Why We Believe - The Bible is God's Word

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If you want to open your Bibles to Psalm 14, Psalm 14, we were just there, so I'll have it up.

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Psalm 14, starting in verse 1.

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Hear now the word of the living and the true God. The Lord looks down, sorry, the fool says in his heart, there is no

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God. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

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The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

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They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt, there is none who does good, not even one.

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Have they no knowledge? All the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the

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Lord, there they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.

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You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion when the

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Lord restores the fortunes of his people. Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as a church.

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Father, we come before you and ask for you to bless today as we reflect on this important question and answer about why we believe that this is your word, that it is the truth.

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I pray that you'd bless us as your people to understand your glory in giving to us this revelation.

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Help us to understand the power of your revelation, the certainty of your revelation, the goodness of your revelation.

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And I pray that you help me, Lord, as a pastor to your people, to speak to your people in such a way that I'd be led by your spirit, guard my heart, my mind, and my mouth from error.

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And I pray that you would, Lord, allow this message to put our feet on a rock and allow it to give to us boldness as we confront the world and its love for error.

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I pray that you would allow this message and these truths to sit into our hearts and minds.

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Lord, I pray that we would teach it with passion and preach it with passion. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So why do we believe? That's the quick little series we're doing right now. Why do you believe?

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We're doing right now three questions. Why do you believe the Bible is God's word or the

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Bible is true? Why do you believe the Trinity? And why do you believe that Jesus is the

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Messiah? Why do you believe? It's an important question. I mentioned earlier that it's important to have an answer to these questions, not simply for the unbeliever and the antagonist.

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Of course, we live in a time period, in a nation, in a section of the world in the

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West that was so heavily impacted by the Christian worldview, and we're just beneficiaries of all of God's word to the degree that at times we don't quite understand that, oh, that came from Christianity.

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That came from the biblical worldview, whether it's advancements in science or medicine or arts or beauty or law.

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We don't even reflect anymore because we don't even know God's word or our own history. Where does this actually come from?

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Where do we get these ideas? We don't understand. They didn't come from atheism or agnosticism.

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We think today about people talking about the importance of the Constitution and all those sorts of things. Well, I agree in many ways, but when we think about foundational truths that are behind some of our founding documents, people endowed with their creator with certain, you know the thing,

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I'm just joking, by their creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

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You think about things like this, and you wonder, did this come from atheism? Does it come from agnosticism?

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When you think about things like what we have with blessings in terms of justice, whether it's the

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Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, we talk about things like warrantless searches and seizures, right?

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Where'd that come from? The whole idea of not being able to just rough somebody up and assume their guilt and start looking to see if you can prove them guilty or prove them innocent.

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Where do we ever get the idea of having a judge adjudicate and decide if there's enough evidence or eyewitnesses to actually pursue something against somebody?

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We didn't get that from atheism. As a matter of fact, there's actually a track record back to that particular idea of justice and no warrantless searches and seizures that comes from the

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Christians that were undergoing injustices and look to the law of God and say, this isn't righteous before God.

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His law says that you're not to bring a charge against somebody without two to three independent witnesses.

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God's law says the assumption of innocence is the most important thing to consider at the beginning.

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You have to have witnesses and evidence to bring charges. Everybody is to be assumed innocent.

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Where'd you get that idea of the assumption of innocence? Not from atheism, not from agnosticism.

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You get that from scripture, explicitly from scripture. Where'd you ever get the idea of being able to have, as a person being accused, the right to remain silent?

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Where'd that come from? Atheism? Agnosticism? They come from the humanistic ideas we have today?

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No, that came from scripture. You had to assume the innocence of every person and an innocent person isn't required to respond to somebody who's bringing charges against them.

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All of those things, the blessings of the Christian worldview. We have so much around us. I mean, it's just admitted that science gets its big pop in the world because of, well, just the circumstances?

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No, because of the Christian worldview. You can think about the major universities today and the centers of learning that are the most revered and respected and you think, oh, those were started by atheists.

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Well, they're overrun by atheists today and Marxists and unbelievers and humanists today, for sure.

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But you think about Harvard and Yale and Brown University and Cambridge and Oxford and all these universities.

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These were explicitly Christian universities from the start created to advance the knowledge of the scriptures and the biblical worldview and the glory of God.

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Why do we believe? You see, this is such an important question to ask and it's so important to have the answer.

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Again, not just for the unbeliever, but for you and your walk with the Lord to know why you believe what you believe about Jesus.

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Do you have an answer? It's so important because we live in a day where people just take for granted all of the great benefits of the biblical worldview and we don't understand where they come from.

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And when you don't understand where they come from or why you believe them in terms of an objective standard outside of yourself, you get people in a culture and society that don't know their history, don't know why they believe what they believe and they don't understand the objective nature of the system of justice that we have even today that we've benefited from and so they want to overthrow it.

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You think about what's happening in the streets today with the Marxists. You think about what's infiltrating the church today with BLM and all these

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Marxist ideologies and intersectionality. You think, how could it be impacting us? And here's the real reason.

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We don't know the word of God. We don't know what we believe. We don't know why we believe it.

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And so we have people today who are professing Christians in the West and we have a

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Christianity that, let's be honest, is Christian in name only. It's Christian in name only.

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We have megachurches filled with people who make professions of faith in Jesus. They don't know what they believe, why they believe.

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If you ask them to describe what the Bible teaches about the Trinity, they would give you heresy.

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Heresy. If you ask them, why do you believe the Bible is God's word? You would get answers that are truly, philosophically absurd answers, and not biblical, not coherent, not strong answers.

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And that is just, in fact, not our history, brothers and sisters. It is our current time. We have churches filled with people who don't know what they believe, why they believe.

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If you were to ask the question, why do you believe Jesus is the Messiah? You would have modern evangelicals and others who would say, well, by faith.

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Well, yes, agreed. Amen to that. I want the T -shirt. We have faith in Jesus as Messiah. But why do you believe

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He's the Messiah? Why not any of the other false messiahs in the first century, or the false messiahs that exist today?

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Ones in Russia today calling themselves Jesus. How come you don't believe in that guy? Blind faith?

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That's fideism. We reject that. The Bible would reject that. So why do you believe what you believe?

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And so I'll ask the question now for you and for those who are watching right now around the world. Don't answer out loud.

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But why do you believe that the Bible is true or the Bible is the word of God?

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Why do you believe it? Do you have an answer? Because again, two things. One, you need to have an answer because scripture commands you to, to always be ready with an apologia, apologia, proper word there, sorry.

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To have a ready defense, a reasoned defense. To everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that's within you, it's to do with gentleness and reverence.

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Of course, that's the command of scripture. Be ready as a Christian to give an answer, to give a defense for the biblical faith, but also for your own walk with Jesus.

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Why do you believe it? Because your faith will be tested in this life. You live in a fallen world. There's going to be antagonists.

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There's going to be YouTube videos. There's going to be articles written trying to come against your faith. Will you be able to respond to those things?

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There's going to be trials of life. There's going to be suffering. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that before this very pulpit, if the

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Lord allows us to keep this location, before this very pulpit are going to be some of your dead bodies.

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I'll be preaching over your dead body to your family, your friends, your loved ones.

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How are we going to manage that pain, that grief? The pithy slogans don't work.

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The 25 -minute motivational speech sermons that are so common today, they don't meet you in that hour of pain.

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They won't. But understanding what the Bible says about God's truth, who

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God is, what the Bible says about God's world and you and God's promises about the future, that will transform those moments.

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Why do you believe what you believe? Why do you believe? Do you believe because of your parents?

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Right? Many of us raised in Christian homes, not me. Some of you guys raised in Christian homes. You have the tremendous benefit.

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Kids, listen. Kids right now listening in the room. You have the tremendous benefit, the gift from God to be raised in a home with parents who love

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God. That is a gift. Who have the word of God and they give it to you.

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None of us are perfect parents, but it is an amazing gift from God to have parents who love

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Jesus and point you to Jesus. But why do you believe? Is it because your parents believed?

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That won't save you. It won't actually bring you to Christ. Ultimately, it won't save you in your hour of pain.

