October 27, 2020 Show with Graham Dugas & Christian McShaffrey on “The Bahnsen Project: Helping Christians Everywhere to Better Defend the Faith” (Day 2 of a 5-Day Tribute to Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen)

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 27th day of October, 2020.

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And I am thrilled that we are now entering into day number two of our five -day tribute to the late

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Dr. Greg L. Bonson, born in 1948 and entering into glory with Christ for eternity in 1995.

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Today, for day number two, we are featuring two guests, Graham Dugas, founder of the

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Bonson Project, and Christian McShaffrey, pastor of Five Souls Church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

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Our theme today specifically is going to be the Bonson Project, helping Christians everywhere to better defend the faith, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome

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Graham Dugas, founder of the Bonson Project, and Christian McShaffrey, pastor of Five Souls Church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

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First of all, Graham, it's great to have you on the program for the first time. It is a true pleasure.

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Thank you so very much for having us. And Christian McShaffrey, so it's an honor to have you as well.

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It is a pleasure and a privilege. Thanks for having us on. Well, first of all,

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Graham, tell us about the Bonson Project, which is not only what you have founded as a ministry, but it's also our major theme for discussion today.

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Well, a little bit before that, I would say that my personal indebtedness to the ministry of Dr.

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Bonson would kind of set a framework for how this all came about. I bowed the knee to Christ in 1986, and it was kind of a generic evangelical type of environment, just say like a

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Chuck Swindoll type of environment, David Jeremiah, that sort of thing, radio preachers back in the 80s, long before the

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Internet. And I came to the Reformed faith through the ministry of Dr.

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Greg Bonson, and I would say kind of ended up in the deep end pretty quick.

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But very honestly, what I had never heard such clear teaching is his pedagogy, his style of teaching, and the way he built, as the

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Bible says, line upon line, precept upon precept was so clear. I just never heard anything like it before, and it had a profound effect on my life.

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And I would liken it to having your computer hard drive just defragmented, all the unrelated and extraneous concepts and passages and all these things that are just kind of isolated and untethered.

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A lot of things are conflicting, not the Bible conflicting with each other, but the interpretations that men would put on it.

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And so he harmonized the whole thing into, well, certainly covenant theology, systematic theology, and so much more.

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So I've been greatly indebted to Dr. Bonson, and I'm going to let

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Christian speak for just a second, and then we'll get into how the project was conceived. Well, Christian, before you do that, if you could tell our listeners about Five Solas Church in Reidsburg, Wisconsin.

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Absolutely. Five Solas Church of Reidsburg originally started out as a mission work of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We were organized as a mission in 2000 with a few families that were meeting for Bible study.

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I first visited in 2002 when I was a student at Mid -America Reformed Seminary.

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I came up here to preach the Word on Sunday, built some relationships, and then moved here in 2003 after my graduation.

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Since then, we've become self -supporting, self -governing, and we're now self -propagating.

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We have our own mission work, and the Lord has been very good to our church over the past 20 years.

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Well, just as Graham Dugas just did, if you could give us a summary of your salvation testimony.

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Whenever we have first -time guests on the show, we have them give a brief summary of their salvation testimony, which would include what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in and what kind of providential circumstances our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives to draw them to Himself and save them. I was raised in a typical middle -class

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Roman Catholic household. We were conservative, but mostly culturally Catholic. We went to Mass once a week.

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I went to catechism on Monday nights, and I rejected that faith as an early act of teenage rebellion, and I fell into drugs, alcohol, punk rock, death metal, lived a very depraved life until, we can say as Calvinists, I stumbled across a

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Christian radio station in 1995 in my last year of college.

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I there heard the good news, and I eventually repented of my sin, received the

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Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. And to this day, I still have interest in Christian radio because it was such a huge impact on my life.

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I'm on the management team of a Christian station here in Wisconsin, classical music, sacred music, conservative

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Bible teaching. So to our listeners, never underestimate the power of radio broadcasting to reach souls that would never darken the door of a church.

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Amen. Amen. Well, I've been in radio most of my adult life, so I give a hearty amen to that.

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Yeah, God has His way to bring the gospel to people, and sometimes it's through technology. Praise God.

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Well, now let us begin, just as we did yesterday, because not everybody listening is necessarily listening every day.

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And we do perhaps have people listening who are not familiar with the life, legacy, and teaching of Dr.

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Greg L. Bonson and why we would be paying honor to him for five days in a row on this broadcast.

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But if you could, this time we'll start with Graham Dugas. If you could, give us a summary of who

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Dr. Greg L. Bonson was. Greg was a man that wore many hats.

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He certainly was a pastor. He was an apologist extraordinaire. He was a philosopher, had many disciplines under his belt, a couple of degrees in mainly philosophy, apologetics, and masters in theology and divinity.

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But aside from his earthly credentials, it was more his ministry that had a wide range and lasting effect among many, many people.

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If you go on the internet and just do just about anything regarding apologetics, and we'll define that discipline in just a little bit, but if you do any searches or you know people that are paying attention to the apologetics world and stuff like that,

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Greg is one of the foremost names that you will come across. He made a big splash when he debated an atheist by the name of Gordon Stein at,

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I think it was UCLA, was it Irvine or something like that? I forget exactly the school. But that was quite a splash because he took the rather hard to understand, or not hard to understand, the easy to understand but hard to articulate, or previously hard to articulate, teachings of Dr.

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Cornelius Van Til and applied them in this debate in such a way that even the unbelievers and everybody that was there, they just, their jaws hit the ground by the end of the debate.

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And Greg Bonson had put himself quite firmly on the map as a premier apologist and lived out most of his days fulfilling that calling.

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Yeah, he is held in high esteem by many in the apologetic realm especially, who even if they are not lined up with every jot and tittle of Dr.

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Bonson's theology, they could not deny that he was a great mind with a great gift to defend the faith and therefore you do have a number of folks inside and outside the circles of his own personal theological positions who hold him in the very highest esteem.

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And I know that he was obviously, from what we have been already saying, he was theologically reformed and even ordained in the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Yes, and just offhand, I would say, aside from his academic achievements, his achievements as an apologist and all that, you have all these other people that's not the pages of history where they're essentially leaders in thought.

