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Eli Ayala will be responding to an apologetic against apologetics.
All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today we are going to be taking a look at a sermon entitled, Why Apologetics is Stupid. Okay, so there you go.
There is literally a sermon out there that is entitled, Why Apologetics is Stupid. So you might be asking, well, why am I going to review a sermon that seems so silly? Well, actually, the guy who preaches the sermon brings up some really, I wouldn't say good points, but I think points that would be helpful to expand upon and to clarify as well as explain a little bit as to why he's incorrect with regards to apologetics.
And the answer in one sense is obvious, because if you are familiar with the biblical support for apologetics, it's obvious in that sense. But there are other things that we can kind of tease apart and get into some of the details that I think will be helpful for folks.
I have invited my good friend, Matt Slick from karm .org to come and join me in listening to this sermon together and picking it apart. And I think this is something we should all learn to do is to discern the difference between truth and error.
Okay, and there's very important idea that you need to be so familiar with the truth that when error creeps its little head into the picture there, you can recognize it for what it is. And so in one sense, this is kind of an easy topic to address.
But in another sense, I think it's a good tool for training your mind for thinking about how you might discern error in preaching, things like that, all right? So just real quick, if folks are interested in revealed apologetics, if you have not already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel.
I mean, if you haven't done so already, what's up with you, bro? All right, we're almost at 2000. I need just maybe 200, 100 and something. So that would be really helpful. And if you're interested in the revealed apologetics website, I have a blog there.
I will be putting up some more articles there, but there is an article there up about the Trinity. And if you're interested in learning about presuppositional apologetics, you can go to my website, revealedapologetics .com, click on the PresuppU, Presupp University, and you could enroll in an online course where I teach an entire course on presuppositional apologetics, all right?
So without further ado, let me invite Matt here. He can say hello to folks and then we'll get underway. Hey, Matt, how's it going, man? It's going, buddy, doing fine. Thanks for having me on. All right, it's a pleasure.
It's always good to have you on. You're always a fun guy to interact with, whether I'm just talking to you or we're interacting with something else. I always appreciate what you have to say. Okay, that's a wide open door for me to be insulting or something.
We'll figure it out. Yeah, well, we're gonna have a nice interaction here with the sermon, so no cheap shots, although it will be tempting, okay? All right, I'll try and be nice. Try and be nice. It will be tempting.
All right, I haven't even heard this yet. There's a lot to pick at, let's just say.
A lot of inane persiflage, okay. Yes, yes.
All right, real quick, I see a comment here. Someone says, what's up, pre-sup you, or pre-sup, what's up? I don't know what you're saying. If you're asking about the online school, you can check that out at revealedapologetics .com, and there's an option there on the window if you're interested in signing up for that class, right?
Okay, so let's jump right in. Here's what I'm gonna do. If you guys are familiar with some of the other episodes in which we critiqued some perspective or some video, I'm gonna be playing the video. You'll see the video there, and Matt and I will stop every now and then to make some application, criticisms, things like that.
This is similar to what I did when I had Dr. Jason Lyle on to critique Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy, his criticisms of young earth creationism, which I highly recommend you go and listen to that video.
Whether you are a young earth perspective, an old earth perspective, Dr. Jason Lyle, I think, does a very good job in responding to the biblical criticisms of the young earth perspective. So you might wanna check that out.
All right, well, let's get started. I'm going to share the screen there. There is our gentleman here from what I have discerned from listening to the sermon in its entirety. He seems to be a person who goes to one of those King James only sort of churches, and if that comes up, maybe you might wanna address it.
But if not, we wanna stick to just the content of the sermon, that's fine as well. All right, you ready, man? Ready. All right, let's jump right in. And you can just verbally let me know when you wanna stop and say something, or I'll stop when I feel the need to say something also.
Okay? Sounds good.
All right, let's do this. Focus my sermon on this evening was in verse 19, where the Bible read, Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. And in James chapter two is probably the most famous verse that people will take out of context to teach that by faith alone, you're not saved.
And the sermon tonight is not gonna be about that. I wanna take a second to address that. But the title of the sermon tonight is why Christian apologetics is stupid. Why Christian apologetics is stupid.
Now, before I get into my sermon, let me just explain to you what James two is saying here in this portion.
All right, I'm gonna stop right there. Okay? There are a couple of things we could say just from the very beginning. What he's going to do is he's going to show by appealing to James and other passages that salvation is by faith alone, which of course is something we would agree with.
What's kind of irrelevant to the main gist of his sermon here. But what do you think is the problem with preaching a sermon, defending the position that apologetics is stupid?
Well, the problem with it is, it's stupid. It's stupid to preach a sermon saying that apologetics is stupid. Now, why is that? Because apologetics comes from the Greek apologia, which means to make a defense.
First Peter three 15, the Bible commands that we practice apologetics. And yet he says, Christian apologetics is stupid. So he's contradicting scripture. Now, maybe he doesn't understand what apologetics is.
It is the branch of Christian theology that deals with the defense and the establishment of the Christian faith. And Paul used apologetics. Jesus used apologetics. The Bible writers used apologetics. We should do that too.
And, you know, 2 Corinthians 10 five, we are to hold every thought captive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That means we have to tackle arguments. Paul did that in Acts 17. Look, to say that apologetics is stupid is itself stupid.
Sorry, but I gotta say it. And I don't mean to be mean, but it is because it contradicts scripture right away.
Well, it not only contradicts scripture, which of course the word apologia and different variations of it appear all over scripture. I believe the word appears, I think, around 17 times in noun form, apologia, or in verb form, apologomai.
And it can be translated as defense or vindication in every instance. So the idea of vindicating a position or defending a position is something that is a part and parcel of the biblical texts. We see this both in the Old and the New Testament.
Not only is it unbiblical, but it's actually self-refuting because if you understand what apologetics means to make a defense, it can pertain to anything you wish to defend. So if you're defending why, you know, mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best flavor of ice cream out there, that's, you can give an apologetic for that.
So the very fact that he's preaching a sermon so as to demonstrate why Christian apologetics is stupid is itself an apologetic approach. And so he's actually engaging in the very thing that he is, that he's calling stupid.
All right, let's continue here.
He's basically condemning Christians who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who do nothing good. They don't follow God's commandments. They're not trying to go out and do any good works. They're not getting anybody saved.
And he's saying, look, what is that property? What is that property to you? What is that property to other people? It's a dead faith. But he's not saying here that you're not saved. He's not saying here that you don't have eternal life.
It doesn't even bring that up. And we see the climax of this verse, I believe. Look at verse 22. See is thou how that faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect and the scripture was fulfilled, which sayeth, Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.
And he was called the friend of God. You see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only. What does the Bible just say there? Well, first in verse 23, it says that Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.
Does it say there he did any works? It says no, he believed and he had Christ's imputed righteousness given unto him. Meaning what? He was seen as righteous in the sight of God. All right, let's stop right there real quick.
So, so far, so good. Have you noticed anything off? I mean, right now we would agree with that, right? Especially the appeal to, that's often something that comes up in apologetics, especially against Catholics and things like that.
Why don't you unpack that just for a few moments there,.
James too. The only thing I would say is don't use the King James, but you know, I wonder if he's apologetic for the use of the King James. That'd be interesting.
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't think he would. If he did, then I mean, what's the point, right?
Yeah, we could just trash the King James, but he can't use apologetics to defend it. That's right.
That's right. Okay. So, so real quick, let's talk about James chapter two. Again, that's actually a very, very important apologetic verse. You've, you've defended it. You defended justification by faith alone against attacks from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or any position that denies justification by faith alone.
