Jeff Durbin: Biblical Apologetics Applied

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If you want to open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs, which we have been in for some time.

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Proverbs, we're going to go to chapter 1 and verse 7.

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Proverbs 1, 7, many of you already have this memorized, hopefully, from the series that we call

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Wisdom from Above. Proverbs, chapter 1, verse 7.

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Hear now the word of the living and the true God. The fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray as God's people. Father, we come before you as your children, adopted into your family, called by you, loved by you, gathered together as the saints.

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Lord, you've brought all of our lives to this moment in particular, to come and to worship before your throne, to glorify your name, to walk with you, to know you, to understand.

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We pray, God, that today you would bless the proclamation of your truth. Please teach by your spirit,

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God, let it not be the words of a mere man. I do pray that you would renew our minds through this study today, that you,

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Lord, would bring light and understanding to just how important it is to have you as the foundation of our knowledge, your word as the foundation of our knowledge and certainty and truth.

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We pray, God, that you would use this message to transform our lives, our marriages, our relationship to one another, our relationship towards our children.

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And I also pray that you would allow this study to create such a strong foundation that we'd refute those who contradict out there.

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And then, Lord, we would boldly and yet with humility proclaim your truth in the world for your glory and kingdom.

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In Jesus' name, amen. So there it is, Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7. The fear of the

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Lord, the fear of Yahweh, that's a specific God, not some God, not some general deity, not some hoped -for deity, but this is specific.

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Think about the boldness of that claim. Think about it. The fear, reverential awe and submission, the fear of Yahweh, the one and only true

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God, the living God, none before, none after, doesn't even know of any other gods, the creator of all things, the eternal

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God. From eternity into eternity, you are God, the only God. It is the fear of that God, the only

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God, the true God, the living God. The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

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Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Now that's something you're comfortable with hearing in a

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Christian church because we're Christians, we believe in the word of God, this is the truth of God, amen? Now put that verse into the secular college classroom over the whiteboard.

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The college course that's teaching philosophy is teaching a particular view of origins and of humanity in the world and it has a, you know, very large language you can pull from.

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It's teaching a particular metaphysic or ontology. It has an ethical system. It's making claims about the world.

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And now I dare you to take that verse, that very, very bold verse, that claim, and put it over the whiteboard at some philosophy class at ASU.

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The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. Now they're dealing in knowledge there.

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How do we know? I mean, that's the fundamental question. You come into a church service like this and you're like, oh, we're doing apologetics again and we're talking about these high level philosophical things.

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I don't know if this is something that applies to me. It applies to you because this has to do with how do you know? How do you know anything at all?

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Where's your certainty? You make claims about the world every single day. You challenge people every single day.

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You might be in conflict with your husband or your wife every single, hopefully not every single day, but it happens.

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Not in my marriage, but maybe, no, I'm joking, okay. You make claims to the spouse, to the husband or the wife.

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You say, you ought not to do that or you ought to do this. You're making a knowledge claim.

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You're saying, here's what's true, here's how we ought to live. On what basis are you making that claim?

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Or in your marriages, you have children, maybe the Lord's blessed you with kids, you make claims to your kids.

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Hey, you're not allowed to punch her in the face because you wanted the toy. That's wrong.

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Here's the question, says who? Who's in charge here, you?

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Is that the ultimate standard, it's just what mom and dad say? There's parents that have a lot of bad opinions on a lot of things.

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There's parents out there that tell people it's okay to transition their four -year -old, their six -year -old, their seven -year -old, you can't go just on the authority of a mom and dad.

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Who's in charge here? By what standard? How do you know? This is the stuff that meets you every single day.

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And you think about that claim, that kind of bold claim. Take it in for what it really is and let it say what it says and think about the implications.

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The fear of Yahweh, this only God, is the beginning of knowledge.

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You want to know something? Scripture makes a bold claim. It is reverential awe before this

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God. Fear of this God, the only God, that is the beginning of knowledge.

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Take that in for what it actually says. The fear of Yahweh is not the middle of knowledge, it's not the end of knowledge or the pursuit of knowledge.

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It's not the, oh, now we have the conclusion, now we can have knowledge. No. Scripture says the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

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Christians, you have to understand that's a bold claim and it is either true or it is not true.

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There's no midway. There's no sort of a blend of things and a blend of methodologies and experiences and subjectivism and rationalism and evidentialism.

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The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. You want to know something? You better submit yourself to the true God to have knowledge.

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That's where the source of knowledge comes from. So Pastor James last week talked about the foundation of Christian apologetics.

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Of course, there's all kinds of ways you can talk about it. Covenantal apologetics, transcendental methodology.

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You can talk about presuppositional apologetics. But let me just say, let me summarize and distill the main issue here in terms of apologetics, the defense of the

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Christian faith, when you're arguing, when you're reasoning, when you're defending your faith. The summary of presuppositional apologetics is simply this, it's biblical apologetics.

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It means that you're using the word of God and God's revelation as the foundation of how you know anything at all and you're doing it without compromise and you're doing it with the fear of the

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Lord and you're doing it without neutrality. Jesus says, whoever's with me, whoever's not with me is against me.

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And so many Christian apologetic methodologies out there will actually approach the question of knowledge and certainty and truth from a neutral perspective.

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Let's just see if we can get to some kind of God. Let's see if we can move people through enough evidences and enough reason to get them to some general form of deity, just some kind of God.

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If we could just get them from atheism to some general deity, then maybe eventually we'll get them to worship the triune

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God and repent and believe the gospel and those sorts of things. We argue that that's not how scripture approaches this question of knowledge.

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It is certainly not how the apostles proclaimed the gospel in the midst of Rome in the first century.

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They did it with a bold proclamation of the truth. They didn't do it without a question like, well, maybe

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Jesus is not Mashiach, or maybe the biblical God is not the true

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God. Let's see where the evidence takes us. No, they did it with a bold proclamation of the truth saying, this is the word of God.

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This is where certainty is found. And when the apostle Paul is in Mars Hill at the Areopagus, very, very well -known place in history, in terms of philosophical debate and discussion, he goes there with a firm commitment, no compromise, no neutrality, a firm commitment on the word of God as the basis of knowledge.

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And he actually goes so far at the Areopagus to say, and now God commands men everywhere to repent.

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That's the way the gospel goes into the first century, and God transformed the world, because the

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Bible says, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by what? That's right.

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And the Bible says also, God says, it is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation. What we argue is simply this.

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If you're going to defend the Christian faith, you better do it as a Christian. There you go.

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There's the simplicity. We're done today. Let's pray. We could end the sermon there. That's essentially what presuppositional apologetics is all about.

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If you're going to defend the Christian faith, you have to do it as a Christian, not walking on a line between two positions.

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Well, maybe it's not true. Okay, kind of true. It's true over here. You're doing it saying the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge, period. All knowledge is found and grounded in the triune

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God of Holy Scripture. And so essentially, Pastor James laid some solid foundations last week.

