Beyond The Basics: Evangelism (part 3)

Father, what a delight it is to be among your people this morning. Father, we praise you that you have gathered us here, that you have provided a place for us to worship, that you have even given us our freedom through those who have sacrificed for us, those men and women who gave of themselves, that we might be able to be here, to assemble in your sight this morning.

Father, we praise you for all that you have accomplished on our behalf. We praise you for preserving your word, that we might know you, that we might understand ourselves, that we might worship you all the more as we see the gap between your holiness and our sinfulness.

Father, bless our time this morning in Christ's name. Amen. Well, how many weeks ago was it?

I think it was just two weeks ago. It seems like a long time ago we started talking about evangelism. And just to kind of remind you, we talked about the

Great Commission. We've talked about what we should preach, basically focusing on the part of the

Great Commission about making disciples. We talked about raising the bar. We don't want to make it so easy.

Well, let me rephrase that. We don't want to make it seem so simple to become a Christian that someone has an idea in their head that there is no cost involved.

Jesus himself made it very clear that the cost is very high. He wouldn't have said consider the cost if there was no cost.

And he, in fact, chased many people away. As I said a few weeks ago, he apparently didn't know much about seekers.

He didn't know much about all these modern techniques about packing people into the pews. He was not a church growth expert.

In fact, I think if he'd written a book on church growth, I think it might have been shredded by some of the experts today.

They know so much. Thank you for that, Bruce. I appreciate that.

Now, let's talk about some of the reasons why it is important to set the bar so high.

But first, I just have to say, some of you may have read my e -mails, I have to say I'm very encouraged by, it's amazing to me going through some of my mom's things because I had to clear out a few things while I was back in Denver.

And to read, there's a box that just says, Wes, that was my grandfather.

And the letters and cards and things on the occasion of his death, he died in 1946 when my mom was just seven years old.

He died of leukemia. And there's reason to believe that he was saved some short time before he died.

But I was reading some of the notes. And everything's handwritten, of course, before computers.

Is that what BC stands for? I don't know. And just saying,

Dorothy, this is my grandmother, we're so sorry for your loss. We just can't believe

Wes is gone. We would invite you to turn to the

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in your time of difficulty. And things of that nature, just several letters like that.

And I just thought, wow, I never would have known these things. I was glad that all these things were saved for me so that I could read them.

Just fascinating. And in their own way, trying to evangelize my grandmother, who

I have no reason to think that she became a believer. But it was just good to know that people were witnessing to her, even in difficult times.

And I think sometimes we're just so sensitive, that we don't want to hurt people, we don't want to offend them.

And yet the truth is, whether my grandmother was ever saved or not, the truth is, people were doing the right thing.

Weep with those who weep, sure. But you have to give them a reason to have hope. We talk about evangelism, we want to make sure that we're on page 44, and if you don't have notes,

I have a few extra copies. Because I was a Boy Scout and I'm always prepared.

Well, the first part was true, the second part maybe not so much. But we want to do things the right way.

As we look at Roman Numeral 4, what are the reasons? We want them to be His reasons, to be

Christ's reasons that we do things. And our first is that God might be glorified.

That God might be glorified. Well, how is He glorified? How is

He glorified through evangelism? Well, we'll get to when the truth is proclaimed. But how about just this?

As God saves more and more people, and more and more people worship Him, His glory itself is not multiplied, but the praises

He receives are multiplied. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 4, verse 15.

And who has that? Steve. Okay.

Again, to the glory of God. Look at what Kistemacher says. God multiplies

His grace when more and more people become its recipients. In other words, when the gospel enters the hearts and lives of an ever -increasing number of people,

God's grace abounds. These people are fellow believers who reach out and lead unbelievers to Christ.

And as a result, all believers now live to please God and express their thanks to Him.

Together, these masses sing praises of thanksgiving to God. In his paraphrase,

Eugene Peterson, The Message, that's what he wrote, gives this summary. You know, even a stopped watch is right twice a day.

More and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise.

And I think that's right. It glorifies God when more and more people are saved.

And it glorifies Him when the saved people then turn around and do what? They praise Him. I think it's interesting to hear when

Kistemacher, in the middle of that quote, he says, these people are fellow believers who reach out and lead unbelievers to Christ.