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Saying, well, I believe this because mom and dad did. It's not going to save you. It's not going to help you ultimately. And I would say it's not what

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God wants you to hang on to as an ultimate. Mom and dad said this. Well, moms and dads say lots of crazy things, right?

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How do you know what they say is the truth? What's it rooted in? Some people have said in answer to the question, why do you believe the

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Bible is God's word? They say, well, because I've had a compelling experience. I've had these amazing experiences with the

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Lord. I've had so many amazing experiences. Well, I want to challenge that. Praise God for the experience.

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If it's genuine with the true God. I'm not saying that this is just merely intellectual.

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The Christian faith is deeply intimate. It's deeply intimate and deeply experiential.

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There's no question about that. But saying I believe this book, this revelation because I have had a compelling experience is the kind of thing that you'll hear from Mormons.

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And they have a false God and they have a false gospel that will not save, led by a false prophet, led by many false prophets.

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But if you're out with us at the Mormon temple to love our Mormon friends and neighbors, then you'll hear often the

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Mormon will say, I know this is true. How do you know it's true? Because I have a burning in my bosom.

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You know you're in Mesa whenever we're going to answer that question. Because I have a burning in my bosom. You see, here's the thing.

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I've prayed about the Book of Mormon and I know it's true because I've had it burning in my bosom. Listen, if you get a representative from every religion up here, whether it's

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Islam, whether it's Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, whether it's

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Roman Catholics, or atheists and agnostics, you bring them up here and you say, have you had a compelling experience in your commitments?

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And all of them will tell their grand stories about their amazing experiences and what they felt and how closely connected they feel to the universe or to their

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God. Anybody can say that. But why do you believe? Is it because you've had a compelling experience?

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Again, if you had had a compelling experience in Christ, I don't want to discount it, but that can't be a foundation for our faith in Jesus Christ.

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It's very subjective. Some people say, well, I believe because there's a strong set of historical evidences.

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So they have a collection of evidences that they say, here is my standard. These evidences are why

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I believe, because of this set of evidences. Well, what are you going to do when someone comes along and challenges those evidences and brings counter evidence that disproves it?

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What if you're hanging on to a particular set of evidence and you find out that actually the person that told you that wasn't giving you the whole scoop, it was kind of spurious evidence, and now your faith is rocked and over and I'm no longer a

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Christian because all those evidences that I had my trust in, I found out they weren't that great, and so I've abandoned the faith.

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You see it happening today in droves, in droves. Rhett and Link, Good Mythical Morning, right?

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Solid past in the Christian church, even did stuff for VeggieTales, right? VeggieTales.

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And now coming out and saying, we're not believers anymore, right? What we thought was good evidence, we found counter evidence that doesn't make it so great anymore, so I think

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I'll live as a happy agnostic, maybe someone says, or they go some different direction because their faith was in evidence that maybe wasn't so great.

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Or what do you do in those cases where you have a set of historical evidences that you're putting all your faith in, but in your moments of trial and trauma in this life, that's not enough for you to continue your trust in God.

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This world is an awful place at its worst when the fall really puts legs on it, and in those moments of deep pain and suffering and trauma in this world, having your faith rooted in a set of particular evidences, well, maybe you'll have an answer like say

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Ben Shapiro when he was interacting with William Lane Craig on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

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I grant that Dr. William Lane Craig has amazing historical evidences for the resurrection, don't get me wrong, the evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming as an historical event,

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I don't think that it can ultimately really be coherently disputed, the evidence for the resurrection is incredible, but here's what the unbeliever says to those evidences,

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I just find them uninteresting. That was his response, uninteresting, because the problem isn't ultimately a lack of evidence for the unbeliever, the problem is the problem of the heart, the problem is human sin and rebellion against God, and sometimes you say, well, here's my evidences, it's what

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I put my faith in, this is why I believe something is true, and you put it out before the unbeliever, and you go, look, isn't that compelling, isn't it amazing, and the unbeliever retorts,

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I just find that uninteresting. You're like, what, uninteresting?

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Well, it's uninteresting to the hardened heart, it's very interesting and glorious to the person that's been changed by Jesus, or why do you believe that the

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Bible is God's word and it's true, is it just blind faith, right, just cause? There's a lot of us that have just cause commitments, there's atheists that have just cause commitments,

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I think it's the one year anniversary, isn't it, of our debate with, it's the Antifreeze debate, right, a year ago in Salt Lake City, there were so many, it's not just Christians and religious people that have just cause blind faith commitments,

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I pointed it out to the atheists on stage, it's a just cause blind faith commitment, you believe in science and an orderly universe, but your system doesn't allow you to depend upon an orderly universe, therefore you can't have science, so why do you believe the future is gonna be like the past so that you can do science and evidence and examination, and you just, let's just, just cause, right?

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It's just blind faith, it's blind, stupid faith. When I say stupid, by the way,

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I know the kids are like in here giggling, I heard that when I say the word stupid, some parents are like, you know, my kids aren't allowed to say that, I'm not saying that as an insult,

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I mean in terms of the intellectual stupid, not thinking, blind, stupid faith, it's just hanging on nothing, suspended in air, so why do you believe?

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You see, scripture gives us commands, the whole history of the church is littered with this,

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Christian apologists, defenders of the faith, people that wanna know the truth and defend the truth, Christianity is a religion of truth, we love the truth, we want the truth, we wanna propagate the truth, we're committed to the truth, we have a faith that says logical contradiction is wrong, because to engage in logical contradiction is to engage in the nature of lying,

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God cannot lie, his image bearers should not be committed to things that are lies and contradictory, we have a basis for truth, and in the scriptures, 1st

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Peter 3 .15, it says to set Christ apart as Lord, first thing

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I'll say, not a long sermon on this one today, but before we start talking about defending the faith, the apostle

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Peter says this, at the beginning of defend the Christian faith, he says to set Christ apart as Lord, that means no

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Christian apologetics, no defense of the faith should ever be done, should ever be done apart from a commitment to Jesus Lordship, that means no neutrality, no neutrality,

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Jesus says you're either with me or you are against me, but it's the charter verse of Christian apologetics, that's the defense of the

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Christian faith, why do you believe what you believe? The charter verse says to set

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Christ apart as Lord, in your hearts, always being ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of you, a reason for the hope that's within you, yet do it with gentleness and with reverence, our scriptures, the standard of the revelation of God is that believers are supposed to be ready with an answer, with a defense for why we believe what we believe, but we don't do that apart from first, a commitment to Jesus Christ's Lordship, but the scriptures teach us a pattern of the apostles themselves and the early followers of Jesus, just two examples,

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Acts chapter 9 and then Acts chapter 18, you have two examples of how they operated, they weren't coming into the culture all around them saying, hey,

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I've had this amazing experience with Jesus, you should follow this too, they weren't saying, hey, just because we believe in Jesus because you really think he's a great guy, they weren't saying that, that wasn't the nature of the defense of the

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Christian faith and Acts chapter 9, when the apostle Paul is converted, he takes a beeline to Damascus, go read it later and it says that he was found at the synagogues, reasoning with the

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Jews, proving that Jesus was the Messiah, how do you think he did that? How do you think he did that?

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Proving that Jesus is the Messiah, can you do that? Can you do it? Can you actually engage with people and demonstrate to them without question that Jesus is the promised

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Messiah? That's what the apostle Paul was doing and the kind of trouble that it caused is something that we should think about, when he went to go preach the gospel, the church was built up, they grew, it was multiplied and some people wanted to kill him, that was the result of the defense of the

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Christian faith in the public square and then of course, Apollos, he was mighty in the scriptures, eloquent and it says that he vigorously refuted the

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Jews, get this, publicly proving that Jesus was the Messiah, the nature of the

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Christian faith has never been fideism, blind faith commitments, it has always been based on objective truth and our whole history here in this revelation is a history of the defense of the biblical faith based upon objective truth.

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Next, the history of the Christian church is littered with examples, I won't give them all right now, of the

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Christian church defending the biblical gospel and biblical faith against all comers, that's the whole history of our faith and we live in a time today where people don't want to live like that, you know what it causes?

