Arguments From Atheists (Part 2)

No Compromise Radio

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

00:08

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme of Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

00:16

Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

00:24

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

00:30

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

00:41

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry.

00:48

Mike Abendroth here. It is, yes, indeed, Tuesday. Hmm, let me think about that.

00:57

The implications of it being Tuesday. Well, it's interesting because this technically in real time is a

01:03

Friday, but Steve and I are recording shows for Tuesday. Although a few weeks ago, I played your

01:08

Is Bonky Biblical on like a Friday or something. Hmm, Is Biblical Bonky.

01:13

Mm -hmm, Bonky Biblical. Yeah. And I just was looking at a Twitter account. Steve, you do tweet once in a while, but not too much.

01:20

What's your Twitter philosophy? The less, the better. Well, I mean, to me,

01:27

Twitter is, I described it this way to one person, it is for a writer.

01:35

It's like going into a basketball game with a straitjacket on. I mean, it's just ridiculous.

01:40

You cannot adequately express yourself in 140 characters.

01:45

It is not a place for debate. It's a place to be witty and fast and, you know, to make a point, but you can't really, you can't carry on a decent conversation on Twitter.

01:58

Steve, if you want to debate, probably even email is hard to debate using that as a medium.

02:07

Yeah, I mean, there, I would say overall, I mean, I know this is true.

02:12

Sociologists say it's true, therefore it is true. You know, there's, even if it's not an anonymous site, there is a sense of removal of distance, you know, from your opponent.

02:24

And so people tend to have less restraint and less grace when they communicate, you know, via the internet.

02:34

Let your email be seasoned with salt. Yeah, well, and it's so easy to be misunderstood, you know, to say something, not meaning it to be mean or nasty or anything else, and have the person receive it and just go, how could you say such a thing?

02:50

You know, and you're just like, what did I say? And then have Twitter accounts never erased, right?

02:56

They're just out there for public consumption. And yeah, I mean, it's. Well, one of the things that we've done on No Compromise with the

03:04

Twitter site, we kind of ramped it up about a year ago, and I've entered into the foray of Twittering. But I think we're right.

03:11

I mean, if we're wrong, we need to change it. But all right, this announces the show has posted, right?

03:17

There's a little, what do you call those posters? Memes, memes? Memes. Yeah, memes, memes. We put those out.

03:24

If there's ever a quote by me, you can rest assured that I didn't do it. It's one of the other guys.

03:29

Allegedly. No. I don't do those. You know, here's a couple quotes from Machen or from, you know,

03:38

B .B. Warfield or something. I put those out. I think I've got like three months of those just lined up and then off they go.

03:45

And then it's like six months of quotes from me, I think. Well, that might be really good. Quotable.

03:51

It wouldn't be impossible, but it'd be really good. So you can do at the Tuesday guy or at NOCORadio if you want to keep up to date with the

04:00

Twitter stuff. But we're not going to debate you. Actually, Steve, I just received an email from a guy named

04:05

David. He's an unbeliever. And he said, if you'd please answer these questions, you know, if I'm elect, won't

04:11

I end up believing anyway? So what does it matter? And just kind of a wrong view of salvation and election.

04:16

We went back and forth a few times. I said, I'm glad to answer your questions. And eventually it was, you know, this is a bad medium for debate.

04:24

And I would suggest reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and asking God to open your eyes.

04:30

Is Christianity real? I mean, I can't go any farther. I'm, it's not a waste of my time.

04:36

A person's not a waste of my time, but we're not gaining any ground. And getting into a debate in that format is just, ultimately it's not profitable.

04:46

And it is so much different than interacting with somebody face -to -face, where they can see, especially if they're talking to me in my facial expressions.

04:55

Boy, I have a whole show on that. Why don't I play poker? Well, A, because it's a sin.

05:00

B, because it's a sin. Yes, but if you play poker on your phone with one of those apps, it's okay.

05:06

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. I did say at the end of that email, if you live closer,

05:14

I'd be glad to buy a cup of coffee. Cause that's how you could really talk through something. Exactly. Face -to -face is a whole different thing.

