Sharing and Defending the Faith

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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November 8, 2014

00:00: The second letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 1, and we're going to look only at verse 7.
00:20: 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7, For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.
00:40: Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to again come back to your word and to be reminded again of our responsibility to be ambassadors for Christ, evangelists in the world, to seek the lost that you might through us make your appeal and that they might come to faith in your son.
01:09: Lord, as I seek to look at the practical ways whereby we might share our faith with others, I pray first and foremost, as I do every time I enter this pulpit, that you would keep me from error, as I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
01:32: And I pray also, Lord, that you would produce a hedge of protection around your people.
01:39: Protect them, Lord, that we would all know the truth, that we would not ingest error, and that we would be moved toward further confirmation to the image of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for that is what we have been predestined to.
02:02: Father, again, we pray that you would be glorified in all that is said and done in this time of study.
02:09: In Jesus' name we pray.
02:12: Amen.
02:13: Please be seated.
02:23: When we first began looking at the conference, we were looking at what subjects each person was going to preach.
02:31: And in the beginning, my goal was to preach on the subject called apologetics, which is making a defense for the faith.
02:41: Brother David Burke was going to preach on the analogies of sharing the faith.
02:46: Well, as you all know, Brother Burke fell ill and so was not able to be here.
02:51: So, as Mike modified his message somewhat, so too have I modified my message to deal with both sharing and defending the faith.
03:02: Because I think that looking at some of the practical ways whereby we can share the faith and defend it when it comes under attack are very important for us as believers.
03:15: For many Christians, sharing their faith is not something which is done with any consistent regularity.
03:25: The Barna Research Group, a large surveying group, recently surveyed a group of people who identified themselves as Christians, as born-again Christians, and this is what was found in that survey.
03:39: Only 52%, just a little over half, of people who identified themselves as born-again Christians say they actually shared their faith with at least one person in the last year.
04:00: So, only 50% could say that they shared at least once with one person in the last year.
04:05: 50% couldn't even say that.
04:08: And then further in the study, they looked at those who identified themselves as evangelicals.
04:14: And as you know, those who would identify themselves as evangelicals might be a little bit more about the business of the evangel, the gospel.
04:23: And so they identified themselves, they asked that group, and 39% of those said they had not, in the last year, shared their faith with even one.
04:39: But 100% of them, to a man and woman, I assume, 100% of those surveyed who identified themselves as evangelicals said it was their responsibility.
04:50: Do you have a responsibility for sharing your faith? 100% Yes.
04:53: Do you share your faith? 39%.
04:55: We didn't do it at all in the last year.
04:58: Not even once.
05:01: When asked why Christians do not share their faith, you hear a variety of answers.
05:08: I do not want to anger people.
05:11: I don't want to appear judgmental.
05:14: I don't know the answers to their questions, so I couldn't possibly engage in a conversation.
05:19: I'm too shy or inhibited to speak.
05:23: I'm not smart enough.
05:25: I'll look like a fanatic.
05:29: Almost all objections to personal evangelism can be boiled down to one word.
05:37: Fear.
05:41: Fear of being ashamed.
05:43: Fear of being thought of as ignorant.
05:46: Fear of being humiliated.
05:48: Fear of being embarrassed.
05:49: Fear of being loathed or outcasted.
05:53: You tell me why you don't share Jesus, and I will show you in some way, shape, or fashion why it has stemmed from some form of fear.
06:02: Fear causes us to remain quiet when we should speak.
06:04: It causes us to walk away when we should stand firm.
06:07: Fear even causes us to make up excuses for not sharing our faith.
06:11: We say, well, that person's a different religion than mine.
06:15: I certainly couldn't share my faith with them.
06:17: I mean, goodness, they're a Muslim.
06:20: They were brought up in an Arab country.
06:21: I couldn't possibly share with them.
06:24: I mean, who's going to change a Muslim's mind? You can't share with an atheist.
06:30: They're too hard-headed.
06:31: Everyone I know is so blatantly hard-headed about his atheism.
06:34: I couldn't possibly crack that nut.
06:38: All those two people at my door at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning.
06:41: Oh, heavens.
06:44: I can't approach them.
06:46: We hide behind the blinds.
06:48: We look out at them and we shake because we're afraid.
06:54: The greatest irony in the Christian church is what I call the friendship excuse.
06:59: This is the excuse that's often used.
07:02: They say, I can't share my faith with a stranger.
07:05: I have to make friends with them first.
07:07: I have to create a relationship first.
07:10: And then they create a relationship and they say, well, I can't share my faith now.
07:14: It might interrupt the relationship.
07:17: So it becomes cyclical.
07:18: I couldn't share my faith before we were friends because I wasn't close enough to them.