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You know what happens? It causes people, when you have an expression of the

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Christian faith where you don't teach what you believe and why you believe it, when you don't give a biblical communication of the gospel, you know what it does?

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It fills up a lot of churches that look like they are playing to the flesh of all the people coming, it looks like a lot of churches built to cater to the unbelievers wishes and whims and it looks like a lot of churches that are filled with a lot of people who profess faith in Jesus Christ but don't know him, they don't know him and it looks like a lot of churches that when stress and difficulty and suffering comes, a lot of churches that have become empty buildings because those people didn't know

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Jesus in the first place and they didn't know why they believed what they believed. You see, we have a failure in modern western

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Christianity. As I said before, much of it can accurately be described as Christian in name only we have the problem of a distorted gospel, a gospel that doesn't call people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

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We don't clearly communicate that God is a holy God and you are a sinner worthy of his wrath and the call of the gospel that Jesus would give would look something like turning to a crowd and telling people if anyone doesn't come, if anyone comes to him and they don't hate and then naming the most favorite people you have, mother, father, sister, brother, wife and he says and even your own life, he says don't come.

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He says you got to take up the cross, come and die, count the cost of following me.

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We don't preach that message a lot anymore in the west and so we have a distorted gospel so we create a lot of false converts that don't know why they're following Jesus in the first place.

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They just really like Coldplay concerts which is what much of these worship centers look like.

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There's no call to come and die. We have pithy 25 to 30 minutes motivational speeches not proclamations of the gospel so what do we create?

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People who don't know why they follow Jesus in the first place so the first instance of struggle or challenge to the faith, they abandon the faith.

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You have people today like famous Christian rock stars they're like I'm now an atheist. You're never a believer in the first place.

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When they talk about why they have now left the faith and what did you believe before? You're like I don't believe that in the first place.

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You were hanging on that? It was a fiction. It was a fiction and any fiction lived like that will eventually close.

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The story will end. They'll come out of it and realize I don't know why I believe this in the first place. So why do you believe that the

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Bible is God's word? Why do you believe? We don't know what we believe or why we believe it and that's a problem and I might add that it's not a problem that the

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Christian church has had for 2 ,000 years. We've had a history and a tradition of Christians that know what they believe and why they believe it.

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You want a good example of this to knock your teeth in? Go read the attributes of God by Charnock.

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Go read it. It'll make you feel very small and let you know about what some of our predecessors did with the word of God how they revered it and wanted to know

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God to know why they believe this about God. It's challenging stuff. So here's the deal.

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Listen, when we approach the question of why we believe, why we believe the

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Bible is God's word or why we believe that the revelation of God in scripture is true, you can approach this a number of different ways.

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Think about it. Now, by the way, I love this about our faith. I love this. People will say, well, we can muster together these evidences of archeology.

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What does focusing upon biblical archeology? What's that mean? Well, I'll give you an example. Before COVID, Pastor James and I were supposed to speak on a tour.

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We were gonna go to, goodness, where? We're going to Jerusalem and we were going to Athens, right?

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We were going to this amazing tour to go and go to these places. What were we gonna do at these places? We were gonna go to the spots that the event happens.

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How you like them apples? Try that with the Book of Mormon. It can't be done, right?

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We were gonna go to the place. We were gonna talk about, this is what happened in the biblical story.

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This is where it happened. Look around, you feel this. Look at where Jesus, this is where we can go, where crucifixion events took place and where Jesus was.

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You can go, you can smell the air. You can feel the dirt. You can taste it, touch it, feel it.

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Biblical archeology is massive and unreal. So many things, so encouraging.

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These things still are there. You can touch them and feel them and you can experience. You can go to where Jesus was in the

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Sea of Galilee. I mean, all of this stuff is a matter of history and record. Of course, you can talk about the evidence for the global flood, some crazy stuff in biblical archeology related to the global flood.

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It's really quite compelling. You could talk about evidence for the resurrection, the history of the resurrection itself.

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I mean, that in itself is just really an incredible study. There is no shortage of evidence for the historicity of the resurrection.

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I'm not gonna deal with it all right now, but I wanna encourage you as a believer who believes in the word of God, this objective revelation in history, look at some of the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

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It'll blow your mind, very exciting. You can approach the question, is the

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Bible God's word or is the Bible true with extra biblical evidence for the historical

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Jesus? You can do that. You can show that Jesus is a real historical figure.

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You can show that the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, people were talking about it who actually weren't in the

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Bible. So I'll give you some examples here just to whet your appetite to look at this. Pliny the

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Younger, 62 AD to 113 AD, that's where he lived. 62

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AD to 113 AD. So he was born when there were still some apostles around ministering.

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There's a section from Pliny the Younger where he actually says about the Christians that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a

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God. So according to this person in the first century, he's referring to the

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Christians and their practice of singing songs to Jesus like to God.

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So when people talk about, well, the early Christians didn't believe Jesus was God. Well, Jesus said he was

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God. The Bible teaches he's God. People were talking about it knowing where the Christian's practice was worshiping Jesus as God.

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And he says this, and bound themselves by a solemn oath not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up, after which it was their custom to separate and then reassemble to partake of food, but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.

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One of the examples of this. You can also, of course, go to Tacitus 56

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AD to 120 AD. We could talk about the historical Jesus and Tacitus talking about the early

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Christians actually says this. He says, consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class of hated for their abominations called

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Christians by the populace. Tacitus, of course, is referring to the fire in Rome and the blame put upon the

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Christians and all the rest of that. He says, Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators,

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Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition thus checked for the moment again broke out, not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.

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So you have early people writing the history here surrounding this and they're referring to the

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Christians and Jesus being crucified and all the rest. Of course, there's evidence for the historicity of Jesus outside of the

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Bible. You have another example, of course, of Josephus, Flavius Josephus. He gives a history of the war between the

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Romans and the Jews. And of course, Josephus does mention James, the Lord's brother. He does mention

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Jesus. This is probably a more accurate example of what was said. He says this, at this time, there was a wise man called

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Jesus and his conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. Many people among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples.

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Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die, but those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.

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So what do you have there? He was crucified, he died, but the people who were following didn't abandon him after his death.

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Why do you think that was? They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, that he was alive.

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Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have reported wonders and the tribe of the Christians so named after him has not disappeared to this day.

32:18

That's Josephus. So can you do that? Yeah. Can you get into that arena? Absolutely. You can do the extra biblical evidence for the historical

32:26

Jesus. You can look at the evidence in the Bible for prophecy. Now, this is one of my absolute favorites, and we're going to do a lot of this on the question of why do we believe

32:37

Jesus is the Messiah? Check this out. You can go to your Old Testament and you can demonstrate the prophecy of Jesus as Messiah that will give you goosebumps.

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It is so precise to the day. It is so precise and so incredible. Only a sovereign

32:55

God can tell you the future before it happens and you have it happening time after time after time in the

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Scriptures. You can talk about Jesus in the Old Testament. All the details necessary to know

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Jesus as Savior and as Lord. We know the who is prophesied before it happens.

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Who's coming? It's very specific. It's God himself. We know the why he's coming. We know the what.

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What's going to take place? What's going to happen? He's going to die. He's going to rise again. We know when. Yes, the

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Bible predicts when the Messiah is coming to the degree that, listen, there can be no other

33:32

Messiah. The Bible tells you the Messiah, Daniel chapter nine, is going to come, be cut off, die a violent death before the destruction of the second

33:41

Jewish temple. The second Jewish temple was destroyed fully and finally when?

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70 AD. So if Jesus isn't the Messiah, there is no

33:52

Messiah. There is no Messiah. We know the where. Where is the Messiah coming to?

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We know in examples of Scripture, prophecy, Jesus saying in his generation that they wouldn't all pass away before that Jewish temple was taken apart, literally stone off of stone.

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And it happened within a generation of Jesus prophecy. We can talk when we talk about the question of why do we believe the

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Bible is God's word? We can talk about the evidence of design, the evidence of design.

