Jeff Durbin Apologetics Done Right

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So, you guys know a little bit about me. How many of you guys know about Apologia Radio, Apologia Studios?

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Okay, excellent, good. So I'll just, by the way, have a little more of an introduction as we get started. I'd love to spend time with you guys the next two days just answering questions, spending time with you guys, being an encouragement to you.

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I think it's really, really important that when you do a camp or a conference like this,

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I have a lot of hatred for a lot of what modern evangelicalism is and has become in the

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West in particular, whether it's the United States, whether it's Canada, whether it's Europe, England, anything like that.

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When I talk about evangelicalism in the West, it really crosses all borders and kind of connects to all of us.

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And so I have a lot of hatred for much of what we have become and what we're represented as in the

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West. And one of the things that I struggle with in terms of camps and conferences is

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I talk a lot about the danger of the mountaintop experience, the camp, the conference, you know, where you're sort of making quick decisions for Jesus, not really thoughtful, doing it sort of because the crowd and the crew you're with, your friends.

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And so what I don't want to do is just come all the way out to Canada, honestly, and give a talk and just sort of fill your heads with things.

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And nothing really transforms or changes. What I hope that happens over the next two days is that you really spend time thinking about who you are, thinking about God's word, thinking about Christ.

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I do hope that what you hear from me that is just purely from a man you forget and toss out.

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And I hope that what you hear from God the next two days does impact you and change you, transform you permanently.

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And so I do hope that what happens over the next two days is intimate between you and God, that is transformative, that it really works in your heart.

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And that's important because not only is our individual relationship with the Lord vitally important, the most important thing, who are we in Christ?

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Do we really know Jesus? Do we have an intimate relationship of peace and reconciliation with God?

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But in terms of the culture that we all live in, it is very, very important that we don't just know what we believe, but we know why we believe it.

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And then beyond that, it's very important that we're willing to act on what we know to be true from God.

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So I do hope that what happens over the next two days is not merely intellectual, that it's not just stuff filling your heads, but it's something that connects to you, changes your heart and your mind and transforms you.

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I do hope that what you hear impacts you in such a way that it doesn't just change you, but it transforms you to the degree that it actually moves you out into the world to where God begins to use you for his kingdom, for his purposes, that you become that vehicle, that means for God to actually transform, bring light into darkness in the world.

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We live in a very, very, very hostile culture. I can tell you right now,

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I'm 40 years old. As of this year, I had no idea that this happened so fast.

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When I say that, I just can't even believe that I'm 40 because that is old. There's guys here that are just ancient, right?

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Forty. I'm 40 years old. And that is just it happens so quickly. I know that you hear adults saying that all the time.

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I used to hear adults saying that and thought, no, that's just not true. That's just something old people say. But believe me, it happens much faster than you think it will.

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By the time you get my age, you wonder how did this happen in this way? When I was your age, it just seems just honestly like yesterday

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I was your age. I was thinking about some of these tough questions. Was it raised in a Christian home by any means?

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My house was very hostile to the gospel. Didn't go to church. Wasn't raised in a hearing of the gospel.

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I did not go to camps like this. Never a one. And when I came to Christ, I immediately received a lot of persecution, intense persecution from my own home.

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My father, my sister in particular, atheistic to this day. My sister is a militant, very hostile atheist.

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She's a fangirl of Richard Dawkins. If Dawkins speaks, she'll take an airplane to go fly and listen to him speak.

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He's a famous atheist. So early on, my persecution sort of existed in my home. But I can tell you that not very long ago, the things that we face now as a culture, in both of our cultures, whether Canada or the

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United States, are things that even when I was your age wouldn't have been accepted, talked about, embraced by any means.

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For example, I remember when I was in high school, there were a number of people that we had suspected were homosexual.

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We just suspected it. But they never would have actually come out and said it. They wouldn't have broadcasted it.

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It wouldn't have been something they wanted people to know. Because even just 20 years ago, there was an understanding about particular lifestyles and choices, sexual choices, that you just wouldn't go that direction.

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So that is just about 20 years from where you're at right now. So about 20 years ago in high school, nobody would have come out and just broadcasted that they're homosexual.

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But now we've come to a place in just two decades where homosexuality is not only professed, but it's celebrated.

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It's applauded. And I know in particular, even in your country, in your nation, you can get charged with hate speech, and you can get in a lot of trouble for speaking the truth about that particular lifestyle choice.

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For example, if you're a believer today, preaching from the Book of Romans, Chapter 1, on the issue of homosexuality, you can get in a lot of trouble these days.

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You can actually post that on the Internet, and you can get it shut down. You can get it flagged by Facebook or YouTube or Twitter as hate speech.

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Why? Just for merely quoting what the Bible has to say about that particular sexual choice.

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We live in a particular time today where, of course, in my own country, homosexuality, homosexual marriage, is now the law of the lands.

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Gay mirage is a thing. It is now given by what seems to be divine decree that homosexuality is acceptable.

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Christianity now is relegated to a segment of society that is ultimately claimed to be bigoted, hateful, disagreeable.

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And so we live in a difficult time. And so what I want to say to you is this. What we're talking about today will affect you.

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And this is where it gets down to the nitty -gritty, the most important things. The things that we're going to talk about over the next two days in particular, my own talks, when we talk about apologetics, defending your faith, these concepts, these claims from those around us who are not

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Christian, they will affect you. We cannot be the kind of Christians that say, this is my own little private experience with Jesus, and it maybe doesn't need to affect the world around me, or I can just be

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Christian in my own little bubble right here, and not really be concerned with what happens around me. Let me just say, as you all get a little bit older, all these concepts and truths and claims from Scripture, all these things are going to run contrary to what the world is saying, what the world is creating as legislation around you.

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Let me just say, this is not simply about your own private experience with Jesus, your own personal relationship with Jesus.

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The things we're going to talk about will affect you, will affect your children, will affect your whole life.

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We're in a dangerous place as a church. We used to be, as believers, the culture makers.

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Christians used to be the ones who created culture, who actually beautified the world, changed the world, made it better.

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When the Gospel would come into particular nations that had never heard the good news before, never heard of Jesus before, sometimes we went into very, very hostile cultures.

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Places where if you went as a Christian and told people about Jesus and preached the Gospel, you would die. You would just die.

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You would get killed. It was a very hostile, pagan place. And when the Gospel penetrated that place through risk -takers, godly risk -takers, just like you, people around your age, the

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Gospel would penetrate a nation and it would transform it completely. When the Gospel would penetrate a place, it wasn't relegated as sort of like, these are these people over here doing

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Bible studies in basements. That's their own personal belief. No, we understood the

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Gospel to be the good news of the kingdom, the rule of Jesus. And when Jesus rules over a people, they are transformed, reconciled to God, have peace with God, and then those things begin to change the world around them.

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When the light of the Gospel broke into a place, it would transform that place completely, those people completely.

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Every inch was transformed through the message of Jesus. We have a

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Gospel today. Evangelicals have a Gospel today that is very different from the

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New Testament Gospel, that would be the biblical Gospel, the real Gospel, or even the historic

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Gospel of the church in the past. We have a Gospel that sounds something like this these days.

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Well, you know, you need to give Jesus a chance. Will you try Jesus out?

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I mention this often because it is good to contrast the biblical Gospel and compare it to what the

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Gospel being proclaimed today is. There's a well -known professing believer in California who went on Fox News a couple of years ago at Christmas time.

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And on Fox News at Christmas time, he was talking to people about Jesus. And what he told people was, he said,

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I want you to try Jesus out. Give him a, I think he said, 30 or 60 -day trial.

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Give Jesus a try for 30 or 60 days. Just give him a shot.

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There's this bumper sticker that's all over my country. It is just all over the back of the bumpers of Christians.

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And it says, give Jesus a chance. He died for the opportunity.

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Give Jesus a chance. He died for the opportunity. We talk about the

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Gospel in terms of, would you let Jesus into your heart? Would you give him a chance?

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Will you give him a try? We don't even have a message of Jesus. Oftentimes, as Christians in the

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West, where Jesus is actually Lord, King over everything, where his law is central, where his character is the principium, it's the source, it's the standard, it's everything.

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We don't have a Gospel that actually has Christ as Lord over absolutely everything.

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And so what I have to say to you, I want you to hear this. I am not going to give you apologetics lessons today on defending the faith that are just filling your head with little details, right?

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We can talk about the complexity of the eye, the distance of the sun to the earth, how the earth itself is this amazing, magnificent machine, and if you just move one thing a little degree over, life isn't possible.

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We're not going to talk about those things, although those are great things to talk about as Christians. What I want to share with you in terms of defending the faith is total.

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It's your full commitment, it's your whole life and whole submission of your heart, mind, and soul to God.

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It's everything, all of you. And this is what I want to say is important for you to grab hold of right now in the beginning.

