Participants: Kathy Matthews, David Sedlacek
Series Code: TAH
Program Code: TAH000131
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00:31 Welcome back to Thinking About Home.
00:32 I am Kathy Matthews, and I want to tell 00:36 you that we are really having a good 00:38 conversation here. We want you to join 00:40 us on the decision making process. That's 00:43 what we have been discussing, and we've 00:47 been talking about mental faculties 00:49 are all involved in the decision making 00:51 process, the will has to have the conscience, 00:56 the common sense and the heart's desire 00:58 all in unity to make a decent decision, 01:02 and I know that that is something that is 01:05 so important in a family and so important 01:07 to adults as well the adults or parents 01:10 teaching it to their children. I hope that 01:13 you can use this information that we are 01:15 going to be sharing with you today and it's, 01:18 we're going to be also talking about how 01:20 Satan has destroyed our ability to choose, 01:23 that's really what we're gonna be talking 01:25 about for the most today. And our 01:27 guest is Dr. David Sedlacek from 01:29 Weimar Institute. And I want to 01:31 thank you again for being with us. 01:32 Thank you so much Kathy. We have this 01:35 ability to choose, but we don't know how 01:40 to do it well. Satan has done a work 01:42 on us hasn't he? Umm-Umm he sure has. 01:45 What can you share with us on how his work 01:51 has destroyed that choice and the 01:54 difficulty that we have, not even understanding 01:57 how we can make a choice? Well he has done 02:01 his job very, very well. And there are a 02:04 number of different areas that he has 02:06 brought about in human experience to 02:10 pervert our capacity to make good decisions 02:14 and perhaps the first one that I want 02:17 to talk about is how we as parents either 02:22 promote healthy decision making on the 02:24 part of our children, or how we damage their 02:29 capacity to make healthy choices in the future, 02:31 right. And when we look at our children as 02:39 individuals, as little people, a part of what 02:46 we want to do if we look at them as true 02:48 individuals and people, and not just an 02:50 extension of us, is that we want to 02:53 promote their capacity to use their mental 02:55 faculties, all of them, which result in their 02:59 making healthy decisions for themselves, right. 03:02 But, some parents either because 03:04 they're really afraid to allow children to 03:08 make decisions, or because they feel a 03:12 need to be in control of their world so much 03:15 themselves don't promote in their children 03:19 the capacity to make good decisions. 03:22 They either over control and make all 03:25 the decisions for them or they allow the kids 03:30 to make whatever decisions they want to 03:32 make without any restraint or guidance, 03:34 right. To teach them the process, 03:37 right and either way is damaging to children. 03:39 That's an area where I have had some 03:43 difficulty with especially when I was 03:47 teaching some classes on parenting that 03:50 people tend to want to allow their children 03:54 to make too many decisions too soon. 03:56 I have seen that, I have seen that 03:58 quite a lot. And I think that is not the 04:03 best way to allow your child, you got to 04:05 choose more for them when they're in the 04:08 younger years and so forth. But, the 04:10 idea isn't it to, is to allow the child 04:13 to learn to choose. That's right and 04:15 one of my favorite writer says that 04:17 we need to allow them that capacity as 04:20 early as it is reasonable for them, 04:22 reasonable, and that's what the wisdom, 04:24 right comes in. There are some parents 04:26 I know who are the opposite extreme and 04:28 they want to control and make every decision 04:31 until the child leaves home and the child 04:34 is totally unprepared to make decision 04:36 and really rebels against parental authority. 04:39 Right and all of this having to do with 04:40 preparing for our heavenly home or 04:43 choosing salvation. That's right, I mean 04:45 all of this program, all of the ones that 04:47 we've been doing has to do with 04:49 helping us along both adult and children 04:53 to choose the right path. Exactly right 04:58 and to be able to have a choice as the 05:01 Psalms says the choice that's fixed, 05:02 oh God my choice is fixed, I'm settled down 05:06 this I'm not indecisive, I'm not wishy-washy. 