Witnessing to Skeptics

Cornerstone Church

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It is awesome to be with you, be with you today. I've looked forward to what

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I'm gonna share with you. I'm gonna share with you what I've learned over the last six years in interacting with skeptics.

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And I'll use the term skeptics interchangeably with the term atheist. And of course,

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I'm talking about professing atheist because we know that everyone actually knows that God exists. Where I'm gonna go is

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I am going to share with you three keys to witnessing to skeptics. And then

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I'm going to show you three separate ways that you can employ those three keys.

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I'm gonna make it Lord willing so that everyone in this room feels comfortable talking to a super skeptic, the real

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God hater, the one who devotes all their time in their life to atheism.

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I want you to leave here equipped to witness to that person without fear.

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So that's my goal, is to give you an apologetic that everyone can use.

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You don't have to have a degree in theology or be a person from seminary or somebody who studied atheism and philosophy and all these things.

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I'm gonna give you everything you need to witness to every kind of skeptic there is.

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How to witness to skeptics. My history with skeptics started in 2012.

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I, after a long period of not serving the Lord, I was attending church, but I listened to Todd Friel on Wretched Radio and he always encouraged people to take advantage of social media.

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And one thing that he used to encourage people to do is start a YouTube channel. So I started a

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YouTube channel and my goal was to, not primarily witness, but to share my faith with other brothers and sisters.

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There's people in this room who look like me. You're about my age. I wanted to connect with you and just share some of the struggles that I had, some of the things

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I had learned and be an encouragement to you. That was my goal. And my YouTube channel was called

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Have You Heard, playing off my last name. Have You Heard, that was my...

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But do you know what? When I started the YouTube channel, here's a video called

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What I Believe, where I was sharing what I believed. And immediately, I had no clue this was gonna happen, immediately bombarded with atheists.

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It's like they get on their computers and they just search for a Christian to challenge.

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I was astounded by it. I couldn't believe it. I all of a sudden found that I had 30 or 40 followers and I'm looking at the people who are subscribed to my channel, they're all atheists.

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And all these atheist comments, that's not who I wanted to talk to. But you know what?

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I thought, if that's my audience, that's who I'm gonna talk to. And I actually thought that I knew what an atheist was.

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One of my first videos, I think it's down now, was how can you say you're an atheist? Have you looked everywhere?

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But they get out of that. They have come up with a new definition for atheism.

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It doesn't mean that God does not exist. That's a strong atheist and they're somewhat few and far between.

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But today the atheists are trying to change all the definitions of what atheists are to non -belief in a

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God or gods. I just don't believe. Trying to pass off the burden of proof for somebody to prove to them that God exists.

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Now, if you look in a philosophy book for what the term atheist means, you'll find that it means the belief that God does not exist.

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However, atheists have an agenda and they're doing very well in getting all the definitions changed to meet the skeptic terms that they want it to be.

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So, have you heard was changed. And I didn't know what

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I would call my YouTube channel. I told you I listened to Todd Friel. And the story's actually a little different than Jeff remembers it.

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I was in New Jersey, I was a truck driver then, I'm still a truck driver and I was in New Jersey and I was listening to Wretched Radio and Todd Friel, y 'all know who

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Todd Friel is, right? Well, if you take my ministry, you take

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Andrew Rappaport's ministry and put them together, you still can't see Wretched from there. Todd is an excellent apologist.

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You should search Wretched Radio, Wretched TV. He does an excellent job.

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And he used to have a radio show on Sirius Radio. And I listened to it and discovered him in my truck.

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I can remember where I was. I don't remember the date, but I remember where I was in New Jersey.

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I was waiting to pick up a backhaul to go back to Syracuse. And Todd Friel was talking about labels.

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He talked about Calvinists. He talked about conservative Christian, evangelical.

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He went down a list of like a dozen different labels. He says, you know, I am a fundamentalist, but there's some things about the term fundamentalist

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I don't identify with. So that's not a perfect one. So he went down all the lists. And then he said, at the end of his rant, he was very excited.

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And he said, I don't know what you should call me. Call me a biblicist. Call me a Bible -thumping wingnut.

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I don't care. And I thought, Bible -thumping wingnut. No one has that name.

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And for sure they didn't. And it's a pejorative. And I embraced it because of all the skepticism

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I was getting. So I said, that will be the name of my YouTube channel. It'll be the

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Bible -thumping wingnut. And what is the issue though?

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What is the issue that we're addressing? We wanna address what the issue is. They profess non -belief or skepticism or some form of atheism.

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The Bible states clearly that God knows they exist. So there's a conflict there.

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And we as followers of Jesus Christ are called to witness to skeptics as we encounter them.

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They profess non -belief, skepticism, or some form of atheism. But why?

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Why do they profess atheism? Six years with interacting with atheists,

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I had hair six years ago. But let me tell you, I learned a lot about their position.

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And hold on to your seats, okay? Can you prove it? Can you prove that God exists?

