Feb. 4, 2016 Show with Jeffrey D. Johnson on “The Absurdity of Unbelief: A Worldview Apologetic of the Christian Faith”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this fourth day of February 2016 and I'm delighted to have someone who has been on the old

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Iron Sharpens Iron years ago return to the program for the first time to the all -new

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Iron Sharpens Iron and I am speaking of Jeffrey D. Johnson who is founder of Free Grace Press and pastor of Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas.

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He is the author of a number of books and today we are going to be addressing his new book, hot off the press,

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The Absurdity of Unbelief, A Worldview Apologetic of the Christian Faith, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron and welcome you for the very first time to the all -new

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Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Jeffrey D. Johnson. Thank you Chris, this is a great privilege to be back on and especially now that the new

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Iron Sharpens Iron is an all -new revamped. I'm glad to be here.

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Well I am glad that you're on and first of all let's get a little bit more information about Free Grace Press and Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas and as you know you probably have to do a lot of explaining lately in regard to the name

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Free Grace Press because although that's a wonderful and glorious name that you and I and believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace cherish, unfortunately

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Free Grace has been hijacked by a group of people that we would view to be heretical, those who deny the necessity of repentance and so on.

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If you could explain Free Grace Press and obviously differentiate yourself from that other group which has sadly adopted that same title of free grace.

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Yeah, I'm glad you point that out. We believe that grace is free but if we really understand the nature of grace, if it's truly grace it is free but it's also sovereign.

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It has to be sovereign, it has to be free and it has to be eternal and so that's the reason we chose the word free,

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Free Grace Press because grace by its very necessity is free. However, we do not deny the lordship of Christ in salvation and the problem with the idea that there's no repentance necessary or no transformation necessary in salvation is the denial that salvation is only for those who want it and the key thing about salvation, it's free for those who want to be delivered from their sins.

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If you think about salvation as just being a ticket to heaven and then you can say well it's free, then you can think of it as no repentance is necessary but if you think of salvation as it really is a deliverance from sin and sin is what keeps you from communion and fellowship with God, that we need salvation and deliverance from our sin and then salvation is free for all those who want to be delivered free from the captivity of their sins.

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Therefore, a necessity of wanting salvation is repentance. You have to hate sin because sin is what has caused you to be alienated from God.

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You have to hate it and if you hate it and truly despise it, want to be delivered from it, then you're naturally are turning away from it.

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So salvation is free for all those who want deliverance from sin and so that necessitates the very idea of repentance and so those who are not sorry for their sins, those who are not willing to repent, they don't want the salvation that God's offering them.

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Therefore, when those who think that they have caught those who are reformed like us without an answer when they bring up a text like Revelation 22, 17, but the

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Bible says the spirit and the bride say, come and let him that heareth say, come and let him that is a thirst come and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.

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Well, we believe that, but isn't the issue is who will? Who wants to?

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Who wants this? And doesn't the those that want to drink from the water of life freely, they are those who have received new hearts from Christ.

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Am I not right? That's exactly right and so the problem with natural man is that he loves his sin and they may not even think of his sin, it's just a love of this world, which is sin.

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A love of their vehicles, a love of their homes, a love of their prestige, a love of their honor, a love of anything under the sun other than God and ultimately man's problem is a love of self and so here is this fountain of water which is

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Jesus Christ and he will give us satisfaction and give us joy and happiness beyond what this world can provide and that is a free offer to all, but to be able to come to this fountain you have to turn away from the cisterns of this world and so for that to happen there has to be a work of grace that precedes and it's the work of grace that precedes repentance and faith that what is what we're talking about is free.

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It's the fact that me or you or any other true believer that's come to Christ, we come to Christ and we have been made willing, we have made, we've been granted the gift of repentance only by grace and so that grace is free, that grace is sovereign, that grace is eternal.

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So we believe in free sovereign grace, but that free sovereign grace puts in our hearts the desire to repent and submit to the

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Lordship of Christ for the deliverance of our sins and for life eternal. So yeah, we hold to the

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Lordship salvation, clearly believe that that's necessary, but also believe that grace by its very nature is free.

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Well I wonder if you've ever taken that long just to explain the title of your publishing. I'm glad to give the opportunity to do that,

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I appreciate you. All right and now let's have you describe, let our listeners know more about Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas.

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Well I'm privileged to pastor a wonderful church here in the middle of the state of Arkansas. Arkansas is a beautiful place for all your listeners to come and vacation, just a beautiful place to live.

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But even more than that is the Lord has given me the opportunity to serve with a body of believers that love the

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Lord. It's right here in the middle of the state, Conway, Arkansas, and we're a sovereign grace, a Reformed Baptist confessional church.

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And so we're thankful for that and the Lord seems to be blessing our church richly in these days.

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Amen, and I want to give the website is gbcconway .com,

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gbcconway .com for Grace Bible Church.

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In fact I'd not long ago interviewed Pastor Tim Conway, who you may know, so it'll be really interesting if one day he becomes your co -pastor.

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I know Brother Tim. I always wanted I always wanted to get

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Tim Conway and Steve Martin both on my show at the same time. Two different pastors of sovereign grace, not the comedians that I wouldn't mind having the comedians on too.

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Yeah, that would be funny. But the reason why we're here today is to address your new book,

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The Absurdity of Unbelief, A Worldview Apologetic of the Christian Faith.

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And there are a host of books out there that have been written by apologists and Christian theologians and scholars to address the issue of atheism and agnosticism.

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What is the primary reason that you wanted to include this book among the host of others that are available?

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What's unique about this particular book is that I take a presuppositional approach to apologetics, and there's plenty of good books out there that does that.

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But all the books that I know that take a presuppositional approach are aiming, for the most part, they're aiming at helping

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Christians become presuppositionalists in their thinking. So it's not really an implementation or implementing the apologetic in everyday life.

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It's kind of showing how presuppositionalism is a superior way of apologetics above the old traditional approach called classical apologetics.

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Or evidentialism. Right, evidentialism. And so my book is not really trying to persuade the reader of which approach is best.

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So you're actually taking a presuppositional approach to presuppositionalism. That's right.

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And yet with all the others, you're saying you're taking more of an apologetic approach to prove presuppositionalism.

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Yeah, this is a book you could give to unbelievers, and it's implementing the approach, and it's showing that if you're going to critique or challenge the

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Christian worldview, you're critiquing it from a worldview position. Everybody has a worldview position, and they're starting from a worldview.

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And my book is to challenge all the major worldviews out there. In fact, one of the things

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I did that was kind of bold of me is say there's only certain amount of worldviews possible.

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Some may think that there could be a billion one different worldviews. I don't hold to that position.

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I think there's really only a few worldviews that you could possibly believe in.

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And within the worldviews, there could be a variety of differences. So there could be a different hundred billion different ways of believing anything.

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But at the presuppositional level, there's really only certain amount of worldviews possible.