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And for good or ill, I mean, you may have someone like, just say, a Darwin or you may have

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Aristotle or any of these people, Greg Bonson is kind of in that category where whether you're for him or against him or whatever, it doesn't matter.

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You have to deal with the things that he said and the thoughts that he introduced that have to be addressed because they're that consequential to the conversation of the time.

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Now, he was also, as you had mentioned, or one of you had mentioned, a pastor, but primarily we're going to be discussing his field of apologetics that he was a leader and a champion of, which is so closely connected to the

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Bonson Project. Perhaps either one of you, in fact, if you could, remember to identify who you are when you have something to say, so this way we'll know who is saying what.

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But if you could give our listeners, especially those who are new Christians who may be unfamiliar with some of the terminology that we're using, if you could give us a summary explanation of what is involved in the field of apologetics and what is an apologist.

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Yeah, Graham, I'll take this one. Okay. This is Christian McShaffery. Yeah. So presuppositional apologetics would be the title or the name for the field of study that we're discussing today, and defining those terms is relatively easy.

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Apologetics is a branch of applied theology or practical theology that aims to defend the

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Christian faith against the variety of challenges that are leveled against it by unbelievers and agnostics and atheists, and the goal of apologetics, of course, is to defend the claims of Christianity, but ultimately to vindicate the

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Christian philosophy against all autonomous philosophies of life. So apologetics is defending the

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Christian faith, and when we say presuppositional apologetics, we're acknowledging that there is an element of a person's reasoning, the process by which they form their opinions that has nothing to do with arguments or evidence or anything else, it's a deeply held personal commitment, and it's there at the most basic level of someone's network of core beliefs, and presuppositions are assumptions, they're wide ranging, and they form this foundational perspective by which someone sees all the world and all reality.

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You can think of a presupposition as a pair of spectacles or glasses through which a person sees everything else, and the discipline of presuppositional apologetics is to get to that core level of foundational assumptions that people make as they evaluate reason or evidence.

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All right, let me ask you a question to help further clarify the specific nature of presuppositional apologetics.

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Two of my greatest heroes of the faith, who are both now in eternity with Christ, so now they're presuppositionalists, but when they were living on this earth, they were not.

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In fact, they both contributed to a book critiquing presuppositionalism, and I'm speaking of the late

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Dr. R .C. Sproul, one of my greatest heroes of the Christian faith, especially one that was living for most of my life as a

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Christian, and also Dr. John Gerstner, who was a mentor to Dr.

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Sproul. They both adhered to classical or evidential apologetics, and so if you could, and Christian, if you want to continue, and then we could have

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Graham Dugas chime in if you'd like, how would, for instance, there be a difference between the way someone like Dr.

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Sproul or John Gerstner or any number of other apologists who were not presuppositionalists, let's just say they were having a debate with a

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Roman Catholic, and the nature of the debate was, did the

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Church Fathers, in their majority, teach a

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Roman Catholic gospel as defined in the Council of Trent? Now, how would

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Dr. Bonson and Dr. Sproul and Dr. Gerstner differ on how they would approach a debate such as that, because it would seem to me you would need to use evidence, you would need to use not only patristic sources, but the scriptures itself and so on, so how do you differ between their approach?

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Yeah, Chris, that's a great question, and a lot of brothers in the Reformed camp differ on the approach to apologetics, some subscribe to the presuppositional model and others to what we call the evidentialist or the classical model, and I do think sometimes the difference is overemphasized.

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I think it was John Frame that acknowledged that Dr. Sproul is an honorary presuppositionalist because he always took

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Christian presuppositions into an account, but in terms of your example, the question at hand would require that we return to historical evidence, and one of the most foundational points of the presuppositional apologetic is there is no such thing as a truly objective examination of evidence, because everyone approaches evidence with a set of assumptions, and these assumptions are based on someone's most deeply held beliefs and commitments, and just think about the word, they're called presuppositions, because the prefix pre - indicates that these things are in place prior to cognition, prior to thought or evaluation.

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They affect the way a man looks at and interprets the evidence, and because that's the case, these assumptions enjoy what

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Bonson called revisionary immunity, so that even if the evidence points you in a different direction, your presuppositions are immune to revision.

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So we could sit with the Roman Catholic for four or five hours thumbing through the pages of the

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Church Fathers and get nowhere until we address the core principles and the deeply held beliefs that they have.

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Graham, does that sound about right? Yeah, it's what we think before we think type of a thing, and how do we evaluate our evidence?

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And, you know, Dr. Van Til would say there are no uninterpreted facts. Two people could look at the exact same occurrence and walk away with two very different conclusions, and so what you talked about earlier about going through the

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Patristic Fathers and having all these evidences five hours and talking yourself blue in the face, until you address the criteria by which you are going to interpret all your evidences and all the things that are brought before you, then nothing, no progress is going to be made, because what we have to do is be honest about how we are ultimately interpreting and evaluating the evidences or the observations or phenomenal things, and things in the phenomenal realm.

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So that's where Dr. Bontz and Dr. Van Til, and they actually stand in a lineage, they're not just recent and novel folks, that's how they...

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it's ultimately total honesty. You're just being honest about your criteria, and we are saying that you have to submit to God, to the

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Word of God, prior to any and all intelligibility. And there's that passage,

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Christian, do you care to read the one out of 1 Peter? Oh, the

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Classic Apologetics passage in 1 Peter 315 is, "...sanctify

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the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."

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And not only is that a command to defend our faith and be ready always to do that, but it also indicates that first and most foundational epistemological step, that we sanctify the

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Lord in our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Unlike the ungodly, they start with, there is no

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God. We rather sanctify the Lord in our hearts, and that opens our eyes to see the

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God -affirming and truth -affirming nature of evidences. Can I offer another illustration,

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Chris? Of course. So I live in Wisconsin, and the part of Wisconsin that used to be famous for what's called the

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Delves. And the Wisconsin Delves are just a natural place where there are rivers and cliff edges, and places where rivers cut through the rock many years ago, we don't know when.

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And people take boat rides through this area, and they look with wonder at all the different levels of the rock, and they see how there are different levels there, and they just marvel at the beauty of it.

