Apologetics 101 (part 3)

The Clash Between Secular Humanism and a Biblical Worldview

On force, but Jesus did it on love. And even today, millions would die for him.

That's what I'm saying.

That's a good quote.

Somebody mind just opening quickly in prayer for us?

Thank you, Tom.

Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the scholars that study and for presenting us with these challenges of having a biblical worldview and to be able to have a defense for our faith at any term.

And we thank you for bringing those people into our lives that we can present with the gospel. We pray that we would absorb the information and material that Jeff presents and that it may go to your glory.

Amen.

Last week, we took almost an entire class on secular humanism because the main challenge that we're facing is the secular humanist. I use that kind of as a broad category. For those who have a different worldview that begins with themselves at the center, the idea of humanism is that mankind is at the center.

And therefore, mankind is an independent knower and even can create truth in this postmodern world that we live in. The idea is that a person can generate their own truth. Truth is really just relative to what you think and what you believe.

And that really is the primary worldview of America today. Even in a country that calls itself Christian, if you really get down to the issue of epistemology, how do you know? Most people form their opinions and their beliefs by empiricism and rationalism, by what they experience and by how they think, their own logic.

So that places themselves at the center. Whereas as Christians, we have the opposite epistemology. For us, all knowledge comes from the word of God. That's the bedrock for us. That's our way of knowing.

So there's something outside of the box that can't be seen. And that's beyond our rationality because our rationality is limited and that's the authority for us. So even in areas where we don't understand and we're trying to gain clarity or we're not quite sure why this is so, we accept it as our presupposition.

That's our starting point. So there's really a clash of worldviews in America today, isn't it? There's those who believe in the Bible and those who don't. And the value system that comes from that postmodern humanism is such that there's anger towards Christians because what we're saying is we do know.

We have certainty. And the whole epistemology of the postmodern worldview is that you can't know anything. Everybody has their own position but none are absolutely true. There's no absolute truth. There's only your truth.

So the one thing they can't stomach is a Christian saying we know. And by know we mean with certainty. It's a revelation from beyond us therefore it comes from God and it's 100 certain. And that's the claim that we make that Jesus in fact is God.

Not that I just think he is or my experience leads me to say that he is but we say that he is. I am who I am, right? So we live by the word of God. So we spent that last week. Yes, Stan.

This would be a great class to do with me down to the prison ministry on Thursday night. You get to hear both sides. The non-Christian and the Christian. And we had a major debate just what we're talking about here.

One guy doesn't believe. And it wasn't me but other prisoners stood up and they said you know. You know deep down in that there is a God.

Right?

You're suppressing it saying it's not.

That's the key.

But this was an argument. I was thinking of our class when we were down there. That there's two arguments and for all of us to be there at least to hear. You hear the arguments.

Right.

Both sides.

Yep.

On the apologetics and those who don't want to believe.

Right.

So with Romans 1 people are suppressing the truth. That's the starting point for us in our apologetics. I advocate for a presuppositional approach to apologetics. Which means that you don't assume that a person is being rational.

Or even rationalism itself comes from God. So the Bible you presuppose the Bible is true and then defend it for its consistency. For the world view and the fruit that it produces. But you don't grant a person the common ground of rationality.

What I mean by that. Somebody says you know begins to argue against the Bible or against anything. They begin to use logic. They begin to use rationality. To right away show that rationality itself presupposes that there's a God.

They say well you're wrong to protest this abortion clinic or to protest and to call out to these women. You say well on what grounds do you say that I'm wrong. How can you say under your world view that there is any right or wrong.

Because morality itself has to come from something higher than us. So that's the presuppositional approach is to drive right at the presupposition that's underneath it all. So I think that's really helpful.

We saw an example of that last week with Jeff Durbin. And I'd encourage you to look more into presuppositional apologetics. Okay so if this is the case. If we live in a postmodern world. Still modern.

Most people still operate by a certain level of modernity right. That there is cause and effect. There are absolutes. They live by that. But in their philosophy there's more and more postmodernism entering it.

