Always Ready: Chap. 20: You Must Believe In Order To Understand

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Okay, so we're we're in the book Always Ready by Greg Bonson and we've finished the first three sections of the book and we're in the fourth section which is main titled

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The Conditions Necessary for Apologetic Success and We've already looked at chapter 19

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God must sovereignly grant understanding and tonight we're going to look at chapter 20 one must believe in order to understand

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So that's kind of sets it up a little bit notice the the main title

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Conditions necessary for apologetic success. That's the main topic that we're going to be looking at All right, the chapter opens this way.

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The testimony of Scripture is clear in teaching that man and I've underlined cannot come to an understanding of God and thereby of God's world by means of Independently Exercised reason

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Okay This is going to be the continuing theme. This is setting up what we're going to be looking at from the book

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Under this topic of how are you going to have any type of apologetic success and notice?

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An underlying principle Man cannot come to an understanding of God by means of independently exercised

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Reason One does not first satisfy his intellect One does not first Satisfy his intellect with certain

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Autonomous proofs that God exists and has a particular nature and then after gaining this understanding places faith in the

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Lord I Want you to just dwell on that sentence that I just read one does not

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First satisfy his intellect with certain autonomous proofs of that God exists and has a particular nature and then

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After gaining this understanding places faith in the Lord that you realize how contrary to to the normal Thinking that that is instead of the normal wisdom, okay, and then he continues rather Reverence and faith precede one's understanding or knowledge of God and And all that he has made to know

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God and salvation approach him has definite preconditions or Requirements looking at that paragraph and and again this sets up the whole chapter that we're looking at and highlights it

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What can you tell me about? Where would this this paragraph stand in?

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In the routine the run -of -the -mill churches in America today

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Make some comments about that think about it. What if I was to what if I was to go to first Baptist of East Podunk, Alabama and read this what would be the the norm of the response

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Wouldn't buy into it. Well, I wouldn't agree with it Does that mean man has to choose man can they believe

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Yeah in order to make a decision for God you need to understand you need the facts first You need to understand who he is what he's all about.

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You need a certain amount of knowledge in order to make that Decision.

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Yeah, so we could say that this is distinctively a reformed position All right.

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Does everybody see that? in other words, and that's that's what kind of sets us apart now notice a

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Lot of people ask, you know, well, what's the importance of theology? Notice we're talking about something that is eminently practical apologetics every every

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Christian would say yes Well, I understand that we need to defend the faith. We need to evangelize we need to do that But how do we go about that?

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And how can we have any? reasonable expectation of success and What this is saying that you can't put the proofs and expect that you're going to persuade people by the proofs

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What is it saying? You must first be born again All right, and then we're going to elaborate on that The motto of wisdom literature, all right, and of course specifically

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Proverbs is that the beginning in other words the first and controlling principle of Knowledge is the fear

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Or reverent submission of the Lord Proverbs 1 7 we all know that We recite that verse frequently.

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Oh the fear that it would the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom Okay, but have you ever really sat down and let that sink in what does that really mean?

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that means any type of understanding any type of Salvation and the knowledge of God You first have to begin with the fear of the

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Lord which Which is what? Cutting back again.

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You must be born again. It takes faith. All right about this verse Matthew Henry aptly comments in order to the attaining of All useful knowledge.

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This is most necessary that we fear God We are most qualified We are not

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We are not qualified to profit by this instruction that are given given us unless our minds be possessed with a holy reverence of God and Every thought within us be brought into his obedience see, it's it's exactly the opposite of what the worldly wisdom would say and in fact, unfortunately

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It's exactly opposite of the way most churches would teach on how to do evangelism how to do apologetics the book of Hebrews Repeatedly touches on the theme of drawing unto or coming to God and it gives several verses

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I'm gonna put two of them up on the screen in a minute Which has been made possible by the perfect ministry and accomplishment of redemption by Jesus Christ There should be no surprise.