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The Bible is evil. This is the atheist position I'm telling you. The Bible is evil.

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Why won't God heal amputees? Bart Ehrman is really smart.

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Ken Ham is not. In science, we trust.

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Talking donkeys, really? There's no evidence for God.

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Jesus never existed. On the other hand, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, and Jim Baker do exist.

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What more of a reason do I need other than to reject your God than these types of preachers who steal your money?

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Let's look at the tomb. You Christians cannot agree. Even the authors of the

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Bible couldn't agree. Who was at the tomb? Was the door open? Was the stone rolled away or wasn't it?

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Who went in first? Did anybody go in? Which women were there? How many women were there?

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And who did they tell? The Bible condones slavery.

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God allows suffering for children. Marriage is about love, not gender.

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Children suffer. And I can't believe in a God who lets innocent people suffer and die.

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There is no evidence. Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

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Who made God? Young Earth creationism, really?

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That's completely bogus. Evolution, that's what it's about. Science proves that the evolution theory is best.

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And science, hello? Do you guys even do science? Bible contradictions.

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Don't even get me started on Bible contradictions. Hitler was a

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Christian. Nobody died for our sins. Jesus Christ is a myth.

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Be a thinker, like the thinking atheist. Use your head. You really believe in that Moses story.

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And they arc. Are you serious? That could have never happened. Miracles are superstitious garbage.

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Faith is the most unreliable way to determine what is true. So why would anyone who cares about truth ever rely on faith?

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Atheism is unstoppable. There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

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Is there a God? I don't know, and you don't either. And if you really think about it, folks, atheism just makes sense.

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It just makes sense. Unless. These arguments that the atheists make, they can seem plausible, but they're not because God exists and he has spoken.

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I wanna give every single one of you a free T -shirt. They're on the back wall.

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You don't have to give any kind of a donation. I don't wanna take them home. Grab a T -shirt.

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They say God exists, he has spoken on them. That's what it says on the T -shirts.

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The sizes are right there. Take advantage of those. God exists and he has spoken.

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That is our presupposition. They claim a lack of belief, but God says in Romans 1 .18

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through 20, God says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse.

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Do you believe the Bible? That means that everybody who says they're an atheist, they're just professing to be an atheist.

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All men know that God exists. And if you come in contact with a skeptic or an atheist, for you just to say, you know

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God exists is not the greatest apologetic. I've used it, but it's not the best, even though it's true.

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God exists and he has spoken. So God also says that we are to contend for the faith and to be ready to give an answer.

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So Jude three, you're familiar with that. Contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

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And then another passage we're very familiar with is 1 Peter 3, 13 to 17.

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I like to read the Bible. We're gonna do a lot of Bible reading. 1 Peter 3, verse 13.

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Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?

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But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.

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Have no fear of them. Nor be troubled, but in your hearts, honor

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Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for the reason of the hope that is within you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

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For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

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We need to be ready to give a defense, even to the skeptic that hates

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God, that wars against him, that spends his whole life trying to suppress the truth, and in one way tries to do that by mashing down everyone else's faith.

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If they can cause you to doubt your faith or to abandon your faith, that helps justify in their minds their own lack of belief.

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Three most popular ways to respond to atheists. My favorite one for a long time was just to avoid them.

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Maybe that's what you wanna do, just avoid them. But God's called us to engage, and there are many different ways that we can engage.

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There are many different apologetic methods, and I wanna talk about a few of them.

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One is evidential arguments. Evidential arguments are arguments that go outside of the

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Bible in an attempt to prove the Bible. They go to archeology, they go to all kinds of physical evidences to support

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Scripture, to give evidence for the reliability of the

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Bible, for Jesus, the New Testament, and even for miracles. There are also what we call rational arguments.

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Those are arguments that aren't based on substance, material things, but about thoughts and reason, logic, morality, the conscience, mathematics, people who give those rational arguments.

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And then there's what has been our favorite, presuppositional arguments.

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Presuppositional arguments are different than the other two because presuppositional arguments examine the foundation of the person's view.

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They're presuppositions that are the foundation of what they claim to believe. And a presuppositionalist will show the consistency of the

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Christian worldview and the inconsistency of the other person's worldview. That is the idea of presuppositional arguments.

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I've watched, although the presuppositional apologetic is my favorite, very few people use it the way it should be used.

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And I'm gonna tell you that I have been witness to hours upon hours and hours of presuppositionalists engaged with skeptics, and they are as far as you can get from the

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Bible. They are often theological, philosophical world. I've been blessed to have all kinds of apologists come onto my

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YouTube channel and engage with atheists. For many years, we had atheists come into our

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Google Hangouts and we would engage with them. And I can remember one evening when a certain apologist was with me for three hours one week and two and a half hours the next week.

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And he was talking to some of the most smart, brightest, philosophical skeptics that there are.

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And they had read all the philosophers' names that I can't remember. I mean, all these philosophers from years gone by, all the philosophy books, all the physics and all these things.

