Evidence for the Resurrection

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00:32

This you said statements either true or false. I gave you a statement and you said it doesn't apply Not to that.

00:38

It's not only to that statements would be either true or false So is it true that I'm talking to you?

00:44

Is it true? That is true statement. I'm talking to you. Is that true? Yes, okay. Is it true that babies exist?

00:53

Well, I mean how babies exist babies exist babies exist is that true or is it not the case that is true

01:00

I mean if you want to go down the you know, if you won't be it's very strict about it. I would be skeptical about okay

01:06

We're done talking. There's no sense in having a conversation with someone who who just can't even recognize the statement that babies exist

01:13

Well, you know give me a break. We're never gonna get anywhere. He's not he's not having a normal conversation

01:19

We're just gonna move on to something else. It's ridiculous. He's not interested in a conversation No, he's just interested in arguing

01:26

That's all I just know, you know, I just trapped him I find out that I already decided as soon as I said, you know

01:32

How's he gonna answer this would babies exist if he gives you a hard time? I was moving on, you know

01:40

John you had Sonya wants me I was gonna say he doesn't want to have a conversation You asked him a very simple question.

01:46

Do babies exist and he has to dodge A Freaking question

02:23

I Tell us what you really think

02:37

John All right

02:44

So there's no babies This is apologetics live to answer your questions your host from striving for eternity ministries

03:01

All right, we are live apologetics live glad to have you with us and I can't help but to enjoy

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Doesn't matter what kind of bad mood I am John losing it always puts me in a good mood. There's no babies

03:17

Oh That's always so good. So welcome to apologetics alive. We're here. This is before Good Friday, so we're gonna be talking about an important thing coming up with Good Friday, and that is the

03:35

Resurrection evidence for the resurrection. Let me bring in our Guest apologist today

03:45

Alex welcome to apologetics live. This is your first time on apologetics live Yes.

03:50

Yes, it is. Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here that what that clip was pretty funny, by the way. Oh It was great that was a it was funny listening to that live like where we

04:02

And actually the best part I was gonna play the clip after that Maybe I'll do it next week after that's an eight

04:07

I have like an eight minute clip of a guy who right right after that conversation a guy denies

04:14

That that babies exist and then there's a guy who wants to argue. He asks he asks

04:19

Matt a question He says can you prove? that God exists and and Matt's like what kind of proof and he basically will just prove it and and Matt goes the resurrection and He's like that's not scientific and Matt goes

04:35

Yes for scientific proof and then we go Explain that science can't be used to prove

04:41

God because science is the study of the natural world and God is immaterial. So you can't use it and and he just it was funny because he just commented that the guy saying babies don't exist was a foolish and Went on to make himself look bad.

04:57

It was like, oh It was classic And the show I'll play that longer clip for folks to enjoy at the end

05:05

Alex welcome on tell us some folks will will not know much about you you and I've recently met because there's a group of urban evangelists that we're part of and we're just trying to see how we can evangelize and reach out and do projects and we've been

05:20

Trying to figure out how to do it in This new age. We're in where we're all stuck it

05:28

So So I said hey you want to come on and you jumped on it and said yeah, let's do it

05:34

So why don't you tell folks about yourself and you're the ministry you got? Yeah, once again glad to be here and and you know

05:42

Now is the best time to jump on programs like this whether you're a guest or watching because we got time

05:49

Although this has been an extremely busy week for me. So I'm actually getting my master's right now in apologetics

05:56

So I got a couple papers do a couple tests But prior to that, I trained a lot with cross -examine

06:03

Instructors Academy with Frank Terry Jim Warner Wallace Greg Koukl, Sean McDowell those guys did some training with RZIM and But a couple years ago.

06:14

I Started a conference called the proof for the truth Conference here in Chicago. This is our third year doing it this year

06:21

It was supposed to be at the end of this month But obviously with everything that got pushed to the end of August So if you go to my website, you can find information for that there

06:30

But yeah, I've been I was in youth ministry prior to that and I was also a pastor of education at a relatively large church here in the city

06:40

Until another pastor and I planted a house church a little over a year ago so a lot of my my heart and my passion now is

06:48

Making sure our young people understand and I say youth and young adults that there is evidence for why we believe what we believe because the trend we see of young people walking away when they get to or through college is

07:02

Often because they haven't been given the proper tools to stand up to what a professor may say

07:11

Yes, so and let me the website up. Let me put that back up the website for your conference

07:16

It's because you said go to the website, but for folks who who are listening They can't see it on the bottom of the screen

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So it is www .proofforthetruth

07:28

.org So proof for the truth org is the website to For that conference which is happening into the month.

07:36

Oh wait now see that you guys you guys online like everyone else we're actually in the midst I Reached out to a friend of mine

07:45

Justin Peters and I said hey Because he had he called me like last week and said so how's your how's your speaking schedule going and I said

07:57

We're like sit around he's like, you know, we're just working on on you know, so some well I'm doing a lot with my local church now getting very active teaching midweek

08:07

Bible study doing the preaching and And then we do a Friday night movie night.

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I'm leading the discussion So I've been real busy there, but Justin has been working on some videos and talks I said why don't we try to do like an online?

08:21

One day seminar like we've done before and we travel around to do and so we're actually working.

08:27

Yeah So I'm glad you said that I forgot about this So yeah,

08:32

I lost several speaking engagements in the last month obviously for the situation that we're in But I am launching a a one not a one day

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But my first webinar at the beginning of May is and if you go to This is a word.

08:46

I think I should coin this word Bibliology Dot event bright comm

08:53

You can you can register there So I am trying to do some more online stuff and it's gonna be dealing with hermeneutics and apologetics kind of like a crash course

09:00

Beginning course. Yeah, so where do you said you're doing your master's in apologetics? We're at at Liberty University Okay, so yeah you meant in and you're working with some guys that I know

09:12

I Greg Kokel Jim Wallace good guy the conservative

09:18

Jim Wallace, by the way, there was Christian Jim wall He actually yeah, he couldn't go with using his his

09:28

For his books cuz it's like wait, everyone's gonna get confused with the other Not good theologian.

09:35

So yeah So let's talk to me we're coming up on Resurrection Sunday This is something that I think we see with We see with a lot of folks the fact that You know every year people come around they could you have

09:57

Good Friday you have Resurrection Sunday they Celebrate with family some people know the meaning behind it.

10:03

Yes, but Easter eggs, right? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. No, I See and I never followed that part either because you know,

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I grew up Jewish so I didn't understand like I didn't get all that stuff And so but the thing is is that I one of the things you see at this time of year is

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History Channel will always almost always have some shows some programs on the resurrection

10:34

Completely liberal Nothing historical and it's just basically trying to argue the resurrection didn't happen.

10:42

It's a fairy tale so Let's discuss this actual evidence that we can look to for the resurrection.

10:51

What say you? Absolutely, and that's what's actually amazing about it and as a quick sidebar for everyone watching most of those shows

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Have already been debunked years before they air so Just a side note.

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But anyway The the evidence for the resurrection when you really look at it is so Great that I almost feel like when we get when we get to heaven is gonna

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God's gonna be like why why was there even any? Doubt as far as something that occurred in in ancient history

11:26

There is more evidence for this event than for most other things that we take for granted things pertaining to Caesar Socrates Alexander the

11:36

Great No one questions those things. You never been in a history class in school and said I don't believe that about Alexander the reason is

11:45

It's not a it's not a head issue. It's a heart issue in my opinion. And so the question is if it is true

11:52

What does that require of me that requires of me to submit to what is in the book and that's the part where people

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Essentially don't want to budge. So if people are more honest about that, then we can have a better conversation

12:05

But if they want to talk strictly about the evidence, let's let's get into some of that number one

12:11

There can't be a resurrection if there's no crucifixion Even if we go back further if Jesus didn't exist now at this point in time

12:20

Given the evidence we have anybody who says Jesus didn't exist Like I would cut the conversation off because the even atheists acknowledge that let's you know

12:30

It was very interesting listening to Bart Ehrman if you know who Bart Ehrman is I'm sure if you guys you have it last year, you know that name.

12:38

Oh, yeah. I met him last year I'm actually reading one of his books right now. Oh you poor thing. I've read several of his books and well

12:45

I Books than me and that's why you've lost your hair. I understand. I've I've looked a lot of it, but not all of it there no, but Bart Ehrman was was in a discussion with a an atheist who

13:01

Basically just stated that there's no evidence that Jesus ever existed and even

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Bart Ehrman was like stop stop Okay, we could disagree that you know, we don't think he was

13:12

God, but you can't say he never existed So right Bart Ehrman No, you can't make that claim

13:19

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because and actually I was interviewing Jim Wallace on my channel a couple days ago and and I met

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Bart Ehrman at a conference last year and I talked with him he's a really nice guy actually and He will say and actually if you read his books even with all the books.

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He's written all the bestsellers He will tell you those the Discrepancies that he that he likes to talk about those aren't the reason that he's not a

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Christian anymore He said the reason is because he can't reconcile the problem of suffering or evil Which is a totally separate thing and it's actually a much more much simpler a problem to reconcile from a philosophical standpoint, but To the layperson when when you read those books

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It seems like an open -and -shut case, especially since he says the consensus is It's by no means the consensus actually have so this this one book here.

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I don't know if you can see how thick that is It's called the resurrection of Jesus by Mike Lacona.

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Who's a great historian This and there's more but that that one book is filled with evidence

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You know just to get to Sonya said there with with Bart, I mean it is interesting because You know the issue he has

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Like you said, it's it's the easier one to reconcile. Yep But then here's the here's a little trick that for anyone that wants to read

14:48

Bart Ehrman There's a little trick you just have to you have to pick up on and if you read enough from you pick this up Anytime he supports his his arguments

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It's usually right But would you see him do is this when he writes a scholarly work?

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He he does do get some good stuff. But when he writes to the masses, this is what he does Well, the consensus says

15:12

Hold it That's actually a logical fallacy. It's you know, you know to appeal to authorities or appeal to popularity

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And and he does that a lot and you'll notice in his reading It's like he'll states on that's true.

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Like he'll say that the the gospel, you know after the Gospels were written and The New Testament people were in a rush because of the gospel message

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They were in a rush to get this out there get it, you know in people's hands So they they were quick to make copies and they made mistakes.

15:44

That's actually true Agree with that and he supports that but then he makes a claim and because of that we we can't know what the original said

15:52

Mmm, wait, no, or actually he said we can't know what the original means Right big difference.

15:59

I'll agree. We can't have the original documents This is what it actually was

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But when it comes to meaning I remember taking a course with Dan Wallace and I asked him

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I said, you know Everyone uses the one one percent of the textural variances that we have

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We cannot get back to the original and and it's easy to get back to original most of them spelling mistakes things like that well, there's but the

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Concerning areas are ones where the meaning of the text changes and we can't get back to the original and I said everyone says that's the 1 %

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But they're also saying that based off of older numbers of the manuscripts that we have we have you know

16:37

Everyone says we have 6 ,000. Well, we actually haven't like eight to nine thousand now and he said more manuscripts

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We've got that numbers gone down. He said we use the 1 % as a conservative number, but it's actually closer to one -fifth of 1 %

16:52

Yeah, like okay. So nine nine point nine eight percent accurate. Um, I'll put that number up to CNN any day of the week

16:59

Yeah And it's amazing that when they found the

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Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 The they had a full copy or in in that that that Discovery of those 600 documents there was a full copy of Isaiah prior to that I believe we only had three copies of Isaiah and that was what was in the

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Bible and so now is the chance Hey, this has been buried for thousands of years Did we do we have it right and they compared it and it was accurate to a degree of ninety nine point five percent

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Which is which is insane because we're now we're talking Old Testament. So They had there was seven variations when you look at Isaiah 53 and three of them were very

17:41

Variations in the Hebrew word for light a couple were contractions Nothing nothing doctrinal to change theologically change or even based on the meaning nothing changed or That if I don't know if you've ever seen in his book misquoting

17:56

Jesus the paperback edition the first edition of the paperback

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He had an addendum and he took it out in second printing and the reason he took it out is because guys were using it

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He stated there's not a single Christian doctrine that is affected by any of these manuscript variances and it was like boom

18:18

I mean, you know, there you go Bart Ehrman. There you go Yeah, and and the is a scroll that you refer to the the importance of that is we we had we had several copies of Isaiah, but This was a thousand years earlier than the earliest copy that we had

18:38

Right, that's a big deal because now people say that the you know Given enough time there'll be all these edits and changes now we can go back a thousand years and nothing was changed.

18:49

Oops, right And and that's the thing So, like I said anybody who says

18:57

Jesus didn't exist stop just we can agree to disagree on some things Just don't make that objection.

