Street-level Apologetics: Apologetics 101 by Jeff Durbin

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I think I have my mic over now. How you guys doing? Good. All right.

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Well, let's start with prayer. We'll get right into it. Father, I want to thank you, Lord, for giving me the grace to be here,

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God, and Lord, I need you,

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God, at this moment, Lord, for your guidance, Lord, you to speak, you to give strength, God, and Lord, I want to pray for your blessing on this time,

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God, I pray, Lord, that I would get out of the way, that I would decrease, you would increase, God, I pray that you move by your spirit, Lord, that it would be you teaching, not me,

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God. I pray, Lord, that you would empower us by your spirit, you would encourage us, that you would open eyes to see what you call us to do and to be and to say, and God, we submit ourselves to you now even,

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Lord, in saying, God, we want to be corrected in any way, Lord, if there's a way,

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Lord, that's often us and how we've approached this in the past and reaching people and defending the gospel and we want to be corrected,

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Lord, we want to come to your word and be taught by you, by your spirit, and we just, we want to be a part of,

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God, you, Jesus, conquering the nations with your gospel, we want to be a part of you making your name famous through the preaching of the gospel,

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Lord, and redeeming people and drawing your sheep out of the world to yourself, God, and we want to be a part of that and we believe you,

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God, for it and we ask, Lord, that you would teach us, instruct us, shape us, grow us, in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, so open your Bibles to Acts chapter 17, Acts 17, we're going to be at a pretty famous address from Paul and Luke records a really significant moment in church history where Paul goes to, where he's in Athens and he's at the

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Areopagus, a pretty famous scene, Mars Hill, and kind of, we're going to be going to a lot of places, the negative of today is that we're going to a lot of places and the positive is that we're going to a lot of places and I think you'll see how that works out in a moment and so sort of my task that I was told to do is really talk about street level apologetics in the light of Acts chapter 17 and that is

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Paul in Athens at Mars Hill, the Areopagus famous scene and so really to get into that, trying to figure out what would be most beneficial for you as I pray through this, you know, not just wanting to speak on a text but I want you guys to be blessed and encouraged and grown and shaped and all that and so how do we do that and so coming at this from I think a couple different angles,

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I definitely want to run through Acts 17 with you but I think it's more important to start with some foundations and that is to say this, listen, we can do as Christians, we can do apologetics wrong and if you want to know what apologetics is, if you don't know, it comes from the

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Greek word apologia, we're going to get into 1 Peter 3 .15 in a minute and that's where Christians are all commanded to give a reasoned defense for their faith and I want to say this, that it might startle you to understand that from a biblical perspective, you can do apologetics wrong and maybe you already know that and I think most of us think about doing apologetics wrong in the sense of what we do with arrogance, right, or we're rude or we're pompous, you know, we're cavalier or how we treat people or something like that but I think that it goes even deeper, there is an even deeper issue when it comes to how we defend the faith and how we approach reaching people with the gospel and actually giving a defense for the faith.

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How do we do it biblically? And so, let's go right, let's do this, as you have your finger at Acts 17,

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I'm going to get to 1 Peter 3 .15, many of you guys already know the passage, now if you don't know the passage, you should know, this is the charter verse of all

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Christian apologetics and that is to say, in 1 Peter 3 .15, you have a very popular verse and that is

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Peter's writing near the end of his life, really shortly before he gets killed by Nero under Nero's reign for his faith in Christ, now think about this for a second, you've got

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Peter writing the verse on defending the faith, seems like a little problem there knowing

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Peter's history, correct, I mean, what's Peter famous for? What's that?

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Denying Christ, so he's within the earshot of Jesus and he's denying Christ and he's going to tell us now near the end of his life that, you know, every

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Christian must be ready to give to everyone who asks of you a reasoned defense for the hope that's within you, really,

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Peter? Yeah, I think he learned his lesson, right, I mean, that you always be ready to give to everyone who asks of you a reasoned defense and that's what

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I want to get to because when we talk about apologetics, you tell most Christians, hey, you know, what's a good verse that talks about the necessity to defend the faith as Christians?

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Most Christians run off to 1 Peter 3 .15, I mean, that's a popular passage and how is it always quoted?

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Always be ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of you, right? But that's not how it starts, is it?

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So if you go to 1 Peter 3 .15, let's talk about how does the passage start when you get into 1

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Peter 3 .15, he says, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.

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And you might think, like, well, why is that significant, Jeff, to bring up that in light of, like, street -level apologetics and how to defend the faith properly?

