You Can't Defend What You Don't Possess

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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July 18, 2022

00:01: Well good evening.
00:03: My name is Keith and I think most of you knew the subject of this week.
00:10: Everybody got a flyer, right? No? Okay.
00:14: Well, my name is Keith and I'm here to talk about the subject of apologetics, but before I get into the lesson I sort of want to introduce myself.
00:25: I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church, which is in Jacksonville, Florida.
00:31: So a couple hours north and east of here.
00:35: I brought my family with me.
00:37: My wife Jennifer, our three children, which are much younger than y'all.
00:41: Most of y'all anyway.
00:43: And there's one still in the oven.
00:46: And that's actually number six.
00:47: We have two adult children.
00:49: My daughter still lives at home, but she works.
00:52: She is a medical assistant.
00:54: My son Cody is serving in the United States Air Force, so he's in Spangdelum, Germany right now.
00:59: Haven't seen him for over a year.
01:01: Hopefully he'll be home soon.
01:04: So just kind of giving you an idea of who I am.
01:07: And part of the way that I'm going to begin tonight's lesson is actually with my testimony and a little history of how I came to be interested in the subject of apologetics.
01:23: I grew up in a small church.
01:26: It's actually the same church I'm still in.
01:28: That's a longer story.
01:30: I've never been a member of another church.
01:32: I'm pastoring the church that I've been in since I was seven years old.
01:36: So it's a long time.
01:38: I'm not going to let you guess how old I am, but it's a long time.
01:43: And the people of the church were very nice.
01:46: They were kind.
01:47: They treated me well.
01:48: I had friends.
01:49: I had a sense of community.
01:51: But I wasn't really taught the Bible.
01:54: When I was growing up in church, I wasn't taught the truth claims of the faith.
01:59: I was basically taught that what it meant to be a Christian was to be a nice person, to treat other people well, you know, sort of do unto others as you had them do unto you.
02:08: Jesus did say that.
02:10: So that is true.
02:11: But it was sort of that was it.
02:12: Right.
02:13: It was, you know, you you go to church on Sunday and you do right and you do good.
02:16: And one day maybe you'll go to heaven when you die.
02:20: And then I was.
02:23: Nineteen years old, and I got a job at a place called America Online.
02:31: I'll give you an idea how old I am.
02:33: If you don't know what that is, that was one of the first Internet companies.
02:38: You got Internet from a CD that they would send you in the mail.
02:44: They would send you a CD in the mail.
02:47: You would put it in your computer and you would get 30 hours of Internet for free.
02:53: A CD, a little silver disc would go in your computer.
03:00: Your computer used to have a tray that slid out.
03:04: I remember I was working in tech support and a lady called.
03:07: She said, hey, my cup holder is broken.
03:10: I said, your computer doesn't have a cup holder.
03:11: She said, yes, it does.
03:12: It slides right out.
03:13: I said, no, that's the CD ROM.
03:16: And again, you guys don't get that joke at all.
03:18: No.
03:20: OK, yeah.
03:21: All my all my 80s children are going to preach it.
03:25: So anyway, 19 years old, grew up in church, figured if anybody was saved, I was saved.
03:32: I was a nice guy.
03:36: Met my wife when I was 17.
03:38: She wasn't my wife then.
03:39: Just be clear.
03:41: Met my met her when I was 17.
03:44: We got married at 19.
03:45: So I was I had gotten married.
03:47: I was working in America online and was sitting next to my friend Scott.
03:52: And we were both working in our sort of half cubicles.
03:56: And one day I brought up the subject of God.
03:59: And I just said something about God.
04:01: I remember what I said.
04:03: I just said something about God.
04:05: And Scott turned to me and he said, well, I don't believe in God.
04:12: That was the first time in 19 years that I was confronted with an atheist, a person not heard of people who doubted and things like that.
04:21: But I grew up in a small town, grew up going to church.
04:23: So I never really had to face somebody who said, man, I don't believe in God.
04:27: I said, well, why don't you believe in God? He said, well, I used to be a high school science teacher.
04:35: By the way, America was a company to work for.
04:38: If you're going to leave being a teacher to go to work for this company and he's there, he said, I used to be a high school science teacher.