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This is powerful. It's powerful. It really comes down to what Scripture talks about when it says the heavens declare the glory of God and the fool says in his heart, there is no

34:37

God. The evidence for design and God's handiwork is unavoidable.

34:44

It's unavoidable and so powerful. And watch this, the deeper we go into science and examination, the lower we go down into the cell and looking at the human genome, the more we see the fingerprints of God.

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It is unavoidable. It's the kind of thing that my favorite atheist in history referred to in the film

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Collision with my friend Douglas Wilson. Christopher Hitchens, my favorite atheist in history. I've said that many times before, but at the end of that film, go watch it.

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Doug and Christopher Hitchens are in this limousine together and they're having a conversation. And I think

35:18

Christopher probably had some drinks in him. So he was in vino veritas and wine there is truth.

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And in this moment, Christopher Hitchens basically is talking about the problem of design.

35:30

And he says, even as an atheist, he says, you really have to work on it because it's not easy to get over.

35:37

He says, all of everything, all the universe. He says, if you change anything to one degree, he goes, no one hair, life isn't possible.

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Nothing's possible. Everything is so designed and ordered. It's this well -oiled machine. If you move one degree over, nothing is possible.

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That's all the way from the top down to the bottom of your cells. And even an atheist like Christopher Hitchens, as hard as he works to war against the

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Christian worldview, admits this is a difficult one to get over. The evidence for design is so obvious.

36:10

You see, you can talk about the human genome. Give you some examples here talking about DNA, the human genome.

36:17

Here's some quotes about DNA. It talks about how many feet long our

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DNA from one of our cells would be if you uncoiled each strand and placed them end to end.

36:32

If you do this for all your DNA, the resulting strand would be 67 billion miles long.

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So in your body, all the DNA, all the code you have, the code that makes you you, the code that makes you who you are, that built your body, made your eyes, all the details of you.

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If you took those strands and you pulled them all apart, that strand would be 67 billion miles long.

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67 billion miles. The same as about 150 ,000 round trips to the moon.

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You might be thinking, what's the big deal about that? It's information. It's letters. It's information.

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It's code that describes how to build, how to operate the systems, the machinery, the mechanics of you.

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Everything that makes you you. All this design, all this information, all this, ready, word.

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If you stretched all that information all the way out, here's another way to put it. If you stretched it all out, it would be about two meters long and all the

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DNA and all your cells put together would be about as twice, would be about twice the diameter of the solar system.

37:50

And all of its information, you might be thinking, okay, how is that awesome? Well, if you haven't understood it yet, here's how awesome it is.

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You all have bulletins in your hands right now, bulletins in your hands, right? And there, there's some words in there.

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There's information in there. But how many pages is our bulletin this Sunday? What is it about?

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Maybe what? 10, 10 total pages of information. There's not that many words in this week's bulletin, but everybody, when we open up today,

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I said, everyone open your bulletins. Here's a note from me. Here's a verse. Here's some soul food.

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Here's the events that are coming up. All that's in your bulletins is information. It's information.

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And the words are put in a particular order to express coherently what the thought is, what the information is.

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But your bulletin isn't very long, but you expect the bulletin to be coherent.

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What if I said, everybody, open your bulletins today. I should have done this, dang it. I should have done this.

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What if I said, everybody, open your bulletins today. And when you opened it, it was absolute gibberish.

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No words. It's just, it was, it's like a monkey on a typewriter. Just a blup, blup, blup, blup.

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And it just made no sense whatever, right? It just was just nonsense. Page after page after page.

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And I should have done this. Page after page after page of nonsense.

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And look, and I look at you all, and you're like, Jeff, what do you want us to look at? I'm like, what's wrong with you, right?

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We kind of expected it to be in a coherent language to express a particular normal thought.

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It's only a small bulletin, but we expected it to be orderly so that you can understand what's being communicated.

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Now, here's the deal. Your bodies, what's inside the system that you have right now is filled with so much

39:49

DNA and information that if you misplace words, it doesn't work.

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It doesn't build the thing. That's what's all the way down at the bottom. We could go for days.

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We could talk about the evidence for designing your cells and the fact that there are rotors and pistons and engines. I mean, like well -oiled machines down there at the smallest microscopic level.

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And if anything is off, it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, you're not here.

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You're not here. You don't work. The eye isn't an eye without information, without building blocks.

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It is so unbelievably amazing and powerful. More words from the

40:32

Human Genome Project. We're getting to some important points here. Check this out. Human Genome Project talks about the human genome as the genetic code.

40:40

The entire list of three billion letters required to create a human being. The instructions are encoded in DNA.

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The four letters in the DNA alphabet, A, C, G, T, carry the instructions to make all living organisms.

40:54

The meaning of the code lies in the sequence of the letters. All the instructions needed to make a human being are written in just these four letters.

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Just in these four letters. Here's some words from the Human Genome Project. They say there are three billion letters in the human genome.

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Three billion letters. Written out, the human genome would stretch 5 ,592 miles.

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It would take a typist working eight hours a day, half a century to type it. It would fill one million pages, 5 ,000 books stacked 200 feet high or 200 telephone directories.

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Read out for 24 hours a day, it would take a century to finish.

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Reading this 24 hours a day, a whole century to finish. The human body has 100 trillion cells.

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Each contains a copy of the entire genome. Wow. At latest belief, the human genome contains around 20 to 25 ,000 genes.

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Some powerful things. So you could do that. You could say, why do I believe the

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Bible is God's word? Well, because this gives me a foundation to understand this design.

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People say, well, I believe because there's evidence of design. Okay. There's evidence for the

42:17

Bible and its preservation. Some cool stuff here. Ask Pastor James someday to tell you the details of what we know about the history of the

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Bible. It's transmission through time. It really is unbelievable.

42:32

In comparison to other works of antiquity, there's nothing that even comes close to it. Nothing that comes close.

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The fact that you can look at the New Testament documents themselves, what's come up to us in the transmitted text.

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We have texts of the New Testament that go closest to the time of the actual composition than these normative things in history.

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And there's times where something's written down, you're studying it in college today, but we don't have an extant copy of the thing you're studying until 900 years later.

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Because this stuff turns to dust after a while. But we have documents from the New Testament that actually come at times, there's debate over this within even 50 years or 75 years or 100 years of the actual writing itself.

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There's nothing in the history of antiquity that works like that. Just the New Testament itself.

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Just the New Testament. We have nearly 6 ,000 manuscript pieces and copies of the

43:32

New Testament documents themselves. That is a lot. Second place doesn't even come close to that.

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Nearly 6 ,000. And we think about the fact that we've got them coming closer to the time of the actual composition.

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It is truly incredible. You have the fact that we have early translations of the New Testament documents themselves into other languages, whether it's

43:56

Syriac, Coptic, Latin, whatever the case may be. We have over 19 ,000 translations of the

44:03

New Testament documents. Here's the deal. You can take our New Testament transmitted text and stack it on top of itself and it would be over a mile deep of text and documents.

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So we can get through that transmitted text that's been given to us freely, transmitted text given to us in history.

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We can get back to what the autographer or the original document said via the transmitted text.

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It's truly incredible. But that's not what we're here to discuss today, ultimately. Because those are some approaches to the question, why do you believe the

44:38

Bible is true? Why do you believe the Bible is God's word? Can I say this to you? All those things are awesome.

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Archeology, the transmission of the text of the Bible in history, the historicity of the Lord Jesus, historicity of the resurrection, the proof of design.

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All of that is glorious and amazing stuff. And it is meaningful and it matters to Christians who have a coherent worldview to make sense of that discussion.

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I want to argue this. Why do I believe the Bible is God's word? The foundation is actually stronger than any of those things in isolation or put together.

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The foundation is actually stronger as to why we believe that this is

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God's revelation. Here's how the Bible puts it. We did it today as a start. Proverbs 14 .1,

45:27

the fool says in his heart, there is no God. That's how the

45:32

Bible puts it. Now here's the deal. You got to get this right. We have to really get this right. When the Bible uses that term, fool, it's not using it in the way that we would often think about it in terms of it's a slam against somebody or like Mr.