19:03

So let's move on to the crucifixion now Ironically, maybe not. So this is actually not up for debate either

19:11

Gert Ludeman who's an atheist scholar said that Jesus's death Is as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable

19:20

This is an atheist scholar saying this and actually Bart Ehrman affirms this as well John Dominic Croson of the

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Jesus seminar if anybody remembers that he said very similar things Jesus death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate Is as sure as anything

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Historical can ever be and this is somebody who is basically dismantled the Bible and Kind of picks and chooses what we can take as authoritative or actual and not

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So the crucifixion is actually not it by scholars at least it's really not debatable

19:57

But you mentioned something at the beginning and as I thought about this prior to our talk today

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You know Jesus made what we would call an easily falsifiable claim so Embedded in every objection to the crucifixion of the resurrection in some way is

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They made it up or is fake or there's some kind of conspiracy. It's just not real somewhere in the in the comment

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That's embedded in there now if Jesus Wanted to he could have said

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I will die and I will rise in a spiritual form in three days And in three days his disciples will say

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I feel his presence and I think I saw him and there'd be no one to really Say yes or no, there would be no way to prove that either one way or the other

20:45

But Jesus said I'm gonna die and then I'm going to rise bodily In other words if I don't do this then

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I did then it didn't happen If you don't see me walking around again in a bodily human form again, then that's not the resurrection.

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I'm talking about So now we have some some tangible thing to really look for So the easiest way to squash

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Christianity from the outset. All they had to do is go to the tomb Get his still dead body and drag it through the streets and say he's still dead

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The only reason that that was not a possibility is the body was not in the tomb

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So now we move forward Now they now skeptics and others have to explain.

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Okay, we know he didn't resurrect because that can't be right What are the reasons? That the tomb is empty so for for a skeptic and for anyone listening that you want to be able to kind of Explain this to your friends or relatives or anyone who's not

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Not saved or doesn't know How to explain this fact this historical fact

21:54

You you it's okay. I was with Vince Vitale of RZ. I am and he said

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Disagreement is okay, but disagreement without alternative is empty so When somebody says, you know

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Andrew, I don't believe in God Okay. Well, what do you believe because we're here? There's a universe you got you still have to explain what is

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If you say I don't believe in the resurrection, okay Well, you still have to come up with some explanation a better explanation for why

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Christianity exists at all because to make the case that These group of Jewish men made this up for some kind of benefit.

22:33

It falls Flat they no one makes up a lie to have a worse life I was with Jim Yeah, go finish finish no, no, no, well, this is so Jim water while he's a he's a detective in real life for those

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I don't know and he says he says every single murder. He's ever investigated and he's been on Dateline and all these shows

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There's three motives sex money or power Same thing for conspiracies. Those are the motives like he you just got to figure out which one or what combination?

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So the decide you're gonna tell me the disciples made up this lie Knowing it was a lie knowing he's still dead in order to lose their power to lose their family and friends and to get tortured martyred and chased from town to town and And for no money that makes absolutely no sense and it's never been done in the history of the world

23:23

Why would that happen now? So now I got it now you brought up son. I'm really curious You said that in in real life

23:31

Jim is a detective. So what's he in a fake life or fairy tale

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I mean because well give him a call and let him know, you know that you don't you know, you think he's a fairy tale or 20 years as a detective

24:01

Cold case for much of it. But yeah, the thing is and I like and they put this up This is what a

24:07

James Watkins from five souls ministries says the five soul podcast He said the resurrection of Christ is a great defense of his deity against cults like the

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Jehovah Witnesses as well Absolutely. That's very true. I mean you always go to the resurrection

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So when I in Alex you I don't know that you know my background and testimony, but when

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I came to Christ it was More of a logical thing. It was just someone's explaining he was going through prophecies

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I was running the numbers. It was mathematically impossible Statistical impossibility is 10 to the 48th power.

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And so we start adding these prophecies up I ended up realizing it is statistically impossible for these things happen by chance.

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I mean there's some things going Okay, this is self -fulfilling. There's other things that I'm saying. This is coincidence and I'm and self -fulfilling.

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I'm ignoring Coincidence I'm looking at I'm running the calculations. And so I ended up stopping

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Chuck and I said Chuck It's mathematically impossible For the New Testament not to have been written by God.

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What does it teach? So I don't exactly do things in the right order Before I believe the

25:18

Christ now at this time I'm being Jewish. I'm still thinking Jesus Christ is Hitler's God I'm not looking for Christ I was raised so but it was really interesting because as he's going through, you know, he's saying that we're all sinners

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That was not difficult for me. I you know, I almost burned my house down twice, you know Once we put it out with a fire extinguisher the second time the fire department

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So I've got better at my sin as I got older but But You know being here wasn't hard for me to understand but needing a

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Savior was so I thought my Judaism was gonna save me and so I didn't need for a

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Savior and Chuck is going through and we get to the resurrection and as we're discussing the resurrection

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I had never read at that point in time never read Josh McDowell's more than carpenter or evidence fans a verdict but every one of the

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Views the false views of the resurrection the ways to explain it away. I had every one of them whether it was the wrong tomb

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So I want to go through each one of these with you so folks and I'm gonna let you answer him

26:23

But this you know, I'm not gonna give the answers. I'll let you answer him. But the people they got the wrong tomb He didn't die

26:30

Disciples stole the body. I mean all the general one that's original with me. I haven't heard anyone else argue this one

26:38

It's it's kind of a play on the disciples stealing the body because he you know He said that they disciples wouldn't have gotten past the guard so this was my very last argument before I Ended up bound my knee to Christ because I couldn't explain away the resurrection if he rose from the dead

26:51

He is God. He's got him accountable to him. And therefore I need to get right with him So before you know doing that, here's the last pitch that I said,

27:00

I said, okay Chuck maybe the disciples they dug a hole underneath the tomb came up to the center took his body and took it out and Chuck looked at me goes in three days

27:09

Andrew. They didn't have heavy back then and I'm like, oh And I'm like, I put my hands on my in my face on my knees and I'm just he's like what's wrong?

27:18

I'm like, I just looked at him. I said if Jesus Christ rose from the dead then he's God Yeah, yeah, that's what

27:25

I've been trying to tell you for three hours You know, I said, yeah, I'm accountable to him and he's right

27:32

I said A good state so I just on the steps of a

27:40

Dairy Queen in in San Francisco. I bow my knee to Christ in 18 84 so I was only one years old

27:54

I Was not far from one years old at that time

28:04

Vincent in the private now to saying that I'm bad at math. I was 16 at the time

28:11

Through those those false views let let I mean I'll actually I'll just let you take whichever order you want

28:17

But let's deal with all the views and then give you an image for them Yeah, so here's here's something that people

28:26

Need to take seriously because I think the way you came to it is is not the wrong way I think

28:33

You can come from an evidential point and then come the more theological point later

28:39

Everyone's not gonna get saved coming to church on Sunday morning and hearing a nice sermon. That's just that's great

28:44

But that's not how everyone comes. So We have to have criteria and and this is not just criteria for examining the

28:52

Bible the resurrection This is how all historians engage in historical study There has to be measured measurement sticks.

29:00

So we look at explanatory scope based on the The evidence do we have to have other theories to include in our current theory that we're investigating?

29:12

Explanatory power does does this make the evidence more probable whatever theory we're talking about less contrived or less ad hoc a

29:22

Philosophical term that means I don't have to invent like 16 new theories to make this one thing work like you're digging under the tomb theory

29:31

And is it plausible that one's the probably the most easy or obvious one Give me some credit with that the digging

29:42

Now what I hadn't heard that one One's heard that well, that's the thing like I've heard all these arguments.

29:49

I think that's still original with me. I'm you know Josh McDowell into his his next book

29:59

Sean I should contact Sean say hey when your dad writes his next book. Here's one that he hasn't Just for you it'll be the chapter for Andrew So, okay displaced body hypothesis

30:17

I think it was so Joseph Klausner I believe in 1922 said that Joseph Arimathea placed

30:24

Jesus's body in his tomb and that's Well attested. I think also we need to make a side point every piece in Scripture Although I don't know that the gospel writers always knew and probably they didn't which is actually a sign of it being true

30:41

That what they were writing was so important. I Think there was something recording facts.

30:47

So Joseph Arimathea asked for the body They buried in his tomb, but it actually is really significant for us

30:53

Because he was a wealthy person. He was well known that was that would have been a tomb that everybody would have known

30:58

So now we have really good evidence that everybody knew the burial location

31:04

It wasn't some random field. So then we can't say maybe the body was stolen Maybe they did dig under but because of whose tomb it was

31:12

It's it's really clear that we know where to go. Look, so that's important But the the criminals graveyard was some hundred yards away or so And so the displaced body theory says they put him in in Joseph Arimathea's tomb

31:27

He's digging a hole for TV. Oh Yeah, I put People that people post in here.

31:33

So don't be distracted by it. But yeah Yeah, John John Wilkinson said

31:38

Roman soldiers seeing disciples digging a hole 50 feet away from the grave what you doing

31:46

He's trying to say my art my my, you know, my dear Work, I don't know why

31:52

John. Yeah, I think it's a great argument. Just really It's not that Creative So the argument the displaced body says they put him in in Joseph's tomb

32:06

Arimathea's tomb Sealed it but then in the middle of the night They took him out of that tomb to put him in a different graveyard because he was a criminal

32:13

So they put him in the criminal graveyard But this tomb was guarded And it doesn't like this doesn't explain so remember explanatory scope explanatory power all these different things

32:26

Even if this was true, this would not explain why Christianity exists So it would explain why the the tomb is empty

32:33

But that's not the only thing you have to explain you have to explain why? These suddenly these frightened disciples suddenly all of a sudden had this this vigor to go evangelize and be willing to die for this this

32:46

Jesus that they had come to know who they saw die and they're telling people he's alive and Even if it's a lie, you keep that up for a second

32:55

But once you start feeling the pressure and the torture, you're like, okay, I was I was kidding You know, you don't you don't continue to stick to it.

33:01

So This lacks explanatory power. It doesn't explain the origin of Christian. It lacks explanatory scope

33:09

It doesn't explain the appearances. So we haven't even got into that. There's at least There's several appearances where Jesus appeared and then

33:16

Paul lets us know that he appeared to 500 people at one time And that's gonna be really important when we look at our next a couple theories and it's not plausible

33:25

So one one thing that we could say right that with this is all they had to do

33:32

Was produce the body, correct? Yeah, all they had to do. All right so the

33:38

Jews the Jewish leaders who are Not who had

33:45

Christ put to death who were upset with You know the claims he was making now there's claims.

33:51

He wrote he rose from dead They knew he made the claims because they wanted the guards to be at him

33:56

Because they said this is what he claimed We don't want anyone we don't want his disciples to steal the body and then say he wrote the dead so they had it guarded right if that theory was the case and he was taken from Joseph's tomb and put into the criminals

34:14

Couldn't they just say to the guards who remember they paid the guards They lie, they had told the guards to say the body was stolen which could cost the guards their life

34:24

Wouldn't the Jews just instead say who took it and where'd they go with it? Oh, they're okay.

34:29

We'll grab the body Wouldn't that whole problem? It would it'd be it's it's the simplest solution.

34:36

But that's the point Occam's razor lets us know that When you're looking for the answer, it's usually this the simplest solution and if you have to go steps above that and Well, what if this and if this happened that could make this happen once you start doing all these combinations of random

34:56

Supposed theories. Yeah, that's when we get kind of in the weeds So you're right simple thing go get the body and show it to everybody case closed

35:06

Also another translation, I don't know if it's in Matthew or Luke, but one of them says that the tip the tomb was sealed from the outside That's a whole nother thing that we haven't even

35:16

Addressed. So these disciples Either we're digging under the grave the tomb like you said or they had chisels and they were working out the seal like You know, it gets a little far -fetched at this point.

35:27

Yeah, so let's explain that for folks who may not be so for me I mean, they may have read the scriptures that sealed

35:32

But just picture this scene you have a tomb it's it is built with in in the rock face that's typically where the the

35:41

You know, the tombs would be of the more wealthy folks right, you have a 2 ,000 pound stone that what they would do is they put someone in they they would build these tombs with a stone

35:54

That's got that's wedged in And then they put the body in and they pull the wedge out and 2 ,000 pounds rolls and covers it

36:02

And you got to roll that up if they're gonna put another body in there So you have this big stone and they put a big clay

36:11

X that basically stretch out And so that's that's over it. So if you move that rock

36:17

You know because the the seal was broken and then you have guards That are guarding it right it's the

36:25

Roman guards, which becomes interesting right because Yeah, Jewish it was a

36:31

Jewish holiday and the Jewish guards couldn't guard it right, yep, it just and and Just so we're clear.

36:42

The Roman guards did not guard every tomb or every burial. This was a unique Situation, right?