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I want to say this, and I think that as Christians, we need to see that as first primary, that's the most important part as we do apologetics, is that we set

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Christ apart first as Lord in our hearts. You see, a lot of apologetics will start off not necessarily with a commitment to Jesus as Lord as the foundation of your reasoning, of your apologetic, of your approach, and so a lot of times apologetics, the defense of the faith, comes with, well, what pieces of evidence can

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I learn to show that the irreducible complexity of life and that the scriptures have been transmitted to us correctly, and you try to find all the different evidences, and those are all important and you need to get into that, but I think first and foremost you need to look at what

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Peter says is the very first thing about defending your faith and giving a reasoned defense where the hope is within you, is very first and foremost, you set

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Jesus apart in your heart as Lord. And that is to say that I don't approach apologetics, defending the faith, on the street or wherever,

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I don't approach it with neutrality. I'm not approaching the defense of the gospel with a, maybe

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Jesus is who He claimed to be, let's reason there and see if we can get there. We don't approach the defense of the scriptures as God's word, as, well, maybe we think the evidence is far greater that it is

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His word, but it's very probably, you know, maybe not His word. I mean, we don't approach apologetics that way.

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So I want to say this first and foremost, that as you approach street -level apologetics, I want to ask you a question.

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When you approach it, how are you approaching it? Are you approaching defending the faith as somebody who is a slave of God?

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Are you approaching apologetics as somebody who has Christ as Lord of your reason? You see, that's really important because many times people will approach apologetics even with brothers and sisters in Christ, in a

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Christian community, as, you know, let's get as much evidence together as possible and let's try to throw this at the unbeliever and see if it'll catch and some will stick.

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You're going to find as we go through this that we should approach this whole issue differently. That is to say that I need to approach apologetics with Christ as Lord of my reasoning, of my life.

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He is the King, I am His servant, and that's how I approach the defense of the gospel. I think the apostles did exactly that.

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But we don't approach apologetics in defending the faith with somebody where we detach apologetics from evangelism.

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That's really important to see that. That apologetics in scripture is mingled together with evangelism.

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That is to say when the apostles were preaching the gospels, particularly in Acts chapter 17, they don't reason over here with apologetics or try to see if we can get enough evidences together that Jesus is this or that, and then, oh, and if I can finally get to it, then maybe

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I'll call you to repentance and faith. You see, apologetics to the glory of God, the way the apostles do it, the way that God lays down in scripture, your defense of the faith is mingled together with your call to faith.

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That's a really important distinction to make. And so I wanted to say this thing, but what excites me about Christianity is just the very fact that biblical faith is not a faith that's a blind leap of faith into darkness.

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So it's sort of like in today's culture, right, you have sort of people say, well, you've got like, you have science on this side and you have faith on this side.

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You got reason and rationality over here and you've got faith on this side. So you've got to kind of make a decision. You're either going to be a rational and an intelligent person over here, or you're going to be a faith person over here that sort of takes blind leaps of faith.

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And that's a false dichotomy. I want to say that Christianity is objectively true, objectively good, objectively beautiful.

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It is true and it is by nature truth. And God gives his word with a self -attesting authority.

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And so let's, let's dig into that. What excites me about scripture, about God's word, about the gospel is that it is true.

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And when you see, say the apostles, if you say you start in Acts chapter nine and move your way through Acts nine to even to chapter 17, what you see is that the

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MO of the early Christians was not, hey, we like Jesus.

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We think this is a good story and you should live it out with us. No, when Paul becomes a

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Christian, what happens in Acts chapter nine, if you read Acts chapter nine, as soon as Paul becomes a believer, it says that immediately he goes into Damascus.

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And what does he do? He goes into the synagogues, right? And as soon as he goes into the synagogues, he's proving that Jesus is the

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Messiah from the old Testament scriptures. You see, Christianity was birthed with this mindset that this is the truth.

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Jesus Christ is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, King of the universe. And he is going to rule and reign.

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And he is going to, from sea to sea to the ends of the earth, Jesus reigns and you need to repent and believe in a hurry.

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And he is King. And the Christians were going into marketplaces, into synagogues, into religious contexts, into philosophically high levels of debate.

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And they were preaching the gospel and they were taking whatever came, floggings, beatings, jail time, mockery, you name it.

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They said, that's fine. This is the truth. And Christians were engaging the culture with their apologetic. They were defending the faith in that way.

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You see Paul doing that, going into the synagogues as was his practice. He would find a place, go into the town and reason from the scriptures in the synagogues.

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By the way, just think about this for a second. When he goes into the synagogues to religious context, what is he using as his foundation, as his authority?

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You guys can talk back. If he goes into a synagogue, how is he reasoning with the Jews? What is he using? He's using the scriptures, right?

