The Defense of Christianity

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the why of apologetics, the why of the defense of the faith, ought to be wrapped up in that whole story of the gospel, of the good news going out into the world.

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Remember that Jesus says He has all authority in heaven and on earth. And I think something we struggle with as Christians, as evangelicals, as believers in the

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West, whether in the United States or whether in Australia, I think we struggle with something fundamental.

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We, I think, often say, yes, Jesus has all authority. He is on His throne.

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He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He has all authority. And we say, yes,

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He has all authority in heaven. He reigns there. Jesus reigns sort of over Neverland.

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No question. It's an unquestioned authority there. He's the boss there. He's in charge there. It's that second part where Jesus says all authority in heaven and where?

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On earth. And remember that as the great commission passage that charter passage of gospel proclamation in the world, as that passage is before us,

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Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. The goal therefore is there for the reason that He has all authority.

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And remember that this story of the Messiah includes the gathering of the nations, men from every tribe, people, language, men and women, children from all over the world being drawn up to the mountain of God under the rule of Jesus Christ.

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The nations coming to God. How do they come to God? It is not through looking at your life.

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Not sure if it's a popular saying here, but it's kicked about a little bit in the United States. People say, preach the gospel if necessary, what?

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Oh, it's gotten here too. Good, okay. Preach the gospel if necessary, use words.

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One of the stupidest things imaginable. That's, as people have said before, that's like saying, feed the poor, if necessary, use food.

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It doesn't work. The gospel is the power of God for salvation as this is fulfilled, as the nations are brought to God, as they are discipled, they are discipled through the proclamation of the gospel.

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And remember that in the story of Scripture, in the context of the world that we live in, we know that there is one true and living

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God. He is holy, he is righteous, he is just, he is loving, he is all -knowing, he is powerful, he is triune.

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And the Bible says that God is righteous and we are not, he is good and we are not. And the Bible displays our position before God as one of hostility.

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Remember the story in Scripture, Romans chapter five, Paul says that all of humanity is wrapped up in one of two representatives.

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You either are in Adam, Paul says, covenantally linked to God in Adam, or you are in Christ, one of two representatives.

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And so all of humanity, according to the apostle Paul, is in Adam, therefore dead, condemned in Adam, or you are in Christ, given the gift of eternal life and righteousness, raised to life in Jesus Christ, and you are redeemed.

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So we have categories in Scripture presented before us as we go forth to bring the gospel to the nations, to bring them to God, to disciple them, to teach them to obey.

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We have something before us, we have people who are hostile to God, Romans chapter one. Enemies of God, the

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Bible teaches. Ephesians chapter two, by nature, children of wrath, dead in our sins and trespasses.

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We are, Paul says, helpless, sinners, ungodly. That's the context of the world that we live in.

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And so when we go to actually bring the gospel forth to the nations and to disciple the nations, to teach them to obey, we face a world that is hostile to the message of the gospel.

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Nobody is neutral towards God, and so why apologetics? Apologetics is ultimately wrapped up in the call to evangelism.

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As we preach the gospel to the world, we face a world that is hostile to the message of the gospel. And so there are arguments brought against the gospel, arguments against the message of Jesus, and ultimately,

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I want to say that apologetics should be, ought to be, to the glory of God.

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It's not ultimately about piecemeal replies to unbelievers. It's not, of course, to satisfy our own pride.

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It is not simply to win, it's not simply to win arguments, it is to win men and women. And it is ultimately to bring glory to Jesus Christ, to cast down every argument that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

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That's the why of apologetics. And here's, I think, hopefully, something that encourages you with hope in terms of what we just sang.

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You just said it. And I have to confess something, as a Christian, I oftentimes get mellow -headed.

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I let big things pass me by. I sing things in worship at times that I question whether I actually believe.

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His kingdom is forever. He is mighty. He's a mighty fortress. He can fell the enemy with a single word.

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Remember that God's promises to Abraham, you will have descendants as numerous as the what?

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As the stars, that's a lot of stars. And I can imagine that when God told Abraham that promise, there wasn't a lot of light pollution to really cast out, really, the beauty of all those stars.

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But if you've ever been on a cruise in the ocean, or you've been out into the middle of the desert for me, and I don't know, what do you call it?

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The outback, right? You guys are nuts, by the way. I would never go there. You're crazy. Dangerous.

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This land does not want you here. Is that obvious to you yet? Remember, as you go forth to bring the gospel, the promise to Abraham is descendants as numerous as the stars.

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Now, I don't care what your eschatology is. You have to at least hang on to those promises and that hope of what God is doing in the world to redeem.

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Remember that this beautiful promise we have at, well, I'll just give

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Psalm chapter two. We could go all day with this, but this is the why. Psalm chapter two, the Father says to the Son. Powerful passage.

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You ought to spend some time in it. Psalm chapter two, the Father says to the Son, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession.

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And then God warns the kings of the earth. He says, obey the Son or you'll perish. How's that for boldness?

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How's Isaiah nine, six through seven for boldness and hope for evangelism and missions, a life of risky missionary sacrifice?

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Wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the Father of eternity. What's it say? Of the increase of His government and of peace, there will be no end.

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And if you feel like me, you feel not very mighty, maybe you feel like you're not very intellectual, not very bold, maybe you've failed in many ways in your call to be a missionary to the world and preach the gospel to the world.

