Don't Give To Dogs What Is Holy — Tim Conway

But the Lord knows best. And undoubtedly, there are truths associated with what we're going to look at right here that in our day are most especially needed. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

And Father, I would ask you to help me now preach, help us all to hear and to not just be hearers. Help us to be doers of the Word. We pray for the grace of our God to empower us in a way that we need to be strengthened and helped.

I ask that in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. So, do not give dogs what is holy. Do not throw your pearls before pigs or before swine. I just ask you this, have you ever noticed the animals of Scripture?

Animal Imagery Throughout Scripture

Does it ever strike you? Just verses like this, Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I fought with beasts at Ephesus. You notice that kind of language. It's very interesting. This sort of language is everywhere in our Bibles.

Psalm 22, we could have read there before the Lord's Supper. But Jesus cries from the cross in Psalm 22. He says this, Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. Again, dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me, they've pierced my hands and feet.

Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. So you see it here. You see bulls, bulls of Bashan. You see dogs, the power of the dog. Again it says, save me from the mouth of the lion.

You've rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. The psalmist pleads in Psalm 74, Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts. Isaiah 41 says, fear not you worm. There he's still in the animal kingdom, but now what is a worm?

A worm is not an insect. What are they? Somebody got the Latin word for it? Anyway, it's the animal kingdom undoubtedly. But we get this language. John the Baptist. What did John the Baptist say to the Pharisees?

When they were coming to his baptism? You brood of vipers. So this is not foreign to us. If we pay any attention to the Scriptures, get away from here. Herod wants to kill you. And Jesus said to them, go and tell that fox.

Or you get this, behold I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Or to his disciples he says, behold I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions. Their serpents and scorpions don't so much mean men and women as much as demons.

But Acts 20 .29, Paul tells the Ephesian elders, I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock. So what's with all the animal metaphors? We get them all over the Scriptures.

I get the feeling of this. Do you ever notice God never takes an animal and calls it by a human name? He doesn't say, you know, of that sheep over there, look at Fred. But He often looks at people and He gives them the title of animals.

And it's everywhere in your Bible. And you get the feeling that one of the reasons that God created the animals with certain traits and characteristics is to be a reflection of us oftentimes. I know there's other reasons why He did that for His glory.

But one of the things that undoubtedly we're confronted with is this kind of terminology throughout our Bible. I would just say this, what kind of animal are you most like? Here's the thing, in the text before us, Jesus is telling us there are people in the world that you need to identify as being pigs and dogs, and you don't want to throw your pearls before them.

Probably nobody here would be ready to admit that that's what you are. And yet Jesus says that there are people that are just like this. I mean, in the text before us today, we have these two-legged sorts of pigs and dogs.

Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. And you know what? This isn't the only time that pigs and dogs are mentioned in the New Testament.

You can probably think, if you just let your mind... In fact, Peter gives us a text that likewise has both dogs and pigs in it. What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to its own vomit.

He's talking about people here. And the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire. So he's talking about somebody that's been exposed to the truth, and they seemingly go on with Christ for a season, and they go back to their old sin.

They go back to their vomit. They go back to their mire. Just like a dog, just like a pig. But you get this. In Philippians chapter 3, the Philippian Christians are told to beware of the dogs. The circumcision, basically the Jews that were God rejecters, Christ haters.

Or you get this. All the way at the end of our Bibles, in the book of Revelation. Do you know who's out there in the outer darkness? The dogs. Just think with me about that. Outside are the dogs. And it says, and the sorcerers, and the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, everyone who loves and practices the false.

But have you ever stopped? I mean, all these things, the fornicators, the adulterers, I mean, murderers. We recognize that terminology. But sorcerers. To start with the term dogs, the dogs are out there.

To be a dog in Scripture is not a good thing. That ought to be really, we're not talking these little cute lap dogs. That's not the idea here. So let's get to the heart of this text. What's our Lord teaching us?

Discernment Without Hypocritical Judgment

I mean, here's the thing. The first five verses, judge not. You know, the world loves that. Judge not, judge not. That's verse 1. But then what does verse 6 imply? Verse 6 implies that we're required to judge who the pigs and the dogs are.

What Jesus is doing in verse 6 is He's assuming that His people are going to have the ability to discern the dog from the not dog. I mean, that's, listen, He's expecting that we're going to be able to say, that guy over there is a dog.

You say, judge not. Well, wait. Whatever His judge not means, it doesn't contradict this reality that we have to be able to identify this. What you'll remember from the first five verses, which we looked at two weeks ago, is what He's really condemning is hypocritical judgment.

That's what's being forbidden. But the reality is that we need to judge with righteous judgment. Listen, brethren, one of the reasons that this text is so important in our day, it's just basically this.

You know, the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. There is a truth. We have to be people that actually are willing to say, there is a truth. And you hold to that truth, or you don't hold to that truth, or what you're teaching is not truth.

You say, judge not. Wait, that's not what... Jesus never meant to use judge not in that sense. He meant not to use it in the way where we're judging somebody with a speck in their eye. When we have the inability to judge our own selves, when we got something much greater wrong with us, that's hypocritical judgment.

But the fact that we are supposed to be discerning people is everywhere in our Bibles. Brethren, you need to cling to the good. You need to hate the bad. That's what Scripture tells us to do. If you're going to be a Christian, and you're actually going to make it to glory, you've got to be a person of truth.

It's the truth that sets us free. It's the truth that's behind the gospel. We are people of truth, and the church is the pillar and ground of truth. Listen, we live in a day when people don't like truth.

People don't like when there's preachers who set forth truth dogmatically, and they tell the world, and they preach from this book. You know, a lot of the flack we get when we're trying to tell people about the truth is they want to attack this book.