That's just presumed. What do believers do when they get saved? You get saved, the next day you go into school, you go into work.

Wherever you are, you're meeting with family, you just kind of downcast. Yeah, got saved last night.

No. When a person recognizes the weight of sin that they bear, when they recognize this has to happen, this is why we have to preach the bad news, when you realize the burden of sin that you carry before a holy

God, how far above you He is, when that weight is lifted off by Jesus Christ, you're not slump -shouldered going, man, oh man,

I became a Christian yesterday. There is a joy that accompanies salvation.

And that joy leads to what? Praise. Talking about it, praising

God for your salvation, which almost instantaneously amounts to preaching the gospel.

In some form or fashion, you are witnessing to people. What are you so happy about? What happened to you?

What are you on? It's what

I'm off. I'm off feeling there's no hope for me.

I'm done with my burden of carrying sin around. I have been redeemed.

Some of you probably heard this before, but I'll just never forget when I was saved and I told somebody at work that I'd become a

Christian, and her first response was, well, I'm not a born -again Christian. I didn't even know what to say.

I didn't know much, but I knew that if you're a Christian, you're born again. And so I didn't understand that.

She had a different idea of what born -again Christian meant. There needs to be that sense of joy, that sense that something has changed, that a burden has been lifted, and that will instantly result into people noticing.

And God is going to be glorified by what you say and do, if you're thinking rightly.

Secondly, that we might participate in the work of God. I wonder if we've thought about this this way. We often hear

Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Somebody can probably cite those for me. For it is by grace that you have been saved.

Let's look at verse 10. Not of works. And somebody go ahead and read

Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10, so we can get the whole gist here.

Go ahead, Pretty. A couple of really important things here.

We are His workmanship. Again, emphasizing the grace. It is as if, did you ever think of yourself as God's workmanship,

His handiwork, as it were, that He just kind of fashions you and then just kind of stands back?

And, of course, then He comes back up a little more and a little more. That's being transformed to the image of Christ.

But just this whole idea that we are His handiwork. It is the grace of God alone that saves us.

But notice, about created in Christ Jesus, four good works.

What do you suppose those good works might include? Hint, look at the top of page 43.

Before the foundation of the world, God chose a people to redeem for Himself.

Before the foundation of the world, God, let me look at this again here.

Created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Beforehand. Before we were saved, absolutely. Before we were created,

I think so. God has established

His plan and He uses human means to bring about that plan.

As believers, we are that human means. We get to participate.

We don't save people. We don't, you know, I stopped putting chicken scratches in my

Bible. I think it was about seven or eight or something. No, I didn't. God provides this wonderful opportunity for us to be some cog in someone's salvation.

We get to preach the gospel to them. God saves, but He uses us. We are created with a purpose and that purpose is not just so that, no offense to Scott or Flo or anybody in the donut ministry, but it's not just so that we can take the donuts from the kitchen to the prayer room.

That is a good work. It is not the ultimate good work. It's fine to serve in the parking lot ministry.

It's fine to be the sound guy. It's fine to be whatever. But ultimately, there is a higher purpose to which we are all called.

Can I, you know, for anyone who has ever witnessed, preached, shared the gospel, evangelized someone, did you ever just think, oh, this is going to be great?

I'm super excited. You might be excited. But did you ever feel like, well, gee,

I might get rejected or I don't know if I should do this. I always feel that way.

I'm always thinking, oh, man, this is not going to go well. I'm going to bomb.

But that's not the point. And even I have to wrap my head around the idea it doesn't matter how

I feel. It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what the other person's response is going to be.

I need to do this because it is the right thing to do. God has placed me here. He's kept me here that I might participate in the work of God.

Let's look at number five, how we do it, his method. His method, the

Bible must govern our method. Why? And by the way, my secretary on this project, again, was me.

And I'm fired. And I saw this morning when I was looking over this, I made another typing mistake. But look at that semicolon on the end.

That's just horrible. It should be a close parenthesis. Why should the

Bible govern our method? Because there's only one absolute truth.

Well, what other, other than the Bible, what other method would we like to use? I mean, if, as 2

Peter says, that the Bible is sufficient for all life and godliness, if we really believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, if we think it's enough for everything that we need, then why would we want to use something else?

Let's look at Luke 24, 47. I'll just read that.

