Jeff Durbin Confronts The Woke Church (Full Sermon)

Colossians as the Foundation for Christian Knowledge

Well, good afternoon.

Are you guys ready to fight? I like this room, rowdy Christians, lots of post-millennialists and theonomists. We're in good company.

Amen.

If you would, open your Bibles to Colossians. Colossians chapter 2. Now, everybody in this room might be aware of my sins in the area of time. And I just want to say, it's not my fault we started 10 minutes late.

And Gabe either thinks very highly of my abilities, or he hates me, because he gave me a topic that would take usually three or four months for me to cover. He wants me to do it in an hour. So I hope you guys are ready for this.

Colossians chapter 2. We're talking today about Vantillian kill shots against BLM, LGBT, and the abortion issue. And I think you can summarize that in terms of saying biblical response, the response of the word of God to these issues in a biblical methodology to unpack the problems within.

So I thought a good place to start is Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. Hear now the word of the living and the true God. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to the human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together. Father, I pray that you would use, Lord, the time we have together to glorify yourself, to challenge us, convict us, to embolden your church, your bride, to proclaim the voice of the bridegroom into the world.

I pray, Lord God, you would cut us with your word. You would challenge us with your truth. And Lord, I pray that you would get me out of the way. Let everyone forget me and remember you and what they've learned here.

I pray that your truth, Lord, would be rooted within us. We would treasure it up within us so we can use it to fight. In Jesus' name, amen. I have a lot to go over. I cannot give a full message today on the Vantillian method, transcendental argumentation.

What I want to say to you, and remember these two words, I want you to repeat them with me. Pretend for a moment like most of you are Baptists, OK? Reed Bonson.

What? Reed Bonson.

One more time. Reed Bonson.

Reed Bonson.

That'll help you after today's lecture. So a summary of Vantill. Cornelius Vantill, one of the greatest Christian philosophers in the history of the entire Christian church, helped to communicate and systematize a biblical approach to philosophy, epistemology, how you know what you know, and Christian apologetics.

I thought I could do this at least as a punch. One solid quote that I thought expresses sort of the essence of what Vantill was getting at. And when I say what Vantill was getting at, we're talking about a reformed epistemology, a reformed apologetic, a reformed perspective of the word of God in conflict with the world and knowledge.

Vantill says this, quote, without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God, the whole world would be meaningless. Stop and think for a moment. I'll read it again. I want you to really embrace it and think about it, consider it.

Without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God, the whole world would be meaningless. What's that saying? That's saying that all of our knowledge, all of our claims to certainty, all of our understanding, all of our claims to wisdom have to be rooted first in the triune God of scripture and his revelation.

Fact of the matter is, and again, I'd love to go long on this, but I can't. We can't truly know anything apart from Jesus Christ. Without God's revelation, we have no starting point, no coherent starting point to make claims about logical consistency, meaning, virtue, ethics, truth, beauty, goodness, mathematics.

Without the word of God, God's revelation, all of the universe is ultimately meaningless. And you don't need to listen to Jeff Durbin, the pastor who loves to debate atheists on the street and do public debates, says, no, I'm trying to misrepresent the atheistic position.

You can listen to Dr. Will Provine. He's a dead atheist, now a creationist, professor of biology at Cornell University, very honest atheist. He says, there are no goal-directed forces in the universe.

There is no meaning. There's nothing that's absolutely true. He says, you live, you die, and you're gone. You're absolutely gone when you die, Dr. Will Provine. You can listen to Dr. Richard Dawkins in his book, River Out of Eden.

There is no good. There is no evil. There is only blind and pitiless indifference. You can listen to Dr. Carl Sagan in terms of the essence of what is humanity, what is this universe, this experience we're having.

And he'll tell you, we are stardust.

That's it.

You're all matter in motion. And when you have a fundamental commitment to a worldview that is devoid of God's revelation as a starting point, you descend into chaos. Truly, the debate of all of life is between Christ or chaos.

And that's it. And we're seeing that in our streets today. Amen? It's Christ or chaos. What we're talking about when we talk about Vantillian epistemology, Vantillian apologetics, we're talking about a revelational epistemology, a revelational epistemology.

Now watch here. I know that it's been a long day. And you guys have been here for a while. But some of you guys might be saying, I don't know what epistemology is. I don't know why I should care.

You should care.

It has to do with knowledge claims. People make them all the time. When people watch the Biden-Trump debate, people make knowledge claims.

That's not true.

We know that's not true. This is wrong. This is false. Or people make assessments as to the ethical nature of the debaters, rightly so. What's the right standard we apply? People make knowledge claims all the time.