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And this apologist, when the skeptic would quote one of these authors, big thinkers from the past, the

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Christian apologist would finish the sentences, would also quote that philosopher from somewhere else where they supported this argument that he wanted to say.

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And for hours, no mention of the scriptures, no mention of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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I'm not saying that there aren't benefits to that type of engagement. I mean, we can strengthen our faith when there is a good apologist who's exposing the folly of the other worldview.

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But don't say you're witnessing, because you're not. That same apologist who was one of the brightest apologists told me within the past month that the best you can expect when you're arguing philosophical points is a tie.

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That's it. And if you wanna watch some YouTube videos, if you find a philosopher who's familiar with the presuppositional argument, it will stop the presuppositional argument in its tracks.

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It'll be a tie. The last way we can engage with atheists is to mock them.

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This is one of my favorites. This is why so many atheists watch my

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YouTube videos. There's benefits for mocking.

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You know those, what was it, 450 prophets of false prophets and the

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Christian prophets saying, where's your God? There's biblical support for mocking the fool.

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The Bible calls him a fool, and some translations even use the word stupid. So let's look at the folly of atheism, shall we?

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These are some videos that are on my YouTube channel. Top 10 atheists of 2012.

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We're actually gonna watch that one after we go through this list here. I actually made a video called

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Stupid Atheist. Maximum stupidity, dumb

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YouTube comments, an atheist can't understand logic, atheists fail, again, atheism's fatal flaw.

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The bizarro world of atheist arguments. You should watch that one. They are really bizarre.

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Matt Dillahunty's been on our YouTube channel quite a few times. He employed what we call the

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Dillahunty Dodge. If you're looking for consistency, don't be an atheist.

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Matt Dillahunty does not know the basics of Christianity. Atheism is a crutch, a fool's heart, and Happy National Atheist Day, also known as April Fool's Day.

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These are all examples of mocking. And this is, let me see if we can get this to play.

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The video of the 2013, I started my YouTube channel in 2012, in August of 2012, and this video we're about to watch,

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I made it the beginning of 2014, I believe. I'm not suggesting for a moment that I can defend the use of reason using reason, not by circular reasoning or any other sort of reasoning.

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In fact, I'm pointing out that whoever would undertake that task is misapplying his reason.

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If I look at a beer glass and photons bounce off the glass and go through my cornea and elevate my retina and just sets off a chain reaction through my optic node and into my visual cortex and it cascades out into the rest of my hierarchical regions and stuff like that, and this results in a visual experience of a beer glass,

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I'm not suggesting for a moment that I can defend the use of reason using reason. Then my belief and that visual experience of the beer glass is caused by the beer glass.

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There is an objective state of affairs that connects my mental state to that, not by circular reasoning or any other sort of reasoning.

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If my metaphysical picture is true, then I know what I think I know. At one point, truth was that the earth was in the middle of the sun and the stars went around that.

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And for a while, that was true. Could you be wrong better than you think? No. Yes. Could you solve some of the idea of your own?

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Absolutely. Everything could be the wrong side. Personally, I don't put much stock into the reliability of my primate brain's intuitions to assess the ultimate nature of reality.

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Could you be wrong about everything you claim to know? Absolutely. How do you know that your reasoning about anything is valid?

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It's not valid. Do you need logic for proof? No. I'm what's called a moral nihilist.

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That is, I believe that there are no truths about morality. Are you claiming to know the absolute truth is not being honest?

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I do know that for certain. Yeah, that's been there for certain. There's no doubt about that. No room for error on that one.

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I am brave enough and honest enough to admit to myself that I could be living in a computer construct. We could be living in a

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Sims universe where nothing comes our way, but who knows what might be a more just evolution?

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How to do this? Always objectively do more than you must ask.

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By whose standards would we do pedophilia? To anyone outside my own consciousness,

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I cannot give definitive evidence for anything. How do you know that anything exists outside of your consciousness?

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I don't. And in the same way that I know I exist, that feeling is real to me.

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Now, let's be clear. It doesn't mean my wife exists. So you just think you have a loving relationship with somebody who might not exist?

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Exactly. You can't know of anything that exists outside of your consciousness. You believe that. Absolutely.

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Are we even holding this conversation outside of your consciousness? I don't know. Okay, and how do you know that your reasoning is able to bring you to proper conclusions?

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Well, number one, I never claimed that it could. If you want something that is objectively good value for humans, the closest to it

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I could suggest would be the creation of an incurable, highly contagious, and fatal human pathogen.

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It's such a self -insulting and contradictory position to be a nihilist.

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Well, that must have been true. Yeah, that's fine, but that's not a problem to nihilism.

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It can be a problem to axiomatic worldviews, right? But I accept those worldviews, so that's not a problem.

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Why? Is it too negative? A nihilist, like, I accept them, but why would you accept anything?