Why don't you briefly unpack that for us? It teaches faith alone. Okay. And why don't you, yeah. A little bit more detail. I always do this to him.
I always do this. You know, he gives me a question. I give a short answer and he's, you know, no, you gotta start at verse two of James 14, because that's the context starts. If a man says he has faith, but he has no worse, can that faith save him?
That faith is a dead faith. And he goes on and he talks about the difference between ascension and fiducia. Ascension is mental ascent. Fiducia is heartfelt commitment. Both are used in the faith sense.
And so in the Greek, and so the devil believes in God and he trembles. The devil, you know, the word for faith, there's pistou to believe and pistis to have faith. And so believe and faith is the same Greek word, pistis.
And so we just see the same word here. You believe in well, you do well. The devil believes or the demons believe also. They have faith and they tremble. So what he's doing is just talking about that, that basic thing in James 2, 19.
Here's the critical thing about James 2, verse 18. Someone may well say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without the works. I will show you my faith by my works. James 2 is justification on the horizontal, not the vertical.
Horizontal is between people. Vertical is between God and man. So this is justification on the horizontal and that's just being spoken about. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian scientists, Muslims, well, Muslims, they don't really use that too often, but Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox take this verse out of context and try and say that we have to be good and do good works in order to be saved.
So he's getting it right. I wish he could unpack it more, but you know, it's okay. Yeah, I think that the main point.
As to why he's demonstrating this is to show that we're saved by faith. And so therefore apologetics is useless because you know, the sinner's dead and you know, he's a fool, those sorts of things. That's how he's kind of setting up.
So we'll listen a little bit more. You know, I don't know how long he goes here, but once he starts getting to the gist of his sermon, I think there's gonna be a lot to interact with there.
Not because of how he lived, but because of how Christ lived and Christ gave him that righteousness. But not only that, it has a colon there. It says something else. It says, and he was called a friend of God.
Now, not every Christian is automatically the friend of God. If you wanna be Christ's friend, you gotta follow his commandments. And we see why was Abraham called the friend of God? Is that true?
I see that if you're a Christian, how can you not be a friend of God? Is it, if you're a true Christian and you're reconciled to Christ, I mean, isn't the wall of enmity removed? I mean, when he said that, that seemed a little off to me.
Well, there's some interesting study.
About what it means to be the friend of God. Abraham's called a friend of God and certain things are given to those who that phrase is applied to in scripture. He's considered a friend of God. And then there seems to be special things that occur with that.
So we're all friends of God in one sense, but there's also a narrowing and a privilege that comes along with God declaring you're a friend of his. So that's another topic. But yeah, so he's got some points there.
I don't know how much he knows about it, but you know, it could be.
Sure, okay. Let's continue. Because of his works, that's why it says in verse 24, you see then how that by words, a man is justified and not by faith only. Meaning what? Your works will justify you to be called the friend of God.
But how are you saved? By faith. And that's the most clear thing in the Bible. And that's gonna be my first point. Because you say, well, what is Christian apologetics? Maybe you don't know what that means.
Now the word apology can mean two different things. The most common word or a definition that people would think of would be say regret or sorrow for one's past actions. Saying, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.
I'm sorry I did something wrong. Making an apology. But another definition of apology would be to make a argument or to provide evidence for something that you believe. You're arguing for some kind of viewpoint.
It's usually in a connotation of some philosophical argument. Philosophical debating. Trying to prove things or showing evidence or bringing logic and reasoning in to argue your points.
Now what is Christian apologetics? Okay, now real quick.
He's now going to make a distinction between apology to make an apology. And then he's now going to define what Christian apologetics is. And it's right there where I think you wanna listen to. So let him finish that definition as I think we would take issue there.
Okay.
Christian apologetics is trying to prove that you should be a Christian based on historical reasoning and evidential evidence. So saying, look, from things that we can see, taste, touch, records, things just are common sense.
That's why you should be a Christian. All right. Is that what apologetics means? No.
Okay, good. So let's go into the definition. I mean, this is basic apologetics 101. Why don't we go into a proper definition of apologetics? Now that said, I don't know who else would be watching this video here.
We got about 30 people watching at least in the YouTube right now. But there are different specific variations of apologetics, but the general, the gist of it, I think we could all agree on. So why don't you unpack the definition as you understand it and why that definition that he provided.
Is incorrect biblically? Well, generally speaking, apologetics has two areas, defense and attack. And it basically deals with defending the truth of the Christian gospel and refuting or attacking the false teachings about that truth of the gospel.
And how that's done can be done in different ways, using logic as Paul did, evidence as Jesus did. And we'll leave it at that. So these are the areas that he was getting. And he says, what he's mistaking is he said that we should be a Christian based on the historical evidence.
Well, actually there's some truth into what he's denying because Jesus said in John 20, 25 through 28, touting Thomas, right? Thomas said, I'm not gonna believe unless I see, see the wounds in his hands, et cetera.
And Jesus says, touch me. And well, actually he said, put your hand into my side, put your finger into my hands, now believe. So Jesus actually commanded him to believe based on the evidence of the resurrection.
So what I'll do, and I believe in presuppositionalism and I'm talking apologetics with atheists on a weekly basis. I do, I go into discord. I will repeatedly come to the evidence of the resurrection and I'll say, you need to believe in who Jesus is because of the resurrection.
Now, the fact is the resurrection is evidence, it's historical evidence and you ought to believe based on that resurrection is the proof of who Jesus is and what he said in the fulfillment of scripture.
And I'll tell people that. Now, do I believe that they can come to faith based on that? Nope, I don't believe that because God is one who grants that they believe, Philippians 1, 29, grants that they have repentance, 2 Timothy 2, 25.
He's the one who causes them to be born again in 1 Peter 1, 3, they're born again, not of their own will of John 1, 13. So what we're doing here is what I like to illustrate this way, that there's a field full of thistles and thorns and boulders and divots and dangers and snakes and scorpions and in the center of this big field is a stone walled garden and it's very high, you can't get over it and there's a single door and that single door is Jesus, that garden is salvation.
What we do as apologists is we weave people through those problems and we say, don't step here, don't do this, this is why that doesn't work, et cetera. And we get them to that door and say, this is up to you and God.
We do not teach, we cannot teach, we will not teach that our reasoning and our presentation of evidence brings them to faith. Nope, God is the one who grants people believing, grants them repentance, grants them, you can't even come to me unless it's been granted to you from the father, John 6, 65, Jesus says.
So we know who that is, our job is simply to bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ by shutting their mouths because that's what we're called to do. As second Corinthians 10, five says, we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, that's what we're doing.
We don't teach, I'm a Calvinist, hardcore Calvinist, we don't teach that our reasoning and presentation of evidence is what leads them to Christ, nope. What we're doing is saying we're being obedient to Christ and we are giving an answer because it glorifies him and maybe God might condescend to use our measly, imperfect efforts as a means by which he might activate the faith or present the faith or whatever it is that God does spiritually to bring people to salvation and this is what we do.
We are tools to be used alongside with the proclamation of his word, the Holy Spirit and of course, giving reasons for our faith, the Bible commands us. He seems to imply that there is a dichotomy though, that since we are saved by faith, then there's no reason to appeal to some of these other things.
He'll get into that in more detail. It's like hyper-Calvinism, it's like hyper-Calvinism. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you're a Calvinist or not, but hyper-Calvinists say, you know, God's ordained it so don't worry about it.
