Responding to Frank Turek’s Defense of Andy Stanley

Hey, there we go. I don't know what he was saying, but I know something wasn't working, so... Lost your pointer. Okay, well, good. Welcome. I see it running around the screen in here, if you want to grab it real quick.

Anyway, welcome to the dividing line. We have much to do today on a sort of rainy Thursday. High of like 86 today. Yes, I'm wearing long sleeves. It's like, oh, let's get warm. Well, it's not going to really...

86 for us, after three months of 100 plus degrees, that's nippy. It's great. In fact, the low tonight of 63 might mean that I'm going to, you know, let some air into the house and stuff like that. It's almost feel like playing Christmas carols.

Anyway, not that yet, but feeling that way, feeling that way. We got to, we got to cram it into a very short period of time before it's hot again. So you got to enjoy every day, even if you have to sweat to enjoy that day.

It's sort of how it is. Anyway, I want to get, I'm going to get to Frank Turek today. I'm going to read his article. I've been saying that and I just don't get to it, and I apologize for that. I was a pretty, very briefly, oh yeah, very briefly.

How many times have I said that? I turned on the news this morning for a while, and then I simply had to turn it off. I have very little hope for a culture that cannot tell a difference between thought and emotion.

When wild eyed, irrational thinking and behavior is honored because it's sincere, we're done. We're done. My dear little granddaughter, who's not quite four years old yet, has very sincere emotions. But we would all be exceptionally foolish to act upon the sincerity of her emotions.

Adults can control their emotions and adults. Well, that's that's really what adulthood is all about. And it just seems that the children have taken over the culture. You know, I was listening to a rather conservative news source.

There aren't many of them. That sort of tells you which one had been turned on. And a clip was played of someone who was highly emotional and the allegedly conservative commentator. The big thing that she wanted to focus on was the depth and sincerity of the emotion expressed.

And I guess anymore, if you go, excuse me, time out. I'm going to honor someone based upon the depth and sincerity of the consistency of their thought and self-discipline. Not on the basis of their emotion.

Remember back in June, the memes that showed up with the pictures of the men about to storm Normandy in the landing crafts. And then, you know, that's 1944. And then the comparison to the badly dressed, wimpy guys on the campus today asking for safe spaces and things like that.

The reason that that makes sense is because it's true. And it says something about what maturity is and what we honor. Today, we have to honor people's feelings rather than honoring people, their accomplishments, their discipline, their being able to think through issues and come to meaningful conclusions, even when it causes them to have to sacrifice what they want to accomplish a greater good.

I mean, those men, those men on those boats had sincere feelings and they had to suppress them and run out into the killing fields to fight evil. So what's happened? What happened? Well, the hippies, the 60s took over.

And maturity has been banished. I mean, it's going to be made illegal before long to act like an adult. Because we don't even know what an adult is. I don't know what even what to say. What I'm watching.

It's shocking. It really is. Speaking of abject immaturity, I was directed, I didn't bring it up, I'm not going to play these things. A couple of them. There's one I might respond to because it's on the issue of the gospel.

But the problem is I have to, if you play anything by GMS, Hebrew Israelites, Gospel Millstone, these people, gentlemen, you are the biggest glowing hypocrites on the planet.

You know why?

You carry a Bible around that talks to you about, well, of course, you've got the section in Deuteronomy not to despise Nehemiah, you know, you all totally ignore that one. But that Bible, Old and New Testaments, over and over again speaks about the purity of speech, the purity of the tongue and how it represents what fills your heart.

And the reason it's hard to respond to your videos is because I have to go through and bleep out half of what you say because you're filthy mouth people. What is wrong with you? How can you not see that?

How can you not see that you are absolutely making the greatest argument for your own hypocrisy when you cannot control your tongues? You are expressing hatred and racism and every kind of vile, God-dishonoring thought, and you sit there with a Bible in your hand?