05:09 Right, blowing with the wind. Exactly, 05:12 I can make good firm decisions and I have a 05:16 rational basis upon which to do it, which is 05:19 based upon God speaking to me also 05:23 what makes good sense as well as 05:26 the desires that God and I have in common. 05:28 Right, you know what's best or what's right and 05:35 what's best and what is my heart's desire 05:40 should all be yes or no, right? That's right. 05:45 They all should be in agreement, right? 05:46 That's right, okay. But, sometimes what 05:48 happens is that Satan makes one of the 05:52 facilities stronger than the others, and so 05:55 they're not all in harmony. For example, 05:58 if you take a look at the area of appetite 06:00 and passion again briefly, okay. You know 06:02 we may know for example that to lust 06:07 after someone other than our wives, right, 06:09 is by way of conscience wrong. We know 06:13 its morally not right, and we know its not 06:16 reasonable, oh boy if I do that I could 06:18 possibly you know have all kinds of conflict 06:21 in my family and I might get some kind 06:23 of disease whatever, yes. So the reasons 06:24 why I shouldn't do it either. It's not best, 06:26 yes. But because Satan gets me to 06:31 believe that this is what I really should do 06:35 and I really what that then I dawn the voice 06:39 of conscience and reason and the vote of 06:43 heart's desire, right. Our passion gets 06:46 stronger I go ahead and make a decision 06:48 to do something that I should have never 06:51 ever done, right. And so Satan is 06:54 still in the business of trying to exalt 06:56 heart's desire. Right, so, there is the true 06:58 heart's desire that God has given us to be 07:01 effect, you know our affections wrapped 07:03 around what's right and what's best and 07:05 then there's that perverted heart's desire 07:07 that just leads into selfishness. Exactly, 07:10 just total selfishness, that's right, okay, 07:12 that's right. And so we wanna as you said 07:16 earlier, have an equal vote for each of them, 07:20 and they all need to be in agreement if it's 07:21 going to be in harmony with God, okay. But, 07:23 there's another thing that Satan does to try 07:27 and pervert our capacity to make healthy 07:30 choices too and that we might call the area 07:33 of addiction or bondages. When I'm 07:37 addicted to either a thing like that let say 07:42 alcohol or drugs or sex, or even work, or 07:48 even some of the socially acceptable addictions 07:50 like food or Christian service even for 07:54 some people can be an addiction, yes, yes. 07:56 When I'm addicted to those kinds of things, 08:00 what is happening dynamically that I get 08:03 obsessed with that thing and I get 08:05 preoccupied with that thing and my whole 08:10 sense of identity very often is tied up with 08:13 that thing and many times that addiction I'm 08:18 engaging in an addiction to meet a need of my 08:22 heart that's never been met by anything else. 08:25 Maybe I need to feel good or need to be 08:29 loved and ultimately we know that in a 08:32 Christian sense only God can fill those needs, 08:35 right. But when we don't know that we 08:37 can go to him for that very often we get 08:39 perverted into these areas that become very 08:42 much a bondage and when a bondage has 08:45 become a real thing in my life. Basically what 08:49 happens is the addiction makes the decision 08:51 for me rather than me making the decision for 08:56 myself. And so we get into an area very 09:00 often that there been books written that 09:02 have been called disabilities of the 09:04 Will. That basically talk about how 09:07 bondage to addiction takes us out of the 09:11 capacity to make a healthy choice at all, 09:15 basically I am making a choice based upon my 09:17 neediness or upon basically my compulsion 09:22 to the addiction now which has taken me 09:24 over, taken my will over rather than 09:27 based upon any sense of what's 09:30 reasonable or what's right. Addiction 09:32 would be a habit gone away or what? 09:36 Well it is, yet my favorite definition for 09:39 addiction is that it's a search for God's love 09:41 that's gonna tray, because I think that's 09:44 the search that we're all on this life, 09:46 okay is for an experience of intimacy 09:49 with Jesus and to know that he 09:51 loves us so much that's. I really 09:54 believe it. That's a desire of every 09:55 human heart, and only Jesus can fully 09:57 fill that desire. No other thing can do 10:00 that and that's why addictions are so 10:03 damaging because really the perversions 10:05 of that which only God can 10:10 feel for us, really feel, exactly right. 