The Mind of a Skeptic

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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July 23, 2017

00:00: Amen.
00:00: You may be seated.
00:03: We have again, as I mentioned earlier, a very special guest with us today who is going to be bringing the Word.
00:10: His name is Eric Hovind, and he is the leader with Creation Today Ministries.
00:18: And he, as well as Jordan and Jared are here today.
00:24: Jared.
00:25: Jared.
00:26: Are with us from the ministry.
00:28: We're so thankful to have them.
00:29: And as I said, having heard him the last few days, I know we're in for a wonderful blessing today.
00:34: I want to remind you, though, as we start, many of you came in and you were given a bulletin.
00:38: You'll notice there's a small envelope in the bulletin.
00:40: All that is not for regular offerings.
00:44: That is for anything that you would like to give to Creation Today, to give to Eric for their ministry.
00:49: And later in the service, we'll be taking an offering.
00:52: You'll have an opportunity to just drop it in with the rest, and it will be divided out and given to them directly.
00:57: So I wanted to make sure that you guys knew that and understand that this is how we're going to try to, as a congregation, bless him as he is blessing us and bringing the Word.
01:05: So brother, come.
01:08: Awesome.
01:09: Thank you, Pastor Keith.
01:10: How many of you come to Sunday school on Sunday mornings here? Thank you.
01:15: How many of you do not come to Sunday school on Sunday mornings here? You guys are missing out.
01:19: I'm just telling you.
01:19: I was just in his class.
01:21: It's really good stuff.
01:23: I'm like, we just went into covenant theology and dispensational and Torah.
01:28: What's that one? Torah? Torah, observant, and kind of going through the different things that people do.
01:33: It's absolutely fantastic.
01:35: Hey, let's see here.
01:37: You guys got my computer plugged in? All right.
01:40: There's a passage in Proverbs 7, verse 1.
01:44: I'll get it up on the screen here in just a second.
01:46: But until they get it, does anybody know what Proverbs 7, verse 1 says? Mark said go.
01:51: Proverbs 7, 1.
01:52: First one to find it and tell me what it says.
01:54: Proverbs 7, 1.
01:56: Make sure I got the right reference.
02:02: Proverbs chapter 7.
02:04: Oh, we got it.
02:05: Okay.
02:06: Let me see if I'm right here.
02:07: Oh, that's not the right one.
02:09: 7, 11.
02:11: All right, here we go.
02:12: Let's start with Psalm 111, verse 10.
02:14: Psalm 111, verse 10 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of what? Come on, congregation.
02:20: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of? Wisdom.
02:24: Proverbs.
02:24: Oh, it's 1-7.
02:25: Doggone it.
02:26: Proverbs 1-7 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of? Knowledge.
02:30: So the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of? Knowledge.
02:35: Knowledge.
02:36: Okay, here's my question.
02:38: Is that true? Yes.
02:43: No, really.
02:43: Is that true? Is it absolutely true? Yes.
02:47: You're saying that because you're in church this morning, right? And this is written in the Bible, and you're like, of course we have to say yes.
02:52: Here's the deal.
02:53: I mean, think about it.
02:53: How many of you know somebody who is a skeptic or somebody who is not a believer in Christianity? How many of you know somebody like that? How many of you have a family member that's a skeptic? How many of you have ever engaged in a conversation with them and gotten to the point of frustration in that conversation with a skeptic? Okay, let me ask you something.
03:13: If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, can somebody who says they don't fear God have knowledge and wisdom? I want to teach you guys something this morning.
03:33: We actually covered it at the homeschool conference, and I want to teach you something this morning that I think will help enlighten these passages where you're like, wow, I've never seen it like that before.
03:42: Now, in order to do that, we have to hurry, okay? The reason I do what I do, I travel around and speak on creation versus evolution, teach apologetics.
03:51: I was literally sitting with a guy on a plane last week as I was going to California, and I told him I teach apologetics.
03:57: And he was like, is that teaching people how to apologize? I mean, that literally just happened.
04:03: I said, well, I have been married for 18 years, so I am good at that, and I could probably teach a class on apologizing.
04:09: But no, the word apologetics literally means to give a defense of the faith.
04:13: Why do we believe that Christianity is true? Why do we believe that it's the true belief above any other belief? So I teach apologetics.
04:21: I said, what do you do? He said, I sell axles.
04:24: I said, wow.
04:24: So we had a great conversation about God and axles the whole trip.
04:28: It was a fantastic opportunity to fly together.
04:31: Here's the deal.
04:32: Here's why I do what I do.
04:34: Studies show that 65% to 80% of students that are growing up in Christian homes will reject their faith after one year of a secular college.
04:45: Why? Why do 65% to 80% of kids that grow up in Christian homes and then go to secular college reject Christianity? They don't have a good foundation.
05:03: I can't help, as I think through this, I go, wow, could it be that they never really had their own faith? They've been brought up in an environment where they've got everybody else's faith.
05:12: They've got mom and dad's faith.
05:14: They've got Dr.
05:14: Keith's faith.
05:15: They don't have their own faith.
05:18: And so that challenges me to get out there and say, hey, that's what happened to me.
05:21: I was brought up in an incredible Christian home, and yet it was always my parents' faith.
05:26: It wasn't really my own faith.
05:28: It wasn't until I was 21 years old that I truly became a Christian.
05:34: God truly granted me repentance, and I saw my sin before God and God alone.
05:40: Humanism says the end of all being is the happiness of man.
05:43: And this concept has crept its way into society, into the church, and into most people's hearts in the world today, where they think the reason we exist is for our own happiness.
05:54: The reason we're here is for our own pleasure.
05:57: Christianity says, no, no, no.
05:58: The end of all being is for the glory of God.
06:00: The reason we do what we do is to try to glorify God in this life.
06:05: Now, God says that glorifying Him is going to bring true joy and true peace and true happiness, but those are fruits of the Spirit.
06:12: Those are legitimate fruits of the Spirit.
06:15: They're done.
06:16: They're brought about by living for the glory of God.