You will be judged someday by a God that is not impressed with your bravado. Like I said, there's one of them because it's on the Gospel. But I don't know. I guess I'll just have to get really good at inserting sound files into the video.

Beep, beep, beep, just to bleep everything out. But I just ran into just, I don't know. I downloaded about eight and there were more videos that had my name in it and not just the horns. And one of them had 666 on my forehead, which a number of people on the channel saw that and began a discussion of the early papyri readings of Revelation 13a, which is really weird when you think about it.

If that doesn't tell you how weird the channel is, that the first thought in responding to video of someone identifying me with 666 was that there's a textual variant there. Some of them have been listening to my New Testament Reliability presentation where that is one of my central issues that I talk about and normally have a lot of fun with because I'll pick the pastor of the church or on the cruise, I pick Michael Fallon and said, if you have any questions about this, they will stay up till three o 'clock in the morning talking with you about this.

But anyway, I was just amazed at the number of, I mean, there was one of these guys, you know, they're dressed and it wasn't the IUIC guys either. It wasn't the purple gold Power Ranger thing. It was these guys wearing these like tunic type things as if somehow that makes you spiritual.

And they're sitting on a beach. Hey, what are we going to talk about? Well, let's talk about how James White's a profane, ungodly man. And it was for an hour and like an hour and six minutes. It's like, wow, you guys need to come up with something better to be doing in life.

That's just sad. That someone would do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know they do not consider cursing the fence. It's just the blindness is amazing. Try reading the book of James. Try reading Jesus's own words. You know, it's hard to even know what to say sometimes.

But I did run across a bunch of videos like that and download a few of them. I guess just simply to have some documentation. Looking something up here real quick. I'm using the channel to do it, which is sort of nice.

It's sort of fast that way.

What?

So someone mentions they even have a verse that justifies it. But even if I am unskilled in speech that I am not so in knowledge. In fact, in every way, we have made this evident to you in all things.

I realize that for the Hebrew Israelite movement, the Bible is just a grab bag of verses to be used. I get it. It's Harold Camping. It's all these groups. The idea of actually honoring the intention of the original author and doing serious exegesis.

I realize that has nothing to do with what Paul was talking about. And unskilled in speech has nothing to do with being profane in speech. Dropping F-bombs. That has absolutely positively nothing. Oh, no, use the KJV.

Well, of course. So sorry that I would use an actual modern translation. So 2 Corinthians 11 6. Oh, look at that. Ai de kai idiotes to lago. Idiotes. What does that sound like?

Idiot.

And so the idea being, and the King James, rude. Idiotes does not mean profane by any stretch of the imagination. But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge. Yeah, I know these guys are really concerned about.

Well, maybe if I found the Strong's number, maybe that would do it. It means unlearned, untrained. Ignorance has nothing to do with the utilization of profanity on their part. But, hey, what can I say?

Anyway.

The Need for Adult Thinking and Controlled Speech

All right, let's get to Frank Turek. Russell Moore did a podcast after the ERLC thing and talked about some of his issues with Andy Stanley's approach. And this says September 9th. So it's been a while.

Well, it was right before he left on the cruise. Frank Turek of crossexamined .org, a Christian apologist. I've only met Frank once. That was at SES. If you watched the impromptu debate on apologetic methodology during the Q &A, he's sitting there.

We talked a little about solo scriptura, which was almost, well, it wasn't prophetic because it had already started, obviously, but was relevant to the number of SES students that were converting to Roman Catholicism.

So we talked about that. But he posted an article entitled, Why Andy Stanley is right about the foundation of Christianity and how to defend it. Remember, Andy Stanley says that the Bible is not the foundation of Christianity, the resurrection is.

And we have simply pointed out this is an incoherent statement because you can't. OK, what is the resurrection? And don't use the Bible. You know, it's sort of like in channel, I'm the I have the feather of power, I have the ultimate authority in channel.