05:21

That's my new kind of gentle side of email and not necessarily

05:26

Twitter, but I say to people, if you live closer, I'd buy a coffee. And if it happens to be a lady riding in, if you live closer, my wife and I would love to buy you and your husband a cup of coffee, something like that.

05:36

That's about it. All right. So what we're doing today is part two. Steve and I were looking last time about some arguments that atheists advance against Christianity.

05:46

This is why Christianity can't be true. And you know, there's suffering in the world. Jesus says he's the only way.

05:52

And so now we come to number three on our list. I think there are 12 total and we just kind of work through this.

05:57

This is a means to the end really. And the end is, Steve and I like to talk about these things and in a

06:03

K -love fashion, positively encouraging. Welcome, welcome to new.

06:09

Steve, okay, before we start, when you're in the car and you're listening to radio stations and you're not in your hometown, you're not in your home county.

06:18

So you think 106 .7 is really K -rock in Los Angeles, but you're in Memphis.

06:25

And so you turn 106 .7, you're like, what is this station? It's country. Yeah, it's, oh yeah. That's funny.

06:33

That's really funny. And so you're like, wait a second, this has got to be

06:38

K -love. I mean, there's just a unique sound to many of those Christian popular songs these days.

06:45

All love all the time, K -love. It's sweet, it's very sweet. How about this?

06:51

You think about election and predestination and the sovereignty of God will cause arguments and debates.

06:58

I mean, for Jesus, the argument was, he was talking about love being non -merited, unmerited.

07:05

It would be lavished on all kinds of people indiscriminately, God loving the world, not just the self -righteous

07:11

Jews. That causes a lot of debate in Jesus' life, the real love of God. Yeah, they didn't like it.

07:17

All right, number three, Christian faith is just psychological. This is what one writer says is one of the top reasons.

07:25

I don't have a name here on this sheet. But you know, I've heard that before. And also the idea that it's basically a product of evolution, that we're bound to look for something greater than ourselves.

07:42

And this is why, you know, religion is so popular around the world, why people are always looking for, you know, whether it's trees they want to worship or rain clouds, or, you know, something called

07:54

God. And so they'll just, you know, we're superstitious by nature, this, that, and the other thing and I'm like, okay, you can believe that if you want to.

08:05

On the other hand, you know, and that's your rationale for dispensing with God. On the other hand, you can look at what the

08:11

Bible says. And you know, the Bible says that God has placed eternity in the heart of man.

08:16

It also talks about how we have the law of God. We have a conscience. We have, you know, the

08:22

Bible accurately describes mankind and it doesn't, it is above all other religions or separate from all other religions is the only one that says mankind is inherently evil.

08:34

Everyone else will try to convince you that mankind is good, but the Bible says people are bad.

08:41

Excellent points regarding the depravity of man and man's goodness versus badness.

08:46

Steve, when I'm around people who die and you're around people on, you know, on their deathbeds or hurting or suffering, this is not the ultimate proof for Christianity.

08:56

But I think Wesley is correct when he talked about Christians dying well. There is a real comfort that you can have knowing that God has loved you in eternity past.

09:05

He's had his son die for you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Instead of pouring out wrath on you, he did that upon his son.

09:15

And then instead of pouring wrath on you, he pours out God's love in you as Romans chapter five talks about.

09:22

And you realize, you know, absent from the body, present with the Lord, it is comforting. But then you look at an unbeliever and when they're dying,

09:29

I usually ask them the question, are you afraid to die? I think of what one lady told us.

09:36

My wife and I were visiting her and it was, I believe, the day before she died. She just said,

09:41

I'm ready to go home. You know, I mean, I just think of the number of people that I've known over the years who've died in Christ.

09:50

And I think every single one of them, you know, just had a great comfort and peace and not terrified at all, you know, of dying.

10:03

And you can say, well, that's just because they talked themselves into it. Well, okay, you can believe that.

10:09

In other words, if unfaith or unbelief or however you want to view it, looks at all this stuff and says it's foolishness.