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You feel like, I don't know how I could do this. I don't know how I could accomplish this. And remember that in Isaiah nine, six through seven, it said it is the zeal of the

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Lord of hosts that will accomplish this. You have hope in the gospel, brothers and sisters, but remember, as you proclaim the gospel with boldness, there comes conflict.

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And I wanna just point you to a single passage just quickly, Isaiah nine. You can read the whole thing later.

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It's the story of the apostle Paul. He says that he persecuted the church of God in Galatians. He says that he wanted to destroy it.

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He tried to destroy it. He's on his way to go and destroy the church. Jesus, the

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Lord of glory, knocks him off his high horse, opens his eyes to the truth. And what does it say he does?

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It says that he immediately goes into Damascus and does what? He goes into Damascus and he says, hey guys, y 'all wanna have your best life now?

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No. He goes into Damascus and says, who wants to try Jesus? He goes into Damascus and says, give

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Jesus a 30 -day trial. Like Rick Warren said on Fox News at Christmas a couple years ago.

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Is that the message? Is that how the apostles turned the world upside down? With a message of try

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Jesus, give him a chance, give him a sampling? There's a bumper sticker in America.

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I hope it hasn't, we ship lots of garbage to you guys. I hope this hasn't been shipped yet. There's a bumper sticker in America and it says, give

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Jesus a chance. He died for the opportunity. Right.

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Every time I see that bumper sticker, I have to work on my sanctification. That is not how the gospel went forth in the first century.

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That's not how the apostles turned the world upside down. It says that when Paul went, he went to the synagogue and what did he do?

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He argued with the Hellenistic Jews that were there. Yes, Christians, believe it or not, can argue in a way that glorifies

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God. Not haughty, not prideful, not mean -spirited, not unkind, but loving, humble, and bold.

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He preaches the gospel and he reasons from the scriptures doing what? Proving that Jesus is the

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Messiah. And what was the result, brothers and sisters? Oh, they just gladly received him. They loved it.

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They were happy that he came in and he roughed up their religious service and their meeting. They were proud, they were actually very excited about that.

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Oh, it says that some things happened as a result of him preaching the gospel in that sort of a way. Direct confrontation with people who are hostile.

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He argued with them and it says the church was built up, they experienced peace, they were multiplied.

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And it says some people wanted to kill him. I think we look at the book of Acts today and you see how the gospel goes forth and they're engaging in apologetics in defense of the faith.

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Oftentimes the average evangelical or Christian in the West and either of our countries might say, well,

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Paul, now that's a little mean spirited. Paul, I don't know if you should be that bold and aggressive.

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That's just not how you're gonna win them, Paul. Maybe what you should do is befriend them and spend maybe the next five or 10 years earning the right to preach the gospel to them.

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The apostle Paul goes into a place, preaches the gospel, and at times when the apostles do this sort of a thing, they take a beating for it.

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When they preach the gospel and defend the faith, they take a beating. We know the story of Peter going before the council, they say, we told you not to speak in this name.

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We told you to stop. Don't do it anymore. They send him off with a beating. And it says that they left the council rejoicing, that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

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The apostles go into a place, preach the gospel, defend the faith, and what takes place? A riot breaks out.

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Yes, sometimes when you preach the gospel, sometimes when you argue for the faith, sometimes a riot will break out.

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Sometimes you will take a beating for Jesus. And I have to ask the question to myself first and to you, is that the kind of risky missionary sacrifice you are committed to?

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We ask the question, why are our nations turned upside down? In the first century, the church turned the world upside down.

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Why are our nations with such a strong Christian heritage, why are our nations being turned upside down in the church?

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Why? Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. When Jesus says that, salt is a preservative.

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It stops things from spoil and decay. You're the light of the world. Light scatters darkness. Jesus says, that's you, people of God.

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That's you, church. And we look around, and if the culture was a report card for the church, how are we doing?

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How are we doing? Because I believe with all of my heart that we have the same

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God, the same gospel that is the power of God for salvation, same spirit of God who can take dead rebellious sinners and raise them to newness of life.

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I believe that God still has the power to grant repentance and faith. And so what's wrong? Is it the gospel?

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Is it God? Is it his Messiah? Is it God's spirit? Or is there something about us?

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Is there something that's required of us as a church? Is there a certain level of commitment? Is there a certain level of sacrifice in laying down of our lives?

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Is there a certain boldness required in the proclamation of the gospel? Because you see, I believe that when you proclaim the gospel, sometimes it goes out and God empowers that message and he ignites it into the lives of his people and he raises them to life.

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They come to life, they believe in Jesus. That's to the glory of God. Sometimes that gospel, same gospel goes out and God allows people to remain hard and in their sins.

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They hear the same message and they hate the message. They don't want

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God. And I believe that is also to the glory of God, to the glory of his justice.

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But here's the point, the gospel must go out. And when the gospel goes out, it comes with questions, it comes with challenges.

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So, first point, that's why. Go to your Bibles, 1 Peter 3 .15.

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We have a lot to do today and so I will do my best. I do have sins in the area of time. And so,

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I'll keep my eye out for people who are ready to throw things at me or drag me off. I've been told there's a button back there and there's a trap door here and a pit of alligators.