How do you know what you know? Christians have a revelational epistemology. We do not ultimately say that we know what we know because it's reasonable. We're not ultimately rationalists, although Christians do employ reason.

We think reason is absolutely necessary. But we do not have as the foundation of our epistemology reason. Reason, blindly, without God, without His revelation, gets us to certain things where we can claim certainty or we can get to knowledge of God.

Rationalism isn't fundamentally Christian. We do not claim reason as a bottom of epistemology and how you know what you know. Neither are we empiricists. We do not say that you gain ultimate knowledge based upon evidence and gathering evidences and facts and just observation.

We think empiricism is a good thing. As a matter of fact, Christianity gave the world science, so you're welcome. So we do believe that you need to look at evidence, gather evidence. But those are Christian things.

But devoid of the biblical worldview and the biblical revelation, empiricism is ultimately meaningless. It can't give you a coherent claim to certainty, no ultimate meaning. We have a revelational epistemology.

We believe we know what we know and we can claim it with certainty because, are you ready for this? Very philosophically rigorous, very intense. Because, ready?

God said.

You afraid of that?

You shouldn't be.

That's our problem today with all the woke evangelicalish pastors. They're afraid to say because God says. That's why. Psalm 14, one says this, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Now I often say this, I often quote this particular verse and I often say it's important to communicate that when the Bible uses the terminology like fool, we're not using it in the way we normally think in terms of just trying to give somebody a slap in the face.

When God uses the term fool against the unbeliever in scripture, it's a moral indictment as well as intellectual. It's not merely intellectual, it is moral. The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

When you say there is no God, you are reduced to foolishness according to scripture. Colossians chapter two, I just read at the beginning, claims about Jesus that Christ is the very foundation of knowledge in whom Jesus are hidden.

All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, they're in Jesus Christ. Paul warns the church early on about people who ultimately were making claims to knowledge. The problems of Gnosticism were plaguing the church early on in our history.

He says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. So here's the thing, there is a philosophy, a perspective of the world and knowledge that is not according to Christ, which means there is one that is according to Christ.

Believers have all of our knowledge wrapped up in Jesus Christ. I know what I know because God says. You think about this, it's kind of funny actually when you think about these claims because we're living in a world of image bearers of God.

Everybody knows God, Paul says. Romans 1, the problem isn't a lack of evidence or a lack of light, it's suppression of truth. They know God, Paul says in Romans 1, but they suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness.

They don't want God in their knowledge. They don't want to know him. So the problem is they switch God for idols. We have a world of image bearers of God who have to constantly borrow capital from God to live in his world in a coherent way.

So we just take it for granted as Christians that we can say it is a certainty, it is absolutely certain that you ought to love your neighbor rather than eat them. Stop and think about that. It's an amazing thing, right?

Simple, we think, well, everyone believes that, correct? Well, Christians can make a meaningful claim to that knowledge claim. We can say it is absolute, it is objective, it is true whether I like it or not.

It is true whether my culture likes it or not, that you are to love your neighbor and not eat your neighbor. Recently, I had a little bit of a radio discussion with an atheist who wanted to come on one of our programs called Provoked.

And on this program, he was supposed to come on and debate the issue of pro-choice. He was a pro-choice atheist. He listened to the show. He said, I think I could take you guys down. And so he said, well, come on the show.

Let's have a conversation. Well, shortly after the conversation ensued, it was very, very clear this guy was an atheist and a materialist. He believes all that exists is matter. It's just matter in motion.

So I started challenging him on his positions. Well, what are you complaining about about any ethical needs, desires, claims? As a materialist, you don't have a basis for morality to begin with. So why would you complain about pro-choice versus pro-life?

Why are you here debating? So I challenged him and challenged him on this point. His position gives him no reason, no right, meaningful, coherent right to complain against cannibalism. And so I challenged him more and more.

You can listen to it. And ultimately what he admits to on the radio program as an atheist is that, yeah, it isn't ultimately wrong to kill, dispatch, and eat another human being. I mean, if you're with a culture that says it's right,.

I guess it's okay.

And he said, ultimately, I guess the most important thing is that you clean your plate. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to atheism.

Welcome to the fool's world.

Welcome to the image bearer of God that can't live in God's world without borrowing from him. Because this man in God's image knows that it's sinful and wrong and evil to eat another human being. But when pushed to consistency in his knowledge claims, he has to confess, yeah, the only reason I think we shouldn't eat humans is because, well, it's kind of icky.

My culture doesn't agree with it. If you're in a culture that does, I guess it's not immoral. I guess, you know, clean your plates. Don't waste anything. That's what he says. You see, we have to understand as Christians in terms of the Vantillian method and what Vantill was pointing to in terms of a revelational epistemology and how we approach the world and knowledge claims is there is no neutrality.