By that I mean relativism. That all things are relative. That nothing's certain. There is no absolute truth. How then do you address someone who's becoming postmodern. Still has modernism. But this is the general world view of the people around us.

What apologetic would be helpful? We talked about three things last week. Three things that would be helpful. Do you remember anything that. The first one.

Bible.

Yes well that's always the core for us. We always make our arguments from the scriptures.

Take them to their own level of ludicrous.

Yes beautiful. I like the way you said it. Proverbs 26 four and five says. Answer a fool according to their folly. Go down that road with them for a while to show them. You saw in the first video we watched.

It's called evolution. What the evolution. What was that first.

Delusion.

Delusion right. The evolution delusion. Ray Comfort was talking to that man out on the pier. And he says well what's the meaning of life. And he says well do you want to die. And he said yes I want to die.

You know he led him down that road to show. There is no life in your world view. This is the nihilism that your world view leads to. Bring them down that road and then say but wait. There is a God. Who speaks into the world.

So that was one thing we talked about. What was another thing. Before getting to the cross. Which is important and you have to get there. Talk about Jesus as revelation from God. That God has in Christ come into the world.

And brought light. That the light has come into the world. And exposes the darkness. So talk about Jesus as a revelation from God. And compare that to whatever their revelation is. Are they listening to Richard Dawkins.

Why should I trust you. Why should I trust Richard Dawkins. I listen to Jesus. So show that Jesus is greater than. Whatever their source is.

Okay.

And then what else did we say. I forget kind of what the last one was. But we talked about just the Bible I guess being. The core of everything that we preach. And just going back to the scriptures.

Today.

So moving on we'll leave that behind from last week. That's kind of the main idea that we wanted to take from this class. The two schools of apologetics. The secular humanist being kind of the main area of attack.

Mormonism and the Claims of Joseph Smith

That's going to come at us. What is apologetics again? The defense of the gospel. So it's a little different than evangelism. It can be used in evangelism. When you're under attack. But evangelism is more proclaiming Christ.

And preaching the gospel. So the defense. So that's what apologetics is. So humanism will be the biggest one that we face. But there's many others. So today I wanted to do something a little different.

Instead of just teaching through the notes. Because there really wouldn't be time to do justice to any one of these cults or religions. Let's just look through for a moment. And make this more of a conversation.

Is there anybody here that has had encounters with one of these groups. That's had an apologetic encounter that we could talk about. And we'll just kind of pick and choose.

A few of these to go through.

And if there's time, I'll touch on some.

Well, I went with you to the Mormon picnic.

Yeah, so what did you learn from that? What were some of the things? Let's do Mormonism first. That's, I have some bullet points for Mormonism. It's 4 .4.

The approach at that picnic was to allow the speaker. I was taken aside by their chief teaching elder.

Yeah.

And he made a presentation to me. And allowing him to make his presentation until he finally had something on his screen that screamed contradiction to what they had to say.

Right.

And then agreeing that he's got all this great stuff. Can you please explain to me deeper what it is you had to say? And allow his own words to show the contradiction.

Yeah.

In this particular one, he said, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And I said, this is amazing. I totally agree with you. But what do you mean by Jesus Christ is Lord?

And that's where he flat out could not explain what he meant.

Yeah.

So are you saying it's okay to have a conversation, a respectful conversation where you actually listen?

I think it's mandatory.

Yeah.

You don't just have to preach right away. And that's not showing agreement just because you're listening and you're being respectful, right? It's not fellowship. Right, it's not fellowship, right. Yeah, you're not saying that, hey, we're all just on the same side.

But you can be respectful. You can be gentle. Remember 1 Peter 3 .15? And John, you did a great job with that. And then I noticed at the end of that, all of a sudden somebody asked you to share your story.

Well, and right then the two Mormon missionaries walked up behind you and listened to your...