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So there's his foundation. He's using the scriptures. So he stands on the word of God, not maybe Jesus is

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Messiah, not we hope Jesus is Messiah, but he goes into the synagogues and he proves from the scriptures that Jesus is the

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Messiah. That's his foundation. And you're going to see that he would go into the marketplaces.

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He would go into Athens. He's going to Mars Hill and he's using even what God says about these people as his foundation of how he reasons with these people.

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And so let's talk about a couple of foundational things. Number one, I want to show you that when we do street level apologetics, we're defending the faith, we need to make sure that we have first and foremost a commitment to Christ as Lord.

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That is to say that we don't approach the issue with neutrality. We're not walking into a context with somebody reasoning, say with an atheist, radical unbelief and saying, hey, maybe you're right.

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Maybe your reasoning is accurate. Maybe there isn't a God. Let's see if the evidence points that direction.

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No, God is not in the dock for the Christian. And I want to say this, that if we reason that way with an unbeliever, we walk into a context with an unbeliever in a street level scenario.

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And I have someone who's saying, no, God doesn't exist. And I say, well, let's see if I can throw some evidences at you that might stick.

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Let's see if maybe you're right. Maybe there isn't a God. Let's see if that works out. What have I automatically done when

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I walk into that situation? First Peter 3 .15, sanctify Christ as what in your hearts?

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Lord in your hearts. And if I walk into the situation in the street level apologetics, and I say, hey, maybe

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Jesus isn't Lord. Let's see if he is or he isn't. What have I immediately done? I've abandoned my commitment to Christ as Lord.

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You don't see the apostles doing that. It's not New Testament practice to do that. And so I want to dig into how should we do that?

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If you go to your Bibles, and keeping your fingers, Acts 17. If you go to your Bibles to Colossians 2,

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I want to read to you a passage. Colossians 2. Look at what

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Paul says here in chapter 2, verse 2. I'll read through it. He says,

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I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery,

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Christ. Now listen closely to this. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him.

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It seems like sort of a powerful statement and a passing statement, but it's everything when it comes to how do we know what we know, how do we defend the faith.

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Listen to what it says again. He says, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. That's a major statement.

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That's an epistemological statement that is huge. He's saying, how do you truly know anything?

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You want to know where all the wisdom and all knowledge is at? It's in Jesus. He's a source of all wisdom and all knowledge.

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And this is a passage most of you guys probably already know. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7.

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What is the beginning of knowledge, wisdom?

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The fear of the Lord. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

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You see, when you look at that passage and you see what the Bible says about Jesus, that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and that reverent submission to God is first before there's any knowledge, wisdom, anything.

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You begin to understand that all of this is rooted in God. God is the foundation. Jesus as Lord.

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It's all rooted in God. You can't have true and real and lasting and whole knowledge and wisdom apart from God as your foundation.

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And so that's really important to see that. And I want to say, you might be asking, Jeff, why is this important to start the discussion this way?

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Well, I want to tell you that when you talk to somebody who you need to reach with the gospel who's lost and needs

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Christ, the Bible has a lot to say about that person. And what I mean by that is this.

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Let's say the Jews as an example, radical unbelief. You have a person in front of you right now that's denying God's existence. They're part of the new atheist movement.

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Their buddies are Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. They love those guys.

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And they're saying, well, there is no God. I wanted to say this to you, that when you approach that person as a Christian, it's important to know that there is no such thing as neutrality.

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The person you're talking to is not neutral, and neither are you as a Christian. And so we shouldn't approach the issue with the unbeliever who's denying

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God's existence assuming neutrality, that they're really neutral. They're not. You see, the

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Bible has a lot to say about the person in front of you who's denying God's existence. In Romans chapter 1, the

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Bible says that God has made himself evident to everybody. That the problem of mankind is never intellectual, it's never a lack of evidence, ever.

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The problem is and always will be, for them and for me outside of Christ, not intellectual, not lack of evidence, but it is always suppression of truth.

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It says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

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For that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. Question, who made it evident to them?

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God did. Now if God sends the message, guys, does it get through? Yes. So the

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Bible says that God has sent the message of himself into the hearts of every single person, that everybody knows

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God. Everybody. And then it even says that even the creation itself is preaching to us every single day, right?

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It says, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without what?

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Excuse. The word there is unapologetus. In the Greek, it's the same word that Peter uses when he says every

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Christian must be ready, always ready to give an apologia, a reasoned defense for their faith, right?

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A reasoned defense. Every Christian, be ready with that, guys. And Paul says in Romans 1 that with the evidence of God, that God has put in the hearts of everybody, and with the evidence of creation itself preaching to us every single day, that every single unbeliever stands before God unapologetus, without a defense.