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If we do apologetics to the glory of God, if we do apologetics biblically, then it actually has to transform and shape everything about me in terms of my thinking, everything that I believe, all of my commitments.

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If we do apologetics to the glory of God, it takes the entirety of my person, my mind, my heart, my affections, absolutely everything.

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I have no desire this week to fill your heads with little details and evidences for Jesus and the

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Bible. What I have to say to you and share with you is total. It's a complete and total world view.

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All of my thinking submitted to the Jesus, the will of Jesus.

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So let's talk about, the name of my talk is Biblical Mandate for Apologetics, right? Is that what it says in your paper? The Biblical Mandate for Apologetics.

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Oh, let's pray first, how's that? Let's do that, yes. You guys ready to pray? Yes, all right. Father, please bless,

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Lord, the words that go out. Today I pray, Lord, that you speak through me. Lord, I pray that you would bless, cause me to decrease,

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Christ to increase. Speak by your spirit today, Lord. Prepare our hearts and minds. Lord, I do pray that this would not be the words of a mere man.

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This would not be something that just gets us excited or sort of just motivates us, but is transformative, that changes our minds about how we think about you.

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And I do pray for everyone in this room, Lord, that you would draw them into intimate relationship, a relationship of peace with you, that you fill them with strength, and that you would use them for your glory and purposes.

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In Jesus' name, amen. So the Biblical Mandate for Apologetics. Apologetics comes from, that word

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Apologetics, comes from a Greek word from, say, 1 Peter 3, 15. The Apostle Peter uses that word, and the word is apologia, and the word means reasoned defense.

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We're gonna unpack that in just a moment here. So we talk about Apologetics, we're talking about the art and the science of defending the

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Christian faith. Now, here's what's important to recognize. We use the word

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Apologetics a lot as Christians, and we use it in terms of the defense of Jesus, the

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Gospel, the Bible. But you can be an apologist for anything. You can be an apologist for atheism.

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You can be an apologist for Mormonism. You can be an apologist for the Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society. You can be an apologist for the

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New Age. You can be an apologist for gay marriage. You can be an apologist for socialism.

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You can be an apologist for communism. And so Apologetics is really about the defense of something.

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And we talk about Apologetics, as Christians we're talking about Apologetics to the glory of God. Apologetics that are

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Biblical Apologetics. Now I'm gonna just say something that's a contrast. Listen closely to this. Now, if we do

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Apologetics to the glory of God, if we do Apologetics in a way that is philosophically consistent, that is powerful, that is rigorous, that is intense, that is effective,

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Apologetics are gonna be wrapped up in the Gospel, not as two separate things.

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We oftentimes think about them as two different categories, right? I preach the Gospel to somebody, I tell them about what

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God has done in Christ, how God became man in the person of Jesus, took on flesh, lived a blameless and perfect life that we have not, who died on a cross for sinners and rose again from the dead.

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We think about the Gospel over here, and then we think about Apologetics as a separate category over here.

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Apologetics is that thing I do where I pick up a resource book and I learn a bunch of facts. I gain a bunch of information that I can back up to the unbeliever and I can pull that dump truck open and just open the floodgates and dump them onto the person, overwhelming them so maybe they'll snap and they'll say, maybe

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Jesus is Lord and they'll come to Jesus. But we think about Apologetics, the defense of the faith as separate from the

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Gospel itself. I wanna encourage you to see it this way. If we do Apologetics to the glory of God, if we do

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Apologetics biblically, Apologetics will be wrapped up in the biblical worldview and Gospel.

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They will not be two separate things, they will be inside one another, working together in tandem.

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Apologetics is wrapped up in the Gospel. It's not supposed to be a wholly, completely detached category.

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Next thing. Apologetics is wrapped up in the evangelistic mandate.

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So for example, anyone know the verse Matthew 28, 18 through 20? Who knows the Great Commission passage by heart?

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What is it? Go there for me. You got the, most of you got, absolutely.

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So Jesus, after He accomplishes His work on the cross, after He appears alive and is with His people, we have this beautiful scene at the end of Matthew 28, 18 through 20, where Jesus of course is ascending in fulfillment of all the promises about the

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Messiah. This is something that was actually on the calendar of the Bible. This was going to happen, the Son of Man, the

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Ancient of Days was going to come up, sorry, the Son of Man was going to come up to the Ancient of Days, be presented before Him and given a kingdom, dominion, a glory that would never pass away.

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So that moment in Matthew, at the very end, after Jesus accomplishes all of His work, where He's going to ascend and He now tells

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His disciples to go out now and to preach the Gospel, that moment was on the calendar of God's plan for history.

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So it's actually a pretty epic fulfillment. But it says this, all authority in Heaven and where else?

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On Earth, has been given to me. Now I want you to understand something. This is so critical to understand.

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I think with the crowd we are in right now, most of you will probably have already accepted this, but I want you to know this, it is critical.

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It is so very important in terms of when you see Christians not responding to evil in the world around us.

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It is deeply connected to this little statement of Jesus here at the Great Commission passage.

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Listen closely. Jesus says, all authority in Heaven and, where? On Earth, has been given to me.

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You have to understand something. When we see Christians pulling away from culture, detaching themselves, and seeing the world as its own thing over here, and we're going to be over here in our

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Christian huddle right here, it is fundamentally because many believers today in the

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West believe that Jesus has authority and Lordship in Heaven. Of course,

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He reigns as King there, but this Earth is not something that Jesus is very concerned with.

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Well meaning, Jesus loving, brothers and sisters in Christ, believe that Jesus isn't concerned with the

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Kingdom of this world. The Kingdom of Heaven, that gassy, airy, cloudy place with babies, fat babies with harps on clouds, that place

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Jesus rules over. But this place right here, not so much. And I want you to hear this.

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When Jesus says, all authority, do you know what the word means in the Greek? All! Every bit of it, all of it, all, every inch of it, all authority has been given to Jesus.

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By whom? The Father gave Jesus all authority. Where? In Heaven and on Earth.

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And so Jesus says based on that, all authority is mine. He says therefore go.

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Go therefore, because of this, because I have all authority in Heaven and on Earth, go and make disciples of all nations.

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Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do what everybody? Obey. Teach them to obey everything

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I've commanded you and lo I'm with you always even to the end of the age. That's what Jesus says. So we have to understand that when we talk about this great commission,

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Jesus tells us go make disciples. Why? Because I have all authority, because I'm the ruler of the world in Heaven and on Earth.

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It's all mine. Notice what Jesus says. Has been given to me.

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All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me. Not will be someday given to me.

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But it's all been given to me now. Has been and go now make disciples of all the nations.

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Teach them to obey. So our apologetics task, our defense of the faith is wrapped up in that call to win the world to Jesus.

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To call them to repentance and faith. To disciple the nations. And so the call to evangelism and apologetics are all wrapped up together.

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It's wrapped up in the evangelistic mandate. Now here's where I wanted to stop for a second.

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I thought about what can I do to make sure that I speak to your hearts and minds and give you some encouragement because this is a huge thing to bite off.

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Did you catch that? That you're all heroes in God's story? Did you catch that?

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That each and every one of you is a hero in God's story? In Christ? With the message of the king on your lips?

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That you all are meaningful? Powerful? That you are all the heroes of God's story?

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That he sends his people out into the world to go bring his good news, the good news of his kingdom into the world to win all the nations to God because he owns the world.

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He has all authority. So you are all meaningful heroes.

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Powerful heroes in God's whole story. But I wanted to say, okay, how do

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I give you some encouragement when you're being told to go win the entire world to Jesus?

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All the nations, all the tribes, everybody because he owns the world. He's the ruler of it all. What's the hope you and I have?

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Where's our hope? And I wanted to share this with you. A couple things. If we start in our Bibles into the

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Old Testament, long before Jesus comes to the earth. This is one of the things that got me so excited about Jesus.

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I'm going to share this with you. How many of you guys were raised in Christian homes? Oh, that's awesome. That's so great.

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How many of you guys were not raised in a Christian home? All right. So you and me, right?

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You and me. Okay. So one of the things that got me really excited when I first heard the gospel and was reading the

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Bible, I had not read it growing up, did not understand anything about Jesus really. I remember that when

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I was reading the Bible and I first started going to church at 17 years old, I went to my pastor, like I'm new to this whole church thing, right?

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I'm talking to my pastor and I had been reading the Bible and I remember that this is how little I knew about Jesus. I was talking to him about Jesus and how

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I was telling somebody else about the Lord and I mentioned, and you know I told him that Jesus was

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God and I remember that I looked at my pastor, worried that I had said something wrong. Like did

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I get that right? Like I read that in the Bible that Jesus is God. I saw that there, but I wasn't sure if I was right.