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Today, it's my task to try to show us how to apply this, and we could do this for months. We could do it in high level discussions.

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You could talk about revelational epistemology versus a rationalism or an empiricism or subjectivism.

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You could do all those conversations at a high level, and it belongs there, by the way. We belong there.

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But I want to try to bring it down today in terms of practical application for our daily lives. So first and foremost, we are called to defend our faith.

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Now, Apologia Church, from the beginning, we've had a commitment as pastors to try to lead the people of God here as our brothers and sisters, as the flock that God has entrusted to us.

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We've wanted to lead you by example. We don't want to call you to defend your faith and proclaim the truth boldly, and yet we're not out there doing it.

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We've wanted to follow the example of the early leaders of the Christian church and the apostles, where they were going out into the public square and risking their lives for the cause of the gospel.

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They were disputing and arguing and defending the Christian faith in the public square to the degree that, and you know your

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Bibles, you know this in the book of Acts, they actually felt the consequences of that kind of pursuits.

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They're being lowered out of windows to escape people. There's people taking oaths not to eat until they kill

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Paul. They're being beaten for their faith in the proclamation of the truth. They're being told, shut up, stop using

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Jesus' name, don't preach in his name any longer, and they're saying things like we must obey God rather than men, taking a beating for their proclamation of the truth and going away from the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer that kind of shame for Christ's name.

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We've wanted to lead in such a way that we lead as shepherds to show you, you can bring the gospel out there with boldness and then watch

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God through his sovereign will and grace move in the lives of people who are fallen and don't know

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God. Watch God bring the light of the gospel into darkness and you watch spiritually dead people come to life because you preach his truth.

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But I know people oftentimes will say, okay, but that's not really my daily life, Pastor Jeff.

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My daily life isn't in this constant battle out there with the scoffers and the unbelievers.

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You know, my daily life is with the four -year -old scoffer right in front of me. Well, let me just say, presuppositional apologetics is for that little scoffer too.

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If you understand it in terms of the foundation of what presuppositional apologetics is, we're not calling each and every one of us to do what

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Pastor James has done for like 150 years. And that's go out around the world and preach and defend the gospel, moderated public debate against the world's best.

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We're not all called to do exactly that same thing. However, what is the foundation here?

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What am I giving to you as a brother and as your pastor, as your shepherd? What am I giving to you? I'm not giving you my own personal hope for your life, that you would defend the

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Christian faith, and you would, you'd be bold as a lion out there, and you would know all these things. I'm telling you what the word of God says, 1

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Peter 3 .15. Set Christ apart as Yahweh, as Lord in your hearts.

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Set him apart as Lord in your hearts. Always Christian, follower of Jesus, child of God.

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Always being ready to give an reasoned defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is within you, yet do it with gentleness and with reverence.

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That verse, 1 Peter 3 .15, brothers and sisters, is not a verse for the scholars alone.

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It is not a verse for the highly intellectual. It's not a verse for the person who just reads stacks of books on philosophy and evidence and biblical archeology.

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That verse is to you, mom. You are called to give a reasoned defense for the hope that's within you.

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It's a verse for you, dad. You are called to the same. It's a verse to you, children.

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If you trust in Christ, Scripture calls you, be ready. Be ready with a reasoned defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you, do it with gentleness and with reverence.

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But that is a call generally to all saints, to all believers. We're called to this.

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Now some more pillars, some more foundations. What we know is, Scripture says, the fear of the Lord, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

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Not the middle, not the conclusion, it's the very beginning of knowledge. You want to know, it starts with reverential awe before God.

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That's where knowledge begins. But we also know in Scripture that Scripture commands us against the issue of neutrality.

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And if you want to know the difference between the core doctrine of your church body and what's out there within the

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Christian communion, that's a core difference. There are many Christian apologetic methodologies that would say you can abandon your commitments to the authority of Christ and the authority of God's word to defend

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Christ and defend God's word. You can do it with neutrality. You can just use particular argumentation that might actually assume

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Jesus isn't who he claimed to be. That the Bible is not God's word. That maybe knowledge is possible apart from Christ.

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We do this without neutrality. Whoever's not with me, what? Whoever's not with me is against me.

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That's true. Do you believe it? Do you believe it? Now that's true, brothers and sisters.

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Whoever's not with me is against me. It's true in academia. Whoever's not with me is against me is true in your family.

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Whoever's not with me is against me is true in your church. Whoever's not with me is against me is true in your business.

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Jesus calls people to come to him to die and to rise again. Jesus calls people to come to him and to count the cost of coming to him.

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Jesus says to people, if you're not with me, you're against me. No neutrality with Christ. And so our position as a church is that if you're in this world of philosophy and debate and evidence and reason and the defense of the

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Christian faith, you must do it as a Christian. You can't use unchristian, non -christian presuppositions, non -christian methodologies to get to Christian conclusions.

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Do you see the point? You can't abandon Christ, abandon the authority of scripture to get someone to believe in Christ and to believe in the authority of scripture.

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Does that make sense? We're done. Okay, let's pray. That seems so simple. These are simple things that we should understand as the church.

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But oftentimes, when we go out there into academia and into the world, we want to minimize our

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Christian commitments. And I want to say, we need to let the lion out of the cage, brothers and sisters.

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The word of God is powerful. That's what we use to change the world and change people's minds. Now, one more verse of foundation in terms of put this into your toolbox.

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Go to Colossians chapter two, brothers and sisters. Colossians chapter two, incredible passage, incredible passage.

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I won't read the entire thing, but this is the inspired apostle, the apostle

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Paul, speaking specifically to this issue of philosophy.

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And here's what he says in Colossians chapter two, verse six. Therefore, as you received

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Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him. Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

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See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

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And you've been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

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Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith, through faith in the powerful working of God, who raises him from the dead.

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And you who were dead in your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

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Now, scripture is warning us.

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First and foremost, it tells us the whole story of what Christ has accomplished, and us being joined together in his death and resurrection, and our sins being forgiven.

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We're to be rooted in Christ, rooted and built up in Jesus, established in the faith, abounding in thanksgiving.

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But notice that he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ, and not according to Christ.

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So there is a philosophy, according to the Apostle Paul, that is according to Christ, and there are philosophies that are not according to Christ.

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There's the warning. There's the warning to the church. Don't be taken captive. Don't be led away, taken away, dragged away by these human philosophies and traditions that are not according to Jesus.

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You be rooted in Jesus, built up in Jesus, the one you're joined together with, your

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Lord, the one who forgave you of your sins. Don't be taken captive by these things. But notice something.

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This is what's powerful. There's the warning, but just before the warning, notice what he says about Jesus.

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Chapter 2, verse 1, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at 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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Messiah, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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Now, brothers and sisters, let's put it out there for the world to see. Let's go to the college classroom and let's write those words above the whiteboard in the philosophy class, in the philosophy departments.

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In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, meaning this.

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You want to know something? You want wisdom? You want knowledge?