10:20

Well, that's exactly what 1 Corinthians says. That's what Paul writes, that the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing.

10:26

They think it's stupid. Okay, I don't know what to say. I'm going to preach the gospel to you anyway.

10:33

And you can watch the fruits of it. You could think that we're all stupid and I don't look down on you.

10:38

I just say, I can't convince you. It's not my job to convince you. I present the truth to you.

10:44

I preach Christ and Him crucified to you. I talk about the resurrection to you. And then the Holy Spirit will or will not convict you.

10:51

And it's out of my hands. Yeah, but Steve, Christianity is just kind of like a crutch.

10:58

You know, some people use alcohol to get them through the night. Who sang the song, Whatever Gets You Through the

11:03

Night? John Lennon. Oh, he did, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah, and so we use all these.

11:08

And I believe maybe Elton John was with him on that. I think you're right. And it's the opiate of the masses or for the masses.

11:15

And so just because something does give us, to use these words, psychological comfort, you know, real emotional comfort, intellectual comfort, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

11:27

I feel sorry for people who have no comfort except, you know what? I came from evolution and I'm going to the dust.

11:33

I mean, that is Ecclesiastes kind of language, in my opinion. You're gonna die like a dog.

11:39

What a great comfort to know that your entire life is meaningless. I mean, can you imagine? Here's Solomon.

11:46

Maybe it's a midlife crisis as he writes the book of Ecclesiastes. Who knows if that's true or not?

11:52

But okay, you ever watch a dog die? You're gonna die just like that dog.

11:57

I mean, how much better am I than a beast that they go off alone and die in the woods and I'm gonna die too. I mean, have a nice day.

12:06

Yeah, well, and you know, if it, is it a crutch? Here's all

12:12

I know. All I know is my own life. I know what the Bible says, but all

12:17

I know is my own life. And the truth is in my life, I wasn't looking for Christianity. I wasn't looking for God.

12:23

I wasn't looking for truth. It was like for no apparent reason. I mean, if you just watched my life, you'd go for no apparent reason.

12:31

One day, Steve just got saved. And I'm like, that's true. Well, I think this is why

12:37

Machen was so stressing the historical fact of Christianity. You know, there are theological implications from this history, but it was real history.

12:47

There was a real Bethlehem, a real Nazareth, a real Jesus in a real town with a real mother named

12:54

Mary. He really died on the cross. And I think we forget that this is a historical,

13:00

Jesus was historical. And of course, I don't prove the Bible by quoting Josephus or other historians that would talk about Christus and Jesus, but Jesus was true.

13:10

I mean, he was a historical figure. There's no denying that. And, you know, again, if you want to disprove it, just show the body.

13:19

And that pretty much... If they do ever find Jesus's body, no compromise will be off the air.

13:26

Well, they won't find it. I mean, because it's... Well, Steve, how can they find Jesus's body if he lives within my heart?

13:35

This is how I know he lives. He lives within my heart. Number four, miracles can't happen.

13:42

This author writes, regardless, there's no evidence to suggest either that they do miracles or that they ever did happen.

13:51

Well, I think this is interesting, because again, it presumes that there's no God and then says, well, you know, miracles that only

13:58

God could do can't happen. Right? That's brilliant.

14:04

Let me give you my smoker's cough. Well, I mean, it's about as basic as miracles can't happen.

14:13

Well, and again, if you presume that the supernatural does not exist, then yes, that's true.

14:20

On the other hand, if, well, it's just so silly, because here the scientific brilliance of man comes into play and he says, you know, we know what can and can't happen.

14:34

Okay, well, please explain how the universe came to be. Well, we really don't know that.

14:41

Okay. Well, where did matter come from? Well, we really don't know that. Why does the universe follow certain laws?

14:50

Well, we really don't, we can observe the laws, but we really don't know why those laws exist, right? Okay, so,

14:57

I mean, I don't want to get into some kind of argument for the existence of God from evidence, but here's what

15:03

I will say. You can rack this all up to chance. You can say whatever you want, even though we know life apparently doesn't exist anywhere else, no place that we found anyway.