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Crocodiles, sorry, crikey, there you go. See, I'm learning. 1

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Peter 3 .15, this is the charter verse of Christian apologetics. Most of us know this passage,

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I hope. It's an encouragement and I think it's a firm foundation for many of us, really through the history of the church.

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The Christians, yes, we defend the faith. We face all comers.

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I love that. I do a lot of ministry to the cults and I'll tell you right now, it's such an encouragement and blessing to be a

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Christian when you think about the world of the cults. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, what are they told? Don't look, don't read, don't investigate, don't research, don't read that.

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If you're in the Watchtower, here's the website you go to. This is the website you can read from. This is the only thing that you wanna actually pay attention to.

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Don't look at their stuff. They are anti -Mormons or telling us we're anti -Mormons. Dr. White and I have spent many years outside the

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Mormon temple in Mesa, Arizona handing out tracts and what do they say? When you walk past them and they have that tract right before them, they say, is it anti?

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Is that anti -Mormon? We say, well, no, we're Christians. We're not anti -Mormon. We love you, but it's definitely a critique of your church.

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No thanks, I don't read anti -literature. That's the kind of thing that the cults get. It's part of the sociological manipulation of the cults is they're told do not look, do not research, don't listen, don't see, don't hear.

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There's encouragement as a Christian throughout the centuries. We love the one who is the embodiment of truth.

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John 14, six, I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.

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We love the one who is the very embodiment of truth. Christians love truth, want the truth. We want to flee from error.

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We want to be consistent in our thinking so we run towards conflict. One of the things

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I love about Dr. White is he spent his life dedicated to bringing glory to Christ and defending the faith with the gospel and facing really the toughest opponents of every possible worldview.

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I think he's pretty much taken care of all of them now. It's really a blessing and it's an encouragement to see that that's the way, that's the

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MO of the Christian church. We run into conflict. You see it in the New Testament. You see it today.

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And 1 Peter 3 .15 is a foundation for all of that work. Now pay attention closely to this passage, three parts.

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Three parts I want you to think about today as brothers and sisters. Humbly, I want to suggest to you that there are three important aspects of this passage that we need to embrace.

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First, I'm reading from the ESV today. I hope that's acceptable. I couldn't find the

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Australian Standard Version, so. ESV today. English Standard Version, here it is.

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Verse 15. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and reverence, gentleness and respect.

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We know that in the middle there, second part of this, the middle there, you have always being prepared to make a defense.

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The word there is apologia. Yes, Dr. White, there you go. The word is apologia. It's a

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Greek word, essentially means reasoned defense. It's not, well, it's the kind of word if you think about courtroom context.

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You go before a judge and you offer a reasoned defense for your case, an apologia. That's where we get the basis for Christians.

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Look, be ready. That's a command, be ready. Always be ready with a reasoned defense for everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that's within you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.

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So there's the basis right there, Christian. Yes, you, yes, you, not Dr. White, simply, not me, simply, you.

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Yes, you're called to be ready with a reasoned defense for everyone who asks of you.

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That's daunting, right? That's a little aggressive, Peter. Everyone, the

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Rosicrucian, the Christian scientist, the atheist, the agnostic, the skeptic, the

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Mormon, the Jehovah's Witness, the Roman Catholic, the Muslim, that's a lot of work. I don't have a lot of time.

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Where will I squeeze in my coffee time in Australia? You guys, by the way, have a problem with the coffee in Australia.

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I'm doing a message today on addiction and it'll be around three o 'clock. Make sure you guys show up for that one.

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The call is for everyone to be ready with a defense, Christians, and for everyone that asks of you a reason.

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And I believe, here's the thing, listen, it's not so daunting a task, it's not so impossible a task if you embrace,

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I think, really the first thing that Peter says here, the foundation of all apologetics, the starting point of the defense of the faith.

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And what does it say? First part, he says, in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy.

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Set Christ apart as Lord. You might think, well, why?

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Of course, Jesus is Lord, so why point to that? Why mark that as significant at all?

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Here's the point. I believe that it is possible, humbly, I believe that it is possible for us as followers of Jesus Christ, children of God, as believers in the church,

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I think it's possible for us to do apologetics in a way that is philosophically inconsistent and ultimately inconsistent as Christians.

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We can do apologetics, we can engage the world from a position of neutrality where Christ is not

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Lord over our reasoning, over our apologetic. We can approach the world in a way where we do not set

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Christ apart as Lord in the defense of the Christian faith. We pretend neutrality.

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We defend general theism. We defend something is out there. Can you at least accept that?

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We engage in that kind of apologetic, and I'm gonna say again, not philosophically consistent. If you abandon

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Christ as the foundation of knowledge, then you don't get the things that you want even in debate.

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And we're gonna talk about that in a moment. But if we do not embrace Christ as Lord, set him apart first as Lord in our hearts,

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I think that we fail in the task of apologetics. So first and foremost, we have to set

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Christ apart as Lord. I think it's a tremendous failure on our part as Christians, philosophically speaking, and of course, in terms of our faithfulness to the

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Gospel, when we do not start our apologetic with a commitment first to Christ as Lord. Remember that, mark that in your minds.

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If you start to drift during the message, I'll do my best to keep you awake. If you start to drift, remember that significant point.

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Apologetics must start with a commitment to Christ as Lord. A full commitment, full submission to Christ as Lord.

