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SA Ep98 - What Are We Thinking? · Seeking Approval Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Seeking Approval Public Fest.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the first message from the Elias Methodist Church in a lifeless face.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: If faith is not meant to be approved, I want to take some honestly with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So join me here today on seeking approval.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Are we losing the ability to think for ourselves?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you sat and had a discussion over something you may not know about?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want to look today at the idea of who or what is doing our thinking.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Think about the last time that you didn't know the answer to something.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: What did you do?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Most of us today immediately grab the phone.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: We have phrases now that have become commonplace.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Google it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Ask Siri.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Open chat.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Within seconds, we have an answer.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's an incredibly useful tool.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't want this to become an anti-technology discussion.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that we have things that we need to use.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just think back whenever the the first uh uh man had to till the ground, which God uh uh cursed Adam with about having to till the ground and and weigh through the the the thorns and the thistles and the weeds.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you think that he was excited whenever he was able to use uh metal implements instead of rock?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you think the first hunters were excited whenever they had uh an arrowhead made of metal as opposed to just a sharpened stick?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Technology is not a bad thing.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It can help us advance and move forward in in our world and and make things uh uh better.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: It can make uh it can make the world better for uh helping end some problems in the world, but it can also become a real detriment.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where I want the focus to be is a biblical view of how we are using the technology we have.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess the question would be is am I using the tools at my availability to help me think, or am I using the tools so I don't have to think?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're raising a generation now that doesn't want to think.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to reason or to problem solve, and they're losing that ability, and eventually that ability will be gone.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're not careful, Satan will use that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Satan uses every tool at his disposal.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Satan can't create anything, but he's consistent in what he does.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he will use everything that we have, every divisive man, Satan will use it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I don't want to say this is an anti-technology discussion.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Technology isn't the only issue.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's many things that Satan is using against us.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: The news commentators, they think for us.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Political parties, they're thinking for us.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Social media influences, they're thinking for us, algorithms, decide what information we see.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Preachers, if we're not careful, we'll allow our preachers to think for us.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: The danger becomes when we quit examining the information that we have and doing as the Bereans did and holding all information up against the uh against the Bible.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not saying that every time we have a discussion who is the best uh you know, baseball player, home run hitter of all time, you know, who is the best, you know, basketball player of all time.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't have to go and search the scripture.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about real-life uh situations and snares.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: There are people who are using artificial intelligence to give them spiritual guidance.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a scary thing.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs 14, 15 says, the simple, the simple in mind, believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: What that's saying is the person who's not real smart, they're just going to believe what they hear.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the prudent man, the wise man.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I once heard it said this way wisdom is seeing things through God's point of view.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And understanding is doing things according to God's point of view.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's a big difference in both of those, than what we understand as wisdom and what we understand as understanding.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But we are living in a world today where we have more access to information than any generation that has ever lived before us.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, there is more access to anything than any generation before us.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's more access to information, more access to finance and money, there's more access, there's more access to churches.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to church and never leave your bed.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just think about that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Many, many years ago, uh, I would say maybe a hundred years ago, uh, but not quite that far back, there were people who had to travel miles to go to church.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: They had to wait for the uh the preacher to ride to town to hold a revival or a camp meeting.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when they were able to have their church because there was not a local church today.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to church and never get out of bed.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can have your pancakes, laying in bed, and go to church.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is more readily available to us today.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: But information and wisdom are not the same thing.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: We can have thousands of facts at our fingertips and still make terrible decisions, and we do every day.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: We can watch hours of news footage and still completely misunderstand everything that's happened around us.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hundreds of marriage videos and read marriage books and still be a poor husband or a poor wife.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are people who constantly listen to preaching out there in the world and they still don't know how to study their Bible, how to apply the Bible, what they've what they've heard.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference in information and discernment.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 5.14 says, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of a full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercises to discern both good and evil.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Think about what was just said right then.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: By reason of use.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: That means our discernment, the wisdom that we are gaining, or the information, the knowledge that we are gaining, we have to put it into use.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be exercised.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have to practice it, we have to compare and contrast and investigate and think.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we discover that we were wrong.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you go through that process.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I there's been many things that over the years of uh studying God's Word that I've I've realized that I was wrong about some things that I thought was right.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll give you one of them.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'd heard for years growing up, you know, about these people, you know, whoever they are.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's always some mythical person who uh, you know, would go to the altar and cry out, you know, Lord save me, save me, save me, but the Lord wouldn't save them.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that was their testimony.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm too far gone for the Lord to save me, and he won't save me now.