Don't preach, don't teach, don't evangelize, don't answer questions, but the Bible tells us to and if Paul, you know, I tell people, really? Then why did Paul do it? Right. Why did Paul give an apologetic, give a defense for the faith and everything about Jesus Christ?
Why did Paul do it?
He didn't just preach either, it wasn't simply preaching. It says that he reasoned with the Jews in the synagogue showing from scripture that Messiah had to come and suffer and die. Right. So it's not simply a proclamation of the gospel like some people say, well, we just preach the gospel.
And what caught me off with that definition too is even when you are familiar with some of the philosophical and theological literature apologetics books, I don't ever hear apologists who are, you know, who know what they're talking about ever say that, you know, the purpose of apologetics is to convince someone why they should be a Christian solely based on the evidence alone.
I mean, even someone like William Lane Craig who has mentioned later on in the sermon even makes the distinction that I agree with that there's a difference. Pardon, there's a difference between how we know Christianity to be true and how we show Christianity to be true.
And that, pardon one second, I have to sneeze. Pretty good. Did I mute it in time? You did, you did a perfect job. Yeah, all right, good, good, good. See, I'm allergic. I'm allergic to bad, to bad preaching.
The heresy. Yeah, that's what I get. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. All right, but there's a distinction between how we know Christianity to be true and how we show Christianity to be true and how we know Christianity to be true is wrapped up in the witness of the Holy Spirit.
And we wouldn't deny that. And I don't even think people who are not Calvinist who are more on the classical and perhaps even like a Molinist or an Arminian, I don't think that they would think that it's just solely based upon, you know, evidence and independent of the work of the Holy Spirit.
So I thought that that stuck out to me as incorrect there.
Yeah, and I think it also shows no disrespect meant, but it shows an ignorance on his part. I don't mean that in an insulting way, but he doesn't seem to be aware of the necessity of our position inside the reform camp, at least.
We don't teach the thing he seems to be accusing us of. And he should know that and be able to say, well, in this camp they teach this, in this camp that, at least a little bit, but he doesn't seem to have done his homework very much.
Yeah, yeah, there's the biblical command, a biblical command to do apologetics. And that shouldn't be criticized, but you can criticize inappropriate uses of apologetics when apologetics is being done incorrectly.
And if apologists are doing what he says they're doing, then yeah, if it was that simple, then yeah, we should reprimand people from doing apologetics unbiblically. But to say that apologetics in general is stupid is something obviously is unbiblical and self-refuting.
It is. Let's continue.
Now that falls short in the most obvious fact of what? You're saved by faith. Now, how in the world, if the Bible makes it so clear that you're saved by faith, faith is what saves you, faith is what gives us everything, but I'm gonna somehow spend my whole life trying to prove to people that you can believe the Bible without faith.
Oh, you can believe it because of history. Okay, okay, right there, right there.
Where do we get this, we can believe the Bible without faith? Yeah. That's like saying, have faith in the Bible without having faith. Yeah.
It doesn't make it as a non-sequitur. Yeah, and I think, again, he decries the utilization of logic, yet, I mean, even in his trying to make his point, he's trying to use logic, but doing it incorrectly.
And again, I don't mean that disrespectfully. I mean, it's not either believe by faith or be convinced completely apart from faith. You're just convinced by the arguments and evidence. I mean, no apologist holds to that position, not even bad ones.
I mean, I've listened to bad apologists and they don't even say that. I'm not sure if I wanted to kind of grant him some of the points that he's making, I would, perhaps someone could say, well, maybe he has a specific group of apologists in mind, but I can't even, it seems to be difficult to grant that because I don't even recognize that understanding of apologetics.
Okay, all right, let's continue. You can believe God and you can believe in Jesus just because of history, just because of reasoning, just because of evidence, wrong. No, we're saved by faith. Go to Romans chapter one.
Salvation is by faith alone in Jesus Christ. I think the Christian apologetics,.
They're ruining the most. He doesn't understand what he's criticizing. Agreed. He doesn't understand. He does not understand what he's criticizing. And I hope he's a humble enough man to be corrected in this area, because it's not that we're trying to make him look bad or just to entertain ourselves at his expense.
But as an apologist, you've been doing this for 41 years, I don't know how long you've been doing this, but I can just tell you flat out, he does not understand what he's criticizing. Sure. That's right.
I agree.
All right, let's continue. The central part of Christianity is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's look at Romans one and see what it has to say about the word faith. Look at verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Now this is what the Christian apologists need to hear today. Look, I'm not ashamed that it's just by faith in Jesus Christ that I'm saved. I don't have to try and provide all this evidence and all this reasoning to try and make it seem logical to you why I believe in Jesus.
No, I believe by faith the Bible. I believe the gospel by faith because it's true. I know that, but I believe by faith. So it's circular reasoning. That's circular logic. Of course it is. But I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ by faith.
That's the first tenet. That's the first pillar of Christianity. You wanna be a Christian? It's gotta be by faith. Romans three, look over a page, look at verse 21. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all of them that believe, for there is no difference. Look at verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness.
Again, if you think about it, I mean, every point he's making is really superfluous at this point. I mean, there's already an implicit assumption that there is a contradiction between faith and defending the truth of the gospel.
I mean, Paul even says, I've been set for the defense of the gospel. Like literally we're called to defend the gospel. So when he appeals to the clarity of scripture, which I agree with him, the scripture is clear that we're saved by faith alone, right?
Romans four, five, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned to him as righteousness. That's clear. We wouldn't argue with that. But just as clear is the command to defend the faith, to set apart Christ as Lord and heart, to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that's in us.
So you can appeal to one aspect of clarity in scripture and completely ignore other aspects of scripture that are clear, which I think is amazing. So again, he's going through this issue of faith to set it up against the utilization of evidence and argument and things like that.
Well, what he's presupposing is a kind of Pelagianism that evidence and rationalization is enough to convert somebody on its own. And we would never say that, you and I would never say that, particularly because we're reformed.
We don't care how much apologetics we can give. It's not what converts anybody. We never say that it is. We just simply say we're being obedient to Christ because he commanded us to do this. And that's why we're doing it.
We happen to enjoy it as well, but that's our gifting. And so we do this to, and I believe in part is to justify judgment upon the wicked on the day of judgment. Now, I'm not saying that's, hey, look, we get to do that for that purpose.
But I think that's one of the things that is part and parcel to the issue of apologetics because we have given, you and I both have argued with many unbelievers, given them answers, refuted their answers.
And what I always do is I use logic and evidence and presuppositionalism, et cetera, to try and break down all their arguments against believing in Jesus Christ and the Lordship of Christ. And then I call them the carpet on their sinfulness and say, you need to repent, you need to trust in Christ.
Now, I even believe that at that point, the only way they can do that is if God grants them repentance and grants them that belief, but it's not me who arranges that. All I can do is simply answer, give answers and defend the faith and bring them to that door, through that field of thistles and thorns and get them in that place where hopefully by God's grace, they'll come to faith in Christ.
That's it, that's what we teach as apologists. I know you do it, I know I do it, I know other apologists that I know do the same thing and believe the same thing. All right, very good.
For the remission of sins that have passed in the preference of God, look at verse 27, where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law? Work's name, but by the law of faith. Look at verse 28, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Look at verse 30, seeing it as one God, which will justify the circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith. Look at chapter four, verse three, for what say the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was counted unto for righteousness.