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Why would you accept or not accept anything? Because there's no reason not. How can you say Christianity is wrong from that position?

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When did I say it was wrong? Can you say something that's wrong? Uh, I don't say the precept is yours, but I think it's required as it's due to their belief.

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Why does consistency matter in your worldview? Well, consistency doesn't matter to me. Scriptures say that when a man denies the existence of God, that as they believe themselves to be wise, they become like fools.

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Some of us would rather not pretend to have a complete, consistent worldview.

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We'd rather have an incomplete, inconsistent, uncertain belief set. Okay, I think we're done here.

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Now, that's fun, but it's not witnessing. There's room for that, and it'll gain an audience, and you'll get more skeptics mad at you, and a bigger audience when you do share the gospel, but it's not the best method.

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The three most popular ways to respond to atheists, avoid them, engage with them, or mock them, but I'm here to suggest that even the evidential arguments, the rational arguments, and the presuppositional arguments, the way they're used, they're not used in a biblical fashion, and I believe that for the most part that they fail.

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Let me tell you what I'm talking about, why they fail. Why they fail.

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They fail because evidence is not the issue. Evidence is not the issue.

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Even if we convince them of some of our points, it can only make God more likely.

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We are not presenting a God that is likely. We are presenting the crucified creator of all things,

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Jesus Christ, who upholds the universe. I was appalled when another apologist,

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Frank Turek, who's really popular, was on the Unbelievable podcast debating an atheist from overseas, and the atheist challenged him, and Frank Turek said that he's not arguing for a

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God that he knows to exist. He's arguing for the possibility of a God. I'm like, really?

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They're like, don't you read your Bible? Do you believe the Bible? Evidence is not the issue with the non -believer.

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Everything is rejected. Exposing their folly and leaving them speechless.

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That video showing the dumb things that skeptics say, they're okay with that because they're not saying

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God exists. They will reject everything. Recently, and Andrew shares this on his podcast,

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Matt Slick was talking to a skeptic, and the skeptic realized that Matt had him cornered in the discussion, and the atheist would not admit that babies exist.

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Babies, like babies. Because, and did that skeptic get shunned by the atheist community?

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No, not at all. They will reject everything. Moral debates, the truth for many of them can't be known.

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Knowledge claims, I could go on and on. You saw it on the video, the things that are on my notes.

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Anything but God is what they'll believe. Anything but God. There's another clip

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I want to play. It's not as long. It's only about a minute and a half. It's a matter of evidence. And when

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Matt, one of the strongest arguments, evidential arguments for the scriptures is fulfilled prophecy.

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The fact that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, it's divine intervention. It can't happen without it.

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So Matt Dillahunty is like superstar skeptic, right? I mean, almost everybody looks up to him.

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He's making a killing, living, traveling around the world, warring against God, and people hold him up as a really smart guy.

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What does Matt Dillahunty say about fulfilled prophecy? Efficient evidence.

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We talked about, I heard a little bit about prophecy today, and wow, there's way too much, how much time do I have?

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We're almost getting to 10. Oh, minus to 10, wow. So on prophecy, I'll just say, there's lots of disputes about prophecy, and if you want to find out, like, talk to some

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Jews about why they don't accept the Messianic prophecies, et cetera, and I'll let the different doctrines dispute those things.

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But the fact that a prediction or a claim ultimately came true does not tell you why it came true.

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It doesn't. Where there was an assertion today that the best possible, the only remaining explanation is that this was

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God. I don't know how he concluded that. Look at any given claim, how did you determine that it wasn't luck?

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Probably not. It wasn't a wild guess. It wasn't an educated guess, especially if you're making a prediction about war.

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It's just a few years before the war. If there's turmoil, that seems to be kind of an educated guess. We haven't read about time travel.

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I mean, everybody's gonna go, what? Time travel? Are you nuts? I don't know that it's impossible.

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I don't know what the explanation is for why a particular claim may or may not have come true. And when people claim that they do know why,

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I want to see the evidence for why that is. And if the... Time travel.

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Bronze Age goat herders were time traveling machines. Bronze Age goat herders, that's what they refer to the saints who wrote scriptures.

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So now they can have time machines. So anything but God.

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Dillahunty demonstrates that very well. Anything but God. And my final point on this is destroying their presuppositions doesn't change their minds.

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And this is why I say, although I love the presuppositional argument, many times it's not effective.

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When How to Answer the Fool came out, how many of you know who Saiten Bruggenkate is and how to answer a fool?

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This is why we have apologetic conferences here. So people, we can tell you. Saiten Bruggenkate made in the decade that we're in now,

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Saiten Bruggenkate popularized the presuppositional argument tremendously when he came out with a film called

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How to Answer the Fool. And he showed how to employ presuppositional arguments to skeptics.

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And I was on YouTube at the time, and I had him on. Some of the clips from the 2013 atheist highlights,

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Saiten Bruggenkate was in it. He was the apologist talking to the skeptics, having them say all kinds of crazy things.