And so I can mute people, I can shut them up. We call it giving them a channel sock, sticking a stock in their mouth. So one of the funny things to do once in a while is to ask somebody a question, say, hey, I challenge you to, you know, let's say they're a Christian.

Well, we got good old Red Goatee and he's a he's a Cubs fan. And so we'll say, I give you 10 seconds to list all the great things about the Cubs. And then as soon as I do that, it stick a sock in his mouth.

So he can't talk. So he can be typing away all he wants and nothing happens, you know. And that's what that's that's the meaning of that that statement. Uh, it's not the Bible's resurrection. OK, tell me why the resurrection is important, but you can't use scripture.

The apostles didn't do that. Show me a sermon where the apostles refer to the resurrection of Christ, where they did not base where they did not cite scripture or base their entire understanding of it upon the teachings of scripture.

And of course, I'm talking about the Tanakh. There was never a time when the Bible did not have the voice of God in scripture to.

Not once.

And Andy Stanley has never debated a Roman Catholic apologist on the subject of Sola Scriptura. And I hope he never does it because it does because he'll collapse. But he doesn't seem to realize. And obviously, a whole section of Christian apologists also have not debated that issue because they don't seem to realize they are fundamentally compromising what freed Europe from the bondage of Rome.

Well, we don't have to worry about that now, so we can go ahead and go back, right? OK, all right. So Dr. Turek has a section about what Dr. Moore gets right, which is good. I suppose it's what you want to do.

He says Dr. Moore is certainly correct when he states that churches have to strike the right balance between evangelism and discipleship, unlike some in his Reformed camp. Now, it's very plain. The only way to really understand what Dr. Turek is saying is to understand he is not.

Reformed.

And he has some serious reservations about Reformed theology and Reformed practice. And this is fundamental. This is basic. Your theology determines your apologetic. How many times we said it, we stand by it.

Unlike some in his Reformed camp, he admits the church is not solely for believers and that unbelievers will attend. Wait a minute, are you saying that Russell Moore believes that unbelievers can be part of the church?

I don't believe so. Clearly, there is the instance of unbelievers coming into the fellowship. But what was their role, what was their place, and what was their participation? Very clearly, historically speaking, there was not participation in the Lord's Supper.

Baptism would be obviously not something they would be doing, but it certainly might be something they could observe as a witness of faith. But the real issue is, why have the saints gathered in the first place?

And this is an issue where many of my Southern Baptist friends, I think, have missed the boat. There is a deep, deep tradition that the church service is to be focused upon the unbeliever. It is a, you know, it's a tradition that goes back to Finney, primarily.

It was pretty much unknown in history until modern times, but that the church service is designed to bring the message to the unbeliever, to convince the unbeliever to walk an aisle, shake a hand. And, you know, some people have tried to find a balance there and say, well, we're going to have an evangelistic service on such and such a day, while still recognizing that it's painfully obvious that the description of the church, the description of the worship of the church, this is for believers.

This is where the Word of God is proclaimed. This is where there is confession of sin. This is where there is profession of the gospel, rejoicing in the resurrection. This is where the saints are edified.

And look, one of the major problems in modern evangelicalism are starving sheep. Well, starving sheep combined with false sheep, people who think they're sheep because they shook a hand, who wouldn't understand the concept of repentance or hatred of sin, or have never mourned over a sin in their life, but they've got their ticket punched there.

They're all right with God because, you know, on Sundays they do some religious stuff and then the rest of the week you couldn't tell any difference between them and anybody else. Where does this come from?

Well, Finney and the revivalism of that time period led into this idea that, well, the church, this is what the church is supposed to be doing. And it's like, where do you get that from the New Testament?

And of course, once they're challenged enough times, eventually the response is going to be, we don't have to worry about what the New Testament says anyways. We've got freedom in Christ. We can do what we want.