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This tells you how little I knew about Jesus. So I remember when I said yeah and I told him Jesus was God, I looked at my pastor to see if he was like going to smack me or something and he was like yes and I was like okay good.

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Okay. So I picked up this book early on and I was just so excited about Jesus and I read all the

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Old Testament passages that prophesied about Jesus long before he came and it was one of the most exciting things in my entire life that God had laid out this entire picture of Jesus.

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Every detail necessary to know Jesus as Savior and as Lord is written down hundreds of years before Jesus came and I'm not talking about like Nostradamus type prophecies like there's going to be a cool guy, a powerful teacher, he's going to be born of a woman.

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It's like come on like anybody fits the bill with that right? It doesn't work. No. These were so specific down to when, where, how, who, all the details.

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Things that could not be fulfilled in absolutely anybody else. All of those written down hundreds of years before Jesus came and his earthly ministry.

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I was absolutely blown away. It was one of the reasons there was persecution in my own home because I couldn't shut up about Jesus to my family.

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I remember my sister told me at one point she says, if you mention Jesus to me again, I will slap you.

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I couldn't get enough. But one of the things that is so exciting about the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus, it's not just, listen, it's not just Psalm 22 that he'd be surrounded by dogs wagging their heads at him, that they'd be basically dissing him on the cross, that he'd have his hands and feet pierced, that his heart would be like wax, melted within him, that they would divide his garments among them, casting lots.

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Not just all the details of Jesus' passion and crucifixion about a thousand years before that was even a thing.

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Not just details like Bethlehem, that it was going to be God himself, the one who was from everlasting, the eternal

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God, coming to Bethlehem. Not just details about his family lineage lining up completely.

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Not just details about his resurrection and his kingdom and rule. But one of the things that's fascinating to me, has been fascinating to me, is all the promises of the kingdom of God and its success in the world.

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Now I'm going to stop here for one second. This is really important. It's important for us to embrace something.

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Over the last couple of hundred years, there has been a popular view of the kingdom of God and the future of the world that wasn't really shared at all in the history of the

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Christian church. In the 19th century, there was a popular view of eschatology, that's the study of the end times, the future, that sprang up and it wasn't held by any

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Christians in the history of the church. None. Before that, there was a dominant view in my country, in particular, of the future that was held by the

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Puritans and it was a view of success. It was a view of victory in this world.

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Not just at the end of time when Jesus returns, but in this world, total victory of the gospel.

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And where they got that was from the Old Testament promises of the kingdom of God. So as I share with you the

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Biblical mandate of apologetics, I want to give you hope. Hope.

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Not just theory, but hope about what God is doing in the world through his godly, risky missionaries like us.

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The promise of the Old Testament, we can start back in Genesis. And some of you guys probably know this one.

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When God called Abraham to himself and he promised to bless Abraham, he said he was going to bless

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Abraham's seed, that was Messiah ultimately, and that through Abraham's seed, he would have descendants as numerous as the what?

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Who knows? As the stars. As numerous as the stars.

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It's difficult where I'm from. I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. There's a lot of light pollution at night in Phoenix, Arizona.

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So when the city lights are lit up, you can barely see the sky in terms of the stars. You see a few stars here and there, but there's so much light pollution, you can't really see the glory of the sky.

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But when God told Abraham this promise, we didn't have the problem then of light pollution.

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He would have been able to look up, and that promise would have been very meaningful.

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To look up to the sky and see all those stars, it is something that is mind -blowing.

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It seems utterly impossible. When we think about the future of the gospel today through Christianity in the

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West, we think about the gospel as failing. What's the popular eschatological view today?

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What is it? What's that? Dispensational premillennialism.

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Some of you guys, I have no idea what that means. All I have to say is left -behind series. Now do you know?

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No? Good. Praise God. Don't talk to anybody else out there, okay?

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The left -behind series. The popular view today goes like this. The church is going to basically die.

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The church is going to sort of fall off and ultimately not be successful. Jesus is going to return for a secret rapture.

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He's going to snatch us, leaving behind our undies and our shoes in this world, take us out of the world, and the world's going to have seven years of tribulation.

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Now there's a lot of believers even within those camps that believe like sometimes you have to go through the tribulation.

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Some will be raptured in the middle. Some will be raptured at the end. But the point is the church essentially goes down.

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It's not effective. It has no victory. And so Jesus comes to snatch us. There's seven years of tribulation.

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Then Jesus returns again. And there's a thousand year literal reign on earth with Jesus.

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There's some more destruction that happens. And there's another one of these sort of resurrection things that happens and then to the eternal states.

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Now I want you to understand something. When we talk about the future of the world, most of what we hear today coming out of the mouths of popular

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Christian preachers is ultimately defeat. We're going to be defeated.

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It would be great if Jesus returns. I remember that, well not remember, this week, this week, it's something you've probably seen yourselves, something really bad happens in the world.

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Really bad. Something evil happens in the world. And many

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Christians will respond to that evil with come Lord Jesus get us out of here.

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You ever seen that? Awful things happen. Some kind of collapse. Some kind of tragedy takes place.

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And the response is an immediate, Lord get us out of here. We want to escape.

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We want to leave this place. Very different mindset,

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I think, from what you see in the scriptures and what you see often times from Christians in history. It's not an idea of escape.

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It's an idea of let's move with the gospel into victory in that area. We think about the gospel in terms of its demise today.

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That Christians are going to be more and more relegated to the side of society.

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Squished down into insignificance. That the gospel ultimately fails in history.

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And we don't think in terms of the future being like the stars. Countless.

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Countless. Or like the sand on the seashore. You ever pick up a handful of sand?

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Imagine trying to count all those little pieces of sand. God's promise is that Abraham's descendants are going to be like the sand on the seashore.

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That is something you cannot fathom. I cannot fathom. But that was the promise to Abraham.

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Descendants like the numerous of the stars. We think about it in terms of limitless descendants of Abraham.

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Very little. And I want you to think about one thing real quick. Here we're sitting in a room right now in Canada.

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About 2 ,000 years after the time of Christ. How many of you guys in here are

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Jewish? You would say you're Jewish by ethnicity. Anybody? No?

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Not even one. Amazing. Think about this for a second. God promised Abraham, descendants as numerous as the stars, that all the nations, tribes, people of every tongue would come and worship the

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Lord God of Israel because of Messiah. And here we are now in Canada, a bunch of descendants of pagan parents loving and worshiping the

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Messiah, the Lord God of Israel, because of this Messiah. Descendants as numerous as the stars.

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Here's more hope for you as you think about apologetics and what our task is to go into the world to win it to Jesus. In Genesis 49 -10, one of the promises of the

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Messiah is that Shiloh was coming. It's a nickname for Messiah. Shiloh was coming and listen closely.

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Very important. And to him, Shiloh was going to be the obedience of the nations.

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To him, this Messiah was going to be the obedience of the nations.

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That's Genesis 49 -10. Descendants as numerous as the stars and the sand.

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To him will be the obedience of all the nations. Now I want you to think about that for a second now. Genesis 49 -10,

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Old Testament. Now think about what Jesus says in Matthew 28, 18 -20.

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The promise was the Messiah gets the obedience of all the nations. What does Jesus say before He ascends?

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All authority is mine in heaven and on earth. Now make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to what?

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Obey. That was the promise of Messiah. Or how about this? The Apostle Paul, once a hostile person to the gospel itself, tried to destroy the church itself.

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Guilty of persecuting Christians. Confesses that he was trying to destroy it. When he opens up the book of Romans in chapter 1 and he closes the book of Romans in 16.

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Listen to this. He bookends this explanation of the gospel in Romans 1 and Romans 16 with this statement.

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That the purpose, the mission is to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations for His name's sake.

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How do the disciples view our mission as Christians in the world? What do they view it as? Let's start some

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Bible studies in basements. Let's start little Christian clubs and cliques.

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So the mission was bring every nation to the obedience of Jesus. Let everyone experience the peace of God and salvation in Jesus.

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Or how about this one? Daniel chapter 7 verses 13 through 14. For your hope and mine as we go bring the good news into the world.

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Here's the verse from Daniel 7, 13 to 14. It says this. Behold I was looking in the night visions and one like a son of man was coming on the clouds.

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And it says this. He came up. The son of man came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

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And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

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Can I ask you a question as you hear that? Come with me now guys. Real fast. When you just heard

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Daniel 7 13 through 14, did that sound like failure or total success?

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What's it sound like? To him was given dominion, kingdom, glory, everlasting dominion which will never pass away, a kingdom that will not be destroyed.

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Does that sound like victory or defeat to you? Victory. What kind of victory?

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Total victory. Or how about this one? Does anybody know the most quoted Bible verse from the

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Old Testament in the New Testament? Does anybody know what it is? It's one of the most alluded to, quoted in the

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New Testament, quoted from the Old Testament. In other words, it's kind of God's favorite Bible verse.