15:14

And you're going to tell me that this is all just chance. Okay, well, do the odds. Tell me what the odds are, because you're going to wind up looking pretty stupid by the time you do all your mathematical computations.

15:26

And you're going to say, well, the odds against us existing are, you know, one in 5 trillion or whatever.

15:32

Okay, but that's what you believe, right? There's no God and we just randomly came to, yes, that's what I believe.

15:37

Okay, you're smarter than me. All right. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead,

15:42

Acts 17, Paul gets done preaching on Mars Hill. Some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this.

15:52

And so Paul went out from their midst and some like Damaris, they did believe.

15:59

I mean, what has happened is people have forgotten that God calls everyone to repent because he's fixed a day that he's going to judge the world in righteousness because he has proven that by raising

16:11

Jesus from the dead. This is all an escape, a mental escape. It's fiction, but it's a mental escape.

16:18

I don't want to be judged. Don't judge me. You know, think about even the knee -jerk response with the world's life verse, judge not lest you be judged.

16:28

I don't want anybody to judge me. I mean, we are judge -a -phobic. We cannot stand the fact that somebody might judge us.

16:35

And if you have to judge us, then at least put me up against Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Well, and, you know, going back to the argument of, you know, of all this happening by chance,

16:46

I think by the time you calculate the odds, you know, whatever the odds are, I think anybody would say, well, that's pretty much a miracle.

16:55

Okay, but miracles can't happen. You know, I mean, you're wrong either way.

17:01

You say there is no God, therefore miracles can't happen. And you go, what are the odds of this existing? Well, they're almost impossible.

17:07

Okay, you know. I can see people who would just say, you know what, if I believe this kind of thinking, and Steve and I are not, we are not giving you the technical definition for a miracle in the

17:17

Bible. We're using it loosely like this author has used it. Do you know, okay, if I die, then

17:23

I'm just back to dust. Versus I die and then God will give me a resurrected body, a glorified body suited for the torments of the damned and give me my own judgment for deeds

17:39

I have done on the earth at the great white throne judgment and then cast me into heaven, throw me into heaven.

17:47

See, I can't have any of this happen or my mind's going to blow a gasket and I might have to actually believe in Jesus, said one.

17:55

Well, and even this idea, you know, I mean, let's just talk, if you wanted to talk about evolution, because that's what most atheists believe these days.

18:03

They'll say they believe evolution. Why do we have a conscience? And, you know, there are arguments that it really helps the social construct, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

18:12

Well, okay, unless evolution has some kind of mind and is sort of orchestrating things, that doesn't make any sense.

18:20

I mean, there are no, I mean, does a praying mantis have a conscience or anything?

18:28

No. Well, what's different about man? Well, the Bible says that we are created in God's image. We reflect

18:33

God. Everything about the Bible explains who man is, why we are the way we are.

18:40

And the atheist has absolutely no answer for that, except it will say we're just like all the other animals.

18:46

And the truth is any fifth grader can tell you, no, we are not like other animals.

18:53

Steve, great point. People want to make evolution a thing or a person or a sentient being or something, controlling and thinking, okay, let me try to give them a conscience for a while and see how that works.

19:06

And by the way, what's a half conscience? What's like evolving into, I had no conscience and now I have one.

19:11

How does that evolve? You either have a conscience or you don't. It is so weird. I think praying mantises, they do feel bad, the women do, after they eat their male mate, after mating.

19:22

I think they do feel bad. That's why they pray. Oh, nice. Thank you for this food. Yeah, see? 1689

19:28

London Baptist Confession, chapter 32, the last judgment. God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the

19:42

Father, in which day not only the apostate angel shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.

20:02

Acts 17, John 5, 1 Corinthians 6. Scary. Yeah, that's sobering.

20:08

Mike Ebenroth here with Steve Cooley. Question five, or retort five, are reasons why people don't believe in Christianity according to this atheistic report.