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It's in Jesus. So all of your philosophy courses, all of your thousands of years of spinning the wheels and trying to find some way to make sense of human experience and human reason and human knowledge apart from the

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God of the Bible is useless apart from Jesus.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That is the foundation of biblical apologetics.

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If you want to know something, if you want certainty, if you want to ground it, you have to ground it in God's revelation.

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That's the foundation. Now, let me give you just something that's a simple way to put a revelational epistemology, biblical apologetics, presuppositional apologetics.

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Here it is. This is it. All we're talking about when we talk about presuppositional apologetics is simply this.

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It is sola scriptura. It is the principle at the heart of sola scriptura applied to philosophy and apologetics.

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So grant that. If you believe that the word of God is the ultimate, that it is the reference point because it is actually

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God's speech, he's condescended and he's talked to us.

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Yes, we know there's general revelation. We read it today. Giovanni read it today.

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Psalm 19, the heavens declare what? The glory of God. We know there's general revelation because we have special revelation that tells us about the general revelation.

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You can't avoid God shouting at everybody every moment of every day in all of their experience through the stars and the moon and the glory of the world creation and the complexity of human life.

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The deep detail down to the cell and the machines that are working there, it is screaming about the glory of God.

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We don't deny that. God's speech is clear. But God says in his special revelation that the problem with general revelation is that it gets through.

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But what does a fallen person do with that general revelation? Do they just get it and go?

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Well, obviously, obviously, that's all Yahweh. That's the

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God of the Bible. I see it. I see it in the butterflies and the baboons and the snakes and the whales.

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I see the glory of God in the ocean, the mountains. Yes, that general revelation just screams at me about God.

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And I confess and I yield. What does Romans 1 say? What does sinful fallen people do with that natural revelation?

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All that light, all that evidence. It says God has shown it to them. Each and every person walking around in God's world,

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God has, Romans 1, shown it to them. He's done it. He's given the revelation of himself.

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But what do people do with that kind of revelation? What do they do? They suppress that truth in unrighteousness and they switch

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God for something else. So you can keep throwing evidences. Do it.

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Throw the biblical archaeology. Hey, look here. We've got all the evidence that shows the amazing connection between history and what the

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Bible says in redemptive history. We've got all this stuff of the pharaohs and we've got where the crossing was.

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And there's evidence here of Sodom and Gomorrah and the sulfur and all the stuff that's there. We've got all the evidence of the global flood.

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And you're going, evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence, and the historicity of Jesus Christ.

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You can talk about the external stuff outside the New Testament, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, all the things.

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Throw them out there. You throw out the evidences. Like when William Lane Craig was discussing

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Jesus and his resurrection with Ben Shapiro. William Lane Craig's a beast when it comes to the historicity of the resurrection of Christ and all the rest.

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He throws out the evidences, evidence, evidence, evidence. And what did Ben Shapiro say in response to William Lane Craig giving him all the historicity and all the evidences of the resurrection?

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Ben Shapiro said in response, I just find that uninteresting because the problem is not light.

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It's a resistance to the truth. It's a commitment ahead of time to resist

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God. Their heart has to be changed. Their worldview has to be changed.

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The evidence is not the problem. Of course, general revelation is getting through.

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It's telling us all about God. How can you sit on a beach? I'll give you a spot.

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So I love you all with all my heart. But if God called me to Lanikai, Oahu, Hawaii, I would say,

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I love you. I'm out of here. I don't, I only kind of mean that.

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So, all right. But there's this beach in Oahu. Lanikai. The sand is like white powder.

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It is something different from even the rest of Oahu. And you get on this sand and it's just magical.

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And the view from this beach is something that takes you a little while to really get used to and take in.

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The water is crystal blue clear. And you get into it and it's not too cold.

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And it's not too hot. It feels like it just matches your skin. And when you're in it, you're looking straight down like this glorious blue pool of water.

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And the water's not too strong. And you look ahead of you and all you see is this glorious artistry right in front of you.

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There's two little mountains out there in the middle of the water. The blue sky and the wind is blowing.

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And you sit in that and you have to think to yourself, atheism is stupid.

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It is so undeniably stupid. You can, but here's the problem.

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You can bring every atheist to Lanikai, Oahu, drop them in that water and go, see?

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And what will they have? Some natural explanation as to how this all occurred.

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Oh, you know, there was this magical thing that happened in the past where there was nothing and then something occurred. And then, and then there was inorganic matter that through some magical reconfiguration, no guidance just became organic.

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Yes, that's magic, but we need at least some miracles to start this thing. And they'll just give you some naturalistic explanation because the problem isn't the evidence.

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Yeah, that's God's speech. That's God's speech. And some of you guys, you love to camp.

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And for you, you're like out camping in the woods. And I think it's disgusting, but you love it.

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And you're there camping. And for you, that's like you're breathing it in. You're like, oh, the glory of God. And you just are seeing the glory of God.

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God's speaking there. Yes. But the problem is suppression. What we're saying in terms of knowledge and certainty is this.

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Yes, that general revelation is clear. God wrote that book too.

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He wrote that book too. But he's given us another book, a special book of revelation where he condescends and he speaks to us.

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And that revelation we're saying is the foundation where we can have certainty and make claims to certainty.

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Sola Scriptura says, in essence, it is the revelation of God that's supreme. Stop there.

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Sola Scriptura is that. The Reformation was proclaiming that. Look, church history is great.

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Tradition is great. It's amazing. We've got great stuff in church history. Thank God for the councils that defended the

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Trinity. Thank God for the Nicene Creed, for the Athanasian Creed. Praise God for those things. But ultimately, you have to test everything out of a mouth, out of the mouth of a fallible human being with the infallible revelation of God.

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The church cannot simply pull rank on somebody and say, because I say so. No. No.

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What you say as a Christian, in order for it to be true and believed to be true, has to be consistent with what

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God has said in his revelation. Amen? Now, that core thing right there,

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I gave to you, if you believe that, then you understand the heart of presuppositional apologetics.

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It's simply this. God said, we don't like to say that anymore, do we?

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We're afraid as Christians to say that. Why? In this generation. Do you think the Puritans were afraid to say that? Do you think the

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Puritans were afraid to walk around in the public square and say, God says? No, they said that freely. They were able to say it.

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There was no compromise. That's what God says. Why don't we do this? Because God says. Why are we doing this? Because God says.

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What happened to us in this generation, we're so afraid to say to the scoffer and the unbeliever out there, because God says.

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I'll give you an example of it, just briefly, to show you how this works out in real life. Did you get a chance to see that movie a while back?

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I loved it. It was really well done. Fun to watch. Matt Walsh, What is a Woman? Anybody get to see that?

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Raise your hand if you saw that movie. Anybody? It was fun. It was fun because you're sitting there for,

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I don't know how long the movie was. Seemed like it was pretty long. And you're watching people say the craziest things.

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He's just asking a simple question. It's one question. What is a woman?

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And people cannot, God help us, answer the question today.

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Is it because it's not obvious what a woman is? Oh, it's obvious. It's obvious to everybody, including them.

