In this devotional recorded while on vacation in Myrtle Beach, M.t. Clark opens with a vivid description of a sunrise photo and a call to appreciate the present moment, linking gratitude to one’s worldview. He then introduces the central problem: humanity’s reliance on false equations that promise significance, security, and acceptance through performance, status, and appearance. Clark argues that these equations fail because they ignore the ultimate questions of purpose and eternity. He contrasts three dominant worldviews – the Western (science‑centric, dismissive of the supernatural), the Non‑Western (science plus animistic belief in manipulable spirits), and the Post‑modern (relativistic, truth based on personal experience) – showing how each ultimately denies the biblical truth. The solution presented is the “God’s equation”: true acceptance, significance, and security are received only through faith in Jesus Christ, as revealed in Scripture. Clark illustrates the practical impact of this error by recounting a youth counselor’s concern that many young people understand many religions intellectually but lack any evaluation of truth, resulting in spiritual blindness. He calls believers to use spiritual weapons (2 Cor 10:4‑5) to cast down worldly arguments and present Christ as the answer, urging personal decision and discipleship. The sermon includes a meditation on Philippians 4:8‑9, encouraging believers to focus on what is true, honorable, pure, and lovely to experience God’s peace. Clark references A.W. Pink’s The Sovereignty of God (chapter 7, section 2 on the bondage of the human will) and directs listeners to his website mtforchrist.org, the Freedom in Christ course, and related podcasts for deeper study. The talk concludes with a prayer for the listeners, the course participants, and anyone seeking truth, emphasizing reliance on the Holy Spirit and the promise of peace beyond understanding.
Chapters
To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Today's photo of the sun shining over the Atlantic Ocean from the point of view of the Springmaid Pier in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina comes to us from yours truly, as this New Yorker was delighted to be experiencing 80 degrees and sunshine and had to capture the moment as my wife and I checked out the immediate surroundings of what will be our home away from home. For 3 nights. Well, it's Wednesday, and even though we just got here yesterday, we will have already reached the midway point of our stay by day's end. And so I would remind each one of us to appreciate today for what it is, because no matter where this last hump day of February finds you physically, emotionally, or spiritually, time will keep on marching forward. So we should appreciate where we are and try to find peace now. Joy now with a sense of gratitude and contentment. No, my vacation will not last forever, but I get to enjoy it today. And as hard as it may be to believe, for those of you working, someday your job and career will come to an end, even if it means your life should expire before you retire. So whether you are working or not, realize that the joy we have in life is greatly affected by our perspective of our world, or our worldview. Last night, after surveying the lay of the land near our resort, I led the participants of the Freedom in Christ course that I facilitate on Zoom to consider the world— the world's view of the truth and how it presents false equations of how we can feel accepted, significant, and secure. The lesson demonstrated this with the following equations: Performance Accomplishments Significance. Status Recognition Security. Appearance Admiration Acceptance. These equations can seem to make sense and cause us to try to earn our significance, security, and acceptance in the world, but the truth is revealed when those equations don't add up. The biographies of overachievers and the best and brightest among us often reveal that even the ultra-rich and successful can be thoroughly dissatisfied with their lives even after they have accomplished all their goals, were admired by the masses, or had all the financial resources to keep them in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives. The reason why these equations don't add up is because they don't see seek to answer the big questions of life and death and their ultimate purpose and meaning according to the Creator of life, God. This week's lesson also looked at the different worldviews in regards to science, spirituality, and relativism by examining the Western, Non-Western, and Postmodern worldviews and how they present a false picture of reality. According to the lesson, the Western view generally bases their view of reality based on what can be determined by science, what's observable, and it tends to all but deny the spiritual or supernatural possibilities of life. The non-Western worldview, on the other hand, while it may believe in science and what's observable, not only believes in spirits or the supernatural aspects of life, but believes that those forces should be respected and can be manipulated for good or bad. The postmodern worldview tends to be relativistic because it tends to to find its own truth based on personal experience. All of these views offer up an explanation of reality that would deny the truth of God's Word and the Biblical worldview. The rules of science, the practices of animistic or pantheistic religions that seek to manipulate the spirits, or doing whatever is right in your own eyes would not lead one to the conclusion that eternal life is secured through faith in Jesus Christ. The truth of God's Word in the Bible is the only source of truth that would lead one to the ultimate acceptance, security, and significance that we all were made to experience. God's equation for obtaining acceptance, significance, and security is for us to receive them from Him, the Creator of all things and the Author of life and truth, through the way He established, through faith in Jesus Christ. As Christians, we understand this, and we are increasingly experiencing the reality of it as we grow in our faith. Our deepest desire is to help other people to see the truth too. In our discussion, we addressed the fact that our modern society has muddied the waters of seeing the light because it presents the view that all roads lead to heaven. That one view of reality is good as another. But as nice as the idea of coexistence can be, the fact that all the different religions and world philosophies about life present alternate explanations for the way things work indicates that they can't all be true. One of the men who works with youth as a counselor was particularly concerned about how several of the youth he counseled seemed to have a well-grounded understanding of the various religions and philosophies out there, but seemed to be completely oblivious to the possibility of the objective reality that there really is a God that they could have a relationship with, or to consider that they will be accountable with what they do with