Look at verse five, but then that work is not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Skip down to verse 22. I feel like we're getting a theme here. Look at verse 22, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness, not as it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also that whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Look at verse one of chapter five, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Go to chapter nine, maybe a page over. Look at verse 33, as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Look at chapter 10, verse four, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Look at verse nine, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Now why in the world am I gonna take all these verses and say, hey, you should believe the Bible because of history, because of evidence, because of reasoning.
No, it's by faith that someone is saved by believing the gospel. Christian apologists, they fail in step one. They're so stupid because they try to argue for God's existence without faith. They get into all these debates.
And they get all these similar. Is that what apologists do? No, he condemns all apologists as being people who teach works righteousness ultimately without faith because that's what he's doing is accusing them of sin.
And this guy needs to be politely rebuked, corrected and he needs to repent for his error. So he fails to distinguish between faith and apologetics, justification by faith and apologetics. He assumes that Christian apologists say that apologetics in itself using evidence and reason is sufficient to get someone saved.
That's not the position of the apologist. So he's misrepresenting the apologist. He's misrepresenting people and he's condemning them. So I'd be willing to sit with the guy over the phone and teach him what apologetics really is, answer his objection to say, no, that's incorrect.
That's incorrect. That's incorrect. I'm well-qualified to do that. I believe you are too. And other apologists are as well. What he is doing unfortunately is misleading his congregation and denying the requirement that scripture says to give an answer to everyone who would ask you for the reason of the faith that lies within you yet with gentleness and reverence.
So we're commanded to do that in 1 Peter 3, 15. We're supposed to do that. And he's actually working against the scripture based on a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the view. So he has failed.
I have to say this because it's true. He's failed to properly represent the opposition which he considers an opposition which should not be an opposition. He's misrepresented it. He's not done his homework and his research in order to justify his position.
He's not talked to anybody apparently who knows anything because he wouldn't say those things if he had. If he'd talked to me, I said, no, no, no. It's not our position. It's not what we teach. And so I think he's failing, you know, I'd be disrespectful.
I'm not calling him, not saying he's a good man of God but he is failing miserably in several areas of this and he needs to be corrected. And if he doesn't receive correction in this if he's not open to that then he's not worthy of being a pastor teacher because he's teaching error.
He's condemning a whole host of Christians and misrepresenting them saying that they don't teach justification by faith but by works, the works of your own effort of believing and reasoning. And this is a sinful thing he's doing without reasoning without realizing it.
And once presented with this, he should say, you know what, I was wrong. Hey, thank you for showing me that. And let's move on, move together. And anybody who does that, who says, yeah, I was wrong. I blew it.
Okay, praise God, man. Good, good, good. But if he were to say, no, I'm right and you're wrong. Well, then he's unteachable and he's disqualified from being a pastor.
And what about this issue of logic too? It's almost like he's decrying the use of logic and reason. I mean, surely when we believe the gospel we don't believe it solely on the basis of like our autonomous reasoning ability and logical capacities but surely that which is true must also be logical, right?
You can't have an illogical reasoning.
Well, you and I could get into a discussion here on the transcendent necessity of logic and the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility being the infinite mind of God. And we could get into this and say that all people who do apologetics presuppose logic.
And even the atheists who argue against God presuppose a necessity of the universality laws of logic. And only we can justify the grounding of those laws of logic in the Trinitarian God. Okay, so we can answer them.
We can refute them. We can deal them and say, now you need to trust in Christ which is what God grants to them at his mercy and at his time. So what he's doing is using a bad form of logic to refute the idea of using logic.
He's trying to say if this and then. He's trying to be logical. And I grant that he's trying to do that but I'll also grant that he's not being logical. He doesn't understand the issues. And it's often the case when someone doesn't understand the issues that they're criticizing they then make illogical statements or they make what they think are logical statements based upon what they think are true presuppositions.
And to them, it's logical. But when they understand the presuppositions are incorrect then their reasoning falls. And this is what he's guilty of. Now, again, I want people to understand I'm not angry at the guy.
I'm not saying he's not a good Christian man but I'm just saying that in this area from what I've seen, he's not done his homework and that he needs to be better informed and either Eli or myself would be willing, very willing to just have a conversation over the phone and talk to him about what this really is and why what he's saying is not accurate.
What I do appreciate about what he's saying not so much his conclusions that he's drawing and the false dichotomy that he's setting up between faith and use of reason, evidence and things like that. I do appreciate the emphasis upon faith because I do think that some people can set up logic reason, evidence and arguments as an idol as this, you know, like people can be so...
But again, that's an example of a misuse of apologetics. It is not reflective of a proper biblical use. And so that is what we should be critiquing unbiblical uses of apologetics, not apologetics itself.
Right. Okay.
All right, let's continue here. Seminars and they do all these videos trying to tell you, hey, you can believe Jesus and believe God without Bible, without faith. You can believe it because of evidence and history and all these other reasons and it's all junk.
No, you're justified, you're saved by faith. That's what we should be reaching. Don't get carried away with these fancy cool illustrations and all their philosophical talk. You know, there's this one guy, William Lane Craig.
This guy is a wicked false teacher. This guy does not believe the Bible. He teaches all kinds of damnable heresy. He teaches that you can lose your salvation. He teaches that hell is not really hell. He's like, well, I don't think hell is, you know, fire.
It's not really what people think of. It's just not being around the awesome God. It's not being, you know, in the presence of, you know, the glorious God. No, hell is fire. Hell is torment. Hell is darkness.
And it's in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. You're not gonna wanna be around that presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, where his wrath is kindled. All right.
He's made another error. You know, he's young and I'm not disparaging his youth, but often people who, and I used to do this too, when I was way back in my thirties, cause I'm in my sixties now. Cannot believe I'm this old, but nevertheless, he said, damnable heresies of William Lane Craig.
And he said, lose your salvation and no hell fire. Those are the ones he mentioned in the context of the breath of damnable heresy. Those are not damnable heresies. They're heresies, but they're not damnable.
A damnable heresy would be saying that Jesus Christ is not God in flesh. And John 8, 24, Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Or the idea that Jesus is not resurrected from the dead.
1 Corinthians 15, 14, if he Christ be not raised, our faith is in vain. These are damnable heresies. That means if you deny them, you go to hell. But nothing in scripture says that if you teach, you can lose your salvation.
It means you're going to hell. There's no warning on that. And trust me, I believe in eternal security. I'm a Calvinist and I defend it, but that's not a damnable heresy. And the idea of no hell fire is not a damnable heresy either.
He is speaking more out of momentum, I think, than out of a biblical necessity. And he needs more experience in not saying things like that because he's going to mislead people. And then what he's also doing inadvertently is not putting a proper dividing line between what's essential and non-essential in the Christian faith.
And people who do that by saying, for example, you can lose your salvation, a damnable heresy. No, it's not. I believe it's heresy, but there's heresies that aren't damnable. Like I believe in post-trib rapture.
Well, if that's true, then that would mean pre-trib rapture is heresy because it's not the truth. But it doesn't mean people are damned if they believe it, if I happen to be right about that or vice versa, if I'm wrong about it.
So he's making a mistake there. And I would like to sit with him and say, can we talk about some of the things you've said and asserted? Let's use logic. Let's go to the scriptures. Let's save you 10 years of time in polishing.
Let me help you out in the next few hours. I could do that with him.
Yeah, and with regards to the view, I'm glad you point that out. I thought you were gonna say something different, but you actually, you said something even better than, but I thought you were gonna say is the specific things that he mentioned are not heretical.
Even the view on hell. I mean, William Lane Craig believes in hell. There is debate. Now, I don't know where you stand if hell is a place of literal flames, because you have some interesting descriptions of hell as being a place of flames, but also a place of complete and utter darkness.