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So is anybody really neutral, right? So the unbeliever who says, hey,

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I don't believe in God's existence, prove his existence to me. Do we want to reason with the person, assuming that what they say about themselves is true, or what

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God says about them is true? You see, that's the point. And so what I'm saying is, as you approach apologetics, it's important,

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I want to just get this in front of you, and it's most important to grab onto, if you don't remember anything else from this whole talk, is that we need to honor, to glorify

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God so that we're really reaching people with the gospel, and not just trying to win debates with people. The part of apologetics where we say that Jesus Christ must first be set apart as Lord in your heart, as you approach apologetics.

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That's first and foremost. Because let me just say this to you, I've been doing this a long time, in ministry for a long time, you guys know,

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I'm in vocab and I did a debate this past year with some really well -known local atheists, we have some debates coming up, you know, apologetics can be about me arguing, winning, looking good, smashing people's arguments, and, you know, and look, look how,

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I mean, sometimes you listen to Christians debate with some people, unbelievers, and it's, you're in awe, wow,

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God's amazing. The word of God is the word of God, yeah, the Bible is true, Jesus really did rise from the dead.

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But I want to ask this question, like, why am I doing this? Like what's, why am I even doing this whole thing of apologetics?

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You know, for me, I think I've, God's matured me enough over the last couple of years, even particularly, for me, apologetics has to be first and foremost to lead people to Christ.

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It can't just be to win arguments, to sound better, to show that I've got all the stuff and that I'm the right one.

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Apologetics has to be about calling a person to repentance and faith and seeing that person come into a relationship with Jesus Christ where they're in submission to Him as Lord and Savior.

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That's what apologetics has to be about. And so that's, that's, that's how, I think, how we have to approach this, this whole thing.

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So I want to show you something really important just as, by way of, of, of just keeping in your mind, if you look at Acts 9,

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Acts 13, Acts 17, Acts 18, a couple of things I want you to notice as you look through those later by yourself, just this, is that you see a boldness of Christians, okay?

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You see a heart of love for the lost. You see a, a intellectual rigor that Christians have where they're walking into synagogues and they're not saying, maybe

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Jesus is Lord, they're saying, no, He is Lord, He is risen from the dead, you need to repent, you need to believe, and they're using the

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Word of God as their foundation. So a couple of things I want you to see here is, number one, they're bold, willing to take whatever comes.

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And number two, I want you to see also that they use the Word of God as their authority and as their foundation.

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So when, when Paul goes into synagogues, he's using the Word of God to lead them to Christ. So he's using

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God's Word as God's own self -attesting authority. He's not questioning God's Word, he's not saying, maybe it's not

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God's Word, maybe Jesus isn't Messiah, he's saying, no, this Jesus is Messiah, He is raised from the dead and you need to know for certainty.

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And so there's the absolute certainty of God's self -attesting revelation that Paul appeals to.

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But now we get to, now we're going to get to Acts 17. Now Paul has, in all these scenes,

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Acts 9, 13, 17, and you start to see, you see Paul going into the synagogues and reasoning. Now he just leaves

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Berea, where the famous scene is, in Berea, where the

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Berean Christians are searching the Scriptures daily to see if what he's saying is so. Now watch this. If you go to Acts 17, verse 16, watch what happens.

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As he leaves Berea, he goes into Athens. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was full of idols.

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The word there, provoked, is the same word from the Greek subtuagent in the Old Testament where Israel, when they would go off into idolatry, would provoke

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God, where he was provoked within himself at their idolatry. So what do you see here?

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You see Paul, as he goes into this apologetic endeavor to defend the faith, what is he doing? His heart is aligning with God's heart.

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Do you see that? You see, I have to see that, that when I'm first, when I'm defending the faith, it's not about me winning the arguments.

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It's about the glory of God. And you see here that his heart's being provoked within him, is that Paul is having the same response to the idolatry in front of him as God has in the

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Old Testament to Israel's going off into idolatry. So your heart has to be aligned with God. And it says here that his heart was troubled within him when he saw that the city was full of idols, so he reasoned in the synagogue with the

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Jews and with those who worship God in the marketplace every day, those who happen to be there. Really important to see that Christianity is all about a gospel that is not only proclaimed but defended.

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You see, one of the things that I think is just so bootleg in our culture is the idea, and if you've believed this, forgive me,

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I don't mean it, we could talk later about it, but the idea that, you know, what I need to do with somebody is, this is sort of an

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American cultural thing that's really popular today, is sort of like develop a relationship with somebody for about five or six years, you know, have dinner with them once a week and be buddies with them, and then maybe after like five or six years

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I'll tell them about Jesus and maybe I'll lead them to Christ that way. Let me just say this to you, that is not how the gospel sprung up.

