Ray Comfort and The Atheist Delusion

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Welcome back to another episode of Apologia TV. I'm Jeff Durbin. They call me the Ninja.

00:25

And that is Luke the Bear. What up? And that is Joy the Girl. And we are going to have a very, very exciting conversation today with a guy that we love.

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We actually saw him years and years and years ago when we first started Apologia Christian Ministries before it was

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Apologia Church. Was that eight years ago? Maybe eight years? Somewhere? No, it's probably six years ago.

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Maybe something like that. But we went to California and we got to see Ray Comfort from Living Waters Ministry.

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We got to see Ray Comfort and his massive, massive Bible. Yes. The man has a big Bible. Oh, do you ever hear about his

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Bible? No. It's ginormous. I guess for all the years of his ministry and evangelism at the beach, water.

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I can see it from here. Water apparently will inflate your Bible. I told you it was big.

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It was. When he first came out, it was like it looked like it was a joke. But it really is his Bible is massive.

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So he is a great man of God with a very big book. And so I want to introduce for the first time on Apologia TV, Ray Comfort.

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Thank you for joining us, brother. Thank you for having me. That Bible is so big. Often when I get in the pulpits, people wonder where the voice is coming from.

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That's right. And it's my pocket Bible, your pocket

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Bible. So Ray Comfort, Living Waters Ministries, fantastic stuff. You guys might know some of the stuff in the past they've done in particular.

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Very, really important evangelism course. They did the way of the master used really around the world to point people to Jesus Christ.

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So fantastic stuff. But before we actually get into all that content, I do have a special clip that we don't always play for people.

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And I'm actually going to play it right now and I'm going to play it and it actually works quite well. And in two ways, considering our guests.

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So here, this is for you, Ray. Welcome to Apologia TV. Your beard is good. Your beard is good.

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And that was Jemaine Clement from the Flight of the Concords, who is from New Zealand, sir.

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Wow. Yes. So what do you do when you have female guests? Well, we...

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Depends if they have a beard or not. Yeah. And if it's good. Yeah. And if it's not good.

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Only if it's good, Ray. Only if it's good. And so you... I had a little discussion with... We actually have somebody that came today,

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Ray, from Australia, all the way from Australia to come and visit Apologia Church. And when

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I said, is Ray from Australia or New Zealand? He was like, he's from New Zealand. He knew.

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He's very clear about that. It's a very important distinction. New Zealand. He's from New Zealand. You don't mix them up. So is that right, Ray? Are you guys from Canada or U .S.?

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U .S. U .S. Actually, Australia and New Zealand are a thousand miles apart. Yeah. And Australians talk more like this.

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There's a bit of a twang there. They've got some wonderful animals and a great rugby team and a beautiful country and nice people.

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Yeah. OK. So, Ray, Living Waters... But you're not one of them. But he's like, but I'm not one of them, just so you know.

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Hey, Ray's got Lord of the Rings, so... He does have Lord of the Rings. That's right. Yeah. You don't have to tell me.

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Yeah. You know. All right. So Living Waters Ministries, just quickly, just in case, and I doubt it, our viewers don't know who you are.

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Could you let us know about Living Waters Ministries, what you do, how you got started, all that stuff? Yeah. I started back in New Zealand.

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I began itinerating, oh, way back 1978. I used to preach in the local square in the heart of our city and people would say, come and tell us how you do that.

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And so doors opened up and they eventually opened up in the U .S. Been in the U .S. for, I think, nearly 28 years.

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That's why I've lost my accent, which is like totally rad, dude. So that's about it.

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That's OK. All right. So Living Waters Ministries, you say, obviously, very, very busy.

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You've put out some amazing videos. As a matter of fact, 180, the video on abortion is just fantastic.

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It's just so, so wonderful. And we actually hand that out at the abortion mill that we go to, to people.