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And so I try to summarize the major worldviews that are out there and show how every other thing fits underneath one of those major worldviews.

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And then the book goes and begins to critique all the major worldviews and show how every worldview crumbles under its own weight, that they can't uphold their own presuppositions.

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And then at the end of the book, show how the Christian worldview, particularly the Trinitarian worldview of the

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Bible, is the only worldview that is coherent and therefore trustworthy to build our life upon.

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Could you, obviously, there's a lot of people that may be listening, especially as this recording becomes available and perhaps over the course of the next number of years, if God gives us that many years in our future, there may be hundreds or thousands of people who eventually listen to this who don't know what presuppositional is, don't know what evidentialism is.

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Can you please define those terms? Right, right. Well, presuppositionalism is the belief that, at the core of all of our beliefs, that our beliefs are shaped by some fundamental beliefs at the bottom of all things.

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I mean, you ask someone who believes in evidence, show me evidence, show me evidence,

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I won't believe until I see evidence. Well, if you give them evidence for that, then you can ask the question, well, what's the evidence for that which

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I gave you? Then you would provide evidence for that, and you keep asking, well, what's the evidence for that?

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And it's an eternal regression, if you would. There's no end to, where do you begin?

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Where do you begin? And what presuppositionalism says is that we all have to begin somewhere.

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There has to be a foundation behind our beliefs. And so the foundation behind our beliefs,

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I believe, are presuppositions. Some people call them axioms, things, or self -evident truths, truths that you don't have to prove, that they just, we naturally know they're true, and we don't need evidence for.

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Well, I believe there are presuppositions, or if you would, self -evident truths. And the

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Christian worldview is based upon, I think, three major self -evident truths.

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The Bible confirms these are self -evident truths, which is that there is a God, that there is right and wrong, are the basics of morality, and that there is ethical standards, there is a

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God, and there is the law of non -contradiction. And so presuppositionalism says, okay, let's start on the presuppositional foundation and show how a worldview must be coherent with that foundation.

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And the evidentialist apologetic is basically trying to prove Christianity based upon the historical evidence, based upon the textual evidence, based upon empirical evidence.

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And so my approach is more looking at the system as a whole. And if you could also define the law of non -contradiction for us.

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Well, the law of non -contradiction says something cannot be true, altogether true and altogether false at the same time.

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You know, an elephant can't be painted completely, entirely pink, and at the same time be completely and entirely painted red or blue.

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So that's a contradiction. And some people will deny that law.

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But even in trying to deny the law of non -contradiction, you're using it to deny it, because you're assuming that what you're stating is true.

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Every proposition that we may make is the assumption that the opposite would be false.

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And if you don't accept the law of non -contradiction from the very beginning, you're saying that you can go ahead and not believe what

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I'm saying, because I may not be telling the truth or what I'm saying may not be right. So it's irrational to deny the law of non -contradiction.

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So everybody uses it. You have to use it, or otherwise you're admitting from the beginning that your thought and your statements are irrational.

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And Romans 1, Paul really sets out a basis for presuppositionalism, doesn't he?

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Yes, he does. He roots the fact that the law is written in our conscience, and that that law is in us all.

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And also he roots in Romans 1 that there is a God, and we know that there's a God, and that God's in our conscience.

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And in Romans 2 is the evidence that we know that there's a moral code. And so the

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Bible is building on the presupposition that we all know God exists, and that we all know right from wrong.

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And wouldn't you say that it's not that presuppositionalists do not use evidence at all?

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In fact, many of the evidences that are available to us are really refutations of false claims of atheists and others, correct?

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That's right. And in fact, in my book, I use a lot of evidence in support of the

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Christian worldview. So presuppositionalism is not a denial of evidence. It's just stating the evidence only makes sense when we presuppose these basic truths that are self -evident.

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And so we don't use the evidence to, if you would, to prove that the self -evident truths are true.

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The self -evidence works off these presuppositions that we begin with.

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Yeah. Wouldn't you say, for instance, that we cannot ever, as Christians, scientifically prove the existence of God, but we can say that all scientific evidence points to that, that the existence of God, and it refutes the claims of atheists and others who make all sorts of bizarre claims that have no basis in science, such as the evolution of men coming from a common ancestor with animals and things like that?

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There is absolutely zero evidence that would give a scientist the reason to believe that.

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And in fact, the scientific evidence would point to the contrary. That's right. Yeah. I have a whole chapter on the absurdity of evolution.

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And so I have a whole chapter seeking to show that the scientific evidence does not point to the theory of evolution.

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However, the thing about the scientific evidence, Christians and Christianity does not deny the importance of scientific evidence.

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Right. We all live on the empirical synthesis and trusting that the world's going to carry on in a regular fashion every day.

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We rely upon that. And Christianity is not a denial of that. In fact, I would submit to you that science only makes sense from the

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Christian worldview. Right. That without the Christian worldview, science falls apart.

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You have to have a God. Because this is what all scientists use. They all use the law of logic, the law of non -contradiction.

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They all use that. And they use ethics. I mean, we have to trust that the scientists are being honest in their finding.

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And if once the scientists admit that they don't have to be honest, they don't have to agree to a standard of honesty, a standard of truthfulness, then why would we believe their findings?

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Why would we believe Einstein and the things that he reported or said that he discovered?

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Why would we believe this if we did not believe they were standing solid upon the foundation of ethics?

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And why would we believe them if they weren't standing solid on the walls of logic?

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The fact that they use logic in ethics in their papers and in their findings is proof that scientists do not just simply believe all that science is able to discover.

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Because logic and in the law of ethics, law of morality, that cannot be seen or observed or discovered or proved by science alone.

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I'm going to give our email address if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. An example of what we are talking about in regard to evidence,

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I not long ago interviewed Colonel Jeffrey Williams, who is a Christian astronaut.

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He has taken more photographs in outer space than any other human being in history.

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And he is a born again Christian. He is going on his next space launch,

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God willing, next month to spend six months at the space station.

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And Colonel Williams, one of the questions from our listeners during my interview with him was, do you believe that there is life on other planets?

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And Colonel Williams said no, and he based his answer on the fact that not only does his inerrant source of truth, the

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Bible, make no claim of life on other planets, but the science does not point that life could exist on other planets.

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And if you believe that there is life on other planets or life somewhere else other than the planet Earth, it has to be for another reason other than scientific evidence that you're believing that.

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And it's interesting that those who mock Christianity for being unscientific, they have to really base their views on life on other planets and other things like that, on their own ideology or religion, even if they don't view it as a religion.

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They are not really using science to come up with these ideas. Am I right? That's right.

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In fact, I point that out in my book, that how atheists and naturalists, those who don't believe that there is a

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God that transcends this world, those who believe that you can only believe the findings of science and they say everything's limited, our knowledge is limited to the field of science or our sense experiences, they make that presupposition before they even begin their studies.