06:20: 1 Peter 3 is where we get that word apologetics from.
06:23: Verse 15, it says, Sanctify the Lord God in your heart, and be ready always to give and answer.
06:28: That phrase, give and answer, is literally the word in the Greek, apologia.
06:32: That's where we get the word apologetics from.
06:34: Give an answer or give a defense.
06:36: In the old days, if you were on trial and you had to defend yourself, you would go sit up in the dock and you would give an apologetic.
06:44: You would give a defense for whether or not you were innocent or guilty.
06:49: You gave your defense there.
06:50: Here's another reason I do what I do.
06:52: Secular professors are trying to destroy kids' faith in the Bible.
06:56: They make no bones about it.
06:57: Dr.
06:57: Richard Rorty is a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia.
07:01: He said, He said, He said, He goes on, he said, We're going to go right on trying to discredit you, talking to the parents, in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.
07:44: And that's exactly what they're doing today.
07:48: Professors in the university, there's not an equal hiring practice going on.
07:52: In a conservative university, it's six liberal professors to one conservative professor, and that's a conservative university.
08:01: There are some universities, there are as many as 30 to one are the odds.
08:06: There's no equal hiring when conservative versus liberal.
08:09: So I can see why kids that don't really have their own faith, kids that aren't really Christians when they go off to college, even though they were brought up in Christian homes, they get in an environment like this that tells them, You can do whatever you want.
08:22: You're just an animal.
08:22: Behave however you want.
08:23: And you got professors that are trying to destroy any credibility of Christianity or any credibility to the word of God, and they go, Well, maybe it's just not even true.
08:33: And they walk away.
08:34: It's at this point now, when I deal with skeptics, they're claiming that teaching creation is child abuse.
08:46: They say it's going to kneecap our children.
08:48: They're not going to be able to do real science.
08:51: Tom Hartman introduced the program that I was on with him that way.
08:54: He said, Teaching creation is borderline child abuse.
08:56: It's going to kneecap our children.
08:58: Eric, welcome to the program.
08:59: And I'm going, What? I said, Tom, I got to tell you, in what you just said there, first of all, that is a real slap in the face to any kid who's had to endure child abuse.
09:11: To say that there really is a God who loves them, who sent his son to die on the cross for their sins, so they can experience salvation, that is not child abuse.
09:22: Real child abuse is telling the boys and girls, Hey, you're nothing but an animal.
09:25: There is no absolute right and wrong.
09:27: And then you punish them when they do something that's wrong.
09:30: That's psychological child abuse that's taking place there.
09:33: Just a couple of years ago, they put up the very first monument to atheism here in America.
09:37: Do you guys remember hearing about that? It happened right over here in Stark, Florida.
09:40: Bradford County Courthouse.
09:41: The atheists sued to get the Ten Commandments removed from in front of the courthouse.
09:46: They lost the lawsuit.
09:48: They said, Fine.
09:49: If you're allowed to have a religious monument, we can have a religious monument.
09:52: And we're not a religion.
09:54: Which didn't make sense to me, but that's what they said.
09:56: So they said, Okay, we're going to put a religious monument up.
09:59: They said, Okay, you can do that.
10:00: They said, We don't want our monument to be impractical like the Ten Commandments.
10:05: We want our monument to be practical.
10:07: So they said, We're going to turn it into a bench so that mankind can rest his weary soul.
10:13: Or body, because he doesn't have a soul.
10:15: He can rest his weary body.
10:17: So the atheists made this bench.
10:19: Now, I remember hearing about this.
10:20: And I remember hearing that in June, they were going to be dedicating this monument.
10:25: Now, as an atheist, who do you dedicate the monument to? I don't know.
10:28: But they're going to dedicate this monument in June.
10:30: And I thought, Boy, it would be really cool to go hang out with the atheists at the monument while they dedicate it.
10:37: Because I talk to them online.
10:38: I tweet them all the time.
10:40: I thought this would be really great.
10:42: Well, I looked at my calendar, and I was speaking that weekend.
10:44: And it didn't look like it was going to work out until I noticed that I was speaking in Jacksonville, Florida.
10:49: Stark, Florida is only an hour away.
10:51: I wasn't speaking until 4 p.m.
10:53: They were dedicating the monument at noon.
10:55: And I went, Wow, God, you have set this up just for me to be able to go hang out with my atheist friends.
11:00: This is really good.
11:02: So I went to Stark, Florida.
11:03: And all day that Saturday, I hung out with the atheist friends all morning.
11:07: It was raining a little bit, but got some great interviews.
11:09: Had a really good time having some great conversations.
11:12: Then it came time for the ceremony, whatever you want to call it.
11:16: The atheists got up, and they gave their speeches.
11:18: And David Silverman, the president of the American Atheists, gave the final speech.
11:21: And at the end of his speech, they pulled the blanket off of the monument.
11:25: They had it all covered up.
11:26: Pulled the blanket off, and man, those atheists were cheering, and they were clapping.
11:31: It was just, Wow, we've got our own monument now.
11:34: It's the first one in the history of America.
11:36: Well, I remember watching this happen.
11:38: They all walked over to the monument, and then they were sitting down taking pictures with David Silverman.
11:42: I just debated David a couple months earlier.
11:45: So I'm standing there, and I'm just kind of observing the situation.
11:48: And I'm looking out at hundreds of atheists and just kind of standing behind the monument going, Wow, there's a lot of atheists here.
11:56: And then all of a sudden, a thought popped into my little bitty brain.
12:01: I thought, You know, somebody should share the gospel with all the atheists.
12:15: And I thought, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, God.
12:19: No, you don't want me to share the gospel with the atheists.
12:22: I think they might kill me.
12:23: No, I don't want to do that.
12:25: And then I started looking at their monument.
12:26: They said they wanted their monument to be practical.
12:30: The most practical thing I do is share the gospel.
12:32: And I'm like, Well, the side of that monument is like, you know, two foot by two foot by almost five foot tall podium.
12:41: And I'm staring at the monument.