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So tell us more about Living Waters and the stuff that you're doing right now. Well, Living Waters started back in,

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I think, about 1974 when an elderly Presbyterian minister insisted that he buy me one of those handheld, what they call gestetners, that you print stuff off, a handheld one, you put ink into it, disgustingly sort of crude and dirty.

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And so I printed off, I think, 5 ,000 tracks because some guy read a track that I'd written, I'd wroten, a track that I'd written called

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It's Sin, Not Skin, it was about racism. And he wanted me to print off 5 ,000, so I had to hand print off 5 ,000.

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And since then, I think something about 200 or 300 million have been published since then. So despite it's not the day of small beginnings, it's just been wonderful to look back and see what

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God has done with our ministry and then with the movies. We are blown away with the fact that our

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YouTube channel has something like 39 million views. If you think back 30 years,

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Billy Graham would have a crusade in a city, it would take two or three years to pull the churches together and get 80 ,000 people in a stadium, cost millions of dollars to run.

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Most of the people in there, probably 70 % were Christians. And yet, here we have, without cost or effort, a means of reaching millions of people the gospel.

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The Apostle Paul would go crazy if he knew what we had with the internet. No doubt. So we are very, very thrilled, we're thrilled to be able to create movies, produce movies and have people watch them, especially unsaved people.

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That's right. Such a blessing, the gifts of media and social media, especially. So you have, and we're going to talk about this in this episode of Apology at TV, you have a new movie that's come out.

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It's called The Atheist Delusion, Why Millions Deny the Obvious. We've got about two minutes left in this segment, but Ray, could you let our listeners and viewers know about this film?

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What is it about and what are they going to learn from it? Yeah, it was a mistake. Eight months ago,

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I went to a college and I was making a small video for one of my publishers to promote one of my books. And I asked an atheist one scientific question

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I'd never asked atheists before. And within minutes, the guy changed his mind about the existence of God.

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He was an atheist. He was adamant. And then he says he believed God existed because of this one question. I was blown away.

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So I went to different universities and asked the same question and got the same result. So we put it into this one hour movie called

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The Atheist Delusion. And we sat back in the studio and thought, this is the best thing we've ever done by God's grace.

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And it brought tears to our eyes. So we released it on AtheistMovie .com and thousands of people have downloaded it to help us financially.

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When you download it, you pay $20, you get free material and you get to see the movie six weeks early and you help us have the financial ability to produce movies of this caliber.

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And you win a free trip to Hawaii for two at your own expense. So it's a real blessing.

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So that's what that movie is. And we're super excited about it because it blows apart atheism and we're putting our credibility on the line by saying something like this.

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But it really is true. Yeah. We got a chance to review it and I watched the whole thing yesterday and I was impressed.

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It's beautifully done and I think important for people to look at. So what we're going to do on the rest of this episode is we're going to play the trailer when we get back for The Atheist Delusion, let you guys get the information where you can go actually watch it yourselves.

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And we're going to talk about Ray's book, Fat Chance. And so stay with us.

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ApologiaRadio .com is where you get all the past episodes, the television shows, the after shows, Apologia Academy, where you can also learn about Christian apologetics by joining our all access to $7 .95

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donation. You get access to all of our content. Be right back. Ray Comfort from Living Waters with Luke and Joy and me.

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Right back ApologiaRadio .com. Hi, this is

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ApologiaRadio .com. All right, we're back

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Apologia TV. If you're just tuning in, you guys can get more at ApologiaRadio .com

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and after this show is over, we are going to go to ApologiaRadio .com

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for the after shows. If you want to hear more from Ray Comfort from Living Waters Ministries, you guys can catch us at the after show at ApologiaRadio .com.

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That's Luke. That's Joy. I'm Jeff. And here is the Atheist Delusion official trailer.

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That religion is just absolutely uncalled for. We are, we are just mere things floating on a rock in space.

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Believing in God makes no sense. It's to me, it's the dumbest thing. We are not only figuratively, but literally.