In fact, I'll go back to 46. And he said to them, Thus it is written that the

Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

We do this because it's the command of God. What do we do?

We give them this exact command, that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations.

This is still going on. This is the work of God that's still going on. This is the method that we are given.

Now, along those same lines, point A, the Bible can defend itself.

The Bible can defend itself. We want to protect, defend the Bible. You've probably often heard this said.

Spurgeon once said that, you know, the word of God is like the lion in the cage. And sometimes as Christians, we have the idea that we have to protect this lion.

Don't let anybody close to the lion. Hands off. Spurgeon's like, let the lion out of the cage.

It can defend itself. What do unbelievers do when we bring the

Bible to bear on their situation? They will bring up some distractions.

Why do you keep quoting the Bible? Who can believe that? Any variation on that?

You know, why are you using the Bible? That thing's so old. I've heard that.

It's really not in keeping with today's standards. It's not how people think now. Okay. What's the answer to that?

What's that? People have strayed far from God. That's right. My response usually is something like, well, do you think

God has changed? You know, you might think people have changed, and that's maybe true.

They've gotten worse, you know. God hasn't changed. Here's another one.

Well, you know, Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites. Is that true or false?

We know we are. Sinners need saviors, yes. And of course, there's the always tried and true, there's always room for one more.

That's right.

What better place for a hypocrite? What is a hypocrite?

Says one thing, does another. So if I say that people are commanded to be perfect, and I'm not perfect, does that make me a hypocrite?

I think arguably it does. And the more you know, the more hypocritical you're going to be, because you're not going to live to a perfect standard.

But let's put it this way, too. If I know this much, I didn't want to get too crazy, and I live this much, is that better than knowing this much and living that much?

I think, you know, if holiness is our ultimate goal, we need to pursue it.

That's what we're called to. But Christians are hypocrites because we're sinners.

It's a nice way, you know. It's maybe a more edged way. I don't think it's a nicer way. It's another way of saying, well, you know what?

You Christians aren't perfect either, to which I would just say I'm guilty. But that's not the issue.

The issue is that you're guilty. If you're talking to somebody and they say that, I'll get to you in a second,

Bruce. If they say that to you, you say, well, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of sin.

But let me tell you about a Savior who delivers from sin. And that's where we need to go, Bruce.

That's right. MacArthur puts it this way. I mean, our desires are different. MacArthur says, you know, it's the direction of our lives, not the perfection of our lives.

We're grieved by our sin instead of celebrating it. Absolutely. Another distraction that people will bring up, or another thing that they'll use against the

Bible is that there are errors in the Bible. You know, well, there are mistakes in the Bible. Like what?

I mean, people love to trot that, well, there are mistakes in the Bible. Okay. Go ahead and give me some of those.

I'll happily defend the Bible. And typically, people don't know any. And even if they do, they usually have to go to some random.

I think the funniest story, and I've told this one before, but the funniest one to me anyway was a guy posted a list that he found on the

Internet. I mean, it was this huge list, and he did it so quickly, I thought he couldn't have researched that, you know, with any kind of effort.

So I just kind of, I took a portion of it and Googled it myself, and it came back, and I found that.

And then there was, on the same Google page, there was a response to all those errors. So I cut and pasted the response to all the errors.

And he goes, you cut and pasted that. And I'm like, hey, you know, guilty, just like you.

Yeah. Alleged errors. I mean, when you get right down to it, when people say that there are mistakes in the

Bible, but the truth is the Bible has no conflicts, it may have apparent conflicts.

It has no errors. There are no mistakes in the Bible. There are no contradictions.

There are no errors. Everything with careful study can be resolved. So that's typically what they'll do.

They'll try to attack the Bible. And point B, the one who is sharing, who is preaching, who is evangelizing, must be fully aware of the sinfulness of sin.

Talking about our methodology, how we evangelize, and the deceitfulness of the human hearts.

Let's look at Romans 3, verses 10 to 18. I had the opportunity yesterday to preach the gospel, and I presume some of the people who were listening were not saved.

And, you know, one of the most shocking things you could say, and imagine saying this at a wedding, is that people are not good.

You know, stand up there in front of people and say, you know what, you're not good. That's a pretty popular message. Okay, Romans 3, verses 10 to 18.

