Apologetics Session 1 - What is Faith? - Part 1

Faith as the Starting Point for Apologetics

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for this apologetics class, and we devote it to you, Lord Jesus. You have said that we should always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us, and Lord, we pray that you now would equip us to do that.

It says, first of all, though, that to sanctify Christ as Lord of our hearts. And so we do that, Lord. We confess you are God, and we pray now that you would just come and equip us and strengthen us and encourage us in the work of apologetics, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. And what a pleasant sight the parking lot tonight is. What does that have to do with it? Okay. Everybody come on in. All of you sit down. All of you sit down. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

So I'll give you a quick background on me. I was in school years ago. Unlike John Laskin, who got apologetics at the first class, I didn't get it until later, a couple years later. I don't know, Jeff, if you got it a couple years later, but we didn't go into that.

We kind of went through kind of the foundational truth parts first. And but apologetics was a very, very, very important in my life because it kind of opened the door to logic and reasoning, which if we look at salvation, we accept that Jesus Christ to our mind and it comes to our heart, and that's how that change happens.

So God uses our mind to go ahead and really expand what his truths are, and it's very, very important. And my assumption here today is that everyone here knows the Lord and Jesus Christ is their personal savior.

They don't. This is a good class for you to be in. But if you do, the process of that happening there where you're hearing the word and you're hearing the Holy Spirit come into your life and you are regenerated through that comes to your mind and to your heart.

So there's a logical piece to this that needs to come together, and for some reason we have kind of moved away from all that, and we need to begin to embrace it because the enemy is really trying to take over, take over the church, and it has happened.

It really has taken over the church. So I want to read really, well, let me say it this way. We can't really go into apologetics unless we know what faith is. Does that make sense? So we need to understand and really drill down what faith is all about and what we're defending in terms of that.

And then we can go into all the different types of, you know, theories and theology and logic and doctrines that would happen there. This really is the starting point where what does faith mean? Because so many people think they have faith.

So we're trying to present a rational case for belief. So apologetics, this is what they say, it means to give a logical defense of the Christian faith. Apologetics is a branch of Christianity that defends the authority of God's word, the character of God, Christianity as a whole, and also uses the Bible as an offensive weapon.

That's a big, big, big, big key here. All right.

Against all other worldviews and opposition, preparing the believer to become a warrior for Christ. And that's our mandate.

You cannot escape that. Go ahead. I was just saying, ironically, it's something we don't have to apologize for. Right. Right. Evan, do you have more of the handouts for the guys that just came in?

I don't have any more because I didn't know how many, but I will make sure that I'll send an email with the attachment because it's actually, there's a 20-page booklet that I have together that I'll be sending to everybody on this.

The Church Is at War, and Faith Requires an Enemy

So before we begin, we have to have some sort of, do we agree or don't agree on certain principles, okay? So I'm going to go through certain things and open to the floor, to push back and say, hey, yes, no, maybe, okay?

First of all, we have a big problem. 69 of the people in the US believe they are Christians, 69%. That was taken in November 2021 Gallup poll. So our class is, it's about love. Learning is about love, okay?

We do not win here. God always wins. But we share and we share knowledge and that's the church, that's the community there. But we are at war. Make no mistake, we are at war. The time of sitting and being pew potatoes is over.

We are at war. We are demanded to stand up now for faith, okay? There are only two groups of people in the world. So any argument you ever have in life with anybody about God, about creation or anything else, it comes from two sources.

Those in Christ, those not in Christ. That's it, all right? And it's a very freeing thing to believe it that way. Because what Satan does is, he tries to drill it down in so many different ways that that confusion is something that marks a sense of longing that's not there.

God is not one of confusion. He's very direct. So there's only two types of people in the world, okay? We are commanded to be Jesus-like. People either see you in Christ or they don't. And Paul is very specific about this, and so is James.

That you can claim to be in Christ, but the fruits of your spirit is what shows that to others and to yourself. But it shows over time, and that's the whole idea of sanctification. So what does that mean for us?