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Apparently. It was the one that's most appealed to and alluded to New Testament from the

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Old. Anybody know what it is? No? I bet you can quote it though. Do you know it? What's that?

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Isaiah 53 is beautiful, but that's not it's alluded to, yes, but that's not the most quoted verse.

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Psalm 110 .1. Do you know what it is by heart? You got it.

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That's awesome. By the way, I have that shirt too. It's awesome. Bare fruit. I want you to think about this.

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Psalm 110 .1. They were singing these. This is their hymnal, right? This is their hymnal.

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Psalm. Book of Psalms. Psalm 110 .1. It says this. The Lord said unto my Lord, the

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Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand. That's what? The position of authority.

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The ultimate position. Sit at my right hand, Messiah, until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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So in the New Testament, that's the verse that they're all pointing to when they talk about Jesus.

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Does that sound like victory or defeat to you? Victory. That the

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Father is saying to Jesus, sit at my right hand until I make a couple enemies a footstool for your feet.

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No, what's he saying? All your enemies a footstool for your feet. Do you know this?

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In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the Apostle Paul, he quotes from that. You know what he says?

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He says this. Jesus, first century, first century, Jesus is reigning now.

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On his throne, the right hand of the Father, he must reign until he makes all of his enemies a footstool for his feet.

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And then he says this. The last enemy to be defeated is death. So what comes first, guys?

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Every enemy is defeated by Jesus and then the very last one at the consummation is going to be what?

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Death. When will God swallow up death? When will he destroy death?

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Only after the Messiah has placed every enemy under his feet.

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You might be saying this. Who's the enemies? And the answer?

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You. Me. We were his enemies.

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We were his enemies. The Bible says that. We are haters of God, enemies of God, not righteous, not good, no not one, non -God seeking, not able to come to the

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Father apart from being drawn by the Father, dead in our sins and trespasses.

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And so God places his enemies under his feet in terms of victorious salvation and he places his enemies under his feet in terms of actual defeat of an enemy.

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So think about this. What's your anchor right now? When God sends you off into the world to proclaim the

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Gospel and to proclaim Christ's excellencies and Christ as a treasure above all treasures, when

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God sends you and I into the world, what's underneath us? The promise of victory in the world.

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That doesn't mean, listen closely, hear me on this. It doesn't mean that there's not going to be suffering and difficulty and hardship.

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It means that ultimately Jesus has total victory. Or how about this one? Christmas verse, famous Christmas verse, it's on cards all the time.

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Isaiah 9, 6 through 7. It talks about a promise about 700 years before Jesus comes.

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A promise about the one who's coming. It says that the son is coming, a child's going to be given, and it says this.

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He will be called wonderful counselor. El Gibor, which means in Hebrew, the mighty

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God. Did you catch that? Jews who believe in only one eternal

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God, only one God, wrote down in Isaiah chapter 9 that this one who's coming is

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El Gibor, the mighty God, the father of eternity. God himself is coming as a son and as a child.

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That's about 700 years before Jesus. You cannot get more specific than that in terms of person.

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Who's the Messiah? God himself is coming as a son, as a child,

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El Gibor. Did you catch this part? Watch this. Here's what we usually forget about on that Christmas card with that verse pasted on it.

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Not only is God coming as a child, but it says this. Of the increase of his government and reign there will be no end.

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So it's this kingdom that increases and increases and increases and increases. There'll be no end.

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And it says the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. How do you and I know that we have victory in terms of Christ's kingdom ahead of us?

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Because the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Listen, he's bigger than you.

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He's bigger than your failures. He's bigger than your weaknesses. He's a much better Savior than you are a sinner.

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And the future of the world and what God is doing in it to completely swallow up all this sin and all this death in victory.

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What God is doing in the world, he does through his people. And the promise is that he is going to win the world to his son in total victory.

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And so that's the hope you and I have underneath us in terms of when we think about defending the faith and the gospel.

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Know this, that you and I are these little parts and pieces to God's amazing story.

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All meaningful. All significant. All very, very important.

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Let me share something with you in terms of how everything matters. I'm doing this message a little differently by the way than I normally would for like a sermon.

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I like to interact with you guys. So after the message I want you guys to ask questions. But I want you to think about something in terms of how everything matters.

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Every detail of God's plan, in God's story, matters. Every single one. If you move even a hair, a hair, it changes everything.

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My son was asking me, this is my son Stellar by the way, I think he asked me last week, he said,

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Dad, do you think anybody will ever invent a time machine? Which is a good question, right?

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You ever thought about that? Like is it really possible? Here's what I think personally. I think maybe it would be possible to create something like that, but I personally don't believe that God would ever allow it to happen.

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Here's why I don't think God would allow it to happen. Because God says in his word, listen, that he decrees the end from the beginning.

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And he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and no one can stay his hand and say, what have you done?

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God controls every single detail in history. Everything.

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Sovereign God in control of, right? But here's what's crazy. Why do I think nobody could go back into time and mess around?

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Because any movement the wrong direction changes the entire course of history.

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Literally, if you push somebody in the wrong direction so they don't go to that town to meet that woman they were going to get married to in that moment, that literally alters the course of all of human history.

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Every single thing matters in terms of what God is doing in the world.

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So listen, my story is not very important, so I'm only going to use it. I'm sure we can use lots of your stories here, but I just want you to think about something in terms of how everything matters.

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Every detail. The biblical mandate of apologetics, defending the faith, proclaiming the gospel, every detail counts.

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A couple years ago, I was pastoring at a church and we really felt like God was calling us to make a move, and so a couple churches across the country were sort of asking me if I would be a pastor at their church.

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So one of these churches was in South Carolina. So I went out,

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I met with them for about a week. We picked a house to live in and we were ready to move.

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They were 100 % unanimous. Jeff, you're our guy. We are all in agreement.

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Search committee was a church of like 5 ,000 people, a really big church. They said it's unanimous. You're the guy.

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Absolutely. No question. They said this. You give us the call, we'll send the tickets and send the truck and move you across country from Phoenix to South Carolina.

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That's a big deal. That's a big move across the country. So my wife and I boxed our entire house up.

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Everything was in boxes. Everything. Literally down to our silverware. We were eating off of paper plates and plastic utensils.

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I was saying my goodbyes to everybody and we, as far as we were concerned, were moving to South Carolina.

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And then I got a weird phone call one night as we were getting ready to move. And it was a buddy of mine who was the

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CEO at a drug rehab, a hospital. He said they lost their chaplain and he was wondering if I could come and I could preach that night to this room full of drug addicts who were detoxing at the hospital.

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And so what I thought was you mean there's a room full of people that can't leave and I can talk to about Jesus?

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Yeah, I'll do that. Now here's what you don't, I don't want to go into the details here too much, but I actually had a profession of faith early on.

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I went into drug and alcohol addiction. I was addicted to ecstasy. I was addicted to cocaine and pills and alcohol and all that and God delivered me from that and saved me from it.

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So that was in my past. So when he said do you want to come to this drug rehab and preach to a bunch of addicts?

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I said yeah, I'll do it. All I intended to do is go for that one night, preach the gospel and then that's it.

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I'm moving to South Carolina. So I go to the drug rehab that night. I'm sitting in front of a room of people who are all suffering and struggling, many of them on detox medications.

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So some of them are just sort of out of it, not really listening. And so I preached the gospel that night to a room full of people that were me.

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I was them. I was, I had experienced what they did.

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And that night as I preached the gospel to this room of like 50 people, so many of them came to Christ right there on the spot.

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Lives transformed even to this day. I know them today. That something hit me that night.

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My house is boxed up. I'm eating off paper plates. I'm getting ready to move across country to South Carolina to be a pastor there.

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And now I'm sitting in a room with people who all have come to Christ who need a pastor.

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And I asked the guy at the hospital, you mean this happens every night? He said we get new patients every single day.

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I said every day you got people coming in here struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. You let me preach to them. He said yes, but he wasn't offering me a job.

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I had already given up everything for income for my family. I had my son. He was a baby. I have four children.

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I'm a father, a husband. I have a family to take care of. I got a job offer waiting for me at a big church.

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It's an excellent opportunity. And I felt this deep conviction from God. He's up to something here.

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So I called the church and I said, guys, I don't know how to explain this to you, but I can't come. They said, what do you mean?

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I said I can't come. I don't know what's going on. I got this opportunity to preach to this drug rehab.

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It's not a job offer, but these people need Jesus. And the guy who was the head of the search committee said to me, you know what,

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Jeff? This is the weirdest thing ever. I'm your biggest supporter. And if you say the word, we're sending the tickets.

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But man, I'm telling you right now, something God is doing in my own heart is telling you to stay. And so I did.

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I took a huge risk of my life, my family, my ministry. No offer or potential for anything in the future.