And so some people ask, how can some place be flames, which produces light and be completely and utterly dark, which doesn't make sense.
So some interpreters You have flames out there in darkness.
Well, I mean, I suppose, but I can understand why people might not take that literally, although that's not to deny an actual place of torment. And I don't think it's inappropriate at all to describe hell as being separated from God in a relational sense.
That's what it is. Isaiah 59 too, your sins cause a separation between you and God. And what you'll get, what the unbelievers will get is that separation from God. And it's gonna be hopeless.
It's gonna be helpless. It's gonna be torturous. It's gonna be eternal. Right, and whether there are flames involved or not, the denial of literal flames is not heretical.
Right, now Jesus certainly implies there's flames. And I go with that. But to deny that literalness, I understand what they're doing. And I wouldn't call them heretics.
I'd say you're whacked, but you're not going to hell. You're not damnable. I'm not damnable. You're whacked, you're not unsaved.
It's whacked, it's an advanced theological term from the Greek, wakkeomai, which means to be considered not right in the head.
If you just add an eomai at the end of every word That's right.
Wakkeomai, that's right, wakkeomai. It means you're whacked in the Greek, that's right. That's awesome.
All right, let's continue. I'm gonna close my window. Hell, where it's burning hot, and the lowest parts of hell are all the most wicked sinners. This guy teaches that you do not have to even know Jesus Christ to be saved.
You don't even have to know his name. He says, as long as you just have the light and you respond to that light, God will judge you and you can still go to heaven.
Okay, right here is an interesting point. I have heard Dr. Craig say that it is possible to be saved without necessarily knowing about Jesus. What would be your position on that? Because I'd have heard Dr. Craig speak of responding to the light that you do have this sort of things, and he used examples of Job who never heard of Jesus and some people in the Old Testament, things like that.
How would you respond to that?
Well, I have to agree, but there's some things about this, some caveats. What do you do with a baby in the womb who dies in the womb? Has he heard of Jesus? No. Can he be saved? Well, sure. I have no problem saying that.
So here's just an instance I use that. Do you have to have a cognitive awareness of who Christ is in order to be saved? Well, what do you do about the people who are mentally challenged and don't really have that capacity for such a cognitive ability?
Their souls are not damaged. It's the physical housing in which they dwell that is damaged. So what would we say then? So in a technical sense, I agree. People could be saved without that explicit knowledge of Jesus Christ in those exceptions and things like that.
But normatively speaking, you need to hear Jesus. He quoted, you need to quote the reference, but Romans 1 .16, the gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who would believe. Well, God grants what we believe, Philippians 1 .29.
So if people are justified, okay, they're justified by faith in Christ. But what do you do with, for example, a baby in the womb at six months, seven months, eight months or during birth is strangled with the umbilical cord.
I hope nobody's had that happen. And I have had to bury a son after birth. I mean, okay. But what do you do? Does that child just go to hell because it didn't hear the gospel? So the issue here is technical.
And we can't say, oh, it's to say that anybody who says that you have to, if you don't, that you can be saved without hearing the gospel means you're damned. No. What about the babies? That's what I used, the babies in the womb.
What about that? And so sometimes what people do is they make these broad statements, not thinking about the ramifications of the particulars. And because of that, is then it's more difficult for them to backtrack and correct themselves.
The way to do this is to be humble and say, hey, I blew it. And let me tell you, I've been doing radio for 16 years, five days a week. I've done my website, Karm, 145 million visitors. I mean, I've written hundreds, thousands of articles and I've made mistakes.
And I think once you tried to correct me once, remember that that was ridiculous.
But I think I had to correct you on an article on Molinism or something like that.
Yeah, you did actually. And I think that's right. I was joking, but I think you did. You had to correct me on something on Molinism. You knew it better than me. And I said, okay, thank you very much. I'm very appreciative to be corrected because I don't have all the answers.
I don't know everything. And I'll tell you, I've been studying a long time. I mean, how old are you, Eli? Are you over 41? I'm 38. I've been doing apologetics longer than you've been alive. And it doesn't mean I'm right about everything, but we had to be correctable and humble about it.
See how humble I am, because I can be corrected. That's not the attitude here. But the idea is, look, we don't have all the answers. We've got to be careful. I hope this guy is willing to be corrected.
I hope he's willing to realize he's made mistakes. We all do. And we need to move forward with humility in the eyes of Christ.
Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm rambling. No worries, no worries. Now, I'm not sure if you see the timestamp there. It says nine minutes and 24 seconds. So we will probably not go through this entire sermon, but I think we'll finish the hour and maybe take questions from folks.
I think it's basically, he just says a lot of sort of the same stuff. He goes through different points, which we would probably have the same issues with. They're all based upon the faulty assumption that there's a dichotomy between faith and the use of evidence and things like that.
False dichotomy. Now remember, because Jesus said, this is John 10, 26. After eight days, his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut and stood in their midst and said, peace be to you, with you.
And he said to Thomas, reach here your finger and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it into my side and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God.
And Jesus says, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who do not see and yet believe. So I have to say, I'm a hardcore presuppositionalist. Here's the evidence that Jesus himself presented his own physical resurrection, the hands, the holes in the wrist and in the side.
And he says, you know, he said, reach here your hand and put it into my side. He said, see my fingers. Let me read the whole thing. Reach here with your finger and see my hands and reach here with your hand and put it into my side and do not be unbelieving, but believing.
Now notice, this is really a tricky passage because Jesus is commanding him to believe. So he's gonna believe, but he's also doing this and Jesus is basing it on the proof of his resurrection, which shows you how critical the issue of the resurrection is.
That's why I always bring people to the resurrection of Christ, the deniers. But we can't say that evidence has no place in belief. Can't say it has no place because
Nor can we say evidence has no place within a presuppositional method. That's right. Presuppositionalists have no problem appealing to the resurrection, even when Jesus says, blessed are those who believe and don't see.
Well, believe what? Is it just a blind faith or is it a faith in light of the revelation that God had given prior in light of the Old Testament, in light of Jesus's prior teaching? All of this faith that's not based on your sight is always within the context of what God has previously revealed because what God has previously revealed gives meaning and context for the very event of the resurrection itself.
Amen. Wish I'd have said that. I was afraid you might say that. And I'm like, I need to get this one in before he gets the cut again. All right, let's tug along, chug along, chug along, truck along? I don't know.
Tug and chug. I don't know. All right, we're gonna try to do this for an hour. I just wanna let folks know if you're listening, if you have any questions, you can put the questions in the comment and we'll take the comment section and we will take a moment to address some of those.
Just preface your question with the word question so that I could differentiate between the comments and side conversations in the chat. Also, if you have not subscribed to Revealed Apologetics, stop what you're doing right now and subscribe and do me a solid and like a video.
Like some video. I see so many people watch the videos and I don't see a lot of likes there. If you liked the video, support the channel. I greatly appreciate it. All right, without further ado, let's continue on.
He says, look, everybody that's heard the gospel, they're basically responsible for that information. But someone that's never heard the gospel, someone that's never heard of the name Jesus, if they just lived and responded well to the life they were given, the truth that they were given, you know, they'll go to heaven.
That's exactly what a Mormon told me. I took one of my coworker Mormons to lunch one day, tried to give him the gospel. I said, hey, what do you have to do to be saved? He's like, well, I think everybody has a different amount of revelation, a different amount of truth, and how they respond to that, God's gonna judge them based on that, and that's gonna help them spend their eternity.