their lives to him. This man's description of his counselees indicated that everything is just a theory to them. That they seem to have such a thorough understanding of all the possible explanations of reality out there, but it doesn't seem that they have considered that, that only one view could be true, and that, and they would thus be subject to that truth. On the contrary, their lack of concern of being right with God would indicate that they are incapable of believing that any of the possibilities are real. They can tell you what the various religions believe, but they couldn't tell you whether or not they— what they taught was true. Their thorough understanding seemed to stop shy of evaluating the truth claims of each possibility to determine what was true. They essentially have a thorough understanding of error and thus are all the more spiritually blinded to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their open minds would in effect keep them closed off from salvation, because they have made the personal decision that there is no absolute truth, that somehow the contradictions and inconsistencies of the beliefs that, that all, all points of view are equally valid when it comes to ultimate reality didn't penetrate through the accumulation of the understanding of the different views of the life. This all, of course, reveals the reality of the spiritual forces of darkness, the powers and principalities that would raise up any other possibility except Jesus to lead people of this world to destruction. Uh, 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 tells us, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. While only the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth of the gospel to anyone to bring them to salvation, our part is to lovingly stand in the gap and to point out the inconsistencies of the world's various views of reality and lead people to consider the truth God's word and to apply it to their lives personally. We are to cast down the arguments the world makes by telling the truth of Jesus Christ and imploring them to make a personal decision to apply it to their lives by making Jesus the Lord of their lives. There are various theories of how to do evangelism, of course, but the emphasis should always be to present Christ as God's answer for life. And how we individually must examine this thing called life and choose what we will believe, not in theory but in practice. It will be what we do with what we have learned that will be what determines the quality and future of our lives. So keep walking and talking with God and be ready to give an explanation for the hope you have in Christ. Because when you can tell someone why you believe and what your faith in Christ has done in your life, you may be, you may be used by the Lord to open the eyes of the blind and to set the captives free. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Philippians 4:8-9. And they say, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable, right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent, worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me, even everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Today's Bible verses remind us how to think as Christians and calls us to be real in our faith to receive the fruit of the Spirit of peace. The Apostle Paul presents us with the means of having peace. We are to think on the things that are true, honorable, right, pure, and lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise, the things of God as revealed in the Bible, and to put everything we learn from it into practice. To have peace, we need to believe and practice what the Lord teaches. That's what being a disciple of Jesus and finding peace is all about. So think about those things and do those things that the Lord would have you do, and share the recipe of peace that comes through faith in Jesus Christ to the world that desperately needs it. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and today we're still in chapter 7 of God's Sovereignty and the Human Will, and it's section number 2, The Bondage of the Human Will. And so if you want to know what the bondage of the human will is all about um, just go to mtforchrist.org and you'll be able to read, um, everything that AWP— A.W. Pink has to write about that. As always, we invite people to, uh, check out our, um, our discipleship teachings that we've done on the blog— well, on the podcast and the YouTube channel, uh, for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, because it teaches about these worldviews and, uh, it teaches about the truth of God's Word, and most importantly, it teaches you about how it applies to you personally and how it can help you not only experience the joy of your salvation but the joy of your freedom in Christ as you shake off the lies of the earth— or lies of the world that are told on the earth and how you can choose the truth that leads to a life of peace and joy. As we walk in the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit will grow in our lives. And so we, we are to walk in it and thus follow Christ, pick up our cross and follow him. So we encourage people to do that. We also obviously encourage people to know what the word of God says for yourself by studying the Bible daily and praying to the Lord to reveal the truth from what you learn, you know, what you read. God will reveal his truth and give us wisdom for those who ask. And so we're supposed to do that. We're supposed to seek it and ask and knock and receive what God has for us. We'll discover that no matter what our circumstances, we can have a measure of peace because we know that God is good and He blesses those who believe in Him. You know, diligently seek Him, they will be rewarded. That's what faith is all about. And so I'm on vacation, so we're going to cut this short today, get some rest. As I was happy to do ministry during my vacation last night with the Freedom in Christ course, but today's sort of an off day and we're going to enjoy that. Um, probably with some personal study and relaxation. Um, so let's tell all those people who are at work, God bless you. I'll be back at it next week, but for now we're gonna enjoy the day and, uh, rejoice. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us and, uh, in our lives to, to reveal to us the truth, to point out that You know, the world's equations don't satisfy us, that, that you do. The maker of all things, the author of truth. You're the one who, who can set us free. You're the one who gives us hope and a peace that goes beyond understanding. And, uh, we just thank you for that. We also thank you, Lord, for those who, um, are diligently seeking the truth, like the men in the Freedom in Christ course. Uh, Lord, we pray for you to bless them, and we also pray for you to bless anyone who's listening or reading this message, uh, Lord, that you would come alongside them in their prayer requests and guide them in their walk and bless them. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