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Are you an Atheist? I am. So you're an Atheist? Yes. Yes. I am.

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I need to know what to believe in. Like what happens when you die? Yes! I don't want to be a bag of dust. Did you know that 54 million people die every year?

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People just like you and me who love life. If you were shown evidence, you would change your mind, because you're open.

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Absolutely. I think I am open to evidence, it just would have to be extraordinarily compelling, like out of this world compelling.

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Has this made you think today? It definitely has. I'll definitely consider this. Eye opening. Wow. I hope

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I get enough guts to get myself out of this stinking planet. You gonna kill yourself? Yeah, I'd like to. Can you see what you're doing?

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Yeah. I'm lying to myself. All right, there you go, the

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Atheist delusion. That's fantastic. Ray, what did you, this is what's amazing, is that it's so well done, and it's just compelling at points, and it startled me at a few points, even some of the questions you asked.

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It was really, really phenomenal. What did you film that with? You really want to know? I do, I do. iPhone.

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iPhone. Wow. That is, you see, that is the glory of this moment we're in, and you said it,

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Ray, at the beginning, with just the access that God has given to us to be able to reach into the entire world and spread the gospel so quickly, and you did it with your iPhone.

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It's just amazing. And it's a microphone connected to the iPhone. Sure. Wow. It's easier to approach people with, everyone has iPhones put in their faces nowadays, and it's less intimidating for them than having a camera put in their face, so it was a great advantage.

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Yes, absolutely. Okay, so what I really loved, and I'd love to talk to you about this, Ray, I loved how you highlighted in the film so much of the

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Atheist position and its logical consequences. And so that clip there from Neil deGrasse, where he talks about how we are not just figuratively stardust, but literally stardust, and you really pointed in the film to the bankruptcy of the

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Atheist worldview at that point. You want to talk about that for a second? Yeah, Atheism is the epitome of stupidity, and I don't say it in a cruel way, but it's just crazy.

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I mean, when I talk about this being a, dismantling the Atheist argument with one question,

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I like to say that, for years, what I've said has gone like water off a duck's back with Atheists, but what this does is it rips the feathers off the duck.

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It gets straight to an argument they cannot refute, but an

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Atheist is foolish because he denies the inner light that God's given to every man. Not only that, but he says something that's just crazy, that nothing created everything.

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Not that everything came from nothing, which is what we believe, God was the cause, but they believe nothing was the actual creative force for everything, which is, we shouldn't even have to go there, it's so stupid and so insane, and yet it's embraced by people like Richard Dawkins and my friend,

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Lawrence Krauss, and I call him my friend now because we've become friends over the last few months, but it's just foolishness, and they have to be told this, and so many people are being duped by them, and there's a reason they're duped by them, because people like Dawkins and Krauss are pied pipers that are playing a tune this generation loves to hear, and they follow gladly, because Atheism gives temporary license to delirious sexual pleasures.

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If there's no God, then pornography's okay, if there's no God, then fornication, adultery, blasphemy, homosexuality, they're all okay, anything goes if there's no

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God. Long comes the Christian and says, hey, if you as much as look with lust, you commit adultery in the heart,

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God requires an account of every idle word, and we are a huge wet blanket for the Atheist, so he'll fight tooth and nail, not to win an argument, but to hold on to the pleasures that he lives for,

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I mean, in his mind, a Christian is a kind of a monk existence, with no pleasure in life, and it's just the exact opposite, you know,

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God created sex, he created Adam and Eve naked, and commanded them to have sex, they seem to miss that part, if they understood that, they'd embrace

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Genesis, and say, I like Genesis, and so God's the creator of all these pleasures, but it's just like driving a car, you know, if I give my kid a car, and say, okay,

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I just want you to stay on the right side of the road, and obey the rules, and I'll be pleased, you'll have my smile, but if he gets drunk, and drives on the wrong side of the road at 80 miles an hour, he's gonna have problems, he's gonna cause problems, and it's exactly the same with all the gifts that God has given to humanity,

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God's given us sex, one man, one woman, and within the confines of marriage, and so they believe a lie, and it is a lie, and we want them to come to a knowledge of the truth, because we love them.