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Now, before Saiten Bruggenkate came on YouTube, on social media, it was normal for atheists to say,

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I don't know. Actually, I don't know that anything is true. I might be a brain in the vat.

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I could be wrong about everything. I could wake up tomorrow and realize that I'm not living on earth and that life is some other type of thing.

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That's why that one atheist was arguing for a sim universe. Like there's a higher intelligence out there who has programmed us to experience the things that we do.

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And in atheism, that was the popular view until Saiten Bruggenkate took presuppositional apologetics and introduced them into the atheist online community.

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And it blew it apart. All of a sudden, atheists are like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

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I've got to be able to know something. Otherwise, these Christians are destroying us with their arguments and that's what happens.

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So they don't say that we could be wrong about anything anymore.

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All of a sudden, the debate switched to the primacy of existence. That is the notion that I know that I exist.

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And then the presuppositionalists kind of beat that down too. And then the next argument was, properly basic beliefs.

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Properly basic beliefs, which is beliefs that we just assume because they're properly basic.

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And the presuppositionalists went after that. And you know what the answer was for that? Presuppositionalism is just a silly argument.

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And it's just now agreed upon in the online skeptic community that presuppositionalism is stupid.

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They don't even engage it anymore. This is why I say that destroying their arguments with presuppositional arguments doesn't convert people because it's not an evidence issue.

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It's a hard issue. Another slide on why they fail.

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Why they fail. Even if a miracle happened before these people, they would not believe.

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Matt Dillahunty, his philosophical view is that miracles can't happen.

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That's his assumption. So if anything happens in front of him, well, miracles can't happen. It can't be that.

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So that's why when he's presented with philosophical or with fulfilled prophecy, well, he knows miracles can't happen.

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It can't be that. But I can't tell you why it happened. It just isn't of God. Luke 16, 27 to 31 is the story of the rich man speaking to Abraham.

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The rich man is in hell and he can see Abraham. And you know the story.

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Let me read it. He wanted somebody to go warn his family.

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Go warn my family so they won't go where I am. Warn them and tell them the truth.

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And he said that, I beg you father, speaking to Abraham, to send him to my father's house for I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come to this place of torment.

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But Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.

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And he said, no father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

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He said to them, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if somebody should rise from the dead.

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And I propose to you that that's true. That's true today. How to witness to skeptics.

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That's why I'm here. I might as well get to that, right? How to witness to skeptics. Three keys to a biblical apologetic.

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Three keys to a biblical apologetic. Use the

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Bible. You knew that was coming, didn't you? Use the Bible. You don't need a degree in philosophy, biology, physics, cosmology, or any other field.

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If you did, what would that say about the Bible? Let's read a Bible verse. 2

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Timothy 3, 16. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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What do you need? In order to witness to skeptics, what do you need? You need the

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Bible, and then you're equipped. You don't need a degree. You don't need to understand philosophy.

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I love the presuppositional argument, but it took me a year and a half to understand it. Another Bible verse.

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2 Corinthians 10, three to five. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war against the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but we have divine power to destroy strongholds.

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We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey

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Christ. We're involved in a spiritual battle, and that spiritual battle requires a spiritual weapon, and that is the word of God.

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Another Bible verse. Before I read it, let me say this. We don't want to win an argument.

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We want to win them to Christ. Apologetics is spiritual warfare, thus we need to use, like I said, the spiritual weapon, the word of God.

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Ephesians 6, 16. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

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Spirit, which is the word of God. We're gonna read a lot of scripture now.

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They don't call me the Bible thumping wingnut for nothing. 1 Corinthians 1 is awesome.

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I barely need to give commentary on it. It's so applicable to what we're talking about.

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We've got skeptics. They think we're fools. How should we respond?

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1 Corinthians 1, verses 18 to 31. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

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So when the skeptic says, you're a fool, that's what the Bible says that you would say.

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For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning

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I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?

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Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

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For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased

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God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. I don't wanna go on the street and preach because they'll say

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I'm a fool. In their eyes, we are. And the scripture says that's what we're doing.

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Don't be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Expect to be called foolish. For the

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Jews demand a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ and Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the

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Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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For consider your calling brothers, not many of you are wise according to the worldly standards.

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And this is a good reminder as we talk to these intellectual skeptics who've studied all these philosophies.

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Consider your calling brothers, not many of you are wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many are of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in this world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human might be able to boast in the presence of God.

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And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the

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Lord. Here's the idea. You go head to head philosophy of philosophy of all that head knowledge that you've learned.

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You go head to head, you can boast in that. I know all these things. I know more than that other skeptic.

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I know more than all these other people. And look at me, I can go toe to toe with all these, the worst of the skeptics,

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I can go toe to toe with them. And an apologist that's been with me for quite a while said,

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Tim, when I was doing that, it was a prideful issue. And in the last six months, he's totally turned around his apologetic from arguing those philosophical points to a biblical apologetic.