04:46: And I just know too much to believe all that.
04:51: So he said, I said, I, I taught high school science.
04:55: Therefore, I am too intelligent to believe in God.
05:00: So I got to thinking.
05:03: And really thinking about what Scott, Scott was a nice guy.
05:06: He treated me well.
05:07: He was probably my best friend at work.
05:08: We had lunch together every day.
05:10: He seemed like a nice person.
05:11: And so I had to consider what he said to me when he said he just knows too much.
05:19: So I began to ask myself a question because I've always considered myself to be at least somewhat intelligent, not super smart, but not dumb either.
05:28: You know, right in that meaty part of the curve.
05:33: And so I began to think, am I am I stupid for believing in God? So I went home and I began to read the Bible for the first time on my own.
05:50: That's sad.
05:50: I grew up in church, never read the Bible because when we went to church, we didn't read the Bible a lot.
05:57: We had it read to us.
05:58: We had passages that we remembered, you know, the Christmas and Easter type stuff, but didn't really read the Bible.
06:05: So I began to and this is to my shame.
06:11: I'm a big comic book nerd.
06:12: By the way, if any of you guys nerd out on like Marvel and DC, DC is better, but the movies are Marvel better.
06:18: Calm down.
06:21: But I was a big comic book nerd.
06:23: And so I had a comic book Bible.
06:27: It was a Bible that all of the stories were illustrated very well, too.
06:31: It wasn't like some guy just drew it in his garage.
06:33: You know, these are really well done.
06:35: So I remember opening up this comic Bible and I looked at the story of Adam and Eve, two naked people running around a garden.
06:43: That's weird.
06:46: And then a snake talk to the girl.
06:51: That's weird.
06:53: So I went a little further and some guy built a big old boat, put a bunch of animals in it and everybody else died.
07:02: That's weird.
07:06: You say, man, it's OK, because it's weird.
07:09: Everything we believe is fantastic.
07:14: And by that, I mean, it's it's it really is.
07:16: It's wild stuff.
07:18: Now, I'm gonna tell you why you should believe it later, but I'm just telling you, this is where I was.
07:22: I had never really thought about all these things.
07:24: I never thought about the outrageous claims of the Bible.
07:28: I remember getting to the burning bush.
07:32: I saw it.
07:34: It was on it was drawn.
07:36: And I threw.
07:39: The comic book Bible across the room, I literally just threw it.
07:46: I remember hitting the wall, hit the wall, fell.
07:51: And I said to myself, I said, no reasonable person would believe this.
07:58: And I'm a reasonable person.
08:02: This is where I was, 19 years old.
08:06: And in an instant, I had lost all hope in God.
08:15: And I've heard some atheists.
08:18: I've heard some atheists say that that moment for them was liberating.
08:23: For me, it was not because I began to fall into what can only be described as the absolute worst depression that I'd ever been in my life.
08:36: I've never been sad a day in my life.
08:37: I'm a happy guy.
08:39: In high school, I worked as a professional magician.
08:43: So my whole life was making things happen and being cool and magicians are cool, but being fun and making people smile, love to make people smile, love to tell jokes.
08:58: When I was in high school, I wanted to work at Disneyland doing magic.
09:01: That's all I love to make people laugh.
09:04: And for the first time in my life, I was sad, like really desperately lost.
09:10: That's why I found out later.
09:11: It was because I was lost.
09:12: I realized this.
09:21: This is what it feels like to be without hope.
09:27: And so not you.
09:28: Her name's Hope.
09:29: Sorry.
09:36: So for a few weeks, that's the condition I was in.
09:39: And my wife, who we had only been married at this point about six months, my wife began to say, what in the world is wrong with you? Never been like this.
09:49: In fact, I had never in my life wanted to drink.
09:51: I had friends who got drunk, had friends who did drugs, never got interested in that at all.
09:56: Right.
09:57: But I understood because I wanted to start drinking just to get that hopelessness to go away.
10:04: I'm serious.
10:05: I'm being I'm bearing my soul with you all.
10:07: I don't know any of y'all.
10:08: Y'all know me.
10:08: But this is where I was at 19 years old.
10:11: I was desperate and lost and without hope.
10:18: And then I remember there's one guy, one guy at all.