Being in Christ means about suffering, okay? And make no mistake, if you're gonna be in Christ and you're gonna be a warrior for Christ, you will suffer. You will not get away with it. I'm an example of that.

I have story upon stories of things that happened when I dedicated myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And I was warned by a guy who was in his 80s, and he says, welcome to the kingdom, you will begin to suffer.

And it's so true. Now, it's not a bad thing. I'd rather suffer for Christ than suffer away from Christ. So, and why is that? Cuz this is not our world. We agree on that, right? This is not our world. Our world is beyond.

We're here to do his work, but our world is beyond. So, here's where the controversial stuff is. Faith is not religion. Is that understandable? Faith is not religion. So you have two choices then. A person's either leaning towards God or leaning away.

There's never a neutral position, okay? There's nothing neutral about it. So when you're talking to somebody and you're trying to understand their life story and what, where it's going on there, in terms of discernment, in terms of understanding, you can get a very good grasp if someone's leaning towards the Lord or not, or away, you know?

And, you know, Jeff made a great analogy, and I've often spoke about that, about sanctification. People have this idea that if you're being sanctified, you're supposed to be going like this, but it's not like this.

So it's like this, and like that, like that, and you're kind of going up and down like that. And that's usually the pathway, and that's part of the growth process of testing, suffering, and happy. People in Christ live in a flat plane, and it's a very important concept to know.

We are very blessed to have Jeff and John and the elders here to do their work that God has given them to do. We also have work here to do. Jesus' organization is very, very flat, you know? People have a tendency in their mind to idolize leaders, you know, instead of idolizing the Creator.

And so we have to be very, very mindful that we're all human beings. By God's grace, we've been given a plan through his spiritual gifts to do what we're gonna do, you know? When I was in school, I can't tell you how many times people came to me, well, we came here to be a preacher.

That wasn't my calling to be a preacher. I like to talk about things, teach people. Jeff's calling was to be a preacher. Mine was to teach, to learn, and to be among the people to really kind of get to know them.

And the same thing happens with all of you there. That's why apologetics is so important in your life in terms of how you go ahead and fill those gaps that people have there with God's truth, okay? And judge appropriately.

Separate the essentials from the non-essentials. That's a trap that Satan uses all the time, is that when it comes to understanding what is happening in the world, that he pinpoints different shortcomings in people's lives.

And he makes them as if that is the reason why, well, he's a great accuser, that is the reason why you're never gonna be that much closer to the Lord, you know? And it could be completely non-essential.

And Paul talks about it when he says that some people, you will have to respect where their belief is, and you may have to do a few changes in your life to go ahead and honor them. And the same goes true for yourself, too.

But it's very, very important to really understand what the essential components are about God's grace, his salvation, what his mandates are for the world, what the gospel of the Great Commission is, compared to everything else, you know?

And unfortunately, and Jack, you didn't go through this,.

Seminary can really mess that up, you know?

They can do a number on that because they kind of put everything as everything's important, and you kind of, you have to sift through that. You gotta sift through that. So what is faith? What is faith?

So the question I have for everybody here, and I really wanna hear a response is, can you have faith and not have an enemy?

Depends on what your faith is in. What do you mean? Well, if your faith is in Christ, you'll have a boatload of enemies. But if your faith is in Allah, you'll have some, but maybe not as many. Depends on where you're at and who you believe in.

Depends on your geography, what country you're in. So you're recognizing that we have an enemy?

Yeah, we do have an enemy. Okay, so the question for the group is, is that, can anybody except Jesus Christ, a personal savior, just on faith alone, without understanding what the enemy is? Okay, can you do that in a vacuum?

It's an important question. I don't think so, because we don't live in a vacuum. We have to do it where we live, right? Anybody else? I mean, I don't know him to say.

Go deeper in that question, because, pose it again.

Well, you can't just have faith in faith. You need to have it, like you said before, an intellectual understanding in your mind of what and who you are believing in, the reason we're believing. And that's what you're getting to, is because it's like, okay, I have faith.

