<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Strong Tower Radio

David Austin

Reflexes

Fresh manna fell to the ground as a gift from God while the Israelites were in the wilderness.

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the master baker himself.

How the Israelites must have anticipated the taste and the smell of each morning's delivery Just like the Israelites you too can now experience the taste and smell of fresh manna Today you'll be listening to David Austin pastor of the Macmillan Northwoods and Sault Ste.

Heavenly Father, I want to thank you so much for your Word.

And as it speaks to us today, Lord, I pray that we would have receptive hearts and that Lord, we would be called to a deeper connection with you than we've ever had before.

For Lord, we do want to be like Jesus in our hearts.

In the children's story, we talked about reflexes, and Reflexes are quite amazing.

Most of the reflexes we have are not programmed by us.

They are natural responses by the way that we are designed.

And yet we have the ability to be reflexive.

1 of the best examples of this is Daniel.

Prior to his lion's den experience, he had created a natural reflex where he prayed 3 times a day openly.

And when the law came down that he was not supposed to do that anymore.

Reflexively, he got down on his knees and he prayed.

We have the ability to have good reflexes and bad reflexes.

Again, reflex is an action performed as a response to any type of stimulus without a conscious thought.

And another reflex that you may be familiar with, you go to the doctor, especially when you're younger, and they try the patellar reflex, right?

Yeah, the pumps in your leg does, of its own accord, it just flies out and kicks the doctor.

Well, I mean, if the doctor's smart, he's out of the way when that happens, but.

In a reflex, It doesn't go back to the brain for processing.

On the negative side of that, you have reflexes that we can learn that aren't always good.

1 of the activities that we as Christians should not be involved with because it creates bad reflexes are martial arts.

If you don't know the history behind martial arts, the word martial means death and it's the art of death.

The majority of your martial arts are focused on katas that train your subconscious for death moves without interfering with your higher form of reasoning.

What they want you to do in every martial art is be so quick to respond that you don't have to take time to think.

They want you to be able to automatically block shots, make kill shots without thinking.

As Christians, we have a problem with that.

Our goal is not to be involved with the art of death, but the art of life.

But you get to the place of being a martial artist when you have moved from conscious to subconscious where your body responds to a threat without your brain engaging and that's disconcerting.

So we have the ability to have good and bad reflexes and in the world in which we live, we can see other examples of this.

For instance, January 6th, I say that name, there was some confusion over election stuff and some shenanigans, et cetera.

And interestingly enough, there was a reflex reaction by people from not even anywhere near the Capitol that decided to go to the Capitol and caused havoc.

Again, I would say not like Christ in any way, shape, or form.

Many of them didn't stop to think about the consequences.

Many of them didn't stop to think at all.

And now some of them are going to prison for years, 15, 20 years, some of them.

There's another example, and I can't remember the exact case but there was a New York.

Trial going on and as a result of the outcome of the trial there was writing in California.

9-11 probably the biggest knee-jerk reaction we've had in the last century.

The knee-jerk reaction to of our government called the war on terror a licensed a lot of our freedoms going away and we still haven't gained most of them back.

COVID, there was another knee-jerk reaction.

I'm not sure we're ready yet for greater knee jerk reactions.

I'm not sure that we understand how quickly things can turn, but we do have warnings.

We do have instruction about knee jerk reactions and reflexes.

I wanna submit to you that reflexes are more important than anything else, and we should be working towards better reflexes.

2 Timothy 3, and we're going to read verse 13.

If you've been around half a century, you probably know this more than most.

2 Timothy 3, verse 13, but says, But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

The expectation that is that they're maturing.

Growing is a process of maturing, and it's saying that the evil and deception that is in our world is going to be growing, it's going to be maturing, and we should see it growing from worse to worse, you know, putting it down, it's going farther and farther into the pit, if you will.

And the longer you've lived, the more you can probably see that.

We're dealing today with more evil than existed 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 200 years ago.

And it's not that evil didn't exist, it's more prevalent now than it ever has been.

And there's not really any hope that that's changing.

The Bible specifically says here that it's going to get like that.

And part of the reason why it changes like that is because of this.

Jesus is describing for the disciples the signs of what it will be like before he comes.

Matthew 24, verse 12, and it says, And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Man, there's a lot more lawlessness today than there ever was before.

And interestingly enough, there's a lot more loveless people in this world.

The love that it's talking about here is agape love, unconditional love.

I'm not sure that the majority of our world knows what it means to have unconditional love.

Almost everyone in this world thinks that love should be conditional.

I'll love you if or when, but if you stop, then I won't.

I mean, statements like that are just incredible because that means they don't understand unconditional love.

So we are getting less and less of unconditional love, and we're getting less and less of law-keeping or lawful lives in the world in which we live.

And it's not getting better, it's getting worse.

There's more lawlessness today than there was 20 years ago, 50 years, 100 years ago.

There's more lovelessness today than there ever was before as well.

Going back to 2 Timothy 3, it'd be nice if we could say, well, that's all good and well outside the church.

2 Timothy 3, verse 1, again, speaking of the last days, it says, But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.

But what makes it so dangerous is the context.

For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

And notice the context, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

This is really important because these things have all existed throughout all time, but what it's saying is in the last days it's gonna be more dangerous because Those who claim to have some connection with God or godliness are the ones who are going to be exhibiting these traits.

They will have a claim to godliness, but actually they're denying the power of God that would change them into the image of Christ.

Back to Menu

Reflexes

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

ASI 2011 Seminar: Health

Triumph in Trial: Responding to Life’s Difficulties God’s Way

1h 15m

Persuaded

1h

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

08 The “Daily” Today

1h 7m

Plenary

The Unnecessary Parable

1h

Salvation and the Sanctuary

2 The Daily, Today

51m

Faithful Talks

2. The Bridegroom is Coming

1h 10m

Dustin Pestlin Weekend

Third Angels’ Message: Preparation for the Mark of the Beast

55m

Lessons from Jude: Fighting the Fight of Faith

44m

Addiction & the Devil's Battleground

Addiction & the Devil’s Battleground: Addictions and the End Times

58m

A Grand Opportunity

1h 21m

Sound Doctrine