10:11 And so that's another avenue so often 10:15 I worked with addicts now for many, 10:19 many years and that's one of the things 10:21 that we see common to addiction and 10:24 what we try to do in our treatment is 10:26 if you look at addiction as a relational 10:28 element, then the solution to it is 10:32 relational, in other words, to replace it, 10:35 with love for Jesus, yes. With love for 10:38 Jesus experiential it really, something 10:40 better. Yes, to take the old and 10:43 replace it with something better. And 10:45 Jesus is all about freedom now, 10:46 you see Jesus is about freedom to choose. 10:50 And Romans 8 is very, very clear 10:53 about that Jesus now through our 10:57 death to our self gives us freedom and 10:59 we're under according to James the love 11:01 of liberty, right which means that when 11:04 we formally when we were in bondage, 11:06 we though we had freedom but our 11:08 choices we are all being made for us, right. 11:10 Now we have the choice in Jesus to either 11:12 choose right or wrong. We're not in 11:15 bondage to always having to 11:16 choosing wrong. Just wrong. 11:18 To have freedom from sin, self and Satan. 11:21 Exactly right, okay, exactly right, and 11:24 so in Jesus we have that. Another thing 11:27 that Satan has done, he has 11:29 created in many people what we call a 11:33 victim mindset. Now this is a very, very 11:36 interesting phenomena because when I 11:38 have a victim mindset which is often 11:42 established though having been victimized, 11:45 having been really hurt or damaged 11:47 through other people or through a series 11:50 of circumstances in my life. Then what 11:53 ends up happen is I develop an 11:55 expectancy that I'm gonna be 11:57 victimize that other people are 11:59 gonna take advantage of me. 12:00 That's just what's gonna happen to me. 12:01 And life is gonna be go bad, yes, okay. 12:03 And one of the interesting thing 12:06 about victims though is that there's 12:08 often a pay off to being a victim. In other 12:11 words, that encourages it. Well it does 12:14 encourage it but the pay off is if I'm a 12:17 victim then life happens to me. I don't 12:21 choose the course of my life, choose life 12:23 I see yes. And so if life just happens 12:26 to me, poor me, is life awful to me, 12:29 yes and I don't have to be responsible 12:32 for my decisions, okay. You see that's 12:36 how it plays into damaging the will in the 12:39 decision making process, right. Because 12:41 I don't have to responsible, I am 12:43 just a victim. Other people make 12:45 you know like decisions for me 12:47 and I just go along with life. 12:49 It becomes almost an encouraged trap 12:52 or, exactly right something like that. 12:55 Exactly right and so a lot of the 12:57 work when we see this phenomena 12:59 going on with people who come to us 13:01 for counseling, what we do is we have 13:03 to teach them to make decisions. 13:06 This is so important for people 13:08 who are in that particular trap. 13:11 And the simple process that we've given 13:12 here on the programs has been 13:14 that way of teaching do you use that? 13:17 That's a big part of it, we also have to 13:19 many times teach victims how to fight. 13:21 In what way? What do you mean fight? 13:24 Well, victims are the kind of people 13:26 who tend to lay down and 13:29 let people walk all over them. Right. 13:31 And they don't how to confront an issue? 13:33 Exactly to fight Biblically you know 13:36 the Bible says that God wants to 13:38 teach our fingers to fight and our 13:40 hands to war, okay. And so there is a 13:44 capacity to stand and to fight. See we're 13:47 being trained in these last days to be 13:49 soldiers, right. Soldiers have to 13:51 know how to fight. Because we're in 13:52 the church militant. And it's the fight 13:54 of faith, right and so Satan 13:56 just runs their capacity. 13:58 So, just make it clear you're not talking 13:59 about anything physical? No, I'm 14:02 not talking about or nor verbal 14:03 abuse, right, I'm not talking about that, 14:04 but I'm talking about how to stand 14:05 in a dignity of Jesus. Right with a strong mind. 14:08 And a lot of people just, victimization 14:12 just takes us out of that capacity, 14:13 so that is what we are trying 14:16 to teach, get across, that's right. 