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The problem is they resist what's right in front of them for a hostile perspective to God.

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But here's the point. Listen closely. Matt Walsh, as much as I respect the man, as much as I like the movie,

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I had a problem. And the problem was simply this. When you get to the final end of this discussion, what is a woman?

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They're not considering biology. They could care less about biology. The guy you're talking to about what is a woman is wearing a dress.

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He doesn't care about the biology, amen? And so you could use creative arguments.

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You could say, well, you know, in human history, universally, throughout human history, from the beginning, universally, we have a binary.

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We have a man and we have a woman. We have a mother and a father. And so, you know, we know from tradition and all the tribes that are behind us and all that we've done, we know that we've always just accepted by tradition you have a man and a woman.

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And a woman is like this and a man's like this. Well, what's the problem with that? What's the problem with that?

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Is that a person could say very simply, I reject that tradition.

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We've grown out of it. You see, we are more enlightened now in this century. And we know now that there are people who are actually born with a certain set, but inside are something different.

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We know that now. There's the knowledge claim. We know that now. And because we know that now and we're more enlightened than you were back then, we can reject that tradition because you know what we're going to do?

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We're going to create a society that actually outgrows your tradition and outlives your tradition.

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And we're going to create a new tradition. It's all subjectivism or it's people just saying my group will win because we will get bigger than you and we will conquer through our ideas.

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You see, what would the ultimate thing to do? What would the ultimate thing? What should the ultimate thing be that we say when we're challenging the issue out there on this one issue of what is a woman?

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I feel like it's better for a kid to grow up in a home with a mother and a father and she has to have this, you know, she's biologically female and nurturing and the way all the beautiful ways.

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I just personally feel like that. Is that we do just a personal feelings and subjectivity or just appeal to some tradition out there?

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Listen, you can point to the biology and they don't care about the biology. They'll find a way around it.

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How should we be approaching this as Christians? Here's presuppositional apologetics. No neutrality.

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Knowledge only in Christ. Jesus said, have you not read that from the beginning, from the beginning he created them male and what?

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Female. And a man shall leave his what? Father and mother and cling to his wife and be one flesh.

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That that is the grounding of knowledge and certainty with regard to what a woman is, what a man is, what our roles are.

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We appeal to the living God who walked among us. He spoke to us. How do I know? Because God said that from the beginning he created male and female.

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And by the way, isn't this amazing in terms of evidence and apologetics? Here's what God said.

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And isn't it a glorious thing that all biology is screaming to the world about what Jesus said?

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The biology, the natural revelation matches the special revelation. Amen? So there's the grounding there.

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Now, just a couple of things to point to and to whet your appetites for men or women in the room right now that want to go deeper into this.

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We're talking about epistemology. Don't be thrown by that. Don't be thrown by that. Don't think it's above your head.

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Epistemology is just how do you know? It's a theory of knowledge. How do you know? That could be answered, again, as simply as the mother who's telling her child, stop lying.

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That's a sin. I told you not to disobey me. You have to honor your father and your mother.

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The child could simply say, who says? Now, after the spanking, you ultimately want to get to, it's not my claim.

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In this house, I'm an authority, but I'm not the ultimate authority. The ultimate authority is

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God. And your children should be brought up in a home where you're doing presuppositional apologetics every day with them.

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When they say, how come or how do I know? The answer is because God says. God says.

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That's the answer. You shall not lie. Why? Because God says. Yeah, you could talk about all the consequences that will now be brought into the world through their lying.

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You could talk about all the consequences that will come into their life by stealing. But the grounding of the command to the children is revelational epistemology.

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I know because God says, don't lie. God says, don't steal. God says, don't murder your brother.

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Sometimes you might have to say that to your children. There are bad days even in Christian homes. Amen. Some of y 'all are afraid to speak up, and you know that I'm telling the truth.

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But revelational epistemology is just simply a theory of knowledge. And we say, we know because God has spoken.

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There are different epistemologies out there. Sometimes people have one way. Sometimes people hook them up with other ways to have a blend of things to get to, well, here's how

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I know. You have rationalism. People say, well, you need to reason your way through it. Reason is supreme.

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Reason is how we know. You have empiricism. People say, you got to test it. You got to test it.

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You got to experience it. You got to see it. You got to do all the work and the hypothesis and the theory and all those different things.

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And you got to test it. And that's how you know. And then some people, this is the favorite of today. It's the one you're going to probably run into the very most in terms of how do you know?

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It's just private or personal subjectivism. That is the popular epistemology of the day.

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Be ready for it. How do you know that? Answer? Because I feel it. I feel it.

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Because in my experience, I personally think that this is how we ought to do things.

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It's got a world filled with a bunch of little gods, little sovereigns. They're all in charge of their own little world.

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And they make commands and decrees as to what is right and what is wrong. Subjectivism. OK, let's go to methodology quickly.

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Number one, the presuppositional method says, Matthew 1230, there is no neutrality with Jesus.

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Whoever's not with me, what? Let's say it again. Whoever's not with me is against me.

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There's the grounding. There's the methodology. We are grounded in God's revelation. Now, there's obviously, you know, there's a million ways till Sunday we could do this in terms of the word of God and the grounding of knowledge and truth and God's word being the truth.

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But let's just start with one that I think is just vivid in its explanation. Everyone go to Matthew 7.

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Matthew chapter 7. Matthew 7, 24.

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Jesus says, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house.

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But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.

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We are grounding our life. We are grounding our knowledge. We are grounding our apologetic.

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We're grounding our philosophy. We're grounding our ethical system. We're grounding everything in the word of God, the revelation of God.

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And Jesus puts it this way. Ground it here, you'll withstand everything.

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Don't ground it here. You hear the words of mine, you don't do them, then you'll be like the house that is planted in the sands.

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It's not on the rock. Who does that? Who builds a house just plops it down in sands?

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You know that it's not going to last long. You know it's temporary. You know it's just going to take that first storm to knock it down.

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If you're building a house, you work the ground. You get down to the rock, you build it, a foundation that will withstand the difficulties that are going to come against that house.

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And Jesus says, it's my word. Build it or don't. Build it or don't.

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It's my word. And so that's the call of presuppositional apologetics in all of our lives, in our debates, in our disputes, in our defense of the

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Christian faith, in all of our reasoning, in our daily lives. We are building our house upon the rock.

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Now, there is, and I'm going quickly today because I don't want to keep you here until eight o 'clock, a two -fold apologetic methodology.

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Two -fold apologetic methodology. We want to learn to reason as Christians and we want to take our cues from Scripture.

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Isn't it great? The Bible speaks about so much. And it also tells us how to argue, how to have disputes.

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And the book of Proverbs chapter 26, go there. When we talk about how are we supposed to do this, how do we defend the faith?

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How do we reason? Proverbs 26, two -fold apologetic methodology.

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Proverbs 26, verse four, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

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All right? So there it is. There's a lot of ways the Bible describes the fool, especially in the book of Proverbs, lots and lots of ways.