07:21: And now I'm so close I couldn't bear the thought to live without them.
07:25: So I can't offend them.
07:27: So we create this cyclical trap where we convince ourselves it's impossible to share our faith with anyone.
07:37: And all of these are simply extensions of our fear.
07:42: We convince ourselves that all these things are true.
07:47: When they're really not, fear is the most useful tool in the devil's arsenal when it comes to personal evangelism.
07:56: He uses it to freeze believers in place.
08:01: He uses it to send believers running for the hills.
08:05: It is his most potent weapon.
08:10: And it is to me quite obvious that this fear is satanically influenced because most of us don't have a problem talking to people about other controversial subjects.
08:23: I know.
08:25: I work in various different part time occupations to kind of help out my family.
08:32: And one of them is with school.
08:34: I work as a substitute teacher at a school.
08:38: And then teachers will talk about anything.
08:40: They'll talk about the latest political thing and they'll argue it to a hilt.
08:43: They'll talk about sports teams and almost come to blows.
08:50: But no one will talk about Christ.
08:52: There's a fear that overcomes us about our faith.
08:58: And the real battle with fear, beloved, this morning, my goal to tell you this morning, is the battle with fear that you're facing.
09:06: Because we all do.
09:09: The battle with fear that we face is a spiritual battle.
09:16: Ephesians 6 and verse 12, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
09:30: That's the battle that we're fighting.
09:32: And that's where the fear is coming from.
09:34: We've read in our text this morning, 2nd Timothy 1 tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear.
09:41: Now, we have to understand that within the context.
09:44: Paul is talking to Timothy.
09:46: He's preparing him for ministry and he's talking about the fear of ministry, of course, but certainly that would apply to all of us.
09:51: When we are afraid to go out and do that which we are supposed to do for God, that fear does not come from God.
10:00: There is a fear that comes from God, a fear of Him.
10:02: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
10:04: That fear is righteous fear.
10:05: That is reverential fear.
10:06: And that's good fear.
10:08: But the fear that would keep us from doing what God has commanded us is not godly fear.
10:16: So my goal in this session is I want to examine methodologies both for sharing and defending our faith.
10:28: And my hope throughout this lesson is that we will be equipped to overcome that fear and to become more consistent in our personal evangelism.
10:45: So my message today is two parts.
10:49: We're going to look first at sharing our faith, which is evangelism, and then we're going to look at defending our faith, which is apologetics.
10:55: And of course, I'm cramming a lot of information into this short hour, but I do hope that it's beneficial and helpful to you to overcoming your fear.
11:07: So let's look first at sharing our faith.
11:09: Now, we've heard two wonderful expositions on Thursday and Friday evening on the theology of evangelism, which has been terrific this morning.
11:17: We heard a great exposition of a man's life, three men's life, but particularly Brother Brian, and how he was the evangelist of example to us.
11:27: He shows us what it means to care enough about the lost to climb those icy steps and to go and win souls for Christ.
11:36: That's our examples.
11:40: So my goal is to be perhaps more in the range of the how-to passage.
11:48: What do we do now? We know the theology that we are to go and that we're to trust that God is sovereign over it as we go.
11:56: And we understand that we have these great examples who went before us.
11:59: Now we go.
12:00: What do we do? Well, I want to I want to sort of begin by saying this.
12:07: The way most people share their faith is seriously flawed.
12:11: I don't say that to be ugly.
12:13: I don't say that to be mean.
12:14: I don't say that to be as if I am somehow better than you, even though I'm standing three foot higher.
12:19: The idea of the way most people share their faith is seriously flawed because many people when they are sharing Jesus Christ present him as an accessory to life, and they attempt to sell him like a commodity.
12:33: And that is not evangelism.
12:37: As a result, they measure their success by how many people buy their product.
12:41: And if no one's buying the product, well, you have to manipulate the product.
12:47: You have to re-engage how we're going to get people to take the product, repackage it, make it more glitzy, more glamorous, put Jesus in a, you know, a hipster outfit and tight jeans.
13:00: And, you know, that's the Jesus of today.
13:02: We've got to make him relevant.
13:04: Jesus is no longer the savior of the sinful condition.
13:07: Instead, Jesus is presented as one who will give a better marriage, a better bank account, a better lifestyle.
13:11: And oh, yes, our best life now.
13:16: How many of you have ever heard someone begin their evangelistic attempt with something like this? Come to Jesus and he'll make your life better.
13:25: Or Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life.
13:29: If you want to be happy, ask Jesus into your heart.
13:35: How many of you have heard those evangelists? Maybe some of you've used them.
13:40: Imagine you came upon a man and this man was dying.