10:23: People I went to church with one guy who I remembered standing up for his faith.
10:33: He and I had done karate together.
10:34: I've done karate for a long time, too.
10:36: And so he and I had done karate together.
10:38: And I remembered in a karate related event, him standing up in front of all those other people and saying, I believe in Jesus and he changed my life.
10:49: And so I said, you know what? I want to know why that guy believes that.
10:54: I don't believe it anymore, but I want to know why he does.
10:58: So I called him.
11:00: I said, hey, man, I just need to talk to you.
11:04: So go to this place of business that he worked at a Christian club.
11:07: It's in Jacksonville.
11:08: It's called Murray Hill Theater.
11:09: You've been in Jacksonville.
11:10: It's a place to do Christian music and stuff.
11:14: And we stood outside that theater for a couple of hours and I told him everything I just told you, told him I didn't know how I could believe, didn't know if there was anything to believe in.
11:24: And he began to say things to me that were new to me, because remember, all this is predicated on Scott, who said that's dumb and there's nobody who should believe that because I know better.
11:41: But now I'm talking to somebody else and he says something else to me.
11:44: He says there's actually evidence for what you believe.
11:57: That's what I see.
11:59: See, when you do magic, you take a pen like this, you go one, two, three.
12:08: All right.
12:12: That was not in the script.
12:15: Anyway, so you get you get where I'm at.
12:19: I'm with this guy, this guy.
12:20: Finally, I find some and he says there's actually reasons to believe this stuff.
12:25: In fact, he said, you know, there's more evidence to believe in what the Bible says and the person and work of Jesus and all these things than you can imagine.
12:36: And I hadn't heard those things.
12:38: I grew up in a church, didn't teach those things.
12:40: And so when I faced Scott, I didn't have any response because I never knew those things.
12:49: And so he began to share with me why he believed what he believed.
12:58: And I began to study and look into the things.
13:03: And one day I'm driving home from work and I and again, this is several weeks.
13:09: You remember this? I remember crying out to God from the cab of my green Dodge pickup truck.
13:16: And I and I started saying, God.
13:20: One, I know you're there, too.
13:22: I want to trust in you for real.
13:28: And I need you to give me that ability.
13:32: And I started weeping and it was ugly crying.
13:35: Do you ever ugly cry? We're like, oh, it's not coming at your face.
13:38: And yet pull over stuffs all over the steering wheel.
13:41: That's ugly crying right on the side of Broward Road in Jacksonville.
13:45: And that's when God changed my life.
13:51: Well, a short while later, we began going to church together.
13:56: My wife had gotten saved shortly before I had.
13:58: So we start going to church together.
14:02: And I recognize not only is this true, but this is what I want to dedicate my life to, because it's that true.
14:10: Not only is this truth, but this is life changing truth.
14:14: This is this is this is world shattering truth.
14:17: And this is the kind of this is the kind of thing that you you don't just do on the weekend.
14:21: And see, that's what I grew up with.
14:22: You did it on Sunday and every other day you did whatever you wanted to do.
14:25: You did this one thing.
14:26: No, this is the if this is true, this is world changing.
14:32: So I went to my church.
14:35: I said, hey, I.
14:36: I believe God's calling me to preach this truth.
14:39: And so they sent me to seminary, paid my way to go, which was very generous.
14:45: While I was there, I was introduced to a term.
14:50: And this is the subject of this week and the term.
14:55: Which I had not heard is the term apologetics.
15:02: And I ended up doing my master's degree on this particular topic because Christ had changed my life.
15:12: And now I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life giving a defense for that change.
15:20: And that's what this word means.
15:23: It means to give a defense.
15:26: So you think of an apology as saying, I'm sorry, that's not what an apology is in legal terms.
15:35: An apology means to give a defense for what you did.
15:40: So in the ancient legal court, when the apologia, that's the Greek word, the underlying word of this word, when the apologia was given, that meant that the person stood up and made a defense for whatever it was in the courtroom.
15:58: And so this became a very important part of my ministry still is.
16:02: I mean, what's funny is I have one of my elders that I serve with and we talk about my sermons all the time.
16:07: And he's always helping me and giving me advice and giving me thoughts.