14:18 Oh yeah, so after the victim mindset, 14:21 we have through doubt how Satan has 14:25 destroyed our choosing through doubt? 14:28 That is one of his most effective weapons 14:31 is doubt. There are so many people 14:34 that I've worked with who are so 14:37 indecisive about making any kind 14:39 of decision whatsoever. They doubt 14:41 themselves, they question themselves 14:43 all over the place they doubt salvation, 14:47 they doubt everything. I have to say something 14:49 here, please. The Pilgrim's Progress 14:52 that John Bunyan wrote, yes. 14:54 And it was put on cassette here some 14:57 years ago by a Adventist Family that 15:00 did a wonderful production on that 15:02 and in it as I was listening to it and 15:05 I have listen to it many, many times, 15:06 me too. It's good isn't it? And when not 15:10 when the first time I heard it but 15:12 several times after I heard it and 15:14 pilgrim or the who is it Christian and his 15:18 unfaithful, which ever one it is 15:19 that's going to doubting castle and they 15:22 get trapped in doubting castle, that's right. 15:25 And giant despair that became so 15:28 real to me after some experiences in 15:31 my walk with Christ. And to be caught 15:35 in a castle of doubt and beaten by 15:39 giant despair is I can see how it 15:43 destroys your ability to choose 15:45 if you're just caught under that. 15:47 You're absolutely right and very often what 15:50 happens is that indecisiveness you know 15:53 doubt leads us to despair. It leads us, 15:57 it's almost like cause and effect, 15:59 it's the next step and that of course leads 16:03 to hopelessness and the thoughts of 16:05 suicide and or very often in the Christian 16:09 world, this is what I see, people either 16:11 doubting their salvation or saying oh I must 16:15 have committed the unpardonable 16:17 sin, right, right. I hear that one very 16:19 often and that's a very effective 16:20 bondage of the enemy, he's 16:22 got us then if we stay there. 16:24 But, there's a key of promise. The key of 16:26 promise we always have that, right we 16:29 always can get out. And then what? Well, 16:32 another very effective tool of the enemy 16:36 and I love, you see I love exposing 16:39 the enemy here because if we don't know 16:41 the enemy's tactics and we're bound 16:44 to fall into them, right. But when we 16:46 know his tactics then we can defeat 16:48 him can't we? And so the next one 16:51 is through lies, through deceit, through 16:53 false beliefs and very often what ends 16:57 happening is that we believe messages 17:01 about ourselves that are not true. 17:04 We for example may have been told 17:08 you're no good, you're never going to 17:11 amount to nothing, I'm sorry 17:13 I ever had you, you know I don't want 17:15 you, I don't want you as my son, 17:16 I'm embarrassed about you. You know 17:18 when children hear those kind of 17:20 messages or experience those kinds of 17:21 things from their family. Basically they 17:25 have no capacity to say that's not true, 17:28 right. Kids are like a sponge and 17:30 they're gonna take in whatever comes 17:32 their way especially from people like 17:34 mom and dad. And so when that's 17:37 been their experience, they believe well I 17:39 must be no good at all, right. 17:41 You know I must be a total loser. 17:43 Even if they don't know they act like it right, 17:45 they don't always act like they're thinking 17:47 like that. But, inside the message is 17:50 like little a tape recorder playing deep 17:52 inside and it often colors their expectations 17:57 of life, it colors whether they will 18:00 really succeed or not succeed in life. 18:03 And Satan knows that if he can get 18:05 us to succeed to be believe lies that 18:09 he has us in a trap, right. And the 18:11 wonderful thing that I see is when I look 18:14 at Jesus life. Jesus heard a message from 18:19 his father that said, this is my beloved 18:23 son in whom I'm well pleased. 