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The gospel came into cultures and into cities and they would come in, they'd preach the gospel and a riot would break out.

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Yes, they would get flogged and take a beating for Jesus, and they were walking away praising God that they were even considered worthy to suffer for Jesus like that.

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It wasn't a matter of saying, and obviously, listen, I know we need to have those relationships with people where we're preaching the gospel over a long period of time, we're serving them, we're loving them, creating relationships, but do you know that really, as Christians, we need to be engaged with the culture in such a way where we're on our feet, reaching them, we're chasing them down, we're going to where they're at, we're hitting the streets, we're going into the marketplaces and into the synagogues, the religious context, we're finding them and we're bringing the gospel to them.

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Just as an example, a couple of weeks ago, what did we do as churches? The Arab Festival.

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The Arab Festival recently, where I know Roosevelt took some people down, you know, those are the kinds of things we need to be engaged in,

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I believe, as Christians. We need to be finding where people are at, we need to go to where they're at, reach them, get on the streets and proclaim the gospel, and you see

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Paul doing that. He's in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worship God and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there.

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Then also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers argued with him, some said, what is this pseudo -intellectual trying to say?

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So they're mocking Paul. Now think about this for a second, guys. The context is important, the background.

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Paul is in Athens, which is the intellectual capital of the ancient world. It's the place of Plato, it's the place of Aristotle, the

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Stoics, the Epicureans. This is the intellectual capital of the world. So basically what you're getting here, guys, is that the gospel is coming into the place of highest philosophical debate.

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That's what's happening here. And so what he goes into there, and when he's preaching, these people are saying, what is this seed picker talking about?

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Which is what the word basically is. This person has these tidbits of ridiculous philosophy.

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What's he talking about? What's he trying to say? Others replied, he seems to be a preacher of foreign deities because he was telling them the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

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They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, which basically, if we understand what's going on here in the background of the passage, it seems to be that Paul is being brought up on preliminary charges at this point.

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They're not just saying, hey, let's check out what you have to say. They're actually testing Paul to see what kind of charges we can lob against this guy.

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It's a pretty serious situation. So preliminary charges are being brought against Paul.

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And look what they say here. They say, may we learn about this new teaching you're speaking of, for what you say sounds strange to us.

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And listen to what it says here. We want to know what these ideas mean. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

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Now what do they want? They want to know. They want to know. That's what they're asking. We want to know what these ideas mean.

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Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I see that you're extremely religious in every respect.

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There's not really a word in the English that correctly codifies what that means in the Greek. Religious as a word.

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I see that you're very religious is not quite accurate because it wasn't, he didn't mean it so much as a positive thing to say to them, plus it was actually against the rules of this time period in Athens to actually try to use positive things to get the audience to like you.

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It was actually against the rules to do that at the Areopagus, so he wouldn't have been doing that. And superstitious was a little too much of a slam.

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So he's saying, you're extremely religious, kind of partly superstitious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship,

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I even found an altar on which was inscribed to an unknown God. History tells us that in Athens at the time, that people used to say it was easier to find a

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God in Athens than it was a man. Idols everywhere, all over the place.

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And so when it says here that Paul says, I'm observing the objects of your worship, the word he uses there in the Greek actually is the word not just that he saw this unknown

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God altar, but that he was scrutinizing what was in front of him.

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And watch what it says here, it says, and I even found an altar to which was inscribed to an unknown

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God, therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

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Now get this, they asked what question? We want to know what you're saying, we want to know.

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And what he says to them is, as I was observing these things, I noticed you have an altar to an unknown God, you don't know.

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So what does he do first and foremost? He confronts their ignorance. He wants to show them that their worldview, what they're doing is collapsed and doesn't work.

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I want to show you that first and foremost in the apologetics, that's what we have to do very first, is that they approach the unbeliever and show them that your system doesn't work.

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What you're doing, your way of life, your approach to things collapses, it doesn't work. You say that you want to know, but you don't know.

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And Christianity is coming against the unbeliever system as complete antithesis. These are two worldviews in complete collision with one another, they don't match.

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And so Paul is saying, you have this altar to an unknown God, and so watch what Paul does here. I'm not going to go with their whole exegesis here, but just kind of read it to you.

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It says, the God who made the world and everything in it, he is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in shrines made by hands, neither is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath in all things.

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From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and boundaries of where they live.

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He did this so they might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each of us.

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Notice something really important here, I'm just going to lay it down. Paul is not saying that they could be in any way right with their approach.

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He is basically proclaiming the truth that is in contradiction to them. He's showing the antithesis, that you have the true

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God that's in collision with what you've been doing. You think God needs to dwell in temples made by hands, he doesn't.