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And I take that boat ride, and I see proof of a young earth, and a global flood, the power and wrath of God to cut through rock as He washed the world clean, and it all makes perfect sense to me.

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But the person next to me in the tour boat will look at that rock cliff, and conclude, well, that's proof of millions and millions of years of sediment, and rock formation, and no

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God. So we have the same evidence before our eyes, but I have sanctified the

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Lord God in my heart, they have said there is no God in their heart, and therefore their heart has become darkened, their foolish hearts are darkened.

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And that's the importance of presuppositions when we come to the evaluation of evidence.

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Now, obviously, there is place for introducing evidence into an argument, even by a presuppositionalist, right?

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I mean, you don't believe that evidence is anathema. No, evidence is crucial.

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It's just the proper use and the place of evidence. And another passage would be

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Proverbs 26 verses 4 and 5, which command the apologist, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

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Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. So the prohibition is that we don't meet the unbeliever on some kind of intellectual common ground, because they are fools, their foolish hearts are darkened, they're futile in their thoughts, so we can't grant or argue in accordance with their foolish assumptions about the evidence.

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But having not done that, we are able to proceed to show them the impossibility of their assumptions, the internal inconsistencies of their arguments, and even use them, the evidence, against them, so that they can come to the unavoidable conclusion of what they're holding in their hearts, their corrupt world view.

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And we do that to help them not be wise in their own conceit. So evidence we do use, we just don't use it as the foundation for reasoning with unbelief, because we acknowledge that they're looking at that evidence through shaded, corrupt, and cracked spectacles.

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Now, obviously, the most vital way that presuppositional apologetics, or apologetics in general, is going to come into play, is not when those who have been highly trained, and are extremely skilled, and perhaps even have apologetics as a part of their career.

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It's not going to be the formal, moderated debates that I have organized since 1995.

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I am a big lover of debates, and have organized many of them, not participating in the debates myself, but arranging them on behalf of others, like my friend

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary, and others opposing

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Roman Catholics, opposing Arminians, opposing those in cults, atheists, and so on.

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But as much as I think that these are very valuable tools, these formal debates, and especially very helpful to the body of Christ, when those who are skilled are participating in them, the main way, the most vital way that this is going to come into play, is in the life of every

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Christian, who must be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within them.

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They are going to be having discussions around the

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Thanksgiving dinner table. They're going to be having discussions at their lunch break, during their lunch break at work.

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They're going to be on a train, or on a cruise. We could go on and on with the scenarios, when we as believers in Christ, we who are

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Christians, have encounters with those who are unbelievers, and they could be just passive, indifferent folks, who give us a courtesy to let us speak, and they might be bored to death by what we're saying, or they might be fascinated, or even to the other extreme of those who are hostile enemies of the gospel that we are interacting with.

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And these are the tools, the tools of apologetics, and in this case presuppositionalism, that are going to be extremely useful to the person that is not a scholar, not an accredited, degreed person, but the average brother and sister in Christ, who should be further equipped to be able to have these discussions, and to refute what is being said in falsehood about Christianity, and to affirm that which is true.

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Am I making sense here? You are. In fact,

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I'm going to have you guys further respond to this after our first break, which we have to go to right now. And if anybody, by the way, wants to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

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

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with our second day of tribute to the late

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Dr. Greg L. Bonson, and we have a lot more to talk about, so don't go away.

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This is Chris Arnzen, and today is day number two of our five -day tribute to the late

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Dr. Greg L. Bonson, a world -renowned theologian, scholar, apologist, and debater.

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And today we have two guests, Graham Dugas, founder of the Bonson Project, and Christian McShaffrey, pastor of Five Solas Church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

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Our specific theme today, under the umbrella of the tribute to Dr. Bonson, is the

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Bonson Project, Helping Christians Everywhere to Better Defend the Faith. And let me remind our listeners, and I'll try to repeat this throughout the broadcast, but since it's such an important website,

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I don't want you to forget it. The website for the Bonson Project is bonsonproject .com,

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bonsonproject .com, and that's B -A -H -N -S -E -N, project .com.

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And as I said, I'll be repeating that throughout the program. But I was just about to get an answer from both of you as to why this is not exclusively the realm, that's apologetics, is not exclusively the realm of ivory tower scholars and theologians to be involved in formal collegiate debates.

39:35

This is primarily, and most importantly, the realm of the everyday Christian seeking to be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within them, and to be equipped to appropriately represent

39:50

Christ as an ambassador for the Christian faith when interacting with those who are not believers in the gospel, and perhaps even enemies of the gospel.

40:00

And perhaps you could share with us, both of you can share with us, how presuppositionalism is very, very helpful to the success of Christians being properly equipped to defend the faith.

40:20

And one thing that I can immediately think of, and you folks can both chime in and go on directions of your own if you want, but so far there may be people listening, your average

40:32

Christians listening, who are terrified even of the thought of being an apologist as far as being an everyday

40:41

Christian apologist. Been using some highfalutin book learning words like epistemology and so on, which basically means how you know what you know.

40:53

But one of the things that presuppositionalism, as far as I understand it, is that it does not require the average

41:05

Christian to be an expert in everything. Sometimes when you see apologists and theologians and scholars give lectures or participate in seminars and conferences, you might get the impression,

41:21

I've got to be an expert in science, I've got to be an expert in this realm of study and that realm of study to adequately defend

41:29

Christianity and Christ himself from the slanders of the world. But presuppositionalism, to a large degree, doesn't it alleviate that burden and even that notion that your average

41:40

Christian has to be an expert on everything? Assuredly. This is

41:45

Graham. Assuredly. I'd like to read a passage from Luke chapter 1, and I'm going to spring off of that, and verse 3,

41:56

Luke chapter 1, it says, it seemed good to me also, having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write you in an orderly account, most excellent

42:09

Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

42:16

The fact of the matter is, is that Dr. Bonson and also the

42:22

Presuppositional School, but Dr. Bonson is the most, what's to say, clear articulator of the

42:29

Presuppositional School, fulfills this passage. What happens is, when you have an orderly account, when everything is in the proper place, properly related in a proper structure that overarches everything, then you know the certainties, the certainty of the things in which you were instructed.