36:48

So it's not like there's guards at every tomb there that they would know there's guards at this tomb for this man

36:53

Who's in this tomb? Because something was special about this guy so Yeah, that that one doesn't seem to pan out let's go to What about that Jesus really didn't die he okay, that's exactly what

37:09

I was going to moon theory he just he He lost a lot of blood. It was a hard day.

37:15

He just passed out and So heard him for burial and he just took some, you know took the barrel cloths off and walked himself out.

37:26

Is that possible? So the funny thing about that whenever I hear it is that would be a miracle to to me because He was he was before he went to the cross.

37:38

He was beaten half to death the the type of punishment he endured

37:44

Probably would have killed most of us just by that forget the cross So the swoon theory or the apparent death hypothesis, you know, this is very popular with with with Muslims In fact in the

37:57

Quran, I think it's surah 4 157 it says Surely he did not die on the cross they believe

38:06

Most of them believe that Judas took his place on the cross now Chronologically, yeah, let me just clarify for folks that mean

38:17

It's that because it's even worse than that. It is the the idea It was not just that Judas took the place and it's not necessarily

38:24

Judas The name Judas friends not in the Quran But in Hadiths and so not all

38:30

Muslims would hold to the fact that was Judas But they do believe that God provided a look -alike and so Just with that think about this in Islam.

38:40

This is the thing I bring out to Muslims all time. So Your God is a

38:45

God who deceives his own followers To believe right because basically he convinced his own followers.

38:53

It was Jesus on the cross So he took whether it be Judas or someone else and made it look like Jesus So everyone thought it was

39:00

Jesus and it was his followers that he deceived not the world

39:07

Mmm, so when it says in the Quran that that Allah is the great deceiver and and they'll try to argue that that word

39:14

In Arabic can mean planner. I've been told by Arabic speakers that it means deceiver

39:21

But the you know, I go we'll see here's the evidence He put a look -alike on the cross done

39:27

Yeah Yeah, the most the most famous criminal and in that time period in that region and everybody didn't recognize him

39:35

You know John Peter they did they're like, oh that looks like Jesus and they yeah it so That doesn't seem to pan out but here's the thing

39:46

What what people are like I said, once again All these theories are really trying to find backdoor ways to explain the empty tomb

39:52

But by doing that you're affirming that the tomb was empty so We are agreeing on that But now you have a burden of proof to prove why the tomb is empty if you don't like my burden of proof and actually

40:04

Gary Habermas Probably the the world's leading resurrection expert scholar.

40:10

I took a class with him last year, too And he did research and he found that 75 % of scholars

40:18

In Europe and America and not necessarily Christian actually Christian atheists. They affirm the empty tomb 75 % of scholars affirm the empty tomb.

40:26

So this is actually not even really really up for debate at this point in time either But let's say we get back to this one theory he was he was half -dead he went in the tomb

40:38

He fixed himself up and came back out and then he was like I am I'm alive

40:44

But there is no testimony whether in the Bible or in external sources of a half -dead beaten bloody

40:51

Jesus walking through town saying he resurrected Because what people have to realize is that if the swoon theory is true

40:59

It's not just that he's all better. Suddenly. It's that he still has the beating from being scourged

41:06

He'd still be half -dead. There was no hospitals. There was no You know modern medicine to be able to recuperate him

41:14

So he didn't know we have to sing either About what he didn't he didn't know about social distancing either, right?

41:26

Right I'm watching Andrews face to the backstage. I think he just lost it on that statement

41:36

So again, but with with the swoon theory We have the same question to ask right why couldn't they just find him

41:46

Right now the solution for folks who don't know me, you know, this is the theory that's held by By some that would believe in the gospel

41:57

Mary Magdalene which was the work that was that the book Da Vinci Code was based off of the idea that Jesus actually after his

42:07

Resurrection he and Mary Magdalene got married. They went out to a France they had children and those children are the line of the emperors of France which gave them a greater, you know

42:20

Standing in the world as emperors because they were of the line of Jesus the irony that I find with that is, you know

42:28

I don't find many liberal scholars that question the gospel of Mary Magdalene and the only copy we have of that gospel is in French and Missing then we actually have so we all we have of it is a translation and because of the amount that's missing

42:46

The pages that are missing. We know that there's more missing than we actually have of it and supposedly, it's based off a the fact that there's supposedly a deed

42:58

That states that Mary and Jesus had a house together There's one copy of that document supposedly

43:07

The there was an a guy who wrote a book on all this and he actually saw it

43:12

But the only way he was able to see this he didn't know the language it was written in He wasn't allowed to take a photo of it

43:18

He wasn't allowed to take or to write down what what it said, and he wasn't allowed to take anyone that knew the language

43:26

But but the guy said it's true because he saw it. Mm -hmm. Hey, yeah.

43:31

Hey you ever hear Joseph Smith Yeah It's there's there's a lot of You know lunacy out here and it's what's most shocking is

43:49

People's willingness to believe that or things like that Rather than let's test and see like what you have to explain to me.

43:57

Someone would have to explain to me once again why the New Testament writers

44:03

Would go out of their way to write all they wrote Luke says I did I did a careful study eyewitness accounts

44:09

I interviewed people why I go through all that work to make up a lie to not to gain nothing you

44:15

We can't overlook that fact And there's there's two other factors with that that we'll get to in a second.

44:22

But so this swoon theory It's not plausible He would still be half -dead and It'd be very easy to spot.

44:32

I think It lasted when it what a lot bill don't know is that the the grave clothes he would have had on With the spices and all would have weighed about 75 pounds.

44:42

So you got a guy who's been hanging by his hands and feet right several hours loss of blood being scourged

44:50

Being wrapped up and now he's gonna he's going to take off 75 pounds of Cloth he's gonna untie himself.

45:00

He's gonna walk. He's gonna lift a 2 ,000 pound stone and Walk past the guards without them recognizing or he like they're not gonna wake up from the stone being rolled away or anything like that he's just gonna walk past them and walk around and You think that's not a miracle.

45:19

I love how you said it. Oh, yeah. Oh, so you accept miracles because I think that's how

45:28

I'd probably Next time I get one on the street. I'm gonna be like, oh so you believe in miracles, right?

45:36

Yeah, no problem is free What are some false views

45:45

Yeah, so the next one I we here and it used to be relatively popular and actually it was popular with with brilliant men brilliant thinkers not just men men and women and This is what's so shocking about even

45:59

I believe Anthony flew held to this for a while before he became a deist of some kind The mass hallucination theory

46:08

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this because it's so ludicrous, but I'll just say this clinical psychologist

46:14

Gary Sibsey and others and Just think common common sense, but he said this he has surveyed professional literature peer -reviewed written books

46:26

Talk to other psychologists and is yet to find a single case of a mass or group hallucination

46:32

Well, this does not happen, okay, let's first define this for folks who may you know folks who

46:38

Explain why the the mass it have to be a mass hallucination Yeah, so if I have a dream or even a hallucination, oh now you think that occurred in here

46:51

Huh? Okay, I see how it is No, if I have that is an independent individual psychological event occurring in my brain in my mind with my

47:04

Neurons and synapses and all those different things that isn't I that is that is not an event. I can share

47:10

I can tell someone about it but they cannot experience what I'm experiencing and The reason the theory came up at first is because and this does happen

47:19

This is there is document evidence for this that if I if I really love someone and they die I might in a week later

47:26

Just have a vision of them because I miss them so much that the remorse or the grief is making me visualize something

47:32

That's not there that happens that that's document But it's documented in an individual

47:38

When Paul writes and this early Christian creed that is at the beginning of 1st Corinthians 15 bar ermine himself says we can date that creed back to within a year or three years of The resurrection of Jesus or of the supposed resurrection so it's early

47:54

Written it was it was a creed that was circulating long before Paul wrote 1st Corinthians that letter so pretty much immediately people were saying

48:04

Jesus appeared to Peter to James to Cephas to 500 people at once and this is the sticking part 500 people

48:13

Cannot have the same False hallucinate hallucinogenic image that just cannot happen and I believe everybody pretty much knows that But because we're trying to find way weird ways to explain away the empty tomb people come up with these theories and so There is no psychologist of any stripe that I believe they would validate a

48:36

Group or mass hallucination and this is the thing Jesus appeared on several instances over the course of 50 days

48:42

He didn't just resurrect say hi to his disciples and leave He walked around he ate they touched him

48:48

He talked with people the Emmaus wrote like there was there was interactions days and days and days of interactions if if You are hallucinating if it happens it happens once it doesn't happen every day

49:04

With the same or different group of people seeing the same hallucination that doesn't happen

49:10

Let's deal with a an argument being made by here by Jay, Harry here. He says we don't have 500 accounts though.

49:17

We only have one person saying there were 500 accounts Okay, perfect.

49:23

So Two different ways we can deal with that number one when Paul writes that and we'll look at Paul in a second because that actually adds validity to the statement, but This this

49:34

Christian Creed that first Corinthians 5 15. Sorry 3 through 8 Depending on how far you want to go

49:40

He's quoting a creed that that he learned that he heard that was being Reported like I said, and even atheist scholars will say within one to three years.

49:50

This was already well into circulation But let's say that you you don't even agree with that Paul saying if you read that that part of the first Corinthians 15

49:59

He says the better part of who are still remaining. So although some have fallen asleep Now when you're making up a lie

50:08

You don't make up a lie where the people who can call you out on your lie are right next to you So Paul is writing this saying look

50:16

I'm writing that this happened 500 people he appeared to at once if you don't believe me go ask them.

50:22

He's allowing you to self -check him Once again, if you're lying if you're making up a lie a conspiracy

50:29

You don't put that kind of burden or proof on yourself the same way Jesus would could have said I will rise

50:35

Spiritually and not bodily that's easy to To say and not have to prove because I guess it could have happened.

50:42

Maybe it didn't I don't know There's no way to prove that but when you make a when you make severe or strong claims

50:48

That are easy to prove wrong by people who are currently in your surrounding You only do that if you're if you're positive that it is true.

50:56

And so Paul says as I'm writing this Most of them are still over there. You can go talk to them if you don't believe me

51:03

That that speaks to some kind of validity well Let me give you some more evidence that you know different a different way of addressing this

51:14

It's the fact that the enemies of Christ and Christianity don't just Okay, yeah, you could you could look at a

51:22

Jewish historian like Josephus. He he says matter of fact Resurrection happened and that there were many who observed

51:31

Christ afterwards now what they tried to do is then discredit Josephus Oh, he was just working for the

51:36

Rome for Rome and therefore he was doing it because the Roman Catholic Church That came about several hundred years later, right?

51:44

So Josephus is is writing a history to help a church that doesn't exist yet. Oh Okay.

51:51

Yeah, that makes sense. Um, but he was dead 300 years before this started so But you could go and this is the thing

52:00

I have finished and go to the Talmud The Talmud was being written at the time of of Christ and after Christ and it is a response

52:08

Very much to the what was going on within Christianity. And so when I would they

52:14

Do not say that the resurrection didn't happen. They they in the Talmud talks about the resurrection

52:21

But it just discredits Jesus and says he did it by trickery That it was you know, so the reality is his enemies don't disagree with it, right?

52:33

on that note There are ten known at least ten Non -christian writers who write about Jesus when it within a hundred and hundred fifty years of his life

52:45

During that same time there are nine Authors or writers who write about Tiberius Caesar the

52:53

Emperor This is this is kind of weird because this is like no more people writing about me than the president

53:01

Jesus is a carpenter from nowhere who built nothing something happened so The fact that so many people are writing

53:11

Setonius Mara Bar Sapien tacit is plenty the younger You know, we can get into some of the primary source documents of them, you know later if we want

53:20

But I made a list one time. I don't say I'm if I have it here. Hold on So here listen

53:27

This is a brief list of the facts that we would know if let's say we didn't have the

53:33

New Testament at all Here's what we would still know about Jesus. This is crazy That he lived during the time of Tiberius He lived a virtuous life.

53:42

This is their words. They call him a wonder worker. They don't say miracle He had a brother named James.

53:47

He was acclaimed to be the Messiah. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate He was crucified on the eve of the

53:52

Jewish Passover Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died his disciples believed he rose from the dead

53:58

His disciples were willing to die for that belief Christianity spread all the way to Rome and his disciples denied the

54:04

Roman gods and worshiped him as God This is what the non -christian writers write about Christians and Christianity and Christ If we just if we had only their writings, we would still know all those things

54:16

And I think what you did there is Jay, Harry is trying to argue

54:22

Well, that's just anecdotal by the same logic every person claiming to be abducted by an alien must have been abducted

54:28

I think the problem is that the guys say that they say they're abducted by aliens Don't say here's 500 people.