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And so what comes here is Paul is coming against their system with the truth and he is arguing and reasoning from it as a position of truth, not a maybe.

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Now watch what he does here, he says this. He did this so they might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

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Watch verse 28, watch what he does. For in him we live and move and exist, and even some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.

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Paul basically quotes Eratos of Cilicia and Ephemerides of Crete to cite them as pagan testimony to what he's saying.

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What is he saying? He's saying this is the truth of the gospel. And guess what?

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You already know it. He's showing them that they already do know these things internally. Where else has

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Paul said that? Romans chapter 1. What does he say in Romans chapter 1? Everybody knows

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God. God's preaching to you every single day so that you're without excuses. What does Paul do here? He's proclaiming the biblical message to these people.

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He's showing them that they're in idolatry and he's basically saying, and guess what? You already know everything that I'm saying to you.

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Even your own poets have said this. You know you're his offspring. You know in him you live and you move and have your being.

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And so what is he doing? He's approaching the unbeliever with what God says about the unbeliever, not what the unbeliever says about themselves.

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Now watch this. Here's the ultimate goal I think of apologetics. Watch this. Verse 29.

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Being God's offspring, then we shouldn't think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone or an image fashioned by human art and imagination.

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Now here we go. Ready? This is where I want to be all the time in my apologetic, guys. In verse 30.

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Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent. Because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed.

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He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. Now listen guys, if you wanted to catch what's

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Jeff getting at here, here's the deal. Listen, my apologetic has to be this. I have to be able to weave my defense of the gospel into a call to repent and believe.

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How many of you guys were at the debate that Vocab and I did last year? One of the things that Vocab and I wanted desperately to do was to make sure that we did this whole debate with these atheists in a biblical way where we try to demonstrate to the people that we're shepherding that we need to be able to not only defend the faith but also call the people that we're defending the faith with to repentance.

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So at the end of that debate, which is unusual in a debate, we called

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Omar and Sean to turn and believe and trust in Christ, which is not something you normally see at a debate with Christian versus atheist, calling the atheist to repent and believe.

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But we did because you see how we approached the debate was with a commitment to Christ as Lord and with a view to what

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God says about these people in front of us, not what they say about themselves. Now I'm going to run through that. How would you, how would you, how do

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I think that you would apply what we just learned here to the situation of the atheists, the radical unbelief we had?

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Now here's where I'm going to take it down, everything I just told you, and let's try to bring it to where you can use this. Let's use as the example right now atheism, okay, because let's do, let's do the flip side of belief.

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Let's do non -belief, okay? And just a couple examples here. When I've told you, I said, you want to take first and foremost, your commitment to Christ as Lord in your heart, set

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Him apart. He's my Lord. I'm committed to Christ. I'm not neutral. Now I want to look at the unbeliever who says that God doesn't exist, and I want to say, no,

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God says that you know that He exists, but I can't just do that, can I? The unbeliever's like, no,

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I mean, that's like back and forth all day long, and I say I don't, you say I do. No, no, I want to demonstrate to him that He does, okay?

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And so what I do is, is this, when I'm talking to, say, an atheist, if you guys were at the debate this last year, you know that we did it in this way.

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I want to try to dig into the atheist's worldview to show them that he can't do anything he's doing without first depending upon my

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God to do it. Think about that for a second. I want to show him that he can't do anything that he's doing without first depending upon my

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God to do it, that he's not really neutral like he says that he is. That's a myth. He is committed against my

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God. He's not neutral. He's only pretending. I'm not going to tell that to his face, but that's, that's really ultimately what's going on spiritually.

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And I get that from Romans chapter one. So how can I do that? Well, let's do it one way first. Let me say this. The first thing that I do when

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I talk to the unbeliever is God says He knows God, but that He's suppressing the truth about Him. So how can

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I draw that out? Well, one of the ways I'll do that is that in order to live in this world, you have to believe that nature is uniform.

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Think about that. As an example, all of us today got out of bed.

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Everyone got out of bed? You pulled your covers aside, moved your legs aside, you stood on the ground and you stood up and you didn't think twice about gravity holding you down today like it did yesterday, did you?

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No? And I'm assuming that most of you guys, when you, when you got up, you also went to use the bathroom. Right? Because we know based on past experience that if I don't use the bathroom, bad things will occur.

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Correct? Right? We all know that. Right? And when you guys are walking around today, but you know, even on your way to the conference, did you think twice about gravity holding you down today like it did yesterday?

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Or did you just assume that it was going to happen that way? You just assume it, right? Everybody in this world assumes uniformity in nature.