42:53

So it's a very simple thing with the Presuppositional Apologetic School, is that you really don't have to know five gazillion facts.

43:02

You really become more and more acquainted with the authentic and the genuine, and that is the certainty in the things in which you have been instructed, the certainty in the things in which you believe.

43:16

The certainty, for instance, of the Resurrection, the certainty of the Ascension, the certainty of Christ's reign at the right hand of God the

43:25

Father Almighty, even right now. The certainty of God as Creator is the definer of all things that He has created and their relations one to another.

43:37

And so you become more acquainted, very honestly, with the genuine, and then certainty comes out from that once things start to become orderly.

43:50

And the Presuppositional Method doesn't bring forth, like, five gazillion facts and evidences to the table.

44:02

It brings a way to interpret and evaluate the evidences that are before your eyes, just as Christian was speaking earlier about looking at, just say, the

44:12

Grand Canyon or some evidences that we see all around us of worldwide global flood.

44:20

So there's plenty of ways to look at it, but that's why we founded the

44:26

Bonson Project, because there's many, many people out there who... I'm not a person with a theological education.

44:34

I didn't go to seminary or anything like that, but to me, by the grace of God, I ran across Dr.

44:42

Bonson's teaching at a very early and impressionable part of my Christian walk, and it just changed everything, because it just makes the

44:52

Bible very, very clear. And a Christian, you have anything to say to follow up on that?

45:00

Well, sure. You mentioned, you know, your work in the past of facilitating professional debates amongst theologians...

45:07

Actually, I still do that. I still do that. You do? Well, thank you for it. It helps

45:12

Christians to learn how to defend their faith, not only by digesting the content, but also observing the tactics.

45:21

And James White is a prime example. He always takes a presuppositional approach and tries to get to the most foundational arguments of his opponent, and to test them for what he calls consistency and meaningfulness in terms of the methodology.

45:37

His most recent debate proved that both guys threw out all kinds of evidence, but in the end it came down to, what are the assumptions that you're making, and what are your core presuppositional beliefs?

45:51

And the beauty of the presuppositional apologetic is it enables every Christian, whether educated, professionally, or just on an average level, to defend the faith, because it teaches them how to listen for the assumptions that are being made, how to listen for internal inconsistencies in the arguments that are being offered, and it also emboldens them then to expose unintelligible arguments and breaks of the opponent with their previous assumptions.

46:22

And really, like Graham said, it's all about the Word of God. It truly is quick and powerful and sharper than any two -edged sword, and when we bring that to the argument as our most certain foundation of intelligibility, we have already won, so long as we stand upon that conviction.

46:43

Amen. And I think that the scholarly, formal, moderated, collegiate debates are very helpful, because when we are involved in a lower level of everyday

47:00

Christian apologetics and just having conversations with either those that are not

47:07

Christians, or they may be Christians with very bad theology, or they may think they're

47:13

Christian but are sadly mistaken, we can hear perhaps an enemy of what we believe or an opponent of what we believe point to some scholar or theologian from their own background.

47:30

If you're a Roman Catholic, for instance, the Roman Catholic might point to Catholic Answers, Scott Hahn, any number of the more well -known

47:45

Catholic apologists, and since that apologist typically may know a lot more than the average person, may know

47:56

Greek and Hebrew, and may know a whole bunch of other things, and may know church history extremely well, we may be more prone to just give up and say, well,

48:06

I'm never going to be as smart as that guy, I'm never going to know the things he knows, so I'm just waving the white flag and either conceding that my opponent is correct or just not bringing up any differences that we have and never being involved in conversations like that.

48:21

Whereas we can point others to a more formal debate by the scholars, to point them to people who are extremely trained and knowledgeable in those specific fields.

48:35

Like for instance, somebody who benefited greatly from the life, legacy, and teaching of Dr.

48:41

Bonson is one of our guests this week on the program, Dr. Jason Lyle, who is an astronomer.

48:49

And obviously if you're having some kind of a discussion with a secular humanist, an atheist, who is throwing out scientific facts he's heard, or things that he thinks are scientific facts, even if you can't retort with your own set of scientific knowledge, you can at least point them to the fact that there are brilliant men of God, sufficiently trained in those unique fields, that have proven the errors of the one that you are speaking with.

49:30

Am I making sense here? Exactly, because, you know, the two most foundational starting points for the

49:39

Christian is the self -attesting claims of Jesus Christ and the self -attesting authority of Scripture.

49:46

I mean, the Lord Jesus Christ says, I am. And he doesn't offer corroborating evidence, as always, to justify those claims of glory and divinity.

49:56

And the same with Scriptures. They claim for themselves a self -attesting and inscrutable authority as the

50:03

Word of God. And the minute we put those on a shelf in order to engage with lesser arguments of reason, or evidence, or even anecdotes, or experience, we have forfeited the two prongs of our apologetic defense, both of which are self -attesting.

50:20

Graham? Yeah, I was gonna say, along those lines, that...

50:28

By the way, Graham, could you speak more closely, like you did before? All right. Your voice got very low.

50:35

How's this? Much you get into these people that they try and snowball you with a bunch of facts and a bunch of assertions and stuff like that, you really just have to take a step back, go back to your foundation, examine their...

50:56

What are they trying to get you to swallow that gives their assertions any sort of credibility?

51:06

And once you dissect it, you can realize that there's a whole lot of, just let's say, shifting sand underneath that are undergirding their arguments.

51:17

And I'm not going to look at the brick structure on top of the shifting sand, I'm gonna look at the shifting sand and say, now wait a minute, you know, all those bricks fit together nicely and everything's very well assembled, but it's on sand.

51:31

And I want to talk about the sand. And so, you know, let's just take...

51:38

This is very quick and easy, but the atheistic view of, you know, the

51:44

Big Bang, and so they say, well, there was a singularity and it was infinitely small and infinitely massive and infinitely dense, and somehow of its own accord, it exploded and came into being, or, well, it was always into being, by the way, they call that the eternity of the cosmos.

52:06

They don't really... They try to do some sleight of hand so you don't get away with the... You don't notice that things have always really existed in their system.

52:14

And they say, well, one billionth of a second later, it was five gazillion degrees, and you had helium and this, and I said, well, then you stop and say, well, wait a minute, what are you talking about?

