Tis The Season To Be Mocking - [2 Corinthians 10:3-5]

Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the Unseasonably warm weather that we've been enjoying and just thank you for the blessings that we have and This country of being able to come and worship you and to study your word and father.

We just pray that this morning We would be edified that we'd be stirred to love and good works and to just be reminded again about the importance of Knowing scripture and knowing you and father.

Would you bless each one here in Christ's name? Amen well This yeah,

I it's just been amazing to me this week. I don't know if you guys play Play pay any attention to Twitter or Facebook or any of that stuff

But when I say tis the season to be mocking I don't mean that I'm going to mock

You know this isn't like I'm gonna Some some kind of roast of the class or something like that seems to me that this is the time of year when it has become fashionable to mock

Christianity Few things were out this week Some big shot has a

TV show About creation or whatever and he put out some tweet this week about he was talking about somebody's birthday on December 25th who changed history and of course he meant

Isaac Newton is correct And you know, of course the you know, the punchline is well, it wasn't

Jesus of course, Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, and he would figure that a famous scientist might know that kind of thing, but I digress

Sometimes I think we're intimidated by science intimidated by numbers and I thought

I would give you some encouragement this morning Eric metaxas wrote this he's a he's an author.

I think he's a Christian I think he is anyway Listen to this.

I found this part this fascinating in 1966 Time magazine if you remember ran a cover story saying that God is

Dead that was the theory Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he's obsolete

That as science progresses there is less a need for God to explain the universe And he says yet it turns out that the rumors of God's death were premature

He goes on to say he says the same year Time magazine fame featured the now famous headline

Carl Sagan famous astronomer announced that there were two Listen to that two important criteria for a planet to support life.

In other words, there were two things that were essential To support life you had to have the right kind of star that is to say a

Sun some kind of light The right kind of star and a planet the right distance from that star so, you know, there's the

Sun here's the earth You know perfect situation for life Says given the roughly octillion one followed by 24 zeros planets in the universe

There should have been about septillion one followed by 20 But in other words one of a thousand planets capable of supporting life, but a lot of life out there, you know and now think about 1966

God is dead then Carl Sagan later on says this about planets in the meantime, we've had Star Trek, you know where every planet you go to as a new life -form, you know, etc, etc

So all these cultural things seeping in in fact, I remember one One Star Trek movie.

Yes, I have seen it Where they're there they go back in time and they're looking at this little puddle

Where life supposedly springs forth from which you know? Okay But this is the culture in which all this stuff comes to Let's see with such spectacular odds.

In other words that one of a thousand planets was gonna have life, you know We need to be doing something right so they set up this

Anybody wouldn't know what SETI is not Yeti, you know, it's not the abominable snowman Russ search for extraterrestrial intelligence this organization that was you know going to listen to everything and sort through it and figure out if there were

Life -forms out there and one in a thousand planets. Come on and who's to who's arrogant enough?

This is the thinking who's arrogant enough to think that we are the most advanced people so And did you know this is great the government's

I mean this will surprise most of us The government was actually helping to support SETI until 1993

Your tax dollars at work trying to find you know, all this life that was definitely out there

Now in as of 2014 because it still exists SETI still exists How many?

Evidences of life out there and other planets have they found Zero and that's followed by as many zeros as you want

Metaxas writes what you know, he says what happened as our knowledge of the universe has increased and this is this is kind of the crux of this this morning

What happens to science the Word of God? Let me just put it this way. Does the Word of God change? No, does truth change?

No does science change? Yes, well, why is that isn't science true?

True science is true, right? but the problem is as they get more information than the science changes listen to this as Our knowledge of the universe has increased it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan suppose

Carl Sagan this brilliant man said there were two necessary factors Well, then he decided that there were 10 and then he said there were 20 and then there were 50

So the number of potentially, you know, what happens as the number of factors necessary to support life

Increases then the number of planets that potentially support life Decreases so whereas we went from Septillion number of planets that probably had life on them to a few thousand and then it kept plummeting and Metaxas Rice he says even

SETI proponents acknowledge the problem one of them said in 2006 article in light of new findings and insights

We should quietly admit that the early estimates may no longer be tenable as factors continue to be discovered

This is Metaxas again. He says the number of possible planets hits Number of possible planets that could support life.