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It's not that science says there's no God. They make that claim before they even get started at the presuppositional level and they accept that by faith.

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They claim that there's no God and they accept that by faith and then they go on the basis of that and seek to have science prove that.

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But science does not bear that out. Now, science may not give us empirical evidence of God's existence, but we should not look for science to give us empirical evidence for God's existence.

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Any more should I ask a blind man what color the sun is if he's never seen it.

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The empirical senses are limited to this physical world and therefore it's not a legitimate question to ask the senses to give me evidence for something that transcends this physical world.

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However, just because science is unable to give us empirical evidence that God exists does not rule out the fact that God exists.

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There's other things that science cannot prove such as logic and ethics. And my book is seeking to show that how logic and ethics cannot exist apart from a divine mind.

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Yeah, that's interesting. I was just talking to the owners of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, one of my sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron, right before I came here.

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And by the way, they want to speak with you about your books, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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They would love to pick your books up. But I was speaking to them when we were looking at a book for children by Ken Ham that basically teaches the truth that dinosaurs lived with men.

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They lived in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and so on. And it's really absurd that non -Christian or anti -Bible scientists, those who either they deny the

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Bible altogether or they just believe that much of it is myth and legend and allegory or whatever, who will say that it is laughable and ridiculous that dinosaurs and men lived at the same time.

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Now, the only reason that would be laughable and ridiculous is if you have a completely atheistic presupposition, because why wouldn't a normal, rational, logical human being think that dinosaurs lived at the same time as men when dinosaur, doesn't that mean it means terrible lizard?

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Dinosaurs were lizards and we have lizards today. And we even are told by evolutionists that animals like the alligator and the crocodile and the turtle are living dinosaurs.

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They will teach us that those animals existed during the days of the dinosaurs. Well, doesn't that make them dinosaurs?

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I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. Well, it shows you how the presuppositional foundation is influential in shaping what we believe.

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Well, this is easy to demonstrate in the sense that I remember being a kid and in my 11th grade, one of our classmates, unfortunately, killed himself.

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And at the funeral, his mother, he was the only son. And at the funeral, the mother threw herself over the casket and began to shake the casket back and forth over and over and over again.

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And his name was Tony. And she kept on saying, wake up, Tony, wake up, Tony, wake up, Tony. And we would consider that as a classic stage of denial.

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And when people go through grief, they go through a stage of denial. They're suppressing the truth. The Bible would say you're suppressing the truth.

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But why do people naturally want to suppress the truth? The reason people go through denial or suppress the truth, even truth that is clearly evident, like your son's dead in the casket and his body's right before you.

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What more evidence do you need to believe that he's not asleep, your son's not asleep?

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But in this case, she couldn't accept the truth. She did not want to accept the truth because the truth was not happy.

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The truth was unwelcome. The truth is hard. Sometimes there's things that are very difficult to receive because it's not happy news.

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We more readily receive happy news. This is why people can be gullible. We're more readily to receive happy news or news that we want to believe more than it is news that we don't want to believe.

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And that's why we don't like criticism. We'll defend ourselves. We won't receive criticism. But we all love being applauded and recommended and we love to hear our praises.

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We can hear that all day, but we hate to hear criticism just as much as we hate to be in pain.

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Well, the problem is with natural man and atheists and people who reject God is that God is an unwelcome truth.

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The fact that if there is a God, that means this guilt that I feel is really there.

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And that's the problem with the natural man. He has a guilty conscience. And if there in one way natural man wants to undo the guilt or get rid of the guilt, kind of a therapy way, is to remove

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God. If you can remove God, then the guilt can go away. But if God is there, then that means

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I'm going to be held accountable. That's scary news for most of the world. In fact, that's scary news for all of us.

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And thank goodness there is the gospel. But without the gospel, the news of God is not welcoming because we're all sinners.

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And we all innately know that we're guilty. And so just as a mother will not accept that her son is dead,

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I think many will not accept that God exists. That shows you that some of these atheistic scientists, if they'll deny that dinosaurs live with humans or if they come up with the theory of evolution, it shows you that maybe they're not just looking at what the evidence says.

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Maybe they're prejudiced or they're biased because they have a presupposition or a desire to get rid of God.

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And that may shape, and I believe it does shape, what they believe more than they admit.

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Because Van Til would say, and I agree with Van Til, no man is neutral. No man is unbiased.

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And we're all prejudiced towards ourselves, you know. And so we believe things that's good for us, and we tend to reject things that are negative towards us.

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We have to go to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with your own question for Jeffrey D.

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Johnson on his book, The Absurdity of Unbelief, our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. We do already have some listeners patiently waiting to have me ask you their questions.

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Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

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We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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Thriving Difference. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Jeffrey D. Johnson. He is the author of a number of books, including the one that we are addressing today that's hot off the press,

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The Absurdity of Unbelief, A Worldview Apologetic of the Christian Faith.

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And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

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And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good ol'

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USA. And we want to also thank, again,

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Solid Ground Christian Books, one of the sponsors whose advertisements you just heard. They carry this book,

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The Absurdity of Unbelief, by Jeffrey D. Johnson, as well as a host of other biblically sound books.

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And you can reach Solid Ground Christian Books at solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.

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And before I go to our listener questions, we already have some, I wanted to make sure that you completed your thought before the break.

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Jeffrey? Yeah, yeah, I think I did. The fact that we're just, none of us are neutral and we have, if you would, biases built into us according to our nature.

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And that's why, you know, going back to what we talked about earlier with free grace, there has to be a change of nature, if you would, until the things of God become welcomed in our life and before we actually love and treasure the existence of a loving and a just God.

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And we do have Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania.

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She actually has a two -part question. Isn't atheism just another religion?

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And the second part of her question is, have you ever come across anybody whose opinion has changed due to Pascal's wager that famous adage by Blaise Pascal that basically it's better off for men to believe as if God exists, whether he does or not, since the possibility of eternal punishment in hell is really far more serious and outweighs any advantage that anybody thinks that they may have by not believing?

37:16

Right, right. Well, on the first question, I would say atheism is a form of religion because I believe it has all the ingredients of a religion.

37:24

I think guilt is still the man's number one problem. Man feels guilty. He knows there's a law. He knows he's guilty.

37:31

Their conscience bears witness with them. Or otherwise, as Paul said, they wouldn't be making excuses for themselves or complimenting themselves or bragging on themselves.

37:40

The fact that we're always saying stuff like, I shouldn't have done that, or man, I feel guilty, is evidence that man knows he's guilty.

37:48

And guilt would not exist if there wasn't a lawgiver. And man knows that. And so I think atheism is a form of trying to deal with the guilt by removing the lawgiver.