16:11: And he told me once he said, you preach every sermon like it's an apologetic message.
16:15: I say, yes, I do, because I'm still defending the faith.
16:18: I'm showing why this is true and why we should believe it every time.
16:26: So if you have your Bibles, turn to 1 Peter chapter 3 and go to verse 15.
16:45: 1 Peter 3, 15.
16:50: Now I'm going to read from the ESV, because that's what I printed in my notes.
16:56: I know some of you may have a King James and that's good.
16:58: And some of you may have an NIV.
17:01: That's not as good.
17:02: I'm just kidding.
17:06: 1 Peter 3, verse 15.
17:10: Now this is in the back part of the New Testament.
17:24: If you get to Revelation, you went too far.
17:25: Take a left.
17:30: Alright, 1 Peter 3, 15.
17:34: And I didn't pray before, so I'm going to read this first and then I'm going to pray.
17:37: It says in the ESV, it says, But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you.
18:00: Yet do it with gentleness and respect.
18:03: Let's pray.
18:05: Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
18:08: And I do believe, oh God, this is your word.
18:13: Spoken through your prophets, written by your men.
18:16: But Lord, preserve for your people down through the ages.
18:21: And Lord, I pray that your word would be honored.
18:25: That your Holy Spirit would be the teacher tonight.
18:29: That he would take this word and apply it to our hearts.
18:33: That he would not only allow it to reach the ear and the brain, but also the heart.
18:39: Lord, that believers would be edified and unbelievers would be terrified.
18:48: And I pray, Lord, in Jesus' name.
18:51: Amen.
18:56: So, I want to give you a few thoughts from this passage.
19:02: And these are not, I know some people love to take notes.
19:06: And you're welcome to take notes if that's what helps you to concentrate.
19:12: But understand, my hope this week is the things that I tell you, I'm going to give you some things to sort of stick in your mind.
19:19: That you can remember that you don't have to carry notes around.
19:22: But if you want to take some notes, that'll help you, that's fine.
19:25: And if you want a copy of my notes, I'll give them to you.
19:28: Everything I do is on my iPad, I can just send them to you.
19:32: That's what I do in church anymore.
19:33: Instead of having people write stuff, I just send them a copy of my notes.
19:35: It's right here.
19:38: That way they get it right.
19:40: A lot of people write notes, or they don't have to worry about it.
19:44: Number one, first thought.
19:46: Peter is writing to a persecuted group of believers in the first century.
19:52: When he writes this, he's writing to a persecuted group of believers.
19:58: Now, we live in a time where as much as we might like to say, Oh, Christianity is persecuted.
20:03: We don't live in an area where Christianity is actively persecuted in a way that is severe and dangerous.
20:12: The most that we deal with is some societal pushback.
20:15: Somebody might make fun of us on YouTube if we post a video.
20:19: Or they might send us a letter to the church.
20:22: That's about all we get.
20:24: People aren't coming into the church here with guns, taking us out and demanding that we recant or shoot us in the head.
20:32: By the way, that is happening in other places.
20:34: That does happen.
20:39: And that was the reality for the time that Peter lived in.
20:45: Peter died for his faith in Christ.
20:49: So he lived in a time when persecution was genuine.
20:53: So when he calls his readers to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within them, he ain't talking about winning arguments on Facebook.
21:09: Oh, and by the way, y'all ain't on Facebook, eh? Instagram? What are y'all on? Snapchat.
21:14: Oh my goodness.
21:17: Can't have an argument on Snapchat.
21:18: You say something, it goes away.
21:20: Anyway.
21:22: The point is, that was not the picture that we have here.
21:29: We think of apologetics as, oh, I'm going to go win an argument.
21:32: No.
21:34: Peter's context is you may get dragged into court, just like Jesus.
21:42: You may get threatened with death, just like Jesus.
21:47: And you may die, just like Jesus.
21:52: In fact, Peter died according to church tradition, and we don't know if this is accurate or not, but church tradition says he died on a cross upside down.
22:02: So he's saying, you have to be ready to give a defense.
22:08: Because there is genuine persecution.
22:14: Let me ask you a question.
22:15: How many of you are baptized? How many of you, and leave your hands up if this is true, how many people clapped at your baptism? Not too many? I've never been baptized.