We've gone from septillion this great man of science Carl Sagan people still like to quote him Carl Sagan said there were a septillion number of planets that had life and now the number of planets that they think could support life is

Zero our planet shouldn't even support zero life. Let's listen this says

Including this one probability said if you just looked at the odds said that we should not exist

Human life should not be here Today, there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life

Every single one at which must be perfectly met or the whole thing falls apart without a massive planet now, this is interesting in light of Movies like the recent exodus one which posited, you know asteroids creating the or parting the

Red Sea, but without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby whose gravity will draw asteroids away a

Thousand times as many would hit the earth's surface as do now So the odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing

Yet here we are any of these 200 Conditions he says can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident here on earth at one point at what point?

Is it fair to admit that science suggests? We cannot be the result of random forces

And I like that how far do you have to go before you say well, maybe there's something more to it

There's more the finally to or the fine -tuning necessary for life existing on a planet is nothing compared with the fine -tuning required for the universe to exist at all the universe to exist astrophysicists now know that there are four values of fundamental forces these four are gravity electromagnetic force and strong and weak nuclear forces

And he writes that they were determined less than 1 millionth of a second after the Big Bang allegedly happened

Then he goes on to write alter any one value and the universe could not exist Let me try that again alter any one value and the universe could not exist the entire thing

We've already decided that life could can exist here and now the universe shouldn't exist and he says if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the

Electromagnetic force was off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction by even one part in one quintillion

Then no stars could have formed at all And then you get back to the number of parameters necessary to support life, etc, etc, etc, and it just gets overwhelming so one atheist says

That when he started looking at all these numbers his atheism was greatly shaken all this stuff, you know and so When I read this

One one passage of Scripture comes to mind and what do you suppose that is? There are a few but I mean there's one that comes readily to mind for me

Let's open a Romans 1 and I want to look there first because this is this is the one you know

And I want to just encourage us To to We're going to see as 2nd

Peter 3 says, you know mockers mocking This is what they do scoffers scoffing and even the smartest people in the world

Holding down the truth Let's read Romans 1 verses 18 to 20 and who has that yeah,

Russ There's and they were made they didn't just pop into existence.

There's one Presupposition there's one fundamental assumption that Christians have and that is that God exists and from that we can posit the rest of Everything if there's a

God who is as described as the Bible and he exists then everything else makes sense

The unbeliever has to posit You know, not not just against all odds against all reason

But he has to actively suppress the truth and unrighteousness psalm 14 one says what the fool has said in his heart

There is no God now. Does that mean? Psalm 14 is that talking about a stupid person?

You know when if we say Carl Sagan is a fool, that would be true because he said in his heart

There is no God, but does that mean that Carl Sagan is dumb? The idea of a fool in Scripture doesn't necessarily have in it the idea of a lack of IQ It has to do with a moral crookedness

A you know if if You know true north is the direction we ought to be heading if that is obedience that that is

Righteousness then the fool is one who is Going off on his own direction

We could say in fact, I would say there are a lot of similarities between psalm 14 and Romans 1

It's that idea of variance from truth variance from what is known

I like what Lawson says he says when the

Bible speaks God speaks and his voice drowns out every other opinion, and that's what these are these are opinions

These are opinions, but this is this is it's coming from the outside, but it's also coming from the inside the church another passage

I like to refer to 2nd Corinthians 10 verses 3 to 5 and I think this has to do with both

Believers and unbelievers let's look at that 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 to 5

And this is a good one because I think it's misused by people who? would profess

Christ If somebody would read that please 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 to 5 yeah, go ahead

Now What what is this? How is this passage misused? This is a passage about spiritual warfare, right?

You know every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and it has this picture of you know literally

Fortresses you know and assaulting fortresses. That's kind of the the picture here, but what sorts of things?

How do people use this Christian people use this passage or people who profess Christ? Let's put it that way.