What does that mean? What does salvation mean? Like, what am I being saved from? God, there is a God, okay, right? And we all know the verse that says, even the demons believe that. But they fear and tremble.

So what exactly is our heart putting our trust in? And we have to have the intellectual understanding of what we are.

Committing ourselves to. We have to know the God of the Bible.

It would seem that if you just have faith, the first time the enemy attacks, your faith might crumble. I mean, you don't have the awareness that it's not all you need.

Sometimes I feel like I am the enemy. I am my own worst enemy, and I pray that you have filled me with, keep me from my unbelief, you know what I mean?

Well, to that point, I'm glad you brought that up. It was something I was gonna bring up later. But there's three spheres of sin around this, okay? There's the demonic realm that comes down. There's the world, right?

And then there's our innate sin nature. So there's three fears that we may tackle one, we may not be able to get the other one yet, or we get this. So we're always being attacked. That's why we have to be very alert and vigilant about what we think and believe in faith and understand what the enemy is and who the enemy is.

My suggestion to everybody here is that the biggest enemy right now is the church. It's not even the people outside. It's not even government. It's the church. The church is imploding inside out. And I'll talk about that in a little bit, about why that's happening.

And it has to be for us to go ahead and change that. And Cornerstone is becoming that sort of epicenter. Yeah, that center now, where people are waking up to that. That we're seeing that the church is imploding, and we need soldiers out there to help.

We need a generation that's gonna change all that, because we sit in sidelines way too long, right? So number one is that having faith is also knowing the enemy. Or else, why would you have faith if you don't know the enemy, okay?

It's a very, very important concept to put in your mind there, in terms of getting to the next level of what apologetics is all about, okay?

If I could jump on that for a second. So I think one of the, I'm a big fan of the Screwtape letters. And if you listen to what Screwtape said to his protégé, he told him to make the Christian comfortable.

Make him, yeah, warmly, make the Christian comfortable. Make him feel good, and that he's going to church on Sunday. As long as he's not evangelizing, as long as he's not. And I think that that gets to the point of, in America, right?

One of the reasons why the church is imploding is because we're so comfortable. And so I think in recent days, there have been circumstances that have forced folks, Christians, to confront whether they actually believe what they've been saying they believed all along.

And you're seeing sort of a self-sorting of people going to these oasises of places like Cornerstone, or The Rock, or Grace. Like the different churches that are standing firm on the Bible and God's word, and those who are bending their doctrines and bending their faith around the culture.

And so I think that the idea of knowing an enemy and how that really operates, I think, is important, it's super important.

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Worshiping Jesus, Not Doctrines, and Rejecting Paganism

So one of the things we were talking about, I just went over the agreement that I had there. We're trying to build a rational case and getting to the idea of, do we have an enemy? And we're gonna talk about the pagan construct, which is, but before we do that, I just want to read something.

And I'd like to get some feedback for it. It says, why did we do all this? So the point of all theological study, or apologetics, and or reading scriptures, is to not principally arrive at sound doctrine.

That should be found out as we grow with our walk with Christ. But our studies, most importantly, are to know and worship Jesus in spirit and in truth. Not worship the doctrines themselves. Sound doctrine will always point to the living Lord with his truth, but never back at itself.

Remember that. Secondly, it would be foolish for us to expect that this work that we're doing together will meet with general approval. It's not going to, all right? The trend of modern theology, if theology can be called, all right, is ever towards the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the creator.

That is a key component to what's going on right now. You have to embrace that, that the paganism that's coming to the church is about people being their own god, and we need to talk about that, okay?

Eleven, a present day rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christianity, and that is the truth. Hence, the social theological pendulum that we go through, okay, swings towards other side of extremes, from one end being antinomianism, or towards the other side, which is legalism.

So you're constantly going back and forth like this, and depending on which group you're going to be at, you're going to see that. But the idea for here with Apollo Jiggs is a sermon to cut through all that and understand what God's truth is, because he breaks through all that.