54:35

You can go verify it with Okay, you don't have other people that that verify that they were abducted by aliens

54:43

It's just themselves doing it. In fact, right You know, we could I could claim

54:48

Jay Harry got abducted by aliens and that's why he believes what he believes by his argument He can't say

54:53

I'm wrong Listen what are some more of the

55:01

I know so there's someone that wants to come in asking some questions of both of us I think but there's some of the other the other

55:08

Arguments for us or some of their the false views of the resurrection Yeah, so I'll do it one more and then we'll deal with the resurrection

55:17

Cuz I because I want to evaluate that too by the same standards scope power plausibility less ad hoc

55:23

I don't I don't want to leave that out I want to see does that stand up to the test and I think I think that's fair The conspiracy theory and a lot of the things that are coming are versions of some sort of conspiracy

55:35

But once again, you have to explain why would there be a reason for a conspiracy? You got to imagine before Jesus came these

55:42

Jewish men were good. They thought they're good with God They they were looking for the Messiah, but they weren't

55:49

Needing to force the situation. They had a good life. They were good with God. They were still his people You know, they were under Roman rule

55:57

But they but it wasn't it wasn't worth leaving that to go be martyred to make up a lie

56:04

So the conspiracy theory is difficult for several reasons and I'm gonna go back to to Jim Warner Wallace and he cites in one of his

56:11

Books five things that you need to make a successful conspiracy And we can see if those things existed.

56:17

By the way, if you know about the conspiracy it didn't work that's that's a simple way, but Number one, you need a small number of conspirators when

56:26

I say small you need like two or less Well, you can't have less two is good And actually he said

56:32

Jim was saying if you have the two the best way to make it work is they conspire and then right after They get done one kills the other one

56:41

The reason he says this is and now remember for folks who may not know Jim is a cold -case detective

56:47

It's one of things actually his expertise is an identifying solid eyewitness testimony.

56:53

That's his that's what he is a world expert That's right cold cases because they're they're all based on I You know eyewitness testimony and being able to say it's really eyewitness testimony and his his thing is he he'll say

57:09

First thing he gets called up middle night. We got a homicide. We got whatever

57:14

That we got two witnesses. The first thing he says is separate the witnesses Yes, because once they conspire, it's really interesting

57:23

One of the things he says that is always true with a conspiracy is their stories perfectly aligned absolutely, and Complain everyone has with the

57:35

Gospels that there's the the storylines are the same But some people focus on here's ten people that are healed and this one gives the same account only focuses on one that was healed

57:45

Okay doesn't mean the other nine weren't there right one author focused on one it that's good eyewitness testimony

57:52

And the more people you have it is harder to keep a conspiracy. I mean, that's

57:59

Coronavirus thing there was people saying this is a conspiracy. I'm going how in the world

58:05

Get China Iran Russia the u .s. The UK the

58:12

France and they're all in on it, right, right? Conspiracy doesn't work

58:19

It doesn't work. It's never worked The only the only conspiracies we've heard of are the ones that almost worked and the reason they almost worked is because they kept it for a while, but listen,

58:30

I worked with you for a long time youth and Man, I can get I'm not even a hardcore detective or anything like that I can get two kids and one of them's gonna tell me the truth pretty quickly and there's no torture

58:43

I'm not doing anything to compel them. So If and and when

58:48

I say small number of conspirators like two maybe three But we have to imagine that in the upper room.

58:54

There's 120. Let's let's forget about them for a second Let's just take the 11 remaining disciples. That's too many

59:01

There's that's too many to have a conspiracy, but that's just one factor number two. You need great communication now.

59:07

There was no cellphones email, you know Twitter there was none of that stuff obviously, so Communication depended upon if you're if you're with somebody or you write a letter and they receive it

59:19

But we know generally where the disciples went. We definitely know where most of them died We know Thomas died bringing the gospel to India Matthew and Mark were in Ethiopia and Egypt Paul makes it to Rome Luke is hanged in Greece They're all over.

59:33

So here's the point if If they're all in on this lie, this conspiracy Mark is not gonna know if Thomas gave up the lie when he's an interrogation and So independent of each other in separate locations thousands of miles apart.

59:49

They all kept this same Belief until the very end. No one recanted Even under immense pressure and torture

59:58

That that leads to the belief that is true number three you need a short time span a short time span

01:00:06

The earliest before you get to a short time span again these guys died without getting power

01:00:13

Without getting prestige Without getting money, right? I mean they didn't get anything out of this, right?

01:00:21

So if it was a conspiracy they You know, the the question always asked is why do it if you got nothing out of it?

01:00:31

Right What happens is when you see that someone's not getting anything out of it

01:00:37

They turn to try to get something when that's their motivation is to get something out of it

01:00:42

Yep, you you know and they're not getting it they turn on it And that's why your C's break down because someone's trying your conspiracies happen because someone's trying to get something for themselves

01:00:53

If they're not getting it through the conspiracy they turn expose the conspiracy try to get it that way

01:00:59

Yeah got 11 guys that got nothing out of it, yeah and and and it grew and so you need a short time span the earliest

01:01:08

New Testament letters by Paul late 40s early 50s depending on how you date things, but the bottom line is

01:01:17

It wasn't based on the writings initially so The times that if it was if it was fake or a conspiracy but before anything was ever written this thing would have died out

01:01:31

You need close friendships now, they probably had close friendships, but they weren't physically close so Paul can't call or you know,

01:01:40

Matthew can't call mark on the phone and say They got something they got dead well, okay

01:01:47

Says they got something out of it. They got dead. Yeah You know, let me let's do this

01:01:53

I mean, yeah, we need a short period of time because the longer the conspiracies continues the harder it is to keep

01:01:58

Jess is asking this and and I think that You made maybe she doesn't understand you can explain this

01:02:06

But she says since they're most of them most all of their deaths of the disciples recorded biblically.

01:02:12

I think she's asking Because you said there we know where they died But that's not recorded in the

01:02:18

Bible, so how do you know that information and then it's a great get into the defense of the

01:02:24

Residence the actual record and that did occur Yeah, I forgot the name, but that was a great question.

01:02:30

That's that's really important. So I'm gonna direct because this is a lot of information

01:02:37

To go to that part Josephus gives us some other other external sources. Give us some we know that Church tradition holds based on what was written that Peter was crucified upside down we know

01:02:50

How Paul died by being beheaded? But the person that you that you should look to Sean McDowell.

01:02:57

He did his dissertation on The death of the disciples and Probably in the world.

01:03:05

He's probably done more research on that topic than anybody else I know and I actually this is funny at one of my training sessions

01:03:12

I gave a presentation where he was my Evaluator and that was my topic and this is before I knew that that was his area

01:03:22

And I was going all I was going in for my you know killer evidence and It was just funny to present to the one guy in the world who knows it better than anyone else

01:03:33

Well, see I've toyed with the idea of going to the cross -examined

01:03:40

Especially had it in New York My toy my ideas. I am thinking of maybe one year.

01:03:47

I'll do it But what I would do is I would I talk to Frank and say listen There's one thing

01:03:52

I want to do and it's FD after all these guys get done being taught how to do apologetics let me take them all to Union Square and And you know vocab

01:04:04

Malone Vocab was at the training he came out and is actually the only time vocab and I met each other in person because that's where I do open -air and You know, you you could sit in front of Sean McDowell and give your arguments

01:04:19

Different when you're sitting in the streets in New York and you got like 20 people shouting out arguments So I that's you know, my theory is

01:04:29

I want to say Frank like okay you got your training you give your test But let me take everyone on the street.

01:04:35

We'll give final exam That's a final exam. All right Yeah, so defend the resurrection

01:04:44

Okay, and the last point on the on the conspiracy is you need low pressure and what we know This is in the

01:04:51

Bible that they did not have low pressure. They were being pressured. Just look at what Paul was going through James's death is recorded in the

01:04:58

Bible. Not the not James the brother of Jesus, but the other James So, yeah, we have we have that evidence

01:05:09

Okay, so let's talk about the resurrection let's let's examine Okay quick since to stay on topic

01:05:16

Jess was asking where where is the Bible verse about Paul being beheaded? And I don't think that that's in the scriptures.

01:05:24

No It the book of Acts ends Before he's he's dead the

01:05:33

There's two reasons why we think he was beheaded. We know he is in Rome. It's recorded that that he did die at execution

01:05:40

As a Roman citizen, he could not have been crucified because that would have been illegal The way that they would have killed a

01:05:47

Roman citizen that was sentenced to death was beheading And so I don't know if it actually states that we have history that states that he was beheaded

01:05:56

I know that we have historical documents that say he was executed Yeah, but I don't know if it actually says beheading.

01:06:04

I think the beheading itself. Actually we we assume yes, and and the early

01:06:13

That was the assumption even with the early church fathers and so we're talking like 100 to 150

01:06:18

AD not to not not far removed So With with the resurrection if we look at four kind of lanes

01:06:28

We talked about the crucifixion that that's it's a pretty solid fact. Let's talk about What we talked about the appearances.

01:06:35

I'm not gonna rehash that the fact that we have record of appearances Record of appearance to at least one time to 500 people and that's not even the most important of the appearances

01:06:46

It's just it just helps to validate Well, let's talk about this and this is this is actually even probably more important than the fact that whether Paul was beheaded or not and I hope most people know this but some might not know this

01:06:59

Paul was not always Paul Paul was Saul so one lane of evidence and this is a lot of a lot of atheists say that this is the hardest one to overcome the skeptics who turned to become leaders of the church

01:07:13

Because when Paul was Saul, he was a he was a Pharisee. He was a leader in his religion He had nothing he was he was out bringing

01:07:21

Christians in to do the work of God He thought he thought this was a hair heretical faith and religion.

01:07:26

He thought he was Doing the work of God by by by eliminating this this sect called followers of the way

01:07:34

So there is there's no way to explain His sudden conversion to the enemy's team so to speak to be a

01:07:42

Christian Where if you look at 2nd Corinthians 11, he talks about I've been shipwrecked beat left for dead

01:07:49

You know tortured Throw, you know left hungry left cold Like he goes through a whole list and he says yet I do all this because of what

01:07:58

I believe so it was outside of Yeah is outside the Bible.

01:08:03

Yep, so the conversion of Saul to Paul is inexplicable outside of Not just the resurrection but his appearance or his the appearance of Jesus to him

01:08:17

It would take I always say some people aren't gonna just come to church on Sunday and get saved some people need a solid

01:08:22

Apollo moment they need to be literally knocked down hit on the head It's got to be extreme

01:08:29

So that's one now the other one that we we don't talk about a lot is James and this

01:08:34

James has a book in the Bible called James But this James is the half -brother of Jesus There's another one named

01:08:42

Jude who's in there as well And if you look in John chapter 7 also, I think in Matthew 13 in Matthew 13

01:08:48

It says, you know, they're questioning who is this Jesus and they say isn't he the son of Joseph and Mary and aren't his brothers?

01:08:56

And they list them and his sisters they list them James his brothers.

01:09:01

They've made fun of Jesus John chapter 7 says they mocked him They didn't believe he was the

01:09:08

Messiah Now you got a picture this if your brother is the Messiah, you know, you're up late studying.

01:09:15

He's He's blinking and getting an A on the test. Can you picture having Jesus as your brother?

01:09:20

I mean, that's just I I thought about picture Like just picture what its life being with Jesus.

01:09:28

I mean, here's Mary. Can you be like your brother Jesus? Wrong, right.

01:09:34

I mean what a standard he's not only the firstborn He's perfect You know, it's like wow, okay

01:09:45

They weren't happy with him So Yeah on that I think

01:09:51

John 7 they're like, well, you're so great Why don't you go down there and do some more miracles and they're making fun of them the mockery.

01:09:57

It's in the Bible But something happened something happens

01:10:03

Where James becomes a his the same brother who mocked him becomes a leader in the church ends up being martyred as well

01:10:09

Writes writes the book of or the the letter of James is in our Bible Once again skeptics and atheist scholars have a hard time explaining these two individuals if the resurrection is not historical fact

01:10:25

So the lane of the skeptics is is a huge issue and then like I said the empty tomb now one thing we didn't talk about the empty tomb is that in Matthew 28 11 through 15 it talks about That the the

01:10:42

Jewish leaders Paid off the guards to say the disciples stole the body and it says this saying is commonly reported to this very day

01:10:52

The Truth is in the details when you when you read the Bible You have to you have to question and I think if you're open if you're if you're honestly open some people are not honestly open

01:11:05

They say they're open, but they're not honestly open if you remove any presupposition against the supernatural and say, okay

01:11:10

Let me just see does this make sense based on what I see in the text What what evidence exists and why this would have happened or not happen

01:11:22

We've already covered that the disciples gained nothing lost everything But there's certain details and I and I've written some stuff and I've done some speaking on something called undesigned coincidences

01:11:33

This is not one but this is just another lane of evidence an undesigned coincidence back to the being a detective is something where if You have several witnesses and Jim separates them and all that and you're interviewing this witness and they're not even trying to deceive you

01:11:47

But they're just talking and they and then in the course of them talking they say something that seems, you know Doesn't really make much of a difference

01:11:53

But you're writing it down and then you're interviewing another witness and they say something and it doesn't seem it's not a big deal

01:11:59

They say a blue hat was on the ground. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but you write it down and When you put everything together

01:12:07

They don't know not even that they were inclusion, but they don't know that all those pieces that they gave just nonchalantly

01:12:15

Actually make the whole story work and fit together What you find in Scripture? With Matthew Mark Luke and John especially are certain undesigned coincidences that something some little line in John Will give clarity to something that you're questioning about.