I'm sorry flow Well, that's good.

I mean you're you're talking right. I'm talking wrong. You know she says think rightly by taking every thought captive Yes, that is correct.

I don't want correct answers though Thank You flow Is somebody else who has a wrong thing that they'd like to say and get you know for no how's this passage misused?

Yeah, Bruce Yeah, it's like it's like to assert power and Dominion over demons

Right somebody else, but what do we know we know that false ideas false theologies?

false science Is really what it's the It is the doctrine of demons there they come from the father of lies

So what we want to do and ultimately what this passage is talking about is we take things captive to the

Word of God Well, what do we do we compare what people say with Scripture and which one wins?

Scripture I don't really care what Carl Sagan says with all due respect to Carl Sagan when he says there are two necessary functions

I don't care if he says there's two ten twenty all I know is what the Bible says the Bible says

God said let there be Light and there was light God created everything

My presupposition and it's not my presupposition. I don't own it It's what the

Bible says Bible says that there is an eternal God who spoke and existence leapt into being he always existed and he spoke and everything came into being and once I have that then

I can Fill in my worldview around that But what these people are doing literally is walking around the dark and trying to feel their way to the truth and they can't do it

It is the quintessential blind leading the blind When we talk about the

Bible and the fact that we can rely on it and there's going to be some emphasis on that on this this year we talk about its

Inspiration and we talk about its inerrancy Inspiration just means that it is breathed out by God.

It's or inerrancy means that it Well, what does inerrancy mean?

without error and There's another part of it here from the Chicago Statement of Faith and that is it doesn't have any mistakes

But also that it doesn't affirm anything. That's contrary to fact. In other words, it doesn't It doesn't affirm false falseness

Nothing untrue. It doesn't affirm Okay, so a question from these are from 2008 with Roger Nicole little interview he did

Question he's asked the inerrancy of Scripture is a controversial doctrine in some quarters and believe it or not.

It still is today there are Christians who they might say they

Affirm inerrancy, but they don't so he says this questioner says, how do you define inerrancy?

And how is the term given to being misunderstood and he says inerrancy is an articulation

Explicit of the nature. I don't even want to read that part Let me just read this the question therefore is what can be defined as an error?

And what doesn't in the errancy therefore avoid? Says, you know, you have to avoid error if that's not properly understood then some people will have a mistaken

Mistaken notice and notice of what we want or notion mistaken notion of what we want to assert

Says inerrancy does not come as a result of testing all statements of Scripture and finding them to be true

Because if that were the case, we would never end this job What is he saying he's saying if you examine everything and you go off on a fact -finding

Mission to find out if it's true, then you will there will be no ending to the investigation. Well, why?

Because guess what? Not everything in Scripture has Happened yet. That doesn't mean it's not true.

Just means it hasn't happened yet So you can't you can't validate everything but what the scripture says is true and it's amazing, you know as time goes on I mean pastor

Mike mentioned earlier and Probably for those of you were in the first service.

It might have even escaped your notice Anybody you remember where he said that the the

Jacob's Ladder was found in the in the tomb of King Tut Now what's the significance of that?

You know, is that something where you should just grab your Bible and go? Well, I know the Bible's true because they found a reference to Jacob's Ladder in King Tut's tomb

No, but what what that means is that keep the Jacob's Ladder was known at the time

King Tut was buried and all these things, you know, these aren't just Legends that grew up and somebody wrote them down and you know, they became this

This isn't Greek mythology. In other words, this is the truth and as Archaeology and as science evolves and as it grows guess what it eventually catches up with the truth

I like this question to To dr.

Nicole. He's the questioner says where do we see the bad fruit of a faulty view of inerrancy today?