13:43: Imagine you've been hit by a car and he laid there dying in the pavement and you knew there was no way to physically save his life.
13:50: The ambulance is too far away.
13:52: His lungs are filling with blood.
13:54: He's dying in your arms.
13:55: Would you look at him and say, sir, Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life? Or would you talk to him about his need for a savior and his sin? What would you do if you came upon a man who had three minutes to live? I had Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door one time and actually they came.
14:22: I was in bed.
14:23: My wife answered the door.
14:24: She comes in.
14:25: It was very early on a Saturday and she came.
14:27: She said, Jehovah's Witnesses just came by.
14:29: I sent them away.
14:30: Why in the world? Just send them away.
14:31: So I ran out and caught them.
14:34: And I said, hey, come here.
14:36: I want to talk.
14:37: And he brought me his little awake magazine and he handed me the awake magazine.
14:40: We're starting to talk a little bit.
14:42: And I finally just stopped.
14:43: I said, I want to ask you a question.
14:44: I said, imagine you've come to my house this morning.
14:46: You knocked on the door and it opened because it was not even locked.
14:48: It was just sitting there, pushed to.
14:50: And you knocked on the door and it opened up and you looked in and you found me laying on the floor with a knife in my back.
14:56: And I only had a few minutes to live.
14:58: What would you say to me? The guy said.
15:03: What kind of life have you lived? I said, not a real good one.
15:05: I got a knife in my back.
15:06: I don't know what I've done, but apparently I've offended someone enough to stab me in the back.
15:14: He said, well, those who endure to the end shall be saved.
15:16: And I said, well, sir, it is the end.
15:17: I've got three minutes left.
15:18: Go.
15:20: And he didn't have anything.
15:21: I said, the reason why you don't have anything, sir, is you do not have a gospel that saves.
15:25: You have a gospel that relies on the works of men.
15:27: And because you have a gospel that relies on the works of men, you cannot preach to dying men.
15:32: And that's your problem.
15:35: The beloved most Christians who go out and try to share the gospel, they don't have a gospel that saves either because they're sharing a Joel Osteen type message about your best life.
15:44: Now, they are not sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and they're not bringing a saving gospel either.
15:48: They're doing the same thing those Jehovah's Witnesses are doing.
15:50: They're creating false converts just to a different false Jesus.
15:57: In Scripture, there are two consistently repeated admonitions which together make up the gospel message which we need to proclaim.
16:05: And I hope this is easy for you.
16:06: I'll make it very easy.
16:08: These are the two things that we tell people when we share the gospel.
16:10: Repent and believe.
16:12: I mean, if I had to bring it down to the nuts and bolts, if I had to bring it down to the simplest thing, if I could only tell somebody with three minutes, repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
16:20: In fact, turn with me to Acts chapter 20.
16:27: This is how Paul identifies his ministry.
16:30: In Acts chapter 20, we're going to look at verses 19 to 21.
16:38: He's talking to the Ephesian elders here.
16:43: And let's go back.
16:44: We'll go up to the middle of verse 18.
16:46: He says, You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
17:13: There it is.
17:14: There it is.
17:15: That's the message.
17:16: We repent towards God and we trust in Christ.
17:21: Now, that is not a popular methodology.
17:24: That is not the way that most people think that that's the way you do evangelism.
17:28: In fact, repentance has fallen on hard times.
17:31: We don't want to talk about repentance, even though the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is repent and believe the gospel.
17:36: We don't want that R word in our vocabulary anymore as Christians.
17:41: Some argue that if you preach repentance, you're preaching works based righteousness.
17:45: That is not true.
17:49: Repentance and faith go hand in hand.
17:51: We are preaching the gospel when we preach repentance and faith.
17:56: We're preaching the same gospel that Peter and Paul preached.
17:58: Peter in Acts chapter three in verse 19 says, repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.
18:04: And the King James says, repent and be converted.
18:06: Repent and believe.
18:09: Acts 1730, when Paul is before the Areopagus, he said the times of ignorance God has overlooked.
18:14: But now he commands all men everywhere to accept Jesus into your heart.
18:18: No, no.
18:20: He says he commands all men everywhere to repent.
18:24: Beloved, repent is not a bad R word.
18:26: It's not the Christian curse word.
18:27: It's not a word that we need to leave out of our evangelism.
18:30: It needs to be the focus of evangelism.
18:32: Repent and believe the gospel.
18:34: Roy Zuck wrote this.
18:36: He says repentance is included in believing.
18:39: Faith and repentance are like two sides of a coin.
18:42: Genuine faith includes repentance and genuine repentance includes faith.
18:45: The Greek word for repentance, which is metanoia, means to change one's mind.
18:50: But to change one's mind about what? About sin and about one's adequacy to save himself.