22:26: I know you haven't.
22:27: I ain't talking to you.
22:31: Now I've seen this a lot.
22:32: People get baptized and everybody claps.
22:34: Everybody happy.
22:37: In Peter's day, people didn't clap when you got baptized.
22:42: People told on you.
22:44: And then the authorities came.
22:46: And you were in danger.
22:49: Baptism was not always something that was easy and joyful.
22:55: It was a mark that could mark you for death.
22:57: In fact, you guys know there's a Bible verse that says no one can say Jesus is Lord unless it be given to him by the Spirit, right? You know, there used to be a televangelist.
23:08: He was not a good guy.
23:12: But he used to walk around his audience with a microphone, and he would say, say Jesus is Lord.
23:18: Say Jesus is Lord.
23:19: Say Jesus is Lord.
23:19: See, you know you're saved because you can say Jesus is Lord.
23:22: That is not what that verse means.
23:24: In fact, I can prove it because in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said, many will say unto me on that day, did we not say Lord, Lord? Did we not do this? Did we not do that? And he will say, depart from me, I never knew you.
23:34: You workers of lawlessness.
23:37: What the context of that passage was, was in the first century, if you said Jesus is Lord publicly, you were denying the government sanction statement that Caesar is Lord.
23:52: And that could mean your death.
23:55: The statement was Kaiser Kourios, which is Greek for Caesar is Lord.
24:01: And the Christian would say, no, yes, your Kourios.
24:05: Jesus is Lord.
24:11: Imagine you're working out, building the latest, you know, town center in first century Rome.
24:22: And a group of soldiers come up with a little cart.
24:27: And on that cart, they have incense that was intended to demonstrate your loyalty to the Caesar, who was considered to be God.
24:35: He was considered to be a God man.
24:38: And he had a little cart with incense that you would go up and you would take a pinch of incense and you would burn that incense as a show of fidelity faith to Caesar.
24:50: And you see your workers, they set down their hammers, they set down their tools, they walk over.
24:56: Who cares, right? But you're a Christian.
25:01: And they go up, Kaiser Kourios.
25:02: And they go on.
25:05: And you stay in and wait your turn.
25:08: And you see the six foot spear that they will hold, or the sword that's on their belt.
25:15: And you know that it is very sharp.
25:20: And they would just like nothing more than to wet their swords with the blood of your throat.
25:28: Will you say Jesus is Lord? Not unless it's given to you by the Holy Spirit.
25:34: That's the point of that passage.
25:35: No one can say Jesus is Lord in that context unless it's given to them by the Spirit.
25:38: Because you've got to really believe that.
25:40: If somebody's about to put a knife in your chest.
25:46: That's the context that Peter has here.
25:50: Giving a defense does not mean winning arguments.
25:54: That's the thing about apologetics that bothers me.
25:56: And again, I've been doing this for a long time.
25:58: And I talk to a lot of people about apologetics.
26:01: And they say, oh man, I want to get...
26:02: I got a cousin.
26:04: I just want to nail him to the wall.
26:08: Every time we get to Grandma's house, he wants to talk about why Jesus didn't really die on the cross.
26:14: Or something like that.
26:15: And we've got to win this argument.
26:21: That's not the heart of this.
26:23: Now I ain't saying that there aren't times where that's necessary.
26:26: That we have to give a defense in context.
26:28: Grandma's house, whatever.
26:30: But the context of Peter's writing here is the context of genuine persecution.
26:38: So to be prepared for that, he tells them this.
26:41: This is my second point.
26:43: Peter tells them that the most important thing that they can do is to sanctify the Lord Jesus in their hearts.
26:52: Notice the verse again, what it says.
26:54: It says, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.
26:59: That's the way the ESV says it.
27:00: Some of your verses say sanctify the Lord in your hearts.
27:05: Basically what this means, and it's really not hard to understand, is that before we are able to make a defense for the faith, we actually have to have faith.
27:18: We actually have to have Christ in our hearts.
27:21: We actually have to have sanctified Him in our hearts.
27:25: You see, going back to my story, when I sat next to Scott, and Scott said, oh, nobody believes that who's smart.
27:33: You know why I couldn't give a defense for the hope that was in me? Because it wasn't in me.