And we're back to, once again, many of the issues that were hashed out long, long ago that unfortunately, it seems to me, many people have forgotten what was accomplished in the.

Past.

So, in fact, he observed that the church of Corinth had unbelievers attending the pastors today must be sure to conduct worship services in an orderly and explainable way so that unbelievers don't think you are out of your mind.

1 Corinthians 14, 22 -40. Well, there is that discussion of, and it's only in passing about the need for order in the church service in Corinth. But none of that changes the fact that the focus of that worship is the proclamation of the Word of God to believers, the formation of disciples, and the worship in truth of God through Jesus Christ by the saints.

That's what the church is. And very important. Dr. Moore believes that North Point is out of balance and has weighted too much toward evangelism. Well, I would just say it's completely lost any meaningful definition of what church is,.

Actually.

I actually can't verify if he's right about that, but he could be. The many messages of Andes that I've seen are nearly always biblical, insightful, and extremely practical. When you say biblical, what do you mean?

I don't want to have to compare things, but when you say biblical, there's one way of saying biblical. Well, they're not blatantly contradictory to the Bible, that makes it biblical. And then there's biblical in the sense of truly opening the Word of God and bringing the treasures of the Word of God to the people of God and calling them to a higher level of understanding and a love of the Bible and stuff like that.

That's a different kind of biblical. But whether or not North Point actually is successful at making disciples, I honestly cannot say. I think Stanley would say, well, we don't do that in the services.

We do that in small groups, which means it's not being done by elders or by people qualified to be elders. I'm not there, and discipleship is very difficult to measure in any church, especially a church of over 40 ,000.

While there certainly is room in the body of Christ for churches that lean one way or the other, every church must feed the sheep to some extent. To some extent? Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not mere believers.

Well, that's quite true, but this isn't an issue even of discipleship versus evangelism. Again, it's what's the church for? Where do you get this theology of church? That it's not the saints in the worship of God, it's the saints sitting by hoping that they dragged enough unbelievers in to get hit with a watered down, we want you to be comfortable in your lifestyle, gospel shot, hoping to be able to fellowship them in, friendship them in, and then over time in small groups, maybe, you know, it's this incrementalism that is so common today.

I think Dr. Moore is also correct that all pastors, particularly a pastor of Andy's influence, must qualify statements such as Andy's. We need to get the spotlight off the Bible. A comment like that without proper explanation can lead down a dangerous path, as Dr. Moore observed, and certainly going to cause some Christians to run for their pitchforks.

Just Google Russell Moore and Stanley to see the pitchforks for yourself. Well, I'm not sure what you mean by pitchforks. Given that you cannot define the resurrection, its meaning, or anything else outside of scripture, it's just simply an almost meaningless statement to make.

It's based upon false distinctions, as we'll see, so, you know, pitchfork, all right. Andy must go out of his way to explain exactly what he does and doesn't mean, and in his defense, the context of that comment was made at a conference designed to reach a culture of unbelievers, and a more complete quote was, we need to get the spotlight off the Bible and back on the resurrection because the issue for us is, who is Jesus that I don't care what the context was, because that statement is, again, incoherent.

You cannot, see, the interesting thing here is, if you believe this, the only light you're going to be able to shed on the resurrection is naturalistic light. Historical, materialistic, naturalistic light.

No supernatural light, which is what we need. And I really think that those of you who are defending Andy Stanley and are presenting this mere Christianity perspective in the minimalist argument, you need to understand, you cannot prove a supernatural resurrection from merely, mainly reliable, but sometimes not reliable, historical documents.

You have a serious epistemological category error here. Merely historical documents do not give you the foundation for an authoritative proclamation of a divine work of God. Do you understand why that doesn't work?

I realize it's going against your entire methodology, but theology determines apologetics, not the other way around. You've got to be willing to change your apologetic to fit a biblical theology. As I'll argue below, that comment can be defended in context, but extreme clarity is critical, especially when you're talking about something as important as the Bible.