45:47

T, right? It's not like that. Some of you guys are like, who's Mr. T? I'm sad for you. A team, he had a cereal and he destroyed

45:57

Rocky. When God describes somebody as a fool, it's not just a jab.

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It's a spiritual and intellectual assessment of a person who knows the truth, refuses to accept it and goes the other direction.

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It's actually, listen, calling somebody a fool in scripture is not merely intellectual. It is that, but it's also a moral indictment, a moral indictment when you call somebody a fool.

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And God says in his word, that it's the fool who says in his heart, there is no God. That is where you're at intellectually, morally, you're a fool.

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The Bible talks about knowledge and how you can know things, that it's a particular place.

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This isn't an expansive study on this today, but I want you to go see it in Colossians 2 in terms of how the Bible puts this discussion.

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Number one, the Bible says that you're a fool to say there is no God. When the Bible talks about no

46:58

God, it's talking about the true God. But in Colossians chapter two, here's what the apostle Paul says in a discussion about knowledge, people who are claiming secret knowledge and knowledge at all.

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Here's what Paul says about it. He says in verse one, chapter two of Colossians, for I want you to know how great a struggle

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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

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Christ, in whom, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, for though I am absent embodied,

47:55

I'm with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. Therefore, as you receive

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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.

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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.

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So there is a philosophy that is according to Christ and one that is not according to Christ.

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And Paul's argument here is that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Jesus. That's a bold claim, brothers and sisters.

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You see, this is actually a field of study. It's a very important one. Are you ready for this? How do you know what you know?

48:46

It's important. People make claims all the time. You could be watching the news and someone sees some atrocity happen on the news and someone is revolted by it and goes, ew, that's horrible, that's disgusting.

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What's disgusting? What I just saw, what that person did. Oh, it is disgusting? Disgusting, is it wrong to do such a thing?

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And someone says, yes. Do you know that it's wrong to do such a thing? Yes. How do you know that's wrong?

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Seems like a simple enough question, right? But when you really get down and challenge it, if you don't have

49:19

Christ as your central reference points, if you don't have Christ as a foundation of knowledge, you can't ultimately know anything.

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I want to argue that there is no justifiable knowledge, no certain knowledge apart from this revelation.

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None. Can I give you one example as a start? It's a more recent example, so you guys can go find this very quickly.

49:44

We had a radio show, I think I discussed this recently, but I think it's important for this subject to hear it. We had a radio discussion recently on Provoked with Desi and Pastor Zach, and we had an atheist who's supposed to come on to defend pro -choice arguments.

49:58

And as we started getting into the discussion and challenging his position, we started getting into, well, how do you know anything's wrong at all?

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And he basically said, yeah, there is no ultimate objective morality in the first place.

50:09

You know, it's just all subjective and it sort of just changes throughout time. So he admits it.

50:14

So I continue to press him and challenge on that. This man does believe ultimately that we should love other people, but as an atheist, when he's challenged, he can't make any knowledge claims about what's right and what's wrong because his atheism doesn't comport with claims that this is wrong.

50:31

So I challenged him and I said, well, really, according to your worldview, it isn't wrong to hunt, kill, dispatch, and eat another human being, is it?

50:41

And he basically said this, and I'm not telling tales out of the schoolyard. This is what he said. You can listen to it yourself.

50:47

He said, well, basically, as long as you clean your plate, as long as you don't waste anything,

50:54

I guess it wouldn't really be wrong. If that society said it's okay to hunt, kill, dispatch, and eat a human being, if their society says it's okay, then

51:03

I guess ultimately, since it's subjective and based upon societal convention, then yeah, I guess they can't really know.

51:09

So yeah, it's fine for them. I just think it's icky. But as long as they clean their plates and don't waste anything, you see, there is no ultimate knowledge outside of Jesus Christ.

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It's foolishness. It's foolishness. So we have the Bible saying, the fool says in his heart there is no

51:25

God, that Christ is the very foundation of knowledge itself. But we also have, listen, this, don't think about it as just the word

51:33

Bible. Don't think about it as just a collection of different books and letters.

51:39

It is that. But what does this represent, actually? Revelation.

51:45

This is revelation from the true and living God. So when we say

51:50

Bible, what we're really talking about is the revelation of God, special revelation, revelation given to us in words, on pages, transmitted to us through history.

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This is revelation from God. You see, we know scripture teaches there are different kinds of revelation.

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There's revelation that's bombarding us constantly, every moment of every single day.

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It's happening to you right now. It's the revelation of God through nature, and it gets through.

52:19

Psalm 19 .1 says, the heavens declare the glory of God. It's unavoidable. Psalm 14 .1,

52:26

the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Romans chapter one, go read it later.

52:32

Paul says that the revelation of God gets through. Hear this, please hear it, because it is fundamental.

52:38

The revelation of God gets through to every single human being in the world.

52:45

Richard Dawkins knows the true God. Christopher Hitchens, now he certainly knows, but he knew the true

52:55

God. Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, all the famous atheists, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, all these guys, they know the true

53:05

God. What's the problem? Suppression. Romans one says, they suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness.

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That which is known about God is evident to them or plain to them because God has shown it to them.

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God has given to every image bearer of God the knowledge of himself, and it says that they know this

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God is there through what has been made. They can see it clearly, and they are culpable.

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Paul says, Romans one, they are without and apologetic. They have no defense.

53:38

Their mouths will not be flapping before God. They know the true God, but Paul says they don't want to know him.

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They don't want God in their knowledge, so they switch God, Paul says, for idols. That describes really ultimately all of humanity and our idolatry, but it says something about our knowledge of God.

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We know the true God. What's the problem? No more evidence, not enough light. The problem is sinful suppression.

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So we have natural revelation from God bombarding us. We have the revelation of God in history, his working through his people in history, speaking to his people.

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We have those, of course, here in this special revelation. We have God actually acting in history. You heard me say a moment ago, we were gonna go to those places, stand in the dirt where this all took place in history.

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God has worked in history. We also have, of course, the ultimate, this revelation of God in history in Christ.

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He walked among us. God took on flesh and he walked among us, lived perfectly, died and rose again.

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This is not a faith that is merely out there somewhere. It's here in this world, in this dirt, breathing this air.

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That's what our God did. But ultimately what we're talking about here is this, his revealed word, his written word.

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This is the revelation of God. What's our catechism say? All right, let me test the kids here.

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Kids, come back. Let's see who can get this one. Now, kids, please stand up if you know it, okay?

55:09

And just raise your hand. I want you to yell it out. How do we know there is a God? If you know it, stand up.

55:16

Mikey, you gotta, come here, come on.

55:27

I'm gonna actually, no one's gonna be able to hear you on here. By the way, why should you have kids in service?

55:39

All right, come on over here. I'm gonna actually lift you up. Can you put this one on? I'm gonna lift you up. Actually, you know what I do to make this easier?

55:44

I'm gonna need a chair anyways. So I think Pastor James needs a chair today too. So here we go.

55:51

I just, I just, by the way, I'm messing with you. You gotta understand. I think he drove across, he rode his bike across the country this week.

55:58

He did like 18 hours of bike riding. He knows I'm messing with him. You can stand up. Okay, all right. Mikey, how do we know there's a

56:05

God? The light of nature and man in the works of God plainly declare that there is a

56:10

God. But his word and spirit only do effectually reveal him unto us for our salvation. All right, thank you,

56:16

Mikey. So it's interesting.

56:30

When we used to go out to the abortion mill, I gotta say this quickly. We used to go to the abortion. When we first started, you would not believe the amount of negative comments we got from professing

56:37

Christians. When we started going out to the abortion mill, put the stuff up, live stream, we're going out to try to save lives.

56:43

When we first started, no kidding. You guys who were here, you know, it was nonstop barrages of professing

56:50

Christians. You can't do that. It's wrong. This is not how you love these women. It's not how you save these babies.

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And we just kept doing it and kept doing it. And then we started saving babies. So at first we would try to like get into it, people very graciously and give them like, no,

57:03

God's word says this. Here's what God's word says. And we still did that. But we got to the point where all we really did when someone came on and said, you shouldn't be doing this.