27:45: Years ago I was asked to do a conference, a homeschool conference.
27:56: And they asked me to come and speak on the subject, why do young people leave the faith when they become adults? They said, that's the subject we want you to talk on.
28:08: We want you to answer the question, why do young people leave the faith when they become adults? Now in a minute I'm going to give you my answer.
28:18: But before I do that, I want everybody to stand up.
28:28: Front row can sit down.
28:31: Second row can sit down.
28:38: Everybody else stand up for just another minute.
28:42: According to just about every statistic out there, just about every survey that's been done by Barna and other research companies that research the church, 70% of people who grow up in church, when they depart their parents' household and get to decide on their own, will depart the church.
29:15: So those of you who are standing represent about 70% of the people in this room.
29:23: That's why they wanted to ask the question.
29:27: Have a seat.
29:32: The question was, why do people leave the faith? Here's my answer.
29:39: Don't get offended, because I ain't necessarily talking about you, but I might be.
29:42: So if this offends you a little, that's okay.
29:44: But don't get all mad at me and not want to talk to me and play ball with me later or whatever we go outside and play games.
29:49: Don't be getting all offended.
29:51: But listen, why do people leave the faith? Answer, because they ain't saved.
30:00: By the way, it was the shortest conference ever, because that was my answer.
30:05: I didn't give them a 10-point sociological reason because they go to college and they're faced with college professors who ask them questions that they've never been asked before, or because they go out into the world and they are confronted with questions that they've never been asked before, or they go out into the world and they're confronted with temptations of lust and debauchery that they've never...
30:24: All of those are sociological reasons.
30:26: But the reason why most people leave the faith is because they weren't ever saved to begin with.
30:35: I'm glad at least somebody agrees with me.
30:48: I genuinely believe that the byproduct of years and years of conversionary preaching...
31:00: I'll explain that term in a minute.
31:02: Years and years of conversionary preaching have produced mountains of false converts who think that they're saved, but they have not genuinely come into a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
31:20: In fact, again, scientific studies have been done and proven this over and over and over again.
31:32: Churches that give an altar call and they beg people to come down.
31:37: They won't stop the music until somebody comes down.
31:39: So people come down and they get down on their knees and they pray.
31:42: And they get up and they leave and they have not had a life change.
31:48: All they did was pray.
31:49: Or they went and got wet.
31:52: And they came out wet but just as lost as they were before.
31:55: Or they go to church camp.
31:56: How many church camp conversions? People get saved every year.
32:07: Guys, I ain't trying to be...
32:10: I ain't trying to be harsh, but the reality is so many people go to church...
32:17: I didn't go to church until I was 19.
32:19: And I wasn't saved.
32:21: So I'm not talking about...
32:22: Yo, I'm talking about me and I'm talking about people like me.
32:26: Every Sunday was in church.
32:28: Thought I was a good dude.
32:29: Thought everything was fine.
32:30: At 16 years old, my dad bought me my first car.
32:34: I had a 1985 Dodge Daytona.
32:36: Silver.
32:36: Looked like the car from Back to the Future.
32:38: It was awesome.
32:39: I drove that car until the tires fell off.
32:42: I loved it.
32:44: Any moment.
32:46: Any moment when I was driving that car.
32:50: If I would have lost control or if somebody else would have turned a corner too fast or if another car would have came across that median and hit me, I would have been in the presence of God without Jesus Christ and I would have been lost forever.
33:10: That's the point that I'm trying to make is you've come to this camp because you belong to a church.
33:17: You've come to this camp probably because at some point you have made a confession of Christ and that's good if it is true but I will tell you this.
33:27: Over the next three days as I teach you apologetic methodology and we get into the ins and outs of how to make a defense for the hope that is within you.
33:34: If the hope isn't truly within you then it won't matter when you leave here.
33:41: Because you can't defend what you don't have.
33:46: You can't defend what you don't possess.
33:50: As I was thinking about what am I going to talk about the first night? I'm going to talk about this.
33:56: If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ the rest of this week isn't for you.
34:02: Because you can't defend what you don't got.
34:08: And there is such a thing as false conversion.
34:12: In fact anytime somebody comes to me for baptism and people do I do about a six week baptism counseling.