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that was popular preaching for a long time in many circles, and still is today, matter of fact, still is today.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not what the Bible says.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that God's not willing that any should perish.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that he wants all to come to him and in salvation.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, does he say, does it tell us in Romans that there's a there's a place that you can go that you cannot come back from?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is when God turns you over to a reprobate mind.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: But what that's talking about is the destruction of flesh that saved the soul.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's those who have uh who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, and that all that they can ever, all that they ever do is run after the world and they choose the world.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that God will turn them over to those things.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there are people who are not saved that that get to a point that that they cannot think of anything good.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible discusses those people.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if there's someone who is in a church service at an altar who is crying out for for God to save them, biblically, God will hear that prayer and save them.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for years, I just went according to what somebody said until I got to reading it and looking at it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes we go through this reason of use and we grow in that process.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens when our discernment is exercised.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Information can be downloaded, but it has to be developed through discernment.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, can the the tools that we have today help us think?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let me let me stop here just for a moment, and and we need to understand a little bit of of what the the the anthropology of our heart and what it means.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: To you and I, the heart is the seat of emotion.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's where we love, it's where we hate, it's where you know it's we're heartbroken over things, our heart is elated for things at times.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's to the modern man, to the ancient man, to the ones who authored the Bible.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: The heart at that time was the seat of reason.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was the it was the it was the the thinking, the epicenter of thinking of a man.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the Bible gives us plenty of verses about uh the heart thinketh, and uh uh you know many many uh examples of how our heart at that time was where they where their reasoning came from.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: You and I today, that that epicenter, that seat now belongs to what we say is our brain.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Our brain has become the, and I know that sounds so simple, it's like, well, that was easy.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, why why'd you waste my time telling us that?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we're not careful, we'll read the Bible, and when that when we hear them talking about the heart, that's they're talking about the thinking center.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you and I, we're talking about the same thing, but we're we're using our we're talking about our brain.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Our heart is our emotional, is what we say.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: What we know that still our heart has nothing to do with our emotion, it's still all in the brain.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, uh so there's a difference when we're using these tools to help us think as opposed to thinking for us.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's many useful tools that we've been given.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know that right now that AI and and other forms of technology are garnering all the information, but just think for a moment.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Calculators have been around for a while.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: What do they do?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not careful, they'll think for you.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: You see, I don't see that there's a problem with a calculator.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: What there's a problem with is when somebody can't do simple math because they rely on a calculator to think for them all the time.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: GPS.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: GPS is a useful tool.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're relying on GPS to drive your car for you, that's a big deal.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I know there's cars out there doing that today.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a big deal.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So all modern technology is is is the same.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: A AI is useful.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to be careful about allowing it to think for us.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's there's questions that that we could ask.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me let me give you the difference in some questions.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: You might say, give me three arguments against my position.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or what weakness am I overlooking in in this scenario?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Show me a way that someone else may be correct.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now I use questions like that all the time.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I get questions uh from folks that want me to, um, for lack of better words, prove what I'm saying.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, prove there is a God, which the the burden of proof does not fall on us to prove there is a God.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: The burden of proof falls on the uh atheists and antitheists to prove there is not a God, because there is a God and uh the the heavens declare his glory, everything around us declare there is a God.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: A painting needs a painter, a building needs a builder, and creation needs a creator.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: But when they do come and they say, Well, well, prove to me there's a God, I want to be, I want to be able to have an answer for.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be able to try to get them to understand that there is a God.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times those folks, they don't have the faith to understand it.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what can I give them?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: What tangible things can I can I lay at their feet to show?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I will use situations like that.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I will use situations to and actually have a discussion uh with AI about uh uh I'm gonna I'm gonna discuss from a non-Calvinistic point of view.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: You discuss from Calvinism, I want to, I want to go back and forth, I want to have this debate now while I can research and look, or uh, you know, uh, or other scenarios and situations about, you know, baptism, uh salvation by baptism, or or works-based salvation, you know, all these things.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can have those discussions back and forth.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Give me those arguments, show me the weaknesses I may be overlooking, or another way that that something else that other people might might uh come at this that I need to be ready for.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's one way.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: But what a lot of people are asking today is, hey, I've got this problem, what should I do?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh which side is right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: What what what what should my opinion be in this situation?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's a big thing going right now that uh apparently uh one or two of the uh the AIs, and I don't again I'm not throwing off on these things.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, what people are trying to do, I understand the heart behind it.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: But they're they're now saying that uh AI is even proclaiming that Jesus Christ is God.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's wonderful.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: But you know AI is a couple thousand years behind on that because we've been proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord since the first century.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But so helping helping us think is different than replacing our thinking.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we do it all the time today, anyway.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Again, uh you know, AI is garnering most much of the attention in this, but you know, you think about it, we're allowing you know political leaders or news broadcast, other forms of social media to influence, not just influence our thinking, but actually tell us what we're supposed to think.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5.21, he says, prove all things, hold fast to that, which is good.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you hear something, prove it.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Good or bad, prove it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: See what it says.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hold it up against the scripture and see what you're supposed to do.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting ready to start a uh magazine from our church.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're pretty excited about it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take a while to get it you know rolling out and get everything laid out just right and and all that, but it'll be like a it'll be a quarterly, maybe a semi-annual at first, just because of the the expense to get it up and going.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it'll be a it'll be a quarterly is is the ultimate goal of it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But what we want to do in it is have articles from many of the many different um areas of influence in our life, from from technology to music to uh uh law to our you know everyday uh areas in our life and and give it from a biblical point of view.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like what what you know we got uh you know, for example, we've got uh a couple men in our church that are well, we got more than a couple, we got that are avid outdoorsmen.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we we could have them write an article uh about uh hunting or fishing, but but from a biblical point of view, from from God's wisdom, from God's way of seeing things.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've got appliance repair man, he loves to talk about appliances, he he fixes almost anything that that operates or or or runs, he he works on it from old clocks to your refrigerator.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he's always got a story, he's always got something that that he can talk about that has a a biblical basis to it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we can we can prove almost anything using scripture.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know this sounds you know crazy, but we can prove almost anything.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So when we use this, the the problem becomes that that we we like to be able to form our opinions fast so we can have what has become very popular, these hot takes.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And within seconds, you can prove that somebody's wrong.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, that is that is uh big in today's world.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've noticed just dealing with with uh with kids, uh, for the last uh 25 years, kids love to prove other people wrong.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when they do, they want everybody to know that the other person was wrong.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there there used to be a time when when people would, you know, keep their opinions to themselves.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the strong silent type.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have many strong silent types anymore.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody has an opinion and everybody wants to give it, and if your opinion was right and somebody else's was wrong, you want everybody to know about it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what our political landscape has become, is everybody's got an opinion and a way of doing things, and they want you to know why theirs is right and nobody else is wrong.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: But we can take these uh the tools that we have and we can immediately know who is wrong, who is right.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: We can know who did what they did, why they did it.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: We know what kind of person they are, we know what kind of punishment they deserve or or or what else.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Except we don't know everything that happened.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening um a couple people talk.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's been uh been a little while back, and they were talking about, you know, mistakes they'd made in life and going back and forth, and uh one of them said to the other, they said, uh, yeah, well, you know that whenever, you know, you did what you did about 20 years ago, or however long ago it was, you know, when whenever that happened, y you know you should have been arrested for that.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the the one who that was being said to said, You don't know everything about that situation.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know what was going on before all that happened.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that was really um kind of an eye-opening moment that we may know, we may understand a few things because of, you know, instant information, but we don't know what happened before all that.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know everything going on behind the scenes.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we gotta be careful about this instant information age.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we used to we used to enjoy sitting around having those discussions, like, you know, what's the most what's the most popular food or what's the what's the most popular you know restaurant or uh you know the whatever it might be.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: We'd sit around, you know, back in school, we'd sit around the lunch table, me and you know, the other guys you know from the baseball team or whoever, we would be sitting around talking, and we would talk for you know hours about you know things just like that, nonsensical things that just you know was was part of conversation.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: But in that conversation, we learned how to we learned the social aspect and social cues and how how to conversate and hold up our end of a conversation.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Today, you can't get you can't get a lot of people, and I'm not throwing off on the kids, because it's adults too, you can't get them to stop looking at their phone long enough to engage in conversation.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of one gentleman right now that uh he walks every day, and he walks the whole time and his eyes are on his phone.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I won't say names or anything because uh because I I'm around the person regularly.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to watch out because if you're walking and he's walking and you're walking in the same direction, you better move because if not, you're all gonna walk straight into each other.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can't look up from the phone.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just just to go for a walk and let let your mind, let your let your mind do some thinking.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's and that's what we're losing a lot of, is we're losing this ability to be alone with our own thoughts, to be alone with our own mind.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to maybe encourage you today, the next time that you have a question like this, seek it out in scripture first.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it and reason before you have someone else give you the answer.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage you, especially for the adults out there that uh have a wife or have children, I would encourage you today, at some point today, when you're with your wife or your husband or when when you're with your your family, have a question.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Think of a question today.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't don't look up a question, don't Google a question, don't go to Facebook and find a question.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Think of a question that you want to talk to your family about.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be something deep and penetrating, just something random.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: What's the best food?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: What would be the best place to go on vacation?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Just something, anything, and ask and discuss it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then discuss all the things about it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder how much it would cost to go to a place like that.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what the plane tickets would be today.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: How much would it cost if you know what we'd have to set aside for the budget for food on a trip like that?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or whatever it is, just and then just see how deep you can go with that conversation and all the many layers.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to do that today.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Spend some time talking with somebody.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: But most importantly, I'll also encourage you to spend some time talking with the Lord.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we're not careful, all the technology will replace him.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And if we ever replace him, the devil's one.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And join me, Dr.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together until then, grace and peace to you from seeking approval and healing the Methodist Church.