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But we know an example of a fool is the fool says in his heart, there is no God. There's a fool.

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One of the many explanations of what a fool is. By the way, I always like to say this because I think it is important.

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When the Bible calls somebody a fool, it's not engaging in simple name calling. It's describing a sinful state of mind, a sinful heart.

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It's a moral failing to be a fool according to the Bible. And the Bible says here in Proverbs, don't answer a fool according to his folly or you'll be like him.

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And so when we think about the defense of the Christian faith and a methodology of how do I argue?

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How do I do this? Scripture tells us, here's a principle. Don't answer the fool according to his foolishness.

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If you do, you're going to be like him. If you go his direction, if you get on his train, you're going to end up at his destination.

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You could be, as Dr. Bonson said, you can get onto the unbeliever's train, right? This train is just cruising and you could do your very best to run to the back of the train to the other destination.

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It doesn't matter. That train is taking you to the other station. You could do all the running you want.

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You're on his train. You're going to his destination. If you act like the fool, you're going to be like him yourself.

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And so when we think about apologetic methodology, we don't want to take the unbeliever's presuppositions.

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Don't take their attitude. Don't take their methodology. Don't go their way.

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That is to say, when we defend the Christian faith, we need to do it as what? I said that already, right?

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When we defend the Christian faith, we do it as Christians with a commitment to Christ as Lord. We don't assume neutrality or pretend neutrality like the unbeliever.

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Hey, here, by the way, here's a very important piece of information in terms of our dispute with the unbelieving world.

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This is vital. If you get this, you'll get so much. The unbeliever wants you to be neutral.

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They want you to pretend neutrality. But here's a tip, a hot tip. They are not neutral.

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They want you to abandon your commitments and to pretend neutrality with them.

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But they are not neutral. They have their own pre -commitments.

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They already think they know how we got here and what is right and what is wrong and how we know things.

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But they want you to pretend neutrality. And here's one application of Proverbs 26 .4. Don't go that way.

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Don't answer them according to their folly. Don't take their commitments. Don't take their behavior. And then, interestingly, and this is something you see a lot in the book of Proverbs, you see one principle propped up and another one that comes that looks like it contradicts it.

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It's not. It's giving you a twofold method. One, don't answer the fool according to their folly or you're going to be just like them.

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The next one is, answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes.

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So first and foremost, don't be like them. Don't behave like them.

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Don't take their position. Don't pretend neutrality. There's a million ways you can hash out don't answer the fool or to answer the, sorry, answer not a fool according to their folly.

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But then the other says, in terms of wisdom, answer the fool according to their folly lest he be wise in his own eyes.

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Show the fool how truly foolish they are. Stand on their position and show them their feet.

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Let them know this is where you're going with your position. There's a million ways to do this.

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A million ways to do this. Answer them according to their folly. I'll give you one. We're going to go into some more practical stuff, family stuff in just a moment here.

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But in terms of defending the Christian faith, here's a funny one today. There is an entire segment of our population in the

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West that believes that a man can dress like a woman, put the costume of a woman on, pretend to be a woman, and we should all say you're a woman.

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And it's offensive if we deny how they feel about themselves. There's a famous TikToker guy who dresses like a little girl.

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It's really a disgusting and foul thing to see. And he likes to put up TikTok videos where he purposely goes to restaurants.

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Now, this is a dude. I mean, you got to look at the cheekbones, the knuckles, and the throat, right?

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And it's like shouting, that's a dude. All of creation is shouting. The heavens are declaring that you're a dude.

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We know that you're a dude. Your perm and your pink little bra thing is not covering up the man in front of all of us, right?

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And so he sits down at restaurants and it's like it happens regularly because we can't help it.

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The restaurant staff are just trying to be respectful and kind and courteous. And so he's like, thank you.

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And they're like, you're welcome, sir. And he's like, oh, oh, and he goes, come back here. Come back here.

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He's like, you know, you just misgendered me. You just called me, sir.

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And every time you do that, it's like a knife to the heart. It's like a knife to the heart every time you do it.

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I know these videos just are up and it's sad to watch, but that's what we're faced with today.

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But we're expected to say in today's world, come with me in this foolishness. A man should be able to dress like a woman and be called a woman.

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Put on the costume of a woman and you can now be a woman or a woman can dress like a man.

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And we have to say, well, you are officially a man because you have the costume of a man. Now, the leftists will all say that is virtuous.

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You have to accept this as the moral position. Don't misgender somebody.

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If the guy is wearing a costume, respect the costume. That's what he is.

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Now, the left says this is the way of life. This is virtuous. OK, answer the fool according to their folly.

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How about blackface? Can I put the costume on as a white man?

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As a black man, I can say, well, I'll just paint myself. Right?

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Why is it so quiet in here right now? Don't play into their worldview, guys.

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Don't play into it. Think about the challenge. Answer the fool according to their folly.

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You said that all I must do is put a costume on as a woman and I'm a woman.

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Well, does that work now with a different ethnicity? Am I allowed to dress like a black person as a white person?

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Maybe put on some really offensive costume and makeup. Go around pretending to be a certain way.

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Will you respect that? And what does the leftist say? What do they say? No. No.

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And you could say internal critique. You said the costume is what matters.

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And now I do the internal critique and I show the collapse of your entire system. You don't really believe what you say you believe.

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Is that what is actually true is you've accepted a moral position. It's an immoral position.

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And that is that men can pretend to be women. Women can pretend to be men.

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Your position is inconsistent. You do the internal critique and you show them their feet.

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So a twofold apologetic methodology. Very important in terms of how we actually engage.

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There's many ways to actually talk about this and demonstrate it.

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As Christians, when we are in a dispute or an evangelism context with the

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Latter -day Saint, with the Muslim, with the Jehovah's Witness, we need to think at all times as Christians, what am

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I standing on and what are they standing on? You've seen me many times before do this with the chairs.

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Not going to do that today. I'm just going to describe it to you. You need to think about I'm standing on the word of God.

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I want what comes out of my mouth and out of my life, out of my hands and my feet to be consistent with what

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I'm standing on. It is the word of God. It's his revelation. I want my words to be consistent with what

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I'm standing on. And when you are reasoning with the unbeliever of whatever stripe, you need to consider what they claim to believe and what they're standing on versus what is coming out of their mouths.

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Couple examples. You can take conversation with the Muslim and you can say, okay,

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I'm the Christian. I'm standing on the word of God. I want my words to be his words consistent all the way through.

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Now I'm engaging with the Muslim. Now, how do I start this conversation? By pretending that maybe

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Jesus didn't die and rise again, as they say. By pretending that maybe Jesus isn't

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God. No, I'm going to use scripture the whole time to demonstrate Jesus is God.

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He did die. He did rise from the dead. He is ascended and seated on his throne. He is coming back to judge the world and righteousness.