Who would like to read that? Daniel. We live in a world of people that imagine themselves to be at least neutral towards God.

You know, somewhat agnostic. And by the way, you know what the root word of agnostic is? It's gnosis, that's right.

And so if you put the primitive before that, you're negating it.

And so what they're really saying is, it really means no knowledge or ignorance. So when a person says,

I'm agnostic, I have to say, don't say it, Steve, don't say it. Because what they're really saying is,

I'm ignorant. I know you are. And I'm about to tell you about the God who exists. You can't read that.

No one can read that and think there is neutrality involved, that we're all just somehow morally neutral, or even that we're seekers,

Daniel. That is perfect.

Daniel says, you know, some people say, well, I'm at peace with God. And that's not the issue. The issue is, is

God at peace with you? That's exactly the issue. You know, if we go to Romans 5 and we see that, you know, the reconciliation.

God reconciled the world to himself. He didn't ask each individual person to reconcile themselves of themselves to him.

So the question is not whether you're at peace with God, but whether God is at peace with you. He has every right not to be at peace with you.

I mean, what do you say? Let's take it a step further. Well, you say you're at peace with God. You say you're at peace with God.

Well, to be at peace with God, that means you have to have done no offense to God your entire life.

None. Because one sin is enough to, I mean, every opportunity or every statement about God that an unbeliever makes is an opportunity for you to give them the gospel.

That's right. And that's right.

And the critical importance, and that's exactly right, when you're talking with an unbeliever, is to take them away from their own perspective and ask what

God's perspective is. And to bring God's perspective to bear through the Scripture. Daniel is just saying, you know, the question isn't, again, how that person perceives

God or how they perceive themselves. It's whether God would say that I have justified that man based on the righteousness of Christ within him.

So that is, that's exactly right. Now, as evident in Romans 3, 10 to 18, we cannot appeal to goodness or reason.

To goodness because they have none. It says there's no one good. All have turned aside.

Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. Why can't we appeal to their reason? A dead man can't reason.

Ephesians 2, 1, right? A spiritually dead person cannot reason things out for themselves. But we can't appeal to reason.

It's the one we didn't read. It was Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful, sick, wicked, however you want to phrase it, however you want to translate that.

Even our own hearts as Christians, you know, when people say I have a peace in my heart, I'm like, I don't know if that's a good answer.

Because a peace in your heart could be you deceiving yourself. It could be good, but it might not be because we can deceive ourselves.

Can't appeal to reason. Is it wrong to reason with somebody? And the answer is no.

But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. We pray for salvation.

Even while we're witnessing to people, you know, you want to listen to people while they're responding to you, but you also want to be in silent prayer for them and thinking, you know,

Lord, just help me to present the truth and to be loving while I do so, but I need to give them the truth.

We pray for salvation, but we prepare for rejection. Why? The road is narrow.

Stephen, thank you for citing 1 Corinthians 1 .18.

The cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. If you're talking to an unsaved person, you preach the cross of Christ, and they go, that's the most ridiculous thing

I've ever heard. You know what I like to say to that? That's exactly what the

Bible said you would say. And they go, what? And so then

I'll go to 1 Corinthians 1 .18, and I'll read it to them. They'll go, wow,

I didn't know that. Well, they may not say that. Who are you to say that I'm perishing? I'm not saying that you are perishing.

I'm just saying this is what the Bible says, that those who are perishing will say, that's foolish, that's stupid.

Who could believe that? It's up to them to sort it out.

I don't want to give an offense, but I'm not afraid to let the Bible offend them because they need to understand, again, our goal isn't to make people dislike us.

Our goal is to present the truth to people and then have them understand where they are. If you're presenting the gospel to someone and they leave thinking, well, that's

Steve. He's a pretty nice guy. And I was sort of intrigued by what he had to say.

That might not be that bad, but I'd rather have them go away thinking, well, Steve wasn't rude or obnoxious or offensive, but I've got a problem.

I'm a sinner and there's a holy God and I don't know what I'm going to do. I would rather have that kind of response because that means

I've clearly at least demonstrated the problem to them. The results, whether they get saved, not saved, whether these things just kind of germinate in their mind,

I mean, it is possible, right, to plant for somebody to come along later and for it to be watered, and then salvation.