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It's not how you love these women. It's not how you stop abortion. We would just start sharing pictures of the babies we saved.

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And the arguments stopped. They don't really happen anymore. Because when you save thousands of children from death, when people see that fruit, they go, oh, okay,

57:25

I'll shut up, okay? And when people argue against having children in worship services, there's my picture.

57:35

But our catechism question addresses this to some degree. It says this, how do we know there's a God? The light of nature and man and the works of God plainly declares that there is a

57:44

God. Get that? That's what we're talking about. All these evidences, design, men know God.

57:49

It's unavoidable. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. So it's all there, bombarding us.

57:54

But what's the problem? Our catechism says it. But his word and spirit only do effectively reveal him unto us for our salvation.

58:04

What's the problem? Is it the evidence? Even our catechism expresses, it's not the problem of the evidence.

58:11

It's there. The problem is sinful suppression. That's the problem. You need a heart change.

58:18

You need to avoid that, the hand, move the hands away from the suppression. So what's the problem? It's suppression of truth.

58:26

But here's what we need to understand. God as God has a self -attesting authority.

58:31

I told you that the answer is better than mere design arguments. The answer is stronger than mere historical evidences.

58:40

It's much stronger. Here's the deal. God as God, and we have to grant this as a philosophical consideration and just grant it.

58:49

Yeah, that's true. If God is God, then he has a self -attesting authority.

58:55

Just grant it for the moment. Even if you disagreed with it, if you were an atheist. If God truly exists, and he's the eternal

59:02

God, and he's the supreme being, God, he has no one above him or below him.

59:09

He has been here from all eternity and will be here. He yields all authority and sovereignty.

59:16

God as God has a self -attesting authority. Self -attesting. He doesn't need somebody's approval.

59:23

He doesn't need somebody to back him up. When God speaks, he speaks with authority. Can I give you the first instance we have?

59:30

Genesis. What happened in Genesis? Great example of how do you know? It's a big question of how do you know that's the truth?

59:37

Are you certain about that? In the beginning, God created everything. He creates human beings, puts them in the garden.

59:42

And what's he say? He says, you can do this, but don't do this. Because, he says, the day you do, you'll surely die.

59:52

So what do we have now? A knowledge claim. God says, you can do all this, but you can't do this.

59:59

The day you do, you'll die. Well, what happens on that fateful day? What happens?

01:00:05

The deceiver comes in, and what does he challenge? He challenges God's claim.

01:00:11

By deception, initially, he says, hath God said? Did God really say?

01:00:19

You see, by the way, that is exactly how this works and operates within history. God makes claims with self -attesting authority in his revelation, and man comes along and does what

01:00:28

Satan did in the garden and says, did God really say? And so Satan says this to Eve.

01:00:33

He says, no, no, no, no. You won't die. You see, he doesn't want you to do it, because he knows that you'll become like him, knowing good and evil.

01:00:42

What's that mean? Deciding for yourselves what is right. And what is wrong.

01:00:48

God makes the claim as to what is to be done, what is right, and what is wrong. Satan comes and says, no, no, no.

01:00:54

Did he really say that? No. You see, here's another claim. I'll challenge it. You see, when you eat of it, you'll be like him.

01:01:01

You'll decide for yourselves what is right and what is wrong. And what happened that day? Exactly what

01:01:09

God said was going to take place. You see, from the very beginning, the problem has always been this,

01:01:17

God says. God says. God gives his revelation, and it's a self -attesting authority.

01:01:23

He doesn't need your evidences, your proofs to give him that authority.

01:01:29

He has ultimate authority. And so I'll give you an example of this as a punch.

01:01:38

Here it is. Why do I believe the Bible is God's word? Why do I believe the Bible is true? Well, a couple ways this can be said.

01:01:46

Apart from God's revelation, you can't prove anything. Apart from God's revelation, you can't know anything.

01:01:55

Apart from God's revelation, you become a fool. Philosophically, morally, scientifically, logically, mathematically.

01:02:05

Apart from this revelation as your starting point, you're a fool. And that could be demonstrated, and we'll do some of it today.

01:02:11

But I'll tell you one thing that's important about this in terms of evidences related to this and God's own self -attesting authority.

01:02:18

I had a radio debate with a popular guy, Andy Stanley.

01:02:26

And it was on the unbelievable radio program, very popular show. And in that program, he just couldn't quite grasp what

01:02:33

I was saying. And there's clips going around today with this particular moment in it.

01:02:39

Andy Stanley, I just hadn't really thought through this, I think. He couldn't really grasp what I was saying. So I'm challenging him on the fact that he's basing the truthfulness of Christianity on the fact that somebody rose from the dead.

01:02:50

He says, here's these evidences for Jesus. I just tell my kids, if people say there's weird stuff in the Bible, say, yeah, there is, but Jesus rose from the dead.

01:02:57

And that's why I believe, because there was this miracle in history, and Jesus rose from the dead. I said, I think that's the wrong way to do it.

01:03:05

He said, well, why do you believe what you believe? I said, the word of the living God. Because of the word of the living

01:03:11

God. And his response was, that was weird. I don't know how to respond to that.

01:03:17

I believe what I believe because of the word of the living God. My knowledge is wrapped up in the certainty of God's revelation.

01:03:23

And in Luke 16, 29, there is an example from the

01:03:28

Lord Jesus himself. It's the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Remember that parable, or that story, or whatever it may be?

01:03:37

There's a dispute over that. But in this example that Jesus gives, when he's in torment, he just wants so desperately to have somebody go back to tell his family so they don't come to this awful place.

01:03:57

And what's the word that comes to him? They have Moses and the prophets.

01:04:04

If they won't accept that revelation, neither will they believe if somebody rises from the dead.

01:04:14

If you don't believe God's own word and self -attesting revelation, then miracles can just be explained away, right?

01:04:23

I mean, miracles, I'll give you an example of this. So, what time is it?

01:04:28

Doesn't matter. I'll give you an example.

01:04:36

So at the debate one year ago, Pastor James and I debated two atheists in Utah, trying to find the best that Utah had to offer.

01:04:42

These guys stepped up. And one guy is brilliant. He's a smarter man than I'll ever be. He is absolutely, undeniably brilliant.

01:04:49

He also hates God, hates God. And in the debate, if you go online and see it, you'll see this atheist.

01:04:56

This is what he says the whole time. He says, show me, show me, show me, show me, show me. He just keeps saying, show me, show me, show me.

01:05:03

Pastor Zach almost pounded him into the floor when he got a little too close to Pastor James.

01:05:11

And he's very protective of Pastor James. But when the debate was over, that's the whole debate.

01:05:17

The atheist kept saying, show me, show me, show me. And he said, here's some coolant, here's some poison.

01:05:22

And he poured it. He's like, come on, if you believe in Jesus, if you believe in him, drink this. Show me, show me a miracle.

01:05:29

That's all he kept saying was, show me the miracle, show me the miracle, show me the miracle. After the debate was over, they lost badly.

01:05:35

And after it was over, he came to get in my face. Show me, show me. And then in James' face, show me.

01:05:40

He just kept saying, all I need is a miracle. Show me, show me. And it was like a month and a half later that my son was born without spina bifida, which he had.

01:05:55

Miracle, bona fide, genuine miracle. I can show you the ultrasounds.

01:06:01

It's not a misdiagnosis. There's a hole in his back. We see it over and over and over again.

01:06:06

Show me, show me, show me. And God did it whenever he wanted to. Showed you, right?

01:06:13

But the atheist, what would they say if they saw the miracle? What would they say? All of a sudden, a conversion? Do you think if I went to Dr.

01:06:19

Clark and I said, here's all the ultrasounds, here's the doctors who are saying that I've never seen this before.

01:06:25

Here are four months of all these plans and medical teams working on this. Here's the ultrasounds.

01:06:31

I showed you. Do you think Dr. Clark would go, I believe. Do you think he would?

01:06:37

What's the problem? He hates God. He hates God. It's not a lack of evidence or miracles or any of those things.