Neutrality is a myth. Neutrality is a myth. The Lord Jesus taught us in Matthew 12, 30. He said, whoever is not with me is against me.

You believe that? Do you really?

Do you believe it in science? Mathematics? Logic?

Politics?

The abortion debate? Black Lives Matter?

LGBT?

Just consider it for a moment. The Lord Jesus says with him, there is no neutrality. You are either with me or you are against me. That one verse undermines the vast majority of the pro-life industry.

Where they pretend neutrality and say, we are professedly not Christians in our approach to ending abortion. We wonder why there's 65 million dead babies. Because we haven't made it about Christ, we haven't made it about the gospel.

There is no neutrality. Neutrality is a myth. God says in his word, Romans one, everybody knows him. The knowledge of God, according to Romans one, the apostle Paul through inspiration, the knowledge of God gets through to every image bearer of God.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For that which is known about God is evident within them for God has shown it to them.

Think about it for a moment now. If God, the eternal God, the all-powerful God, the all-knowing God, if he sends the message of himself through to an image bearer, does it get through? Yes, it gets through.

The problem is not light or evidence, it is suppression of the truth. There is no neutrality. Now I gotta do this quickly. It's the quickest way I can do this to get to taking down BLM and LGBT and the abortion industry.

So I think one of my favorite things to do in talking about worldview and ultimate commitments is to talk about it in terms of what you're standing on. The atheist has a worldview. He's standing on claims about reality, about ethics, about metaphysics, ontology.

He's making claims about epistemology. And what does he say? He's standing on a foundation. Let's hope this holds. He's standing on a foundation, claims about reality. He says, we're African apes, we're stardust.

The universe is time and chance acting on matter. There are no goal-directed forces in the universe, meaning no purpose, no intention. It's just stuff happening in a cosmos that doesn't care about us.

There is no good. There is no evil. There is only blind and pitiless indifference. That's what they say in terms of a view of the world and what they're standing on. Now the Christian also makes claims.

The Christian makes claims about God, the triune God of scripture. The Christian makes claims about truth. Where do we get those claims from? Revelation. God spoke. We know that God speaks through the natural world.

The heavens declare the glory of God, amen, yes? And that message gets through. But we also have the special revelation of God's son in history, here in this air and in this dirt, in the real world, in history.

But we also have the benefit of God's revelation delivered to us in scripture. This is our claim to certainty. So what are we standing on? We're standing on God's revelation. When Christians make claims about logic, that doesn't make sense.

That's not consistent. Why does it bother us? Because we have a God who does not change. We have a God who cannot lie. He cannot engage in logical contradiction. We have a God that tells us one person's case sounds true until another one comes to examine them.

There's truth out there, and we need to wade through those claims to find out what is the truth. Test all things, hold fast to that which is true. Christians have a basis for the laws of logic. Question, real fast, in terms of a metaphysic, an ontology, have you ever tasted a law of logic?

Felt one, smelled one, how much does it weigh? What color is a law of non-contradiction? We don't know, do we? Because laws of logic and math are immaterial, universal, unchanging truths that reflect the thinking of God.

They are fixed, they are unchallengeable, they are true right now here, where are we at now?

Nashville?

No, Franklin. And they're true in Iceland. Because this universe reflects the order that God imposes upon it, so Christians have a basis with God's revelation to say things must be logical, truth is important, it's necessary.

Christians have a basis to say you ought to love your neighbor rather than eat your neighbor. Christians have a basis to say this is right and this is wrong. Someone says, how do you know that? Answer, God said, because God has spoken.

Christians have a basis for science, it's why the world got it from us and got such a big pop in science because we have a basis to say that the universe is orderly. We have a basis for the principle of induction that the future will be like the past, that we can actually gather evidence and look at the universe and study it in a meaningful way.

So we give the world logic and science and ethics because we have the revelation of God underneath us.

However, the fool,.

The fool stands on a different perspective of reality. The fool says there is no God. They say there's no meaning, no good, no purpose, no order. They stand there and they reject God and then they live in this world and the atheist has someone kick down their door, run in their house, punch their wife, grab their TV and run out the door.

And the atheist goes, hey, hey,.

You can't steal from me. And then the Christian goes, excuse me, you're borrowing and they go, no, there's no good, there's no meaning, there's no purpose, there's no order, it's just chaos, we're stardust, African apes, it doesn't mean anything ultimately.

The atheist stands in front of a television set with a news report of the school shooting and sheds a tear, why? Not because of his claims about the world, but because he knows God, because he's in God's image.