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I Mean, we've been studying the book of Hebrews for how long now in our morning service. It's at least two years

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Though we've been studying All right, and it touches on the idea of drawing unto or coming to God and It's made possible by the perfect ministry and accomplishment of redemption by Jesus Christ so Hebrews 4 16

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Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need

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Notice drawing near That's the idea that he wants us to look at and then

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Hebrews 7 25 Therefore he is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through him

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Since he always lives to make intercession for them. Notice how it's tied to salvation

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All right back to our original slide the benefit of The New Covenant is summarily designated knowing the

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Lord We throw these words around knowledge we even say come to a saving knowledge of the

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Lord and we have a tendency of putting that into our understanding of knowledge when the

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Biblical definition of knowledge is an intimacy All right. It's not merely an intellectual

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Designation Okay, so the benefit of the New Covenant Is knowing the

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Lord John 17 3 this is eternal life Life that they may know you the only true

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God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent So the unavoidable prerequisite of coming to the

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Lord Notice again the unavoidable prerequisite All right of coming to the

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Lord and saving knowledge is laid down in Hebrews 11 6 as faith And I hope everybody who can quote

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Hebrews 11 6 for me, I'm not going to continue unless somebody quotes it

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God bless you. Come on Yes Yes Without faith it is impossible to please him

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So if you could come to Christ just by gaining a certain knowledge All right, that would be pleasing to him.

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But if faith is absent, it's not going to please him Faith enables us to draw near to God and to know him

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Notice notice again faith precedes knowledge That which

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God's demands of men is that they have faith in his messianic son John 8

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John 6 28 to 29 and Jesus declared that doing the will of God was necessary if one were to gain the knowledge of God's true revelation

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And that's found in John 17 7 7 17, I'm sorry If anyone is willing to do his will he will know of the teaching whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself

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Notice is the act the act of obedience which how are we able to obey

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God? That's the first step faith faith

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Without faith, it's impossible to please him from this.

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It is evident that Autonomous knowledge does not first pick out notice

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Autonomous knowledge. What does he mean by autonomous knowledge? Yeah knowledge from from within you know self self

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From the self, right but it

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It's evident that autonomous knowledge does not first pick out the pick out the genuine revelation of God and Then savingly trust the

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Savior who was revealed therein. In other words, he's showing again. Well, there is an order

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Okay, faith is necessary. You don't come to faith by autonomous knowledge

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Follow faith is the precondition of a proper understanding Precondition everything is before Augustine drew the inference with clarity.

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He says Understanding is the reward of faith not interesting understanding is the reward of faith

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Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe But believe that thou mayest understand.

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Okay. Yeah kind of Augustine had a way with words, didn't he? Yeah, that's why

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I have so many of his quotes here because you can't really say it much better Virtue or personal rectitude in other words the discipline despised by fools who hate knowledge

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Proverbs 1 7 is the necessary support for knowledge

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If a man's heart is wrong His thinking will correspondingly be futile if you if you look at what

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Bonson is saying here He's really laying it out in in graphic terms

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And he explains it if you just take a few minutes and think back about some of the encounters you've had in evangelism or apologetic efforts and you ever get just absolutely frustrated because you're laying it out and you feel that you've articulated it as Clearly as you possibly could you've made the convincing argument if If you were at a lawyer in court, you'd get the guilty conviction, you know

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And yet the person across the table from you says I don't get it. I don't see it.

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All right This explains that because they're not and don't get me wrong

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I'm not saying and need and Bonson certainly is not saying that We should not prepare convincing arguments

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But that our convincing argument should be based upon the Word of God and not from any outside Autonomous field of knowledge.

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All right You can show somebody all the stars and show how it has to be a creator.

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You can do that That's not going to bring them to faith. How does somebody come to faith?

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Yeah And we're going to get to that in a couple minutes Just as knowledge is supported by virtue.

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So we're also Virtue is supported by faith Thus we must conclude that faith precedes knowledgeable understanding so if you're ever going to hope to have to convince somebody of the truthfulness of the gospel

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Faith has to precede The the arguments that you have or they're not going to get it

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And there's that second Peter 1 5 Now for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence knowledge

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This is what he was been leading up to Since this is the case and since repentance is

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Unto faith the apologist must aim to bring those who live in ignorance to repentance

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There's the bottom line in your apologetic efforts Yet can never lose sight of the fact that the goal isn't to win the argument

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The goal is to bring the person to faith to bring them to repentance Because aside from from bringing them to repentance aside from bringing them to faith

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They're not going to understand and they will never come to faith Unless it's granted to them knowledge

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Can only be gained when the unbeliever repents and comes to faith in Christ aside from this radical change of mind

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Radical change of mind. Why does he use that terminology radical change of mind? Where does that come from?