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And the third part, I think we often blow it as Christians in our defense of the Christian faith,

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I think all of us recognize, right? Do it with gentleness and with respect.

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Now, I don't know about you, but I definitely have failures in this area. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the cocky, arrogant

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American. I don't know, right? But I think we can all recognize a point in our lives where you can say,

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I failed. I didn't show respect to them. I wasn't gentle to them. I wasn't even really loving to them. I was trying to win the argument.

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It was a lot of heat. It wasn't really any light. And we recognize as Christians, we fail in the area of loving our neighbor, and especially in the task of apologetics and arguing for the glory of God and the message of Jesus, we recognize that, look,

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I've blown it. I am very, very glad. I've mentioned this over the last week. I'm very glad that YouTube wasn't around when

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I was first engaging Mormons on the street. I'm very glad that YouTube wasn't around when

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I was first engaging atheists in argumentation, because you would have seen a very prideful and very different Jeff Durbin.

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One of the things that's the greatest blessing to me today because of what God has done in my own heart and my own mind in terms of how

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I view the world is when I hear Mormons outside the temple in Mesa, Arizona walk past us, and they say, hey, look,

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I don't agree with what you're doing, but I'm really glad that it's you here doing it. They've had to face many times people coming and screaming in their faces and screeching at them and yelling and being hateful and spiteful and unkind, and so when they see

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Christians like us over many, many years having consistency in how we are gentle and gracious and kind and respectful to them, they've said, hey, these are the people we want here.

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As a matter of fact, I've had many Mormons come up, start to get very hostile because they don't know us, and there are

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Mormons who have been there for many years that will come and stand in front of me and say, hey, hey, no, no, we want them here.

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These guys are fine. These guys are wonderful. I go out to dinner once a year before the

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Easter pageant with a guy who was a Mormon apologist. We go out to eat dinner together before the

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Mormon Easter pageant, before we go do evangelism, and then we head to the temple together. I go to preach the gospel to the

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Mormons. He goes to stop me. That's how we do it. I remember

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I was outside an abortion mill in Glendale. I pull up, and I can see my church outside on the sidewalk pleading for the lives of the pre -born, trying to offer help to these women.

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Since doing that ministry, God has allowed us to see him save over 60 babies from death outside the abortion mills in Phoenix, Arizona, just through the work of Apologia Church, but one day

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I pull up, and there's a hardcore, pipe -hitting, militant atheist outside, and he is wearing my people out.

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I pull up, and I can see it in their faces. They have just lost all the blood in their body. They are just exasperated.

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I pull over, I get out, and I start talking to this gentleman. I realize he's an atheist. He's dropped a woman off to go inside to kill her baby, and now he's outside to try to stop us.

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And so I start engaging with him, and so he's complaining that we're there, and I said, well, that's okay. Your parents were highly evolved societies of bacteria.

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You come from fish, so what? What are you worried about? Why are you complaining? You don't really have a basis.

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We're just bags of protoplasm out here. You're a bag of biological stuff. Why do you care? He said, well, no,

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I don't really care. I mean, it's just bothering me. Well, so what? You could be doing better things.

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If I had your worldview, I'd be doing lots of other things right now rather than arguing with other bags of protoplasm.

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There are much more enjoyable things to be doing, and so we're talking. I'm taking his legs off and taking his legs off and taking his legs off, and finally, he's getting exasperated, and I start saying, listen, here's the thing you're displaying right now.

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You're in the image of God, so you're not being consistent with your atheism right now, and here's what's wrong. You, like me, before Christ, are a sinner.

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You're a rebel against the king, and this is the glory of the gospel. Jesus is God. He took on flesh.

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He was righteous and blameless, died for sinners and rose from the dead, and God commands you to turn from your sin, to come to him for life.

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Come to Christ for life. Put your faith in Christ. Come to him. Be given new life, and so he's listening and listening, and I told him, man, if you don't turn to Christ, the message of the gospel is if you don't have the son, you are condemned.

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You'll spend an eternity away from God. Jesus describes a place called hell, and there's an eternal separation from God.

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The Bible describes you need to turn from your sin and believe, so no punch is pulled, and after all of that, he says to me, you know,

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I really, I don't want you here, and I wish you weren't here, and I don't agree with what you're doing.

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I do not agree with what you're doing. He goes, but I really like you. He really likes me.

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I just told him that he was a sinner against God, and that if he didn't repent and believe in a hurry, he would spend eternity away from God condemned, and he really likes me, so I think that's an example that blesses me in terms of what

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God can do in a person's life. Yes, it's possible to preach the gospel in a way where people are angry at the message and not you.

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Gentleness and with respect. Okay, so that's the three parts. First, honor Christ as Lord. Set Him apart as Lord in your hearts.

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Two, be ready with a defense, and three, do it with gentleness and reverence. Now, where does all of this start?

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I want to point us to something that we all have as a basic confession as Christians. This is what we believe.

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We believe in one true and living God, amen? There is only one

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God. The very basis, the morning and evening prayers for Jesus, the early Jews, and even to little

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Jewish boys and girls today, you can say it, Deuteronomy 6, verse four, Jesus is asked, what's the greatest commandment in law?

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Jesus says, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Shema Yisrael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh Echad.