18:55: About Christ as the only way of salvation.
18:57: The one, the only one who can make a person righteous.
19:01: End quote.
19:02: That's what we're preaching.
19:03: Repent and believe the gospel.
19:05: And it's together two sides of the same coin.
19:10: Now, I'm not saying that the first thing that you should do is walk up to a person in the street corner and say, repent.
19:16: That may not work out well for you.
19:17: It might not be the best way to approach.
19:19: Might be the only thing you can say.
19:20: But I'm not saying go paint a sign.
19:23: We already heard about the one sign.
19:25: But I'm not saying go paint a sign that says repent and stand on a street corner.
19:30: What I am saying is that both of these messages need to be included in our evangelistic attempts.
19:35: The message that we give to the lost needs to be a call to repentance and an explanation of the saving work of Jesus Christ.
19:43: Now, as you probably realize, before you can call someone to repentance, you need to help them understand what they need to be repentant of.
19:55: I'll make this a quick illustration.
19:57: How many of you know Ray Comfort? Ray Comfort, Way of the Master.
20:00: He used this illustration.
20:01: I took it from him, so I'll make sure give him credit on this one.
20:05: He said, if I were driving to work and I got to work and I walked into my secretary said, I paid your speeding fine for you at a $500 speeding fine.
20:14: I paid it out of the out of money.
20:17: And he said, that's foolish.
20:18: I don't have $500.
20:19: Why would you spend our money, our good hard earned money on a $500 speeding fine? That's ridiculous.
20:22: That's dumb.
20:26: He said, now I'll tell you a different way.
20:28: He said, now imagine if I come to work and my secretary comes in, she pulls me into the office and she says, look, last week you were driving through a school zone.
20:36: You were going 55 and it was 15 miles an hour school zone.
20:39: You're going 55.
20:39: You incurred a $500.
20:40: They caught you on a camera.
20:42: They saw what you did.
20:46: But I'll tell you what I did.
20:47: I took the money out of my account.
20:48: I paid your I paid your debt for you.
20:51: So you are now debt free on this offense.
20:56: How would you respond then? Thank you.
20:59: I love you.
20:59: I appreciate you.
21:00: Thank you so much.
21:01: You've done for me.
21:02: I didn't realize.
21:04: It's the same way we go up to somebody and say you need to repent of your sin.
21:07: What do people say? I'm a good guy.
21:09: What have I got to repent of? They don't have a knowledge of their sin.
21:13: And that's when we start with repentance without explaining to them their sin debt, without explaining to them their infraction against God, their cosmic treason, as R.C.
21:22: Sproul has so eloquently expressed.
21:25: If we don't explain to them their sin, then they won't understand their need to repent.
21:30: So that's part and parcel of how we share our faith.
21:36: There are many ways to do this.
21:39: E.E.
21:40: Evangelism Explosion, D.
21:42: James Kennedy, great Presbyterian pastor and recently went to be with the Lord.
21:48: His methodology, which was taught in the E.E.
21:50: program, was very simple.
21:52: You begin a conversation.
21:53: You ask someone, if you died and you faced God and God were to ask you, why should you go to heaven? What would you say? What is most people's response? I'm a good guy.
22:02: I'm a good person.
22:03: And that leads you to explain to them that they're really not.
22:07: Helps you to help them to understand that they are sinners in need of grace.
22:14: Ray Comfort has a little different methodology.
22:15: His methodology is just this.
22:16: He just says, hey, do you think you're a good person? That might seem like an odd way to start a conversation.
22:22: That's not normally how we start a conversation.
22:24: You walk up and say, do you think you're a good person? No, that's not.
22:26: But in the midst of a conversation, that is really an easy thing to slip in, because the way you know, the way oftentimes you could simply talk to someone, you're talking about all the evil that's in the world.
22:36: You might even just ask me, do you think there is evil in the world? I don't know how anybody could see all the beheadings and all the danger and all the problems that are happening and say, no, there ain't no such thing as evil.
22:46: Now, some will.
22:46: Some very hard relativists will argue there are no there is no evil.
22:50: But generally, we don't speak to those people.
22:52: Generally, we don't come on the college campuses and do that.
22:55: Some people do.
22:55: And that's our ministry.
22:56: But generally, we're talking to the rank and file, the normal people.
22:59: And you ask a person, is there evil in the world? And they'll say, yeah, there's all kinds of evil in this world.
23:05: Do you think you're a good person? Oh, yeah, I'm not like them.
23:09: That's that you're in that.
23:12: Thank you.
23:13: All right.
23:13: Kick it through the goalpost.
23:14: You got an opportunity.
23:16: Share the gospel now because they've opened a door wide open.
23:18: I'm not like them.