34:24: Somebody comes to me for baptism six weeks of meeting before I baptize them.
34:29: The very first week we sit down and read Acts chapter 8 about Simon the magician.
34:37: Remember Simon who wanted to be baptized.
34:40: Philip went into his town and he said I want to be baptized.
34:44: So he was baptized.
34:44: Later Peter and John come and Peter says no no you're still a wicked man.
34:50: Because he wanted to buy the power of the Holy Spirit.
34:52: There's more to the story.
34:54: You know what happened to that dude according to church history? By the way that's another one of my favorite things.
34:59: And it goes hand in hand with apologetics.
35:02: If you really want to become a good apologist become a good historian.
35:07: Because history will give you many things that you can use to defend your faith.
35:12: And according to church history Simon went on and by the way that's where the term Simon comes from.
35:18: The idea of using ministry to make money.
35:21: That term Simon is actually named after him.
35:24: And according to church history he went and became a leader in the Gnostic movement.
35:29: Which was an anti-Christian false cult.
35:33: So not only was he a fake believer who was baptized but when he was called out on it he didn't convert to Christ and recognize his sin.
35:45: What he did was he went out and became an anti-Christ.
35:50: By the way that's what John calls the false teachers.
35:52: He calls not anti-Christ like big A anti-Christ but a little a anti-Christ.
35:57: A person who's opposed to Christ and that's what Simon became.
36:01: So when I sit down with somebody who wants to be baptized the very first thing I talk to them about is about being genuine in your faith.
36:09: Having a true faith.
36:12: A faith that changes you.
36:16: In fact that's the first question I normally ask.
36:18: Before we even get into the subject of baptism.
36:25: Somebody says I want to be baptized.
36:29: My first question.
36:30: How has Christ changed your life? Not did you pray a prayer.
36:39: Not did you walk an aisle or sign a card.
36:42: But how has Christ changed your life? Peter says, Sanctify the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart always ready to give a defense for the hope that is within you.
36:58: Is that hope in you? I truly, truly pray that it is.
37:06: But if after tonight's message if you feel like you don't know and you want to know and you have questions man you can throw a stick and hit 15 preachers in this room.
37:15: There's one right here who's been doing it longer than I've been alive.
37:20: That ain't a lie.
37:21: I was born in 1980.
37:23: The greatest decade.
37:25: Ronald Reagan was president.
37:26: Gas was a dollar a gallon and everything was awesome.
37:30: I'm sorry.
37:33: I bit my cheek earlier and so if it seems like I'm talking funny it's because I am hurting.
37:38: But we got pastors there.
37:39: We got pastors back there.
37:40: We got pastors.
37:41: If you need to talk to somebody you go talk to them.
37:43: I'm not going to ask you to come up here and get down on your knees and pray.
37:45: I want to talk to you about your life if you want to talk about your life.
37:52: So that's part one of the sermon.
37:57: And I got five minutes for part two.
37:59: Part two.
38:01: Here's what you're going to do the rest of the week.
38:07: There are three categories of objections that we're going to deal with this week.
38:12: We talk about the subject of apologetics.
38:14: Giving a defense for the hope that is within you.
38:16: If the hope is in you these are the categories we're going to deal with because these are the primary things you will face in the world when you're dealing with questions and having to give a defense.
38:26: Number one is on the existence and nature of God.
38:30: That's tomorrow night.
38:32: That is my favorite one because it's the easiest.
38:36: I'm going to show you in tomorrow night's lesson that you don't have to prove God's existence.
38:39: They already know.
38:42: The Bible says they already know.
38:45: In fact the Bible says if anybody denies God exists he's suppressing a truth he has in his own heart.
38:50: God has stacked the deck for number one.
38:54: That's not even a question.
38:55: I got a shirt.
38:56: I don't know if I'm going to wear it because it's kind of uncomfortable but I'll bring it because I did bring it.
39:00: And it says on it how do I know God exists? That's what it says right here.
39:04: And below it it says same way you do.
39:07: Same way you do.
39:09: We all know God exists.
39:11: The Bible says we all know God exists.
39:13: I'm getting ahead of myself.
39:14: That's number one.
39:14: That's tomorrow night.