And it's extremely important that you understand that. So with this study, we want to rationally understand the nuance of what, why, how we believe our beliefs, or in short, have faith. It was once told to me, and this is a mentor of mine, he told me this, that we always lean on our faith in Christ alone.

If we always lean on our faith on Christ alone, we will falter. It warned me. That was that 80-year-old John I was telling you about. Why? Because we are humans saved by his grace, and there is nothing we can do to produce more faith, but certainly can produce less.

And that's the truth. You'll find through sanctification that, and Dave just brought it up a little while ago, that sometimes he feels that he doubts everything, and he's pulling away from that. That's why knowing truth is absolutely key in terms of continuing to grow in Christ, okay?

That's just a stage that our faith must have proof points to validate why we believe what we believe, or else everything becomes about feelings more than faith. And that's key. And you go into a person, you ask them, what do you believe in?

I believe in God. Oh, you're a Christian, right? Yeah, and I feel it. That should raise a red flag right away. That should be something that you say in the back of your mind, okay, what's going on here?

Yes, well, of course, we absolutely feel his glory at times and all that stuff. But if we always pursue our faith based on feelings, we will fail every time. I can't tell you my life that has happened to me personally, all right?

So it's surprising for me that in this day and age, so many claim to have faith, but do not know the gospel or scripture, all right? And the results of this are when turmoil occurs, which is what Bob was talking about, many walk away from the faith they claim to have known.

Yet others twist it to fit their own narrative and paradigm, which we'll talk about. And even others will exploit the word faith for their own devices. And Paul talks about that, about the wolves slowly coming in.

Christ warned us of all these things with the parable of the seeds landing in various varying ground within Matthew. So what is faith to be replaced by is what I'm going to talk about is tribal spiritualism, all right, tribal spiritualism.

And it's no different than New Age, pagan religion, monotheism, or deism, whereby your belief in culture constructs, overshadow God's truth through his word. It looks like a church, but it's not God's church of his truth.

Additionally, we made the most important decision in our life in accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, should we not defend our faith as his elect? And that's a question that you have to take personally and really think about it.

I mean, you made the most important decision in your life. It's the above everything else, shouldn't you defend it? Should we have non-irrational response for who do not believe or challenge even those who claim to believe but do not show any fruit of their confession of faith?

This isn't a nice to have, it's a must have. Last but not least, the belief in the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice, does not apply in defending the faith. It's at this juncture that many think believers in Christ are all over, and they have every reason to believe this because we do, all right.

Our goal is to

So Ivan and I, I'm cheating, because we talked about this the other night. But it is funny, because I've heard that before, the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice. And the response I gave Ivan was, what is more kind or nice than telling someone the truth, right?

And the analogy that's been used over, or metaphor that's been used over and over again, throwing a life preserver to a drowning man, right? Is it telling them the truth doing that, especially the truth about the gospel, right?

Isn't that essentially trying to save someone's life, and what is more kind or nice than that?

Right, it's not true. So the key takeaway is, we don't believe in easy salvation. Accepting gospel, accepting the whole gospel, not part of it. Self-examination and repentance is a starting point. God's intervention is on his terms, not ours.

In short, as Paul says, we are a slave to Christ. When we accepted him, and he bought us with a price, we are his slave. We are to him, all right? And today's preachers, and I have, when I sent out the, these notes, there's a list of preachers there that really don't preach that.

You have to be mindful of that. So, any questions about what I just read? Does that make sense to you?

Yeah? I assume since people are actually here for the apologetics that everyone agrees that we're called to defend, to make a defense for our faith, right? You don't think that's not something we have to do?

I mean, just one thing. We're defending the biblical faith, cuz I see the pope trying to form an ecumenical interfaith movement of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. So, we gotta be sure of our definition of what our faith is.

Which brings into this, so, I always mess this one up. Soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation, right? But this is the pagan construct that's all over the US. I would say probably more than 90 of churches are in this, okay?