01:12:32

Why did why was this person there? whatever the case is in Luke and oh, that's what was happening and it all makes sense and and That doesn't speak of collusion that speaks of Happy accident really it speaks of the fact that There were they were simply writing what they thought to write and writing what they saw and or experience where eyewitnesses of or interview people to to ascertain and Us with the benefit of hindsight and having the total corpus of Scripture to look at We can parse through it and dissect and say oh man, like this has to be

01:13:06

God Because who else could put these who else could connect all these dots? There's no way that they pre meditated how to make this

01:13:16

Cosine this where we find something else in Scripture. So if you remove the presuppositions against supernatural

01:13:23

The resurrection hypothesis has explanatory scope it explains

01:13:30

The most evidence in a singular fashion it has explanatory power it's less ad hoc

01:13:37

We don't have to invent new theories. We simply have to believe what is in the text and Not just because it's in the text but because when we examine everything and we and we try to think through all the alternative scenarios this is the only one that it's a straight line and It's and it's less contrived.

01:13:54

So based upon the evidence Based upon the text based upon the external evidence based upon the plausibility of other theories

01:14:03

This is why Evidentially we can come to align with the resurrection hypothesis.

01:14:09

So you're saying the history channels wrong All that to say that really

01:14:17

And and and you know for folks there's are There's some folks commenting you would not be or let me ask it as a question

01:14:24

Are would you be more of an evidential apologist or presuppositional apologist me personally evidential?

01:14:30

Okay, and so and I say that just because some folks kind of find it you're there like I'm a presupp guy

01:14:38

And people think like we can't get along. It's it now folks that I want folks.

01:14:44

Listen notice Alex is not giving evidence for God. He's giving evidence of a resurrection

01:14:50

Okay, so there's a difference we you know, there's this view within presupp that we can't have evidence

01:14:57

No We do look at evidence as well, right is we don't give up that you know

01:15:04

I always says there's two presuppositions that I hold to God exists he has spoken

01:15:11

So I'm not gonna give up God's existence. I'm not gonna give up his word and Notice that Alex is not doing that either here

01:15:20

Alex is giving you what the scripture says, but there's nothing that stops us from looking beyond scripture There's outside evidences that support what the scriptures say right that's not giving up scripture, okay

01:15:33

No, you know, I just want to point that because we were like, you know, we're coming I want to bring Nicholas in he's been waiting.

01:15:39

He's got some Testament and some questions on the resurrection. So Nicholas if you're there you can unmute yourself.

01:15:47

I know he was on camera earlier We'll give him a little bit.

01:15:53

There you go Nicholas welcome You got to unmute yourself as he's working, okay, there we go

01:16:03

I'm here. I mean, sorry. I'm not trying to be ominous and in the dark You know, we understand you want the picture of the world map behind you because you're you're just trying to show you're more missions oriented than us

01:16:15

I mean look You you guys may not have been seen to come I've been seeing the comments about the fact that people are commenting that Alex right now has more books on his

01:16:26

Very small bookshelf behind him there Have on mine and I understand that I understand some of you guys are just having fun someone in the private chat

01:16:36

Winston had said he can't trust me because I have no Okay, so I understand

01:16:43

Nicholas you're trying to show that you're you're more spiritual than both of us because you don't have books you have a world map

01:16:51

I figured I might as well and try and compete with Matt Slick's humbleness, right? Yeah All right, um, so my question is

01:17:03

From just in Genesis 6 5 some have been thinking about for a while But with God being sovereign right when he created man in the world and knowing that we would sin and so forth

01:17:17

Why in that text? Before he you know tells Noah Comes to Noah and so forth

01:17:23

Does it say that like it grieved him and then he regretted that he made him like he made man

01:17:28

Let's let's start in verse in chapter 1 after Verse 1 of chapter 6.

01:17:34

Yeah It says when man

01:17:46

Began to multiply on the face of the land and the daughter The daughters were born to them the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took as wives

01:17:59

Who took as their wives any they chose the Lord said my spirit shall

01:18:07

Man forever for he is flesh and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years the

01:18:13

Nephilim were on the earth in those days and Also afterward when the sons of God came to the daughters of men they bore children to them

01:18:28

These were the mighty men who were of old men of renown and then verse 5 the

01:18:33

Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and the

01:18:45

Lord regretted this is verse 6 the Lord regretted that he made man on the earth and It grieved him to his heart.

01:18:54

So the Lord said I will blot out man from whom I've created from the face of the land Animals man and animals and creeping things birds in heaven of the heaven for I am sorry that I made them

01:19:07

But Noah found favor in his in his eyes So your your question is in verse 6 this idea of God regretting

01:19:16

Okay. Yeah based on his knowing already. Okay, so let's and this is why it's always important to look at the context first off because This context makes it very clear.

01:19:29

What's what's happening, right? This is gonna be differing views of who are God and the daughters of men okay,

01:19:39

I actually don't know where Alex will will come down on on this but the the

01:19:46

Jewish tradition and View that's held by by many You brought up Matt slick

01:19:51

Matt agrees with this as well as I do. I I'm not super I could be convinced otherwise, but I believe that the

01:20:00

Sons of God is used to refer to angels. So in some form Seems like these were angels that were either physically able to have offspring with women or having relations with women

01:20:14

Or it may have been demon -possessed men That were doing such but whatever whatever was going on there.

01:20:22

It was so wicked That it caused God to bring about a worldwide global flood

01:20:30

Okay, so Right there. You see that this is not something normal. It's not something that is just God set up there.

01:20:37

They're being bad. This is this is some sort of supernatural wickedness you see that from the context at least even even if there's there's people who try to say that it's the line of Seth and the line, you know of Cain If you read the context, there's nowhere doesn't mention anything about Cain or Seth No, I don't think that's

01:21:00

People I think reading into Sun because they they don't want to you typically they just don't want to accept that could be some sort of demonic activity, but but When we look at this word

01:21:11

That is is used here in the ESV is Regret or later in verse in verse 7.

01:21:19

I am sorry This word has a couple different meanings it it it actually means regret

01:21:27

To be sorry to console oneself or to comfort to lament to groan to grieve

01:21:37

So there there's actually a wide range of usage. Now the idea we think of regret means

01:21:44

You know, he changed his mind on it and that's not the case here. Okay, he knew all along this would happen

01:21:52

But it still grieved him when it did happen, right? Now Nicholas, I don't know do you have any you have any kids

01:21:58

I Do my son Elijah who's just over five months now five months, so you'll get to understand this illustration

01:22:09

Years and you're gonna fully understand this illustration, right? There's times where we we put things for our kids to do and like Not that we're

01:22:20

God we're not all -knowing But you know your kids well enough, you know that there's times they're just going to do something shouldn't do right and as They're doing it.

01:22:33

It grieves you even though you you kind of expected they would do it It still hurts you that they chose to do that, right?

01:22:42

And that makes sense And what you mentioned earlier to you just with the context and everything and that's something

01:22:48

I wrestled with too is like is it? literally like the sons of God in the terms of angels or was it like sons of God because I've also heard the other sons of God meaning like maybe maybe people that were actually

01:23:01

Right, like Noah righteous men who were I don't know where I heard that from.

01:23:06

I might have been on here from somebody Yes. Yeah, what's your view on it?

01:23:11

Yeah, my view so the sons of God is it's kind of misleading because It's not when you think sons of God you're thinking holiness, but the sons of God would would in my estimation be fallen angels

01:23:26

Even when you look at the beginning of Job the council that is there is referred to in similar language

01:23:33

But it's not holy angels. And so What what I see is the ultimate thing because we know from Genesis 315

01:23:40

God is Sending forth the Savior through through a certain bloodline right that he's going to establish but there's so much wickedness because of these fallen angels that God has to essentially purify the bloodline because this promise still has to be fulfilled for redemption and because of this this inner mingling intermarriage

01:24:00

That was happening. He's gonna have to create the the bloodline to come through Noah through a righteous source so that he can

01:24:09

Eventually get through to all the generations to get up to Jesus, but I think that's what's significant in this because it's not

01:24:16

I agree. I don't think anything about Seth or or Cain or I think people are You know making it too allegorical at that point, but I think it is fallen angels

01:24:28

That are now somehow in the earth able to coincide with these these women and it is

01:24:36

Tainting not just the earth, but the bloodline that the Messiah is gonna have to come through Well, cool

01:24:44

Thanks for answering my question Andrew and let me ask one for you. Alex was just you were bringing up some

01:24:52

Non -christian sources. Yeah other sources talking about like the fact that I think they wrote to Caesar or something like that just about like How the sky went dark and all that stuff after yeah died and all of that.

01:25:06

What what were some of those sources? Just like the names of the guys yeah, the

01:25:13

Suetonius s -u -e -t -o -n -i -u -s You probably know of Josephus Tacitus was another historian

01:25:25

Pliny the younger p -l -i -n -y the younger Mara bar

01:25:35

Serapion I think it's Mara M -a -r -a -b -a -r -s -a -r -a -p -i -o -n

01:25:45

And you can look at some some primary source stuff from them, okay, let me see if I can find one right here

01:25:58

So Suetonius Well, he says a lot actually, but he says To squelch the rumor

01:26:04

Nero Created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people call

01:26:10

Christians a group hated for the abominable crimes The author of this name Christ during the reign of Tiberius had been executed by the procurator

01:26:18

Pontius Pilate Suppressed for the moment the deadly superstition broke out again. The superstition he's referring to is that he rose

01:26:25

Not only in Judea the land which originated this evil But also in the city of Rome where all sorts of horrendous and shameful practices from every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated

01:26:36

So that's Tacitus and so and actually what's interesting. I remember Last year reading all of the apologetic works from the very first century up to present day not in totality

01:26:47

But every you know origin Arrhenius Tess Tertullian all the way up through Aquinas and Augustine and you know all the way up But the early apologists and apologetic shifts

01:26:59

As as time periods the Middle Age apologists were dealing with Certain issues that were not then that not they're not really our issues today

01:27:08

And the earliest apologists the main thing they were trying to do was stay alive They were trying to give apologetic reasons for why you should stop killing

01:27:16

Christians And here's what's interesting when you read the early apologetic writings

01:27:23

Origin Justin the Martyr Tertullian what they're the case they're making is that Well, first of all what they're being accused of Christians were thought to be atheists

01:27:34

Which is weird, right? but the reason people thought the reason the Romans thought they were atheists because They didn't worship the

01:27:41

Roman gods So the rule was you can worship any God you want as long as you also worship the Roman gods

01:27:46

But the only group who wouldn't do that was the Christians and so they end up getting tortured but the thing was they also believed that they were

01:27:54

Sexually promiscuous because they would greet each other with a holy kiss So all these things were being taken out of context and the

01:28:00

Christians were being tortured and worse And so Justin the Martyr and others are writing saying look, let me explain what actually is happening

01:28:09

This is what we believe This is why this is why we do what we do. This is why we eat this weird meal.

01:28:16

It's called communion So they had to explain all these things But basically they were saying so now that you understand, could you please stop killing us?

01:28:26

And so the the misinterpretation of certain things That was happening is actually kind of the reason we have a lot of these other people like Pliny and Tacitus writing anything

01:28:37

Because they're trying to figure out how to deal with this weird group called Christians And you remember that the

01:28:43

Christians didn't call themselves Christians that was that was not a name they gave themselves Christian the word Christians only in the

01:28:48

Bible three times and it's always derogatory. So they were called followers of the way But but these things in a historical sense

01:28:59

The the other writers who write about Jesus and the disciples and everything that came with the early church

01:29:05

We're kind of trying to figure out like what do we do with these people? They're weird. They do these weird things they believe weird things and Because of that they were writing a lot about it.

01:29:14

So Cool. Well, I appreciate it. I'll look into those. That's awesome because he has mentioned earlier just on the side thread that I did a study on the resurrection with Using Josh McDowell's book the evidence of the resurrection

01:29:27

Awesome book man in like it after that. I was just like wow This is just intense and I recently had a conversation with a co -worker who's an agnostic and an atheist at the same time

01:29:38

And that's one of the things I know it's crazy that's one of the things that we were talking about is, you know, the resurrection and I started going through the theories and it

01:29:48

I mean right it was just red herring after red herring at that point because They were just breaking down one by one

01:29:55

And so this is these are actually some good sources that Lord willing We get back to work in the office after this virus is done and I can continue the conversation

01:30:05

So You may know I'm while you're answering I'm looking through cold -case

01:30:12

Christianity Jim Wallace's site He had an article Emerging a long time ago, which provided all of the all of the documentation of References to Christ and resurrection outside of scripture.

