation as a way of transforming society and practicing this in government buildings and schools and all of that and so on and there was actually quite a buzz about it because the truth of the matter is if you practice the things that he was talking about it'll make a difference in your state of mind uh but of course it didn't make enough difference to impress anyone in the end right and once the Beatles had had a round with it and a few other leading people had had a round with it uh then they gave it up uh the same thing is true of many other areas and I I I don't mean to be pugnacious about this because being pugnacious about it is just the stupidest thing you can possibly do but you want to be realistic what can transcendental medication actually do or here um we have uh Ron hubard way right down here and uh the whole operation so the question is what it can actually do can it do what Jesus Christ can do is there anything that Jesus Christ can do that it can't do see those are factual questions and now people who uh follow Ron hubard uh or the Maharishi uh they want to say that they have knowledge that is not in the possession of the universities and professions and the greatest single issue facing the Christian church today is do they have knowledge that is essential to human life or is it just another wild Faith project where you launch yourself into something and maybe pretend that you're being delivered and so on now the human limitations of knowledge are very great and when we're realistic about it we have to come to terms with that question can human beings on their own achieve the knowledge they need in order to live and the answer is no so when we think about the Bible what we're actually talking about here is this issue suppose that the Bible in a way that needs to be discussed of course that the Bible contains the most important information about the most important issues in human life suppose that were true Suppose there is a god of love who actually speaks to human beings so now um if you are if you have certain credentials in our culture you may try to write a book about the cosmos um since I'm growing older I never know what young people know but are you familiar with the old Cosmos series on television Carl Sean um if not it's a it's a kind of a nice thing to know about because here you have an individual who's actually taking that first story that I mentioned the naturalist story and trying to blow it into a total knowledge of human life well the truth of the matter is he has almost nothing to say about the things that matter most for human life simple things like what am I going to do see that's the that's the knowledge that is Central to human life what am I going to do well you've told me a wonderful story now about the cosmos but I need to decide what I'm going to trust in my actions to determine basic moral and Vocational choices what am I going to do see that's the kind of information that one needs and uh the biblical tradition offers some information about that shall we say and introduces you to a God who just might speak to you and give you guidance in your life by walking with you and talking with you and guiding and helping you and so you see that's a different uh source of knowledge now it's a good thing that we're limited in our knowledge because our will our self-will is really unlimited uh and deart in a marvelously dry and philosophical fashion uh brings this out the philosopher dayart because he says all evil in human life comes from will running Beyond knowledge that we are willing things that are not based on knowledge and that's where all evil comes from and he built a whole theodicy on that but the truth of the matter is knowledge is very limited and it grows very slowly and I believe that if we say why that is we'd have to say that God allows knowledge to grow slowly in order that we might have opportunity to grow morally if you wish in other words very simply knowledge brings power power power brings responsibility if you're not going to misuse it and hurt yourself and others you're going to have to be the kind of person who wouldn't do that you see and now that's our problem isn't it so at least for two centuries there's been a constant moan going up from uh the scholarly world that we we our moral growth has not kept up um with our technological development I mean just imagine if they had had atomic bombs in the day of jingus Khan well imagine if we had them in our day well very interestingly when we got them though they were used and with horrible results still we entered into a per period where there was a moral restraint used to be called mad mutually assured destruction now then we're dealing with people who don't care if you do destroy them so that's a new stage right now how are we going to deal with that see the great issue today on the human stage is how will the civilization that is still whether it knows it or not basically Christian deal with a culture that has a totally different take on God and on who they are and what they should do right what are we going how are we going to deal with that just bomb them into Oblivion probably not but who is going to answer that question well you see that's where we have to understand that Jesus is still working on the stage and that the Divine conspiracy continues to grow our self-will is set against truth and knowledge because truth and knowledge always limit what you can desire our desires always exceed reality and if you don't know that just watch how credit cards are used we will what is not right and credit is one way of willing what is not and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's is not uh so it's true of individuals and groups and Paul has this wonderful verse so analytic Romans 1 is the most important part of social analysis in the whole Bible and Romans 1:18 talks about how people turn away from God and then they hold suppress the truth in unrighteousness and that is true of individuals and groups and of Institutions and it comes out of that basic conflict between will and knowledge you have a wonderful illustration of this in the case of Simon Magnus in Acts 8 remember Simon Magnus was a person who was had certain abilities at least to fool people and make them think he was great that's why he came to be known as Magnus and in uh chapter 8 of the book of Acts you'll remember Philip is in Samaria and Peter and John come down and the manifestations of the holy spirit in power are such that Simon Magnus who had lined himself up as a Believer under Phillip the preaching of Phillip Simon Magnus offered money to John and Peter if they