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And ended up being, I was the chaplain at that drug rehab for four years full time. And then

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God called me to plant Apologia Church. We planted the church. All people coming out of drug and alcohol addiction.

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Early on in my state, Arizona, when people talked about Apologia Church, they called it that drug church.

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Because everybody at Apologia Church was coming off drug addiction. Ecstasy, cocaine, pills, alcohol.

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If you came to Apologia Church, you might be kind of shocked because you come in and people were all tatted up.

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Sometimes over their whole bodies. They got earrings in their nose, gauges in their ears. It looked like a scary crew.

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It did not look like a, it didn't look like a church. It looked like an AA meeting or something. It was pretty intense.

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But I want you to hear this. God had one little move in my life.

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I didn't go to South Carolina. I stayed where I was, which led to thousands of people coming to Jesus out of drug and alcohol addiction.

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But then it changed. Then as we stayed in Arizona, ministry started happening at Apologia like End Abortion Now.

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It's our ministry in the area of abortion. Where we go to abortion mills to preach the gospel and to offer love and hope to the mothers and fathers who are thinking about killing their children.

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And so what we did is we ended up watching God save over 100 children from death at the abortion mill.

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I've held some of these babies in my arms. Some of these babies are running around Apologia Church on a

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Sunday. Lives. Because we preach the gospel at an abortion mill. And as a result of our church doing this mission, we've created a bigger mission that includes over 250 churches across the country now.

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And so literally this day, right now, children are being saved in your country and mine because of what

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God did through End Abortion Now. So today there are thousands of children alive today because of a ministry.

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Now watch this. One degree the wrong direction. What if I had stayed?

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What if I had stayed in South Carolina? What if I went there instead? That ministry,

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I can assure you, would not have started and these lives would not actually exist today.

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One hair the wrong direction. One move. One difference. One change.

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Everything counts. My purpose in telling you that is this. God is going to bring the gospel around the world.

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He's going to transform nations and he does it through you. Every single detail matters.

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Every time you and I open our mouths for the truth, it matters. Either for God's grace and salvation or for God's judgment.

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It all matters. Let's go here. I want to lay all that down for you all. Before we get into the details, the next session we're going to talk about apologetic methodology in terms of how do we do this.

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I want to lay the foundation. So go to your Bibles real quick. By the way, how much time do I have? We have a 15 minute break for Bibles.

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That's okay. Oh, perfect. So that will leave me just enough time to do this. 1 Peter 3 .15

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1 Peter 3 .15 And then a 15 minutes and I go again, right?

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Perfect. Okay. 1 Peter 3 .15 Here is the charter verse of Christian apologetics.

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I'm sure many of you know it. Maybe by heart. 1 Peter 3 .15

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But in your hearts, I'm reading from the ESV by the way, ESV. But in your hearts honor

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Christ the Lord as holy. Some of your translations may say set Christ apart as Lord.

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Sanctify Christ in your hearts as Lord. Always being prepared to make a defense, an apologia to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

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So here you have the apostle Peter. What's he famous for? Think about this for a second. What's Peter famous for?

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Putting his foot in his mouth. How does he do it? Give me some examples of how Peter does something stupid.

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Yes. Cut the guard's ear off. Cut the guard's ear off. Right? He thought somehow that's how the kingdom of God advances.

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He denies Christ. So here, watch this. Here's a guy who's famous in history for good.

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For denying Jesus when Jesus needed him most. Here's a guy, watch, who did not defend

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Jesus when Jesus needed him most. He has a massive failure on record for good in history.

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A failure where he didn't have the courage to say what needed to be said in that moment.

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He's not a giant. He's not. He's not some amazing, courageous, indestructible man.

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He's a believer who was changed when Jesus needed him most. He said he didn't even know him.

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He denied him completely and didn't want to even be associated with Jesus. That's how grand a failure there was with Peter.

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Do you have failures in your life where you feel like you should have spoke up and you didn't? Moments where you could have defended the truth, proclaimed

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Christ, and you didn't? Peter is with you. He's right in line. Now, something happened near the end of his life where he was so changed by Jesus and what he knew to be the truth, that near the end of his life

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Peter says this. Guys, set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts.

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Sanctify him. Set him apart as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready to give an apologia, a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that's within you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Here's a man that after he was transformed by Christ and saw him alive from the dead, walked with him after he was killed on that cross, he says, brothers and sisters, make him

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Lord. Set him apart as Lord. Always be ready to give an apologia, a reasoned defense for everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and with reverence. Gentleness and respect.

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So next session we're going to talk about how do you do it. What's the methodology? How do we defend the faith?

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When we do this next session, I'm going to encourage you guys, I'm going to talk through apologetic methodology.

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Think of some questions you'd like to ask and I'll try to give some time near the tail end for you guys to interact a bit. Okay, sound good?

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Yes? Let's pray. Father, please bless what went out. I pray that you'd bless our hearts and minds to be receptive to your word.

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I pray that, Lord, you would excite us and encourage us about going to proclaim the good news. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Thanks, guys. Okay, thanks very much,

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Jeff. Alright. Alright, guys, so let's pray.

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Father, I come before you, Lord, and ask that you would move and teach,

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Lord, by your spirit, Lord, change our minds and our hearts. Bless us as we seek to defend the faith in a way that honors you, that glorifies you,

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Lord, as effective, as consistent. Help us, God, to submit to your word and be transformed by it.

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I pray that, Lord, you would allow this not to be just an exercise of the intellect, but, God, you would cause us to love you more through what we learn here about your word, about the truth.

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Lord, make us effective defenders of the truth. Speak through us, Lord, to the world.

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Let your words be fire in our mouths, and let the world be wood. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So, if you would, go back to your Bibles to 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 15. 1

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Peter 3, 15. So, just as a starting point to anchor ourselves in a particular part of the

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Bible, 1 Peter 3, 15, one more time. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, set Christ apart as Lord, as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

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So, a couple things here. If we break this into pieces, first thing, one, set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts.

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When we think about, again, who wrote this, Peter being famous for denying

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Jesus, not being willing to defend Christ, or the faith, or the Gospel, when

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Jesus needed him most. Here you have a man that's been totally transformed. He learned his lesson.

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He's been sanctified. Jesus is to be set apart as Lord. I'm going to say as a first detail about defending the faith to the glory of God, how do we do it?

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I want to say this. Our defense of the faith has to start with submission to Christ as Lord.

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Now this is a really interesting thing to say, because if you think about it in a church context, in the body of Christ, when you and I go to church and we sing songs in praise and worship of God, we know in that moment

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Christ is Lord. He has all our affections. He has all our devotion. Jesus is

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Lord in that moment. When you are in church and you're hearing the preacher give the

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Word of God in the sermon, we all know in that moment this is the Word of God. We're certain about that.

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These are the words of the living God. Jesus is Lord. There's no question. There's no neutrality.

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I want to say this. Hang on to this, because if you get this, you will get everything else I'm saying. We're either going to defend the faith in a way that glorifies

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God and is submitted to His Lordship, or we're going to defend the faith in a way that is actually, listen, immoral.

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You can defend the faith in a way that is not only not effective, but it is also immoral, dishonoring to God in a way that, listen, pretends neutrality.

01:00:03

It pretends to be neutral. And think about this in this context. Have you ever seen a

01:00:09

Christian defend the faith or maybe even been that Christian who goes into a discussion with maybe an atheist and says, yes, maybe

01:00:17

Jesus isn't Lord. Let's see where the evidence leads us. Have you ever thought about a context of maybe even a debate you've seen between a famous Christian and an atheist where the

01:00:27

Christian assumes the position of neutrality and says, you know what, let's see if maybe

01:00:32

Jesus is Lord. Statistically speaking, what do you think is best? If we take all the evidences and pile them up on this side, is it enough to outweigh the evidence against God's existence and Jesus being

01:00:45

Lord? Like, where's the most, let's see if we can maybe be neutral and then work the scales to see where the evidence takes us.

01:00:54

I want to say that if you start with this one passage about defending the faith from the

01:01:00

Apostle Peter, he says, to set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts.

01:01:06

So what's the position? What's the posture that needs to be taken in terms of actually engaging the world with the truth?

01:01:14

It's this. Start with setting Christ apart as Lord in your hearts.

01:01:20

He is Lord. We're submitted to Him. We're not neutral in this pursuit of defending the faith.

01:01:26

Next point. Always being ready to give an apologia, a reason in defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

01:01:38

I'm going to say this. That's a lot to bite off. Everybody? Everyone?

01:01:45

Every single person? What about like Buddhism? I mean, do we know a lot about Buddhism? Hinduism? How about the

01:01:51

Rosicrucians? How about Christian scientists and Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and agnostics and atheists and solipsists?

01:02:00

Everyone? I have to be ready? That's a command? To be ready with an apologia for everyone who asks me a reason for the hope that's within me?