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Go ahead. Oh, it has to come from the root. It's got to be a root change complete heart change, which is again

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Accomplished by the Holy Spirit Your heart needs to be your old heart needs to be pulled out and new heart needs to be inserted and that includes your mind

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Okay, but where does he put he puts change of mind in quotations? Why does he specifically use that terminology?

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Come on somebody What's the word for repentance what's the

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Greek way yeah repentance is is metanoia change of mind

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All right. That's why he's using that very word. So he basically what he's saying is unless you have this radical change of mind, which is repentance and Confident submission to the truth knowledge would automatically be excluded.

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Like I say this explains why Why you can be so frustrated when people don't get what you're saying when it's so clear to you

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All right, and why you also have to We have to change our

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Methodology so that we're always keeping in mind All right My goal is to bring this person to faith because they can't believe they can't understand until they believe

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So you so part of in part and parcel of apologetics. In fact, the primary ingredient of apologetics is what?

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Evangelism You can't divorce apologetics from evangelism therefore apologetical success

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Depends on the sinner's conversion. Oh, I think I just said that he's ahead of me

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His thinking must be completely turned around Not simply supplemented with autonomous arguments

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That's what that that's what he's talking about the radical change of mind change of thinking

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Your thinking has got to be completely turned around and and that's why

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Here here we get right to the bottom line of how do we going to have any apologetic success? Well, it's not by reading a book three steps to apologetic success.

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And that's not what Bonson's trying to do in his book He's trying to show us that it's it's only going to happen through conversion faith and repentance

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Which produce reverence for the Lord are foundational to knowledge not vice versa

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Understanding is not gained in the wisdom of man, but only when such pseudo wisdom is abandoned for the truth of God This is why

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Apologetics is so hard Because your your gut reaction is to go tit -for -tat

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You know and argument for argument, etc When you can't you can't get caught in his rabbit trails

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You can't get caught in his in his delusional and has Bonson calls it his pseudo his pseudo knowledge or pseudo wisdom

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Okay Pseudo wisdom is abandoned for the truth of God The apologetic method of the believer must take this fact into account

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Notice at all times You can never say all right. I can abandon this now.

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I got the guy on the run and now you know Now I'm gonna get on my steamroller. I'm gonna run over No, the whole idea is is conversion.

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It's it's Getting to the heart and of the issue is getting to his heart and allowing the

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Holy Spirit to cultivate it If it does the apologist will be will be faithful and bold to present the full challenge of Presuppositional argumentation.

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What do you think he has in mind here? He says the apologist will be if the if he if the apologetic is

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Apologist is faithful and he presents the full challenge of proper presuppositional argumentation

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What is the full challenge of presuppositional argumentation? What does he mean by that what's he got in mind

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At the root, yes, absolutely we must always have the gospel at the heart but very specifically presuppositional argumentation

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The Lordship of Jesus Christ. Yeah, the Lordship of Jesus Christ But what have we seen?

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So go ahead Brian God's Word is the foundation for the argumentation. Yeah. Yeah all and take all of those together and we're getting there

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All right What what is? What it remember the twofold apologetic method going back a couple of chapters

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Answer fool according to his folly don't answer fool according to his folly Right What What how would it isn't that what he means by presuppositional argumentation?

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What is the goal? Why would we use those two verses? When do you use?

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When do you answer a fool according to his folly? When he's wise What's that when he's wise?

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Yeah, yeah, but like let's see be wise is unless to be wise in his own Internal particulars world

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Getting in there. Show me if we if we if we did things the way you say we should the way you believe

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This is the result. Yes, and bring it down to you know Exactly to show him the futility of his argumentation and then when do you not do that?