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But when I engage with the Muslim, I want to do the internal critique. And that internal critique can be simple at the beginning, as simple as saying, now, don't you believe as a

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Muslim that you have the Quran and the previous revelation of God in the

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Old Testament and New Testament? Doesn't your Quran and doesn't Islam teach you that God spoke through the prophets of the

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Old Testament and into the New Testament? Don't you believe that Allah spoke and that's where the

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Bible comes from? So you've got the Bible and the Quran. They say, yes, God spoke. OK, well, in that revelation, it says that Jesus is

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God. Isaiah 9, 6 through 7. In that revelation, it says that Jesus died and Jesus rose again from the dead and that salvation is only possible through Jesus.

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So when you take other claims of Islam that contradict that previous revelation, you are shown to be collapsed.

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Your system doesn't work. And by the way, brothers and sisters, just quickly, the same methodology works in terms of how we pursue this with the

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Mormon. What does the Mormon say? They say, I'm standing on the Bible. I'm standing on the

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Book of Mormon. I'm standing on the Doctrine and Covenants. I'm standing on Pearl of Great Price.

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I'm standing on those. Joseph Smith is just another prophet in line of all the biblical prophets.

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Great. That's what you're standing on. You're standing on the Bible. Yes, I'm standing on the Bible. Great. Tell me again about the first vision.

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And they say, first vision. Oh, that's right. That one version of it is Joseph Smith goes off into the woods.

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And, you know, he's praying. He doesn't know which church to join. And then Elohim appears and Jesus appears.

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And God says, join none of the churches for they're all wrong. All their creeds are an abomination.

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All their professors are corrupt. They draw near to me with their hearts, but their hearts or their lips, their hearts are far from me.

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And Joseph is told that there is an apostasy, that the church essentially was removed from the earth.

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And he was coming to restore the church that had essentially been destroyed from the earth. What's the problem?

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Answer the fool according to their folly. What does the

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Mormon say they're standing on? What do they say they're standing on? The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price.

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Great. You're saying that you're standing on the Bible. That Bible says,

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I will build my church and the gates of hell will never prevail against it.

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That Bible also says long before Joseph came, that we are to earnestly contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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You can't say that you're standing on the revelation of God and say that the church fell away into full apostasy and the church was destroyed and Joseph needed to restore it.

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So answer the fool according to their folly. Now, we need to, as Christians, think about how this affects us every single day.

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It's not just about presuppositional apologetics, defending the faith, arguing with someone in the streets.

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It's not. There's that element to it. But when we talk about presuppositional apologetics, we're talking about the grounding for everything that we do.

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You already know this and you do it, brothers and sisters, instinctively every single day.

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But here's the challenge of the philosophy of it all. How come you do that with so much confidence every day?

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Here's my examples. Every day, it's a necessity to have all your knowledge grounded in the word of God and his revelation.

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I want you to think about today when you got out of bed. Start there at the very beginning.

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When you got out of bed, you got out of bed, I assume, rolled over, put your feet on the floor, and you stood up.

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Did anybody in this room today, when you did that, start to freak out that maybe today you'd float away to the ceiling?

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Anybody? Some of you guys are like, you don't know what kind of night I had last night, Pastor Jeff? Yes. Nobody does that.

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You get out of bed, put your feet on the floor, and all of a sudden you start walking forward, and nobody's freaking out about maybe today gravity won't hold me down like it did yesterday.

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Did you know that every single day you're dependent upon Christ and the Christian God to get out of bed and to walk?

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Now, you might be saying, but Pastor Jeff, unbelievers get out of bed too.

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They have a morning, they open their eyes, they put their feet on the floor, and they go to make that cup of coffee. And my answer is, yeah, they do, because they're living in God's world as his image bearer, and they are ultimately dependent upon God.

01:00:06

Because I want you just to think for just a moment, let's take you the Christian versus the rabid unbeliever.

01:00:14

Let's give it a face. Let's give him a face. Let's say it's Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins, one of the most famous atheists of the last generation.

01:00:23

He is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, they call themselves, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris.

01:00:32

Now, it's you versus Dawkins, all right? You get out of bed, put your feet on the floor, you walk to that coffee maker, and you make yourself some coffee, or whatever floats your boat, whatever you do, okay?

01:00:42

I don't know, your mate, plexus, all your things, right? Whatever you like, whatever gets you going in the morning.

01:00:49

You're doing that, you're not thinking twice about it, but how come you're doing that with so much confidence?

01:00:56

Because you believe what scripture says. There is a sovereign God who carries this universe along to its intended destination.

01:01:03

He is in control of all things. He holds the universe together. And so you can believe, listen, that today's future will be like the past, that gravity's gonna hold today, that when

01:01:19

I move my knees and walk forward, it's gonna be like past experiences. Now, ready?

01:01:26

That's your experience as a Christian. Never probably even thought, like, yeah, even getting out of bed and walking is totally dependent upon the

01:01:33

Christian God. Now, Richard Dawkins climbs out of his bed, gets up the same way you do.

01:01:39

He's a little older now, probably a little slower than you do. And he starts walking down his hallway, and you say, well, look, he's doing the same thing.

01:01:47

Yeah, except there's a problem. Is that Richard Dawkins has a particular view of the world.

01:01:53

And you know what he says about the world, the universe? He says there was nothing, and then there was something.

01:02:03

And this universe is his time, chance, acting on matter. There is no guidance.

01:02:10

There's no governance. Ultimately, this entire universe is unguided and unpurposed, and it's just sound and fury signifying nothing.

01:02:18

It's just stuff moving around. Okay, so how can you be confident that the future, today's future, will be like the past, and that nature will be uniform, and you can trust that today's future will be like yesterday?

01:02:34

How do you do that? By the way, listen closely, all of science, all evidence is dependent upon the uniformity in nature.

01:02:43

If you don't have that, science can't be done in a coherent way. So you got two stories, your story as a

01:02:49

Christian, and the story of Richard Dawkins, ready? Who can justify meaningfully what they're doing when they get out of bed and walk down the hallway?

01:02:58

Who can do it, the Christian or the atheist? Answer with confidence now.

01:03:05

Only the Christian. Only the Christian could say, I have a meaningful justification for not freaking out, right?

01:03:12

When I wake up in the morning, my eyes open. I'm not just going into a panic going, what if I float to the ceiling? What if today the laws of physics are completely turned upside down?

01:03:21

Nobody does that because you believe you live in God's world and you can depend upon it. How about when you went to brush your teeth?

01:03:28

This is Dr. Bonson, he debated Gordon Stein at the University of California, Irvine many years ago, famous atheist.

01:03:35

He used the toothpaste proof of God's existence. By the way, if you haven't heard that debate, please listen to that debate 60 times because you will learn something new every time you do.

01:03:46

Dr. Bonson was one of the greatest philosophers in the history of the church. And he used the toothpaste proof of God's existence.

01:03:53

He was essentially saying this, isn't it amazing that every day, all of us, we grab, hopefully you do, you grab that toothpaste tube and you squeeze it.

01:04:04

And isn't it amazing that when you squeeze that toothpaste tube, toothpaste spurts out just like it did yesterday, right?