23:20: I'm not evil.
23:22: I'm not like them.
23:24: But who are you like? Are you like Christ? No, you're not.
23:29: And this is our opportunity to share our faith.
23:33: We cannot assume that people know that they are sinners.
23:36: And even further than that, we cannot assume that people believe that their sin is as bad as it is.
23:41: Even people who would say, well, all have sinned.
23:44: They don't think that's that big a deal.
23:47: You know, I've expanded Romans 323, Romans 323 says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
23:53: Of course, I'm not trying to add to the word of God, but if I could express what the apostle Paul is trying to express, he's saying we have all committed cosmic treason against their creator and thereby worthy of eternal conscious punishment.
24:03: That's what that means.
24:05: We have all created cosmic treason against our creator and are thereby worthy of eternal conscious punishment.
24:13: That's what it means.
24:14: This is we have all sinned.
24:17: And most people don't understand that, and it's helping them to understand that that causes them to say, as the jailer said, what must I do to be saved? When Peter preached to those men, what must we do to be saved? So the first thing we need to help people realize is that they're sinners.
24:39: And there's a myriad of ways to do that.
24:41: Ray Comfort uses the law, and sometimes sometimes his methodology can be a little harsh, a little difficult to do for some people, but there are all kinds of ways.
24:50: And I don't want to get into all the different ways of doing it, but simply helping people to understand that they're sinners is simply causing them to look at Christ.
24:58: Are you perfect? No.
25:00: Well, why are we not perfect? We've broken God's law.
25:03: The Bible says if we've broken God's law at one point, we've broken his whole law.
25:07: We are law breakers.
25:08: We are.
25:09: We are treasonous against God.
25:11: And because of that, we stand before God unholy, unrighteous and desperate, naked.
25:18: And this is something, you know, have you ever sang Amazing Grace? Of course I've sung Amazing Grace.
25:22: That saved a what like me? A wretch.
25:25: What is a wretch? Why do you think John Newton put wretch? Ask him that.
25:31: Why do you think God, John Newton, said it saved a wretch like me? What is a wretch? I don't understand that word.
25:37: It's archaic.
25:38: It's a really bad guy.
25:40: If you want to just bring it all down.
25:42: John Newton understood his sin.
25:43: Do you understand yours? That's the that's the evangelistic methodology.
25:48: And that leads us to repentance and faith.
25:55: There's a multitude of ways that you could do this.
25:57: There's a multitude of ways you could begin a conversation, handing someone a gospel tract.
26:01: I really enjoy gospel tracts because I, like you, have a fear, too.
26:06: And sometimes I am afraid to talk to people.
26:08: And you're standing in an elevator and you're going up 15 floors and you're standing next to a guy and you turn to him.
26:13: Are you a good person? That's a little awkward.
26:16: So you have gospel tracts and a lot of them are very interesting looking tracts.
26:20: And I'll just hand it.
26:21: Can I give you one of these? And he'll say, what is it? It's a message from my church that I'd like for you to have.
26:29: Sometimes to look, whatever.
26:31: Well, thank you.
26:32: I find that people at restaurants, not the waitresses so much, but I go to a lot of fast food, which is not good.
26:38: But a lot of fast food restaurants, the people at the windows, they don't get a lot of nice people.
26:44: So I always write in the window, hey, how are you? Can I give you this? Or I'll say I'll trade you.
26:49: They'll go to hand me my receipt.
26:50: I'll say I'll trade you and I'll give him a tract.
26:52: I said, this is something I'd like for you to read when you go on break.
26:56: And you say, well, that's not I didn't get an opportunity to talk to that person.
26:59: We're not going to get an opportunity to talk to anybody.
27:01: Tracts talk when we can't.
27:02: Tracts do what we can't.
27:04: So I am a big believer in giving someone the gospel that they're going to put it in their pocket and they may read it later or they may leave it on their coffee table.
27:09: Their husband might read it.
27:10: Their wife might read it.
27:11: Their kid might read it.
27:12: That tract can go a lot further than I can.
27:15: So I'm a firm believer in that as one of the methodologies.
27:17: But that's not the only one.
27:20: We seek opportunities.
27:21: We pray that the Lord would open doors.
27:22: We ask God, make it so that I am emboldened to share with someone my faith and then go and do it.
27:30: So sharing the faith.
27:32: That's the first part is repentance and faith.
27:35: Get good tracts, by the way.
27:38: If you're going to buy tracts, if you're going to get with me later, one million tracts dot com is a good place, but there are others.
27:45: But there are some that are not good.
27:47: There's some very highly Arminian tracts out there that I would I would discourage.
27:51: And if you don't know what that means, we'll we'll talk another time.