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Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That is the affirmation. That is the affirmation of every

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Christian. Every Jew should have that. There is only one God. God says in Isaiah 43 .10,

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before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I am the first and I am the last.

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Besides me, there is no God. God says in Psalm 90, verse two, from eternity into eternity, you are

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God. He is the eternal God. He is the righteous God. He is Isaiah six, holy, holy, holy.

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God is love. God has all knowledge. His knowledge is wrapped up even in his decree.

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He doesn't just think through possibilities in time and look through time and see what happens and learn.

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God is all knowing. God is all powerful. God is loving. God is triune,

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You see, here's where our apologetic ought to start.

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Not in piecemeal replies, but in a whole network, a whole system, a whole worldview, and it's based upon the revelation of God.

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God creates specially. God creates with purpose. He governs all things, carries the universe along to its intended destination,

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Hebrews chapter one. He is sovereign over all. He governs all, and when he created, again, created with purpose and created human beings as image of God, imago dei,

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God creates human beings with inherent value, dignity, and worth by nature of the fact that they are created in the image of God.

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That's the foundation of our worldview. It wasn't an accident. It was purposeful.

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We know who God is. He has spoken. Think in terms of what you should know, Deuteronomy 29, 29.

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The secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but what he has revealed, what? Belongs to us and to our children.

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Presbyterians are like, that's right, okay. Every time

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I say it, they all go, hey, here's the thing, I Presby's are my absolute favorite.

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I mean, seriously, like all my heroes are Presbyterian, and honestly, if I wasn't already in the truth, I would be one.

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So, you're welcome. I love you.

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Here's the point. God is the very reference point. He has spoken. That is the fundamental assertion of our worldview.

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God has revealed himself. Whether the unbeliever accepts it or not, that's our position.

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God is there. He is not silent. All scripture is theanoustos.

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It is breathed out by God, revelation from God. God speaks. We shouldn't be ashamed of that as Christians.

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Yes, we have a revelational epistemology. We believe, ready, and this is very, very sophisticated, very high -level philosophy stuff.

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Like, we believe we can have certainty and we can know. Get ready, if you're taking notes, write it down, because God said so.

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God has spoken. He's spoken, he's revealed himself to us. We have a revelational epistemology.

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God is the very reference point of all of our claims to knowledge and certainty.

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God, ready, is the principium. He is the source of knowledge. He knows all things.

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All of our thinking is derivative. So as Christians, we say things like, in his light, we see light.

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God has spoken. We have, again, a revelational epistemology, and we have to recognize that in that revelational epistemology, we know that there are essentially two foundations, just broadly today, two foundations of revelation from God.

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We have, first, general revelation, many of us recognize from Romans 1, when Paul says that everybody knows

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God. They're suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness. What does it say about the creation? What's it say? It is preaching to them.

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It's shouting to them. We know, Psalm 19 .1, the heavens declare the glory of God. You can't look at a baboon, at a koala, at a crocodile.

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You can't look at Saturn. You can't look at the sun, the moon. You can't look at a baby.

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You can't look at their little toes. You can't look at the deepest parts of the complexity in our biology and not see

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God screaming at you. He is speaking in every experience that you have and I have.

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God has revealed himself to us. There's general revelation. You can't miss it. And I'm gonna get this point across very, very important in case somebody would like to argue that point, whether or not it gets through.

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Romans 1 says, the wrath of God, verse 18, for the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness, what?

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Suppress the truth. That's active. That is active. They are suppressing the truth.

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And it says, that which is known about God is evident within them, for God has made it evident to them.

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Now here's a question, brothers and sisters. Just consider it for a moment, please. When you think about who you face in the world with this call of the gospel and the defense of the

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Christian faith, think for a moment about this. God is all -powerful. God reveals himself.

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And it says in Romans 1 that he has sent the message of himself into every single person.

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Here's the question. Is God all -powerful? You guys can participate today. I will not injure you, yes, okay?

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Yes, God is all -powerful. If the all -powerful God sends a message into the heart of an image -bearer of God, does it get through?

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Romans 1 says so. Yes, the message gets through. You might say, well, why atheists?

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Why agnostics? They deny it. People, false religion, worshiping a host of different gods.

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Why? It's in the same text, Romans 1. What's the problem? The problem is not knowledge and evidence.

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It's not as though image -bearers of God don't know their creator. That's what John Calvin referred to as that sense of God.

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We know him as creator, maybe not as redeemer, but we know the true God. And what do we do with that knowledge according to Romans 1?

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We're hostile, we're sinners, we're little rebels in God's kingdom. And what do we do with it?

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It says that our thinking has become futile. Professing to be wise, we become what? Fools.

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And what do we do? What is our pattern as fallen people? We switch God for idols.

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Why atheism? Why agnosticism? Why Buddhism? Why Mormonism?

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Why these different religions? Why do people create gods that look a lot like us? Why do we create gods made in the image of men?

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Because fundamentally, we know the true God and we don't want him. That's not to say that all of us are cognizant and aware of what we're doing.

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There is the noetic effect of sin. There is sin that's corrupted our own reasoning faculties.

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This is what Dr. Bonson referred to as self -deception. We're self -deceived.

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We don't want the true God and so we switch him for something that maybe looks a little bit like him but is not him.