01:04:13

And now go further with it. If you grab the toothpaste tube tonight and you go to squeeze some on your toothbrush and nothing comes out, will you conclude that the laws of physics have gone awry, right?

01:04:28

Everything's changed in the world. Call your friends. Guys, toothpaste doesn't work anymore. Everybody would say, is it empty?

01:04:38

Or maybe you left the cap off for six days and it dried and something's blocking it.

01:04:45

Nobody thinks the laws of physics have gone awry when no toothpaste is spurting out of the toothpaste tube.

01:04:51

Here's the point. You are dependent upon the Christian worldview to justify your use of toothpaste.

01:05:00

Without the Christian God, your every day working that toothpaste out of the tube can't be justified.

01:05:08

You are dependent upon the laws of physics and the uniformity of nature in order to brush your teeth. Or how about when you get up in the morning and maybe you drink some water?

01:05:19

Why? Guys, this is the Christian worldview is glorious.

01:05:24

It is amazing. It's down to water is proof of your dependence to be able to speak.

01:05:32

Dependence upon God every day. A glass of water. When you are thirsty, you know in human experience, if I don't drink something, what's gonna happen to me?

01:05:43

What's gonna happen if I stop drinking? Because based upon past experience, you can project into the future with a uniformity in nature that if I don't drink water,

01:05:53

I am going to die. And so every day we go to get that hydration and we're drinking, we're doing it because we know that God holds the universe together.

01:06:04

Nature is uniform. I mean, what if this universe is unguided and everything's changing all the time?

01:06:11

I mean, guys, this is what they teach. Fish became philosophers. Yeah, they really believe that.

01:06:21

That our ancestors were bacteria. They really believe that. What if in this unguided universe that where things can change and shimmy all the time and get crazy, real crazy, what if you woke up and that water was actually poison?

01:06:40

What if tomorrow water is poisonous to humans? You're gonna take that kind of risk? Do you walk to the water fountain and say,

01:06:47

I don't know, it's kind of a crazy universe we live in here, right? Time and chance acting on matter. Maybe today

01:06:53

H2O ain't a go. Thank you, just got that.

01:06:59

Maybe it's not. Maybe today it'll be like acid. It'll melt my insides. No one does that because we're not stupid.

01:07:05

We know we live in God's world. This is how he built the world. This is how the human body works. It's not gonna change.

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That's God's world. Or how about cooking breakfast? Moms, you go to the stovetop and you're cooking breakfast for the kids.

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Kids come running towards the stove and they go to throw their hand on top of the stove. What is your reaction to the child that throws his hand on the stove?

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What's your reaction? Stop them, block them, have a very serious talk with them.

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This is going to hurt you. How do you know, mom? What if today in this crazy time and chance universe, that will be the most delightful thing in the world?

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Putting my hand on that hot stove will be the greatest experience of my young life.

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Like, how come, see what I'm saying? Every single day, you are dependent upon the Christian worldview in everything that you do.

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You know, based upon past experience, that this will burn you and injure you because there's a uniformity in nature.

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Past experience can guide our future experience because we have a uniform creation.

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The unbeliever, listen, they do not have a justification for that appeal to the uniformity in nature.

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Or when you're baking bread. I love like how the women of this church help each other, bless each other, are in each other's lives, mentor one another, teach young mothers how to cook great dinners for their husband, bake their own bread.

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Sourdough is a big thing at Apologia Church. And if you think about this, moms, ladies, when you're baking that sourdough, you do it to the glory of God, you do it

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Thanksgiving. But in order to bake the sourdough in a philosophically coherent and consistent way, you have to be a

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Christian. Right? Let me ask this. Are there rules to baking sourdough?

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Seriously? I can't just do anything I want? I mean, I've seen my wife, she makes some banging sourdough, let me say that.

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But I've seen a few times where like the weather's a little off or the temperature's a little off or something and I'll come in in the morning and she's gonna make this amazing sourdough bread and then she goes, hey, guess what?

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What? Tonight we're having pizza. Why? Because my sourdough turned into pizza crust.

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By the way, it's still stinking delicious. It's the best pizza, better. Better than Domino's and all that nonsense.

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But there's rules to baking sourdough. And when, ladies, you're baking sourdough and you're following all the rules and you're doing it based upon past experience and how this actually works in God's world, you are dependent upon the

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Christian worldview and the uniformity in nature in order to do it. So moms, ladies, when you're baking that next batch of sourdough, do it to the glory of God, do it

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Thanksgiving and do it with your chest puffed, knowing that only Christians can bake bread in a meaningful way, amen?

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Because you have to have an orderly universe and a uniformity in nature in order to bake bread.

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Now you can go to a deeper level here and you've seen it in our public debates with atheists.

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Pastor James and I have done some. You've seen many other examples of this. You could demonstrate to the scientifically minded and evidentially minded unbeliever that there is no meaningful appeal to science or evidence apart from Jesus.

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Because if you have a universe of time and chance acting on matter, you don't know that the next five seconds will be like the past.

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Did you get that? Time and chance acting on matter with no purpose, no governance means you can't trust the future.

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Now, how about moral behavior? How about moral behavior?

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The centrality of the word of God for moral behavior. When we talk about in our daily lives, this is presuppositional apologetics applied to our daily lives.

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How about, again, I've already brought it up with our kids. You see, you come into the room, you hear some scuffling.

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You hear two children that say they love Jesus, like in there ready to harm one another.

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And then you see the two small children fighting over a toy. And then you see the young child, somewhere around four years old with red hair, punch another little boy in the nose who has black hair and blue eyes.

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Just giving a general example, general example.

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And you come in and you say to the children, stop doing what you're doing, sit down, some repentance is in order.

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Why? Because we are to love one another. God commands us to love him and to love one another, to treat others the way we want to be treated.

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And you sit down with the children, and what you're doing is you're presenting the word of God to the children as the primary source of knowledge.

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How come you can't punch someone in the face to get your way? God commands against it.

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I'll give you another example. How come in order to win debates, let's say we have a public debate.

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Everyone shows up, we're on stage, moderator's there, debater is here,

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Christian debater, atheist debater. This was brought up in the Gordonstein debate. How come in this unbelieving world where there is no

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God, there is no purpose, there is no meaning, how come I am not allowed to win debates by beating you down with my fists?

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How come I can't win a debate by shooting you? Who made that rule?

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How come winning a debate is not last man standing? Right, who made that rule?

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Do you see, when the atheist walks into a debate with a Christian, he is secretly dependent upon the

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Christian God to do so. Because he assumes we're gonna use laws of logic to win this debate.

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He assumes we're gonna use evidences to win this debate. And he would decry the idea that we could beat one another up to see who wins the debate.

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So in order to debate on a stage in a meaningful way, you gotta be a

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Christian, amen? Next, think about the things that happen to us every single day in terms of making sense of it and being able to justify the claim.

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I get, every day, I do not live in a good area, pray for me, I do not.