And so we have to consider there is no neutrality, the unbeliever pretends neutrality. Christian, I'm challenging you to stop, stop pretending neutrality. The big failure I believe of the evangelical church in the West today is that problem of the myth of neutrality, pretended neutrality.

The unbeliever pretends neutrality, pretends like they don't know God, pretends like they don't know his truth, his justice, his righteousness and Christians step into the conversation pretending neutrality right along with them.

The answer is this, whoever's not with me is against me. Two words, read Bonson, say it.

Read Bonson.

You need to read Bonson, if you want to, I think Van Til is glorious, but if you want the person that was a master at distilling that thought and systematizing it, read Bonson. So we need to consider also just in terms of how Jesus had fights.

In Matthew chapter 15, the Lord Jesus of course is God in the flesh, amen, yes? If you don't believe that, you don't belong here. In Matthew chapter 15, the Lord Jesus has a fight. Now he could as the incarnate one appeal to his own inherent self-attesting authority, he's God.

However, the God man, when he was in conflict in his day with people who had a standard over here that they treated as though it were divine other than the scriptures, when Jesus was in a fight with people who said, no, this is the way, this is the truth, you must obey this, this is the methodology, you must do these things, Jesus, Matthew 15, dwindled it down to this.

Listen very closely and remember this. The incarnate one said about their tradition, he said, you say, and he quotes their tradition. He says, but Moses says, and then he says this, listen closely, hear it now.

Thus, you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. So he condemns them, the incarnate one condemns them for the tradition they had running alongside the Bible that they said was divine in origin, they were certain about it and he said, you have to do this, they were binding this tradition upon people and Jesus says, you say, God says.

And thus, you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. Put Jesus in a fight and he says, the word of God is the standard, thy word is what, truth, thy word is truth. It's the thing by which you measure whether that wall is right, it's the plumb line, it is the thing, the standard, the reference point, thy word is truth and for Jesus, that's how he appealed.

No other standard would Jesus allow. Ultimately, in terms of God's word as the central reference point, please hear this. He says, you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. Another example is Luke 16.

It's the story of the rich man and Lazarus. You're familiar with this, yes? There's a potent point Jesus makes in this story. In Luke 16, it's a very powerful point. In the story in Luke 16, verse two, it says this.

The rich man also died and was buried in an inn in Hades being in torment. He lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame.

But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus in like manner bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who had passed from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us.

And he said, then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house for I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham said, listen closely, they have Moses and the prophets.

Let them hear them. And he said, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to them, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

Did you ever stop and think about that point? Stop and think about it. In the story, just send some kind of miracle to convince these people. Send some means to open their eyes like somebody rising from the dead, some kind of miracle, give some kind of criteria where they can look at the criteria, examine it and say, okay, on the basis of that criteria, okay, now I'll really believe this.

And what's the word? If they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they're not believing on that other basis. The word of God is the foundation. It is the reference point. And put Jesus in a fight and that's what he teaches us.

There is no other standard. The word of God is the reference point. In 1 Peter 3 .15, last point on this, we are told to set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts. It's the famous, of course, charter verse of Christian apologetics.

It's been quoted for a long, long time by Christians throughout history. We are commanded to always be ready to give to everyone who asks of us a reasoned defense for the hope that's within us, yet to do it with gentleness and with reverence.

But that starts with the apostle under inspiration saying this, set Christ apart as Lord, always being ready. With first Christ set apart as Lord, there is no coherent or meaningful or faithful defense of the biblical faith apart from a submission to Christ's Lordship.

There is no neutrality. You are either with me or you are against me. Here's the deal, listen closely. We need to say what the prophets said and do what they did. Let me say it one more time and I'm gonna ask you guys if you are willing to commit to that and agree to it.

We need to say what the prophets said and do what they did, agreed?

Agreed?

We're gonna test that later. Now, in terms of going into the world and having conflict, whatever the issue, whatever the claim is, I'm gonna just say quickly, there is the twofold apologetic methodology.

I don't have time to go into the full description today or explanation. I'll give it to you to do your homework later. The twofold apologetic methodology. How do we do this? How do we reason? We should go to the word of God to ask that question.

Amen, yes? We should ask what does God say in his wisdom? How do we reason with people? How do we answer the fool? Proverbs 26, four through five, twofold apologetic methodology. Seems like contradictions.

They are not. They are two different methodologies of dealing with the fool. And it says, don't answer the fool according to his folly or you'll be like him. Don't answer the fool according to his folly or you'll be like him.

If what he or she is saying is foolish, don't adopt their principles. Don't adopt their criteria for knowledge. Don't go their direction. If they pretend neutrality, we don't. If you adopt their principles, you'll be like them, a fool.