We don't know exactly when a person is going to get saved. It might be as soon as we open our mouths. It might be ten years later.

But we need to speak the truth in love. The result is solely dependent on the sovereignty and grace of God.

Who has Titus 3, verse 5? I think that used to be Bruce's, I don't know if it still is, answering a machine message, right?

Who has that? Becky. Okay, not because of what we've done, but because of His mercy.

All right, point D. Scripture is what God uses to convert. Scripture.

Now, does that mean that if you don't have a Bible and you're witnessing to somebody, they cannot get saved? No, that's not what it means.

What does it mean? Let's say you're just, you're preaching the gospel to somebody, you don't have a

Bible on you, but you're citing basically from memory, Scripture. Can God use that?

I believe He can. Because you are essentially reasoning with them from Scripture. Let's look at Romans 10, verses 14 to 17.

And who has that? Okay, Stott says about this verse, these verses.

In other words, they, unbelievers, will not believe Christ until they have heard

Him speaking through His messengers or ambassadors. We need to give them the words of Christ, the

Scriptures. In ancient times, before the development of the mass media of communication, the role of the herald was vital.

The major means of transmitting news was His public proclamations in the city square or the marketplace.

There could be no hearers without heralds. In other words, someone had to go forth and proclaim the good tidings, the good news, and that is exactly what we are called to do.

People cannot know Christ unless someone comes and presents Christ to them, unless someone gives them the very words of Christ.

Corollary to that is, if that's what it takes, then we must be prepared. Let's look at Acts 8, verses 30 to 35.

And I will read that, talking about the

Ethiopian eunuch. Philip ran up to this chariot where the

Ethiopian was riding in. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, do you understand what you are reading?

And he, the Ethiopian eunuch, said, well, how could I unless someone guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now reading the passage of scripture which he was reading was this, he was led as a sheep to slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth.

In humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation?

For his life is removed from the earth. The eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this?

Of himself or of someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this scripture, he preached

Jesus to him. Now again, let's read what Stott has to say, or I'm sorry,

Boyce. Just before the baptism, there is a, before the eunuch gets baptized, there is a tremendous verse that says, then

Philip began that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

I wonder if you are able to do that, to start with a given passage and preach Jesus. Isaiah 53 is an easy one.

That's what's cited there in Acts 8. But how about the genealogies? How about Revelation or Genesis?

Can you begin with those passages and preach the good news about Jesus? It can be done, you know.

It is because the Bible from beginning to end is about Jesus. You cannot explain Genesis 1 .1,

in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, without explaining something about Jesus, because Jesus is

God. He was active in this work of creation, and it is through him that the

God of creation is made known to us. You cannot explain the end of Revelation either, apart from Jesus.

Revelation 22 .20 says, yes, I am coming soon. Who is coming soon? The answer is

Jesus. Philip knew his Bible, so he was ready when the Ethiopian asked for an explanation.

Be prepared, be ready. You do not know when you will have the opportunity.

I remember several years ago, when the Left Behind series was quite popular, people were carrying that thing around even in the jail.

The officers were reading it. And I knew I'd known one guy there for 15, 16 years.

And he was carrying that around. I knew he was not a believer. Great opportunity to preach the gospel to him.

Do you know what you're reading? Do you understand it? He didn't say, well, how can I, unless somebody...

He didn't give me that. But we have many opportunities, and I think sometimes we're just prone to let them pass, because we don't know what to do.

And the truth is, if anybody's...

I've even seen people at work I had where I used to work. I mean, it's common here where I work now, for people to have

Bibles. But people would have Bibles, and I was shocked to see them carrying Bibles. And so I would say, oh, that's interesting that you have the

NIV study Bible for women or, you know, whatever, and it gives you an opportunity, again, to preach the gospel to people that you know aren't saved and for some strange reason are carrying around Bibles.

At least you have no reason to think that they're saved. Any place in the

Bible, what about that claim, the idea that from any place in the Bible you can preach

Jesus? Is that true? How would you do that? What if the person's reading

Song of Solomon? What if the person's reading Leviticus?

What if the person's... I mean, there are plenty of places where you just go, how would I get to Jesus from there? Okay, you start with creation.