would give him the power to do the things that he saw them doing Simon Magnus was interested in power but he was not interested in truth and uh the story on Simon Magnus is that he eventually killed himself in Rome by announcing that he was going to fly from the top of a tower and um he jumped but he didn't fly and um that's uh the problem now God looks at the heart and in thinking about knowledge he's concerned with the heart and that's the will God is trying to perfect the will in human history and I like to put this just by saying about us individually that God's intent for each of us is that we should become the kind of person whom he could impower to do whatever we want you see the real issue here is what kind of a person am I now go back to the statement from Philippians 2 for just a moment God Jesus the third member of the trinity in his eternal condition turned it all loose he didn't have power any longer he subjected himself even to the death of the Cross but what does that show that shows a will a character you see it's in our heart that we decide what we are really about and in particular whether what we want will govern us will it be God or will it be us and that abandonment that you see in Jesus is the abandonment that we ourselves can live in joyfully and with delight and also with power and with knowledge and all of that comes together as God grows the human being into the kind of character that Christ has now suppose that everyone had that character or suppose that a significant percentage of the human of the human race had that character then you can see that life would be very different and that is the intention of the Divine conspiracy in so what God looks for is the heart always the heart the heart is where we decide what we're really going to be what is going to govern us and of course the central issue is the surrendering of the will abandoned to God delighted in him and his will and then as that grows then it's perfectly safe for us to have knowledge and power and so on but this current situation is one where God is is not obvious and that is because he is interested in the will and this theme Deus absconditus to use the Latin everyone needs a little Latin is an old one in the in the history of the church because God doesn't overwhelm you God comes in ways that are gentle uh and the reason for that is because uh um if we if God didn't hide from us we couldn't hide from him thank you you see my knowledge of this thing is not up to where my will is so have a illustration here um so the basic idea here is that God hides to permit us to hide from him if we want to so he's so big that if he didn't hide we couldn't hide so that you may need to think about that some that now that's why there is a Divine conspiracy a conspiracy is something that is hidden God does not overwhelm us he does not jump down our throats he remains hidden and available to those who seek him now there's something in Matthew 13 that you want to think about here because Jesus explains why he uses Parables he taught in Parables and uh today because there's such a deal about telling stories people like often suggest well Jesus was just a good storyteller but he explains In this passage Matthew 13:1 13-17 why he used Parables and he said so that those who see can not see and that those who hear cannot hear you may recall that he often used the phrase in his teaching he that hath ears to hear Let Him hear that's an interesting phrase don't you think what is it says is not everyone has ears for the purpose of hearing not everyone has eyes for the purpose of see what do they have ears for and eyes for well they have eyes and ears for the purpose of sorting and arranging things now this goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the need to adjust what we take reality to be the need to adjust that so that it will suit our will and what Jesus is talking about here is he speaks in Parables so that those who have eyes not foreseeing will not see what he's talking about see that is God's provision for the will that doesn't want him if you don't want him you don't have to have him at least not now so I hope you'll think about this because uh it's fundamental to Jesus's way of teaching and to Jesus and to the Bible um that teaching about The Parables uh ties in with something here that um you see in CS Lewis Lewis has this wonderful passage in letter 8 of screw tape letters where he's talking about how God does not override people's will the devil will do that and uh this this language here merely to override a human will as his God's felt presence and any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do would be for him that is for God useless he cannot ravish he can only woo for his ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it the creatures are to be one with him but yet themselves now if you have a copy of screw tape letters I really urge you to read on this theme of the Divine conspiracy and the hiddenness of God what Lewis says in that letter because it is important for us to understand why God is not obvious I mean he could have been obvious but he is not obvious because of the need to allow human desire and will to go its way because that's what defines human character now when I said God's intent for each of us is that we should grow to the point to where he can Empower us to do what we want you see you realize immediately well there's a lot of work to do on the w and that is what both individual life and human history is about is God calling forth the human will and allowing the human being to have an identity so God is present but in ways that anyone who wishes to deny can deny the long series of individuals in the Old Testament I mean for that matter beginning with with Adam and Eve the experience in the garden but then Noah Abraham Isaac David now what characterizes these people is they're very different but that difference is not a visible one you can see it in its effects if you want to see it but if you want to deny it you can deny it same way with Jesus we often ask ourselves perhaps how could people be in the presence of Jesus and deny him remember what we're talking about here and you'll understand that see if you if you uh see how Jesus comes born in the manger lives a simple life out in the Boondocks uh comes in as an outsider essentially and is regarded as such so people are like where did you get your Authority you didn't go to school with Rabbi soeno and of course John the Baptist was there as a sort of sticking out like a sore thumb an Old Testament Prophet whom people could not deny as such and he identified Jesus and