He says Nicole says we find that That challenge in churches where people say we ought to receive

Practicing homosexuals as members now. Listen, he says scripture has clearly said that Homosexuality is so nefarious

That those who practice it may be punished with death like nefarious. Now, there's a word you don't hear every day

Some say okay. Well, those things are in the Bible, but it represents customs of that time

So there's no authority of God in there but if you have liberty to do that, in other words, that's

Thousands of years old we're not bound by that anymore And Nicole says but if you have liberty to do that, then you can take it wherever it

You could take whatever it says and say well that's for the olden days Therefore he says our feelings practices and sin

Begin to be the authority instead of God the damage is terrific So again, let's go back to 2nd

Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 to 5 He says Nicole says this is this is the way the church is going now our feelings

Practices in our sin begin to have authority instead of God What are we here now, you know supposed

Christians saying well, what's wrong with homosexual marriage? everybody should be has the right to be happy and if marrying somebody from the same sex makes someone happy then

So be it How could God say no to that? We have to be affirming What does 2nd

Corinthians 10 say Paul writes in the inspirational Holy Spirit? We have to take everything we have to Test it.

We have to capture it as it were compare it to the Word of God Another question for dr.

Nicole. He says Why does there seem to be a recurring pattern of voices within evangelicalism?

challenging the doctrine of inerrancy And he writes about the case of a thesis

By one of his colleagues who's writing about the New Testament And he says that he had a view contrary to the prescribed approach to scripture and he was rejected for his doctoral thesis

On the grounds that he did not sufficiently acknowledge this critical view or the critical view.

What's he saying here? He's saying that this man wanted to write his Thesis understanding the

Old Testament to be true and be inspired and to be accurate and because he refused to take

Excuse me to take a liberal critical view of the Old Testament.

He was not permitted to write his thesis And this is not uncommon I had a seminary professor

Who said now he was at Dallas? And this was 20 some odd years ago and his professor told him

He said if you do not Interact with the liberal sources that we give you you will not not surmount the program here at Dallas Theological Seminary This is the way things are going.

This is the church now That is has a more Dispassionate a more reasoned approach

Supposedly to scripture than it used to and the truth is what the church at large is doing right now slowly

But surely in accepting what the world says about the Bible is they are Becoming more and more like the world the church is

I Want to just say a word about this

I hear this Who wants to?

Let's talk about the Council of Nicaea 325 AD How many are familiar at all with the

Council of Nicaea 325 AD raise your hand if you were there? What are some of the things that are said about the

Council of Nicaea? This is a church council 325 AD What are some of the things that are said currently about that council?

Yes Okay, it's when what books were in the

Old Testament or We're in the canon of Scripture were decided that there was a cabal and an organization you know that kind of seized control of this and Excluded some books.

Well, what were the books that they excluded from Scripture the secret

Gospels the ones that nobody's supposed to read Well, they're secrets,

I guess that's one word for them we call them what I heard I heard over here Okay, the

Gnostic books, you know like the my favorite, you know, and this one ever gets old for me

I laugh every time I tell it the Gospel of Thomas Familiar with that one gospel

Thomas neither a gospel nor written by Thomas. Thank you very much. I Mean people are like, how could they exclude the

Gospel of Thomas? Well, you know, we know that was written probably about 180 150 180

AD So we know it wasn't written by Thomas So why would we want to include it in?

the Bible But you know when people start ranting and raving about the

Gospel of Thomas, I just like to see do you know what's in it? Because it says that Jesus it quotes

Jesus as saying unless a woman turns into a man. She can't get to heaven Now that may be cool for some people today

But I digress

Okay, the the Council of Nicaea then was not a place where? You know, they treat it like it was some big

Conspiratorial thing where this group now, I just think how brilliant those men must have been 325 AD They didn't have computers and yet somehow they managed to come out of that council

Getting rid of all these spurious books that would have conflicted with the other ones Keeping these 66 books that we have today

And yet somehow It's coherent. They didn't have computers so they can compare things to make sure there were no contradictions, but we have a coherent

Bible today. Well, how did they do that? Those must have been some brilliant guys What did the

Council of Nicaea actually do did they decide what books were gonna be in the

Bible? No We have those lists. We have them before 325

AD what they did was They did a few things from the nature of Jesus, but they also

Said these other books do not belong in scripture. They just excluded books that did not belong I mean if you have a a myriad of books

But you want just some to be recognized as inspired as canonical Then what do you do you exclude the ones that aren't canonical and how do you decide that?