But again, let's say it's Leviticus, the person's reading Leviticus, and they go, why is this even in the Bible? Okay, let's say it's

Leviticus. Then you can start with the law that shows our sinfulness,

God's holiness. It could be categorized this way, and I'll get to Brian in a second here.

If you look at the Bible, it's kind of hard to find a place where at least one of these four

Ws isn't addressed, answered, asked, who is God, who is man, what did

Jesus do, and what does God command men to do? Even in the Song of Solomon, you could say, well, that is a picture of a husband and a wife, and then

I just move on to Ephesians 5 and really make it easy. How Christ laid down his life for the church.

I'd talk about marriage and then just kind of go into the whole thing. But there is a way to get to the gospel from any point in Scripture, Brian.

That's right. I mean, Jesus is the living word. God has given us his word. In fact, what did

Jesus, when he was on the road to Emmaus, what did he do? He said, starting with the law and the prophets, he taught them about himself.

So we can definitely do that, and that's what we need to do. Why? Because it is the word alone that saves.

Let's talk about the problems with an evidential approach, and I'll explain that in a minute. And here's my other typo in point

E. Like the misuse of Isaiah 1 .1. It's not 1 .1, it's 1 .18, and I hate it when

I do that, so I really have to fire myself again.

Yeah, I blame it on the keyboard. That's sinful. Isaiah 1 .18. And there's nothing wrong with this verse, by the way.

Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.

Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. But what people typically do is,

I guess I can't say they decapitate this verse because, well, okay, I will say they decapitate this verse because they only want to deal with the head.

Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. In other words, that is an invitation to just plain old reasoning, sort of sorting things out, offering evidence, but that's really not the case.

If we just continue reading, though your sins are as scarlet, I mean, instantly the prophet, the

Lord, through the prophet, brings this idea of sin and salvation into it, being cleansed from our sins.

It's really not kind of saying, well, you know, let's talk about whether God exists or not.

Let's just talk about evidentialism versus presuppositionalism, and please take notes.

Presuppositionalism, I'll just put it in a nutshell, and I think I have it in your notes here somewhere. We'll get to it later.

But, oh, yeah, it's the next thing. Scripture alone. Does that mean you can only use Scripture? No, but what it means is that you present

Scripture and then you explain Scripture. You expand upon it. You make application of it.

Evidentialism is, well, we know that there's a God because when we look, and this is right, this is

Romans 1, and we can preach this, we look at the order of the universe, and then we can get into the development of the eye, all the intelligent design arguments, if you're familiar with that at all, the idea of irreducible complexity, where these, is it macrobiologists, whatever they are, all these smart guys, they look at so -called evolutionary processes, and they say, well, there are some problems with these, and they start expanding and explaining, and they write huge books about it.

Well, what's the problem with these books? Is that you can look at these arguments against evolution and still not worship the

God of creation, the God who is. You can just say, yeah, there are problems with evolution, or you can have a different mindset about God or whatever, but it doesn't change the issue, which is sin.

Presuppositionalism is that I present Scripture. I presuppose Scripture. I do not explain the existence of God.

Why don't I explain the existence of God? Two reasons I don't explain the existence of God, Charlie.

That's one. God already, or everyone already believes that God exists. Why? The Bible says in Romans 1 that they're suppressing the truth.

They look around at creation, and they know that there's a God. They look at the perfect order of things.

In other words, we don't see dogs having hamsters and fish getting up out of the ocean and growing legs and tails and walking around.

We don't see those things. Why? Because there's an order to creation. God has set everything. The sun doesn't just kind of shift from the east to the north and south and tomorrow morning.

Who knows where the sun's coming up? We don't have those issues. Everyone has enough information to know that there's a

God. They know He's a God of order. The second reason we don't explain the existence of God is because the

Bible never does it, ever. Never. Can you find a place where the Bible says, well, let me tell you about where God comes from because He doesn't come from anywhere.

Let me tell you about... Genesis 1 -1 gives us all the information about...

There are no origins of God. It just says this. It says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And that's what we proclaim to people. We proclaim the God who is and the God who spoke and all of the universe leapt into existence.

If we believe that the Bible alone is sufficient to save, we don't have to bring in a lot of other things,

Daniel. Yes. Such as what?

Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, good example of that.