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How to witness to skeptics, use the Bible. For those who believe no evidence is necessary.

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And for those who do not want to believe, no evidence will do. Philosophical points for God, this is really, this is true.

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I've seen this. This is what the presuppositional argument did. Philosophical points for God only produced philosophical study, not consideration for biblical truths.

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When Saiten Bruggenke proved to all the atheists that if you're gonna say you can't know anything, then you have no debate.

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Well, then they got together and said, well, we can't say that anymore. So they studied philosophical arguments. They didn't go study to see if the gospel was true.

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Christianity is supernatural. Everyone who comes to Christ does so as a result of a miraculous work of the

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Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit does this work through his ordained means.

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And that's the preaching of his word. I like getting amens, that's nice.

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Three keys, use the Bible. And this is what's happened with our presuppositional arguments.

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They start with scripture. Colossians 2 .3, in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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You can't know knowledge. And then we walk off, we get the response of the atheist, and they say, let's talk about how you can know anything.

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That's called epistemology. But then we talk about truth.

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Then we talk about, can you trust your senses? Can you trust your five senses?

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How do you know that your brain is working right? That's a fun debate to have. Properly basic beliefs can be discussed as well.

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And morality, I like to talk about philosophical morality and how a non -believer can know anything to be right or wrong.

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That's one of my favorite things to do. Talk about logic. Talk about the primacy of existence.

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We're talking about all those things. We started with scripture, but where is the scripture now? I've seen this happen time and time again.

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How to witness to skeptics, three keys. Use the Bible and prepare yourself.

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Prepare yourself. 1 Peter 3 .15, in your hearts, honor

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Christ, the Lord as holy. Prepare yourself. And that same passage that tells us, be ready to give an account.

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We need to prepare ourselves, set our sides, settle our relationship with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Other ways that we can prepare ourself is pray. Thank God for the gospel.

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Preach the gospel to yourself. Don't let sin demotivate you.

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In my life, when I'm struggling with sin, I'm not, I'm the defeated

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Christian. Sin in the life of the Christian is a huge hindrance of sharing the gospel with other people.

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By preaching the gospel to yourself, you can see that even though you struggle with sin as a believer, there are a lot of people out there that are all covered, that you're forgiven.

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As long as we're in this world, we're gonna struggle with sin, but don't let that, the devil uses that.

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Who are you to share Christ? Who are you? Look at the failures that you've had in your life.

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And then pray for opportunities. Pray for opportunities to share Christ. And the third thing under prepare yourself is know the

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Bible. Listen to the Bible. You can listen to the Bible now, you realize that?

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Somebody can read it for you on the internet, on your phone, read the

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Bible, listen to good Christian podcasts, listen to preaching, listen to your pastor, go to Bible studies, know your

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Bible. In order to have a biblical apologetic, you have to know your

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Bible. And you might be saying, I don't know the Bible that well, I can't use your apologetic.

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I'm gonna address that in a little bit. The last thing, three keys.

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The third key is to be nice. Be nice. You wanna reach the skeptics, know your

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Bible, pray, prepare yourself and be nice. Those are the three things.

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And being nice, I say this to myself, I need to be more conversational than combative.

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Just like 1 Peter 3 says, yet do these things, do this apologetic with gentleness and respect.

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Don't let your delivery overshadow the message. And I have seen time and time again, believer on social media give the right message, but the tone that it was given in was just a complete turn off.

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So finally, a biblical apologetic, what does it look like? What does a biblical apologetic look like?

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How is this worked out? I've said, know your Bible, pray and be nice. Know your

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Bible, prepare and be nice. So how does this look? How does this look when you're engaging with a skeptic?

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How is this different than all the other apologetic methods? Answer every rejection with one of the following.

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Okay, so you're engaging with a skeptic and they say something is not true that you know is true.

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And you know it because the Bible says so, right? So no matter what the objection is, remember all those things when

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I was telling you what atheists think about? You can answer every single one of those things with that's not what the

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Bible says. Scripture makes it clear and then tell them what the

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Bible says. The Bible says you're wrong, the Bible says, or what you just said is in conflict with what the

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Bible says. And then tell them what the Bible says. It's that simple.

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The word of God is sufficient. The Bible is

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God's chosen and ordained means of defending himself and his truth. It is inspired by the

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Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit still uses it. But you say to me, but I don't have a lot of the

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Bible stories memorized. I don't have all those doctrinal verses memorized.

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Well, believe it or not, paraphrasing the Bible is okay.

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Paraphrasing, put it in your own words. You know the Bible says that everybody knows,

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I told you that wasn't one of the best ones. You know by what the

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Bible says that because evil exists, that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, okay?

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So if somebody says to you, I don't believe in God because look at all the evil in this world. Well, the

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Bible says that God exists and that evil exists. So God does exist.

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And then you could talk about the character of God. You might not know verses that specifically talk about the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God and the knowledge of God, but you can say, hey,

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I know that the Bible says that God is a good God and that he has a plan and that everything has a purpose.