27:53: But let's look now at defending our faith because we've looked at sharing our faith.
27:57: And I think I've gone as far as I want to go on that.
27:59: Let's look now at defending our faith, because this is a specific area of study that I think is very important.
28:04: I'm quite fond of it.
28:05: When I when I did my master's thesis on defending the faith, that was my my my subject matter.
28:12: And I really spent a lot of time with that subject because I think that and at the time I was I had a different methodology than I use now.
28:20: But I just felt like it was so important because people get so much bad information, not only from the world and not only from the History Channel and not only from these other sources, they're getting bad information from the church.
28:33: Again, I've already said a lot of people that go out and share the faith, they're not sharing the true gospel.
28:37: So we have an opportunity when we're talking to people, people say, I go to church, I don't care.
28:41: I'm still going to tell you the gospel because I'm not sure you've ever heard it.
28:44: And that's not me again, lifting myself up high.
28:46: I don't know if this person's ever heard the gospel.
28:49: So they're going to hear it again.
28:53: But then we have the the questions that come as a result.
28:56: And the word apologizes.
28:58: You've heard me say that a couple of times.
28:59: Let me go ahead and explain that because it can be a confusing word.
29:02: Apologetics does not mean to say I'm sorry.
29:05: You hear the word apology means I'm sorry in the English vernacular, but in the original Greek language, it means it means to make a defense for something.
29:13: And in the Bible in first Peter 315, if you want to turn there, we actually see this word expressed to us and how it's used.
29:20: So we can turn to first Peter 315.
29:28: Now, the context of first Peter is in this particular section, he is addressing Christians who are under persecution.
29:36: So we're in a little different context than these guys, we you might say, well, we're persecuted because they won't let us put a Christmas tree in Times Square or something like that, you know, really, if you want to know what persecution is, look at what's going on over in Iraq, look at what's going on with Afghan, that's that's persecution, our, you know, not being able to say Merry Christmas at the Walmart is not persecution.
29:56: That's, that's now that it's, you know, you make a big deal of it if you want, but that that is not persecution.
30:01: Real persecution is what the first century Christians were dealing with.
30:04: They were being attacked and killed and burned in Nero's garden for their faith.
30:10: That's, that's, this is serious.
30:13: And in the midst of this, we see in verse 15, he says, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.
30:30: So he tells us he says, sanctify the Lord Jesus in your heart, set apart Christ in your heart as holy and be ready to make a defense for your faith.
30:47: Now, if you engage in personal evangelism for any length of time, you're going to get a chance to practice this.
30:54: Because at some point, someone's going to challenge you on what you believe.
30:57: And the verse admonishes us to be able to defend what we believe.
31:05: Now, apologetics could be an entire conference.
31:08: There are different apologetic methodologies, there's classical apologetics, there's evidential apologetics, presuppositional apologetics, and a lot of that stuff is way, way deep.
31:17: But let me just simplify some things.
31:20: Because rather than an exhaustive study, I just want to give you four things to consider.
31:24: Four little simple, helpful, apologetic things for making a defense for your faith.
31:30: Number one, understanding your faith is essential to defending your faith.
31:38: Understanding your faith.
31:39: I tell you what, the more you learn about your own Christian faith, about theology, about history, about Scripture, the more you learn about that, the better apologist you will be.
31:48: Because I'll tell you what, if I was talking to a group of Mormons, and I had a choice between a Christian who was a scholar in Mormonism, but didn't know his own faith very well, or a Christian who was very firm in his faith, understood the historicity of his faith, but didn't know much about Mormonism, I'm taking that guy 100 times out of 100.
32:08: The Mormon scholar, that's great.
32:10: But if he can't explain what he believes, all he's going to be doing is telling them what they don't believe.
32:15: That's not enough.
32:17: It's not enough just to tell the Islamic people why they're wrong.
32:19: It's not enough just to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses why they're wrong.
32:21: It's not enough just to tell the Mormons why they're wrong.
32:23: You got to know why you're right.
32:25: You got to know what you believe.
32:27: And I tell you what, I hear a lot of people make arguments against Islam that weren't just as good against Christianity.
32:32: Because they don't understand their own faith.
32:35: That's a serious charge.
32:37: A lot of apologetic methodologies are junk.
32:44: They just are.
32:46: So we need to understand our own faith.
32:48: If we're going to defend it, we need to understand it first.
32:52: Number two, no one is neutral.
32:56: If you're taking notes, number two, no one is neutral.
32:59: Very simple sentence.
33:00: And let me explain what I mean.
33:02: Often unbelievers will tell you, I am a neutral, rational skeptic.
33:10: They'll say I'm neutral.
33:12: I'm rational.
33:13: And I'm a skeptic.