What happened was we were drinking for lunch and I asked the gentleman, give me your testimony. He said, well, what do you mean? I said, whatever you feel it means, just give me your testimony. And I allowed him to talk and I engaged in his discussion.

Right.

I gave value to his discussion. And so when he was done, he had really no choice but to ask me for mine.

Oh, yeah.

And then he really didn't have a place to shut me down because I engaged in his. And at that point in time, two young ladies, missionary, Mormon missionaries, walked up and they had no choice but to listen to my testimony because I gave them the respect.

She's repented.

That's right.

Yeah. Wonderful.

Okay, so with regard to Mormonism, let me just give you a few bullet points that things that are very helpful to know ahead of time. One time I was on a plane flying and a Mormon sat next to me and we talked the whole time.

I was very young in the faith and I did not understand what the difference was. And I was just, it was a very ineffectual conversation because all I could say was, well, that sounds a lot like what I believe.

I knew that Mormonism was wrong because I had heard that, but I had never studied enough of what they say and what they write to really know the difference. So here's a couple of points to recognize. In 1844, June of 1844, just a few months before Joseph Smith died, he preached a funeral for this man whose name was Elder King Follett.

Mr. Follett died and he went and preached. And that sermon is written and recorded. And one of the things that he says in that sermon is that, he says, you suppose that God has always been God. I will refute that idea.

And he goes on to say, God the father had a father who also had a father. So this is the view of the Mormon, an eternal regression such that there is no end of gods who generate gods. So Mormonism actually is not even a monotheistic religion.

It's polytheism. So God the father was once a man on a planet called Kolob, and he probably died and rose like Jesus did on this planet, but exalted to the level of godhood and came and created this world that we now live in.

See the difference? So they'll say Jesus is Lord, but the Jesus they believe in is actually the spirit brother of Lucifer. Because God the father created, his first born was Jesus, his second born was Lucifer.

Guess what? All of us in a pre-existence are the 6 ,542 ,000 born and all the way down the line, all the people were created in a pre-existence. Some rebelled and followed Lucifer and those are fallen angels.

The rest of us got to come to this world to be exalted. So just as the father exalted to become God, so we can become God. Look at this saying, which is a couplet by one of their prophets. See Joseph Smith was the prophet, the president of the church.

After he died, another one comes along. Lorenzo Snow puts it this way. As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become. God is an exalted being who became God. And you, if you have the priesthood, first of all, the Levitical priesthood, which is a lower one, but then when they go on their Mormon missions, they become Melchizedek priests.

If they then keep all the temple rituals and all the works that they have to do, which includes going into the temple to do secret rites and also baptisms for the dead in the basement, giving certain handshakes, having certain key words to say to the sentinels who stand guard, they then can make it to the celestial kingdom.

And in the celestial kingdom, they can become gods. And father children with their eternal wives, it's an eternal marriage situation. They go and create spirit children for a new world.

That they are gods over.

Just like God is God over this earth. That's actually Mormonism from their sources.

Do you really believe in the hell?

Not per se, there's really three levels. The celestial, which is the highest kingdom, the telestial, which is Joseph Smith taking terrestrial and celestial and combining them, which is a middle kingdom, and the bottom level, which is terrestrial.

So they would think that all of us are probably just gonna go to the middle, the telestial.

But no hell.

But we won't make it to the celestial. And no, hell is only for apostate Mormons. And that's pretty much it. That's pretty much the only way you can get there, to apostatize from Mormons. So that's a few things about Mormonism.

We've talked about the temple where they do their secret rites. It's a work system. The priesthood, they believe that they have the keys of authority that were lost. The major books are the Book of Mormon.

You guys are familiar with that. But they also have two other ones that came a little bit later. The Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants.

The importance to that is they will accept the Bible. But they believe that the Bible has been contaminated. So the Bible is the lowest level of authority. If the Book of Mormon has something different than the Bible, the Book of Morning takes precedence.

And if the Pearl of Great Wisdom is stronger than the Book of Mormon, and then if the Covenants and Doctrines are, and then finally on top is latest revelations from their prophet, which can supersede everything.