Well, I like to put it this way, you know, because even my Mormon friends will assault the Council of Nicaea and they'll say well this is when you know, they they edited the books and they did this and they did that and they made sure that you know,

The the truth was expunged so we wouldn't know all the Mormon secrets Okay, you can believe that if you want

But what actually happened is God this the supreme being

Who's in charge of everything who orders everything kept his word intact and the

Council of Nicaea Simply affirmed what God had done Can we trust the

Bible is it not just inspired but inerrant yes And when we say it's inerrant it has no mistakes.

Well, what does that mean? I mean you can look in your Bible and you say well, wait a minute. I have in my

Bible it has mark 16 verses 9 to 20 and Then it says it marks it off.

It says well those verses aren't in the Bible. How can you say that? My Bible is inerrant or You know my my

Bible has At the end of John chapter 7 the beginning of John chapter 8.

It has these spurious verses in there How can you see my Bible is inerrant? I'm not talking about the printed copy that you have

When we say something when we say the Bible is inerrant. What are we talking about? We're talking about in the original

Autographs, which means the original manuscripts the original copies those that were originally written down by the inspired authors

So you say well, what good does that do? I don't have the autographs. I don't have the original copy

I have my printed copy that you say is riddled with errors. I didn't say that by the way And if you have the

MacArthur study Bible, it's definitely not riddled with errors. Okay, sorry How do we know that the

Bible that we have today is reliable, how do we know that How do we know that it's inerrant

It says so that's definitely one way right it testifies to itself God testifies to it

How else do we know that we compare scripture with scripture? Okay Okay textual criticism

I'm not gonna do an entire course in that. I'm just gonna spend a moment. I'm gonna say this Here's what textual critics do there's a higher criticism where they

Completely destroy the Bible and that's not what I'm talking about textual criticism is we have manuscripts. We have thousands of Manuscripts, which is amazing

What do you think about that? I mean there aren't thousands of much of anything Thousands of manuscripts and what they're able to do even as they find later manuscripts like the the

Dead Sea Scrolls and things like that Pull these manuscripts all together and they look at them and they compare them and they go

Okay, none of these are the original copy but by comparing them and seeing the errors that are made like You know, here's an example in English if I say there

What goes through your mind What's that? What's there and If I'm speaking, you know, what's there?

How do you know which there's there because the there that's there is belonging to them or there or you know by context and But it's sometimes not obvious when we type it which there we mean because what do we do?

We spell it incorrectly like for example, let's say I'm dictating something to you and I say there even if you got

Spellcheck and if you don't have spellcheck, why not? Even if you have spellcheck if you misspell it the odds are really good

Here we are back to the odds thing That it's going to Ignore the mistake like if I say

They're going to church this afternoon Then you know, it's

T H E Y apostrophe R E But you type, you know,

T H E R E Spellcheck isn't gonna catch that but if somebody's reading this later if somebody's reading what

I dictated to you later They'll look at it and go. Well, that was a mistake That obviously was the wrong there.

And so they'll correct it and that's exactly the sort of thing. That's not Exactly analogous, but it's pretty close to what goes on in textual criticism.

So they look at these different manuscripts They see where the where the discrepancies are and there aren't that many but where one manuscript will differ from another and then they'll

Try to work their way back and they'll compare all these different manuscripts. They might have Dozens or hundreds of the same passage and they'll look at them and the older manuscripts now listen to this carefully the older Manuscripts tend to be what do you think more accurate or less accurate?

More accurate is the correct term, right? The older it is the closer it is back to the original manuscript the more accurate it tends to be

Because those things get copied over time they become less and less Accurate little what more errors will creep into it.

But by comparing all these different manuscripts and we have some that Date back. I mean there are some that date back to a few that date back to You know two three hundred and I think there's one now that's around 180 or something like that But most of them are about the seventh

Seventh through ninth centuries But yeah, and there's a whole great big thing I don't want to spend more time on it

But there's a whole great big thing about how they would Copy these and the thing the methods that they would use and so they use all this

Information to kind of deconstruct what's there and to get it back into its original Form so when

I say that we have God's Word today, I think with a high degree of confidence

We can say that it's right You know because they they they've done all this work already

So talking about that now I was reading that I think this is a

Catholic website. Somebody said Well, you know 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17.