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Guess what? You can't live in this world without it. In other words, everybody assumes what's called in philosophy, the principle of induction, that tomorrow is going to be like today.

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Now think about that. If you, if you still don't get it, let me give you another example I used even at the debate this year, just to keep it fresh for you guys.

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If I were to build a big fire right here in the front of this room, huge bonfire, lots of fire, huge fire, fire, and I say, okay, everyone ready?

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Let's get into the fire and sit. You coming? Not coming?

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Why aren't you coming? Why not? Don't be afraid.

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What? That's right. Yes. There's no trick questions. These are easy questions today, right? Because it burns. You know, based on past experience, what?

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Fire is hot and will burn you, right? Now think about this for a second. It seems like it's such a simple and ridiculous thing to think about, but you can't live in this world without the principle of induction that nature is uniform.

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You can't do it. Right? But watch this. The atheist who says there is no

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God, what is his worldview he stands on? I'm going to show you. He's standing on a platform where he says with his mouth, there is no

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God, there is no God, there is no God. All there is, is just matter in motion, time and chance acting on matter.

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There's no purpose. There's no meaning. There's no goal. There's no direction in the universe. All there is, is matter in motion, just stuff moving around in space, time and chance acting on matter, chaos.

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That's what he says about the universe, correct? But every time he lives and moves and breathes in this world, he lives as though the universe was uniform.

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He lives as though tomorrow is going to be like today. He lives as though there's purpose and meaning and guidance and that the universe is not random, it is in fact predictable.

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So what does he have to do? The atheist is over here saying, no God, no God, no

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God, time and chance acting on matter, random, no purpose, no meaning, no guidance, no nothing. But in order to live every day, what does he have to do?

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He has to step over here into Christianity and he has to go meaning, purpose, order, not random. So what do you have?

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What are you doing there? I want to show the unbeliever. No, wait a second. Now you say that you're neutral and you're trying to reason your way to God, but what

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I'm seeing in your life is somebody who's living as though God existed, but you're denying your creator's existence all the while that you're living like he does exist.

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What am I doing? I have not abandoned my commitment to Christ as Lord in my apologetic, and I am showing him that God says you know him and you're proving it how you live.

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And what else have I done? I've also put the unbeliever in a position where I can actually call him to repent and believe because what

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I'm doing is I'm showing him that he's actually at war right now with his creator. You're saying

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God doesn't exist, but you're living as though he does. There's a fundamental conflict right now with what you're doing.

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I think you need to see that Jesus can forgive you and save you and you start calling a person to repentance and faith.

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Another example, I think this will probably help the most. I think it was this past year.

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I forget when it was. You guys know what I'm talking about. Think about what the unbeliever says about reality.

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What does he say? Radical unbelief. Richard Dawkins says that the universe is just blind, pitiless indifference.

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That's all it is. Just stuff moving around. Blind, pitiless indifference. Dr. Will Provine, professor of biology at Cornell University said that the evolutionary worldview leads you to a universe where there is no imminent morality.

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What's that mean? There is no good. There is no evil. There's just what is. He says you live and you die and you're gone.

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You're absolutely gone when you die. That's what it leads you to. In an atheistic worldview where all there is just matter and motion.

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Guys, listen, everyone in this room right now. All you are is a bag of biological stuff. You're just protoplasm.

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Think about this. In an atheistic worldview, what it says about itself, weeds grow and they die.

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You grow and you die. So what? Who cares?

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That's the worldview. Now, keep that in mind. That's what it says. This past year,

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I was in a place where there's always television screens up on the wall and the news came on and people are walking by and I was sitting back in a chair and I was watching this whole thing unfold in front of me.

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And it was showing a Safeway Plaza in Tucson where a guy had come and put a bullet in someone's head and shot a bunch of other people up and killed a little girl.

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And so this thing's kind of unfolding on the screen and I'm sitting there, I'm in a chair watching this whole thing happen.

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I'm like, man, this is just terrible. It's awful. And I'm watching random people walk by these screens and they're stopping and looking at the screens and I saw all kinds of different reactions.

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I saw people gasping. I saw people break down and start crying. I saw people stop and just shake their heads and wipe tears from their eyes and just stare in awe at this scene of this person that had come to the

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Safeway in Tucson and just murdered people and shot people up. And I thought to myself, this is interesting to watch all this thing unfold because if you think about reality for a moment now, what people say about reality, the unbeliever versus the

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Christian. Can I ask you a question? When you talk to the atheist who walks in front of the screen and sees that, what is wrong with a bag of biological stuff putting holes in other bags of biological stuff?