Without that clarity, Dr. Moore is right to raise the red flag. Other similarly provocative statements by Andy Stanley have raised evangelical eyebrows, including my own, at least until I better understood the context.

Please understand that I don't always agree with Andy. I agree with about 95 of what he says. I don't even agree with myself that much. I also think Dr. Moore is correct about the need for pastors to address controversial moral issues from the pulpit.

That did come up. Stanley says he won't talk about abortion, that's something to be done in circles, not in rows, and things like that. Although he's protested at abortion clinics, Andy stated that he has never preached a message on abortion, referring that and topics such as same-sex marriage are left to small groups in the church, which means you'll never have alleged elders.

I don't know how seriously Northpointe takes the qualifications of elders and deacons or anything like that, but once you've got just small group leaders doing this, so much for the authority of those that are supposed to be in leadership.

Why would a pastor of unparalleled communication skills, Dr. Moore called them amazing, leave such delicate and important issues to small groups, issues that are literally life and death and cut to the heart of what people perceive to be roadblocks to Christianity?

I'm convinced that so many people stay away from Christianity and often destroy their lives because pastors fail to tactfully present the truth on these issues. Time out. Theology matters again. People stay away from Christianity because the Bible says they hate the light.

They may make excuses, but you need to understand the primary reason is because those who love darkness hate the light. That's Jesus's teaching. We've got to take this seriously. All this stuff about, well, they stay away from Christianity because pastors do this, I think, hey, I understand why a Stephen Anderson, the world looks at a Stephen Anderson, the guy does not in any way, shape, or form adorn the gospel by consistency or behavior, any of that kind of stuff.

I get that. But if you don't combine that, if you don't recognize that the reason the world loves to go after Stephen Anderson is not because Stephen Anderson really matters, look at the size of his church.

But because, and it's a small movement, thankfully, I mean, it's all divided. I mean, he and Sam Gipper sending each other crayons and stuff like that, whatever. The reason the world loves Stephen Anderson is because it gives them a further excuse for their rebellion against the light.

If you start with the idea that the lost person is a morally neutral individual and not a rebel against God and a hater of the things of God, you're never going to make any sense out of what the New Testament actually teaches on a consistent level.

You're going to always be engaged in subjugating a text over here, subjugating, you've got to put these down to make your system work and it's not going to work because you're not practicing both Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura.

If anyone could present tactfully and compassionately, it is Andy Stanley. Andy should take the lead on those issues instead of relying on less skilled and informed group leaders. Paul stated that he did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole will of God, Acts 20, verse 7.

Exactly. I mean, Acts 20 is, neither should Andy or any other pastor. Those are the tactical issues I think Dr. Moore got right. Now let's take a look at the more foundational theological issues that Dr. Moore gets wrong and Andy gets right.

Quoting Scripture Versus Reaching Unbelievers

What Dr. Moore gets wrong? Quoting the Bible is the only way to reach unbelievers. I've never heard anybody say that. There are a number of, I think, spins in this article and we'll note them. I think Dr. Moore is mistaken for suggesting the only way to engage unbelievers is by quoting.

Scripture.

I didn't hear Dr. Moore say that. What I heard Dr. Moore saying is that if we're going to present an authoritative message to the world, the only authoritative message we've been given is the thus saith the Lord.

Of Scripture.

And for Andy Stanley to say, well, I don't like saying that because, you know, it bothers people today. What I want to say is, well, you know, James, James is a cool dude. You would have liked James. And James said this.

What that's done is that has removed James from being an inspired author into being somebody that you should listen to because you would have liked him. Or he was a cool dude or he was Jesus' brother.

So why don't you listen to what he has to say? As if that's somehow going to get the unbeliever past their prejudice against the authoritative proclamation of the Word of God. It's not going to.

It's a trick.