38:00

And if we remove the lawgiver, then basically if all we are a byproduct of evolution, then we can begin to call sin a sickness or an illness that is a byproduct of physical properties or the chemicals in our head, rather than being a personal transgression against the

38:22

Holy God. And so atheism does that. And the fact that many atheists, you know, they stand on the fact that there's no

38:29

God, and the second thing they stand upon is they hate God. And so it's more of a hatred towards God than it is more than just an agnostic position.

38:41

Agnosticism is like, well, I'm just not persuaded one way or the other. So I think atheism is really an attempt to remove a guilty conscience.

38:49

And of course, the second question, Pascal's wager, I think that's a poor argument.

38:56

In one way you can see that it kind of makes sense, but it's a poor argument because it doesn't really produce real faith in God.

39:05

It doesn't give us a real confidence in God. It's like, I'm just going to believe in God because of the possible benefits of God.

39:12

Well, that's no sincerity. That's not a real belief in God. And so I think

39:17

God can see past people who just happen to believe in Him just so they don't have bad things happen to them.

39:23

Well, she did ask specifically, though, if you know of any cases where that at least initially swayed someone's opinion, because obviously that could be a stepping stone.

39:34

It could be a stepping stone, yes. And I don't know of anyone personally, but I wouldn't deny that that could be a process that God uses, that like, hey, there could be a

39:44

God. And I'm not certain of all. I better examine this more closely.

39:50

Uh -huh. And in fact, there could be a hell even in and of itself could be something that frighten people even before they have any genuine faith in God.

40:02

Well, I'm not being a child. In some ways it may be not exactly the wager itself, but in some ways maybe many people are brought to the

40:12

Lord first by the contemplation of the fact that this is an important question.

40:19

And we can worry about what shirt I'm going to wear or what college I attended. Those are important questions, important decisions to be made.

40:25

But I don't know one that's more important than to know if you have a soul, to know if there's an eternal life, to know if there's a

40:32

God, to know if there's divine punishment. That is probably the most important question to ask and to have settled and have a clear conscience so you can rest at that.

40:41

But my mystery is why are there people out there? How can there be people out there that are comfortable in their sins without getting right with God or at least confirming and being certain?

40:55

But so many people are living in just blissfulness, I think ignorant bliss, and they're doing so by just entertaining themselves and not allowing themselves to really think deeply upon some of the most important questions of life.

41:09

And by the way, I got a surprise for Susan. You are receiving a free copy of this book,

41:17

The Absurdity of Unbelief, A Worldview Apologetic of the

41:22

Christian Faith by Jeffrey D. Johnson, compliments of Free Grace Press. So now that the cat's out of the bag, anybody else that emails us a question, we've only got, though, four more copies to give away.

41:40

So if you are one of the next four who emails us a question that's good enough to get on the air, you will get a free book too.

41:50

So please send us your whole address, not just your name, as I've been announcing.

41:55

Send us your whole mailing address. And I do extend my apologies to those who live overseas and in Canada.

42:03

We cannot include you in the free Bible giveaways. One of our sponsors mails out these books for us at no charge to Iron Sharpens Iron.

42:13

And if we were to include everyone in the world for these giveaways, the shipping costs would really be astronomical because we give away a lot of books on Iron Sharpens Iron.

42:24

So we apologize. But we still want to hear from you if you're overseas or in Canada or in Mexico or wherever you may live and you're listening to this program.

42:34

We still would love to hear from you and your questions. And we know that we have quite a number of listeners in all parts of the world.

42:44

And so we hope to hear from you too. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

42:49

We have another listener in Staten Island, New York, Deborah. She asks, how does an atheist answer for man's morality and the conscious decision between good and evil?

43:05

That's a real good question because I don't think they can. What they will say is ethics is relative.

43:15

It's a human construct. It's pragmatic at best. It's something that we invent ourselves.

43:24

And ultimately, the problem with atheism, it leads to determinism.

43:32

And if you're not familiar with that term, it's a scientific idea that all we are, our consciousness, our feelings, our thoughts, our behavior can be rooted down to the material, the physical.

43:45

Because if we evolve from rocks and matter, then all that our consciousness are, our behavior, our emotions, everything that we would say is invisible, we would call it the soul.

43:56

They would say that's just a byproduct of nature and of that which is physical.

44:03

So your brain is physical and therefore all your thoughts and behaviors and feelings and even the feeling of right or wrong is nothing more than just thought coming from the chemicals within the brain.

44:16

And therefore, it really undermines ethics altogether. It undermines free will.

44:22

And all we are a byproduct of predetermined movement of chemicals, which is going to be determined by scientific laws.

44:36

So scientific laws govern the physical matters which determines our thought. And that's why if they're going to be consistent with themselves, they wouldn't say

44:45

Adolf Hitler did something morally wrong. He had something physically wrong with his makeup.

44:52

There was something biological wrong. And you'd have some atheists that would say, would be honest and say, we don't need to condemn murderers.

45:02

We need to pity them. They don't need to be punished. They need to be treated psychologically.

45:07

They need moral help. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, that's it.

45:14

That's it. Oh, well, James White, who's familiar, a name familiar to most of our listeners,

45:21

I'm sure. Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. I organized a debate with him a number of years ago.

45:28

And an atheist, in fact, the current president of American Atheists, which was founded by Madeleine Murray O 'Hare and is currently run by David Silverman.

45:40

David Silverman, who has during the holiday seasons, as of late, he or very recently has been notorious on the news and so forth for putting up billboards in different major cities that insult

45:58

Christians and people of other religions, but primarily primarily Christians for believing in things such as the incarnation and so on.

46:11

Like there was a well -known billboard of the manger scene for the

46:19

Christmas holidays, and the billboard said, you know, this is a myth, don't you?

46:25

Or something to that effect. But anyway, David Silverman, James White got him to admit, really, that good and bad or righteousness and evil are really determined by the majority of any given population at any different period of time in history.

46:49

And so therefore, David Silverman could not really logically and consistently condemn that the

46:57

Nazis were wrong. And keep in mind, David Silverman is a Jewish atheist. He's ethnically Jewish.

47:03

And his wife actually is a a Reform Jew. She is a member of the

47:11

Reform Jewish denomination in Judaism, but he is an atheist. And I think that many in the audience, perhaps even some atheists, were shocked when

47:25

Dr. White said to David Silverman, so the most that you could say if you were being marched through the

47:35

Auschwitz is that I find this personally offensive? That's the most you could say?

47:41

And he said, yes. Yeah, that's amazing. Even if the society determines right or wrong, the majority, what is that compelling for me to have to obey?

47:54

Why should I listen to the majority of society? Wouldn't I not think, well, if I can get away with it, it's okay?

48:01

As long as I'm not going to be punished? But see, the fact is, if there is a transcendent lawgiver, then that means that I am going to be held accountable one day.

48:11

And it doesn't matter what society says or doesn't say, that there is a law.

48:17

And I know that in my conscience, I know that it's wrong to be exploited, to exploit others. I know it's wrong to do wrong to others just as much.