Daniel was talking about the Institute of Christian Research and then geological or excavational or what's the other word

I'm looking for here where they excavate things, archaeological evidences. I mean, for an example, they used to say that King David was a fictional character.

He didn't actually exist. And then they found something many years ago called the Tel Dan Steel, which they dated very carefully and found out how old it was.

And then basically this thing says it's a monument. This is the kind of thing they used to do to a victory of King David of the

Israelites over the people that they defeated on that day. So the issue with bringing evidences in, is it wrong to disprove evolution?

I don't think so. I don't think that's wrong. Here's what

I'm saying, is that if we can disprove evolution, first of all, that won't save anybody.

It could raise some questions and I think there's validity in that. But ultimately,

I think, let's put it this way. If the Lord carries another thousand years, do you believe, and this is not presuppositional, do you believe that evolution will still be the scientific theory of the day?

I don't. I don't. I think they'll look back and think how prehistoric that was.

Much like I think, if the Lord carries another thousand years, I think they'll look back at our medical practices and just go, oh, are they barbarians?

Look at that, the insanity of whatever. Surgery. Charlie. Let me just put it another way.

Let's say we get into a debate over what the Bible says about creation and the evidences for creation versus the evidences for evolution.

What am I ultimately doing then? I am challenging his worldview of evolution and so he goes and gets more evidence of evolution which then

I am supposed to disprove. And then he brings more evidence of evolution which

I am supposed to disprove. And that's not the issue. That's a secondary issue.

The primary issue is sin, repentance, God, holiness, man, fallen,

Christ. Those are the issues. That's where I want to be. I want to be on terra firma, not on discussing whether or not it's possible that human beings once had a tail.

Those things are not... Once a person becomes saved and they say, yes,

I believe that's the word of God, well, then you can straighten out all the other issues. Peggy.

Yeah, I mean, what do we do? I think here you go.

Richard Dawkins or some intellectual giant wants to debate with me about evolution.

Well, what can I do? I haven't studied evolution. I can't answer all the arguments or whatever but what I can do is preach

Christ and Him crucified. We have a simple message. And Romans 1 .18

says that they'll reject it. They'll call it folly. They'll call it foolishness. They think it's stupid.

And so what do we do? Say, okay, well, I'll come back with a more sophisticated argument. Just give me a couple of weeks.

No, I keep preaching Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, I did not come with cleverness of speech.

I didn't have some whiz -bang slideshow for you. I couldn't disprove all of your worldly thinking.

All I had was an old guitar, three chords, and the truth. We come and we present the truth.

And God works through that presentation of the truth to chisel away at the stony heart of an unbeliever and to convert them.

He's not going to convert them because I can prove that the 10th planet in the solar system is...

Those things are intellectually interesting and they may be places for discussion but ultimately that's not going to be what saves him.

Charlie, and then we need to close here. Yes, and that's right.

But I would still say even in that situation where someone is peppering you with questions about evolution or whatever the issue du jour is, that what you want to do is keep preaching the gospel to them and get their ascent to the gospel over and over and over again.

There's no problem with that. I'll preach the gospel to them and he says, well, I believe that but I have a question about this.

Well, fine. And then the next day I'll preach the gospel to him again and he says, well,

I believe that but I have a question about that. Okay, well, good. And it seems like we're seeing progress.

So, yeah, I think that's perfectly reasonable. And I think about my own salvation. And there was a time, and I've shared this before, where I knew who

Christ was. I knew that he was God. I knew that he knew everything, which concerned me because that meant that he knew everything about me.

But I did not believe in the Trinity. Now, if someone comes to me and says, well, I believe everything that you just said but I have a question about the

Trinity. Well, then we need to go over that. But in no way am I going to say that person is a

Christian because that person needs to, they don't need to comprehend and be able to expound profusely upon the

Trinity. But if they don't believe it, there's a problem. So, anyway, we'll have to leave it there and we'll pick it up next week.

Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this discussion. Thank you for your word. Father, just teach us to be bold in our proclamation of it knowing that people will reject, people will mock us even as they have mocked our

Lord and Savior. But, Father, we will not in any way suffer like he did.

And even if we should suffer, Lord, we would count it all a privilege to do so. Father, would you make us those who would be bold, fearless, not because we want to be able to beat our own chest but because we are amazed by the grace with which you have saved us.