39:16: The existence and the nature of God number one.
39:19: Number two we're going to look at the person and work of Christ because listen to this kids.
39:24: Young people.
39:25: You're not kids.
39:25: Those are kids.
39:26: You guys are young people.
39:30: We are not just defending a nameless, faceless God.
39:34: We are defending the God of Scripture.
39:37: The Father, the Lord Jesus Christ who sent His Son into the world to die for sinners.
39:41: So here's the thing about apologetics.
39:43: And this is another part I hate.
39:45: Like I said this is a discipline that I spend a lot of time with so I feel like I can at least talk about it.
39:50: This is the part most people stop at.
39:52: They stop at the existence and nature of God.
39:54: The easiest one the one we shouldn't even have to argue for is the one they stop at and they don't realize that number two and number three are vastly more important because the chances of you running into somebody like I did like Scott is actually very small.
40:08: What's the percentage? Anybody know? The percentage of people who claim to be atheists in the world today.
40:13: Does anybody know? Everybody's close.
40:24: It's actually three percent.
40:26: The vast majority above that are people who say they don't know if God exists.
40:32: But the people who will say God does not exist like my friend Scott.
40:36: The fact that I even ran into him was a, I mean is a pretty small percentage.
40:44: But there are a lot of people who say I don't know if God that agnostics or what are called nuns.
40:49: N-O-N-E-S.
40:50: People who say I don't have any religion.
40:52: Mike, what's your religion? None.
40:53: That's actually on the rise.
40:55: But at atheism is actually on the is on the very small scale.
40:59: So this is the least category.
41:01: We do a thing called the fishing hole at my church.
41:03: The fishing hole is a booth.
41:05: We go to fairs and we set up a booth and we talk to thousands of people at these county fairs.
41:11: We give out, in 10 days we'll give out 3,000 tracks and have conversations.
41:18: I almost never get this objection.
41:22: It is almost always on the person and work of Christ or the nature and reliability of the Bible.
41:29: So tomorrow night is important.
41:32: But the most important night you will see is two, I'm sorry, night three and four which is one, two, three.
41:37: Thursday and, Wednesday and Thursday night are gonna be the nights that you really need to pay attention because these are the arguments that you're gonna face.
41:45: Not so much that God doesn't exist, but the Bible you believe in is unreliable or the Jesus you believe in is a myth.
41:52: Neither one of those are true, but that's the arguments you're gonna face.
41:57: Alright.
41:58: So let me draw to a close with this.
42:01: Throughout the rest of this week, as we face these objections, we're also gonna be talking about the objectors.
42:08: Who are the people that are gonna be making these objections? This first one might be your atheist friends.
42:14: You may have one, one or two.
42:16: This is gonna be folks from other religions.
42:19: This is gonna be folks because it's not always gonna be somebody who doesn't believe in God.
42:24: What about your friends that come to you from, I don't know, you guys live in Central Florida, you might not run into a whole lot of Muslims.
42:31: You may.
42:31: We got a lot of Muslims up in Jacksonville.
42:33: Got a whole mosque.
42:35: Huge, huge cross section of Muslims in Jacksonville.
42:38: So these are the things, not only are we gonna talk about the objections, we're gonna talk about who the objectors are and how we might give a defense for the hope that is within us.
42:47: So let me again finish with this.
42:50: If you are a person who's come tonight and you wanna be able to give a defense for the hope that is within you, the first thing you have to know is that you have that hope.
43:01: And I wanna pray now that there wouldn't be a person in this room who has to wonder or question whether or not that hope is within you.
43:08: And if you do, please come and talk to us.
43:11: Let's pray.
43:14: Father, I praise you for giving us this opportunity to study.
43:18: And I do pray that this study has been fruitful in that, Lord, I pray that this is confronted.
43:25: Anyone in this room who maybe has not made a profession of faith, or maybe those who have made a profession of faith but it was not genuine, or Lord, those who are living in constant doubt.
43:36: And Lord, it might be not because they're an unbeliever but because they just haven't become confident in the faith that they do possess.
43:42: Lord, I pray that each and every one of us would not only be encouraged this week, but that we would be challenged to be able to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
43:54: And I pray this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
43:58: Amen.