01:30:29

Yeah, it was an overwhelming list. I remember that night. Do you happen to remember? either

01:30:36

I article or if you search on because his website is so robust if you saw any good

01:30:42

I Like looking at this now. I'm going I haven't been out there in a while. I'm like dude is like non -stop

01:30:49

I Told him the other night we were talking And I was like man, I got to get to the point where I could pump out content like you like so I'm on the

01:30:58

I'm on the Email list. I probably get like two YouTube videos

01:31:05

YouTube videos a week three posts in my email every week and I know he does other things but He does he does like an article a day

01:31:15

Yeah, you may give me some good to search for for this so we could so I'm not sure on his site

01:31:21

But I don't know and what I'm sorry, what's your name again? Nicholas Nicholas. Yeah.

01:31:26

So have you read cold -case Christianity? I Put that next on your list cuz it'll give

01:31:34

I know it's in that book, but I don't know where on his website it is Yeah But the other thing

01:31:41

I would say even with your with your friend at work if he's willing if he's really on an honest search for truth

01:31:47

Asked if he would if you could read this book together like he you know, you read it you talk about a chapter every week something like that because What what you may not know so Jim Wallace was an atheist till he was 35

01:32:00

He used to make fun of Christians He didn't believe it and one day he goes to a church and it peaks his interest

01:32:05

Something somebody said and he went and bought a Bible and he bought it to dissect it. I don't know The the book that first got me into apologetics not and I was already saved

01:32:14

But I just discovered it the case for Christ by Lee Strobel and it was in the back of my closet

01:32:20

My mom gave it to me I never read it and when I started reading it and if you know Lee Strobel, he was an atheist and he set out

01:32:27

To prove his wife wrong because he was mad that she was becoming a Christian and in trying to prove her wrong he proved

01:32:35

Christianity was true and He says this line at the end of that book and it's the line that always stuck with me

01:32:40

He said and if you see the movie, it's in picture form He said when I got when

01:32:45

I looked at it I had this wall and I was I was putting all the evidence up. He was a legal reporter for the Tribune So he's used to examining

01:32:52

Eyewitness statements and investigating and all that. He said when he looked at all the evidence on his wall he said it would actually take more faith not to believe than to believe and Anybody who's on an honest?

01:33:06

let's say honest search for truth if they're really willing to take a look at all the evidence and and to Jim's point and and you know, this is more of the evidential side like hmm, he said

01:33:17

I Believe we can prove it true. Even if we didn't have scripture. I'm not denying scripture

01:33:23

I'm not saying don't use it, but that makes it such a strong case that I believe it's accessible to anybody

01:33:29

So, you know, I'll give you a different angle that I would go Here's how

01:33:35

I would go with it and and and I maybe it's because I like to have a look I like to have fun You know, yeah,

01:33:41

I'd go to your co -worker and he's saying he's an agnostic atheist And I would just go no you're not and I was oh, yes,

01:33:51

I am No, you know God exists. You're just suppressing that in unrighteousness and Then what you do is proceed to ask him how many?

01:34:00

You know blogs he reads on atheism How many websites he goes to on atheism how much research he does on atheism and answering?

01:34:09

Christian arguments then how many how many times he's reading articles against Islam?

01:34:16

Hmm or Hinduism or Buddhism or any other religion and what you typically will find is the only religion

01:34:23

They're actually looking to debunked is Christianity, right? So what

01:34:28

I do is when I get them to admit that they've done all this research. I asked them this simple question Hey in December, you do you go to the mall?

01:34:38

Yeah Do you go outside where they're taking the photos and do you scream that Santa Claus is not real?

01:34:45

people They always go no And I go why not and the answer

01:34:53

I always get Because everyone knows Santa Claus isn't real and then

01:34:59

I just sit until it sinks in Sometimes you actually get guys that realize what they just said Because they realize the reason they're doing all this research into Attacking Christianity and trying to prove they're an atheist is because they know it's real

01:35:16

Didn't if they actually believed what they claim if they actually believed that God didn't exist.

01:35:23

They'd be quiet Yeah, they wouldn't wait 70 80 years of life. I'm gonna waste that trying to debunk something.

01:35:29

That's that's a fairy tale Agreed. Yeah, that's a good boy. See them doing that with Santa Claus Does everyone knows he's not real?

01:35:39

Everyone knew that Jesus that God is not real like they claim they wouldn't waste so much time

01:35:46

That's a more fun way of doing it as well. I like that too. Those are good points. No I've actually did that.

01:35:54

We're all it was really funny There's a picture someone has of me do an open -air in New York City all day long

01:36:00

Asking that question over and over and over and then there's a picture of a guy that literally

01:36:06

Big jolly looking fellow with a long white beard He's right there and he someone captured a picture of me talking with him and they put it up and they said capture this, you know,

01:36:18

Yeah, put a meme to this or capture And and like everyone who knew what was going on all day was like, you know

01:36:25

You've been a because the guy's hands were out like outstretched And so the best one was like you've been asking where I am all day and here

01:36:32

I Reality is he's he's not an atheist

01:36:41

Right, he knows God exists He just suppresses that and the proof of it is in all the study that he does to prove it

01:36:48

Yeah, the thing to do with them and you can do this. I Years ago. I used to say this with anyone.

01:36:54

That's a hardcore a thief atheist Now you could do with anyone that is is promoting

01:37:01

Homosexuality Yeah, and with him that was the first question that I asked

01:37:10

And then and what happened in church? Yeah with him it was just he grew up Roman Catholic Right, and I'm like, okay.

01:37:19

Well that that answers my question Is the Christian and then he's like but then I was also Mormon too for my wife's sake

01:37:25

Well my ex -wife's sake and I did I tried to ask him what happened? And again, he just threw out a another question to try and fight me on something else because I don't think he wants to talk

01:37:35

About it because if he does right that truth that he's suppressing he's gonna have to deal with. Yes, exactly

01:37:41

Yeah, and Mormonism This is the thing with Mormon and Mormonism Will go out of its way to try to debunk

01:37:49

Christianity, which is really crazy because then they say they're Christian. I Know We're Christian too, wait a minute

01:37:58

You claim the church fell away and you had to restore it Yeah, I know

01:38:05

I know, you know, it's like the job is our Christian now Catholics are Christian Everyone wants to be

01:38:10

Christian, but they all yeah Catholics haven't denied that Council of Trent says that we're we're you know

01:38:17

Accursed and sent to hell because of belief of justification by faith alone So, how could we be the same?

01:38:25

Yeah and living in Utah living in Utah with Mormon co -workers and I do evangelism with Luke Wayne and Aaron shuffle wall of here in Salt Lake Square and stuff

01:38:38

Yeah, Luke's actually a really close friend of mine. So your folks who don't know Luke Luke Wayne is a blogger where he works at calm org

01:38:46

Christian politics research ministry and Alex You could pronounce the last time

01:38:52

I can never pronounce it, right? but He's over with Mormon research ministry mrm .org

01:38:58

the best place to get information on Mormonism He works over there with Bill McKeever and and Eric Johnson two great guys.

01:39:07

Don't let them know I said that well, it's like Mormon actually dealing with Mormonism is the thing that actually kind of was like the

01:39:16

Catalyst getting me into Apologetics in the first place. I mean other than Matt's like listening to calm

01:39:23

I guess he would get the full credit and that might not be a good thing Into apologetics as well.

01:39:29

You were in case on Alex. No, I was just as he was talking You know brought up the the guy your friend who was in the

01:39:37

Catholic Church and this and that So with the whole coronavirus thing, I don't know if you saw this article The Pope said since we have to shelter in place go take your sins directly to God Yeah, I heard that on the podcast from two weeks ago and I was just I just started praying right there

01:39:56

I'm like Lord, please. Let this like be the thing be the thing. Yeah Like I mentioned that on the show when that was done and I just loved it

01:40:06

I was like, this is great So basically the Pope just admitted that the Protestants have been right all along you could go to Jesus They can't say he's wrong

01:40:20

I wonder what a what our old friend the Catholic traditionalist thinks of that now.

01:40:25

I wonder if he's reshaped his whole theology so Alex we got a guy that He goes by the term of Catholic traditionalist.

01:40:33

He doesn't think the Pope is Catholic by the way, okay He's a I can't pronounce the term it's a sick and st.

01:40:41

Cantata sort of it basically they believe ever since the You know

01:40:46

Vatican to the the church went off the rails and they're no longer the church and so you believe in a the church that was that really was the church which is really messed up because How do a bunch of people that are not the magisterium not the author and not the authorities in the church make that determination?

01:41:05

Right if the church hides all that stuff is kind of a problem, but yeah, that would be fun

01:41:11

He so we've kicked him out of here because he he kept he would he'd asked the same question of every guest apologist

01:41:19

Answered it and every guest would answer it every week and then he just he just was belligerent.

01:41:25

So we've We banned him. But yeah, it would be interesting to see what he says about the Pope saying that well

01:41:31

My guess is he would just say he's that Pope's not Catholic so it doesn't matter But then where's your authority head because you got to have the authority head over you so who is his

01:41:43

Okay, let me Vincent in so he could pronounce the term because Vincent is Yeah, no, no.

01:41:49

I'm from the south. I can't pronounce anything, right? So Cantus yeah, sir.

01:41:55

Remember the cantus Is that right close as I can get it.

01:42:02

Yeah, Matt knows those things. Yeah, he knows too much

01:42:09

Look you got to understand son Matt's getting old. He's forgetting. He's starting to forget more than he knows, you know

01:42:16

Just saying he even forgot. It's Thursday night. You don't see him here. All right, he forgot I thought he got raptured or something

01:42:24

Yeah I Wouldn't put past Matt to believe in in the rapture.

01:42:31

I know he does believe in a rapture just not the way most people do So any any

01:42:39

Nicholas any other questions you got for us tonight? No, that's it man. This has been great in the Alex Thanks for sharing what you were sharing earlier on It was just good to hear some more of that as a big encouragement to me and my wife and Lord Well in with my next question,

01:42:52

I'll chime back in Andrew and God bless you in your ministry Anyway, I can pray for you guys tonight

01:42:59

I'm always open to it Okay I'll just I'll just state if you if you could pray there's a lot going on in my local church a lot of Just a lot going on and this virus stuff is not making it any easier

01:43:17

So my pastor, we're a church plant small church pastor was there for one year and resigned and so You know,

01:43:27

I have been asked to Take over the pulpit ministry for a while.

01:43:32

So I've been taken up by had we started Midweek Bible study in book of Genesis this week.

01:43:39

I'm teaching that I'm leading a thing on Friday nights and then doing handling the pulpit so and doing some of the counseling that's been going on so it's uh,

01:43:49

I guess it's Providence, you know, I've learned I've learned that Last year I had this weird thing.

01:43:57

I'm always traveling in the summer I mean basically June to September October.

01:44:03

I mean like every week. I'm on the road and Last year was weird. I had nothing scheduled and I started looking like maybe

01:44:10

I should make some phone calls like Get get some things scheduled. I don't know and I just said, you know what if there's nothing scheduled that God knows better than me

01:44:18

I'll just See what happens Well, I ended up going in for surgery that I didn't know about but God did so, you know

01:44:25

We ended up having similar things going on this year where I was like, oh, okay Well, I'm trying to move to be closer to the church move into a different state

01:44:33

And so I'm like, all right. Well, maybe God knows that I need to be you know,

01:44:39

I need to be a You know have time to move. So maybe I you know, that's why

01:44:44

I don't have too many speaking events No, it's because there's gonna be a coronavirus and I'm gonna be speaking every week just that one church

01:44:50

So God knows better than than we do So I'm gonna force things, you know, you know, it's just trust

01:44:58

God. He actually knows what he's doing Yeah, so yeah, I'd appreciate prayer for that. Of course

01:45:04

We'll do and and you're not you guys are not having to suffer with the kids being Cooped up in the house because there's a five -month -old just kind of lies

01:45:13

Yeah, well we're already cooped and we're already suffering anyway Yeah, it's crazy.

01:45:19

I think I'm going on like week four or five of working from home So it's been crazy, but you know mentioning Providence and stuff

01:45:26

God's really been using this for good just in my life with my wife and Teaching me how to lead her in the word and in prayer and just really really focus and seek

01:45:35

God where I was being lazy and having excuses prior so Yeah Use the time.