And there's a connection to what's going on here. I don't know if you ever heard of this term called tribal spiritualism. It's something that was kind of coined when I was in school. And I pushed it along, and I got a lot of pushback from when I was in school, because it was shaking things up.

But tribal spiritualism is basically taking the church and making it honed in to whatever the cultural issue is. So it could be the church of pro-choice, the church of transgender, the church of Black Lives Matters, church of whatever, prosperity gospel, it becomes the church of that, all right?

And so this is really the beginning of paganism and what happens there. And can someone look up ethical nihilism? Nihilism? Nihilism. Yeah, if someone can look that up and just read it to me. Cuz this kind of gives you how the energy of that is being driven.

Is that the same thing? Yes, you can just use that too. Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures.

Right, go from the absolute to the relative. My truth. Do you understand the church now? My truth.

My truth, right. So the mission of this is to make the church of blank. This is, we don't really believe anything because there's no absolute truth. So the moral relativism is the motivation behind it.

And then there's this phenomenon that's happening right now, we're living it, it's called religious speciesism, okay? So religious speciesism makes two results, less-thans and nones.

Not N-U-N-E-S, N-U-N-E-S, N-U-N-E-S, N-U-N-E-S, N-U-N-E-S, N-U-N-E-S, N-U-N-E-S.

So, who are the less-thans? Who's the less-thans? Anybody know? Anyone who doesn't prescribe to that.

Anyone outside of that? I think we're all less-thans, right here, all right? This is where we're landing, there, okay? The nones are the group that falls out of there, they're not affiliated with anything.

They're so neutral that they have no affiliation religiously or doctrinally, they just don't really care about that. But we're the less-thans. The church here, this type of church, thinks that we're off base.

That our truth, and it's really not our truth, God's truth is something that's outside their sphere. So, we have churches all around here in Pueblo, like this. And I'll submit to you this, that is paganism.

Make no mistake, that is paganism. That's what happens. And this church, the little light that it is right now on the rock, the little light it is, is one of the beacons there against all this paganism activity that's happening there.

So the question I have for everybody here, and it's a tough question. Do you think there's believers in these churches?

I think there should be believers. I think there are believers. They have had belief on an art belief.

Take it to the next level. Do you think if they're going into a community of a church that's practicing.

Paganism Let's parse, though. There may be believers that aren't buying into what the teaching is there, but that are there for other reasons, like family ties or what have you, that they haven't actually left the church, but they're not buying it.

But then there are those that are sitting in the pews, soaking it up, right? And are completely bought in to that. So, I think we should probably differentiate between the people that don't buy in to the, whether it's the ethical nihilism or the church of, that just haven't left yet.

Jack, could you read Romans 1, 18 to 23?

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. In the things that have been made, so they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men and birds and animals and creeping things.

I would say that's a lie in the sand. I would say that's a lie in the sand that God has said to us. And either on one side of it or on the other side of it. And when we don't want to parse words that there are nice people in there, make no mistake, this is how paganism starts and this is how it's become entrenched.

Christchurch is, if you can zone and read Acts 2, 37 to 43. This is Christchurch.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, 2, 1, 43? 2, 43, yeah. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word were baptized and they were added to about 3 ,000 souls that day. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to breaking the bread and the fruit.

And awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. Mm-hm, okay.

So that's Christchurch, and then we see what we have in terms of the church is now, what's going on. So two completely ways of the way church is being done. And we need to understand that, and know the nuance of it.

So when we start to study in depth, in terms of our faith and apologetics, we need to understand what the differences are between the two. Can someone read 1 John 5, 4 to 5? I call that the welcome.

I've got it. Okay. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God?

And that's our faith.

The Thief on the Cross and the Gospel of Repentance

So at this point, you're all semi-seminary students, okay? All right, so, and now you're gonna get your big class. This is the big class now, okay? There was a school that opened up, and it was only open for a little while.

And half the class failed, and the other half passed, okay? Yet the mark that this school did has lasted for generations, okay? So can someone read for me Luke 23, 40 to 43, okay?