18:25 A message of affirmation and so during 18:28 dark times which Jesus had many of them, 18:32 yes. That message was there, ringing, 18:35 this is my beloved son. You know I 18:38 delight in you, you're mine and I'm 18:41 here with you and for you and I'm 18:43 well pleased in you that is what Jesus 18:47 held on to and he held on it by faith 18:50 but you see the word has to be spoken and 18:54 received of truth to counteract the lies 18:59 And you have to grasp a hold of it 19:02 and begin to believe it, exactly, and new pathways 19:04 are formed in your terrain. That's exactly 19:06 what happens, yes, to counteract the lies. 19:09 But again Satan, one of his major arsenals 19:12 is deception. And so this is one of the major 19:16 areas that he uses to cripple our capacity 19:19 to choose is through lies, yeah. Now, 19:26 another one that I want to talk about 19:29 briefly is though the experience of abuse 19:31 in families. We have been working 19:36 now with families that have been abused for 19:39 many, many years and you may believe 19:43 some of the stories that we hear and 19:46 they've been not only families that have 19:50 been raised in non-Christian 19:53 environments, but also families that 19:55 have been raised in Christian environments, 19:57 and the abuse has been sometimes 20:01 verbal abuse, sometimes emotional abuse, 20:04 physical abuse, what we might even call 20:07 spiritual abuse and sexual abuse. 20:10 All these different kinds of abuse we 20:14 have to admit are happening even in our 20:17 midst as well as out there in the world, 20:20 you know we want to believe its not 20:21 happening here, but that's not really what 20:24 the truth of the matter is, right. And 20:27 very often when children are raised in 20:30 that kind of situation, they live in a 20:35 mode of living, which is basically survival. 20:38 You know I like to use the analogy 20:41 of a plant in the springtime, where if 20:46 I'm thriving you know if I'm getting plenty 20:49 of water as a plant and if I'm exposed to 20:52 sunshine and fresh air, then I'm going to 20:55 blossom into this beautiful, beautiful 20:57 blossom flower. But when I don't get 21:03 that nurturing and I'm only surviving, 21:06 I'm like a plant where may be I've 21:09 budded but I only stay a bud, 21:12 I never reach my full potential. 21:15 Never really grow, that's right. And 21:18 Satan has people like that living a 21:22 lifetime of fear and a lifetime of shame, 21:25 and very often their experience is almost 21:29 like the experience of Job in some ways. 21:31 Remember in Job, he said that which I 21:33 have feared greatly has come upon me. 21:36 And so basically their fears very often 21:40 determine their life and so are they 21:43 even open to taking a look at other 21:46 possibilities of life, you know things that 21:48 might be greater than where they're that. 21:51 Many of them don't even think of 21:53 making choices other than choices 21:56 which are the choices that have 21:58 been damaging choices which have 22:00 been limiting choices. It's all they knew. 22:02 That's all they knew. And so 22:04 Satan uses that to damage even Christian 22:07 people and keep them in either 22:10 relationships that have been abusive, 22:12 that's the kind of relationship that 22:14 they'll chose, and their choices will be 22:16 predictable, because that's what they 22:19 believe they deserve. And so that's 22:22 another way that Satan uses to try 22:25 and destroy our capacity to really 22:27 make healthy decisions. Wow, they need this, 22:32 don't they? They need to understand 22:33 how to make, we all need to understand 22:36 how to make better decisions don't 22:38 we and choices, we do. So, that we 22:40 don't have our children growing up 22:42 that are incapable of making 22:43 the choice of salvation. 22:45 That's right, that's right. Where do wanna go now? 22:48 Well, I'd like to talk about how we can 22:51 learn to choose again. I'd like to take us, 22:53 yes we need that. A few steps about 22:55 how to begin making some healthy decisions. 22:58 And so the first step would be to embrace 23:01 whatever the condition that we find and 23:04 we talked about several of them now, 23:06 but embrace it is true. You know a 23:09 lot of us don't want to embrace the 23:11 realty of our woundedness or of 23:14 our brokenness or of our bondage, and so 23:17 the first thing we need to do is come out 23:19 the world of denial, and to acknowledge 23:22 that it's true and to embrace it, what I 23:24 mean by embarrassing it is, is to really 23:27 bring that thing into my heart as being 23:30 true for me to settle it and accept 23:33 that this is my condition, you know. 23:36 And once I've done that then I'm in a 23:38 condition of doing something about it, 23:40 but as long as I don't want it to be 23:42 true even though it's true, I've not 23:44 embraced it, right. And so the first 23:45 thing is I need to expect it is true, and 23:48 embrace it as being true for me. 23:50 The second one is to acknowledge my 23:54 inability