01:02:08

That's what the Bible says. Set Christ apart as Lord. Be ready with a reason in defense for everyone who asks you.

01:02:15

And here's the next part that is often neglected. Do it with gentleness and with reverence.

01:02:22

There's a lot of examples out there. You can find people who profess faith in Jesus who are abusive.

01:02:31

Let me just say this. If we are abusive to people as we defend the faith, it demonstrates internally that there's something we don't understand about the nature of the

01:02:43

Gospel, God's grace, and how we came into a relationship with Jesus in the first place.

01:02:48

Can I just say this to you? The Bible teaches us, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 through 10, by grace are you saved, who can finish it?

01:02:59

Through faith. And that, the grace and the faith, not of yourselves.

01:03:05

It is the gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast.

01:03:11

The Bible says Philippians 1 .29, to you it has been gifted. Listen, listen. To you it has been gifted.

01:03:17

It's a gift with a big bow and it smells like Christmas. To you it has been gifted not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for his sake.

01:03:29

Bible says that those two things are gifts from God. That's a gift from God to you. One, to believe in Jesus is a gift from God.

01:03:37

Two, to suffer for Jesus sake is a gift from God. Most of us will say, what?

01:03:42

I'll take the first one, you can keep the second one, right? I want that gift of faith to believe in Jesus.

01:03:48

The Bible says that there is no God seeker, none righteous, none who does good. All of us have turned aside.

01:03:56

There is no fear of God before our eyes. The Bible teaches that we are in this relationship of peace with God, because God set his love upon us, because God opened our eyes to the truth.

01:04:06

He opened our ears. We believe in Jesus, not because we're smarter, not because we're better, not because we had better parents.

01:04:15

We are in Christ because of God's grace, because of his love, because of his mercy. Don't listen.

01:04:21

Don't get jaded by that. Don't become indifferent to that. My fear for kids raised in Christian homes is that you will, because you've been raised in a

01:04:30

Christian home, become jaded to these glorious truths. Why? Because you've heard them across the pulpit your whole life, because you've heard them in your home your whole life.

01:04:39

So when you hear about the love of God poured out on you, that God loved you so much, that Jesus died and rose again for you, that God loved you and though you didn't deserve him, he opened your eyes to the truth.

01:04:55

My fear is that kids raised in Christian homes can become very, very indifferent to glorious things.

01:05:02

The fact that I deserve condemnation, I only deserve God's justice, not his mercy, and yet he loved me, and he changed my heart.

01:05:11

Not me. He took a heart of stone out of me, and he gave me a heart of flesh.

01:05:17

God loved me, and he transformed my mind, and he caused me to see Jesus. He granted me repentance.

01:05:23

If we understand that context, then when we actually engage with somebody who doesn't know

01:05:29

Jesus, we can be gentle. We can be gracious. Why? Because I'm not the one that's going to win this person to Jesus.

01:05:38

God uses me to bring his truth, which he empowers by his spirit, to open the eyes of the blind.

01:05:46

What am I? I'm a means that God uses, a tool that God uses to bring about life in another person.

01:05:54

How do we do this with gentleness and with respect? I believe that we can do it with gentleness and respect if we start, listen, with Scripture and what

01:06:03

God says about me and you and how God saves people. Romans chapter 1, verse 16, says this.

01:06:10

It says the gospel, the message of the good news, is the power of God for salvation.

01:06:19

It's what God uses to bring people to life. Not you. Not your fancy philosophical footwork.

01:06:27

Not your newfound theological knowledge. But it is the good news that God uses to bring people to Him.

01:06:36

And that's why we need to focus in upon the gentleness and reverence. Because it glorifies

01:06:43

God to love neighbor as we love ourselves. And listen closely. Gentleness and reverence is the command of Scripture.

01:06:55

I have so many stories I can share with you guys, but I'll just share this one. I was outside of an abortion mill some time ago, and we were at an abortion mill in a place called

01:07:06

Glendale, Arizona. It's actually a really hostile place to be.

01:07:12

If you've ever seen any of our videos where we go out to do evangelism at the abortion mill, you know that it's pretty intense.

01:07:19

You get people throwing stuff at you, people that threaten to kill you. We received death threat last week.

01:07:25

People have tried to run us over with their cars. People have thrown things at us. People have attacked us.

01:07:30

My friend was out saving lives one day, and a guy came up to him and punched him and knocked him out.

01:07:39

And while he was passed out face down on the ground, the man stood on top of him and continued to punch his face into the concrete.

01:07:46

It's an intense, intense ministry. It is not easy. It is not fun at all.

01:07:53

But it is glorious when you see somebody's heart changed and the life saved.

01:07:58

It's worth your whole entire life. One day we were outside of Glendale, this abortion mill, and this atheist was there, and he had dropped off his friend, a woman, who was there to kill her child.

01:08:12

He decided to stay to engage with us, to fight with us, and he told us that he was staying for the sole purpose of making our lives difficult that day.

01:08:24

And so he was just rambunctious and rowdy. He was vile. He was loud.

01:08:30

He was a fighter. So I pulled up in my vehicle and I could see my church outside engaging with this guy and I could see it in their faces.

01:08:39

They were exasperated. This guy was intense. So I get out of the car and I walk up and all

01:08:44

I hear is him yelling and him cursing and him fighting. And I could see the faces of my people.

01:08:51

They were just exasperated. They were completely tapped out. This guy was wearing them down. So I came up to him and I started engaging with him.

01:08:59

He was an atheist. I said, well, what's wrong? He said, what you guys are doing here is wrong. It's evil.

01:09:05

You guys are manipulating these women. You shouldn't be here and be doing this. So I asked him, are you an atheist?

01:09:11

He said, yes. I said, so it doesn't really matter, does it? He was like, what are you talking about? I said, well all of us are bags of biological stuff.

01:09:18

Our ancestors were descendants of fish. Our ancestors were highly evolved societies of bacteria, right?

01:09:25

He agreed. I said, so great. So there's no problem here, is there? And he got frustrated.

01:09:32

So now we're engaging and he's throwing stuff out and I'm just taking his legs off. He's throwing stuff out and I'm taking his legs off and he's finally having to admit, yes we're all the descendants of bacteria and he said, but I really am mad about this.

01:09:47

I said, well you're just fizzing. Chemically. All you are is a bag of sensations and you're just making noise right now, right?

01:09:57

Noise is coming out of your mouth because chemicals are going off in your brain but the chemicals going off in your brain aren't the same as my brain but it doesn't matter because we're all chemicals.

01:10:07

And he's just frustrated. Every time he would say something I'd cut his legs off. He'd be like, and he'd just try to throw the next one out.

01:10:14

So finally I told him, I said, here's what's wrong is you really do know the God that I'm talking about. You know the true

01:10:19

God. You know the living God. But you're at war with him. It's your sin that's separating you from God right now.

01:10:25

And the reason you're in this complicated and convoluted world view is because you reject your creator and you opt for something that is substandard, that is false.

01:10:34

You actually have grabbed ahold of a world view that says that you came from the slime and yet here you are standing out here complaining about what other descendants of slime are doing.

01:10:46

I said, well it shows that you know the living God that I'm talking about. And your problem isn't intellectual. Your problem isn't a lack of light.

01:10:52

Your problem is you're at war with God. And you need to know the gospel. So I called him to repentance and faith.

01:10:58

And after we were all done he said, you know what? He said, I do not like what you're doing.

01:11:04

I disagree completely with what you're doing. I hate what you're doing out here. He says, but I really like you.

01:11:14

He said, I really like you. I just told this man that if he didn't turn from his sin to Christ, he would be judged for a life of rebellion and spend an eternity in hell.

01:11:28

And he told me that he really liked me. Which I think says something not about me, not about my abilities or anything.

01:11:37

It says something about faithful apologetics, faithful evangelism. If you're faithful and loving a person and standing for the truth, the person should understand not only the gospel clearly, and that this is between them and the

01:11:51

Lord, but they should understand that you love them. You care for them.

01:11:57

You are gentle and you are respectful. So the charter verse of Christian apologetics, one, set

01:12:03

Christ apart as what? Lord. Two, always be ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you.

01:12:14

And three, do it with gentleness and what? Reverence. Respect. Very good. So that's the charter verse of Christian apologetics.

01:12:22

I want to just emphasize this. Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. No neutrality. No neutrality.

01:12:29

Jesus says whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever is not with me is against me.

01:12:37

There can be no neutrality with Jesus. No neutrality. Jesus says if you're not with me, you're against me.

01:12:45

The Bible says set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts. There is a moral foundation to Christian apologetics, doing it rightly.

01:12:55

If we pretend neutrality, if we yield to the myth of neutrality, then we will do apologetics in a way that is dishonoring to God and is inconsistent.