01:45:41

I mean People have been asking me. So, you know, how do you how are you dealing with?

01:45:47

You know being at home and I'm like, well my wife and I both work out of the house

01:45:53

Like we work side -by -side in the ministry. And so it's like really not much different.

01:45:58

It's just that we go out Right. I'm like, let me get this straight. So I'm Forced to stay home with my bride

01:46:09

Every day. Yeah, I'm call that heaven. Yep. That's great You know,

01:46:16

I mean I'm like I'm loving it I'm like, oh what's what's the complaint about I mean, I don't I got no speaking events

01:46:22

I'm not traveling anywhere. I'm just hanging out with my wife every day Yep, that's pretty good yeah, and I I I Think you know this has shifted some things for a lot of people and but in a good way

01:46:37

And I'm actually hoping and as even as we kind of joked about the thing with the Pope There's there's there's a certain group of people

01:46:48

That you're not hearing a lot from right now except for crazy prophecies and stuff if you know what

01:46:54

I mean, but the prosperity preachers are kind of silent and a lot of the prophets

01:47:00

Prophets are kind of silent and so God has a way I'm not saying he caused this thing

01:47:06

I'm just saying he can redeem it though and redeem the situation and Some of the stuff that needs to fall away.

01:47:11

It's falling away and I'm hoping it's permanent falling away but the other thing I think what you said not what

01:47:16

I've tried to focus on myself and I write a blog about Not necessarily purely about apologetics.

01:47:22

It's called relentless pursuit of purpose because The bigger thing I want to substantiate is that okay since God does exist.

01:47:30

He has you here for a reason And Figure out what that is and This is a gift of time

01:47:38

Every every everybody who said I didn't have time to read a book. I didn't have time for this and you have time now Ironically, I don't actually because I'm in school full -time

01:47:48

And I got you know, I've worked from home a lot, but my two kids are here now. So that's that changes it but There's far worse things to far far better people so I'm not complaining

01:47:59

I'm in the same same boat as in Andrew and If anything just pray for us. We have a one -year house church that is going strong and we just pray that it gets stronger that it grows that it actually can become a model for people's because when

01:48:12

We come out of this Some church structures may have to change And we want to be an asset.

01:48:19

We actually are saying hey, you know this midweek on online might actually work better for people schedules

01:48:26

But we got we got a couple minutes left Vincent you were you were in you have any questions tonight?

01:48:32

Well, let me make a few observations first. Yeah. Well, thank you, Vincent We'll put you in the backstage I'm glad to see you got rid of all your heretical books behind you you see you're saying you're saying

01:48:44

MacArthur and Ironside and you just need your you just need a Bible back there at least come on It's behind your book

01:48:56

I see there you go under And For our friend for a friend

01:49:06

John Wilkinson, it's the nice, you know, ESV heirloom goat skin

01:49:11

That's very nice and soft buttery soft the bust on him She got one real book one theological look back there

01:49:24

Alex Alex no, no, bro. I love what you said tonight and it reminds me a lot of what I've heard from vote Vodie I love how

01:49:30

Vodie comes at this subject. So I'm very appreciative of your your take on this

01:49:35

I'm sure you've heard a lot about Vodie stance on all this and yeah, he's one of the ones

01:49:41

I instrumental and in me thinking the same way that you are so I I Love my brother

01:49:49

Vodie there on that When it comes to this whole Jesus mythicist stuff, man, you know one of our friends

01:49:56

Tyler Baylor, man he is such an excellent resource on on the on the Jesus mythicist stuff because yeah, he definitely

01:50:04

Confronts him a lot probably a lot more than Published online too because we we deal with it behind the scenes a bit.

01:50:11

So Okay, good good stuff. So I appreciate all y 'all done tonight

01:50:17

The only thing I would like to add is like what do these people think that you know the whole of history

01:50:23

Everything we mark our time by is is on Jesus. I Mean you a lot of people try to ignore say common error.

01:50:32

Well, what's the common error that we're talking about? You can't get away. What is all of history? Judged or counted by yeah, it's a great.

01:50:42

It's a great point and You know, it's over it's like you said, it's just overlooked they don't even address it they don't deal with it

01:50:50

You know, what is a D mostly but a lot of people probably don't even know what a D means

01:50:56

But we know and like you say whether you say common error or not. It's still a demarcation point based on a

01:51:05

Carpenter from nowhere who built nothing So why are we even talking about him in the first place?

01:51:12

I asked this question one time. I was doing a Q &A I was like, can anyone else name a carpenter from the first century by name?

01:51:23

Just in Palestine Jesus his father Joseph and and that right there I wasn't ready for that answer and one of my guys said

01:51:32

It was one of my friends he said his dad Donna that's right But but you get my point right we can't

01:51:40

I mean You only know about Joseph because of Jesus. There you go. There we go.

01:51:46

And so yeah to your point, man There's no way around certain aspects of this whole

01:51:54

Conversation I the point we want to get people to come to and I love Andrew what you're doing with the with open air and even with the show because The Bible's the

01:52:05

Bible's clear and this is this is where we align because I'm I always come back to scripture I was a pastor before I was an apologist and Every knee will bow every tongue will confess the thing is

01:52:18

You either bow on this side or the next but if you don't bow if you bow on the next you don't get back up.

01:52:32

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I is listening and whoever we talk to in life, these are the events that occurred.

01:53:09

Now what you do with that is up to you, but my sincere hope, our sincere hope, all of us here, is that we want you to say, okay, just like Andrew said, you know what?

01:53:18

The math doesn't work out. This can't be, this can't be fake. If you look at, and the same thing you said, there's a number called

01:53:27

Skewer's number. I think it's one in 10 to the 130th. It's the number where mathematicians stop counting.

01:53:34

And when you look at all the prophecies, not just pertaining to Jesus, but pertaining to the kingdom divisions of four to two to one, all the prophecies, the chances of all of those prophecies coming true exceeds

01:53:46

Skewer's number. There's no way to make this up. So like me, anybody who comes to this with an honest, open vantage point or heart, and says, let me just look at it and let me examine it based on what is documented.

01:54:08

And when you do that, you're like, this isn't, I really wanna find a way around this, but I just can't.

01:54:14

There's no way that Isaiah could have known. And there's no way Jeremiah could have known about this.

01:54:20

There's just no way. And with the more recent history of the New Testament, which is more testable, it's even more to the case that the evidence backs up scripture.

01:54:31

So yeah, the Jesus mythicist, I don't even, some people

01:54:36

I don't even know what to say. I do prison ministry. I'll give you a real quick example. I teach in jail normally when

01:54:43

I can twice a month. Cook County Jail is the largest jail in the country here in Chicago. And we go into the pod, we go into division nine, which is max security.

01:54:52

And we go into their housing unit, not to the chapel, we go in where they live. And I'm teaching one day and the one guy's like, hey,

01:55:00

I need you to come talk to my cell mate. And in jail, the last place

01:55:06

I would expect to find somebody, this guy was a flat earther. And he was like, go to this website,

01:55:13

I could show you this and go to, I was like, I'm not even gonna debate this with you. I have flown halfway around the world.

01:55:19

I'm not gonna debate this with you. So yeah, some people, like Andrew said, they're suppressing the truth and some just suppress it harder than others.

01:55:30

That's right. Yeah, so Alex, I'm glad you came on.

01:55:36

Appreciate, it's fun, good discussion, good for the time that it is. Everyone thought, a bunch of people thought that we planned this because of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.

01:55:47

And I went, no, actually, Alex said he wanted to come in. I said, what are some topics that you like talking about?

01:55:53

And you said proof of God or evidence for God and evidence for the resurrection. I figured, okay, if we do evidence for God, you and I may disagree a lot on this show, so let's just go with evidence of the resurrection.

01:56:06

And then everyone was like, oh, so you did that because of Resurrection Sunday? I said, actually, no, that didn't even hit me till you said something.

01:56:15

All the great planning I do. Yeah. So yeah, but it was good having you on.

01:56:22

Vince, do you have anything else? No, I just, yeah, it would be a good discussion on the timing issue on Good Friday, but that's another topic for another day.

01:56:32

But I appreciate you guys, and God bless everyone. Appreciate you too. Put your faith in the

01:56:38

Lord. That's the only thing that'll save you. Amen. Yeah. Well, Alex, it was good having you on.

01:56:46

Let me just put up for folks, your website one more time for folks is A -Alex -R -McElroy.

01:56:59

So it's A -L -E -X -R -M -C -E -L -R -O -Y .com.

01:57:07

So check that out. I'll put that in the show notes and in the description.

01:57:14

And so check out his stuff, see what he's doing. Be an encouragement to him.

01:57:20

Go, you have a YouTube channel, right? Yeah, it's just my name, Alex McElroy. I'm getting going more with it, but if you go to the

01:57:30

Alex R. McElroy website, you can get to my YouTube channel. You can get to the blog. That's the catch -all, so yeah.

01:57:38

Okay, Jess is saying she missed that. It was hard. Let me put that back up for her. So I'll leave that up so you can write that down because you don't want to wait till the show drops tomorrow or the podcast.

01:57:53

Jess is like one of the very, she does a lot of commenting every week, and yet she never comes in and asks a question.

01:58:03

She types it out. I don't know. I think she's just, she's afraid. That's my theory.

01:58:09

No problem. That's scary. Am I Alex? Not at all. This has been fun. This has been great, and Jess, feel free.

01:58:16

I think my email is there if you want to email me from the website, that's fine too.

01:58:23

All right, so with that, it is fitting to wish everyone a good Resurrection Sunday, well, a good, good

01:58:30

Friday. Hmm, okay, that sounds repetitive, but I wish everyone a good

01:58:36

Resurrection Sunday. It is going to be different for a lot of folks as many of us cannot meet corporately other than virtually, and so we're praying that this passes soon, and my encouragement to all you guys as you think about what's going on and all, you know, when we come out of this, when we're on the other side of this, you're seeing right now a lot of people who are at home.

01:59:12

We know that alcohol consumption is up 55%. Pornography consumption, they say, is up,

01:59:19

I think someone said 25 to 30%. Wow. Okay, the places where marijuana is legal, the consumption is up there as well, so there's a lot of people sitting at home drinking, watching pornography, playing video games, they're wasting their time doing stuff like this, and when we get out of this, there's going to be a whole lot of people in need because they're creating a lifestyle they can't get back to when they have to go to work.

01:59:50

There's a lot of people that are asking questions with all this, and my encouragement to everyone listening, think about how you can start sharing the gospel virtually now.

02:00:03

There's ways that you will be able to share the gospel. I like what, on our

02:00:09

Theology Throwdown podcast, for those that are familiar with the Christian podcast community, where we gather together, we have our monthly podcast, and basically what we have there is, we all got discussing this virus thing, and James Watkins made a point that you can share the gospel without even talking to someone, without even touching someone or handing them a gospel tract.

02:00:36

He just takes his phone and airdrops the back of a gospel tract, and people accept it, and he just airdrops it, boop.

02:00:43

Just anyone that has airdrop open, he just sends it to them and just shares the gospel. That's something you could do.

02:00:50

Now, you might have to be within six feet, I don't know how close you have to be for airdrop to work, but find creative ways to share the gospel, because when we get on the other side of this, when we get out of this, there's gonna be a lot of hurting people, and we

02:01:04

Christians take the time now to study your Bible so that when we come out of this, you have answers for people because there are gonna be a lot of people asking a lot of questions, and we're the ones that have the answer.

02:01:19

So we need to be ready for that. We need to be out there as soon as, I mean, we need to be hitting the streets.

02:01:25

It's gonna be different. Handing out tracts is gonna be different, I think. I don't think people are gonna be taking gospel tracts anymore like they used to, at least, and for some places, some people found that was hard.

02:01:37

It's gonna be harder to just start up conversations with people and be in close proximity, at least for a while.

02:01:45

Maybe that's the advantage of open air, but we gotta find some ways because we need to get the gospel out to these people.

02:01:53

Could this be something that God is gonna use, this worldwide pandemic, to bring about another worldwide revival?

02:02:01

Could be, but you know what? Revival starts with me. You gotta understand that.

02:02:07

It always starts with us, individually, getting right with God. Now, that doesn't mean, I'm not saying that we have to get saved.

02:02:13

I mean, if you're not saved, then yes, that would be, but we need to take this time that we're at home, do some self -evaluation, start examining what things are in your life that you need to clean up.

02:02:26

Maybe there's things you need to, you know, like Nicholas was saying, he just needed to start spending more time in the

02:02:31

Bible, leading his wife. This is a time to develop those patterns. This is a time for us to get serious with God, with sin in our life, address that, because when we're all being brokenhearted before God, not worrying about the politics and the economics and all that other stuff, but worrying about Christ and what he's doing, that's when we could see a revival.