52:25

Where'd you get the table of elements from? Where do you talk about helium? Where do you get the... Oh, well, yeah, there was the order of the table of elements, and then you said...

52:32

And then they go, say, well, five seconds later, then it says... So wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, you mean to tell me there was gravity, too?

52:38

Oh, yeah, gravity, too. And then ten seconds later, there was this. I said, wait a minute, you mean electromagnetic...

52:44

Electromagnetism? Oh, yes. And light? Yes. And pretty soon you realize that the whole thing is a show game, and the only way you...

52:52

You've just unmasked them because you just learned how to dive down and find out what they're trying to buffalo you with, and that's exactly what it is.

53:04

You know, they got nice bricks, they all fit together, but there's sand underneath it, and a word of God only is that which is solid.

53:12

Amen. And we have to go to our midway break right now. This is the longer than normal break, so please be patient.

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Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because they have to abide by FCC regulations to localize

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Write down as much of the information as possible provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize our advertisers, or at least respond to them and tell them thank you for sponsoring

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Greg L. Bonson and on presuppositional apologetics, and don't go away. By the way, our email address is

54:03

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away.

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We're going to be right back after these messages with more of our day number two of our tribute to the late

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01:10:55

Just a few announcements before we return to our guest for our continuation of day number two, on our five -day tribute to the late

01:11:04

Dr. Greg L. Bonson. First of all, tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, we are going to continue with this theme of paying tribute to Dr.

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Bonson. Tomorrow, Wednesday, the 28th of October, we have

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Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington and Dr. Lane Tipton, speaking specifically on defending the faith biblically.

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On Thursday, the 29th of October, we have the aforementioned Dr. Jason Lyle and Eli Ayala, speaking on getting down and dirty, apologetics for everyone.

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And on Friday, the 30th of October, we have Paul Vigiano and Bill Shishko, who, by the way, my dear friend

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Bill Shishko, the pastor of the Haven Orthodox Presbyterian Church, currently meeting in Bohemia, Long Island.

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He organized this entire week of tributes to the late Dr. Greg L. Bonson, so I am in his debt for doing most of the hard work with this.

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And thank you, Bill. But I hope that you tune in every day this week for the remainder of this five -day tribute to the late

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01:15:05

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01:15:38

Graham Dugas and Christian McShaffrey, on the theme we are addressing today,

01:15:44

The Bonson Project, helping Christians everywhere to better defend the faith.

01:15:50

This is a part, this is day number two of our five -day tribute to the late

01:15:56

Dr. Greg L. Bonson. And if you folks want to pick up where we left off before I go to any listener questions,

01:16:05

I believe we were just in the midst of talking about how, although it's great and very valuable, and a great blessing to the body of Christ, to have scholars and trained theologians and scientists and so forth be involved in apologetics and in the formal moderated collegiate debates that I myself have arranged since 1995, the more important reason and need for apologetics is in the day -to -day average lives of your ordinary

01:16:41

Christians. So if you want to pick up where you folks left off, and if you could just identify yourself, whoever starts.

01:16:49

Well, thank you, Chris. This is Graham. Hey, Graham. I'd like to read that passage that Christian read earlier from 1

01:17:00

Peter 3, and it says in the 15th verse, but sanctify the

01:17:05

Lord God in your heart and be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason, the hope that is within you with meekness and fear.

01:17:19

Apologetics, we constantly hear this thinking of, it's a defense of the faith, defense of the faith.

01:17:26

Well, it most certainly is, but it's much more. In Philippians chapter 1,

01:17:34

I don't know what verse it is, probably around the 7th verse, maybe somewhere in there. Anyway, it talks about the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

01:17:46

And so there is more than just defending the gospel. There's a confirmation of it and even an assertion of the gospel, which is, as Paul talked about, to bring about the obedience of the faith among the

01:18:03

Gentiles. And so what we're talking about is the entire Christian world and life view that they used to speak of prior to the church becoming dumbed down as it is.

01:18:18

But nevertheless, the whole thing is that we should be able to articulate the hope that is within us.

01:18:26

Otherwise, we really don't have much of a hope. We're confused. The person that says, well,

01:18:33

I don't know how I believe what I believe, but I believe it, that person is basically praying for the enemy, and it won't be very long before he's going to be in a serious crisis of shipwrecked faith.

01:18:49

And so God wants our reasonable service. He wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

01:18:58

And the Christian faith is not anti -intellectual.

01:19:05

And, as a matter of fact, it is the only foundation for sound rationality and intelligence.

01:19:12

And Dr. Greg Bonson, through his teachings, make that very clear. And, of course, he is not alone.

01:19:19

He is not saying anything particularly novel. We find that he is one of the more clear presenters of this, and he asserts it with force and great persuasion because of his clarity.

01:19:34

And, by the grace of God, we're all here today talking about a man who has long since gone to be with the

01:19:42

Lord, and it is only the Holy Spirit that has blessed his ministry and memory because of his faithfulness to the

01:19:51

Scriptures. And so that is the true power of his ministry, is that he was faithful to the

01:19:57

Scriptures. So, I just wanted to sum it up to say it's not just a defense, but it is also the confirmation and the assertion of the

01:20:06

Gospel to everyone who believes. And Christian McShaffery, perhaps you could share with us, what were the gifts, the

01:20:16

God -given gifts, possessed by Dr. Greg L. Bonson that made him stand out in the field of apologetics, in your opinion?

01:20:26

What made him the hero of so many, the object of imitation and even envy?

01:20:36

What was it about him, his personality, his mental capacity, his endurance, and so forth, quick -wittedness and so on, what made him such an outstanding apologist that you're aware of?

01:20:58

That's a great question. And, of course, I didn't know Dr. Bonson. He passed just before I became a

01:21:04

Christian. But I've listened to many of his lectures and profited from them, probably mostly because of, first, his mastery of Scripture and his unflinching allegiance to the authority of God's Word.

01:21:20

This man sought God's thoughts after him and sanctified the Lord God in his heart so that truly he learned to think according to what was called in that philosophy a revelational epistemology.