12:45: And all of a sudden, David Silverman turns around, the American atheist president.
12:49: And he goes, Hovind, are you photobombing me? And I went, There's my sign.
12:57: So I got up on top of their brand new monument, and I started preaching the gospel to the atheists.
13:03: Now, what in the world do you say to a group of atheists while you're standing on top of their brand new monument and giving them the gospel? I started like this.
13:11: I said, I'd like to thank the tolerance of the American atheists.
13:16: See, they're always preaching tolerance.
13:18: I'm standing on top of their monument.
13:20: I need some of that tolerance stuff they talk about.
13:22: I said, And I'd like to thank you guys for providing a place to declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
13:31: And then I just gave a short gospel presentation.
13:34: Well, if you ever find yourself in one of these predicaments, you should understand that the American atheist tolerance lasts for 12 seconds.
13:44: You get about 12 seconds before they start yelling back at you.
13:47: And man, they started yelling and screaming, and they came up with some very creative things to say.
13:52: I'll tell you that.
13:53: I'm sitting there preaching.
13:55: I'm going, Oh, that's awkward.
13:58: I mean, it was just some really weird stuff that they were saying.
14:01: So I gave the gospel.
14:03: And while I was up there giving the gospel, as they started yelling, I heard this, Where's the lions? Where's the Romans when you need them? And I'm like, Oh, you know what they're talking about? We're talking about killing Christians.
14:30: I'm one of those.
14:33: This is crazy.
14:35: And literally while I was talking, you know how you can be thinking about something while you're talking to somebody, your brain is somewhere else.
14:40: While I'm giving the gospel and my brain is going, Oh, my goodness, Tertullian is right.
14:45: The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
14:47: This is how it happens.
14:49: I'm coming, Lord.
14:50: I really thought I might be going.
14:52: Actually, one of the atheists came up and he grabbed my feet like this.
14:56: I'm standing on top of this monument.
14:57: I got nowhere to go.
14:59: He grabs my feet, and I just look down, and he looks up and smiles.
15:04: And I thought, Lord, I'm going down hard.
15:07: Help me to just take it.
15:09: Whatever happens, help me to just take it and not retaliate.
15:12: That's what's going through my mind.
15:13: I look down, I smile, and I keep preaching, and he just lets go.
15:16: And I'm like, Oh, thank you, Lord.
15:19: I'm picturing broken ribs falling on the side of this thing.
15:23: I'm picturing it's going to be bad, man.
15:27: But I'm up there, and I go, Wow, I just wanted to give you guys the gospel.
15:32: And then I hopped down.
15:34: I didn't do this as a publicity stunt.
15:36: That wasn't my goal.
15:37: But the news media got a hold of it.
15:40: They said the next day in the newspapers, Creation Evangelist, Mount America's first atheist monument at unveiling, preaches gospel.
15:47: And I thought, Man, this is what's going to happen.
15:50: If you guys put up monuments, you can put them up all over the place.
15:53: Every town in America, we'll use them as a platform to declare the truth of the gospel.
15:58: Eventually, they're going to start making them with a pointy top.
16:01: But we'll have to figure out some way to still use those.
16:04: It'll still happen.
16:05: Now, how many of you have ever heard a skeptic say this? Well, religious belief, believe in the Bible, believe in God is irrational because there's no evidence for God's existence.
16:13: Have you ever heard somebody say that? There's no evidence for God's existence.
16:17: Okay.
16:17: Is that really the issue? Is that really the problem that they have? Because I would argue that it's not a matter of how much evidence there is, because we all have the same evidence.
16:32: I'm looking at the same world they're looking at.
16:35: I'm looking at the same rock layers they're looking at.
16:38: We're all seeing the same data.
16:42: We're all seeing the same information.
16:44: It's not a matter of who's got more evidence, creationists and evolutionists and skeptics and agnostics and Hindus and Buddhists.
16:51: We've all got the exact same evidence.
16:53: It's not a matter of evidence.
16:55: It's not like I'm like, Okay, I got more evidence for God than you got against God because it's all the same.
17:01: Evidence is evidence.
17:02: This became clear to me when we did a debate called the unbelievable debate.
17:07: It's between Seitenberg and Kate and Paul Baird.
17:10: Paul Baird is an atheist over in the UK and we did this debate.
17:13: It's a series of three debates.
17:14: The first debate took place on Justin Briley's program, the unbelievable program by Justin Briley over in the UK.
17:22: In the first debate, I heard Paul Baird, the atheist, make a claim that blew my mind.
17:27: I was like, I cannot believe Paul is saying it so clearly.
17:32: And he was making a claim about what would it take for an atheist to believe in the resurrection of Christ.
17:38: This is word for word what Paul said in the first debate.
17:42: What would it take to convince an atheist that the resurrection had actually happened? These are Paul's word.
17:50: This is the atheist terms here.
17:52: He said, if we had affidavits from the Roman guards standing at the foot of the cross, they'd seen the crucifixion take place.
18:04: They'd seen the body taken down.
18:06: They'd seen the body taken to the grave.
18:08: They'd stayed by the body and they'd actually seen the stone being rolled away and Jesus come out.
18:14: And they'd stayed with Jesus all through the 40 days and they watched him ascend into heaven.
18:19: And that was documented and it was authenticated.
18:22: Would an atheist accept it? That's exactly right.
18:27: He said, I say no.
18:31: And that's really the key.
18:33: Evidence is not the issue.
18:37: I heard that and I went, oh my goodness, what an admission here.
18:42: We are not in an intellectual argument with the skeptic.
18:48: Evidence doesn't really matter to the skeptic.
18:51: They don't want to believe.
18:53: It's not that they've got more evidence against God than we have for God.
18:56: It's not like that.
18:57: Is there evidence of the resurrection? Oh man.
19:00: We did a small group series called Risen Without a Doubt, where we just walked through all the information about the resurrection of Christ.
19:06: It blew me away.
19:08: Resurrection expert Tim Chavey came down and we did this small group series because I was like, you know, I'm putting my entire eternity on one event.