02:02:54

That's what I'm praying for. I hope you'd pray that with me, guys. I hope that you'd be praying that God will use this to bring about a worldwide revival, that his name would be glorified among the lands.

02:03:06

Now, maybe that he's doing this because he's bringing about the end times, who knows? But, you know, for all the people that wanna speculate on that, here's the simple thing we do know.

02:03:15

God's in control. He doesn't command us to sit at home and worry about the end times and think about all the speculations we could do, what

02:03:25

God could be doing. He does command us to go out and make disciples. And a person who doesn't know

02:03:31

Christ, the first thing you do is share the gospel. They need to know that they are sinners and criminals in God's sight because we all break his law.

02:03:41

They need to know that they need to turn from trusting himself as a good person, trusting their good works, they need to turn to Christ to have eternal life.

02:03:51

And they're gonna have challenges when you share that with them. You need to be ready to answer those. And now's the time to be prepared.

02:03:58

Now's the time you have extra time on your hands. Stop watching all the Netflix and just get into the word of God and study.

02:04:07

It will be the most valuable way you could spend this time being cooped up at home. Amen. And so that'd be my encouragement to folks.

02:04:16

Alex, let me let you, anything else you wanna plug or sign off with? No, I appreciate this time and I appreciate you having me on.

02:04:27

Oh, I will say my online course, Bibliology will be

02:04:34

May 4th, seven to nine central time. It's just bibliology .eventbrite

02:04:41

.com. I believe you can just go into Eventbrite and type in Bibliology. Is that a free event or is it a charged event?

02:04:48

No, it's $22. $22. Yeah. Okay, 22. Yep. Not 20.

02:04:57

You know, there's reasons people have for doing numbers like that. What was yours? I was just pricing out the workload and pricing out the amount of people

02:05:08

I can get in one room on the channel. And so that was what I came up with. I don't know. 99, because you get just under 20 and they think it's less than 20.

02:05:17

And 22, it's more memorable. So people would remember that. You had said earlier, the

02:05:25

Word of Faith guys are silent. They actually haven't been. It's really kind of funny that they've been out there and a friend of mine -

02:05:34

Well, certain ones. Some videos about this with all of them. They all claimed 2020 year of vision.

02:05:42

I know. Someone had said, forget who said this now, but it was a great line. All the

02:05:48

Word of Faith guys claim that this was the 2020 year of vision, yet none of them saw this coming.

02:05:57

I got a better one. I posted a meme maybe a week or two ago.

02:06:03

And it was one of those memes where it was just a guy like that or something. And I was like, so this is how

02:06:11

I feel. All the prophets, you didn't see this coming? Like no one?

02:06:18

We couldn't get a heads up? All right, well, I thank you for coming on,

02:06:24

Alex. Thanks for all the study you've put in and the help that it's been to us. I appreciate it. I hope this has been helpful for you guys.

02:06:31

As I put Alex in the back room, I'm gonna just, and you could stick around. I'm gonna play that eight minute clip to close this out, and then we'll close the show.

02:06:41

The clip that we had from a previous Apologetics Live with Matt Slick, with Bob, who wants scientific proof that God exists.

02:06:52

That's actually about nine minutes long. Hope you enjoy this, and we'll see you next week. Do you have any proof that your

02:06:58

God exists? Yeah, the resurrection of Jesus is the proof. That's not. Yeah, it is. No, you have empirical evidence.

02:07:05

Okay, here we go. Yeah, here we go. Okay, what's empirical evidence?

02:07:11

You have evidence that's been performed through the scientific method, anything peer reviewed by the scientists, anything with PhD, anything like that.

02:07:18

So let me ask you a question. Sure. Is your statement, your requirement, is that the right approach?

02:07:25

My statement is that it corresponds with the accurate description of reality. So do you know that the scientific method is a philosophy?

02:07:34

Of course, science comes from philosophy. Do you know that it is a philosophy? Did you know?

02:07:40

Yes. It may be that, but it's also the only accurate approach we have to the nature of reality. How do you know it's the only accurate way?

02:07:48

It's the way that most of the entire scientific community has agreed upon as a way to answering the questions of the nature of reality.

02:07:56

So that's called the argumentum ad populum. So the majority has agreed, so therefore it's true.

02:08:03

My question was, what evidence do you have for your God? I told you, you said you wanted empirical evidence.

02:08:09

And so - Resurrection is not evidence, that's just something that - But wait, wait, wait, Bob, before we can get there, you first have to show that your statement has been peer reviewed.

02:08:19

I have a question. I just wanna know whether your God exists. The resurrection of Jesus. Okay, well prove the, do you have a scientific theorem?

02:08:27

Okay, let me ask you a question. Which question do you wanna ask? Because you're changing it up. I want to know what scientific evidence do you have that your

02:08:33

God exists? Don't make me explode on this guy too. As you know, it's the resurrection of Jesus. Okay, okay, slow down, please, slow down, okay?

02:08:40

What's your name? What's your name? Bob. Okay, Bob. So, Bob, what you are demanding is your personal preference.

02:08:47

You want side - I want evidence, Bob. Okay, you want evidence for God. Yeah, don't give me the resurrection. Can you please let me finish?

02:08:54

It's always nice. Answer the question, answer the question. If you're gonna use foul language, I will remove you immediately. If you're gonna be rude and cut him off when he's answered your question several times.

02:09:04

That's not an answer. The fact that you don't like the answer doesn't mean it's not an answer. But that's not the answer. I don't like it, it doesn't matter.

02:09:09

Bob, Bob, Bob. Yes, sir. Come on! You asked the question. You asked him what's the evidence. He gave you the evidence.

02:09:15

That's not evidence. Bob, you asked him a question. He gave you an answer. That's not an answer. Well, Bob, okay. Okay, let me, let me -

02:09:20

Bob, is there any answer you would accept? Yes! What, what, what? I would point to something observable.

02:09:26

Okay, observable by like 500 people, say? Observable by, sure, why not? Okay, that's the - How do you observe something that happened over 2 ,000 years ago?

02:09:33

John, hold on. John, hold on. Guys, guys, guys, guys. Too many chefs in the kitchen. Let me ask, let me ask Bob a question.

02:09:38

Bob, was George Washington our first president? Yes or no? Yes, he was. And because of the - Prove it by the scientific -

02:09:43

Because we're alive today - No, what I'm doing is - We need to move on past this guy. We're not gonna go anywhere with him.

02:09:49

Yeah, I know, but I wanna - We don't go anywhere with him. So here's the thing, Bob. What I'm doing is I'm giving you the right method of study for this topic at hand.

02:09:56

You don't - Just give it to your mom. Bob, just turn it on him. He's an atheist. Listen, try to listen. Yeah, I'm a proud atheist too.

02:10:02

Okay, so Bob - You got a scientific proof that atheism is true? Atheism is a lack of belief. It's a lack of belief? Lack of belief. Then the back scratcher in my hand is an atheist.

02:10:09

It lacks belief. Well, then in that case - Okay, we need to move on because we're not gonna get anywhere with someone who cannot think critically and is full of vitriol and anger.

02:10:18

There's apologies - No, no, no, Bob, we're trying to talk with you and you constantly interrupt and we're trying -

02:10:24

This is evidence for your God existence. And see, you keep interrupting, Bob. Show me the evidence for your God. I'm just gonna turn it down a bit and then we'll turn them off.

02:10:31

This will be helpful. Bob, I'm gonna ask you a question. I'll turn your volume back up, okay? Here's gonna be the question I want you to answer. Ready?

02:10:36

Go ahead. I want you to tell me how many feet, eight pounds of feathers weigh? I don't, how many feet, eight pounds,

02:10:42

I don't know. It's because the wrong measurement. You don't measure weight in feet, do you? Okay, that's fine, so what's your point?

02:10:47

Okay, so the point is you don't measure history by science. So you don't measure God by scientific realm either?

02:10:52

Bob, try listening, okay? I asked you about George Washington for a reason.

02:10:58

You asked me about George Washington because you're trying to say that because there are a lot you can't prove. This is stupid. No, no, no, no. Yes, it is.

02:11:03

It's stupid to say. Now you're denouncing me. No, Bob, this is classic.

02:11:08

Bob, you want proof for something. We give you history because history is history.

02:11:15

That's history, okay? The Bible is not history, my friend. Okay, we can't talk to this guy. The Bible is not history.

02:11:20

No matter what we say, no matter what we say, he's just gonna refuse it. It doesn't make any difference.

02:11:27

No, no, no, but this is where this is great. This is great because this is what so many people do and people like Bob can't see it.

02:11:35

People like you can't see things either. Bob, the reason you can't allow anyone to finish is because of the fact that you can't defend your own claims.

02:11:42

Matt just did that with you and you couldn't defend it. You can't defend me? Prove to me that you're God. We can't prove it to you because what you would accept because Bob, because you won't accept anything we have.

02:11:53

You have a very narrow view. I was trying to show you that your narrow view was inaccurate. It was the wrong one.

02:11:58

It's just subjective preferences on your part. And you hate God. You're not interested in God.

02:12:04

You want to justify your own atheism. And you don't argue from a lack of position, Bob. You argue from what you believe in, not what you lack belief in.

02:12:11

You deny God. You openly deny him and you hate him. You want your own sovereignty. Now the proof that God exists is the very fact that your hatred of him constitutes evidence that the scriptures are true.

02:12:24

Judgment is upon your heart and your mind for your hatred of him. And you're wanting to be in his place.

02:12:30

Just as the scriptures teach, your very denial and your hatred are evidence for God's existence because the judgment by him upon your heart is very evident.

02:12:40

Now, Matt, here's the thing. And maybe we'll turn them up again after. Here's the thing that we ended up seeing with this.

02:12:45

And we see this with countless people, okay? He wants you to use science to explain something that isn't determined by science.

02:12:52

It's determined by history. It's determined by philosophy. He's using the wrong measurement. But then when you turn it on him and put it in the same caliber, asking

02:12:58

George Washington, he's like, well, that's history. Well, that's exactly right. And he can't use his own standard for anything else.

02:13:05

So he wants a standard for you to prove God exists, but he wants it only by a science standard. Now here's the reason, Bob, and I want you to listen.

02:13:11

Here's why you can't use science to prove God. Very simple. Science is the proper measurement of the natural world.

02:13:18

Science is the study of the material world. God is not material. He's in the material.

02:13:24

You can't use science to prove God exists any more than you can use science to prove that you love your wife.

02:13:31

Or that a soul exists. Correct. Or my thoughts exist. He's not interested in truth.

02:13:36

He's interested in God. You're meddling in this notion of Jesus and God. Let's just move on, guys, seriously. We're almost done, you know, but it is the thing.

02:13:46

So Bob, can you prove scientifically that you love your wife, your marriage? You can't prove scientific. Correct.

02:13:52

We don't use science for God. It's a fallacy, Bob. God is not outside of space and time, my friends. I'm sorry.

02:13:57

It's just your little made up sky. Whatever, dude. Whatever. Let's move along, guys. I'm going to battle out because I don't want to waste my time with someone who's full of hatred, who cannot reason properly, who makes unreasonable demands.

02:14:08

You know, there's just no sense of going on. If he were polite in our conversation, we could work through things, but we can't because he's interrupting constantly and he's full of hatred.

02:14:18

So why Bob? And this is the thing for folks who want, this is the problem when someone cannot engage and can't deal honestly with what people say, it reveals that they can't defend their own position.

02:14:30

And Matt, you tried to do that with him. You turned it on him to say, okay, let's take your same position and support it with his atheism.

02:14:37

He couldn't do it. What did he do? He tried to say, oh, it's a non -belief. As if that's his cop out because he can't defend his own position.

02:14:44

This is what we see with atheists all the time. That it's a non -belief, but it isn't a non -belief. You can prove negative all day long.

02:14:50

No, you can't. I can easily prove the statement. There's no tea in China. Just by producing tea in China, you can prove a negative.

02:14:57

It's easy to do. I can't prove unicorns don't exist. The thing is, is he doesn't have a negative thing. It's not a lack of belief that he's got.

02:15:04

It's as you're hearing, he doesn't want to even accept the right measurement to define these things.

02:15:09

You don't use the study of the material world to study something that's not material.

02:15:14

You can't prove that's true. It doesn't mean God doesn't exist, Bob. It means that you have a fallacy. You're using the wrong measurement.

02:15:22

It is like trying to measure the weight of something in feet. It's a ridiculous statement.

02:15:27

And that's why both Matt and I tried to talk to you, but you wouldn't hear it. And I know that you'll probably run off and claim victory for having gotten

02:15:34

Matt upset. But the reality is, is Matt tried to patiently talk to you. You were rude, inconsiderate, and not logical in the basic thing, right?

02:15:43

You asked a question and you got an answer. You didn't like the answer. Matt gave you an answer. So to claim he didn't answer it, he did.