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Evil has a purpose and it's fulfilling the purposes that God has chosen.

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You don't have to know the Bible. You don't have to know where it's found. The New Testament authors quoted

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Old Testament passages and they didn't quote it word for word. So you can do that too.

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Skeptics are not great intellectuals that need to be feared. I can prove that to you.

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Do you wanna know how easy it is to be a skeptic? It is so easy.

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There are flat earth people today. That's how easy it is.

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And if you go online, you will find a lot of Christians who are flat earthers.

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And when I started my YouTube channel in 2012, there was a whole group of Christians I didn't know it at the time, but none of them went to church but me.

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But I was just happy to be around other Christians. Today, none of them are sharing, I shouldn't say none of them, that's not true.

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Today, a lot of them have abandoned preaching the gospel. They've been beat up by atheism and skeptics and they felt so foolish trying to defend the

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Bible, they didn't know how. So now they've turned the table on the atheists. And they say the earth is flat, prove it's wrong.

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And they reject every bit of evidence that the earth is round. That's how easy it is to be a skeptic.

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That's not compelling evidence to me. I don't believe that. That evidence that you're sharing, that doesn't resonate with me.

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That's how easy it is to be a skeptic. They are not some intellectual great and you have

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God's word on your side. And when they call you a fool and say that you're stupid, that's exactly what

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God said that they would say to you. Hebrews 4 .12 says, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of the spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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What kind of apologetic did Jesus use? When you look at Matthew 6 .29,

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somebody came to Jesus and asked him a question. Jesus answered them, you're wrong because you don't know what the scripture says nor the power of God.

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And then what did he do? He quoted the Bible. You're wrong, that's not what

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God's word says. And then he quoted Exodus 3 .16.

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This is the story when the Sadducees came and asked about the resurrection with the woman who had been married to multiple husbands.

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And they said, whose husband will she be in glory? You're wrong because you don't understand the scriptures.

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And then he quoted the scriptures. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the

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God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Why do we answer the skeptic with anything other than scripture?

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We don't have to. And I'm preaching that to myself.

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And I've only come to this conclusion in the last six months. And in the past, I haven't answered with scripture because they don't believe the

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Bible. But that doesn't matter. I want them to get saved.

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And it's through the preaching of the word of God that the Holy Spirit works in someone's life and converts them.

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How to witness the skeptics. A Christian who knows the Bible and uses it is a better apologist than any highly educated, philosophical scientist, scientific person who doesn't use the

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Bible. So grab your Bible, read your Bible, know what it says, use your

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Bible, and let God defend God. See if I can go to my next slide here.

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Just a little bit more. Another one. That was the first, I told you in the beginning.

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What did I tell you in the beginning? Three ways to employ these three keys to witnessing the skeptics.

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So the first one I called a biblical apologetic. This one is called raw apologetics.

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Another way it works, raw apologetics. Raw stands for a guy

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I met on YouTube. His name is Robert A something.

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Last name starts with a W. This was his apologetic. And he sat in Google Hangout or video chat room after video chat room for hours upon hours listening to all these smarty pants skeptics with all these philosophical degrees.

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And he sat there and he listened and he listened and listened. But he always knew he would get a chance to talk. And what he would do is he would share the gospel and he would share his testimony.

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That's it. He wouldn't present, he wouldn't argue philosophically.

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He wouldn't argue for creationism. He would share the gospel and share his testimony.

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And here's how it would work. Somebody would say, all right, Bob, you're a

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Christian. You know, what do you think about this? We've been talking about evolution and destroying creationism.

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How do you weigh in? Are you a young earth creationist or are you an old earth theist? And he doesn't engage as much anymore but he was a real testimony to me.

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And he had a raspy voice because unfortunately he smoked a lot of cigarettes. And he said, well, it's not gonna help you on judgment day.

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And I'm here to tell you, wait a minute, Bob, wait a minute, Bob, we asked you about evolutionism. I've sat here for 45 minutes and listened to you guys.

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You're gonna listen to me now. You're all sinners and you know it. Let me tell you about my savior.

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I'm gonna read from the book of John chapter three. And he would take five, 10, 15 minutes and share the gospel with them.

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And then he'd say, I'm done. And then they would go on and all their discussion.

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Raw apologetics. You know how you got saved. You have a testimony and you know the gospel.

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That's all you need. Super skeptic apologetic.

01:00:02

This is the one that you've waited for. You have somebody who is a lifetime skeptic.

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I mean, they're not just an atheist. They work hard at being an atheist, all right?

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They are belligerent and they have, I mean, they made a video on YouTube, 78 questions for Christians that they can't answer.

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And they have websites called 450 contradictions in the Bible and all these things.

01:00:35

Super skeptic. And it's just you and the super skeptic. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

01:00:42

And this is something, I don't know if anybody else developed it, but I think it came from my own little brain.