19:15: I'm placing my trust for eternity on one event in history, the resurrection of Christ.
19:21: And I don't know a whole lot about it.
19:23: I better study this thing out.
19:25: So we started studying this out and I was blown away.
19:28: There's tons of information.
19:30: Is there evidence that God created the heavens and the earth? Oh wow.
19:33: Tons of evidence that God created the heavens and the earth.
19:36: I don't even have time to get into all of it, but there's lots of evidence.
19:39: The human population is one of my favorites because today we're at 7.15 billion people.
19:45: Back in 1985, we were at 5 billion.
19:48: 1800, 1 billion.
19:50: Time of Christ, quarter billion.
19:52: You can actually trace out the human population because it makes an exponential growth curve on a graph.
19:57: And if you take 7.1 billion today and go backwards, the entire population started about 4,400 years ago.
20:07: Well, that's interesting.
20:09: What do we think happened 4,400 years ago? There was a flood.
20:13: That's exactly right.
20:13: The flood took place.
20:14: How many people survived? Eight.
20:18: That's exactly right.
20:19: Eight people survived.
20:20: Noah, his wife, three sons, and three daughters.
20:23: And they repopulated the world.
20:24: The mathematics fits with what the Bible teaches.
20:28: In secular textbooks, they show the basic human population like it should be.
20:33: But then they go 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 500,000.
20:39: That is scientifically impossible.
20:42: Not only mathematically impossible, scientifically impossible.
20:46: John Sanford is the inventor of the gene gun.
20:49: He's done a lot of work in genetics.
20:51: He's a guy who believes the Bible.
20:54: And he said, listen, right now we're passing on somewhere between 50 to 100 brand-new mutations every single generation.
21:02: He said many people will say it's as many as 300 genetic mutations, but they won't document that yet.
21:09: But many geneticists will go that high.
21:12: I said, John, I'm from Florida.
21:13: We're right next to Alabama.
21:14: I know some kids that have gotten way more than 300 genetic mutations, okay? Anyway, we call those rednecks.
21:20: You know what I'm talking about.
21:21: But we've got – I joke.
21:24: Just kidding.
21:26: We're passing on genetic mutations, all the ones that we've gotten from our parents, plus more to the next generation.
21:33: Sorry, Jordan.
21:34: I passed some on to you, buddy, okay? Hey, how long can we do that? John Sanford said, you look at how many genetic mutations we have, you can't go back more than a few thousand years.
21:46: We don't have enough genetic mutations.
21:48: You cannot maintain a tiny human population for hundreds of thousands of years without getting extreme genetic mutations where it just becomes impossible to survive.
21:58: But they're teaching that in the textbooks today, that mankind evolved somewhere around 3 million years ago.
22:05: Impossible.
22:06: There's no possible way.
22:08: If mankind has been here for 3 million years, you do the math on that, the human population in 3 million years would be off the charts.
22:16: I don't have time to go into this, but Encyclopedia Britannica did a study.
22:19: They said, forget 3 million, let's just go back 1 million years.
22:23: Just 1 million years.
22:25: And you have the first two people, they were apes, the first boy ape that's going to call himself a human, and the first girl ape that stood up and was like, hey handsome, and he was like, yo, you're looking tall.
22:36: And they got married and they had kids and their kids had kids.
22:38: If that happened a million years ago, and you did not take our current population growth rate, 1.7%, instead you took an impossibly small growth rate at .01%.
22:50: Here's what they said.
22:51: Start, the current growth rate is 1.7%, forget that.
22:54: We're going to start a million years ago.
22:56: Keep in mind they say people evolved 3 million years ago.
22:58: The first two people evolved from an ape-like ancestor a million years ago, but the growth rate is going to be .01%, a tiny fraction of what it actually is.
23:09: At this growth rate, you would double the number of people every 7,000 years.
23:13: So a million years ago, you got the first two people.
23:16: 7,000 years later, you've gone from 2 to 4.
23:20: 7,000 years later, you've gone from 4 to 8.
23:24: 7,000 years later, you're from 8 to, okay, I won't go any higher just because it's Sunday morning.
23:29: But if you did this for a million years, you would double the number of people 142 times.
23:37: So kids, if you're bored, get out the calculator on the phone and go 2 times, 2 times, 2 times, 2 times, 2, 142 times, you're going to come up with 10 to the 43rd power number of people on planet Earth.
23:49: Those are the alive ones.
23:51: That doesn't include all the ones that have died.
23:55: That's impossible.
23:56: That would mean there should be about 150,000 people per square inch on planet Earth.
24:02: The mathematics do not add up.
24:05: It doesn't work, okay? We could go into lots and lots of scientific data.
24:09: I don't have time to go into all this scientific data.
24:11: It is fascinating.
24:13: But there's lots and lots of evidence that the Earth is not millions or billions of years old.
24:18: Tons.
24:19: Matter of fact, out of all the different ways to show the age of the Earth, about 90 to 95% of them, and there's about 100 or more, 90 to 95% show that the Earth is young, not old.
24:30: However, the evolutionists focus on the couple that come back as possibly old ages.
24:38: I go, those aren't the ones I'm worried about.
24:40: I'm worried about all the ones that show that it can't be old.
24:43: Those put a limiting factor on how old the Earth can be.
24:47: Every major branch of science was actually started by creationists.
24:50: You think about it.
24:51: Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Herschel, Dalton, Faraday, all these guys started entire movements in science based on wanting to understand the God of the Bible and his design in the natural world.
25:07: That's how all these things got started.
25:09: What do you do when you meet a skeptic that says, Oh, well, I used to be a Christian.
25:14: I was speaking in California last year, and a guy came out, said, I used to be a Christian.
25:19: He was actually protesting outside saying, You're lying to kids.
25:22: Stop lying to all the kids.
25:24: Cut it out.
25:25: You're lying to the children.
25:26: So I went out and I engaged him in conversation.
25:28: He said, Yeah, I used to be a Christian.