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When do you when do you back off? When he's just going to drag you into his futility

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So there's there's where wisdom comes in you you have to be able to discern the difference between Okay, I'm gonna answer fool

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I'm gonna accept his presuppositions for a moment to show the absolute absurdity of it

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And then another time you say no wait, you know if he says for example Put the

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Bible aside for a minute Okay, say absolutely not because if you do that what's going to happen?

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You're gonna wind up on the short end of the stick Because your authority is the

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Bible. That's like going to a duel and laying your sword down It's it's unconscionable to do that the opponent of the gospel will not come to knowledge until He renounces his sinful pride

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Understand it's not Accepting the gospel is not merely an intellectual

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Procedure. All right at the heart of it is the pride the arrogance

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No, you can't tell me. I know what's best for me. I know what I want All right

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So he has to renounce his sinful pride and alleged intellectual self -sufficiency

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Which he puts alleged notice there is no such thing really that is

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Until he epistemologically bows before the Lord in repentant faith There's the gold you want to have apologetical success

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You have to get him to the place where he will Put his pride aside and bow before the

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Lord repentant faith That's where it comes. That's that's what it comes down to But if repentant faith is necessary for the unbeliever to see the truth of the gospel, which we defend

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Then the success of our apologetic is in the hands of our sovereign creator and Redeemer.

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I love being reformed because ultimately the success is not

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Dependent upon you or me It's dependent upon God who sovereignly gives grace as he will

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Don't use that as an example. Well, I don't have to do anything Sit back and say oh

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God go ahead I'm waiting for you to send me give him the grace and then I'll Then I'll come in clean it up Doesn't work that way

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God uses our apologetic methodology He uses that to open the heart and to extend grace

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Our polemic will be convincing only to the extent that our unbelieving hearers are

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Renewed in their minds and recreated by God's Spirit and the holiness of truth There you have it.

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There it is again Ultimately, it's God's work.

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It's God's grace Only then will they stop walking in the vanity of their minds with darkened understanding and ignorance

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Knowledge requires repentance and faith and thus knowledge depends on the grace of God who gives faith as a gift and grants repentance

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He's being somewhat redundant here, but I think it's a necessary redundancy

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Because he's just showing it How many different books of the Bible is he using here to show that the message is always the same?

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We have to be faithful, but it's ultimately it's God who grants it When the sinner is benefited in these ways by God's mercy and love

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Then he puts on the new man who is renewed unto genuine knowledge according to the image of the

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Creator Colossians 3 10 Faith requires that one be born of God Who gives repentance unto a genuine knowledge of the truth?

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the apologists opponent must come to repentant faith if he's to gain understanding and Knowledge and this takes place not by superior knowledge or clever reasoning on the part of the apologist

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But by God's gracious work in the center so that he is enabled to know the truth to know the truth of the apologist faithful testimony and argument as They are rooted in Christ's Word and are powerful according to Christ's Spirit notice

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God uses us He grants the grace, but we he uses us to give the message

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That's his plan. Not that he couldn't do it without us, but it's his in his plan and his decree that he uses us for both evangelism and apologetics

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God must give us the success in our apologetic endeavors so Before I go any further

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Notice what the heading is the conditions necessary for apologetic success

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One must believe in order to understand Notice God must give the success

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If God's not giving us success all our endeavors are for naught Well, not for naught, but they may not be

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Used right at that present time Thus we walk in wisdom

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Toward them on the outside not arguing from the foolish presuppositions of unbelief, but according to the presupposed authority and authority and truth of God's wise revelation in the gospel

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There it is again when we do this we will know how to answer every man looking to God continually continuing prayer that he might grant apologetical success by opening the door of the word and then the corrupt communication which characterizes humanistic thought

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Must not proceed from our mouths, but rather good words which present represent the mind of God and Can minister grace to our hearers?

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Remember each of these chapters is built upon the previous chapters so that's why we have to continually remember go back and rehearse what he has said in the past because otherwise, we're only getting a partial picture as Paul our speech must not be with Enticing words of human wisdom

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But with powerful proof of the spirit such faith is unto is is unto understanding

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Consequently the apologist must work from the presupposed Word of Christ Be constant in prayer

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Look to God for the door to be opened to the word and for the granting of wisdom genuine knowledge and enlightenment