20:18

A good God wouldn't send people to hell. Well, I mean, it depends on how you define good, right?

20:27

I mean, and according to the atheist, in his fallen sinful mind, you know, a good

20:32

God wouldn't do that because after all, who's God to judge? Well, wait a minute, let's go back and look at that.

20:39

God is God. God sets the standard for what is just, what is right.

20:45

So the problem there is not only the definition of good, but it's an understanding of who

20:51

God is. He's just. How can a just God look at wickedness and say, you know what,

20:58

I'm not going to punish that. I'm just going to, I'm going to call evil good. You know, this is just creating

21:05

God in our own image, in the atheist's own image. We would like a God who is as nonjudgmental and as evil and wicked as we are.

21:15

That's what they're saying. Steve, at least this author has something going for him.

21:20

He's not buying into the C .S. Lewis -inspired view of hell, where if you want to go and be away from God, then he just lets you.

21:31

At least this author has the insight to say something about sentence into hell, or let's say, oh, send, yeah, we wouldn't send people to hell, where God is actually sending people.

21:45

Because you know, the C .S. Lewis deal, and Tim Keller's bought this to some degree as well. Well, you know, you get what you want.

21:51

Hell's gates are locked on the inside, so. What about depart from me, workers of iniquity, and how about being cast into, you know, the fiery hell?

22:01

Yeah, for it is better that you lose one of your members, Jesus said in Matthew 5, than your whole body be thrown into hell.

22:07

Yeah. All right, number six, the problem of those who have never heard.

22:12

Some people can't get their mind wrapped around Christianity because there are some people that have never heard.

22:18

There are thousands of indigenous tribes around the world throughout the centuries, islands that there's never been a missionary sent to them until, you know, recently.

22:29

What about those people? I mean, this is like taking a guided tour through Romans 1.

22:37

I mean, this is, all these issues are just like, you know, what's the truth? The truth is the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

22:45

And the truth is, men suppress the truth and unrighteousness. They look around the world.

22:51

They see what is true. They see what can be known about God. They see the order. They see the structure.

22:57

They see the fact that the sun comes up, you know, what, in the East every day. I had to think about it for a minute.

23:02

It comes up in the East, sets in the West. They see the dogs beget dogs and cats beget cats, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

23:09

There's order and structure throughout the universe. And yet, what do they say?

23:14

They say there's randomness and chaos. Everything springs from unknown causes.

23:20

We have absolutely no idea. And they say there is no God. They suppress that truth and unrighteousness,

23:26

Romans 120. They see it, they suppress it, and that's the answer. The answer is these indigenous people, these people who've never heard the gospel, they see what they, they know what they see, and they suppress even that truth and unrighteousness.

23:43

They worship trees or they worship rocks or they refuse to believe at all.

23:48

And so, they're still going to be held to account for rejecting that which they did receive.

23:56

Steve, we, along with the listeners, are rejoicing today that it was the grace of God that made us stop thinking in such a way.

24:04

We might not have had this list before we were saved, but we had our lists. So, after we did some kind of sins or we were rebelling against God in a certain way, we had our list of why

24:16

God can't be, I mean, I was a deist at least. I said I was a Christian, but we just create our own

24:22

God. And you know what? People say God is a, you know, if God's just good, well, of course, he's not going to send people to hell if he's just good, but he's other things besides good.

24:32

And I'm thankful that God has rescued me from this kind of thinking. That's why the command is to repent.

24:38

Change your mind. Yeah, I used to just think, I know there's got to be a God because he's got to punish really bad people.

24:44

Not me, certainly, but, you know, the people that are really, really bad. And, you know, it's just, was reading by the scriptures and just coming to understand that I wasn't nearly as good as I thought.

24:57

And that's what these men, these atheists need as well. We'll talk a little bit more next time about those who've never heard, but my name is

25:03

Mike Abendroth, here with Steve Cooley. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Tell your friends about the show.

25:09

Tell your enemies about the show. Many do. Yeah, tell your atheist friends. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

25:21

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

25:31

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

25:38

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

25:46

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE in staff or management.