01:21:35

And that was truly unique in his day, but especially in ours, when so many people are driven by their emotions and their experiences or even by the activities and the interjections of an opponent,

01:21:48

Dr. Bonson was able to keep his wits about him and to remain clear in his thoughts, knowing that God was more real to him than anything else and God's Word was more authoritative than anything else.

01:22:03

And this enabled him to rise above every argument almost immediately.

01:22:09

The speed at which he processed information was remarkable. And always bring back the argument to the most core and fundamental concepts of what is real, metaphysics?

01:22:21

And how do you know what you claim to know, epistemology? And then, of course, proceed to ethics, which is usually where everybody begins.

01:22:30

Well, what about this and what about that and how are we to live our lives? Dr. Bonson was able to think more clearly than that and bring things back to the first two branches of philosophy before proceeding to the third.

01:22:43

And hence, he was able to offer people, at least reflect to people, what a biblical, cohesive worldview looks like, fully integrated and fully submitted to the obedience of Christ.

01:22:59

And can you tell us, in fact, both of you, some actually substantial and practical ways that hearing

01:23:10

Dr. Bonson speak and reading what he has written that we have in print has impacted your own lives?

01:23:24

I know that you, Christian, are a pastor, but even

01:23:30

Graham, you as just a person who is in love with and on fire for apologetics, so much so that you are the one that founded the

01:23:43

Bonson Project. How has Dr. Bonson and what he has contributed to the body of Christ specifically impacted your lives?

01:23:50

And let's start with Graham this time, since he is the founder of the Bonson Project.

01:23:58

Well, you know, I think I said earlier that he ordered my thoughts.

01:24:05

He gave structure to my... And if you could speak a little closer again to the microphone. I'm sorry.

01:24:11

He ordered my thoughts. He gave structure to my thinking in such a way that everything was oriented correctly.

01:24:20

Everything had its own proper relationship to what precedes it and what follows after it.

01:24:27

And as the Bible talks about, line upon line, precept upon precept, there is a biblical order to what we might call the mind of Christ, the mind of the creator who defines all things by his creating them and his sustaining of them in their functions and in their stations and in their places and in his order of his cosmos.

01:24:59

So that's what Greg Bonson has done for me. He's kind of cleared away all the cobwebs.

01:25:05

He's made it possible for me to think God's thoughts after him, quite frankly.

01:25:12

I know that sounds like a well -worn phrase, but it is most appropriate.

01:25:18

And Christian, as a pastor, how has knowing the teachings of Dr.

01:25:25

Bonson, learning from them, and even observing perhaps in video and so on, how he interacted with others, how has this helped further equip you even as a pastor?

01:25:39

Well, my exposure to Dr. Bonson's teachings was very early in my preparation for seminary.

01:25:46

I mean, I've always been a thinker, and I've always loved learning, but my pre -graduate studies were rather eclectic.

01:25:52

I mean, communications major, then English, then oddly enough mortuary science.

01:25:58

And as I was preparing for seminary, one of my pastors, he was also a seminary professor,

01:26:04

Alan Strange, had me take some college courses to supplement my education. He had me take philosophy survey, history, but then he gave me a set of the tapes by Dr.

01:26:15

Bonson titled Christian Presuppositional Apologetics. And the assignment was simply listen to them and write an extensive outline, but that summer

01:26:25

I spent listening to those tapes changed the way I thought on a most foundational level.

01:26:32

It was so engaging, so enlightening, that I ended up transcribing more of the lectures than just outlining.

01:26:39

And it's what we used to call becoming epistemologically self -aware.

01:26:45

After taking that course, I understood what thought is, how the mind works, and I learned by observing and listening how to think consistently as a

01:26:57

Christian and to hold every thought captive, every thought to the obedience of Christ. So I entered seminary as a disciple of Bonson, as a presuppositionalist, and to this day, not only did it help me make sense of everything

01:27:11

I was taught in seminary preparation, but I continue to use those principles as I exegete passages, as I interact with unbelievers, and even while I evangelize people,

01:27:22

I've learned to think and to understand how people reason, how it is inconsistent, and how we need to bring our hope and show people the firm ground of hope that we have as Christians.

01:27:36

There's not a week that goes by where I don't apply presuppositional apologetics to my ministry.

01:27:41

You know, one thing, were you saying something, Graham?

01:27:48

No, I was going to say it's daily, not a week, every day, every day. It's a complete revolution of your thought.

01:27:55

Yep. Well, pastors think on seven -day cycles, so you'll have to excuse me for that one. Sunday is always coming.

01:28:04

One of the things that many millions of Americans have learned from the first debate that took place between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden was that President Trump was doing himself a disservice by not allowing his opponent to speak.

01:28:32

Because very often, people who are in error will wind up hanging themselves, not literally, of course, but proving the inadequacy or even the falsehood of their position by if you, as it were, give them enough rope to hang themselves.

01:28:54

And he kept, in the first debate, interrupting Joe Biden.

01:28:59

And people who were actually very much in favor of a

01:29:05

Trump victory were becoming frustrated by hearing and seeing this. Now, as far as the mannerism and the manner and the nuts and bolts approach to interacting with people, especially if they get hostile to what we believe and teach, what could you say about Dr.

01:29:26

Bonson from what you've learned from, I guess in this kind of a situation, it would be more from recordings and video, but you might have some of this in his writings as well.

01:29:39

But what are some important things we need to know about the manner with which we interact with those who disagree with us?

01:29:48

And let's start with Christian this time. Well, sure,

01:29:53

I would immediately come back to the locus classicus on Christian apologetics in 1

01:29:58

Peter 3 .15. It gives us that charge to be ready, but it also gives us a manner in which to engage with unbelievers, and that's meekness and fear, humility and all due respect.

01:30:12

And anyone who is familiar with Dr. Bonson's debate style can acknowledge that he was well composed and calm, never shaken by the arguments or the attacks of unbelief, and that enabled him to conduct himself with a sobriety and a calmness that's not only winsome in the eyes of those watching, but which also disarms the opponent.

01:30:36

He always afforded due respect, and unlike our president, he allowed the fool to show his own folly.

01:30:44

He allowed time for that and space for that so he could then seize upon it and expose it for what it was, but not in a cruel way and not in a mocking way, again with meekness and fear.