25:32: So I asked him a question to find out if that was really true.
25:36: You want to see how that went? I videotaped it.
25:39: Here's the conversation I had with this gentleman.
25:42: You said you used to be a Christian? Yeah.
25:45: When you were a Christian, did you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Absolutely.
25:48: My father graduated.
25:50: You had a relationship with Jesus Christ, a personal relationship with him? Yes.
25:53: So you didn't believe in him? No, no.
25:55: So you didn't have a personal relationship with him? I did.
26:00: You believed in him and had a personal relationship, but now you don't.
26:07: It's hard to understand.
26:10: So you're saying you did have a personal relationship with somebody, but now you say it does not exist.
26:15: Christianity and Jesus was a very big part of my life.
26:18: Do I think I was wrong? Yes.
26:19: Do I think I was delusional? No, because you're playing fast and loose with the definition of delusional.
26:25: So now you don't believe in Jesus Christ? No, of course I do not believe in Jesus Christ.
26:30: But you did have a relationship with him at one time? Are we just going to keep going round and round? Do we not get what I'm saying? Is it incomprehensible? It sounds like you're saying you used to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
26:42: It's incomprehensible to what I'm saying.
26:45: I see one hand.
26:49: So everybody else understands what I'm saying.
26:52: So we're not playing a language game and saying, oh, well now you don't believe that you were never a Christian.
26:57: No, I'm just asking, do you believe in Jesus Christ now? Oh, of course I do.
27:01: Did you have a relationship with Jesus Christ at one time? Yes, I did.
27:04: There we go.
27:05: Thanks.
27:09: Do you see the problem with that? I'm going to be like me coming up here saying, you know, I had a wonderful relationship with a lady named Tanya.
27:18: We were married for 18 years.
27:19: We even had three beautiful children.
27:21: And then I found out my wife wasn't real.
27:26: That doesn't work, does it? It doesn't logically make sense.
27:30: Saying I used to have a relationship with Christ and now I don't believe in him isn't logically sound.
27:36: It doesn't fit together, okay? That's why I tell them, I say, what you should say is you should say I used to be delusional.
27:41: If you want to be consistent, you need to say, I used to be delusional and now I'm not.
27:46: That would at least be consistent with what you're claiming now.
27:49: All right, let me give you four questions.
27:50: Write these down, okay? Four questions that I ask skeptics, okay? Here's the questions that I ask skeptics on a regular basis.
27:56: And these questions just simply, I think, make, well, I guess we'll discover it as we go along.
28:02: Question number one, I ask skeptics, is it impossible for the God of the Bible to exist? Is it impossible for the God of the Bible to exist? Now, if you know anything about skeptics or if you've talked to them very much, you'll know most skeptics will claim, hey, nothing's impossible.
28:20: Anything can happen.
28:22: Anything can happen.
28:24: So when I phrase the question like this, is it impossible, automatically in their mind, because anything can happen, they're going, nope, it's not impossible.
28:33: Whatever it is, I can't say it's impossible.
28:35: Because nothing's impossible to them.
28:37: So I say, is it impossible for the God of the Bible to exist? And they have to say, well, no, that's not impossible.
28:45: I say, thank you very much.
28:47: They've just admitted God could exist.
28:50: Then I ask them question number two.
28:52: I say, is it impossible for the Bible to be what it claims to be? Now, the Bible claims to be revelation from God.
29:02: Is it impossible for the Bible to be revelation from God? Is it impossible for the Bible to be what it claims to be? Now, again, because I use the word impossible, most skeptics will say, nope, it's not impossible.
29:16: Whatever it is, it's not impossible.
29:17: So they'll say, no, that's not impossible.
29:20: I say, okay, let me ask you a third question.
29:23: Is it impossible for God to reveal truth to us and make us certain of it? In other words, can God give us truth in such a way that we can know that it's true, we can be absolutely certain that that is true? Can God reveal truth to us and make us certain? Is that possible? Is it impossible for God to do that? Again, as a skeptic, they'll have to say, well, I guess I can't say it's impossible because they believe anything's possible.
29:57: I mean, seriously, if they push me on any of these, if they say, no, that's impossible, I go, well, how do you know that? How do you know that it's an impossibility? You're telling me an all-powerful, all-wise God can't make me certain, can't make us certain? And eventually they'll come around if you want to.
30:16: You can argue them into a corner and they have to say, yeah, that's possible.
30:19: Now, just so you know, with these three questions, here's what I just did.
30:22: I just set up the Christian worldview.
30:24: This is what you guys believe.
30:26: Number one, I asked them whether or not it's possible for God to exist, and they have to admit, logically they have to admit, yes, that's possible.
30:34: They said, yes, the Bible could be revelation from God.
30:39: And then they said, yeah, it's possible that God can give us certainty.
30:45: Ladies and gentlemen, that is the Christian worldview.
30:50: That's what we believe as Christians.
30:52: God exists, the Bible is revelation from God, and God can give us certainty.
30:57: We can know things.
30:58: These things that I've written, that you may know that you have eternal life, not that you hope to know, or not that you could possibly know, that you know you have eternal life.
31:09: You can know these things, and God can make us certain of these things.
31:15: So once I establish the fact that the skeptic claims, yes, yes, yes, it's possible, now they've just set up and said, yes, the whole Christian worldview could be true.
31:25: Then I ask them one final question that ends the debate.
31:29: Now, honestly, guys, you have to be very, very careful, okay? Because I've seen people use these questions, and I've seen people use this next question in a way that is less than kind, because it is a worldview destroyer, absolute destroyer.
31:44: Okay, so you gotta be careful.
31:45: You gotta make sure you're practicing what the Bible says when it says you need to give the truth in love, or to be ready to give an answer to everybody that asks a reason of the hope that's in us with meekness and with fear.
31:56: You gotta do this in a nice way, okay? Here's the question.
31:59: I'm trusting you guys are gonna do this.
32:00: Courtney, I'm trusting you're gonna do this nicely, okay? Here's the question.