01:13:07

So there's a moral foundation. Now I want to point you to a passage here in your

01:13:12

Bibles that many of you are already familiar with. Go to Matthew chapter 7. I just want you to hook yourselves onto this passage in terms of how

01:13:20

Jesus talks about himself and his authority. Matthew chapter 7 verse 24.

01:13:28

Many of you guys raised in Christian homes, you probably sang songs about this.

01:13:36

Matthew 7 24. I still hear pages turning so I'll let you get there. It says, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

01:13:53

And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

01:14:01

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

01:14:08

And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.

01:14:15

And when Jesus finished these sayings, listen closely to what happens. It said, the crowds were astonished at his teaching for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.

01:14:28

Get this, the way that Jesus talks about his words and foundations affected them in such a way that they heard the message and they said, he's talking to us as one who has authority in himself and not like our scribes.

01:14:44

The scribes would preach and they would teach and they would put their words, their message on the back of some other authority.

01:14:51

So they would even quote another rabbi, some other famous rabbi, well that's because rabbi so and so says, because rabbi so and so says.

01:14:59

But Jesus comes in and he says this, everyone who then hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

01:15:09

He says, and if you are not that, he says you will be the foolish man who built his house on the sand.

01:15:16

They said, he's speaking like he has authority. You see, Jesus doesn't base his authority on some other rabbi, some other scribe, some other teacher.

01:15:25

He spoke to them and he said things like, I am the way and the truth and the life, no man comes to the

01:15:31

Father but by me. He spoke on his own authority and he says that whoever hears these words and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

01:15:42

When the rain and the floods came and the winds blew and bear on that house, beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

01:15:51

You see, Jesus says about his words, his authority, you either are going to hear these words and do them and have a house built upon a rock that will make it through the issues of life or you're going to be a person that builds your life on the sand, your house on the sand.

01:16:09

And when the issues of life come and come they will, they will beat on that house and great will be its destruction.

01:16:17

And the people listening immediately understood, he has authority. He has inherent authority in himself.

01:16:25

And so I want to say, if we approach the issue of apologetics in terms of methodology from a position of neutrality, we will be like the person who has a house built upon sand.

01:16:37

Let me just say it this way. You can be a person that uses a lot of really great words. You have a great and excellent vocabulary.

01:16:45

You can sound very intellectual and very rigorous. But if your argument isn't based upon God's truth, if God isn't the principium, if he isn't the source, the reference point, the standard, the foundation, then your argument, your position is essentially on sand.

01:17:08

It's on sand. So let's talk about the myth of neutrality.

01:17:15

You want to write something down? Write that down. The myth of neutrality. Nobody is neutral.

01:17:23

Neutrality is a myth. Everybody has a particular world view, a lens through which they view the world.

01:17:32

Put it in this way. Not everybody has thought about it. Right now, you're thinking about it. You're thinking about it.

01:17:38

You're testing things. You're testing my words. We're going to be thinking about what we believe about the world and human beings and ethics and knowledge and all these things.

01:17:48

Not everybody thinks about their world view, thinks it out and changes their mind.

01:17:53

Sometimes it's just something you catch. It's from your environment. It comes from your culture, your teachers.

01:18:00

So for example, some people might have an ethical system. What they believe is right and wrong that they got from mom and dad.

01:18:08

That's where they got it. Mom and dad said don't steal, so they said stealing is wrong. Mom and dad said don't lie, so lying is wrong.

01:18:16

Some people might have an ethical system built upon what grandma and grandpa said. Some people have an ethical system built on what they learned in public school.

01:18:25

Some people have an ethical system that they learned from Lady Gaga. It's amazing, right?

01:18:31

Music is preaching. Music is preaching. It's teaching. It's not neutral.

01:18:38

So for example, let's think about this for a second. I use this as an example of locks.

01:18:44

I think it's a good way to get the point. Back when my own country was deciding on gay mirage, there were some anthems playing constantly of gay marriage.

01:19:02

Some of you are like, what does that mean, gay mirage? Gay marriage. It's not marriage.

01:19:08

Marriage is defined as opposites coming together and being married into one, right?

01:19:14

So if you call something marriage that's not really marriage, it's a mirage.

01:19:20

It's an illusion, right? So that's where that comes from. When this was all going on in my country, when our country was fighting over this and the

01:19:28

Supreme Court was trying to rule over this, there were anthems that were played constantly. Music, anthems, right?

01:19:34

And one of those anthems was from Macklemore. And I know this room, you'll probably know it, right?

01:19:41

It was an anthem that was played constantly. Ready? I can't change even if I tried, even if I what?

01:19:48

Wanted to. Sinners, you know that song? Just kidding.

01:19:54

Everybody knows that song. It's an anthem. I can't change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

01:20:02

Now that song was played in support of homosexual lifestyle.

01:20:08

I can't change even if I tried, even if I wanted to. That's a song that's preaching.

01:20:16

It's teaching. What do you think people were believing about that issue who were singing that song and that anthem?

01:20:24

That this lifestyle is just who they are. It's their identity. Macklemore was teaching ethics.

01:20:32

He was saying what's moral and what is not moral in that song. Or how about Lady Gaga's song?

01:20:39

Famous song? What is it? Who knows the song? Born This Way. What do you think that is?

01:20:46

That's an ethical claim. We were born this way. And so you can see that even music is not neutral.

01:20:54

It's preaching a world view. Neutrality is a myth. Now, when we think about world view, a world view is essentially a couple components.

01:21:03

One, it's a doctrine of reality, a teaching of reality. What's real? What is all this?

01:21:10

It's a metaphysic, an ontology. What is the doctrine of this? The being of this?

01:21:15

The substance of this? What is all this? What is this? What is she? It's an idea of what are human beings?

01:21:23

What is this universe? It's a view of what's real around us. A world view also has a component of knowledge.

01:21:31

How do you know something? How do you know something to be true or false?

01:21:37

A world view can tell you that. A world view can also tell you a view of ethics. How should we then live?

01:21:46

Ethics. What's right and what's wrong? Everybody has a world view. Nobody is neutral.

01:21:53

Two points on that. One, according to scripture, nobody is neutral towards God at all.

01:21:59

All of us are either in Christ or we are in Adam. We're either hostile to God or we are at peace with God through what

01:22:08

Jesus has done. What's the Bible say about our condition? One, it says that we are haters of God.

01:22:14

Romans chapter 1. It says in Romans 3, we are not good. We are not righteous.

01:22:20

We do not seek for God. There's no fear of God before our eyes. It says in Romans chapter 5 that we are helpless.

01:22:27

That we are ungodly. It says in Ephesians chapter 2 that we are dead in our sins and trespasses by nature, children of wrath.

01:22:38

So according to scripture, there is no human being you will ever come into contact with who is neutral towards God.

01:22:46

They are either in a relationship of hostility or a relationship of peace through Jesus.

01:22:53

So according to scripture, nobody is neutral. Everyone say the myth of neutrality. The myth of neutrality.

01:23:00

The second point of the myth of neutrality is neutrality is a myth is seen in the fact that everybody has a world view.

01:23:08

If you go out there right now and you walk up to somebody on the street and you say to them, hey, is stealing wrong?

01:23:16

They're going to give you an answer. If you go to a jail cell with a member of the mob and you say, is stealing wrong?

01:23:28

They're going to give you an answer. Depends. Maybe. What are you trying to accomplish?

01:23:35

What are you trying to do? Something like that. You'll get an answer.

01:23:40

If you walk up to a person in a Presbyterian church and you say, for example, is sex before marriage wrong?

01:23:48

What are they going to tell you? Yes! Oh boy.

01:23:55

Presbyterian church must be in bad shape in Canada. No. If you walk into a Presbyterian church and you say, is

01:24:02

I should specify, shouldn't I? A orthodox, reformed, solid Presbyterian church.

01:24:08

I'm sorry. That was my fault. Yeah. I wasn't being clear enough. A solid real

01:24:14

Presbyterian church. And you said, is sex before marriage immoral? They will say yes.

01:24:19

Why? They'll say because God says. Right? If you walk into the average college campus these days, secular university, and you say, is sex before marriage wrong?

01:24:33

Is it immoral? Generally speaking, you'll get some varied answers. Probably primarily, well, no.

01:24:39

Not really. If you ask people today, is homosexuality a sin?

01:24:45

They'll say, no. We're born that way. Can't change. Even if I tried.

01:24:51

Even if I wanted to. So everybody has a worldview. If you ask somebody in a high school science class, what's this?

01:25:02

Is there anything spiritual in this environment? Anything spiritual or immaterial?

01:25:10

They'll say maybe, well, no. What we know is this is matter. It's matter in motion. We all got here through atoms banging around and this is the material universe.