01:30:58

And that's a model not only for apologists, but for all Christians in their intercourse with unbelief.

01:31:05

And Graham, you have your own two cents? No, I thought that was wonderful. You covered it well.

01:31:12

Well, one of the things about those very traits that are to be present in the attitude of a

01:31:22

Christian when he's involved in apologetics, one of the things that I have a difficulty with figuring out how to utilize those things about meekness and so on, and respect, what about when a

01:31:41

Christian is engaging in an interaction with somebody whose beliefs are so vile and satanic, they may not even just be things that remain in the realm of theory or hypothesis or thought.

01:32:02

You may be speaking with an abortionist who actually performs abortions, or the more accurate way to describe it would be he actually murders unborn children, dismembers and murders them.

01:32:17

You have people who are involved in things like that. You might even have, if you're doing prison ministry or something, perhaps you're having a conversation with someone who's been convicted of pedophilia, something really horrendous, and you may detect that this person has no repentance in their hearts at all.

01:32:45

They may even give a defense on what they've done. How do you remain in that meek and…

01:32:53

Go ahead. Graham, I'm assuming this is. Yeah, I'd love to answer that question. I'm sorry, I'd love to answer that question if it's good.

01:33:00

This is Graham. In the apologetics endeavor, in the first chapter of Romans, we always go to things like the 18th verse talks about, or the 17th and 18th verse that talks about the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

01:33:23

And the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in an unrighteous manner.

01:33:33

They suppress it and all that. And we can talk about that from an apologetic point of view.

01:33:40

But further down, after the degradation takes farther and farther and their mind gets darkened farther and farther as they, you know, what

01:33:51

Dr. Van Til calls integration into the void, where they become more and more consistent with their presuppositions and their premises, that they come, you progress into this darkness and farther down the line.

01:34:07

And the 28th verse of the first chapter of Romans, it goes like this, it says, And even as they did not like to retain

01:34:15

God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things that are not wholesome, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

01:34:52

And then here is the crux of the final summing up statement, Who, knowing the judgment of God that they which commit these things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but give hearty approval to those that do them also.

01:35:08

And so the thing is that, here we are again in the 32nd verse, we're talking about a certain level of knowledge.

01:35:17

They know that the things that they are doing is worthy of death.

01:35:24

We have God's word on that. So when we talk to these people, these people are just complete reprobates.

01:35:32

Well, they're just sinners. Let's put it that way. We can't say that they're reprobates. But they're far down the line.

01:35:39

And we can challenge them directly by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. We can just say to them, look, you can tell me all this stuff.

01:35:47

You can tell me, try to shock me. You can try and rationalize or something like that.

01:35:52

But I'm going to tell you by the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God that I know that you are fully aware that you are worthy of death and damnation for what you're doing.

01:36:06

And you can just launch out into, for lack of better words, an evangelical or a gospel presentation from that point.

01:36:15

And you can talk about, look, the wrath of God abides on those that do not believe in the

01:36:22

Son of God. You know, we talk about Pilgrim's Progress and the burden that he bears and how it was cast off and all the guilt and all that stuff fell away.

01:36:31

That's an actual bona fide phenomenon. They are experiencing that. There is no rest for the wicked, sayeth my

01:36:40

God. And so these people, you look at them, their lives are a complete wreck.

01:36:46

They're doing all sorts of drugs or whatever they're doing to stab their conscience or to suppress their orientation, their knowledge, their faculties, for lack of a better word.

01:37:05

They're drinking their lives away or doing whatever. And that's all because they're going down in the vortex and they don't want to look up and to see the...

01:37:17

It's like being on a plane that's crashing into the ground and you look out the window. You don't want to look out the window because you know that you're just going to behold the slow and certain progress of your doom.

01:37:29

So you try and, you know, just look around what's happening in the plane and whatever, and you're trying to push all that stuff out of your mind.

01:37:36

But in your conscience, the Holy Spirit is bearing witness.

01:37:42

You are suppressing the knowledge of God. And these people are just... they're damned and they're going to hell and they know it.

01:37:51

And so these are people that are actually more ripe for the gospel than anything else because you say, look,

01:37:58

I'm offering you the Savior of the world. You know, there's a lot of people that are good

01:38:04

Mormons or stuff like that. They live all these wholesome lives, supposedly, but they can pat themselves on the back and think that they're not a bad sinner.

01:38:15

But these other people that you're talking about, they know it. They know it. I mean, the authority of the

01:38:20

Word of God says they know the judgment of God. And as far as Romans 1 is concerned, that they know the truth but suppress the truth.

01:38:32

And perhaps Christian, you could pick up here. Do you think that there are actually people who have so suppressed the truth they have removed it from their memory or thought process?

01:38:50

Because there are people who are atheists and people who are rebels against God that you would swear the way that they speak and act and so forth that they are not suppressing what they know to be true.

01:39:07

So how do we address that issue? I mean, are all rebels or enemies of Christ really conscious of the fact that they're suppressing the truth?

01:39:21

Well, I probably have to say yes and no because of the propensity for self -deception in the sinner.

01:39:29

Dr. Bonson wrote about that. It's a very important concept. But in Romans 1, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

01:39:43

And they do hold the truth in unrighteousness. And while the unrighteousness is there affirmed and the ability, the propensity for self -deception, it is also acknowledged that they are in contact constantly with the truth of God.

01:39:58

They're holding it, they're touching it, they're suppressing it in unrighteousness.

01:40:04

So while there may be deep self -deception concerning their eternal state, they cannot get away from the wrath of God that is revealed from the general revelation and from their own conscience.

01:40:15

One of the best illustrations I heard about this in apologetics class over 20 years ago was truth is likened unto a beach ball.

01:40:25

And you can try to submerge it under the surface of water, but it is buoyant, it is wet, it is slippery, and you push it down this way, it'll come up that way, you push it down again, it'll pop up that way.

01:40:37

And I think that's the sick and sinful dance that a lot of sinners do with their culpable ignorance.

01:40:45

And I was one of them. I told you briefly that I was converted out of a life of sin, but I was into witchery and sorcery, black magic, satanic worship, and I knew full well the truth of God.

01:40:59

I mean, we put a holy Bible under our charging station when casting spells as a grounding source.