32:04: I say, could you be wrong about everything you think you know? You're like, why is that such a big deal? Well, remember, to the skeptic, anything's possible.
32:16: So yeah, they could be wrong about everything they think they know.
32:21: So when I ask them this, most of the time, they'll get right to the quick of it.
32:25: Sometimes I have to ask a few more questions to get them around to the plain, simple truth of the matter.
32:31: But from their perspective, could they be wrong about everything they think they know? You know what they have to answer, ultimately? What do they have to say? Yes.
32:40: They have to say, I could be wrong about everything I think I know.
32:44: They'll even admit this stuff.
32:46: They really do.
32:47: Barbara Smoker, an atheist, said, atheists don't claim to know anything with certainty.
32:52: She's like, it's the believers who know it all.
32:55: Ha, ha, ha, trying to mock believers for thinking they know everything.
32:58: But listen to what she said.
33:00: Atheists don't claim to know anything with certainty.
33:06: In other words, they could be wrong about everything.
33:09: Michael Nugent, atheist.
33:10: Atheism does not require certainty.
33:13: Strictly speaking, we cannot be certain of anything.
33:20: Why would he say strictly speaking? We cannot be certain of anything.
33:28: Strictly speaking, doesn't that mean certainly? Absolutely? I am certain that we cannot be certain of anything.
33:38: Isn't that basically what he's saying there? Look at it, look at it.
33:41: Isn't that what he's saying? Atheism does not require certainty.
33:46: Strictly speaking, certainty.
33:50: We cannot be certain of anything.
33:52: Isn't that kind of contradictory? Isn't that like an oxymoron? You guys know what oxymorons are? Those words that they put together but they shouldn't go together.
34:03: Jumbo shrimp.
34:04: Microsoft works.
34:06: You know, those things that just don't make any sense when you put them together.
34:10: This is an oxymoron.
34:12: We can't be certain of anything.
34:14: Well, are you certain that you can't be certain of anything? It doesn't work.
34:18: It's literally an oxymoron.
34:19: We were debating two guys in the UK, Alex Botten and Jim Gardner.
34:24: And we asked them, Seitzenberg and Kate and I were doing this debate with these guys in the UK.
34:27: We asked them, we said, I said, hey Alex, could you be wrong about everything you think you know? And immediately, without hesitation, Alex goes, I could be wrong about everything I think I know.
34:38: You should hear this debate, it's online.
34:40: I could be wrong about everything I think I know.
34:42: Well, we tried to explain to Alex.
34:44: We said, listen, if you could be wrong about everything you claim to know, well, then you don't know anything at all.
34:51: And if you don't know anything at all, you certainly cannot argue against Christianity.
34:57: How do you argue against something when you don't know anything? How easy is it to beat your debate opponent when your debate opponent says, just so you know, I could be wrong about everything I'm saying.
35:12: Debate's over guys, it's done.
35:15: Christianity is not true.
35:17: Could you be wrong? Well, yeah.
35:22: The Bible is full of contradictions.
35:24: Could you be wrong? Yeah, well, yeah.
35:27: How do you win a debate like that? It's impossible to win a debate like that.
35:33: Your opponent wins by default.
35:35: So I said this and he never did get it.
35:37: Alex never did comprehend what we were talking about.
35:40: So a couple of days later, I threw something out on Twitter.
35:42: I said, the truths of God are not a matter of belief or unbelief.
35:46: They're a matter of acceptance or rejection.
35:48: Doesn't matter whether you believe them or not.
35:50: It's just, do you accept them or you reject them? They're true.
35:52: Are you gonna accept God's truth or reject God's truth? Alex, the guy that I just debated, chimed in on the Twitter conversation.
35:58: He said, that's fallacious.
36:01: In other words, that's not true.
36:04: Now I've got a choice here.
36:06: I can either argue with Alex over whether or not what I said was true, or I can remind Alex of what he said in the debate.
36:19: I chose the latter.
36:21: I said, Alex, you could be wrong.
36:25: He said, that's not true.
36:26: So I just reminded him of what he said.
36:28: I said, well, you could be wrong.
36:30: He goes, I could be, but so could you.
36:33: And I'm not.
36:37: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
36:40: I could be, but I'm not.
36:47: Oxymoron, those don't go together.
36:48: You don't say, I could be wrong, but I'm not.
36:50: Well, if you're not, then you couldn't be wrong.
36:51: And if you could be wrong, you can't say I'm not wrong.
36:53: Those don't go together.
36:54: I couldn't help myself.
36:55: I responded slightly sarcastically.
36:57: I said, you just contradicted yourself in one tweet, LOL.
37:02: Wow, in one tweet, he just made a contradiction right there.
37:06: Boom.
37:06: But this really is the conclusion of the atheist worldview.
37:09: This is what led David Hume, a famous skeptic, to claim we have no good reason to believe that the perceptual images, excuse me, we have no good reason to believe that the world outside of us resembles the perceptual images inside of us.
37:24: What does that mean? I've got no way to tell if what I think I'm seeing is real.
37:31: I think I'm seeing an audience of people.
37:35: I think I'm seeing some fantastically behaved children, but I don't know if they're real.
37:44: This could just be happening in my brain.
37:46: I don't know.
37:48: This is the conclusion of skepticism.
37:51: We can't know anything.
37:53: I don't know if you're real or not.
37:55: If I'm a skeptic, I have to go there.
37:58: I have to be willing to make that claim.
38:01: It's really unbelievable.
38:02: If I have time, I will ask atheists one last question.
38:06: I say, hey, if I could prove God to your satisfaction, would you be willing to worship him? What do you think skeptics say? I was at the largest gathering of atheists in the history of America, the Reason Rally, and I asked some very famous atheists that question.
38:26: If I could prove God to your satisfaction, would you worship him? Here's what they said.
38:30: Keep getting my audio on.
38:32: If I could prove to your satisfaction that the God of the Bible exists, would you worship him? No.
38:38: If you could prove to my satisfaction that God does exist, the God of the Bible exists, would I worship him? No.