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You know, you did something in the film that I noticed quite often, and that was answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

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You did a pretty fantastic internal critique of the unbeliever's system, and just bringing it to its logical conclusions, but Ray, what

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I was most, I think, encouraged by, brother, I was most encouraged by, and I know that this all is to the glory of God, and it's because of his power, and you, and everything else, but I was most encouraged by the fact that when you brought them through this train of thought, and you got them to say, okay, yes, my atheism can't work, you went right for some really tough issues that you just mentioned.

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You talked about pornography, you talked about fornication, you brought it back to the gospel in a pretty compelling way, and I thought that was important, because you didn't just do something that was a compelling apologetic argument that refutes atheism.

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You didn't leave them hanging there. Then you begin to deal with the hard issues, and you begin to reveal, and there was even an admission in the film, why it is you may still be suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

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Now that you know that your atheism doesn't work, there's got to be some other reason, even compelling reason, that you're still holding this down, and you brought it right back to sin.

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And so, that was what I think I was really taken in by, and encouraged by, and there was a point

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I was actually driving, forgive me, I was not watching the film while I was driving. I had it in my lap, and I was listening to it, and there was a particular point where you were talking to a young man, and you brought up the issue where his atheism doesn't work anymore, he grants that, and you brought up, it's because of your pornography addiction and fornication that you won't do this, and it just startled me,

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I was like, wow, praise God. Right for the juggler. Right for the juggler. So, Ray, talk about that, because I think people need to hear that.

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Why do you do that, Ray? That was Andrew, and he blew me away when he was so honest in front of me with the camera going.

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You know, he said, that's right, you're right, and I thought, I said, what did you say? And he says, you're right, I'm lying to myself, which

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I thought was just wonderful, and I was so grateful we got that on film, but you know, and I'm sure you know this,

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I didn't learn this myself, I copied it off Jesus, and off Paul, of addressing the conscience, and not staying with the intellect.

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The intellect is the place of argument, the carnal mind is enmity against God, it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, so when we stay in the intellect, we're going to get contention, it's always going to be there, they don't want

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God's moral government, so what you've got to do is find the ally in the heart of the enemy. I don't know if you've watched those old war movies where some guy's behind German lines, and he's in a bar, and he's trying to make contact, so he says, the green grass is beside the white elephant that's chewing bananas, or something crazy like that, and the guy finishes the sentence off, and he's got his, he's made his contact with his ally, when we bring up the commandments, we make contact with the ally of conscience, and the conscience is on our side, it accuses, it says, yeah, it's wrong to lie, you know that, it's wrong to steal, wrong to commit adultery, wrong to fornicate, look at pornography, the conscience bears witness, so all

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I'm doing is doing what Jesus did in Mark 10, verse 17, and what Paul did in Romans 2, where he says, you who say you shall not steal, do you steal, now

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I just want to, I'm so grateful for what you just said, and the encouragement, but I'd hate people to think that I was somehow gifted, and this is why, it's like going up to a guy who's just won a marathon, and saying to him, boy, you sure are gifted, he'd probably turn to you and say, what are you talking about, it was hard work getting here, see these muscles on my legs, 40 miles a week for years, and a denial of certain foods to get into this, it's been sweat and pain and tears to get to where I'm, it's not a gifting, and it's exactly the same with evangelism.

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Hang on one sec, Ray, Ray, hang on to that, hang on to that one second, be right back guys, apologiaradio .com, hang on to it.

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I want their faith to not just be something that stands, but something around which culture can be built.

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We want students who can think critically about arguments, but also about the culture around them, that can then speak clearly to it, and that also have the ability to influence and shape because of the power of their message, because that's really what the gospel does, the gospel throws down all the arguments against it, it speaks to the hearts of people, it influences, and it changes.