that gave Jesus a place to stand humanly speaking to do his work but still he was rejected and Paul you remember says in 1 Corinthians that if the rulers of this world had understood and recognized the Lord Of Glory they would not have crucified him I mean imagine if the rulers of this world had understood what we read about in Colossians 1 a few moments ago would they have crucified well actually they almost didn't crucify and this is a story in itself but if Jesus said to said three more words to pilate he wouldn't have crucified him that's why he was silent see Jesus was working that whole process to his ends he was the one who was in control and he told pilate that didn't he it really was true he was controlling that process he was not a victim and yet he looked like a victim the post-resurrection presence is most interesting you know if it had been me rising from the dead probably the first place I would have gone was I I go back to pilate and say now can we have that discussion about truth and power one more time right that's perhap perhaps the way I would think about it perhaps that's the way Peter would have thought about it you remember Peter when he after he had made his great confession and Jesus said I'm going to die on the cross Peter said that's not for you and Jesus actually called Peter Satan and he said you do not Savor the things of God but the things that be of man see those the two ways the two ways the things of God the things of man the kingdom of God the kingdom of man I think I would have come into Pilot's Palace on a big Huey helicopter or something like that you know and then maybe after that I would have gone by to visit a session of the Sanhedrin in process said gentlemen would you like to think again about your choice now what's interesting is he did he did not appear to a single one of those and acts 10 tells us that he became visible only to those who had been prepared beforehand don't you find that interesting you see that fits the picture God is present but present in the Bible but just think of how the Bible can be disregarded or Twisted people say you can prove anything out of the Bible that's only because they don't know what proof is but the fact is that you can allege proof of almost anything out of the Bible well why is that you have to understand it's because of the conspiratorial nature of God in human history and that is there because of the need to allow human beings to make their choices both individually and in groups in Nations we make our choices we're going to have an election here in this country and I'm not running on either side uh but I'll just say see what happens is people will make a choice they will make a choice and it will be a manifestation I mean imagine a choice it's the economy stupid is it really see suppose we make the choice and the basis of the economy well that says something about our character what what would be the other see individuals and groups make their choices now the church itself can be looked at in all kinds of ways and of course it is isn't it and it's a great Battleground that uh uh people interpret and reinterpret and someone was saying on the radio the other day the thing about the marxists was that uh you can you can't be you can be sure about the future what you can't be sure about is the past because they were in such a frenzy of interpretation and reinterpretation of the past to make their theories stand up and we look at the past in the church and we try to make it come out to where we want it to be today whether it's a political or a moral issue or whatever it may be but the church can be twisted now listen to these words you see in Colossians 3 3 uh 1 through 4 let's do 1 through 4 if you then be risen with Christ seek those things that are above where Christ is Seated on the right hand of God set your affections on things above not on things on the earth for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ and God your life is hid what your life is as a Christian is hid now this is the same lesson that Jesus was teaching Nicodemus in John 3 those who are born of the spirit are moved by something that is not visible it's like the wind you can't see the wind but you can see the effects of the wind but you see if you are set to interpret that hidden part in other ways you can do that it's up to you you don't have to accept the reality of Christ in the PE in the in the church you don't have to accept that you can try to treat it in other ways you are your life is hid with Christ and God when Christ who is our life will appear then you will also appear you get to know and see who you are for the first time God is present but so then here's what the Divine conspiracy is the Divine conspiracy is God's plan to overcome evil with good in the grinding processes of human nature the kingdom works that way you are tied into that reality of the kingdom of God that is going to bring to pass this condition where the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of and the habac version of this it's a prophetic theme but if you read Isaiah 6 you will read that the uh Earth is filled with the glory of God but it is not filled with the knowledge of the glory of God because Isaiah you remember in that passage in Isaiah 6 he's faced with God in the temple and God is saying who shall I send and who will go with me and that's where Isaiah says here am I s me see why because the knowledge of God is painfully absent but the future is where the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea so now the crucifixion then is the center point of it all uh the crucifixion is the high point of the Revel revelation of the Hidden Kingdom Colossians says and through him we reckon to reconcile all things to himself all things to himself having made peace through the blood of his cross through him I say whether things on earth or things in heaven that is where the conspiracy comes out that is what when you walk around here in Hollywood and you look at all the things that are here and the people and uh and you say what's this all about it's about this it's about a process through which individuals and groups move toward the reconciliation of all things in Christ and I if I be lifted up Jesus said I will draw all men unto me one way or another they will all come to him being lifted up he was referring to the cross and he did this very consciously with back reference to the old the stories in in the in the law about the poisonous serpents that were lifted up and there was a time when Israel had sinned and uh the poisonous serpents came into there and were killing people and when these