I mean, it's exactly what he said. He's more like a Mormon than he is a Christian, but then he uses all these.
All right, so he's still talking about William Lane Craig. Now, even if it's true that William Lane Craig believes that it's possible to be saved without directly hearing of Jesus, and then drawing a distinction between a Mormon friend that he had who looked like he agreed with that position, it does not logically follow that William Lane Craig is more like a Mormon than he is a Christian, because I would argue that William Lane Craig believes more essential aspects of the Christian faith than a Mormon ever could.
So again, I think that's unnecessarily dragging someone's name through the mud, and I say that from a position of great disagreement with Dr. Craig on a bunch of issues. So I think that's important to point out.
Did you wanna say something there?
Well, yeah. There's a concept people don't understand. 1 Peter 1, 16, God says, be holy for I'm holy. Now, they can't be holy, but they're required to be holy. The reason they're required to be holy is because God is a standard.
Now, there's a concept you gotta understand. When people criticize all this stuff, are they using a human standard instead of a God standard? So having said that, I'd be careful what I say about this guy, but let me illustrate here.
God commands that we're holy, but we can't be holy. Why does he do that? Because he's a standard. He doesn't lower the standard for us. In Acts 17, 30, he said, he commands everyone everywhere to repent, but God grants us repentance, 2 Timothy 2, 25.
Well, wait a minute. Why would he command everyone everywhere to repent if he's the one who grants them repentance? He also commands that people believe in him in Acts 20, 1 through 17, the 10 commandments, believe in God.
And in John 14, 1, Jesus says, believe in God, believe also in me. So we're commanded to believe, yet God grants that we believe, Philippians 1, 29. In fact, they said to Jesus, what must we do to work the works of God?
This is the work of God that you believe on whom he has sent. So there's a kind of an interesting paradox here. We're commanded to be holy, but we can't be holy. We're commanded to repent, but we can't repent because we're slaves of sin.
Romans 6, 14 through 20, haters of God who do no good, Romans 3, 10, 11, and 12, cannot receive spiritual things, 1 Corinthians 2, 14. So he commands that we believe, but we can't believe. And we're enslaved to sin, so we can't repent.
So why is God requiring of us that which we can't do? Again, because God is a standard of righteousness, not man. When people switch this, they say, God would never have us do anything we can't do naturally.
Then they're being humanistic and they're switching things how it was supposed to be. What we as a presuppositional apologist believe is that this issue is we are commanded to tell them to repent, commanded to tell them to believe in the gospel, commanded to tell them to believe in the resurrection of Christ.
Here's the evidence, is physical resurrection. You're commanded to do this knowing that it is God who grants them that repentance, God who grants them that belief. We know that God is the one who grants it to them.
We know that, we believe this.
You and I have had so many conversations just on the phone, you and I over the years, talking about this kind of a thing, saying just what I've said in different forms, different ways, how God grants, God does this, God does it.
But how do we get people to that place where these things are removed? God does this stuff and he doesn't need us. He doesn't need your wisdom and my wisdom. He doesn't need any of this. He simply lets us do this and lets us use it.
And we like to say, God ordains the means as well as the ends. So he can condescend to use a fool like you and a fool like me to present the truth of the gospel so that other fools will be saved by God's grace.
Why does God choose to do that? I don't know, but that's what he does. That's why he does.
Repent and believe it's biblical. That's right. Proclaim the gospel, we would agree with him. We should proclaim the gospel, but it's also biblical that we defend it. I mean, it's all over scripture. It's not even funny how often it's found in scripture.
I mean, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse five speaks about destroying speculations. It speaks in Colossians chapter four that we should know how to respond. Stephen responds to his opponents with wisdom and grace before he's stoned, all right?
And we are to exhort in sound doctrine. These are all things that involve defending from scripture. Paul in Acts 19, eight through 10 speaks boldly in the synagogue. And of course, Peter gives his apologetic as well in Acts chapter two, verses 14 through 41.
There's just countless examples in scripture. So you gotta be very careful. Like these are very important principle here. And I think some of the cults do this as well. And I'm not calling this gentleman a part of a cult.
I don't know specifically what church he goes to. And so I don't wanna make a judgment there, but what cults like to do, and Matt, I'm sure you're familiar with this, is that they will show you, well, clearly the Bible says this, and they'll emphasize on a particular set of passages to the exclusion of other passages.
And so you can't talk about salvation by faith alone and ignore passages that speak of Paul being set for the defense of the gospel. You see, look at these things in a more holistic fashion when we're addressing scripture.
I remember listening to a Christian and a Muslim. They were talking about a possible debate that they were gonna have. And the Muslim suggested this topic for the debate. He says, let's debate the topic, Jesus, God, or man.
And the Christian's like, I'm not gonna debate that topic. The Muslim's like, well, why not? Well, because I believe Jesus is both God and man. You see, so the very notion of the way he wanted to set up the debate already misunderstood the Christian position because you do not demonstrate that Jesus is simply a man by quoting passages in scripture that say he's a man or that he got tired or that he got hungry.
We believe those scriptures, but we believe all of scripture. 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 says, all scripture is inspired by God. That includes the scriptures which speak of Jesus' humanity. That includes the scriptures that speak of Jesus' divinity.
That includes the scriptures that say that we need to proclaim and believe the gospel. And that includes the scriptures that say we must defend the gospel, always being ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us.
All right. Wish I had said that. There we go. I'm trying to beat you to the punch, man. That's all. I can't make you look better than I am on my own channel. What the heck, bro? That's right. Well, you're slicker than I am.
When Matt says something profound and it's on my channel, I have to get a word. Yeah, yeah. And in the group, I have to get that last word in. That's right. I don't want to listen to Eli. I want to go back to Matt's channel.
I'll be like, come on, man. You know, I got to get a word in. All right. Okay, that sounds good. Okay, so let's listen to just a few more moments here. And then we'll take some questions. I do see some questions in the chat here.
Again, you guys, if you have questions, send them in. That's kind of the fun part of the show. Also, I like to interact with your questions and I'm sure Matt has a lot to say with regards to some of your questions as well.
Hopefully, we'll see what happens. Okay, all right. Real quick. Oh, stop, stop everything. Stop everything. I want to give a shout out to Pigs Can Fly. Thank you so much for the $20 super chat. That is greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much. I wanted to give you a shout out there. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, let's continue there, Matt. Let me press the boom, boom, boom.
There we go. Extra biblical arguments to try and prove God. And it tricks a lot of Christians. It fools a lot of people that are saved into thinking this is a good way to get someone saved. I remember we were going to a, wasn't an independent Baptist church,.
But it was a Southern Baptist church. One time we Question. Okay, so we talked about extra biblical arguments. Is it forbidden for Christians to use arguments that don't necessarily quote scripture?
Not at all. Not at all, right? God has revealed himself in both general and special revelation. And general revelation is fair game when we're giving a reason for the hope, right? So again, that's another false understanding that I see that he has there.
Paul quoted Epimenides, Menander, Orestes. They're pagan philosophers. That's right.
Okay. Time we visited there, and they said, we're going to start a new ministry. We're going to bring in all these Christian apologists, and we're going to have all these classes, and we're going to train people in Christian apologetics because it's so important.
It's such a big deal. No, no, we need to go out and preach the gospel. I'm not saying to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't have to try and prove to you that the Bible's true. I don't have to prove all these things extra biblical revelation.