So just because they read something in the Bible and it has to be King James, doesn't mean they'll accept it because they may have had later things that superseded.

Are there prophets living gods? How do they, what do they consider?

No, they're not yet.

They're spokespeople for God. God, yeah.

You mentioned the King James Version. As you're reading through the Book of Mormon, which I've done at one point, you start to notice, this starts to sound familiar. Somewhere, I think it's in first or second Nephi, you get 18 straight chapters of word for word King James Book of Isaiah.

Just straight plagiarism, complete with all of the same errors and anachronisms that you wouldn't expect to be. Where they were based on the Book of Mormon is supposed to be America. This, our land, settled by some Hebrews that had sailed across in these barges and made it to the new world and settled.

And these are the American Indians. They're truly descendants from Israel. So that's kind of the view of how they fought each other. There were two parties and the evil ones overcame the good ones and killed off the last one.

But before the last one died, he buried these golden plates in the Hill Cumorah up in upstate New York. And that's what Joseph Smith later discovers. So it's the record of these ancient people and how Jesus actually came to visit America after he finished his work in Jerusalem.

So that's the message of the Book of Mormon.

It's another Testament of Jesus Christ, but of course it's fallacious and completely contradictory to the scripture.

So where are those golden plates?

Yeah, well, the funny thing is he said he ran with them, which, and he was chased and everything. There were hundreds of pounds if you had that much gold. But he said that the angel took them back, eventually.

But he has all these witnesses that supposedly saw them. And then later, many of those witnesses said, well, we never actually saw them, but we did see them with spiritual eyes. That's in 1836. So seven years after the publishing of the book, many of these people leave the Mormon faith and say, well, we never actually saw them.

They still testify that they believe it's true, but they saw it with spiritual eyes. A little different kind of seeing there. Okay, so Mormonism. Let's talk just another couple minutes about Mormonism.

Has anybody had a conversation with a Mormon about their faith? Or do you know a Mormon? Do you work with a Mormon? Somebody in our church works with Mormons all the time. That's his main business partners.

So anybody? Not a lot in New Jersey.

You have?

I have a friend, old friend, went to college. What's funny is, before she left, I gave her a Bible to take with her, hoping. And then, I guess, through the years of indoctrination at, she went to Brigham Young?

Yeah.

And she eventually went from Catholicism to thinking that Mormon was the right way. And even in recent writings on Facebook and all, she says, you know, I can't wait one day when we'll all be together and like, ah.

Yeah.

The thing that makes it, one of the things that makes it so appealing is, from the exterior, they're good people.

Right.

They do good things. And so, for somebody who has no clue of the fallacies in it, it just sounds good.

Right?

And are they family oriented?

Oh yeah.

That's the big appeal.

Did they outlaw polygamy? I don't know.

Yeah, they reversed it in the 1890s. So, the main church, which is the one based out of Salt Lake City, no longer does it. Although, they still believe in eternal polygamy. But that's not for this world any longer.

But there are branches, there's sects that broke off from the main that still practice polygamy.

Did you ever hear about Warren and Jeffs?

Yeah, he was one of the fundamentalists, yeah.

And supposedly, he was convicted of child molestation?

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, Joseph Smith, I mean, of his 31 brides, some of them were as young as 13. And in one case, there was two sisters. So, I mean, yeah. They're just getting it from the main guy. All right, so let's move on to another encounter that you might have had apologetically.

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Deity of Christ

Anybody had a conversation or talks from someone of a different religion, different worldview, listed here that we could talk about?

From the Jehovah's, I had encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses.

Okay.

They tried to convince me that Jesus Christ was a God. And I told them, there's no indefinite article in Greek.

Right.

Jesus was God.

Right.

Yep, so you're talking about John 1 .1? Okay, let's talk just for a few minutes about Jehovah's Witness. How many of you had Jehovah's Witness knock on your door? All of us, right? How many of you have actually had conversations with them?

Great.