48:24

I don't want people to do wrong to me. I know that. That's why I feel guilt when I do things that are immoral.

48:31

But the fact that there is a God is a real deterrent. The fact that there's a society norms, that that's not much of a deterrent other than I don't want to go to prison.

48:41

So I'm going to watch my steps here. I'm going to try not to get caught. I'm going to be real sneaky about how

48:46

I behave. Of course, a lot of people behave that way. But I think inherently, they know that they're behaving morally.

48:55

By the way, Deborah, you're also receiving a free copy of The Absurdity of Unbelief by Jeffrey D.

49:01

Johnson. We also have a question from Anthony from newyorkapologetics .com.

49:09

And Anthony asks, what do you say to a person who says, you don't believe in evolution, because it's not observable?

49:18

Yet, why do you believe in God who is also not observable? Or what do you say to someone who says,

49:25

I'm not an unbeliever. I just lack a belief in God. I just believe in one

49:30

God less than you. You are an atheist when it comes to other gods.

49:37

That's interesting that he says that, because that was the original meaning of the term atheist, or that was the usage of the term atheist.

49:43

Christians were the first atheists. Because the Christians denied the multiplicity of gods like the

49:50

Romans were worshiping. Well, if I deny evolution because there's no empirical evidence to support that, or because I haven't personally observed it, if I do not deny that, it doesn't undermine my worldview.

50:05

If I believe it, there may be some problems with my worldview, but that in and of itself doesn't undermine the worldview.

50:13

But those who deny the existence of a God, I would say, not just any God, not just the plurality of polytheistic deities, but those who deny the

50:22

God of the Bible who is a Trinitarian God. In my book, I show why God must be Trinitarian, not just a monolithic single person

50:30

God, but he must be one in essence, three in person, because without going into detail now,

50:35

I would say that's the only way that God could be a communicative being. Jonathan Edwards does a good job of reading the fact that God can speak because he's

50:44

Trinitarian. And we need not only a God, we need a personal God, and we need a God who could speak from us from heaven to earth in a communicable way that we understand him.

50:55

And without a God who speaks to us, we cannot have a code of ethics or a logical right, you know, the law of non -contradiction.

51:05

So, for me to not believe in evolution or to believe in evolution in and of itself doesn't undermine my worldview.

51:11

But for me, not to believe in a personal speaking God unravels the ability that I have to believe in anything else.

51:20

Without a personal God who speaks to us, we have no justification to believe in anything. And so, the

51:26

God of the Bible is a necessary presupposition for belief in all other beliefs.

51:32

So, there's a huge difference in saying that I just, the lack of belief in just one more

51:39

God. Atheist is like a Christian, but he just believes lack of belief in one more God. No, we need this personal speaking

51:46

Trinitarian God of the Bible to have a cohesive worldview for all of our beliefs and practices.

51:53

We have Jordan in Wisconsin, Rapids, Wisconsin. Have you ever debated an atheist, and what would be an outline for your opening statement if you did?

52:08

Well, that's a good question. I have not been in any formal debates with an atheist, so I do not have a scripted opening line.

52:20

But if I, just off the top of my head, my opening line would be something like this. Without the

52:25

Trinitarian God of the Bible, we cannot prove anything, and the worldview that we have will fall apart.

52:32

Everybody has a worldview, but only the Christian worldview is cohesive. It must be true because of the contrary of the opposite.

52:42

And so, that would be my opening view, then I would have to unpack that presupposition or that thesis statement for the rest of the debate.

52:51

Thank you, Jordan. You're getting a free copy of The Absurdity of Unbelief, A Worldview Apologetic of the

52:57

Christian Faith by Jeffrey D. Johnson, complements of Free Grace Press. We have

53:03

Brian in Gardners, Pennsylvania, and Brian asks,

53:13

As a believer in the sovereignty, certainty, and exclusivity of Christ, I find it interesting that atheists like to argue the existence of Christ.

53:25

I don't believe in the Easter Bunny, so I would never argue its existence with a pro -Easter

53:31

Bunny person, because it matters not to me. So, if one doesn't believe in the existence of Christ or any type of God, then why do they bother to argue it in the first place?

53:46

That's a good question. I've wondered that but to be respectful to atheists, let's look at it from their perspective.

53:57

If you don't believe in the Easter Bunny, that really is a minor issue to your worldview. Unicorns, Easter Bunnies, Bigfoot, that's one thing, but that's just one thing among many things.

54:09

The God question is fundamental. If you get the God question right or wrong, that shapes everything else you believe.

54:16

The Easter Bunny believing that right or wrongly doesn't really shape a lot of things else. Now, it is an inconsistency in your worldview, but your worldview can still be trustworthy even with a minor inconsistency.

54:27

But a major inconsistency at the fundamental level, at the presuppositional level, undermines the whole system.

54:33

Well, the God question is at that fundamental level, and so I think that's why atheists are ready to argue that because they realize the importance of the question.

54:44

They realize that it is a battle question that shapes everything else. And so it's more than just, is there an

54:51

Easter Bunny or a unicorn? Even though I do admit that if they don't believe in atheism, why do they seem so angry about it?

54:59

If they don't believe in God, why do they seem so angry about it? That's somewhat of a mystery to me. Yeah, they do seem to spend an awful lot of time battling against the existence of God.

55:15

Obviously, some of them have made careers out of doing that. But we'll get back to a couple more of our listener questions in our second hour, so thank you for being patient with us.

55:29

What are some of the other main issues other than evolution that you tackle in The Absurdity of Unbelief?

55:36

Well, I try to be pretty holistic in my approach, not that I touch every minor issue, but I go through and establish in the first part of the book what it takes to have a worldview and explain that everybody has one, and that every worldview at the fundamental level is based upon a few presuppositions.

55:59

Then I break down all the worldviews into three categories. There is naturalism, that's a sense that there's no

56:07

God, or there's no God that we can know. Then there's impersonal supernaturalism, that is, you believe that there is a

56:16

God, but He's not personal. It's more like He's a force or unknowable.

56:22

But there is something transcendent, there is a spiritual force out there, but He can't speak to us.

56:28

Then the third worldview is a personal supernaturalism, which Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all fit underneath that category.

56:38

But when I get to that, I've got to show that really only the Trinitarian worldview gives us a

56:43

God who can speak to us. And so with those three overarching worldviews,

56:49

I break down and critique naturalism, evolutionism, imperialism and determinism, relativism, existentialism, post -modernism.

57:01

I look at the non -theistic religions like pantheism that are found, all the religions that are found in the eastern part of the world.

57:09

And then I look at Judaism and Islam and then kind of show how the Trinity, Christianity is true not in spite of the

57:17

Trinity, but Christianity is cohesive and trustworthy because of the

57:22

Trinity. And so this is a Trinitarian worldview, a Trinitarian apologetic.