01:41:05

So we were in contact with the truth of Scripture, but we suppressed it and held it in unrighteousness.

01:41:13

And that is part of the benefit of the presuppositional approach, is we can walk into any scenario acknowledging the antithesis.

01:41:21

That God put the enmity there, it's not going to disappear, it's the murky water in which we all wade while we're in our unbelief, and we're essentially militant, therefore, as we walk through this world.

01:41:33

But we do it with confidence. And I know this is about apologetics, but Dr. Bonson had an optimistic eschatology, a very practical eschatology and ethic, and it helps us to settle our souls into a firm and militant approach so that no matter what unbelief we face, we know that it was there at God's appointment,

01:41:56

Genesis 3 .15, and that the unbeliever knows that it's there because of the works of the law that are written on their heart.

01:42:03

And that should embolden us to take the sword of the Spirit, the good news of the Gospel, and appeal for repentance and faith.

01:42:11

Amen. And we're going to go to our final break, and I'm going to read a question from a listener and have you folks answer it when we return.

01:42:20

We have Lou in Sharpsburg, Georgia, who says, Please ask your guests how they usually like to kick start a witnessing opportunity in the marketplace.

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01:51:59

Welcome back and we have as I mentioned earlier a listener question for our guest today.

01:52:06

We have Lou in Sharpsburg, Georgia and I'm looking up that question right now.

01:52:13

Here it is. Please ask your guests how they usually like to kick start a witnessing opportunity in the marketplace and if you could start this time,

01:52:23

Graham. Well, since I'm a lay person

01:52:28

I can identify exactly with what the gentleman is asking. I would say that if you have a

01:52:34

Christian world and life view that you have sharpened quite a bit then you will be awake to all the opportunities that present themselves minute by minute just by everything that you look at and how you view the world.

01:52:50

You can look at just say for instance how can you escape it these days the political mess. Well, you can say like look, these people aren't innocent people.

01:53:01

They're on both sides of the aisle. Mankind is vastly affected by sin and you can just launch right into it and say like look this is all madness that what these people are talking about.

01:53:16

God has made the minds of men blind and so you can just launch out from there and then you got to talk about culpability.

01:53:29

You have to get the other person not just to agree that things are bad but agree that he is a participant in such things even just by being a creature a fallen creature and that he has himself culpability before God and then you can launch into the remedy but for the most part everywhere you look with a

01:53:54

Christian world and life view you will have opportunities galore to launch out into any sort of a gospel presentation you want to go with.

01:54:02

And Christian can you briefly follow up because we have one more question I'd like to squeeze in. Christian are you there?

01:54:12

Yes I am. Sorry I was on mute. Okay can you follow up a little bit and then we have one more question from a listener

01:54:20

I'd like to interject. Yeah it might surprise the listeners but I take a very practical approach.

01:54:28

One I learned from Charles Spurgeon's autobiography. I look for the person in the room or in the park that looks most miserable.

01:54:36

And I'll approach them and I will tell them that you look very miserable. And I tell them if they're willing to talk that you will be miserable in life and in death if you do not obey the gospel.

01:54:49

And I wish someone had told me that when I was in my sin and misery. So I continue to use that approach and it's resulted in many positive engagements.

01:54:59

Praise God. Well guess what Lou in Sharpsburg, Georgia you have won a free copy of Van Til's Apostle Paul's Apologetic Readings and Analysis by Greg L.

01:55:10

Bonson compliments of our friends at PNR Publishing. And you can find out more about that book at PRPbooks .com

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PRPbooks .com Please give us your full mailing address in Georgia so that CVBBS .com

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that book out to you. And by the way they are offering a 40 % discount at CVBBS .com

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for anyone wanting to purchase this book. Van Til's Apologetic by Greg L.

01:55:40

Bonson. We have Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York who says one of your guests said that those who are living in rebellion against Christ have a spiral going down in their lives.

01:55:53

They are getting themselves drunk and high on drugs and things are falling apart.

01:55:58

But that is not always the case. There are very affluent people who are married to stunningly gorgeous spouses.

01:56:05

They have well obedient children. Well behaved obedient children.

01:56:12

And we could go on and on with what their blessings are. They may have healthy, fit bodies and lots of friends and they may enjoy life but they do not love and follow

01:56:24

Christ. How do we make them feel their need for this? And if you want to,

01:56:30

Graham, and then quickly we will go to Christian for a final word. Well, you have your up -and -outers and you have your down -and -outers.

01:56:39

The down -and -outers are the druggies and other people that are trying to push aside their knowledge of God and suppress it and not come to Him.

01:56:50

The up -and -outers are these people I spoke about Mormons earlier or something like that. They are people that are putting on what the

01:56:56

Bible calls about a show in the flesh where they are trying to make it seem as if everything is going very well.

01:57:04

But that is the outward appearance and Psalm 73 would assure you that what this gentleman asked is not quite as it appears.

01:57:16

Their children may appear to be obedient and happy and all this stuff but the

01:57:22

Asaph, the psalmist and the author of Psalm 73 says that he spoke about these people and he talked about how they were in a very slippery place and a perfect example of that would be

01:57:36

I don't know what the first name of the gentleman was but he was married to Cheryl Sandberg who is the

01:57:41

COO of Facebook and so they had a gazillion dollars and they had all sorts of things going for them but the guy just died in the middle of the night.

01:57:50

Now suddenly this man has been summoned before the presence of God and they have no, you know, this night your soul is required of you and so you do not know what the tomorrow may bring and so that's how

01:58:07

I would address some of these people and I would get them to understand their need of a savior and their knowledge

01:58:14

I would say very simply through the law comes the knowledge of sin you have to hit them with the law just like Christ hit the rich young ruler with the law and you've got to be ready to watch them go away just like Christ watched the rich young ruler go away.

01:58:31

And we are out of time right now Graham and I'm sorry Christian we couldn't get your two cents for that one but I want folks to remember not only your website for Five Souls Church it's www .fivesouls

01:58:46

.church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls

01:58:58

.church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls

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.church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls

01:59:14

.church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls

01:59:41

.church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church www .fivesouls .church by Greg L. Bonson to you.

01:59:47

Thank you everyone who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater