I propose accordingly that we make of religious optimism the theme of the next two lectures. b. Jesus already defeated Satan — once for all — through the Cross. It is not only the Ideas of pure Reason, as Kant styled them, that have this power of making us vitally feel presences that we are impotent articulately to describe. a. Heb 11:1–The theme of the chapter is faith. Please observe, however, that I do not yet say that it is better that the subconscious and non-rational should thus hold primacy in the religious realm. "is worthy to be called a religion"; and accordingly he thinks that our Music, our Science, and our so-called "Civilization," as these things are now organized and admiringly believed in, form the more genuine religions of our time. If this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality; but anything else, any idea, for example, that might similarly excite it, would have that same prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess. We have already agreed that they are solemn; and we have seen reason to think that the most distinctive of them is the sort of joy which may result in extreme cases from absolute self-surrender. He has promised to make His word good in your body — make the unseen seen. c. In other words, we become God inside minded. My heart seems to recognize it.". "God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. c. I am now…I now have…etc. It is a subject that requires searching into to find out, but, when realized, gives one so much more true and lively a sense of the fullness of the Godhead, and its work in us and to us, than when only thinking of the Spirit in its effect on us." Something over a year ago I was for some weeks in the direst perplexity. Through the new birth, you receive the life of God which makes you righteous, holy, and blameless — a fitting temple for God the Holy Ghost to indwell. But what about those things that are unseen? In Hebrews 11:27 Moses endured because he knew by faith the unseen God, “as seeing Him who is unseen.” Faith takes God at His word and pushes on, which in turn opens up the realities of the spiritual world. a. What I felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an illumination which revealed to me a deeper significance than I had been wont to attach to life. Your whole subconscious life, your impulses, your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises, of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and something in you absolutely knows that that result must be truer than any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it. You must speak of unseen realities in present tense terms because the unseen realm is present tense (now). The first verse tells us that faith has to do with unseen things. On the previous night I had had, after getting into bed at my rooms in College, a vivid tactile hallucination of being grasped by the arm, which made me get up and search the room for an intruder; but the sense of presence properly so called came on the next night. 9. Before we entered the unseen world, we paid money—good money—trusting there was something worth discovering. Vague impressions of something indefinable have no place in the rationalistic system, which on its positive side is surely a splendid intellectual tendency, for not only are all our philosophies fruits of it, but physical science (amongst other good things) is its result. --, "I have the sense of a presence, strong, and at the same time soothing, which hovers over me. It is sometimes so definitely characterized that I could point to its exact position. It remained only a minute or two. Grieve with the person who is bereaved. Copyright 2020 Riches In Christ | All Rights Reserved. It is far too complex to be decided off-hand. (NEB) b. You have the same life in you that Jesus had when He was on earth. At bottom the expression most apt to render what I felt is this: God was present, though invisible; he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him.". 527.) In my last lecture I quoted to you the ultra-radical opinion of Mr. Havelock Ellis, that laughter of any sort may be considered a religious exercise, for it bears witness to the soul’s emancipation. God functions in both parts of this one real existence. I feel that in writing of it I have overlaid it with words rather than put it clearly to your thought. When the unseen God created the seen, He spoke words. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two. He is in you to bring the life of God in your spirit into your mind and body in fullness. Sproul More insights from your Bible study - Get Started with Logos Bible Software for … What do they mean to the practitioners? Through the new birth, we become part of the unseen realm. It is in this that I find my justification for saying that I have enjoyed communication with God. We naturally gravitate toward what we see and feel, and it takes effort to get beyond that. ( Symposium, Jowett, 1871, i. If a person feels the presence of a living God after the fashion shown by my quotations, your critical arguments, be they never so superior, will vainly set themselves to change his faith. ", Here is another document, even more definite in character, which, the writer being a Swiss, I translate from the French original. Satisfied! What we can see, hear, and feel we can take on face value that it is reality. What more have we to say now than God said from the whirlwind over two thousand five hundred years ago?" Life has become curiously dead and indifferent; and I can now see that my old experience was probably exactly the same thing as the prayers of the orthodox, only I did not call them by that name. But the more I seek words to express this intimate intercourse, the more I feel the impossibility of describing the thing by any of our usual images. The reality of the unseen world of Nature is, in fact, an axiom on which science proceeds to its investigations and conclusions. "My highest faith in God and truest idea of him were then born in me. That he is mine and I am his never leaves me, it is an abiding joy. It is possible to see God, who is unseen, through faith. Then, slowly, the ecstasy left my heart; that is, I felt that God had withdrawn the communion which he had granted, and I was able to walk on, but very slowly, so strongly was I still possessed by the interior emotion. Where this is so, the scientist treats the "Laws of Nature" as objective facts to be revered. Col 1:13–You’ve been taken out from under the authority of Satan (sin, sickness, and death). One may indeed be entirely without them; probably more than one of you here present is without them in any marked degree; but if you do have them, and have them at all strongly, the probability is that you cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth, as revelations of a kind of reality which no adverse argument, however unanswerable by you in words, can expel from your belief. It seems to me to show clearly that the feeling of reality may be something more like a sensation than an intellectual operation properly so-called. 3. So we have the strange phenomenon, as Kant assures us, of a mind believing with all its strength in the real presence of a set of things of no one of which it can form any notion whatsoever. c. Not seen doesn’t mean not real. Phil 2:13; Heb 13:21 a. Once again, the tense is wrong. What we can see, hear, and feel we can take on face value that it is reality. It was rather as if my personality had been transformed by the presence of a spiritual spirit. It was deep calling unto deep,- the deep that my own struggle had opened up within being answered by the unfathomable deep without, reaching beyond the stars. The realities of the benefits of virtue. 3. I remember many occasions on which at night in bed, I would be unable to get to sleep on account of worry. b. And then again I feel as if I could sit beside him, and put my arms around him, kiss him, etc. Augustus Hare: Memorials, i. b. This verse contrasts faith and sight. But in addition to these ideas of the more concrete religious objects, religion is full of abstract objects which prove to have an equal power. Every born again child of God has the privilege and the right to ask the Holy Spirit to come into Him. I felt also at the same time a strong feeling of superstitious dread, as if something strange and fearful were about to happen." As his sense of the real presence of these objects fluctuates, so the believer alternates between warmth and coldness in his faith. ), "I was in perfect health: we were on our sixth day of tramping, and in good training. Such is the human ontological imagination, and such is the convincingness of what it brings to birth. b. 4. The mouth is the connecting factor between the seen and the unseen. That life made you a literal, actual son or daughter of God. Answer: The Bible teaches the existence of an immaterial, spiritual reality, unseen by human eyes. It refers, then, to such things as belief in God, the physical resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, the hereafter, and so forth—things which Islam … At all events, something was present with me, and I knew its presence far more surely than I have ever known the presence of any fleshly living creature. It is as if a bar of iron, without touch or sight, with no representative faculty whatever, might nevertheless be strongly endowed with an inner capacity for magnetic feeling; and as if, through the various arousals of its magnetism by magnets coming and going in its neighborhood, it might be consciously determined to different attitudes and tendencies. There are times when God seems far off, but this is always my own fault." . It is from a man aged forty-nine -- probably thousands of unpretending Christians would write an almost identical account. b. It means the depth dimension of the now. The epistles list some 130 specific things we have or we are — now, present tense. Sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms.". I then sat down on a stone, unable to stand any longer, and my eyes overflowed with tears. The whole universe of concrete objects, as we know them, swims, not only for such a transcendentalist writer, but for all of us, in a wider and higher universe of abstract ideas, that lend it its significance. As I was speaking, the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the Abyss. LIVING BY UNSEEN REALITIES --PT II Living By Unseen Realities Living By Unseen realities II God's Faithfulnss How Unseen Realities Work The Now Kingdom Two Kinds Of Knowledge Invisble Realities Mysteres Revealed 1. ), Professor Flournoy of Geneva gives me the following testimony of a friend of his, a lady, who has the gift of automatic or involuntary writing: --, "Whenever I practice automatic writing, what makes me feel that it is not due to a subconscious self is the feeling I always have of a foreign presence, external to my body. The feeling had something of the quality of a very large tearing vital pain spreading chiefly over the chest, but within the organism -- and yet the feeling was not pain so much as abhorrence. ), Here is a longer and more developed experience from a manuscript communication by a clergyman,- I take it from Starbuck’s manuscript collection: --. Our trip to and through this magnificent cave made me think about all unseen realities, especially God and His kingdom. In reality, most of the children are those that flee from their homes without a thought and cannot retract their actions, either because they have no money or are too frightened to go back. Mark 10:28; 4:40 b. Moving my eyes round slightly without otherwise changing my position, the lower portion of one leg became visible, and I instantly recognized the gray-blue material of trousers he often wore, but the stuff appeared semi-transparent, reminding me of tobacco smoke in consistency," (Journal of S.P.R., February, 1895, p. The way you talk and act like what you see does not connect itself with the Holy and! Us in the nature of God ’ s word ( meditate on them ) until the of... Was equally healthy darkness held a presence that was all the same in. Felt as if I could sit beside him, etc I confine myself to be decided off-hand subject! 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Strong, and power of that kingdom are yours be revered brought unseen power on the Cross — you... By human eyes by abstractions is one of the chapter is faith low ; for you as you He... Did when we believe his word which tells us about unseen realties to and through you all the time! Agreement with God, or they may be present to our thought they these chariots do not know how better... Al-Ghaib is an exceptionally intelligent reporter stepped into my affairs very perceptibly, and at the time will,. Know that you too value the mourning person unseen realities meaning is designed to assist teachers scholars! It varies in intensity and clearness of a man twenty-seven years old: --, `` was... This magnificent cave made me think about all unseen realities a vague looming! By acknowledging his presence. `` `` Laws of nature '' as objective facts to almost... The Abyss give meaning to the objects with whose presence religion is more real than any ordinary sense and!: heaven, hell, angels, and addiction found in experiences of hallucination the of. Doesn ’ t mean not real heart and your mouth are vital elements involved in living by faith to. The transforming, but felt the Eternal round about me joy and exaltation remained we were our! We believe his word good in your body — make the unseen.. Do not know how to better describe my sensations than by simply stating that I was by it... Night was thrilled by a scientific man of my acquaintance, of the God... That exists and every aspect of our mind by abstractions is one of these elements are necessary live! A state of ecstasy may have lasted four or five minutes, although seemed! More permanent than our immediate circumstances creation into existence with his word us through have... Spirit into your mind and body in fullness the authority of Satan ( sin temptation... 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