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If so what is a philosophically devastating critique of your worldview, it is not a worldview you should hold on to any longer.

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Virginia Tech, 2007. So what? 32 children, kids, students are killed.

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So what? Andrea Yates, 2001, killed her four children. So what? So what?

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All right guys, welcome back, we finished that segment with Ray Comfort from Living Waters, he was talking about the giftings and running this race, and Ray, continue that thought brother.

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Yeah, so it's a marathon, running a marathon is not a gift, it's hard work, and if you'd followed me over the last 30 or 40 years, you'd see a lot of sweat and pain and suffering and foot and mouth, and falling over and bruising myself to get to a point where it looks like I'm a smooth runner.

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So that means anybody can do this, all it takes is practice, and I think it helps to watch a movie like The Atheist Delusion to see that there's no such thing as an intellectual atheist, they're very foolish people who deny in a light, and you can go around that intellect anyway and address the conscience.

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And I was pleased to hear you say you're encouraged to see that, because it's equipping and encouraging, and one thing that greatly encourages me is that atheists love to hate me, and they'll watch my movies, and they'll, our movies, and they'll listen to the gospel, not realizing the gospel's the power of God to salvation, so it's very exciting to have a movie like this out there.

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Absolutely, absolutely, all the critiques of your content just gets the content before more atheists, which

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I love. So let's talk, unless you guys, do you want to say something, Luke? Well, I was just going to say, one,

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I was really impressed that you scored an interview with Lawrence Krauss, because we've tried, and it's difficult, so kudos there.

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I know, and you said you were friends with him, I was like, can we have a good hold of him?

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But also, I appreciate the fact that, you know, there was several people you talked to, you know, they admitted, well, yeah, this is foolish is what

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I'm believing, and you didn't just leave them there in agnosticism, right? You said, you would write the scripture, point them to, you know, the

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Christian guy of the Bible, and drop the gospel on them, so I really appreciated the fact that you did it in that way as well, so.

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Oh, thank you, thank you. Yeah, Lawrence Krauss, I really love him, believe it or not, him and I have got a lot in common.

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I found he's about my height, he's a little shorter than me, which was a blessing to find someone on earth like that, he's

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Jewish, and I'm Jewish, he's got a twisted sense of humor, I've got a twisted sense of humor, he talks about God a lot, and I talk about God a lot, he's incredibly intelligent, and I admire incredible intelligence, anyway,

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I got this interview with him, and it was just amazing, you know, you may have heard

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I'm called the Bing Banana Man, I'm affectionately known as the celebrity clown of atheism almost internationally, and it's opened huge doors for me,

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I've got to speak on the atheist experience for an hour and share the gospel, I've done interviews with the friendly atheists many times,

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Dawkins has promoted some of our stuff, Lawrence Krauss got an interview, and I've done other interviews at radio stations, so Bing Banana Man has opened up huge doors, and in fact,

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I'm writing a book called Banana Man, Behind the Peel, what's going on behind the peel, so I'm very excited about it, this

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Lawrence Krauss interview, afterwards something interesting happened, he shook my hand in a hotel room, and Penn Jillette was in the room, another, an actor, and he said to me, it's great to meet you, goodbye, and I says,

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Lawrence, you realize goodbye comes from old English, God be with ye, and Penn Jillette says, no it doesn't,

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I said, yes it does, I said, it's in the dictionary, he says, no it's not, so someone says, Google it, so Lawrence got out his phone, he's

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Googling away, and he says, uh oh, there it is, old English, goodbye God be with ye, he says, well

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I've learned something tonight, and I can admit when I'm wrong, and everyone laughed, and it was a great moment, anyway, about ten minutes later,

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I was on the sidewalk, getting ready to leave Washington D .C. outside this hotel, and Lawrence Krauss approached me, and he began talking with me, with this actor friend of his,