38:46: Why not? Because he's kind of a jerk.
38:48: I would not.
38:50: Just because someone created us does not mean we're divinely tied to blindly worship them.
38:55: If I could prove God to your satisfaction, the God of the Bible, would you worship him? Um...
39:04: Probably...
39:04: I mean, if you could prove...
39:07: So, I mean, are you going to prove...
39:09: If I could prove the creator to your satisfaction, would you worship him? You haven't done that.
39:16: So it's not I'm asking.
39:18: If I could...
39:19: We're asking atheists why they are atheists.
39:21: Why are you an atheist? Simply lack of evidence.
39:25: Lack of evidence in God? Yes.
39:27: If I could prove God's existence to you, would you worship him? I'm saying that I would accept his existence.
39:38: Would you worship him? That's an entirely different question.
39:42: Uh...
39:44: Probably not, not, not, not, not.
39:48: Um...
39:49: You know what this tells us, guys? This is not an intellectual debate.
39:55: It's an emotional debate.
39:57: This is a matter of the heart.
40:00: Hey, for those of you that have skeptic friends or skeptic family members, you need to understand.
40:04: You can argue all day long.
40:07: And I believe we should present good defense of the faith and make sure we do it in love.
40:12: But you got to understand, this is not an intellectual issue for them.
40:15: It really is a heart issue.
40:17: They don't want to believe that God.
40:21: Romans tells us very clearly, everybody knows that God exists.
40:25: They are without excuse.
40:26: Because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
40:30: They knew God exists.
40:31: They know that, but they were vain.
40:34: They became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was dark.
40:37: And then professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
40:42: I got to throw this in there, okay? There's a quote in there.
40:44: I'm going to go about a minute and a half over because of this quote, but I got to share this quote with you.
40:48: One of the best-selling books among church planters in America today.
40:53: Jim and Casper go to church.
40:55: Jim was a former pastor.
40:56: Casper is an atheist.
40:58: They went and visited a whole bunch of churches around America and gave their thoughts on the churches.
41:03: I enjoyed the read, but it was very subjective.
41:06: There was no, here's what it should look like.
41:08: How did it compare? It was just, what did you think? What did you think? That's it.
41:12: So it was an interesting read.
41:14: I read the second edition of the book.
41:15: In the second edition, Jim, the pastor, who went around with Casper, the atheist, Jim, who wrote the book, he answered people's questions.
41:24: And since I went through this, I read the book, I was like, okay, interesting, but very subjective.
41:29: Let me read this Q&A.
41:31: And here was one of the questions asked.
41:34: Casper says, that's the atheist, Casper says that Christians' certainty often worries him, especially when those Christians claim to present the truth.
41:46: While we obviously have to be careful when we make claims, are there some truths that Christians ought to stand on? What about I am the way, the truth, and the life? Here's Jim, the former pastor's response to that question.
42:07: And I want you to be discerning as you read it.
42:09: I want you to discern here, okay, as you read it.
42:11: Here's what he said.
42:14: There's a difference between certainty and confidence or hope.
42:20: As a follower of Jesus, we put our faith in a set of beliefs that we choose to think of as real.
42:29: He said, we cannot prove any of them.
42:33: That's why it's called faith.
42:36: What bothers non-believers is when we assert that we know something when they know that none of us can know anything until we die.
42:47: How could they know that we don't know anything until we die when they're not dead? That doesn't work, does it? He said, I'm very comfortable asserting my faith and my hope and my confidence that Jesus is God, but I will not say that I know He is God in the same way I say I know there's gravity.
43:12: He goes on.
43:13: I hope the story I bet my life on is true, but neither Casper nor I will know for sure until both of us are dead.
43:20: Then he says, atheists are very surprised when they hear me say this and wonder why more Christians can't admit these things.
43:28: They're not offended in the least by my faith, hope, or confidence.
43:31: I feel no need to try to prove that I'm right and they're wrong.
43:34: All any of us really has is our own story.
43:37: If we've had a real encounter with the living God, then they'll simply have to deal with it in whatever way they choose.
43:45: Wow.
43:48: Thoughts real quick on this.
43:51: It's not very confident.
43:53: I'd say I'd take it even further than that.
43:54: If he really believes what he's saying here, is he a Christian? I can't say that Jesus is God in the same way I say I know there's gravity.
44:04: I mean, isn't the fact that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, who was God in the form of the flesh to live among men, to die, to be buried and raised again, isn't that the gospel? Isn't that the whole point? And that only he could do that? That's kind of the whole point.
44:22: If he believes that he's not even a Christian.
44:27: Wow.
44:28: Is that all we have, guys? Is all we have as Christians a blind faith? You're gonna be challenged with that.
44:41: Ah, you guys just believe blindly.
44:43: You got blind faith.
44:45: First of all, there's nothing wrong with faith.
44:47: You guys use faith every second of the day.
44:50: You have faith in the chair that you're sitting in right now.
44:52: You have faith in that.
44:53: You sat in it.
44:54: You're putting your faith in that chair.
44:56: When you drove here today, some of you put more faith in a person driving on the other side of the road directly toward you with the only thing separating you, a little bitty yellow or white line that's about that thick and that wide.
45:11: And you had faith that they weren't gonna cross that line and hit you.
45:16: And you put a whole lot of faith.
45:17: Didn't even think about it.
45:18: Drove right by him.
45:20: And you put faith in somebody you had never met.
45:24: Some of you put more faith in that person than you do in God.
45:30: Faith is not a blind faith.
45:31: The Christian faith is not blind.
45:34: It's a very rational faith.
45:35: Why did you sit in that chair? You knew it would hold you.
45:40: Why do I trust in Jesus? I know he's gonna save me.
45:43: It's not an irrational faith.
45:46: All right, last concept.
45:47: Okay, we gotta end here.
45:48: Last concept.
45:49: I just need to blow your brain real quick.
45:50: And then we gotta pray and we gotta go.
45:52: Okay, ready? Because I'm hungry.
45:53: Here we go.