01:25:20

We don't know if there's anything spiritual or immaterial. All this is is, like Shakespeare said, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

01:25:29

It's just chaos, time and chance acting on matter and it's what got us to this place here. Through all these little changes here, there was speciation and we went from fish to these creatures to where we're at today and we just evolved through purposeless evolutionary processes to get us to the place we are now.

01:25:48

So what is the nature of all this? Well, you're protoplasm, I'm protoplasm and we got here through a cosmic accident.

01:25:55

From nothing came something. By the way, I'll say that again so you can catch just how stupid it is.

01:26:01

From nothing came something. From no thing came something, right?

01:26:10

So you have ideas like that. We also have neutrality as a myth, as evidence in the fact that everybody has a view of how they know something.

01:26:19

So if I was to say to somebody on the street today, how do you know that? They might have a view of how to get it knowledge.

01:26:26

They'll say, well, you gotta reason through it. Like reason, that's the supreme thing.

01:26:31

Reason, right? Logic and reason. You gotta work through your logical processes, test things.

01:26:38

Reason is the standard. That's how you know reason. Or you can have somebody that says, no, you gotta feel it.

01:26:47

Feel it. It's a feel right. Right? And by the way, these are real systems of epistemology.

01:26:53

That's the theory of knowledge. How do I know? Somebody says, I know because I feel it. Right? I'll give you an example of that kind of world view of how you know something.

01:27:04

Anybody ever talk to a Latter -day Saint, a Mormon? A lot of Mormons in Canada? So you talk to a

01:27:10

Mormon, right? And you say, well, you know, the Bible says here that God's word says this, and this is how

01:27:17

I know this is true. The Bible says about Jesus and the world and salvation. And the Mormon goes, well, no, what you need to do is you need to read the book of Mormon, and you need to what?

01:27:26

Pray about it. And if you seek God, if you truly seek God, if you want to know the truth of these things, then

01:27:32

God will give you a burning in your bosom. A burning in your bosom, and that's how you will know that it's the truth.

01:27:41

How? Not through reason, not through the scriptures, but through your own private individual subjective experience.

01:27:49

If you feel a burning in your bosom, that's how you will know that it's the truth of God, that Joseph Smith's a prophet of God, and that the

01:27:57

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints is the one true church. Right? Burning in your bosom.

01:28:03

So now there's another example. You've got reason, you've got personal experience or pragmatism, and you have empiricism, another view.

01:28:14

Hang on. Don't let these words throw you off. Don't you dare disconnect right now because you hear these words.

01:28:19

Somebody might say empiricism. What's that mean? I've got to test it. How do I know something's true? I've got to test it.

01:28:26

I've got to examine it. I've got to work this out and provide different testing scenarios, and if I see it, if I observe it, that's how

01:28:36

I know. Empiricism. That's how I know. So people have different views of how they know things.

01:28:43

Now, for the Christian, fundamentally, in terms of no neutrality, how does a

01:28:51

Christian know something to be true? Is it because you prayed about it? Is it because mom and dad said?

01:29:01

Is it because your pastor said? Is it because you just simply reasoned through it and came to that conclusion?

01:29:07

If I was to say to you right now, let's test it right now. Let's test this methodology. If I was to say to you right now, is beating up on a woman trying to cross the road, is that evil or good?

01:29:27

Evil. I'm glad you all answered quickly. Good job. It's supposed to be a Christian camp.

01:29:35

It's evil. All right, now come on now and raise your hand now. How do you know that? How do you know, with knowledge claims, certainty, how do you know that it's evil to beat up a woman trying to cross the road?

01:29:48

She's just trying to cross the road. What are you doing? What's wrong with you guys? Right? How do you know?

01:29:54

Raise your hand and tell me. Yes. Because God says so. Give me some examples. Give me some examples of what

01:30:00

God says in terms of, that's underneath you now, knowing that I can't beat this woman up who's trying to cross the street.

01:30:07

Give me some word from God. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Anything else? Yes. Very good.

01:30:15

Anything else? Yes. That's right.

01:30:20

I have no other gods before me. God is the foundation. His word counts. He's spoken on this.

01:30:26

Or how about what the Bible says about love? It says this. Love does no harm to its neighbor.

01:30:32

That's the foundation of love. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Okay. Let's do another one. Sex before marriage.

01:30:40

Wrong. Evil. Good. Says who? God. Okay, now stop for a second.

01:30:46

Ready? Take this out of the way now. This is no longer here. Let's pretend neutrality for a second.

01:30:52

Neutrality. This is not underneath you. This is not here. Neutrality.

01:30:58

This isn't God's word. Jesus isn't Lord for a second. Okay? Take it as a thought experiment now.

01:31:04

Sex before marriage. Is it immoral? Depends on how

01:31:13

I'm feeling. Depends on maybe what they look like. I don't know. Maybe. No, seriously.

01:31:18

We're experimenting now, stepping into the mind of the unbeliever who rejects God's word. Why would you ever say that sex before marriage is immoral apart from the word of God?

01:31:29

What are some reasons? Give me some reasons now. I want you to stop thinking like Christians for a second. We're going to pretend neutrality for a minute, okay?

01:31:37

Now give me some reasons. Sex before marriage? Yes. Doesn't mean it's immoral.

01:31:45

No, I want you to do this. Okay, throw them out. Now give me some reasons now if it's immoral or not.

01:31:50

He says it might cause some damage. Alright, here's my response. And I'm not trying to fight with you, but just hear it now. Here's my response.

01:31:56

So? It's my life. There's no meaning. So what? I want to.

01:32:01

If I get a disease, I'll take a pill. Give me some more. Yes. Broken families?

01:32:09

What's that mean? I mean, yeah, I mean, but have a kid? I mean, it's my life.

01:32:15

Like, my happiness is supreme. Right? What I want to do. Right? Yes. It has the potential of interfering with my own professional endeavors.

01:32:25

Okay. Yeah, it doesn't make it immoral. Right? I mean, watch. Just because something, now capture it, because that was actually a good one.

01:32:33

If I engage in this, it can mess up my professional endeavors, my goals in the future. Right?

01:32:39

Does that make it immoral? Just makes it a choice. Right, like, because something might mess up my own personal goals, does that make it immoral for everybody?

01:32:51

Because it messes with my personal goals? Alright, give me some more. Yeah. I might go against a priori knowledge that's not okay.

01:32:58

I might go over what? A priori knowledge that's not okay, um, that we got through evolution. Because we're a higher being, we might say, as we do, we realize that it's most helpful for us to grow up in harmonious relationships.

01:33:10

We might say it's not okay, but although we understand that morally, it's not, um, it's still subjective.

01:33:18

We can also say that everything is subjective. However, some things we still can't do, just because it's better for society.

01:33:26

Um, you can go to Kant's, um, categorical imperative. You first go through the four stages, right? So you could kind of say it's immoral there.

01:33:34

Second, because you're harming someone else's personal environment. Okay, so watch this. He's bringing what, did you catch what happened there?

01:33:41

What is assumed in everything he just said? See, we gotta start doing this as Christians. Think with rigorous thoughts.

01:33:47

I just said, take the word of God away. This is not in the picture now. So we have no Bible now, no word from God.

01:33:54

So what are humans? They're not image bearers of God. This is not here any longer.

01:34:01

So you hear somebody making an argument for something that's good for society, right? We've learned this is good for society.

01:34:07

Okay. But wait a minute. These aren't image bearers of God. We're not Christians anymore.

01:34:12

We're being neutral. So what do we have now? What are human beings? If they're not image bearers of God, what are human beings if they're not image bearers of God?

01:34:20

Tell me. Stardust! What else? Okay, there you go.

01:34:30

Now keep coming with that. Okay, hang on to that for a second. Hang that thought. So we're stardust, not image bearers of God, and we're stardust that coalesced into little groups of other little stardusts, right?

01:34:44

Now, we've discovered in our tribes that it's better for our tribe to maybe act in this way or that way.

01:34:52

But what is assumed constantly? Value and dignity for those members of that tribe.

01:35:00

Here's what I'm going to challenge right now, because we're not image bearers of God. We don't have the word from God. We don't have knowledge from God. Here's what

01:35:06

I'm going to challenge right now with that. You just assumed value and dignity for that tribe. I'm challenging that value and dignity.

01:35:13

Haven't other tribes in human history wiped out other tribes? So it's really a question of which tribe is more important.

01:35:21

Isn't it arbitrary? Wasn't there a tribe not too long ago in Germany that tried to wipe out another tribe of human beings?

01:35:31

Right? And didn't they determine for themselves that it was right for their tribe to wipe out this tribe?

01:35:38

It was better for their tribe to erase this tribe. Right? So do you see the point here?

01:35:44

Watch. What is assumed when we talk about what's good for humanity, what's good for people, what's assumed constantly?

01:35:51

That human beings have value and dignity. Question. Can you get true, fundamental, real value and dignity from stardust?