57:29

So that's what I end up doing. And by the way, Jordan, you're going to be getting a free copy of the book as well there in Wisconsin, Rapids, Wisconsin.

57:42

In fact, Jordan, since you're a very first -time writer to Iron Sharpens Iron, we're going to send you a second book as well from the

57:54

Iron Sharpens Iron potpourri of goodies that we have here. So we'll find you a second book to include with Jeffrey Johnson's book to send out to you.

58:05

Thank you for being a first -time listener or at least a first -time questioner to our program.

58:14

We're going to be going to another break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air as well, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

58:25

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And please include your first name, your address, because we do actually have one more book left.

58:36

In fact, I am going to sacrifice the book that I own and I will buy one for myself later on.

58:44

I'm going to, because we do have some listeners waiting for questions and so on. To be answered.

58:51

So give us your full address and we'll try to get to your question as soon as possible when we come back from the break.

59:00

And that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

59:07

We're going to be right back with Jeffrey D. Johnson and our discussion on the absurdity of unbelief.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ much more finances and generosity that's the private story welcome back this is chris arnzendt and our email address is chris arnzendt gmail dot com chris arnzendt gmail dot com if you have a question for our guest on iron sharpens iron jeffrey d johnson author of the absurdity of on the leaf and uh...

01:29:04

jeff uh... the accusation that is obviously hurled at christianity or should i say christians specifically as christian people uh...

01:29:17

on an ongoing basis by the the leftist media and and liberals and leftists in general is that we are proud arrogant hateful and bigoted people to dare suggest that our religion is superior to any other religion in fact it's the only true one the others are not only inferior their their evil their they're really inspired in some sense by satan uh...

01:29:49

and uh... have no hope for eternal life in them uh...

01:29:54

and uh... they would go on to perhaps even accused the god that we believe in of being a figment of our hateful imagination and that he is nothing but a hateful god who wants people just to dance around and praise him uh...

01:30:13

while he uh... indiscriminately just uh... tortures and and pours his anger upon anyone he chooses to because of a whim of some kind but uh...

01:30:26

if you could just comment on the apologetic the the the godly retort to that kind of accusation that we regularly hear uh...

01:30:39

not only in the media but we hear perhaps even from our personal friends family members and neighbors when we begin to speak of our faith yeah i think the problem is that christianity claims to be true and that's part of the problem all other world world religions even if it's if it's claiming to to be a form of truth or a system of truth it allows for it allows for differences if you would but christianity if christianity is true it's exclusive uh...

01:31:13

and so that that's the problem it's it's it's it's christianity demands submission even the truth of christianity demands that people come underneath and submit their opinions their thinking to it if i said something to you chris i said two plus two is four if i state that absolutely two plus two is four all of a sudden if you take that personally that's bonding on you that that's something that's objectively true it doesn't matter if you believe it or don't believe it it's it's something you must believe or if you don't there's going to be negative consequences for your unbelief that two plus two is four well christianity is in that same line it is true there is a god and there is a day of judgment that he did send his son and he's going to hold people accountable that's a reality now it's a cohesive uh...

01:32:05

defensible reality but the problem is that that means for unbelievers they're wrong and it has dire consequences with their unbelief and i think that's where they have a problem with it it's because i think the real problem with them accusing christians with being bigoted and hateful is because what we're saying because of the of the god written in their conscience ethics written in their conscience all non -contradictions written in their conscience i think what we're saying is hitting a nerve uh...

01:32:39

it they're made in the image of god too and even though that image of god has been defamed and suppressed there's something about truth that rings true when we hear it and so unbelievers they hear it and it's self -contradiction i mean not contradiction but it's condemning and so they feel condemned by it and so they hate it but going to the second part of the question it's amazing that we have a god that we're presenting is not just a god who's judged i mean a god who's going to judge us we have a god who sent his son to take our judgment on our behalf we have good news we have everything to present to the world we have something that we can present to them that says you don't have to be scared you don't have to be frightened with what we believe and i think a lot of christians especially uh...

01:33:33

i think it's the westwood baptist group and some other extreme groups the god hates fags group that's right and they forgive us a bad name because but in reality christians are the ones who should be speaking the truth and law and it's the goodness of god that leads people to repentance if all we had to tell people is god the god of justice the god of wrath and there's no hope for salvation and no hope for forgiveness that would cause people just to shake their heads up to god that i hate you because there's no hope i'm going to be held accountable and i'm going to be thrown in a lake of fire and i hate this this is terrible but it's the goodness of god that leads men to repentance so after we show people their sins through revealing the law of god to them show that they need a savior we should in law say but we got good news for you we have a god who took our place we have a god who died for sin for evil to make things right and so we really have a good gospel to share with unbelievers and it's really truly good news uh...

01:34:40

it's interesting that we had a listener uh... before who wondered what uh...

01:34:46

your answer would be to differentiating humans from mosquitos well we do have a listener named buzz out there buzz in carlisle pennsylvania asks when witnessing to atheists i tell them that we are really in agreement because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness are they really aware of what they are doing yeah i don't think it's possible for for man to eliminate god from his conscience now they can suppress it but think of it as a ball that you have in the pool and you try to push the ball under the water it naturally wants to come back up it's naturally trying to resurface uh...

01:35:31

to the air and so man will suppress this knowledge and he'll do that but it's like once he quits trying to do that it comes naturally back up he can't help but see god in creation he can't help but see that there is a god when he's observing the world when he's observing himself yet i don't believe atheists can completely eliminate god from their thinking and so i think we have they know that i think that's why christianity is convicting i think it's naturally convicting to them when they hear it yes it is and uh...

01:36:13

one of the things that uh... i think could be the most difficult time of of any time in our lives to convey the truths of eternal life after death is when we are speaking with someone whose loved one may have just passed away a loved one who has died and there is no evidence that we have seen in that person who has died that they were truly a believer in christ that is the the most the time when anybody who uh...

01:36:54

maybe just your ordinary uh... christian in the pew or one who claims to be or actively is involved in apologetics uh...

01:37:07

that that's really where the rubber meets the road and it's really the most uh... difficult time i'm sure you would agree with that uh...

01:37:15

how how do you get through conveying those truths to someone without compromising the reality that there is also an afterlife for the lost that is a very horrible place to be well i remember several years go being asked to preach a funeral for uh...

01:37:38

young man who committed suicide but was clearly not a christian and it was uh...

01:37:46

brother of someone in our church it was a difficult funeral to preach but it also is a great opportunity because there's nothing like death that is that'll cause people to soberly think and what our world is doing and the culture is doing they're laughing their way to hell they're they're entertaining themselves to death and their profusion to think about serious things death is a wake up call for us all it's a sober moment that death is a reality we're all going to face it and so that's a prime time to to to to communicate to men that that there is a god and usually when people think about death uh...