No, I'm just going to open my mouth boldly and proclaim the gospel. I'm just going to preach Christ and him crucified. I don't need William Lane Craig's stupid Kalam cosmological arguments to prove that the Bible is true.
Now you borrow this stupid philosophy from some Muslim. Some Muslim came up with this philosophy called the Kalam cosmological argument. It's basically saying, well, every effect has a cause.
So Okay, so let's stop right there. Number one, the cosmological argument has a very strong Christian tradition, and it moved in and out through various cultures. And when it entered into Islam, there was some refining of the argument, right?
And so in its current state, you have the Kalam cosmological argument, which has a tradition that spans both Muslim history and Christian history prior to Islam. But is there anything wrong with using a cosmological argument simply because Muslims have appealed to it?
No, it's called a genetic fallacy. The origin of the source is also kind of a category mistake, but just, or poison in the well, a little bit of combination of stuff. But just because Muslims use it doesn't mean it's automatically bad.
Just because this guy is misusing logic doesn't mean that logic is automatically bad. That's right. So
Let me give you an example, Matt. Here's an example. Muslims believe that Jesus existed, right? Right. Right, so if a Muslim gives historical arguments for the existence of Jesus, does that mean we can't use historical arguments for the existence of Jesus?
Nope. Exactly, so it doesn't make sense to say, well, Muslims use this, therefore look how pagan apologists can be for using these sorts of arguments. All right, so to respect your time, and I mean, look at this, we've only made it 11 minutes and 19 seconds.
It's okay if we don't finish the rest of the sermon. That's okay. It's more of the same sort of things. And again, I wanna reemphasize what Matt says. I mean, it's not like we're angry at this guy, but teaching like this, although it's not very influential, it does influence some people.
And I think there are some important principles to draw out and emphasize the importance of knowing what the Bible says, believing all of what the Bible says. So hopefully folks have found some good application even in this brief time, this brief hour.
All right, let's remove this gentleman. Okay, and let's see if we can get to some questions here. All right, just give me a few moments to scroll through. Okay, it almost seems like here, someone put a comment here.
Maybe that guy is buying into a definition of faith that is inconsistent with evidence instead of realizing that faith and evidence are supposed to be related. It almost seems like he holds to kind of a fideism.
Why don't you unpack that for us?
Why don't you tell people what fideism is? Yeah, just faith without reason, faith without anything. It's just faith in faith because you have faith. It's kind of like the mind sciences and the positive confession movement.
Fideism is just faith in faith, that's it. No, we have faith based on things. I mean, God has given us the Old Testament, God's given us the resurrection, and we have reason to believe in the truth of God's word.
When I was converted, I had the experience of the presence of God. And I look back on that over the years as an incredible privilege. Well, okay, there's an experience I had. I don't negate that experience, but I subject it to the scriptures.
And so there's no problem with having experience, evidence or reasoning to undergird our faith, because if there's no reason for our faith, then our faith is reasonless. But then again, God grants that we believe, but he doesn't necessarily do it in a vacuum either.
He said to Thomas, look, you see there, here's the evidence, now believe. And so it's reasonable to say that faith and evidence have a connection. And reason, faith and reason have a connection. Okay.
I think this next point here,.
This kind of a rhetorical question, I think, but Vera asks, why is he mad at people who have an intellectual interest? Do you find it common in a lot of these King James only circles or even some very Pentecostal circles, that there is almost a talking down of anyone who has any sort of theological learning, right?
They'll say the philosophy of man, or when you get a degree, all of a sudden, it's the philosophy of men and it kind of vindicates they're not having that, but look, we can still know these basic truths.
Have you ever experienced that before?
Yeah, because they're being humble because they don't have all that education and knowledge. They just trust God's word. So they're being prideful about their humility while they're condemning others in their hypocrisy.
Okay. All right, let's see here.
A couple of here, I just gotta scroll through. We're going to questions now? Yep, we're going to some questions. Just gotta find them in the, those people don't listen. They don't put question in front of their comments.
I have to go through. The word question.
Question? Yeah. And then like that? Yeah. Or maybe, what if they just retype in their questions? Well, they could do that too. Yeah, that's an idea. Retype their questions in right now and that way you have a whole bunch in one area.
See, it's a good thing I'm here to help you out. Yes, oh my goodness, yes. All right, let's see here. Yeah, they were there. They're towards the bottom. So let me just, do, do, do, do, do. All right, how about I start from the bottom and work my way up?
That'll be good. Okay. Okay.
Awkward silence. Awkward silence? Awkward silence. It's just silence. It's not that awkward. I'm going to do something stupid around my wife. That's awkward silence.
All right, found a question, there we go. Sorry about that. All right, so Melissa Owens asked the question, what would you say to someone that says, we don't need apologetics because the Bible already defends itself and people just need to read it for themselves?
I was asked this recently.
That's an apologetic, that's an apologetic. We don't need it because, and here's the apologetic reason why. It's a self-refuting statement. But nevertheless, we don't need apologetics because the Bible already defends itself.
Well, if the Bible defends itself, then it's presenting an apologetic and people just need to read it for themselves. Well, it's true, they do need to read it for themselves. But if that's the case, then why did Paul go out and do mission work?
Why did he go out and reason? Why did Jesus go to the synagogues? Why do they do that? If it's just the case that they just need to read the Bible themselves, then why did the New Testament get written?
Because it was a defense, an apologia for the resurrection of Christ, the work of Christ, the fulfillment of prophecies, the teachings of doctrines. We absolutely need apologetics. Without it, we won't have the Christian faith.
Isaiah, what would you say to someone that says we don't need apologetics.
Because the Bible already defends itself? Which Bible? The same Bible that commands believers to give a defense? Is that the Bible we're talking about? So self-refuting. People say you shouldn't judge others.
Where did you learn that from? Well, that's what the Bible teaches. The same Bible that clarifies what that means, not just simply that we don't judge others, but that we don't judge hypocritically, that there's nothing in and of itself wrong about judging itself.
You see, only God can judge me. Really? So I shouldn't judge you? Where'd you get that from? Which God? The God of the Bible? The God of the Bible that inspired the words that say that I have a right to judge a brother who's in sin and bring them back to repentance?
Okay. Again, so you need to think consistently here, right? The Bible says all sorts of things that contradict a lot of what these questions are, where these questions are coming from. All right? Okay.
Here's another question by Pigs Can Fly. Revealed apologetics question. Okay, question. There we go. Good, thank you. Has Matt heard of the Genesis prophecy in the word bedeshit and the genealogy from Adam to Noah?
Well, I know the genealogy from Adam to Nona, to Nona? To Noah. If you put the words in English, you get a sentence. And the sentence is, to point it to mortal men's sorrow, the blessed God will come down.
When he dies, it will come, bring into the despairing hope or rest, Noah. So I know about that. The bedeshit prophecy, I don't know. I don't know. So I'm not sure what they mean by that.
All right. Here's a question. Can you ask Matt Slick, what his favorite piece of evidence is for the gospel? Hey, Matt. What is your favorite piece of evidence for the gospel? The resurrection of Jesus.
Okay. All right, very good. So the evidence for the resurrection, you would say appeals to the history and things like that?
I just use the resurrection all the time. Jesus says, look at my hands and my feet. Without the resurrection of Christ, we have no faith. Without that resurrection, we have no atonement. Without that resurrection, we don't have any proof that Christianity, Jesus is true.
The resurrection is it. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 14 and verse 17, that if our faith is in, if Christ be not raised, our faith is in vain. So I point people to the resurrection. I do it all the time.