01:06:46

It's also an example. I just want to say one last time, then I'll show you something. Ben Shapiro, I love this example.

01:06:52

Ben Shapiro, when he was doing his discussion, he's a Jew who doesn't believe Jesus is the

01:06:58

Messiah. When he was doing his discussion with the premier person to talk about the historicity of Jesus and the resurrection, what does he say when he gets the evidences for the resurrection?

01:07:08

What's he saying? He says, I find it uninteresting. It's a problem of suppression.

01:07:14

It's a problem of ultimate commitments. It's a problem of worldview. God's revelation is the central reference point.

01:07:23

Christ is the foundation of knowledge. When someone says to me, and this is just, you can do this in different ways, little bursts.

01:07:30

When someone says to me, why do you believe that that's God's revelation? Why do you believe that's true? That's God's word.

01:07:36

I can say, if you reject it, you can't prove anything. If you reject it, you can't justify any claim to knowledge.

01:07:44

If you reject it, you become a fool. Because here's the deal. You reject what God says about the world and us and himself from this revelation.

01:07:53

Here's the answer. There is no beauty. Nothing is beautiful.

01:08:01

Stop and think about it for a moment. We take it for granted all the time, don't you? You listen to some beautiful music, beautiful music.

01:08:09

When you see some beautiful work of art, you think about the Sistine Chapel and the majesty and the power of all that.

01:08:20

When you think about Michelangelo, Donatello, not the turtles, but when you think about the art, when you think about Beethoven, you think about things that are truly beautiful.

01:08:34

I'll tell you, I have a family member who's a hardcore, hardcore atheist.

01:08:41

And one of his favorite things to do, like every day, is just stand out on the beach when the sun's rising and setting and just stare, just take it all in.

01:08:52

I always find that so amazing when I see it happen. I'm like, look at you, image bearer of God. You know, you know that's beautiful.

01:09:00

You know that's God testifying to you. You know it. You're trying to escape it, but you know.

01:09:06

But you see, outside of God and what he says in his word about the world and us, there is no beauty because here's the deal.

01:09:14

Take the other side, atheism. There is no God. All this is time and chance acting on matter. It's just chaos.

01:09:20

It's just stuff happening, right? There's no meaning. There's no order. There's no purpose. You ever done this?

01:09:26

You ever gone in the middle of the night to get something to drink? Maybe you open the fridge and, you know, something falls out and goes plop.

01:09:31

It's like pudding and milk maybe just falls out, plop. You know what's in my fridge. Just falls out.

01:09:38

Nobody ever stops in that moment and looks down and goes, oh, beautiful.

01:09:48

It's a work of art. It's not beautiful. It's an accident. There's no intention.

01:09:54

There's no purpose. There's no meaning. There's no order. It's garbage. It's a mess.

01:10:01

It's not beautiful. What do you call it? A mess. If God isn't who he says he is and this world is not what he says it is, and if we are not who he says we are, there is no beauty.

01:10:15

There is no truth. Without this revelation as your foundation, there is no truth.

01:10:22

There's just whatever you happen to feel at the moment, maybe. Whatever your particular huddle says is the truth.

01:10:29

All you have is just this three -pound brain working in a cosmic accident, firing chemical thoughts.

01:10:39

All you have is just meaningless matter in motion. There is nothing true.

01:10:45

And by the way, you know when I say that, this is not Jeff Durbin the pastor really trying hard to misrepresent the other side.

01:10:52

If you don't believe what I'm saying, listen to Dr. Will Provine. Very honest. I like Provine because he's a very honest atheist.

01:10:59

He's dead now. He's a creationist. Dr. Will Provine talks about the fact that there is no

01:11:06

God and what it means. And he says the same thing. Nothing is ultimately true. There's no ultimate in ethics.

01:11:13

There's just what is. So apart from this revelation and this God, there is no truth.

01:11:19

There is no goodness. There is no justification for logic and things to be coherent and meaningful and make sense.

01:11:30

Apart from God and his own character as the foundation and his own mind revealed to us in scripture, we don't have a basis to call laws of logic universal, unchanging, necessary.

01:11:43

In other words, watch this. If you hear saying, well, if you see Joe Biden saying something crazy, right?

01:11:52

Why does everybody, well, this is actually a good moment, okay? I'm not just trying to pick on the man. I pray for his salvation. But if you see all these videos coming out of every time they put that man in front of the camera and he says something absolutely illogical or crazy, like I think the one that came out yesterday, he said that he's been in politics for 180 years.

01:12:16

I had to watch the video like 16 times to make sure it wasn't doctored in some way. I sent it to Pastor James.

01:12:22

I was like, you got to see this. Look, why does everyone laugh at that? Why can you use that as political fodder?

01:12:28

How come? Because it doesn't make sense. You haven't been alive for that long.

01:12:34

Someone help him. Someone help the man. If he has family, they should be doing something.

01:12:40

But 180 years, right? And it's just one thing after another of illogical statement. Why is it used so often?

01:12:47

Why? Because it's a contradiction. And the reason it's used so much is because we are not supposed to hold to things that are contradictory, that are false.

01:12:56

Why do you think everybody assumes that things need to make sense and not contradict themselves? Why do you think every image bearer of God, even atheists, think that things need to make sense and be logical and orderly?

01:13:06

How come? Their worldview can't comport with that. How come? Because they know the true

01:13:11

God. This revelation gives you a basis for laws of logic, laws of thought as necessary, universal, immaterial.

01:13:21

Quick big question, very important one. Have you ever tasted a law of logic? You ever smelled one?

01:13:30

How much does the law of non -contradiction weigh? Where can I find it growing?

01:13:37

Have you ever held one in your hand? All of us recognize that these laws of logic, which are laws of thought, are binding, necessary, universal.

01:13:48

Everybody's supposed to hold to them. If you refuse to, we call that laughable.

01:13:56

I was going to say biting, but I'll be careful. Okay, here's the point.

01:14:03

These laws of logic are universal. If you reject God's existence, if you go the atheist direction, if you reject this revelation of God, what's that mean?

01:14:12

It means that all you are is stardust. You're a cosmic accident. There is no meaning and purpose.

01:14:18

You have no justification for anything that's immaterial because atheists, consistent atheists, I believe are materialists.

01:14:24

Like the guys we debated last year, they're materialists. They believe that all that exists is matter. That's it.

01:14:30

So where are the laws of logic in a materialist worldview? Why are they necessary? Why are they universal?

01:14:36

Only the Christian worldview can give you a basis for a material realm and an immaterial realm all under the mind of God.

01:14:45

If there is no God, if this revelation is not true, then you have no justification for mathematics.

01:14:52

Ah, I said this for years. I said unbelievers have no justification for arithmetic.

01:14:59

They have no justification for mathematics. It is immaterial. It is necessary to do what we do in the world and only the

01:15:05

Christian world can give you a basis for mathematics. Now watch. I said that for years.

01:15:11

And then this year, people start saying, because they reject God and they reject this revelation, they start saying what?

01:15:19

Two plus two may not be four. Maybe it's not.

01:15:25

Right? Here's what I would say about that. Try building a bridge like that. And I challenge the person who says something so ignorant and so foolish, which is what it is,

01:15:35

I challenge you to board a plane with a pilot who announces over the PA system, just so you all know,

01:15:41

I'm an atheist, strict materialist. I do not believe in the laws of arithmetic or logic or morality.

01:15:49

Have a nice flight. Everybody would be unbuckling their seatbelts, going to get their baggage, and going to pop that thing open with a slide.

01:15:59

Right? Why? Because you all recognize the pilot has to believe that the laws of arithmetic are universal and necessary.

01:16:08

You can't build bridges without the laws of math actually universal and fixed and firm.

01:16:17

It's so incredible. It's so amazing. Years ago, when we used to go to Vegas, I had family in Vegas and everything, and some of you guys are older.

01:16:26

That's no offense, by the way, okay? You know that you used to, if you went to Vegas, you had to go north and you had to go down to the

01:16:32

Hoover Dam, and then you had to wait for all the people that were like, oh, Hoover Dam, you know. It took like an extra two hours.