And the second part of the biblical apologetic methodology is to answer the fool according to their folly lest they be wise in their own conceit. That's to say, step into their position for a minute. Step into it.

Show them that they're in a sinking ship. Step into their worldview. Stand on it for a minute and show them the collapse of their system apart from Jesus Christ. Don't answer the fool according to their folly and then answer the fool according to their folly.

Twofold apologetic methodology. All right, how are we doing on time? Doesn't matter. All right, so let's do this. We said BLM, LGBT, and the abortion issue. I'd love to spend two hours on BLM and it probably would benefit us greatly right now.

But let's just talk about worldview issues in terms of Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter.

It's amazing when you hear that being shouted in the streets, the average Christian seeing the flames and the cocktails being thrown hears Black Lives Matter and goes, I like that. Because I think they do.

Because I have a worldview that makes sense about that claim, Black Lives Mattering. I like that. Makes sense in the biblical worldview. I don't know why they're saying it and maybe they're saying it in a different way than I would mean it because of their worldview.

And it actually is the case. Many of you guys are aware of the fact, just go to the official website of Black Lives Matter. They confess and rejoice over the fact that they are trained Marxists. Trained Marxists talking about Black Lives Matter.

Now, if you know the history of Marxism and you hear them talking about anything, you should be a little squinty-eyed. Trained Marxists, they rejoice in this, that they are not just Marxists, but trained Marxists.

It makes sense as to why we're seeing what we're seeing, by the way, if you know the history of Marxism. You say, okay, now I'm starting to understand a little bit better. You see, trained Marxists understand that they bring about their revolution.

And by the way, revolution for the Marxist isn't getting back to the foundation, something that is true or objectively true, getting back to that point. As many early on in the war for independence would have said, there's truth out there, there's justice out there.

We need to get back to that foundation. Revolutionaries in the Marxist sense are trying to get away from the foundation objective truth. They're trying to create disorder. And so, of course, trained Marxists in history have all been all about class conflict, class conflict.

Now, if you know the history of Marxism, you'll know that as they tried to get it into America early on, they did what they did before, and they tried to have it, the rich versus the poor, the rich versus the poor.

One problem, though, in a capitalistic society that's benefited from the Christian worldview, when you have people that are benefiting from the free market and private property, and they're actually able to eat, it's hard to pit rich versus poor.

So it didn't work out so well. So more class conflict is instituted. So what do we have in American history? Well, the Marxists get here and they say, let's create class conflict, rich versus poor. All right, let's also create the class conflict, gay versus straight.

You know, by the way, that they've stated this plainly in their materials. You can read it. Read Saul Alinsky and all the rest. You'll see that this has been planned for the longest time. What you're seeing is the result of labor and work and consistency with their worldview, and shame on us for not fighting back sooner.

Why is it they don't even know Jesus? They believe that all they are is matter and motion, and they're willing to die for what they believe. What are we doing? What are we doing? Shame on us. But they believe in a worldview called dialectical materialism.

I cannot even begin to unpack this absurdity before you today, but they believe in dialectical materialism. What you need to understand at the bottom of this is their worldview claims, the claims of essentially evolution, matter in motion.

Dialectical materialism for the trained Marxist in Black Lives Matter, is they believe in a materialist view of reality. It's matter in motion. It's stuff moving around. No God, no purpose, no order.

You are matter.

That's their position. And in terms of the dialectical part, don't get lost in this. I know all this is stupid. Don't get lost in this. But I know in terms of the dialectical, we say, what does that mean?

I'm gonna read to you Engels, a quote from Engels. So you get an idea, and I want you to consider the, answer the fool according to their folly. They say, we need to do this. These lives matter. Black lives matter.

Black lives matter. No justice, no peace. Well, that's interesting for matter in motion to be making claims like that. Engels said, quote, for dialectical philosophy, nothing is final, absolute, sacred.

I'm gonna give you just five seconds to think about that.

Do you hear it?

Answer the fool according to their folly. Engels said, about dialectical philosophy, nothing is final, absolute, or sacred. Is that absolutely true? Is that final? But notice the sacred part. Nothing is final, nothing is absolute, nothing is sacred.

For dialectical materialists, there are no absolutes and nothing is sacred. So let's test it. Black lives matter. Nothing is final, nothing is absolute, nothing is sacred. We're trained Marxists.

Black lives matter.

No, they don't. Not according to your position. Not according to a position that says nothing is final, nothing is absolute, nothing is sacred. Also, bigger question here, we need to ask the Black Lives Matter crowd, why does matter matter?