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That's like Mormonism for me. It's amazing. I get it. Oh man, do I get it. Mormonism is,

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I understand. What's the story of Mormonism? Well, Elohim had a god before him who had a god before him.

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Elohim and one of his goddess wives in the pre -existence produced Jesus and Lucifer, a spirit offspring, and the rest of us.

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We come to this earth and go through the same pattern of life that Elohim did, working through exaltation and become a god and goddess of our own planets one day so we can create and populate an earth just like this one.

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You know what that looks like? Me. Moms and dads. Mommy gods, daddy gods, baby gods, right?

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I get it. That's what we do. We say not the true God so something that's a little like him with just enough suppression.

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We have to recognize also special revelation. Of course, Hebrews chapter one is a fantastic passage to read about special revelation.

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God revealing himself, 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17. God has revealed himself, of course, in creation and specially through his prophets, through his apostles, through the special divine acts in history and of course supremely in his son.

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God has revealed himself. So we have an ultimate authority as our foundation. God is our ultimate self -attesting authority.

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Now hang on that for one moment. Hang on there. It's vitally important to get. We have to recognize from an epistemological standpoint, everybody might have a system, whether they're aware of it or not, of how they can know what they know.

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We call that epistemology, a theory of knowledge. Sometimes unbelievers gotta figure something out so they say, well, let's create a system.

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So maybe it's rationalism. It's gotta be logical. It's gotta make sense. Rationalism, that's my system.

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Sometimes it might be empiricism. I have to observe it. I have to actually see it. I gotta taste it, touch it, feel it.

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I gotta observe it and test it, empiricism. Sometimes they hook them up together and say, well, here's how we know, a little bit of rationalism, a little bit of empiricism, hook those up.

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You might have somebody that has a very, what is this, common? What's, it really is an epistemology.

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They say, well, it feels good to me. How do you know that's true?

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Well, because I feel like it. That's the epistemology of the West right now, right?

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That's it. That's the framework. Well, how do you know that's true? Because I feel like it's true, right?

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I'm not a boy. I'm not a girl. I feel like an aardvark, right?

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I'm not a woman. I'm not a man. I'm a kitty cat. Now, I wish

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I was kidding. I wish I were telling you, tails out of the schoolyard right now.

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I wish I were joking about a woman saying, I don't feel like a woman, I feel like a cat.

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But I'm not joking. That is really, how do you know that's true? Because I feel like it's so true.

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That's an epistemological system. It's very low level, but it's there, right?

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Right, or someone says, oh, it works for me. Like those kinds of systems. Now, Christians should not be ashamed of the fact that we have a revelational epistemology.

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If you ask me, how do I know? Yes, there's logic. Yes, there's reason.

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Yes, I'm evidencing things, of course. But fundamentally, how do I know? Ready?

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God has spoken. It doesn't bother me to say, because Jesus says to the world, and it ought not bother

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Christians when we come into conflict with the unbelieving world today, against us with mockery, and we say, well,

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Jesus says, and say, oh, I don't buy that. It doesn't matter if you buy it. An ultimate authority doesn't need your approval.

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An ultimate authority doesn't need your authority to corroborate his story. A self -attesting authority is just that, self -attesting.

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And the way that God speaks about unbelief in his word is the way we ought to as Christians. He says, the fool says in his heart, there is no

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God. Now, if you know your Bibles, you know that fool in the Bible is not simply God engaging in capricious name -calling.

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God's not saying, you fool. God's not making fun of people. Fool in the

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Bible is a moral indictment. Refusing to accept what is obvious to everybody.

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Remaining hard and rebellious in the face of overwhelming truth. We have an ultimate self -attesting authority.

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Sometimes that bothers Christians. To say we stand on Christ, he's the reference point, he's the standard, he's revealed himself, that's how we can know.

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Sometimes it bothers people. Because maybe they don't really think about what that means and what we get with Jesus as the foundation.

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You get reason, you get science, you get ethics, you get the whole system if you start with Jesus. If you don't start with God, you don't get any of that.

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But it bothers people. They say, well, I don't know, how do you work that out? Because the unbeliever, they seem to have a whole wide spectrum of different ways of getting at knowledge and truth.

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You're just saying, you have to start with Jesus Christ? Well, you know, because the unbeliever says, how do you know that?

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How do you know? How do you have justified true belief about that claim? And the Christian goes, oh, well, okay, because God says, and they go, ah!

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I'm challenging that claim. You can't go running off to the Bible. I don't accept the

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Bible. I'm challenging that. You say, no, okay, you understand that God has revealed himself, and I can have certainty about this, and he says that you know the truth about God, but you're suppressing the truth of God.

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The problem is sin, not evidence. Let's get to the point. They say, no, no, you can't point to the Bible, because that's circular. Well, brothers and sisters, consider this for a moment.

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It is of necessity circular in a sense. Every ultimate authority has to go back to itself.

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Otherwise, it wouldn't be what? Ultimate. The moment you say, this is the ultimate authority, and someone says, well, how do you know that?

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And you go running off to something else to demonstrate its authority, what now is the authority?

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That other thing, not the ultimate authority. And now watch. Oh, this is good.

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This is powerful, and it's right along the lines of, we just, Reformation Day, praise God, right? Yes, praise

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God. We have a lot more work to do, by the way. So don't look back and say, oh, it's all done.