01:38:26

it's it's it's like their awareness of god is awakened if you would it's hard to suppress the knowledge of god when death is facing your eyes or facing your you know you're facing death or you know when your loved one is facing death so i believe we should be gentle and kind because in reality we never know what may have happened at the last seconds of someone's life so i i take it personally that we don't preach people to heaven and we don't give false assurance to loved ones we know your brother or your son or your father and brother who live like the devil we believe he's in heaven no i don't think we make false claims like that but i also think we don't have to say they're in hell because we don't really know what may have happened they could have had a deathbed experience and that does happen so we can give the possibility that god may have worked in their life at the last moment however we have to bring the tension back to where it really matters are you right with god are you ready to die and we know for certain that your dead loved one uh...

01:39:31

would if you could uh... would have you really contemplate the reality of death and are you right with god yeah that is uh...

01:39:43

uh... i have brought this up before with friends of mine who are very zealous christians but i think at time at times demonstrate lack of wisdom when it comes to something that you said regarding the the possibility of last -minute conversion and so on i know people that will tell me with certainty that their loved ones like i know somebody specifically who said that his parents are in hell and i said to him were you with them when they died no i wasn't well why do you think that they're in hell with such certainty though they never you know uh...

01:40:32

be made any kind of profession of faith and never became christians as it will if you are with them when they died how do you know that right right and uh...

01:40:42

i think that people can be too uh... cocksure of their their opinion on whether or not somebody is in heaven and hell when uh...

01:40:55

you know that will somebody is far away from where you are or in a coma or something where you don't even know what's going on in their mind uh...

01:41:05

god may have had mercy on that person given them get the gift of faith without your knowledge of it correct that's correct until that's the thing about evangelizing our family our lost loved ones is we know that without the gospel there's no hope without you know that preaching of the gospel is vitally important but the preaching of the gospel is like a seed that could go into someone's conscience that could be there and god can take that the holy spirit can take that seed that gospel that's in their conscience in their memories and quicken that any time the holy spirit desires to do that and uh...

01:41:38

and so that could happen at the the last moment of death uh... just like the thief on the cross it wasn't moments he didn't have much time to live but it was enough time to be converted and so that's the hope that we have for those that we're uncertain of uh...

01:41:56

again you know i don't think we we don't have to preach them into heaven and give give the false assurance that you can live like hell and that means you go to heaven but you don't have to preach anyone into hell or make the judgment because that's ultimately god's decision god only knows these matters with a hundred percent certainty uh...

01:42:16

should be attributed to but someone of note from the past said something to the effect of uh...

01:42:28

god gave us one thief on the cross in the in the scriptures so that we would have hope but we would but he only gave us one so that we would not be presumptuous something like that but do you know what i mean?

01:42:44

i'm not familiar with that but that does sound very very good obviously he gave us one thief on the cross who repented because obviously there was more than one thief on the cross he gave us one thief on the cross who repented and yet only one so that we would not be presumptuous uh...

01:43:03

and of course the the far more uh... flagrant uh...

01:43:10

uh... sin if you will that occurs after the death of family members and loved ones is the preacher basically telling an audience with certainty that the person is in heaven when he has no right to be saying something like that when the person gave no evidence bore no fruit of being a follower of christ that seems to be far more the the widespread problem than christendom wouldn't he say?

01:43:40

that is i've been to many funerals where uh... the person's preaching to heaven with no no evidence of true conversion which is it only gives people the false assurance that you can live the way you want to and have no desire to be submissive to the will of god and think that there's been a change of nature well as we are drawing to a close uh...

01:44:11

to of the program i really want to make sure that you have ample time to really have etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners what you most want them to remember uh...

01:44:24

before the program is concluded so if you could just uh... begin to unburden your heart with all those things that you'd really want uh...

01:44:34

our listeners to walk away with carrying them in their hearts and minds well i really believe that what we believe cannot be separated with what we feel or with our emotions our emotions impact our beliefs and our emotions are shaped by our nature and that and so there is a a connection between uh...

01:44:58

our knowledge our belief systems with how we live so just as much as our knowledge shapes the way we live the way we live will shape the way we believe and the reason that there's atheists and even people who claim to be christians but they're not following the lord uh...

01:45:16

practical atheists if you would the reason why there's atheists and practical atheists is because of their behavior so behavior is just as much of the problem as with belief and so what my book seeks to do is bring these two things together and say we need a heart transplant if we're going to believe and it's really a fundamental uh...

01:45:37

change of the heart that must take place as christians we don't have to be ashamed of our world view in fact rather than being shamed i believe the christian world view is the only defensible cohesive world view possible and so rather than as an apologist or evangelist or as a christian that has to say how do i defend my world view we should defend it but we also can say i don't just have to defend my world view this book goes on the offense it begins to critique and challenge unbelief it critiques the non -believing world views all the possible non uh...

01:46:19

christian world views and what this book does it shows that all non -christian world views all non -trinitarian world views are inherently inconsistent with themselves and i'll give this illustration if i have time when i was a kid my older brother found a box of toys under my mom's bed and it was christmas toys for all of us and so every day we'd go under the bed and we'd pull the box out and we'd look at the toys and we'd close the box and one day my mom called my brothers out and me and said somebody's found the gift someone's looking into the christmas gifts who is it and the reason i know my mom said is because the box wasn't closed correctly somebody left the lid cracked open and my oldest brother said i didn't do it of course we all were guilty we were all doing it oldest brother lied the second brother he he said it wasn't me i know it wasn't me because every time i looked i made sure i closed the lid and what he did he exposed that he was guilty in his defense and of course it incriminated us all but what that does is show that there's an inconsistency in the story and once there's an inconsistency in your story you can't trust the story well non -christian worldviews are inconsistent in the end they self -contradict themselves and that's the absurdity of all non -christianity all non -christian worldviews the christian worldview is not absurd in fact it's reasonable defensible and trustworthy because it's the only possible worldview that is cohesive with itself and uh...

01:48:06

wouldn't you agree with me that one of the most frequently committed errors amongst christians uh...

01:48:15

at least i i know i can say this for myself maybe i'm hoping to hear that you you're telling me that i'm not alone in this i'm not the only idiot that keeps repeating this but i think that we very typically even though we know that according to our theology especially those who are theologically reformed and have a biblical understanding of sovereign grace and the ordo salutis that uh...

01:48:47

regeneration produces saving faith not the other way around uh...

01:48:53

and that regeneration can only come from a divine act of the holy spirit before we even believe uh...

01:49:00

but we tend to get frustrated and lose our patience with people for saying things to us or doing things uh...

01:49:12

and i'm and i'm talking about uh... obviously we were all rightly going to be uh...

01:49:18

filled with righteous indignation and and so on when somebody is doing a serious harm but i'm talking about uh...

01:49:26

the typical day -to -day activity that may upset us uh... just because it is inconvenient to us uh...

01:49:34

but we get upset at these people expecting them to believe in act as if they are christian when they're they're not that they have no heart of flesh they have no indwelling of the holy spirit you know and yet we get angry and impatient with them because we think that they should be behaving as if they are born again right right uh...