01:00:50

Okay, give me one reason you reject the truth of scripture because it always comes down to scripture, okay?

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I'm telling you, hey, the Bible says this, the Bible says this. Well, I don't believe the Bible.

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So you've got a super skeptic. I don't believe the Bible, I don't believe anything. It's full of trash. You realize how many contradictions are in there?

01:01:09

You realize how much garbage is in there? Have you ever read it? That's what they said to you.

01:01:17

All right, all right, fine. Wait a minute, whoa, calm down. Just give me one reason you reject the truth of scripture.

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Just give me one. Give me one contradiction because a lot of times it's contradictions, right?

01:01:30

Give me your best one. Give me your home run. I mean, don't give me any of your weak arguments.

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Give me your best one. And they'll give me their best one.

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And don't be afraid because every contradiction that they have, there's an answer.

01:01:52

I found this out early on, even though I didn't know the answers, you just Google it.

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Their answers are out there. So I'll ask the super skeptic, confirm with them, this is your best one, right?

01:02:05

Like this one you hold dear to your heart. Like this is the one that's gonna prove that the Bible's false.

01:02:12

And then I'll say, as your best argument, I trust you've researched it a lot, right?

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And they'll say, yeah. And then you say, well, what Christian responses have you found?

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They're gonna give you the apologetic that comes back. They just reject it. And they could say, oh,

01:02:37

I haven't found any that are good. I was hoping that you could tell me. Surely, surely, if this is the one that has really moved your heart, moved your mind away from the scriptures, you know, you've looked it up and you've put it back on them.

01:02:55

I found that I could be in the room with the smartest over matched intellectually and use this apologetic and it works.

01:03:05

And then I ask them before I give them the answer, what difference will it make once I have successfully answered your objection?

01:03:14

And if they're honest, it won't make any difference. And if you do get honest responses, well,

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I just wanna know if you can answer it. And nine times out of 10, they've already heard the answer from somebody else.

01:03:32

I could watch one video of an atheist talking one -on -one with a Christian and use an argument that's clearly false.

01:03:40

The Christian answers it and the guy's, oh, I didn't realize that. But at the next night, he'd be talking to another

01:03:46

Christian and use the same argument. They don't even take it out of their toolbox once it's been debunked.

01:03:55

So that is, okay, the last thing, then answer it with scripture. And many times you won't know the answer.

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Ask them if you can get back to them because this is their best one. Maybe you don't, if you're not always engaging with skeptics, you aren't prepared for whatever one that they might give.

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Then answer it with scripture and let God do the rest. So wrapping it up, they still reject scriptures.

01:04:25

Why are we wasting our time? Aren't we throwing pearls to swine?

01:04:33

That's a good question. You know, why talk to all those people who just hate

01:04:38

God, who war against God? Why do that? But who's listening? Who's listening?

01:04:45

And don't limit what the Holy Spirit can do, but who's listening? And the great thing about social media and videos is that a video that I made with Matt Dillahunty debating

01:04:57

Matt Slick on my YouTube channel many years ago, I don't know, two and a half years ago, maybe three years ago now.

01:05:07

I know through YouTube analytics that the average person who watches that video watches it for 30 minutes.

01:05:14

That's a huge statistic. I mean, that 30 minutes is a long time. That means more than half, well, half of the people are watching it for at least an hour.

01:05:21

So 30 minutes, and within the first eight minutes of that debate, in the introduction,

01:05:28

I give a crisp, clear gospel presentation in the first eight minutes.

01:05:34

And 110 ,000 people have watched that. And probably 100 people every month still watch that.

01:05:41

So who's listening? Remember, our job is to proclaim the truth, not to convince or to convert.

01:05:51

We proclaim the truth. God's word does not return void, Isaiah 55 .11.

01:06:01

Ezekiel 2, when Ezekiel was being called to ministry,

01:06:07

God said, whether they hear or they refuse to hear, they will know that a prophet has been amongst them.

01:06:17

That's all I have. And I hope that was encouraging to you. I hope you feel emboldened.

01:06:26

I guess I do have more. How to witness. Yep, use your Bible, prepare yourself, be nice.

01:06:32

And then I shared those three ways to employ those things. I hope this is encouraging to you guys.

01:06:39

Pray, know your Bible, and be nice, and try to stay away from the mocking.

01:06:46

It's hard sometimes not to mock, but it's not real effective in keeping them talking to you.

01:06:54

Let's pray. Dear Lord, I thank you and praise you for your word.

01:07:00

And I hope, Lord, that I have communicated properly your truths and how you've taught us to engage with non -believers.

01:07:10

Lord, I pray that you would strengthen the saints, give them boldness, help us to rely on your word and not the wisdom of the world, and empower us.

01:07:20

Lord, I pray that you would do wonderful, mighty things through your word and that you would use us.

01:07:28

We thank you for this conference. Lord, I thank you for the folks that are here. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.