33:16: We need to realize that this person is not neutral.
33:19: They are a rebel against God.
33:22: That's hugely important on how you address them, because here's the secret that the Bible tells us that we not ever need to forget.
33:29: And it's already been mentioned.
33:30: I think Jesse mentioned it was Romans 1.
33:31: Did you mention Romans 1? Somebody mentioned Romans 1.
33:36: Here's the reality, folks.
33:38: Everyone knows God exists and they will stand before him without excuse.
33:42: No one is neutral.
33:44: You either believe or you are a rebel.
33:46: Let me read Romans 1 to you.
33:47: Just go with me to Romans 1.
33:48: We're going to read 18 and following.
33:50: We'll read down and show you what we're saying here.
33:56: This is hugely important because the Apostle Paul makes it clear to us.
34:03: Romans 1 verse 18.
34:07: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
34:14: The truth about what? What truth does the natural man suppress? Well, he goes on to tell us in verse 19.
34:21: For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
34:26: For his invisible attributes, mainly his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.
34:35: So they are without excuse.
34:42: If an atheist tells me he doesn't have enough existence for God, I don't believe him.
34:46: I don't tell him you're a liar, but I don't believe him because the Bible tells me otherwise.
34:54: And if I'm going to take the word of an atheist over the word of God, why do I even bother? The word of God tells me he has plenty of evidence to know that God exists.
35:02: The word of God tells me the evidence is so clear to him that when he stands before God, he will not be able to give an excuse.
35:10: Heard one atheist say one time, he said, somebody said, if you die and find out God exists, what will you say? He said, I'll look him dead in the face and say there was enough evidence to prove you existed.
35:19: Ha ha ha.
35:20: No, you will not.
35:23: You will not face God and tell him there was not enough evidence for your existence.
35:27: This passage tells us that there was so much evidence that you had to suppress that truth and unrighteousness.
35:37: So knowing that when I speak to an atheist or when I speak to anyone else, I can speak to him with the confidence of knowing this.
35:45: Everything I say will bear witness with his conscience that it's the truth.
35:49: Because his conscience knows it's the truth.
35:51: I know it's the truth.
35:52: He's denying it's the truth because he's suppressing it.
35:55: I don't care.
35:55: I know it's the truth and his conscience knows it's the truth.
35:57: I'm speaking to his conscience, not to his brain.
36:01: At that moment, I'm speaking to what God has already told me is true, that he knows it's there and he's suppressing it.
36:10: So let's move on.
36:11: We've seen understanding your faith is essential to sharing your faith.
36:14: We see no one is neutral and that's the truth.
36:17: No one is neutral.
36:19: You're a believer or you're a rebel.
36:21: That's it.
36:23: Now, I'm a lot nicer when I share my faith out there.
36:26: This is boot camp, just so you know.
36:31: This is evangelism boot camp.
36:35: Number three, and this one's kind of deep and I don't want to lose anybody.
36:40: You may want to write this down.
36:42: Our goal is never to try to prove that a God might exist.
36:50: Our goal is never to try to prove that a God might exist.
36:55: And that's the problem with most apologetic methodologies.
36:58: That's all they ever do, is they prove that based on the preponderance of the evidence that there is greater probability of the existence of a God.
37:09: That's all intelligent design does.
37:11: People make a big deal about intelligent design.
37:13: All they do is say, based upon the preponderance of the evidence, there is suggestion about the probability of a God.
37:19: We don't know who he is.
37:19: We don't know what he's doing.
37:20: We don't know what he did.
37:21: But we're pretty sure he's there.
37:23: Maybe, kind of, I think.
37:26: That's not evangelism.
37:28: You never see the Apostle Paul walking around talking about a God who might exist.
37:34: Pascal's wager is wrong, by the way.
37:37: If you don't know who Pascal is, Pascal said he's the one in effort.
37:40: This is evangelism.
37:41: People will say this.
37:43: Well, it's better to believe in God and be wrong than to not believe in God and be wrong.
37:47: You've heard that.
37:48: That's called Pascal's wager.
37:49: It would be better to believe in God and then at the end of your life find out you were wrong than to not believe in God and to at the end of your life to find out you were wrong.
37:56: You know what the Apostle Paul said? He said, if Christ has not been raised, then we above all men are most to be pitied.
38:02: He took Pascal's wager and he threw it out the door.
38:05: He said, because if we believe our whole lives in a Christ who's not true, that's not worth it.
38:13: And that's not the way the Apostle Paul evangelized.
38:16: Paul proclaimed a Jesus who was true.
38:19: He proclaimed to Jesus that he knew.
38:23: And we are not to proclaim a God who might exist, we are to proclaim the God who must exist.
