A Sermon You Have Probably Never Heard Before

soul? Well… I can’t really tell you how you can know. You must decide for yourself. But I CAN tell you how I know. I know that I have an eternal soul because each and every day I am rediscovering things that I early knew in my heart as a child—things that our present day culture has tried to erase from my consciousness. Every time I delve deeper into the scripture and realize that I have always known this I find confirmation that I have an eternal soul, for it is my soul that knows these things. How else would I be rediscovering things I have always known rather than discovering them for the first time! Quite obviously I did not learn these things from the many schools and universities I have attended. Quite obviously because society as a whole does not teach such things. But I know somehow. This is “priori” knowledge. And for there to be “priori” or prior knowledge, there must be an eternal soul.
Do you know that while in the university I was told to get a Ph.D. Then, and only then, I would have the right to express an opinion. Do you realize how incredibly absurd this is. The whole concept denies the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds. It denies that we have a soul. Do you know that when I was in seminary I was told not to too fervently because I must share the stage with all manner of people. Later, of course, I discovered that I had gone from too young to express an opinion to tool old to be taken seriously. Well, just when does one get to speak and express an opinion. Never, if you go by the rules of our secular culture! This is because your opinion as an individual doesn’t matter. Your testimony to the truth carries no weight whatsoever because the underlying assumption is that truth is relative. Truth is created by the culture, or for oneself. And so we are told in many subtle and in many not-so-subtle ways, “Do not be so arrogant as to think you can discern something that the rest cannot—you have no God-given capacity to discern truth, in effect, you have no soul”.
I’m glad that I have a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, a specialist certificate and a Ph. D. Do you know why? Because having done all of that study I can tell you that it is all like worthless straw. The truth of all things resides in the soul which is sensitive to the revelation of God. Incidentally, I’m not the first person to say this. I believe that it was Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval Christian philosopher who first used the phrase, “all of this is but straw”. Having done the study I know this to be true. You study a thing long enough and you learn to see through it.
The greatest task that I as a Christian face, and I say this according to heart knowledge, not because of anything I’ve ever actually learned in “higher” education, is that I am called to help you recognize that you have an immortal soul, and to help you reclaim it, to become at one with it, through the power of the Holy Spirit working to bring about God’s plan of salvation for you, that you might be redeemed, reborn, alive in Christ and Christ in you! The thing that I’ve always sensed, and now know, and which maybe you have sensed as well, though perhaps not consciously, is that we are called