Anybody just slam the door right in their face?

Yeah.

You've been tempted to do it at least, but. I always just love when the Jehovah's Witness come around. Remember Andrew Rappaport's story about how he got blacklisted? Last year at the apologetics conference, he used to just go out and talk to them and follow them around to the neighbor's house and just have these long conversations to the point where they stopped coming.

But it's fun to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses. I think apologetics is fun in general. What is the core difference, or what is the Jehovah's Witness faith?

They believe, well, number one, that Jesus isn't God. There you go. And that there are only 144 ,000 that can attain salvation. I don't know if they still believe that.

Yeah, well, they have that highest rank. Because now there are millions. So that doesn't work as well nowadays. But okay, so the main idea is Arianism.

Right.

So back in the day, Athanasius versus Arius. Athanasius preaching the Trinity, teaching that God has eternally existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then Arius, back in the 300s, saying no, Jesus is a creation from the Father.

Homo eus eos, not homo eus eos.

Okay, yeah.

So the difference there, there was an argument over one iota. One iota. Of same substance or of like substance. So Athanasius was saying, Jesus is the same substance as the Father. He is the one true God.

But Arius was saying, he's like God. He's similar. He comes from God as a creation from God. So God, the Father, made a God.

To be a God.

So that's where you get that indefinite article.

A God.

Whose witness is a rebirth of Arianism.

That's exactly what I'm saying, yeah. So this is in the 1800s, no, 1900s. Partway through, kind of during the flames of the second great awakening, and you have all these cults being born. Same time as Mormonism.

This one springs up. It's just a rebirth of Arianism. It's much simpler. Mormonism is much more interesting to study. When you get to see all of the layers of belief that they have and how they came to it, and their history, very interesting.

Jehovah's Witnesses is just straight old Arianism. Jesus, is he God? No, he's a God. In fact, they'll say he's Michael the Archangel. Wherever you've seen Michael referred to, that's that same created being that came from God, who then was sent to die for people, which wouldn't make sense for a created being.

God himself would have to bear the punishment of sin. God would have to come and take our sin away. He can't create a being to punish in the place of mankind. But, so that's Jehovah's Witness theology.

Yeah.

Did they believe in a Holy Spirit,.

Or is that kind of just a side? Yeah, it's not a personal spirit. So, it's more of the working of God, the energy of God, you know, his extending up, but not a person. Of course, the scriptures refer to the Holy Spirit as he.

John 14 to 16, he talks about when, Jesus says, when I go, I will send him a comforter. He's the advocate. He will lead you into all truth. So, the scriptures present the Holy Spirit as a person.

And he can be quenched, he can be grieved.

Yeah, he has emotion, he has will.

A force came.

Yeah, all these ministries that he does, it's all personal. But the Jehovah's Witnesses say no on that. Let me just share a couple things that I've found helpful in talking to Jehovah's Witnesses that they haven't really been good at answering.

One is, of course, their key verse is Isaiah 43, 10, where Jehovah is speaking, and he says that, you are my witnesses, and that there is no God, but the one God, essentially. But the same language that you have in all from, this is the trial of false gods in Isaiah 40 to 48.

Jesus picks up on that same language where God says, I am who I am, and in the book of John, calls himself the I Am. So, the I Am statements of Jesus in the book of John, just go and press them. They usually can answer several of them because they've been trained in that.

But when you begin to hit them with all 10 or 11 I Am statements, and then break down what he's saying there, for example, John 8, 58, make note of that. Before Abraham was born, I Am.

And the Pharisees wanted to stone him because of that.

And the reaction of the Pharisees shows they understood what he was saying. He's making himself equal with God. He's claiming to be I Am. That goes back to Exodus 3, 14, remember that? When Moses is at the burning bush, and God speaks, and Moses says, who are you?

Who should I say sent me to Egypt to let my people go? God says, I am who I am. So, that name of God from which we get Yahweh, and Jehovah's just a transliteration of Yahweh. So, those statements that Jesus then applies to himself are amazing.