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What's wrong with that? Who cares? You see, when we talk about the defense of the faith, a lot of times we don't even have to get to the issues of irreducible complexity in life and all the biological complexity we see in life and the rotors and the engines and pistons that are in the cell and the language of life and the

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DNA. And yes, we can do all that. And I love to do that. And I'll talk about that till 4am and all that stuff.

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That's good stuff. But I think a lot of times we need to first and foremost approach the person the way that God says we should and say, listen, you know

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God. How do I know that you know God? Because you just gasped when you heard about that little girl being shot.

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Because you just gasped when you heard the story of the man who kidnapped that young girl. You see, the unbeliever says one thing about reality.

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All we are are bags of biological stuff. We're just matter and emotion, just stuff moving around. There's no purpose, no meaning, no nothing in the universe. And then he gets upset when somebody steals his car stereo.

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And what you want to do is you want to point that out as an apologetic to say, listen, what you are saying about reality, you're not living like.

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You're living like you're a Christian, but you deny God with your profession of faith. I see a contradiction there. And I see the need to repent.

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And I'll leave you with this last thing. This last year, I've talked to a lot of atheists. I've seen a lot of atheists come to Christ in the last year.

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I was talking to this guy who was this philosophy major. Cool guy.

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I mean, like blonde hair, right? Picture the guy. Blonde hair, earrings, slacks. Slick back ponytail. He's just kind of like, you know, philosophy kind of guy.

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And we were rapping for like two weeks, this guy and I. And he would challenge me in front of group settings of people.

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He would try to throw out all these philosophical things. We would go at it and go at it. And every time we talked, I only pressed him to what

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God says about him. Each time we talked, he would start asking questions about first cause, second cause, and like the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument, all these different arguments.

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And every single time I'd go, but yes, hold on, but you can't do any of that with your worldview. He's like, what are you talking about? I said, well, you don't have any basis, any philosophical justification for induction.

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You can't even, with your worldview, there's no God. So why are you appealing to uniformity? See, I think you do know

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God. I think your problem is not intellectual. I think like me, before Christ, it's spiritual.

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I think you need Christ. You need to repent and believe. And I would point out to him every time, you can't do what you're doing with your worldview. You're borrowing my worldview.

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You're living like a Christian. Every single time he would bring up an issue of reason and science and this. I said, well, wait a second.

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Don't forget, you can't have science in your worldview. Yes, I can. No, you can't, because you have no uniformity. All you have is randomness.

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After about two weeks of going at it, at it, at it, every single time, every time I loved him, I gave him grace and love and peace.

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Every day I told him how much I cared about him and how deeply I was concerned for him. But every day I pressed him back to what God says about him.

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God says, you know him. God says, you know him. God says, you know him. God says, you know him. At the end of two weeks, we were on a lawn talking and he's going at it, throwing everything he had at me, everything he had at me.

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And finally I said to him, I said, listen, please understand something. Listen to what you're saying. You're trying to appeal to science and reason and all these different things, but your worldview is collapsed.

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You can't have any of those things, but you can have them in mind. So then he looks at me, he goes, yeah, but wait a second.

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Wait a second. Say that one more time to me. And then I said, you say

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God doesn't exist, but you live as though he does. Everything you're doing assumes my worldview and denies yours.

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And so he goes, yeah, I never thought about that before. You're absolutely right.

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He goes, I couldn't do science if it was just random. And he goes, and I can't have logic if everything is only matter.

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And he goes, and you're right. There is no meaning or no good or no purpose if all we are is matter.

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He goes, you're absolutely right. How come I never saw that? And I said, so do you see, you need to turn from sin to trust in Christ as your

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Savior, as your Lord. And he goes, I do. You see,

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I think, and he did. But when you see a situation like that, that's an apologetic where there's no time there where I have let go of my commitment to Christ as Lord.

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Or I've even reasoned maybe Jesus isn't God or Savior. The entire time I've approached him with Jesus is my

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King. He is my Lord. He is my Savior. And what he says about you is true. Let me show you.

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You need to repent and believe. I think our apologetic has to have the mind of Jesus as God.

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He is Lord. He is master of my thinking and my life. And do you know what? You need to repent and you need to believe.

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All apologetics need to move towards that end goal, calling this person to turn to Christ for eternal life, salvation, and reconciliation with God.

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And I think if you read Acts chapter 17, you're going to see that. And so let's pray. Father, thank you,

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Lord, for your goodness and your love. Thank you, Lord, for today, getting us through this together. I pray that you'd use us for your glory. I pray,

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Lord, that you would just help us, Lord, to see how we should approach leading people to you,

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God. And I pray that you'd use us for your glory. I pray you'd use this church, these churches for your glory, to lead people to Christ in Jesus' name.