What does it say? It says, you know, the Word of God is Inspired okay, and they say but that when

Timothy wrote that well, what books was he talking about? He was talking about the old or when

Paul wrote it to Timothy he was writing about the Old Testament, right? So that's all that inspiration applies to Is that true?

Well, no, I mean certainly I mean if you want to say that that only applies to the Old Testament Then you what are you gonna say about the words of Jesus the words of Jesus were inspired

Well, certainly the red letters what let's look at 2nd Peter a good reminder for us this morning 2nd

Peter chapter 3 And what somebody read? verses 16 and 17 place

Yeah, go ahead. Well, see, you know, there was a little error there because I've typed 2nd

Peter 3 verses 15 and 16, but I very clearly said 16 and 17 Why I don't know why but there's an error that we can unpack.

So let me read verse 15 instead and count the patience of our Lord as salvation

Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him Given him by whom, you know

Obviously the Lord as he does and all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters and then he says, you know

Which they do to the other scriptures so implying that not really implying but saying that the letters of Paul were

Scripture Scripture So Peter, you know

Peter obviously disagreed with this Catholic writer here. The first Pope disagreed with him

If Sorry, sorry They have all kinds of silly objections doesn't the fact that Luther wanted to remove?

How do you respond to this Luther wanted to remove Hebrews James Jude and Revelation from the Canon? Does that mean that he knew that these books were not inerrant?

No, and even if that was what Luther thought well Luther would just be

Wrong. He's just a guy Isn't saying that the

Bible is inspired by God and verified to the believer by the Holy Spirit circular reasoning In other words, you're relying on God to tell you that it's the

Word of God. I'm okay with that Here's a here's the thing

I Said this before I'll say it again everyone has circular reasoning and unbeliever believes what he believes because Because he believes it his circular reasoning is

Unique to him. It's based on his own fallible understanding of the universe even

Carl Sagan as brilliant as he was You know went from Believing there were a septillion planets

That could survive or could have life to many fewer and now if you were alive today

I think he'd probably say yeah, it's probably not too likely They're fallible

Now when people accuse me of being of having circular reasoning I say, you know what you're right Here's the difference between me and you

Your circular reasoning and it is circular is based on your own belief system My circular reasoning is based on the

Bible. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God and everything it says is true and any, you know questions about life or Morality or anything else all go back to Scripture and that's my source and you say well, that's you know

How do you know it's right because it says that it's right. Well, that's certainly reasoning Yes, how do you know you're right because I'm right?

Okay. Well, that's not a circular reasoning It is ultimately circular reasoning for both of us.

It's just in my circles outside of me What about this question aren't there errors in the Bible doesn't the

Bible teach that the Sun orbits around the earth? No, it doesn't. I'll just get to the punchline there. The earth is flat.

No, it doesn't They're all manner of things here

I'm gonna be moving kind of quickly now I got I have to confess. I was listening to R.

C. Sproul a couple weeks ago That's not part of my confession, but it really got me thinking about this here Here's what he said, and I thought this was just so profound just talking about apologetics and reasoning and how much we can study

Scripture or trust Scripture Because people are trying to explain

Existence apart from God, which is the height of foolishness Because it simply cannot be done

But he says R. C. Sproul says he went to I think it was Harvard and he gave a presentation to their philosophy department

And he said I proposed to them that there were three ways that something can come into existence

You know what those three ways were? Three ways something can come into existence What's that No No, this is philosophy.

So he's you know, he's waxing eloquent Three ways that something can come into existence number one

Russ Okay, you're kind of skipping ahead but yeah, well, how about this

I'll give you the first one and then we can see if we Can work something out something can exist because it has

Always existed. Okay, that's one number two it is Created by an already existing being and number three is one that's really interesting to me

And maybe not so obvious He says the existing thing created itself

And I thought and then he went on to explain why that was a dumb idea He said

He said because for something to exist or something to create itself it would have to Exist before I created

That's pretty profound So so listen to this RC I look this one up online.