01:50:00

or that the difficult topic because you know i have three boys that are none of them have i've been born again at least that i know of at this point they don't have a relationship with faith there's a certain standard that i expect them to live by nevertheless because i've sought to train them and uh...

01:50:18

then they disappoint me here and there and i'm like okay wow so in that sense there is a uh...

01:50:24

a common grace that's got us you know there's a common law written on our conscience there's common grace and there's a standard of morality that to some degree should be expected by the human race and sometimes people sink way below than that which uh...

01:50:39

they should and and but you're right about the fact that in the end uh...

01:50:45

people are going to be selfish and we shouldn't be surprised by that in fact how can they not be selfish even their good deeds are going to be selfishly motivated they can't rise above themselves unless they've been born again so in the end we get frustrated with them but where we really should bend our frustration towards is ourselves because we we who have been born again we have a new nature but yet sometimes in fact

01:51:15

I hate to say many of the times we we fell and we know better and God has given us every uh...

01:51:23

resource available for us to resist temptation and we have no excuses but we find ourselves many times like Thomas we believe that we have doubt and we seek to live holy but yet we stumble many many times so we need to be very humble with others just because we know we need

01:51:46

God's grace ourselves we do have an anonymous listener who asks

01:51:54

I heard you before speaking of people who commit suicide uh...

01:52:00

can a genuine person uh... I'm sorry can a genuine christian who is truly born again commit suicide or do all people regardless of their profession who commit suicide with certainty go to hell if they die instantly or before a an opportunity to repent uh...

01:52:24

very good question and this is hits home because I have an uncle who was a pastor who committed suicide and so it does hit home there are some things that I think we can be agnostic about but hopeful and that would be my position

01:52:45

I will not be able to say anything with certainty but with maybe some hope and uh...

01:52:51

I don't think suicide is a good sign of conversion just like any sin, suicide is a sin and it's a kill, it's murder

01:52:58

God hates it, God hates murder, God hates suicide and so there is no there's nothing we should say that would encourage anybody because I was suicidal in my life

01:53:08

I don't have no time to go into it but I came within seconds of pulling the trigger and so I know what it's like to be suicidal and I believe looking back at that I was a christian during this time so I believe christians can go through a deep deep fall and be under a lot of suppression depression

01:53:26

I believe it's possible for christians to be in such a dark place however that's a state of unbelief and it's not a good sign of conversion but like you said,

01:53:37

I like how you said there's possible that there's time of retentance afterwards and so to me

01:53:46

I'll say let's leave it there and you obviously, when you say afterwards you don't mean in the afterlife there's time for it.

01:53:53

No, not yet. You mean for those who do not die instantly that's exactly right, there's no hope in the afterlife, once you're dead but like I told someone else, as long as there's breath in your air there's still hope of conversion there's still hope to pray for all people until there's no more breath and so so suicide is not a good sign of conversion but don't you think that it really complicates the matter in this day and age of the pharmaceutical way that people can actually be driven to suicide when they're trying to actually help themselves you know, antidepressants and other things because we even hear in the

01:54:41

TV commercials for some of these drugs that they may lead to suicidal thoughts and therefore couldn't even a truly born -again child of God who is just misguided in either how much medication he's taken or changing medication improperly or whatever the case may be or stopping after taking medication for a very long time that a suicide may be something that came about in the mind of that person through the improper use of drugs absolutely because there's two things as I'm thinking about your listeners

01:55:26

I'm thinking of two things, I'm thinking there could be someone who's suicidal that's listening to this and I don't want to provide any motivation to go ahead and do this thing or I'm going to be a

01:55:34

Christian, I'm just going to heaven no I don't want to do that, nor do I want to to be bleak in despair for the mother who may have had a son that committed suicide just yesterday so I'm thinking about both of those as I'm speaking here and we want to keep that balance if your son just committed suicide there's hope, there's hope let's not be just dogmatic about this however if you're out there and you're thinking about suicide

01:56:00

I had someone, let's put it this way I had someone who told me that they were going to divorce their husband and I said are you going to do this and hang on to your profession because you know you're sinning you admit that it's sin to divorce your husband she said yes,

01:56:15

I know I'm wrong in doing it but I'm going to go ahead and do it because I know I'm saved and God's going to forgive me I know God's going to forgive me so I said you're going to hang on to your profession and knowingly, willfully, intentionally not just like flip up and sin but knowingly not follow

01:56:30

God you're going to reject God and not follow Him and you're going to hold on to your profession now I'm not claiming she wasn't a

01:56:36

Christian I'm just challenging her how can you be a Christian and when you knowingly knowingly say

01:56:43

I'm not going to, I'm going to disobey Him so if you're contemplating suicide do not disobey

01:56:48

God you're not, how can you be born again if you don't love God and want to obey

01:56:53

God that's a real legitimate question but for those who, you know, act on impulse quickly, out of pain and various reasons the

01:57:05

Lord knows those cases and like my uncle I by no means am placing my uncle out of grace so he basically is a very tender and difficult subject at least in my mind.

01:57:23

Amen, well it has been a real pleasure for me to have you back on the air with me after the last several years of being on hiatus with Iron Trumpets Iron and just returning to the airwaves in June I'm so glad that you have for the first time come on the all new program after having interviewed you before on the old

01:57:46

Iron Trumpets Iron and getting to know you a little bit and thank you so much for taking the time to be on the broadcast today

01:57:51

Pastor Jeff. Thank you Chris, I appreciate the invitation and enjoyed it. And let our listeners know again how they can contact you regarding Free Grace Press and regarding the congregation that you pastor.

01:58:03

Yeah, you can reach us at gbcconway .com just the email that is attached to that or freegracepress .com

01:58:09

email attached to that. And I would like the listeners to know that there is a e -version of the book on Amazon if they prefer to get the e -version of the book just go to Amazon and tap in the absurdity of unbelief.

01:58:22

Great, and I also want to let our listeners know that one of our sponsors carries the book as I mentioned earlier,

01:58:30

Solid Ground Christian Books in Birmingham, Alabama. Their website is solid -ground -books .com,

01:58:40

solid -ground -books .com. And we thank them from the bottom of our hearts for making

01:58:48

Iron Sharpens Iron possible through their financial sponsorship. We also want to thank

01:58:55

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, cv as in victory, bbs,

01:59:02

Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com for mailing out the books that are won by our listeners who send in questions.

01:59:11

Thank you so much, Todd and Patty Jennings at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. I want everybody to always remember for the rest of their lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.

01:59:23

Thank you for listening and we hope that you continue to tune in every day, Monday through Friday, four to six p .m.

01:59:29

Eastern time to Iron Sharpens Iron. Don't forget, next Monday we have Todd Freel of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV returning to Iron Sharpens Iron as a guest.