45:53: Ready? Important concept.
45:56: If you could be wrong, then you don't really know.
46:00: Are we good? Everybody got that? If you could be wrong, let me just make sure that makes sense.
46:04: If I said the speed limit on the road right outside here is 45 miles an hour, but I could be wrong.
46:09: Do I know what the speed limit on the road is? No, because I said I could be wrong.
46:14: And if I could be wrong, then I don't really know.
46:15: If I said the Sears Tower is 1,751 feet tall, but I could be wrong.
46:22: Do I know the height of the Sears Tower? No, because I said I could be wrong.
46:26: And if I could be wrong, then I...
46:28: If I could be wrong, then I...
46:30: I don't really know.
46:32: Okay, now, with that as our background, here we go.
46:34: Ready? Here's our little brain-frying moment.
46:37: You ready? Okay? We've given you enough time to have your nap.
46:39: Now, wake up.
46:40: It's time to fry our brains here real quick.
46:42: Ready? Out of all the knowledge in the universe, out of everything there is to know about everything, all the physics, all the astronomy, all the geology, all the biology, all the chemistry, all the anatomy, out of everything there is to know about everything in the universe, what the dogs are doing at home right now, out of everything there is to know, how much knowledge do you have? Not much, right? Thomas Edison, the great inventor, said, we do not know one millionth of one percent of anything.
47:17: Wow.
47:18: We don't have a whole lot.
47:19: Let's just pretend, okay? Out of all the knowledge in the universe, let's just pretend for a second that you think, we're going to exaggerate this, especially for you and I, okay? We think we've got a massive one percent of all the knowledge in the universe.
47:33: Let me ask you something.
47:37: Is it possible that something in the 99 percent that we do not know, is it possible that something out there could contradict or prove wrong that one percent that we think we know? That's possible? You guys agree that's possible? Well, if something in that 99 percent could prove wrong, that one percent that you think you know, that means you could be wrong about that one percent.
48:16: And if you could be wrong about that one percent, then you don't even know that one percent, which means we don't know anything.
48:33: I've been telling you that.
48:36: That means we don't know anything at all.
48:43: Okay, let's pray.
48:45: I'm just kidding.
48:46: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
48:49: We don't know anything? Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it.
48:53: We don't know anything.
48:57: Hey, in order to claim I know something to be true and I cannot be wrong about it, I'd have to know everything.
49:07: Because if I didn't know everything, I could be wrong.
49:11: I'd have to have all knowledge.
49:13: Otherwise, I could be wrong.
49:15: If you don't know everything, you have to know everything in order to know something.
49:17: Otherwise, you could be wrong.
49:21: Or you just have to know someone who knows everything.
49:29: And the one who knows everything could give you truth, could reveal truth to you.
49:35: And you could know something even though you don't know everything.
49:38: I don't claim to know everything.
49:41: But we could know things because we do know somebody who does know everything.
49:49: Hey, do you realize you and I have been given revelation from God? You and I have been given revelation from the one who knows everything.
50:04: Actually, everybody has.
50:07: That's why even the atheist, when he says, I don't know anything, that's a claim about something he knows.
50:16: He knows that he doesn't know anything.
50:18: He's still claiming knowledge.
50:19: You can't claim knowledge apart from God.
50:23: The only way to know anything is to have revelation from the one who knows everything.
50:29: Say, I want proof of God.
50:30: Okay, fine, proof of God.
50:31: Without God, the one who knows everything, you can't know anything.
50:37: It's just that simple.
50:38: You say, well, hang on.
50:39: How do you know God revealed things to us? Well, because if he didn't, we couldn't know anything.
50:44: You have to start with revelation from God.
50:46: Otherwise, you're in this logical problem, this circle saying, I don't know anything.
50:51: How do you know that? I don't know.
50:53: Wait a minute.
50:53: It doesn't work.
50:54: I know this has been deep, but let me just ask to make sure we're all on the same page.
50:58: Do you guys know anything? Some of you are like, I don't know.
51:07: You tell me.
51:08: Do we or not? It's kind of confusing.
51:11: I get it.
51:12: We just went deep really fast.
51:13: Okay, we went straight to the bottom and some of you are still down there and you're trying to breathe and you can't breathe.
51:19: Let me just help you breathe.
51:20: Yes, you know things.
51:22: Okay, we do know things.
51:24: You are here.
51:25: This is a church.
51:27: You're sitting down.
51:28: You do know things, okay? You do know things.
51:31: But you couldn't know them without the one who knows everything revealing truth to us.
51:36: If you don't start with God, you don't get anywhere.
51:40: Now we're back to the beginning, aren't we? The fear of the Lord really is the beginning of wisdom.
51:46: The fear of the Lord really is the beginning of knowledge.
51:50: Hey, what this should do, and I know we covered it probably way too fast, but what this should do is make you fall in love with the revelation that God has given us.
52:00: You should search these out and study these and know what you believe because this is revelation from God.
52:06: It's a gift to you.
52:08: It's how we have knowledge.
52:10: The fear of the Lord really is the beginning of knowledge.
52:13: The fear of the Lord really is the beginning of wisdom.
52:16: Some of you know skeptics.
52:17: You need to reach out to them.
52:19: I encourage you to pray for them.
52:20: That's your number one weapon, prayer.
52:24: God can use arguments, but it's God who does the work.
52:28: It's not your argument that does the work in their heart.
52:30: Just keep that in mind.
52:32: Heavenly Father, thank you for letting us reflect on your word and reflect on your truth this morning.
52:38: God, is there so much for us to learn as we give a defense, as we learn how to give an answer for why we believe what we believe.
52:44: Thank you for providing us with so much real knowledge.
52:48: I pray, Heavenly Father, that that real knowledge, that truth, would go out into a lost and dying world.
52:59: Thank you for letting us love you today.
53:03: Thank you for letting us dive into your word today.
53:06: Your precious and holy, holy name, the name above all names, the name of Jesus we pray.
53:11: Amen.
53:12: Let's stand and prepare our hearts for communion.