Hebrews chapter one also has the same thing, where Yahweh is addressed. At the end of Hebrews chapter one, the author of Hebrews then applies that to Jesus, not to the Father. And Hebrews 1, 8, you have, oh God, Jesus is referred to as God, and then the Father is referred to as God.

So, both are called God in that text. Of course, John 1, 1 is where the debate always starts,.

Right?

Because they'll show you, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was a God. Now, if you just look at the Greek, and you're not a student of Greek, they might be able to convince you that there shouldn't be a definite article there.

But, you know, if you really, there's a grand old sharp construction there, you don't need to get into all that. What I found to be the best thing to do, is to say that, all right, let's keep reading the prologue to John.

And when you get to the last verse of the prologue to John, verse 18, the same construction happens, referring to the Father. So, unless you're going to call the Father a God, then you need to be consistent and say that this is calling the Son God.

So, John 1 is a good place to go. We'll have to spend more time on that to really sharpen up. But, Hebrews 1, John 1, Isaiah 43, 10, and then learn the I am statements of Jesus, if you really want to go there with them.

Or, the other option, just slam the door in their face.

I said, remember that I just told them they had the wrong study tools.

Yeah, that's true, yeah.

I said, you're wrong, you have the wrong tools.

Exactly, yeah.

The New World Translation is just, it's a mockery of Greek scholarship. It wasn't done by Greek scholars, it's done by people who want to read in their theology to the text.

I said, we're born again Christians, and we believe what the Bible says about the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. The biggest thing is left.

Nothing left to say.

Just slam the door in our face.

Yeah.

But, they're not going to have an argument.

Yeah.

Shoot, they're going to be like.

Yeah.

We're out of here. Okay, let's talk about another one. Which other one of these should we spend a few minutes on?

Seventh-Day Adventism, Ellen White, and the Investigative Judgment

Another question, what is Seventh Day Adventistism? Oh, this is so interesting.

Okay, so Seventh Day Adventism. Once again, restoration movement of the 1840s around there. A man named William Miller pops up and prophesies that Jesus is coming back in 1844. When he doesn't come back in 1844, William Miller just descends into obscurity.

You'd think this thing is over, right? This big movement, you know, all these tracks and publications. Jesus is coming back. You'd think it's over.

Ellen White.

But no, years later, I think 1860s, along comes Ellen White. And she says, oh no, no, William Miller was right. Jesus came back in 1844, only he didn't come back in the body. He stepped from the outer temple in the heavenlies into the inner, holy of holies, in order to now begin his investigative judgment.

And so now he's in a different place. He's come back in a spiritual sense, and now he's giving this investigative judgment. So Ellen White becomes the authority and the lens that they use to interpret the scriptures.

But once again, it's an apocalyptic,.

Into the world movement.

That's based on the writings of Ellen White and her followers. So that then grows. And to this day, it's a huge movement. I mean, did you know that we almost had a Seventh-day Adventist president?

Ben Carson.

Is he a Seventh-day Adventist?

Absolutely, he's a Seventh-day Adventist.

I thought he was a Christian. I mean, I thought he was a ponderer.

Some of the Seventh-day Adventists have moved a little away from their doctrine, so you don't know where he personally stands. I love Ben Carson, in terms of how he's teaching everything, but, and his worldview and what he stands for.

But, he's never said he's rejected any of those teachings. He's never renounced Ellen White. You know, he still identifies himself as a Seventh-day Adventist, so, yeah. Yep, so it's a lens. Some of the problems with Seventh-day Adventism, to be careful with, is, number one, is this devotion to Ellen White.

I think a false prophetess, I think anybody who's devoted to a false prophetess is in danger. So you could still be saved if you're a Seventh-day Adventist if you're holding to the doctrines of grace, you know, of Christ and Him dying and rising, but there's danger down that road when you're following Ellen White, and she becomes the lens through which they read everything.

So, it skews all of their reading. They read her so often.

That's one thing.