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Pastor Zach escaped from our neighborhood a couple years ago, so he's safe, praise

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God. But I do not live in a good area. It's getting worse all the time.

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And I get these alerts every day on my phone and it says all the bad stuff that happened, all the crimes that happened in the last 24 hours within like a block away from my house, a half a mile from my house to a mile.

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And every day, it is sexual assault, assault, burglary, and I don't even tell the time that it took place.

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Burglaries in broad daylight within a quarter mile of my house, two blocks of my house, home invasions and those sorts of things.

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I just saw one come up two days ago and it was a block and a half away from my house and it was indecent exposure, right there on Baseline Road in front of Harold's Chicken.

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Now, what gives us a right to complain about any of that?

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You know, coming to Harold's Chicken, you just want some chicken. It's good chicken.

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It's from Chicago. It's really good. Why would we complain?

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What gives us a right to complain when you are out with your family just going to get some chicken and you see something like that in public?

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Now, watch. I bet, well, I know, the police came that night, they pulled up to Harold's Chicken and they took that guy away and he got arrested.

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Now, I have a question. What are we doing arresting guys for indecent exposure outside of Harold's Chicken?

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What worldview can make sense of arresting people for that sort of thing? What worldview?

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Atheism or Christianity? Atheism or Christianity? Brothers and sisters, if we are

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African apes, if there is no good and there is no evil, only blind and pitiless indifference, then what happens outside of Harold's Chicken happens.

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There's no meaning to it. There's no offense. African apes do what

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African apes do. If my ancestors were bacteria, there is no moral requirement for anything.

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But when you think about the things that you complain about or you tell your family, don't do that, you ought not to do that, there's only a justification if God has spoken.

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I can only complain about the drive -by that just happened 25 feet in front of my house a couple of months ago.

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I can only complain about that if I have a Christian worldview because if their ancestors were apes, what's the problem with firing a deadly weapon in a neighborhood with my kids?

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Where's the failure? Do you see the point, brothers and sisters? This goes to your everyday life.

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And here's the challenge. How do you know that's wrong? Drive -by shootings, home invasions, indecent exposure, assaults on the corner.

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And this is just my neighborhood in the last week, pray for me, okay? How do you know any of that's wrong? On what basis?

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How do you know? You guys can fill in here. God says, that's how

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I know. Next, think about, and this is where we're finishing, the basis of how we actually have conflict within our home.

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How do you resolve that? How about husband and wife conflicts? We're all sinners, we're being sanctified, amen, yes?

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Marriage is the fast track to sanctification. Marriage is the fast track to sanctification, amen, yes?

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It is truly the fast track to sanctification. Your spouse will see your sin more than anybody else, all right?

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And if they love Jesus and you love Jesus, you're gonna work it out. But on what basis do you work it out?

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Like, let's talk about marital conflicts, the heart of presuppositional apologetics. God has spoken.

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If we don't have a Christian worldview, then what's marriage anyways? What's the value of marriage?

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Think about the wife that says to her husband, no, you cannot abandon me. You have to take care of me.

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You said that you would. You made an oath before God and witnesses. If you don't have a Christian worldview, what does that covenant mean?

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What value does that promise have if all of our ancestors were fish? Think about the necessity of the

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Christian worldview to make sense of marriage, not only the nature of marriage, male and female, but the promise that you bring at the altar.

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The woman says to the husband, you promised me before God. The man says to the woman, you promised me before God.

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On what basis do we get to complain when someone violates that covenant only from a Christian worldview?

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Only if God's word is true, can you confront somebody for violating that covenant. And only if God's word is true, can you hold someone to keep their promise, amen?

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Only if God has spoken. Or how come in marriage, when we have disputes with each other, how come we don't just solve the dispute by just assaulting one another?

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Why is that such a problem? How come the elders of your church, we've been pastors for a long time, over 15 years of apology at church, how come when we get word that there was any physical assault happening in a marriage, we confirm it, we make sure there's witnesses, we make sure that there is evidence of it, and we are on the phone within minutes to the police department to use that arm,

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God's sphere of authority, to make sure that justice is done. How come we respond so quickly to physical assault in any kind of marriage context?

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Because we're Christians standing on the word of God. But I have a question. How do you get to justify that?

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How come we don't just solve our conflicts in the home using physical violence because of the word of God?

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Or how come in our conflicts with one another as Christians, we challenge the husband, challenge the wife to say, we say things like, be gentle towards one another, be kind to one another, don't be bitter, let it all be put away from you.

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We tell them to love one another. Why do we challenge people to keep the promise that they made at the altar?

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Answer, God has spoken. God has spoken.

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That's the heart of presuppositional apologetics. This goes to our family and our relationships with one another.

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It's on the basis of the word of God that we challenge somebody next to us to not lie or to love one another.

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And then finally, I want to just give you this, the conditions for success.

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I just told you that in every conflict, whether it is family, whether it is marriage, whether it is with your children, whether it is with one another, whether it is out there with the world, that it is the word of God that is the foundation of knowledge.

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You use God's word to change the heart and the mind. Somebody might say, yeah,

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I don't know. I just, you just, you want to use scripture and just stand on that and use

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God's word? I don't know. I don't know if that's going to do much of the convincing. What does scripture say in Romans 1 16?

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It is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation. Is there amazing evidence for the

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Christian worldview? Yes. It's, it's insane.

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Study cosmology. Study the universe. Study the human body. Study DNA. My goodness, the language of life and DNA.

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You get one word wrong in that chain, it doesn't work. It's coherent language in the human body that just speaks you into existence.

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It's insane. The evidence for Jesus, the evidence for the Bible, historicity of the Bible, archeology, biblical archeology, prophecy fulfilled in the

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Bible. It's amazing. Yes, we get to appeal to those things because we have a Christian worldview that makes sense.

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But we're talking about hearts and minds being changed. People's hearts and minds are not ultimately changed to come and die and rise again with Jesus because you gave them some compelling piece of information about biblical archeology.

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People's hearts and minds are changed because their hearts are broken and they're exposed.

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And you're calling them to repentance and faith. So scripture says Romans 1 16, the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

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It is the thing that God uses, the dunamis, like dynamite, is the thing that brings about life in a lost person.

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And finally, condition for success, 2 Timothy 2 24 through 25, the call goes out that the servant of the

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Lord must be patient when wronged, in humility, correcting those who oppose themselves if perhaps

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

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So what's my hope in defending the Christian faith with the unbeliever? My hope is in the sovereign

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God and his sovereign grace and his sovereign will to bring this person to life. And he brings people to life through his gospel and his word.

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My trust is not in my fancy arguments, my compelling argumentation. My trust is in the sovereign

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God who grants repentance to the lost. And so your hope and my hope is in God who raises the dead.

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Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your truth.

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We pray that you'd use this message, Lord, to firm up our commitments to your truth, to your word, to the power of your word.

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We pray, Lord, you would even more firmly root us as your people into your revelation as the foundation of how we know we know.

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And we pray that you would use us in the world around us to defend your truth. In Jesus' name.