And I'm talking with atheists and they get in all this philosophical mumbo jumbo and they try and get minutia of minutia of minutia. I say, look, all you're trying to do is cloud the issues. It comes down to this.
And I'll just jump right back and say, Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days. No one in history has done that. And because of that, that's the proof that what he said and what he did is correct.
And you need to believe and you should believe in him based on what that is. I'm not saying that that's in itself makes them capable of doing it. I'm saying they should, because that's what's right. God is the one who will open their heart and minds at that point.
All right, very good. Here's a question for you. How did you get so slick? I am so slick. And people sometimes think my last name Slick is just a radio name or internet name. No, it's my real birth name, S-L-I-C-K.
And it comes from the German Tell people where it comes from. Good, all right, there we go. Yeah. It comes from the German Schlichtin. And my dad's last name was Slick, but his older brother was named Schlichtin.
And the reason the difference was because Schlichtin is too hard to say, S-C-H-L-I-C-H-T-I-N-G. It's German. And so instead of saying Schlichtin, they just shortened it to Slick. And literally, my grandmother on my dad's side, when the doctor said, well, you know, he's born.
So what's his last name? She goes, Slick.
That's how we got it. All right, it did sound fake. When I first heard you, I was like, Slick, that sounds like a weird, that sounds like one of those like, you know, pigs can fly name, like a scream name or something like that.
Well, I got stories about my name when I was a salesman on robotics machinery. What happened? It was really interesting, but anyway, another story another time.
Here's a good question. What books would you recommend for beginners in apologetics? Oh, that's easy.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and I'm not kidding. Read the scriptures and know the scriptures first. Know them first, read them. I'd also recommend books like Apologetics of the Glory of God by John Frank.
I would suggest you check that out because it's a good, he's brilliant at taking complicated things and breaking it way down. And that's just a good single book. There's a lot there. And also, Scaling the Secular City has a lot of good apologetic stuff, though it's a little bit too evidential for me and not presuppositional enough, but that's okay.
Always Ready by Greg Bonson's a good one. It is a biblical presentation of a presuppositional approach and then towards the latter part of the book, it shows you how to actually apply these biblical principles to apologetic context.
Also, people think we joke around when we say that the Bible's the best book you should read. It's totally I'm sorry. Yes, I have a friend, I won't mention his name. He's a very sharp philosophical guy, okay?
He knows his stuff. He argues with atheists all the time. In my opinion, I think he destroys them when they're talking philosophy. And I asked him if he was interested in debating someone who's another Christian on some biblical topic, and he said, I'm not sure I would be prepared to do that.
I was like, why? He's like, well, this person really, I know my Bible, but I tend to emphasize more philosophy. And so he actually felt uncomfortable because he didn't think he knew enough Bible, which I thought was interesting.
Now, he's a great guy, good Christian, good apologist. I won't mention his name. I think I know who it is, I'll just say. Okay, well, we won't mention names. I'm just saying that the point of what I'm saying is that it is important, as you said, to know scripture first.
Okay, and from there, scripture is the source and soil out of which good philosophy arises. That's very, very important. So we're not disparaging philosophy. As a matter of fact, the Bible does not condemn philosophy.
It condemns a particular sort of philosophy, one that is after vain philosophy, after the elementary principles of man and not after Christ. All right, were you gonna say something else, Matt? Sorry, I cut you off there.
No, I forgot. Okay, okay. All right, here's another question. Nate Warner asks, isn't he partially, referring to the preacher gentleman that we were looking at before, isn't he partially correct that our first duty is to preach the gospel boldly, not in opposition to giving an offense?
I'm not sure if I understand the second part, but.
Yeah, that our first obligation is to preach the gospel. But sometimes in order to accomplish the first obligation, we have to get to the place of the first obligation. You know, if you walk into, for example, an atheist seminar conference, which I've done, you gotta be careful what you're saying and how you say it, because they're so negative that you start preaching the gospel, Jesus Christ died on the cross, He rose from the dead, and they will jump all over you.
Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but sometimes you gotta give answers before they're ready to receive that gospel message. And it's a bit of a give and take on this, but the goal ultimately is preach that gospel.
So as soon as you possibly can, and how that's worked out, it's between you and the Lord.
Right, and because we're defending the Christian worldview, the gospel should be front and center in your apologetic. There's another thing, a lot of people, I know Saiten Bruggenkade often says this, what's the point of arguing for two or three hours over the eye, the complexity of the human eye when the person's going to hell if he doesn't know Jesus, right?
The fact that Jesus is central to your apologetic is what presuppositional apologetics is all about, right? We don't do justice to the Christian apologetic when we speak hours and hours about transcendental necessities and the impossibility of the contrary.
There comes a point where you need to allow all of those peripheral issues be floating around the center of gravity, which is Christ Himself, okay? And that's a very, very important aspect. You want your apologetic to be biblical and all those other things flow out of that, that biblical soil.
All right. All right, well, that's the last question unless there was, nope, that was the last question. So Matt, I want to thank you so much for, I mean, you came on the last minute. I asked you at the last minute and you were like, sure, why not?
So I really appreciate it and I always enjoy talking with you. I had nothing better to do. Every time I call Matt weekly just to see how he's doing and he says the same thing, I'm like, how's it going, man?
It's going. He's a very busy guy. He always looks like he's in the middle of something really hard and stressful. So I'm sure he would appreciate. That's just looking at myself in the mirror. That's where it starts.
That's right. I'm sure he'd appreciate your prayers. Oh, okay. Oh, I apologize. I think I skipped someone's question. You want to take one more question, Matt? Sure. Okay, here we go. Sorry about that, Scotty.
Scotty asks, would it be correct to say that according to Job 19, 25 through 27, Job 19, 25 through 27, that God did give Job knowledge of the resurrection of Christ?
I don't see a problem with that. As for me, I know that my redeemer lives and at the last, he will take his stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh, I shall see God whom I myself shall behold and whom my eyes will see and not another.
My heart faints within me. Incidentally, Job is ancient Hebrew. It's one of the oldest books, if not the oldest penned books that is included in the Bible. It's written probably before the Pentateuch chronologically in as far as when it was actually written.
But a lot of people don't understand that the knowledge of God was prevalent before the codification of the law and the Pentateuch. So a lot of what was already known about God was there at the resurrection.
We know that from Adam and Eve that the gospel message was presented. We know there's gonna be a resurrection because I forgot what it was in Genesis five or six. I remember there was something about that, if I remember correctly.
And so there's no problem there that Job probably knew. Abraham, as Jesus says in John 8, 56, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Now I could take you to where that is in Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Isaac and how that relates to Christ.
But I believe that they had a lot of knowledge that we're not aware of that was not codified. And so, yeah, I have no problem with that. Job 9, 25 through 27, no problem at all.
Wouldn't be surprising at all since Jesus says that you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life, but it's those scriptures that speak of me. The Bible is about Jesus. What address is that?
Oh man, it's the gospel of John. Oh, I don't remember. John 539, you're welcome. 539, all right. There you go. Come on, man, look at that. See, you're making me look bad on my own channel. Come on, man.
You gotta get the first location. John 539 says, okay? That's right. You search the scriptures.
Melissa Owen says, thank you, Eli and Matt. I so appreciate both of your ministries. Thanks for answering my questions too. God bless you both. Thank you so much for that, Melissa. Guys, thank you so much for listening.
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Having confidence in the power of the spirit and the truth of his word, he will not forsake you. And you can't fail because your job is to proclaim and defend, it's God's job to transform hearts. Take care and God bless.
Bye-bye. God bless.