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Whoa, it's not, not in any way. But think about this in terms of Reformation. What do

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Christians say? Sola, what? Scriptura, that's an epistemological claim.

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How do you know the Word of God? It's the final authority. It's the final standard.

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It's not my pastor. It's not that church council. It's not that book. It's not that creed, not that confession. They only are true if they are consistent with the ultimate authority scripture.

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Are you seeing it now? You seeing it now? We all recognize that in church.

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What happens when Mormons hook up some other authority with the Bible? What happens? That other authority ends up eating up the

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Bible, doesn't it? Is the Bible now the ultimate authority? No, it's the other authority. How about in Rome?

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You have the Word of God. That's the authority. And what do you have alongside the Bible? Divine tradition.

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What begins to eat up the Bible? That divine, that sacred tradition, right? It eats it up.

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It ends up destroying it. And as Christians, you have to recognize from that perspective that you think about all the time as Protestants, as good little reformers, you know the

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Word of God is the ultimate foundation. And here's the thing. The mistaken thing would be for the unbeliever to think that he's not also doing it.

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The unbeliever also has ultimate authorities, but his don't really work. They're not fully coherent in his system.

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Because see, when he says to the Christian, he says, how do you know? The Christian says, well, because.

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And then the unbeliever says, well, that's fallacious. That's circular. Well, that's because it's an ultimate authority. It's self -attesting.

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How about you? And you say to the unbeliever, well, how do you know? He says, well, I use my reason. Well, can you give me a reason for trusting in reason as the ultimate authority?

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What do they have to do? Open their Bible. They have to start using their reasoning process as what?

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To prove that reasoning is a valid way to getting at truth. But here's the problem. Listen closely to this.

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From their perspective, if they're an atheist using reason, they can't justify reason as an ultimate because all they have in their perspective is brain matter between the skull, three pounds firing biochemical responses.

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All they have is brain gas. They couldn't help thinking what they're thinking they're just sort of fizzing, right?

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They happen to be fizzing atheistically. I'm fizzing Christian theistically. And besides, where are these laws of logic and reason?

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Where are they? Are they somewhere in Australia? Definitely not in Canada. How much do they weigh?

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You ever seen a law of logic? You ever weighed one? What's the mass of law of logic? What color is it?

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What does the law of logic smell like? Oh, they're immaterial. Oh, are they abstract and universal?

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Are they unchanging? Are they necessary? You see, here's the thing, from an atheistic perspective, they may say reason is my foundation, that's how

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I know, but they can't ultimately justify the preconditions of intelligibility of reason in the first place.

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And why is that? Because they don't have Jesus. How am I doing on time? 10, good, okay, all right, here we go.

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You guys, let's go some more, okay. I'm doing my best here to stay on course today. So let's think about the ultimate authority.

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I'll give you one passage to rest on. There are so many, brothers and sisters, so many passages to go to here. I'll just give you a single one just to reflect on,

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Matthew 7. I'm not gonna read the whole text, but just quickly, I'll point you to it. I hope you know it. What's Jesus say there in that text,

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Matthew 7, about a fool and a wise man, a rock and sand, desolation and survival of the storm.

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He says there are two kinds of people in life. They hear Christ's voice, two kinds of people with two kinds of foundations and two destinations.

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He says there is a wise one and a fool. There is a rock and there is sand.

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He says that there is one that makes it through and one that ends in desolation.

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Consider that for a moment, brothers and sisters. Jesus makes an audacious claim there.

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If he's not God, C .S. Lewis is right. He's nuts or he's a liar.

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Because you see, if I walked into Australia before you today and I said, brothers and sisters, here's the way of life.

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This is how all of life will work out from the moment you walk out these doors for the rest of your life. This is how it'll work.

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You're either gonna be wise or a fool. You're either gonna build your house on a rock or sand and you're either gonna make it when the issues of life come or you're gonna end in desolation.

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And here's where it's at. It's all of you who build your lives upon Jeff Durbin's words.

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Do you feel it? You'd say, what? Arrogance.

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He's nuts. And you'd be right to say it. But when Jesus says those things, they caught it immediately.

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He says, wise fool, rock, sand, you're gonna make it or desolation.

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And it's those who build their lives upon my word. Now they caught it.

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He made the claim. He just made the claim. And they said, he speaks as one having authority and not like the scribes.

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He doesn't base his authority, his message, his claims upon somebody else to buttress the point, to corroborate it.

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He speaks as a self -attesting authority. Brothers and sisters, please hear this right now. It's a mighty powerful part of this whole apologetic encounter, this whole situation.

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Cornelius Van Til, one of my favorite Christian philosophers, get to know him. He said that this,

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Matthew 7, wise and fool, rock and sand, that is where the entire apologetic situation rests.

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Jesus makes the claim, has authority, doesn't put upon himself anything else to buttress it or corroborate it.

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They heard it. Did you? He speaks as one having authority. He doesn't ask for their stamp of approval.

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He doesn't ask for anything. He makes the claim and it is by very nature true because of who it comes from.

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Think about it. Oftentimes in apologetics as Christians, we try to build like rungs on a ladder, right?

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Let's get to God. Let's get him to God. Because we all, let's get him there. So we say, okay, reason and then this evidence and then this biological complexity and okay, this archeological evidence and proof and if I could just get here and here and here and here and we hope maybe one day they can climb those evidences and that rung and maybe eventually one day they get to God, the true

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God. And the amazing thing is, is what do we understand once we get there? You didn't need the ladder all along.