38:30: Greg Bonson said this, we prove the existence of God by the impossibility of the contrary.
38:35: It is impossible that he is not.
38:39: It cannot be that he is not.
38:42: I'm going to quote C.S.
38:43: Lewis.
38:43: I don't often do that.
38:45: I like C.S.
38:45: Lewis, but I'm not, I don't quote him a lot, but I'm going to quote him today.
38:50: He might not have considered himself a presuppositionalist, but this little quote, C.S.
38:57: Lewis said this, he said, suppose there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind.
39:03: In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking.
39:07: It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen for physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me as a byproduct the sensation I call thought.
39:17: But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes out will give me a map of London.
39:26: But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore I have no reason to be an atheist or anything else, unless I believe in God.
39:36: I cannot even believe in thought, so I can never use thought to disprove God.
39:42: That's heavy duty, and get the recording if you want that one again.
39:45: But that's the truth.
39:47: People say, well, I'm too rational to believe in God.
39:50: There's a Greek word for that, baloney.
39:55: You're not too rational to believe in God.
39:56: You're the height of irrationality.
39:59: The most irrational thing in this world is to believe that God doesn't exist, which is why the Bible says the fool has said in his own heart, there is no God.
40:11: We don't proclaim a God might exist, but rather that the true and living God does exist, and He has revealed Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ.
40:22: That's evangelism.
40:25: Fourth and finally, we do not give up God's Word in evangelism.
40:34: We do not give up God's Word in apologetics.
40:36: I was listening just this week, and you know, oftentimes I like to listen to other people's subject on this subject, and I listen to a lot when I'm driving.
40:44: And I said, there was a guy, he did a whole thing on apologetics.
40:46: I said, I'm going to listen to this.
40:47: The very first words out of his mouth, the unbeliever doesn't believe the Word of God, so we can't use the Word of God in our apologetics.
40:55: I turned him off.
40:57: I said, I ain't listening to you anymore.
41:00: Because the reality is, our opponents are going to use sources we don't accept.
41:07: There is no neutral ground.
41:09: When my opponent comes to me with Richard Dawkins nonsense, and with Charles Darwin's nonsense, I have to hide my Bible and say, well, I won't give you my authority.
41:18: You're using your authorities quite well, but I have to hide my authority behind my back? No.
41:23: The Bible says in Ephesians chapter six that we have armor.
41:27: And all this armor is for our defense, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth.
41:36: But there's one weapon in the arsenal.
41:38: Only one.
41:39: There's one that cuts both ways.
41:40: There's one that's living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
41:43: And it is the Word of God.
41:45: And that is our tool.
41:47: That is our weapon in evangelism.
41:49: And when we lay down the Word, we lay down our only source of power.
41:53: And when we stop standing on the Word, we're simply defending bare theism.
41:57: And that is not evangelism.
42:00: Apologetics is not about starting arguments or winning debates, but it is knowing our faith well enough to give a defense when people come and challenge us and know this, that our defense needs to include not that a God might exist, but that the God does exist.
42:15: He has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate and through the inscripturated Word of God, which is our Bible.
42:23: So as I draw to a close, we started this session talking about fear, fear that keeps us from sharing our faith, fear that keeps us from reaching a loss, fear that keeps us from opening our mouth when we should.
42:36: And now that we've looked at sharing our faith and defending our faith, and I hope that this has helped you with some of your fears, I want you to keep one thing in mind.
42:47: We know the truth about this universe.
42:53: We know the truth about who created it.
42:56: We know the truth about His purpose.
43:00: And we know the truth about His Son.
43:04: And as Dr.
43:05: Michael Brown has recently said, if you know that you are on the side of truth, you need not be insecure.
43:18: So may it be that the Lord would press upon our hearts not to allow us to give in to a spirit of fear which comes from the devil himself, but rather that he would inspire our hearts with a spirit of conviction and confidence to share his gospel with everyone we meet.
43:36: Let's pray.
43:37: Father, thank you.
43:39: Thank you for your Word.
43:40: Thank you for your truth.
43:41: Thank you for the opportunity to look at your Word.
43:45: And I pray, I pray that you would use this as an opportunity for us to know better what we ought to be doing in evangelism and how we can share our faith, how we can defend our faith.
44:05: And Lord, while these subjects can go so deep and wide and broad, and we are so limited in this short couple of days to really flesh out all that needs to be done, may it be that this be an inspiration to us to go out and seek unbelievers, that we not be like those in the Barnapole who haven't shared our faith even in a year, but that we can look and say, have we shared our faith even today? We love you.
44:38: We thank you.
44:39: We praise you.
44:39: Give you all glory, honor, and praise.
44:41: In Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen.
44:46: Well, beloved, we are now winding down our time.