He said he was recently reading an essay by a well -known Nobel winning physicist

He says whose name will remain unstated so as not to embarrass him Who argued that the idea of spontaneous generation?

That is something spontaneously coming in being should be as abandoned and science once and for all

Spontaneous generation means that something comes into being with no cause it comes from nothing and RC writes so far so good

I was pleased to see a scientist debunk the myth of all myths He says that something can come from nothing

That out of nothing everything came into being he says this myth is still pervasive in the scientific community with respect to Chance and he says chance is giving credit or given credit for creating the universe

RC goes on to say he says however such a prodigious feat is beyond the capabilities of chance

Chance can do nothing because it is nothing. It's merely a word we use to explain mathematical possibilities

It is no thing it has no power He says so I'm glad this physicist repudiated spontaneous generation

He says my gladness abruptly turned to astonishment when the scientists said we must have a new model

We must speak in terms of gradual spontaneous generation RC says

I couldn't believe what I was reading gradual spontaneous generation says how can something gradual be?

spontaneous Says our scientists wanted to debunk the myth that something can come suddenly from nothing and replace it with a better myth that something can come

Gradually from nothing And RC says I use this illustration only to show that even the most astute scientists can fail they fall short

Why is that? Because they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness they look around they see order

But order presupposes what an orderer and so what do they want to do?

Suppress that suppress it so get rid of them right can't be there

So they'll tie themselves up into knots even saying well. You know what there are a septillion planets where life

Could possibly exist Well, no actually Probably a hundred well.

No actually there can't be any but it's still science It doesn't matter how absurd it is it is science

We expect unbelievers to do that, but it's amazing to watch people who say that they're

Christians Redefine sin Right Homosexuality other things we're gonna see the world as the world goes the church is going to and it is hard to watch

Redefine sin redefine salvation Redefine the nature of man

Redefine the nature of God I Mean the most famous Christians I Think how to you know just go like this all the time

Christians The most famous Christians in the United States are people that could not give you the gospel if you said here's a thousand dollars

I'll give you five minutes. Please tell me the gospel I Expect half of them would probably say make a ten thousand you got a deal.

They don't know the gospel So what's the solution? What is the solution to all this you know if you're if you're interacting with somebody who says you know they're too smart

To believe the Bible they're too smart to believe in a God who created all things

They're too smart. You know you're stupid What does the

Bible say about that? What's that fool says in his heart, there's no

God well it also says the first Corinthians what that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are

Perishing so what that person is really telling you is I am drowning. I am perishing

I Need a lifeline Will you throw me a lifeline your response should be what?

well That's good for you Be warm be filled

Rescue the perishing throw him a lifeline give them a little gospel Say listen everything you need to know about life and death

Is in this book you need to study it It's gonna tell you who you are Who God is the fact that you have a problem whether you don't want to hear it or not whether you want to hear it?

or not That one day you're gonna answer you're gonna stand before a holy God you're gonna answer for everything you've done in your life

And unless you can say that all my sins have been forgiven in the Lord Jesus Christ because of his perfect life his death on The cross his resurrection

Unless you could say that unless you could say that you are in Christ. You're going to spend eternity in hell

Mockers will come with their mocking our response needs to be compassion love and the cross

Let's pray father Even during this holiday season

As Christianity has become Fashionable to laugh at to mock as the

Bible has become the punchline for TV shows showing the stupendous nature of the universe and how wonderful things are and yet they

Ascribe all of this to random chance knowing in their hearts That such things cannot be

Lord would you give us the clarity of thoughts resolution in our hearts

Compassion love a Desire to see the loss come to Christ to rejoice as They do father would you grant us the courage to present the truth of Scripture Whatever the accusation may be

Whatever The jokes whatever the the chiding whatever

Father the truth is that you save sinners By the preaching of your gospel make us faithful servants of the