It's a trick that shows a fundamental lack of confidence in the Holy Spirit of God to do what the Holy Spirit of God says he's going to do when the Word is faithfully preached. He argued that Andy's apologetic approach is not biblical because Jesus quoted Scripture to people and said, thus saith the Lord.

It is true that Jesus did quote Scripture with folks who already accepted the authority of the Old Testament. Time out. Yes, he did. But he also said that they weren't believing it. So they were only hypocritically.

In fact, they weren't actually accepting that authority. They were overthrowing that authority with their own religious traditions. But here's where the minimalists are going to come in and say, ah, ah, ah, here's what you need to see, is that we get to do things differently than the apostles because we live in a different day.

They didn't live among secularists. So we need to do things differently. And once again, there is a line to be drawn. There is truth and error to be seen. There is no question that we have to make application of the gospel in a correct way.

In a context that the apostles did not live in. They did not live among secular humanists. They did not live in an atheistic culture. All sorts of things like that. But what the church has always believed as the gospel has gone out into all sorts of different cultures that differed in foundational ways from the way that the apostles, from the culture of the apostles encountered, is that you take divine revelation and you make application to whatever culture it is, recognizing that in any culture, every man, woman, and child is made in the image of God.

You do not alter the message so as to please the culture. There will always be that clash between whatever that culture is, because the culture is in rebellion against God and will have many cultural norms that are in rebellion against God.

There will always be that clash between the gospel and culture. It is necessary. It is the very essence of what is offensive about the gospel and necessarily offensive against the unbeliever in his autonomous rebellion against God.

Very, very important. But when he spoke to unbelievers, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, Pilate, and the thief on the cross, Jesus was not firing Bible verses at them while assuming the authority of Scripture.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did Jesus say a word in any of those encounters where the assumption of the authority of Scripture was not there? The woman at the well, you really don't hear the echoes of the entire Jewish Samaritan conversation all through that?

Of course it's there. Of course it's there. Thief on the cross, this is the discussion? Today you will be with me in paradise is a sufficiently long thing to... Rich young ruler? What do you mean? It was all about Scripture.

The only one here that could even get close is Pilate. And they weren't... What do you expect him to quote? I mean, he says, my kingdom is not of this world. He who is of me, he who is of the truth. Here's my voice.

But what in any of these? Was there some place in talking to Pilate you think he should have quoted some type.

Of Scripture or something?

Wow, Jesus wasn't firing Bible verses at them while assuming the authority of Scripture. Did a Christian apologist just say that Jesus acted without assuming the authority of Scripture? Frank, really?

Major failure on that one. I mean, wow. I would not want to have to try to defend that one in a debate, would you? Likewise, Paul didn't assume the authority of Scripture or quote from it when speaking to the Athenians, but attempted to find common ground with them, even quoting their own poets and recognize their unknown God beliefs in order to connect them with the true God and the truth of the resurrection.

Okay, timeout again. I thought I was going to think... I thought about doing this and I forgot to do it. Incredible discussion that I read years and years ago in seminary. I actually know exactly what shelf these books are on.

I was going to get that out and maybe put a few marks in there and read a few things to you from somebody other than myself. It is very common for the evidentialists and the minimalists to, I think, misunderstand Acts chapter 17.

While Paul does draw from what he sees around him, what did he end up doing? Did he grant to the Athenians validity in their traditions or did he simply take the context he was in, demonstrate, I know what you believe, but then knowing full well that he was about to do what they would find not only absolutely offensive, but absolutely.

Foolish.

Like an arrow, he went straight to what he knew they would never accept. He didn't say after quoting a few philosophers, and I understand where you all are coming.

From.

You know, we've got some small groups over at Jason's house. Why don't you give Jesus a try? We won't say anything more about Jesus right now, but maybe you could. We're planning on having one of the best Greek liar players next Sunday in our gathering.