to change by myself. You know 23:57 I'm in a situation of bondage, I can't get 24:01 out by myself, I've tried getting out 24:03 by myself, I can't do it, but I need help, 24:06 right. Okay, okay and then, and 24:09 then tell God that you need and 24:13 want to have him change you. 24:15 This is my need. Lord I'm helpless 24:18 alone but I'm trusting that you 24:20 have power to change me. And Lord, 24:23 this is exactly what I need to have you do. 24:26 I see it and I need you to help me 24:29 in this particular area. Absolutely and be 24:31 specific, to be very specific, to be 24:34 very specific. Number four is maybe one 24:36 of most important steps and that is 24:38 to accept that there's power in 24:41 the word of God to create what it says. 24:44 It's available for you. Exactly, you see for 24:48 example lets just take the area of lies, 24:49 if I have believed lies, then there's a 24:55 corresponding truth in the word of God 24:57 to counteract that lie. And I need to find 25:00 the promise or the truth in the word 25:02 of God to counteract the light, I need to 25:04 renounce the lie, right so I'm not gonna 25:07 believe that anymore and I need to 25:09 then grab hold of the truth. One of the 25:12 most beautiful powerful things that we 25:14 know is that when Jesus speaks things 25:18 happen, yes. His word is living, 25:20 it's creative and so if I know that then 25:23 the word that I grab hold of, in his word, 25:26 the promise will create the whole new 25:29 reality in me, right. That is profoundly 25:32 powerful the promises that we have, 25:34 and the power that we have 25:36 as Christians in the word of God. 25:37 Can you do it if you don't believe it? 25:39 No, okay, no it cannot, okay. 25:42 It has to be connected with faith. 25:44 Okay we've got to wrap some of this, 25:45 that's right. And we've got more 25:46 things to share. Well the next thing is to 25:48 ask God to take you into his presence, 25:50 and to give you whatever experience 25:54 that you need to have in order to 25:56 counteract a lot of the lies that you 25:58 may have believed in the past, right. 26:00 You see this is connected to the previous 26:03 step of being grounded in the word 26:05 because you can have experience, and 26:10 experience alone without being connected 26:12 with the word can get you off into a 26:15 whole area that you don't wanna to go, 26:17 right. But, many times what we find 26:19 find that Jesus does is the same way 26:21 he did it two thousand years ago when 26:23 he was on earth, right. He gave 26:25 people experiences that built their faith, 26:27 right. He reached out to them because 26:29 he knew they were broken and needed it. 26:31 Well we find him doing exactly the same 26:33 thing today, okay. Giving people 26:35 healing experiences that are again 26:37 connected with realities from his word, 26:40 okay. These are powerful experiences. 26:42 The next one is if Jesus has given you 26:46 freedom because he's spoken the truth 26:48 to you himself through his word, 26:50 then you need to accept the newness 26:53 of life that he has given you, the new 26:54 experience that he has given. A lot of 26:57 times we wanna doubt that something 26:59 that Jesus has done is real. But, 27:01 once he's done it, we need to accept it 27:03 as being real. And so we wanna go 27:05 forward and accept this newness of life, 27:08 okay, and not doubt it at all. Then we 27:10 need to learn to walk in this just like a 27:12 new born babe walking in a newness of life. 27:15 You know it doesn't mean you're not 27:16 gonna make mistakes, it doesn't mean 27:18 God is gonna test it, you know so 27:20 that we can see that it's real but 27:22 like a new born babe in the faith we need 27:24 to learn to walk in this newness of life. 27:26 And know that God is patient with us 27:28 and he knows where we are, 27:29 okay and he loves us there. 27:31 Oh my! There is a lot to share isn't 27:34 there? There really is. I've really 27:36 enjoyed the programs that you've done, 27:38 and I want to invite our viewers that 27:40 if there is some information that you 27:41 would like on this, you can write or call 27:43 3ABN and we'll be praying for you. In fact 27:46 we're gonna do that now. Father in heaven, 27:50 we're so thankful that in Jesus there 27:53 is absolute and complete freedom 27:56 and Lord for any listeners right now 27:58 that maybe in bondage, who maybe 28:01 identifying some of the things that we shared. |
Revised 2014-12-17