01:16:41

You're like, please, park your car. Stop taking forever. Sorry. I'm being sanctified.

01:16:49

But then they built that bridge. They built that bridge. And I remember that at a certain point, when you saw it being built, wasn't it terrifying?

01:16:56

Like, I literally parked my car to watch. It looks so high. I was like, I will never ride on that bridge.

01:17:03

It looks so terrifying. But they built this bridge for years between these two mountains, and when they built it, they built it like that.

01:17:14

You understand what kind of precision there must be with the laws of mathematics to be able to build from opposite sections and to come together, bink.

01:17:25

Two plus two better be four, right? You reject this revelation.

01:17:32

You don't have a basis for the laws of math. Atheists use the laws of math.

01:17:39

But if you challenge them on it, they'll say, yeah, well, you just sort of made these. We hope they work. Do you launch rockets into space going, we hope?

01:17:49

Let's see. It happens. Here's the deal.

01:17:55

You reject this revelation. You become a fool. You can't prove anything. You have no justification for morality.

01:18:03

No justification for human value. No justification for science. We could spend all day on this, but I think it's important.

01:18:10

Listen to the man himself, Dr. Richard Dawkins, famous atheist. He says in his book, River Out of Eden, this.

01:18:17

There is no good. There is no evil. There is only blind and pitiless indifference.

01:18:26

That's atheism. Reject this revelation. Become a fool. Reject this revelation.

01:18:33

Have no basis for morality. What African apes do to other African apes is morally irrelevant.

01:18:42

If we were out in the Sahara right now, or someplace, the Congo, or out with the elements and nature, and we saw creatures attacking one another and eating one another, none of us run up to the fight and start throwing cuffs on them.

01:18:58

All right, now. You have an obligation to love your neighbor.

01:19:04

Where's that come from? The law of God. The law of God. So I'll just show you quickly.

01:19:10

I'm going to just make sure it's here as a reference point. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but you've seen this before, maybe some of you.

01:19:17

Hopefully you can all see me. Why do we believe the Bible is the word of God? Apart from it, you can't prove anything.

01:19:27

Apart from it, you can't know anything. Apart from it, you'd become a fool.

01:19:34

Morally, philosophically, intellectually, scientifically. Apart from it, there is no beauty. There is no truth.

01:19:39

There is no goodness. Take for a moment the opposite commitment. The atheist, the unbeliever, he stands on a worldview too.

01:19:47

He makes knowledge claims. She makes knowledge claims. But they're standing on a worldview, a view of reality, a view of how they can know what they know, a view of ethics, how they should live.

01:19:58

What do they say? There is no God, no goodness, no truth, no beauty, no ultimate anything.

01:20:07

There's only blind and pitiless indifference. What are human beings? Well, stardust. Is there any meaning or purpose in human beings?

01:20:14

Created? No, none. Cosmic accidents, all of them. We live, we die, and we're gone.

01:20:20

We're absolutely gone when we die. That's what Will Provine says about human experience. You live, you die, and you're gone.

01:20:26

You're absolutely gone when you die. That's it. That's atheism. No God, no meaning, no purpose, no beauty, no truth, no goodness, no order, no reason to believe that the future will be like the past.

01:20:37

And you have the Christian worldview that stands on that revelation. We have a God who's revealed his character to us.

01:20:43

Why do we believe in justice and loving other human beings?

01:20:49

Because we're made in God's image. We are not just cosmic accidents. We're reflections of the immortal, invisible

01:20:56

God. We're in his image. God cannot lie. He doesn't engage in logical contradictions.

01:21:04

God is love. Here's what scripture says about love. Love does no harm to its neighbor.

01:21:10

Do we have an absolute objective standard to love neighbor and to make sure that justice is upheld?

01:21:17

According to God's revelation, we do. Do we have a basis in the Christian worldview to engage in art and beauty and song and science and truth and beauty and goodness?

01:21:29

Yes. Why? Because of God. Because of his revelation, we know we can have certainty.

01:21:37

Why do I believe when I get up in the morning and put my feet on the ground that I'm not going to float away to the ceiling?

01:21:45

If there is no God, there's no governance of the universe. There's no purpose and there's no meaning and there's no order. There's no basis to believe the future will be like the past.

01:21:53

Maybe tomorrow we all wake up stuck to the ceiling. People walk their dogs expecting an orderly walk, somewhat with the dog, but they expect a certain pattern in the environment because of past experience.

01:22:08

There's an orderly universe. Christians gave science its pop because we have a worldview that made sense of it.

01:22:16

But isn't it interesting? The unbeliever says all those things about the universe, but what do they have to do to live in God's world?

01:22:26

Borrow. The unbeliever says there is no God, no meaning, no purpose, no beauty, no truth, no goodness.

01:22:31

And then someone steals their car stereo and they'll go, hey, hey, that's wrong.

01:22:38

You can't do that. You can't take my stereo without permission. And you go, excuse me, what are you doing? They go, oh, there's no goodness.

01:22:44

There's no beauty. There's no truth. There's no nothing. You see, this is a commitment of ultimate worldviews.

01:22:52

And we need to look at what we're standing on, the feet. And we talk about the question, why we believe the

01:23:00

Bible is God's word. Here's a quick answer because you become a fool when you reject it.

01:23:08

Only God's word can provide a foundation for all of these things. But, and these are my final thoughts.

01:23:15

Truly, this is very personal. It's just beyond the debate. On a personal level, this is big.

01:23:28

This is, I told you, it's two ways, the unbeliever and then personally. Yes, when you have

01:23:35

God's word as reference point, it takes the unbeliever's legs off. There's no question about that. But when you have

01:23:42

God's word as the revelation and your foundation, personal suffering has meaning and purpose.

01:23:51

Your personal suffering has meaning and purpose. Here's the deal. If atheism is true, if unbelief is true, your personal suffering is nothing.

01:23:59

It means nothing. You can cry all you want. It has no real meaning or purpose. Stop crying. Feel the weight of that.

01:24:08

You lose a loved one. You live, you die, and you're gone. You're absolutely gone when you die. It's not like your loved one had any meaning or purpose.

01:24:14

It's not like love is a thing. It's not like love is an ultimate thing. You don't have

01:24:20

God who is love. But if you are a Christian, you have God's revelation at your feet. Personal suffering has meaning and purpose.

01:24:26

We have a basis to cry. You see, this revelation gives you a basis to cry in this world.

01:24:34

Tears make sense if this revelation is true. But more importantly, if you have this revelation, we have a

01:24:43

Savior who meets us in our pain. See, there's more to this than just intellectual. It's a

01:24:49

Savior who meets you in your pain. Because this revelation says that the God of all creation, despite our rebellion,

01:24:56

He entered into the creation. And He suffered among us. We forget that a lot, don't we, about Jesus.

01:25:02

We think, oh, what He did for us. We don't often think about the fact that He meets us in every inch of our pain.

01:25:09

He wept at the tomb of a loved one. Even though He knew He was going to raise

01:25:14

Him from the dead, Jesus has experienced the people closest to Him abandoning Him when

01:25:20

He needed them the most. Jesus knows what it's like to have people slander you and to bear false witness about you.

01:25:28

Jesus knows what it's like to have people out for your life. Jesus knows what it's like to have somebody to take your body and to do things to it without your permission.

01:25:38

He knows what that's like. Jesus has experienced that. But here's the glorious thing. He did it for His people.

01:25:45

He meets us in our pain. With God's revelation, we can make beautiful things.

01:25:52

With God's revelation, we can do math for the glory of God. I'm not very good at math, but you can still do it for the glory of God.

01:26:01

With God's revelation, we have a basis for truth and caring about it. With God's revelation, we have a basis for love as a meaningful thing.

01:26:10

With God's revelation, we have an answer for our shame. Our guilt, our shame, that every image bearer of God feels.

01:26:22

With God's revelation, we have His good news. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless the word that went out today.

01:26:29

I pray that you use it for your glory. I pray that you would allow us to be the kind of church that treasures your revelation, hides it in our hearts, and puts it in our mouths, proclaiming it to the world.