poisonous serpents bit someone if um Moses was instructed by God to put a symbol of a serpent uh up on a post where they could look at that Serpent and what did that serpent represent it represent the poison of self-will that is what killed Jesus and what is seen on the cross now if you don't know the kingdom of God then the human self-will is all that's left but the cross is designed to help people see what self-will does what living as one's own King does and It Is by looking at that and recognizing it and turning to God in Christ and giving up On's self will and saying I want to live in The Invisible kingdom of God which is now available uh that we come so uh what what we are what we need what we must have what the the people of Christ bring into the world is uh truth in a community of crucifixion you see human beings really can't deal with truth on their own so that's why for example uh instead of saying the truth will make you free you might more aptly say the truth will make you flee just a little change there the truth will make you flee it's an important change because the truth that human beings get apart from God is always or nearly always destructive and it will be used for our purposes and those purposes not subjugated to God will be harmful so now think of think of of how the community of crucifixion handles this Paul speaks in first Timothy of the household of God he's saying to Timothy I'm coming and I want to instruct you but now I'm writing you some things so that you will know how to conduct yourself in the household God which is the Church of the Living God the pillar and support of Truth this very interesting the church supports truth how can that be didn't we want to say the truth supports the church well um truth can only be endured and promoted in a community of Grace where self-will does not rule but where love rules and so that's why you want to understand that Jesus did not say the free and the elevator in the humanities bu building at USC it just says the free apparently you don't even have to know it any longer it just has this wonderful mystical capacity and this is where Babel winds up Babel as I earlier explained it with a blind confidence in research and that the problems will be solved now here's what Jesus said Jesus said if you continue in my word and that means that you're living in it if you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free see that's the whole sentence Jesus did not say the truth will make you free it won't but confidence in him and living with him and being his disciple will enable you to know the truth in a way that it sets you free so it's very important um understand that now just finally for session the issue of social Authority is the issue of who has knowledge and that's what I in this first session want to try to drive home as we conclude that is the issue underlying all the battles of our day who has knowledge and for reasons which are historical and uh we could go into if we had time the message of Christ through its institutions in the ch church and the schools that message has been set aside as a basis of life truth and knowledge the secular mind has redefined knowledge so that it alone has it Christians do not and Christians often have conceded this the single greatest terrible mistake in the last two centuries has been the willingness of the Christian church to walk away from knowledge and to try to substitute for various reasons something called faith and um the result of that is that determining policy for life which is not the only issue by any means here but determining policy for life is left to the secular mind so the greatest challenge of the people of Jesus Christ today is to stand in our world as representing knowledge reality and with love and intelligence show that we have that knowledge by the lives that we lead and that is the pressure point um the work that we do today now you are going you're in your churches and your various situations in life and the what I'm saying is that for me where I am for you where you are the great challenge is to stand where we are and say we have knowledge of reality and this is shown by the lives that we lead but the basic idea now in the first session is this there is a Divine conspiracy and it will win and it is a conspiracy because God must be hidden in order that Humanity may take the alternatives that presents itself to self-will and character grow out of that now you know I think we all really do know that with reference to raising children because at a certain point if you do not let the child do what they want to do they will never learn what's wrong with it and they'll never learn what is Right character only develops with freedom character only develops and this is not just a little psychological thing this is a profound spiritual truth about the meaning of human history and what God is doing in the okay and so it's almost like there are a certain number of dead ends that you have to work through before you see what is good and what is right and that's true of individual life and it is true of corporate life of humanity as a whole so now when you look at the Contemporary scene at any level whether it's business military Communications uh popular culture music remember that that's what's that's what's really going on is that God is at work far beyond what we would call the church because God is just as much involved in business and in science and in the Arts he's just as much involved there as he is in the church now that that may go down hard with you and by the way I'll just admit you know I'm probably going to say a few things that are wrong um so I just assume that since everyone else been wrong about something I must be wrong about something couldn't be that I'm right about everything now if I knew what was wrong I wouldn't say it but I don't so when I say something like that I really believe that and I believe that because of my understanding of the kingdom of God and what God is doing and the and the kingdom the church is not the kingdom of God that may be one we'll have to work through later the church is not the kingdom of God it is a peculiar manifestation of the Kingdom of God and Jesus is taught taught in his Parables about these kinds of things if you remember the parable of the tears the wheat and the tears the parable of the net and the fish and so on and so they're deep lessons I love to teach The Parables um but here in this series we just more or less can use them a little bit and try to get their point so that that's what uh we want to understand about the Divine conspiracy and what God is doing in it