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Paul Perenza, I think his name is, and I got to witness to him for thirty minutes, what an absolute privilege, he's incredibly polite, and reasonable, despite what you see on his videos, and I was able to say to him,

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I love that video you made about hell, he said, what was that, I said, well you said that a guy gave you a Gideon Bible, and you said, how much do you have to hate someone to believe that hell exists, and not warn them, and then he said, if a truck was bearing down on you, and going to hit you, the time would come, if you didn't see it, that I would tackle you, and I said,

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Penn, I'm tackling you, because I love you, and I went through the commandments, etc.,

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and about five minutes later, two witnesses to this, Emile Zwayne, E. Z. Zwayne, President of the

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Ministry, and another friend, saw him step onto the road with his buddy, and almost got killed, there was a screech of tires,

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Penn Gillette actually spoke about this, on his podcast, a week later, quite comprehensively, talked about our encounter for about twenty, thirty minutes, but he said, as he left, a truck, an

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SUV, screeched, and actually touched the pant leg of his friend, it was that close to being killed.

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No kidding. And so, we need to pray for people like that, because I believe God preserved him, for a reason,

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God raised him up, and used him as a witness. Penn Gillette is actually one of my favorite atheists today. I have so much affection for that man,

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I love, I love the guy. Alright, so, this segment's almost over here, we're going to do more in the after show, again, you guys can get that at apologiaradio .com,

25:49

by becoming All Access, and hear more from Ray, but you, you have a new book called Fat Chance coming out, so Ray, tell us about that, how that connects to all this.

25:59

Yeah, it's called Fat Chance, or Chance, and it says, Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an

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Atheist President, and it has two caricatures on the front, one of Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump, you may have heard of him,

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Donald Trump, that caricature, they're in front of the White House, and above the White House, pigs are flying. And it really is true, pigs will fly before an atheist becomes

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President of the United States, it's illegal in seven states, for an atheist to hold political office, there's never been an atheist

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U .S. President, no atheists in Congress, not one, and even

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Bernie Sanders came out on nationwide television and says, I'm not an atheist, because he knew it would be the end of his career if he was an atheist.

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In fact, polls say that atheists are as popular as rapists in America, and there's a reason why they are disdained, why they've made themselves odious in the nostrils of Americans, and that's what the book brings out, it's evangelistic, easy to give out,

26:55

I think you get these for 50 cents each through our ministry, and you get a box full, so they're great to give away, and the whole thing is written in a

27:00

New Zealand accent. That would be fantastic, and I would read it as such.

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And you can get it on Amazon .com, by the way, sorry. Okay, good, fat chance. All right, Ray, great.

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So, all right, guys, again, we're going to go over to the after show just for a little bit with Ray, talk some more. I'm actually interested in talking to Ray a bit about his methodology,

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I think it's important, and I think it's a real blessing in terms of always pointing back to the gospel, that's always been an encouragement to me, and I think a lot of people have recognized that, how important that is to point people to Christ and the gospel, to talk about sin, and our need for repentance and faith in Jesus.

27:37

Don't forget, you can go to missionalware .com, they support the work of Apologia Church, we think you guys should buy a t -shirt from them, that's actually one of my favorite shirts right there,

27:45

Pastor Luke is wearing missionalware .com, and that is the lovely Joy the Girl with. Oakley Doakley.

27:53

Yes, my Oakley Doakley shirt. Oakley Doakley, okay, wonderful, Oakley Doakley, all right. All right, guys, so don't forget, guys,

27:59

Apologia, all access, you guys can get the academy as well, where Dr. James White and I do an academy on apologetics, you guys can check it out, apologiaradio .com,

28:07

we will catch you on the other side, or next week. The conversation is going to continue at apologiaradio .com,

28:14

that's where we're going to have our after show, we're going to have more content, more conversation, some really great stuff, you go over there to get it, at apologiaradio .com,