Why don't you come along for a free concert? And we'll promise no prayers. We won't Jesus anything up, but you all come along. And then was his idea to sort of get the Athenians to come along and go, hey, these Christians are pretty cool cats, you know, and then get them into small groups.

And then somewhere down the line, somewhere down the line, once you've got some friendships developed, then you're going to, in a really nice way and a really non-offensive way, you're going to talk about God's going to judge the world.

And he's going to judge the world for their sins, and he's going to judge them by a man, Christ Jesus, who rose from the dead. Oh, rose from the dead, rose from the dead.

Got to turn it off.

Rose from the dead. See, he automatically knows that as soon as he says that, game over.

Is that how he did it?

No, he went straight to it. First shot.

Straight to it.

First shot. So if you think that Act 17 is sort of a defense of the incrementalist, you know, let's get all this common ground stuff going. He wasn't finding common. He wasn't saying that there is common ground between the rebel and someone else.

That's totally against his theology. His theology is that God made everything. Jesus Christ made everything. What's the neutral ground? See, I'm sorry, Frank, you guys. I pointed this out at SES, and I just don't believe I got a meaningful answer.

There is no other point of contact other than the biblical teaching that man is created in the image of God. There just isn't any point. There is no neutral ground. There is no common ground in that sense.

The only commonality is our creatureliness, and the very idea of creatureliness presupposes suppression of truth, all of Romans 1, everything else. I agree with Dr. Moore that quoting Scripture is effective to bring some unbelievers to Christ, with the work of the Holy Spirit, of course, but that it's not the only way.

Some unbelievers have intellectual objections and often resist the Spirit until they get answers. Theology matters. Theology matters. What did Peter say? Born again by the Word of God. That's the only way you're born again.

No, it is the only way you're born again. No one has ever been born again outside of the powerful ministration of the Word of God, which works within you. Read 1 Thessalonians. Read 1 and 2 Peter. Word and Spirit.

This stuff was settled a long time ago. Unfortunately, when people ask, is the Reformation over? The real response should be, no, we need another one. Because the vast majority of people who are not Roman Catholic are not children of the Reformation.

They're not. This was the definition of the Church in regards to the ordinances of the Church, which was settled a long time ago. Not anymore. The relationship of Scripture, Spirit of God, together as the single only power by which the human heart can be changed.

Settled a long time ago.

Not anymore.

Now we have intellectual objections and they often resist the Spirit until they get answers because they are all powerful. The spiritually dead sinner. All powerful. Spirit can't do anything about that.

Well, that's what it says in Acts 7. Don't give me the Acts 7 stuff. How about reading the specific teachings, the didactic texts that talk about the Spirit of God's ability to bring us to spiritual life, to resurrect us, to raise us to spiritual life?

How about we look at Romans 8? Work through some of those texts. Just that it's not the only way. So there is a way outside of Scripture and evidently outside of the powerful working of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit can be resisted.

Intellectual objections must be dealt with. Now, see, as soon as people hear me say, I go, oh, you don't believe in answering intellectual objections. No, I do. I just recognize that if I answer a rebel sinner's intellectual objections and they do not have the gospel and do not have the Spirit of God working upon them, all I've done is increase their number.

God, do you realize that's what you're doing? If you simply answer the intellectual objection without the rest of it, all you're doing is making them all the more guilty and turn up the heat on hell for them.

Good job. I hadn't thought about that, huh? A lot of you haven't. The only reason to apologetics is to bring the gospel. If someone has an intellectual objection rooted in, see, the idea here is that people can have, since they're morally neutral creatures, they're not rebel sinners, that we can separate out their rebellion from the mind.

And that's why, you know, I'm not going to do it again. Not now. But can I remind you of Romans 1? Can I remind you of what it says? Their foolish hearts were darkened. Their dialogus moist. Their speculations became empty, futile.

It is futile for the pot to bring up arguments against the potter. There is a fundamental incoherence in this. And so, answering intellectual objections. You mean you never talk with somebody about theodicy?