But the other rebuked him, saying, do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.

And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Could you read it again, a little slower, verse by verse?

But the other rebuked him, saying, do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.

And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Thank you for that, all right. So I had to go to seminary all that time, and so did Jeff and so did a few others, to learn all these different things. That is the gospel. That is the beginning point. That is everything.

You don't have to be a scholar to understand what has happened, all right? So why did the thief know that many or what, that many not know? Recognition to fear God was number one, it was a recognition to fear God.

A recognition of his own sin. A recognition that he deserved to die. A recognition of a sinless man before him. A recognition of the Christ himself. A recognition that without Christ, he cannot enter paradise.

A recognition of Christ's forgiveness and mercy. That, that's the story.

Congratulations. You all graduated seminary. I'd say too, you recognize that the death of Christ on the cross was not gonna be the end.

No, exactly, true, absolutely, absolutely true, his kingdom was still coming, right? So, that's all said and done. The question I always have about this, and it always gives me chills when I read this, is, what was the other guy thinking?

What was happening there? And we're gonna talk about election of free will, and how does that work? We're not gonna talk about it today, but how does that work? You have thousands of people looking at the cross.

If you can imagine, thousands are looking, you have the Christ there, you have a man there that's dying, you have another man that's dying. One says no, one says yes, why did the one say no? Why? He's gonna die.

Why? It always bothered me. One of the first things he told, asked Jesus is to get us down, you're the, so he was only concerned about the things of this world, not the next. Right.

Which, which, so, what ends up happening, when we think about what happened in the Garden of Eden, and Eve took the fruit, and with the promise that she would be like God, that's at the stage for what's gonna happen for the remainder until the Lord comes back.

So, not only is there two types of people that are in Christ, or, or not in Christ, but there's two types of people that, one, believes in the sovereignty of God, one believes they are God. And everything comes from that.

So, when you look at that central argument, that's the beginning of apologetics, understanding the central thesis of what that is, either man must be God, or he recognizes God, that's it. Everything else comes from that, you know, you, you can't escape the fact.

So, government, religion, finances, science, the motivations behind that is, either they're gonna give the glory to God, or they wanna be God. And we've seen it time and time again through scripture, with Egypt, with Rome, with the Pharisees, so it's not a concept that's very alien to us.

But when we think about it, and this is where I'm pushing this home, when we think about it, we wanna be able to contextually cut that down. So we, instead of getting caught in the mire, take a step back and say, wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you wanna be like God?

I always, when I have a situation where I'm talking to somebody who says, I don't believe in God, well, you believe in something. You know, you have to believe in something. You have faith in something, right?

And they go, what do you mean? I said, well, you believe in rabbinic, right? Natural theology. Thomas Aquinas said, for something to exist, there has to be an existence, basic thoughts. So somebody has faith in something.

Either they have faith in God, or they have faith in themselves to be God. And when you look at it from a rational point of view and a critical point of view of taking that from there, you can tackle a myriad of all types of issues that's going on here.

And be able to defend our faith accordingly through God's truth there. All right? Does anybody have any questions about that?

Is that? No, I will say what Rich said about the thieves on the cross. How one was concerned about this world, and the other one was concerned about the world beyond. I think that's a good reason why a lot of people don't want to try, don't want to come to faith in Christ.

Because it means that they're gonna have to probably give up some of the things in.

This world that they enjoy. And face accountability after that.

So what would that say for us in terms of going to them and talking to them about this? Is that something that can't be changed, Matt? Sorry, say that again? How do we address that as believers and talking to people who are going through that?

I mean, you have to lean on the fact that this world is temporary. And that eternity is, by definition, forever. And the fact that their eternal soul is in peril. And then you can launch into the gospel at that point.

And I've heard arguments about Christianity and the fact that it casts us as despicable creatures, and you have to get into Less thans. Yeah, less thans. And then you have to get into the fact that the eternal God of the universe cared so much about us that he sent his son to die on the cross for us.