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He was the final authority the entire time. You should have started with him in the first place. You see, it's like this, the apologetic situation in terms of different methodologies.

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Christians, good solid Christians that love the Lord. I don't want to take down their dignity or their faith or their ministries in any way, but I think we should talk about this as Christians.

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What's philosophically consistent? What's biblically faithful? It's the movie,

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God's Not Dead. I remember when that movie came out on Facebook, I saw the memes, memes, however you say it in Australia.

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I saw the meme. Okay, this one got me. It was from the movie, God's Not Dead. And it was a meme that said to the atheist, atheists say that we can't prove

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God's existence and they're right. He says, and this is all in the meme.

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It says, but atheists can't disprove him either. God's not dead.

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We can't prove God's existence. Right, that's true. But you can't disprove his existence.

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And the thing was liked and liked and liked thousands of times and shared, and Christians are like, rah, rah, rah.

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We can't prove God's existence, but you can't disprove it. You want to build your life on that?

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Does that work with the call of Jesus? Come die or don't come. If anyone comes to me and does not hate, father, mother, sister, brother, he starts naming the closest people to us and even your own life.

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You're not worthy to be my disciple. Jesus called to people when they come to him. I want to follow you. Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests.

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The son of man has nowhere to lay his head. You sure you want to follow me? I'm homeless. I'll follow you. Master, let me first go bury my father.

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Let the dead bury their own dead. You come follow me. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Okay, here's what you have to do.

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Okay, and sell everything you own, give it to the poor, then come follow me. No. Come die or don't come.

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Listen, if I say, as Dr. William Lane Craig said to Lawrence Krauss, Krauss asked him in a public discussion, he says, are you certain about God's existence?

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And Dr. Craig says, no. Just like that. Now let me ask you, if I say to the world,

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I am not certain about God's existence fundamentally, and therefore I am not certain about Jesus as the

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Messiah, if I bring that message to the world, I have now been robbed of my ability to call them to come and die.

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If you are not certain about God's existence and Christ's existence as Messiah, then he is not worthy of your entire life, brothers and sisters.

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He is either who he claims to be or he is not. That is the situation. And Jesus says, whoever is not with me is what?

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Against me. There is no neutrality in apologetics. Christ is the very foundation of knowledge and reason in the first place.

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And this is what we'll end on. We'll pick it up again in the next one. Christ is the foundation.

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Two texts. One, Proverbs 1, verse seven. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, wisdom.

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That's one of those things, brothers and sisters. That's the one. I get mellow -headed.

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I let things go. I read things and I don't embrace the beauty of it.

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I see things in God's word and I say I believe it with lip service, but I don't actually live according to it.

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Don't embrace it. Just being transparent, it happens. I see things and they just right past me.

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That's one. The fear of the Lord is the beginning. So without first fear of God, there is no wisdom.

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There is no knowledge. It starts with God. Here's what I'm arguing. You don't reason to get your way to God.

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Our problem is we don't start with Him. We don't start with Him.

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And therefore, we don't get anything. We don't have any way to justify any of these things without Him. Final point,

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Colossians chapter two. I'm gonna read the text to you. It says, verse one,

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For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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Christ, here it is, listen close, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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You believe that? Think about it. Please consider it. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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Brothers and sisters, do you believe that? Do you? Do you believe that in church? That in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?

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Do you believe that in your family? Do you believe that in the context of your job?

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Is it true that Christ is the foundation for knowledge, that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him?

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Is it true for the science class? This is where you need to participate. We're done here, so this is where you guys can jump in now.

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Is it true that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ and science? Is there a difference between starting with Christ in terms of science and your view of origins and abandoning

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Him? So if you go to the Christian school, I would think that the origins class is supposed to look a little different than the secular school with an atheist professor.

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I would hope that they're different. Is it true that Christ is the foundation of knowledge and wisdom?

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Well, according to the Scriptures, you can't have true knowledge, true wisdom, true understanding without God.

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Think in terms about this passage, 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26. The Lord's servant must be patient when wronged, able to teach, in humility correcting those who oppose themselves.

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If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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What does it say in that text? It says what? God grants repentance, and what does it say? It says that God grants that repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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What comes first according to Scripture? If we're gonna use the Bible here, brothers and sisters, what comes first? Repentance before that knowledge of the truth and understanding of truth, because brothers and sisters, the world is getting truth constantly.

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It's being bombarded, it is being shouted to them, it's being streamed, live -streamed constantly from God.

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And what's the problem? That there's not enough knowledge, not enough truth, not enough evidence? It's a different sort of problem according to the

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Scriptures. It's a problem of sin. It's a problem of rebellion. What we need is salvation.

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Then comes our understanding. We need first submission to God. Then comes wisdom and understanding, full wisdom, full understanding.

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It comes with the proclamation of the gospel. The gospel is the power of God for salvation.

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Here's the point, final word. What I'm saying is, what I'm suggesting to us is that our apologetic has to be wrapped up in and intimately connected to our call of the gospel.

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Not neutral, not separated, not I'm a Christian over here and a philosopher over here, but one in the same with Christ as the source and the foundation.