And the Bible, don't be surprised at that. The devil has attacked this book from the very beginning, yea, as God said. He attacked the Word of God from the very beginning, and he goes after it still. Why?

Because he's a liar. And see, he hates the truth. Brethren, we need to be people of truth, and we need to be people that are discerning, and we need to be people that can actually say of a truth, that guy is a pig, or she is a swine.

And you know what? We need to be able to say it, because that's what Jesus expects from us. He expects us to be able to have that kind of discernment. If there are people in this world that are bulls, that are wild oxen, that are dogs, that are pigs, that are doves, that are beasts, and on and on.

Well, he expects us to be able to recognize who these people are and to distinguish them. And especially right here. It's one thing if you basically just have some kind of indicative where it's just describing something that's true in the world, but the fact is right here, we're actually being told to do something.

And so our ability to recognize such people is important if we're actually going to carry out what the Lord wants from us. And what does the Lord want from us? The Lord wants us to do something or not do something based on what a person is.

And so if you come across people that are dogs and pigs, He expects us to be able to figure that out. And brethren, you recognize this. We live in a day where there is a massive lack of discernment. We live in a relativistic world.

Nobody wants to hear that there is actually a truth out there. It's okay as long as you're searching for the truth or you never have actually gotten there, but as soon as you stand up and say, I know what the truth is, then everybody hates you.

Then they can't abide that. They can't tolerate that. Indifference to clarity on things. Brethren, this is rampant in the church. Not being able to express things. Not being able to say things how they are.

We need to be people that can actually call something black that's black and white that's white. We need to be able to say what's true. You know the thing about truth? Truth is true. And truth can be examined.

And it can be looked at from different angles and it's still true. And we don't have to hide it. We don't have to be ashamed of it. We need to bring it out. And I'll tell you, one of the truths that we're being taught right here is there are people in the world who are pigs.

And there are people in the world who are dogs. You say, that's offensive. Well, see, that's something to take up with Jesus. Jesus did offend people. There's no question about it. But because the truth offends people.

People that don't like truth. You know, Scripture does describe people who love a lie. They love to believe a lie. Don't be surprised that people that love to believe a lie are going to get upset with the truth.

But we need to be people of truth. And we need to see things the way they are. And the truth is, if the Lord had finished His teaching on the subject of judging in verse 1 of Matthew 7, well, we probably would fall into some erroneous thinking about judging.

We would never judge. It would lead us into a totally false position. We'd end up afraid to exercise spiritual discernment. And you know, if you don't exercise spiritual discernment, then you don't have spiritual discipline in the church.

But clearly, we're told to discipline in the church. We're clearly told to identify sin in the church. We're clearly told... I mean, weren't the Corinthians told to put a certain guy out of the church?

Why? Because truth dictated, this guy is living with his father's wife, and you need to get the leaven out of the loaf. We need to be able to discern who the leaven is. We need to be people that can take...

I mean, doesn't Scripture say prove everything? First Thessalonians chapter 5, prove everything. We are people that need to... We need to be able to evaluate. We need to be able to test the spirits like John said.

We need to be people of a book of truth, that are able to take this book of truth, and to hold it up and judge the world by what's in this book. We need to be able to evaluate that way. Not hypocritical judgment, but honest, faithful discernment.

And I would just ask you this, can you spot a pig when you see one? Because if you can't, then you can't really uphold the text here. Like I said brethren before, if I was preaching just a bunch of subjective sermons, and not preaching just verse by verse through Matthew, through the Sermon on the Mount, I probably would not be dealing with this.

But here it is, and I want to be faithful to it. Brethren, what can happen is, we can so easily go to extremes. Judge not on the one hand, we can become over excessive in judgment. Remember, love covers a multitude of sins.

And really what happens here is, verse 6 helps to give us some balance. Our Lord doesn't want us to be hypocrites, but at the same time, He does want us to be discriminating and discerning. And so, the question is this, do you have the skills of critical discernment, where you can know a dog when one comes around?

Because Jesus expects us to know that. So, what's the picture? Here's the picture. We obviously have the picture here, imagine a man. You can see the picture. A man has a sack of pearls. You can imagine this.

The Pearl of Great Price and the Gospel's Worth

And we can imagine him standing in front of, again, not lap dogs, not little, whatever you call, what do you call your dogs here? What's a cute little lap dog name? Toto. But anyway, this is not the kind of dogs.

You know, I've been to India. I've been to places in, I've been to Egypt. I've been, well, even in Romania. You get these packs of dogs and they bite each other and they are just wild. Like, you would not want your children to meet a pack of these dogs.

These things are snarling, vicious, dirty mongrels. And then pigs. Don't you love the children's books? Or like the Noah and the Ark books where they paint the pig and he's always smiling? People that draw that have never been around pigs.

Pigs are dirty. They were unclean by Old Testament standards. They bite. They're horrible creatures. They will bite you. And in Texas, they've got wild ones that have tusks. And tusks, they will slash you.

These things are nasty creatures. But the kind of dogs being talked about are the kind of dogs that ate Jezebel. And so, this is the picture. And so, what you've got, imagine these kind of animals, a pack of these kinds of mongrel dogs and just disgusting biting pigs.

And you've got your bag. The things half want to eat you. But you bring your bag out of pearls. And now they're really interested. They're going to throw us some food. And you throw those pearls down there.

And what happens? Put your hand in there. They throw them on the ground. And they pounce on them at once. Why? They think that they're going to get some kind of food there. But instead, what do they find?

They can't chew it. It's hard. It doesn't taste good. These beasts have no use for your pearls. And now you know what you've done? You've made them mad. And now they turn on you. And they're enraged with the uselessness of the pearls.

Now, here's the thing. The pearls actually are not useless. The pearls are precious. But you see, the problem is, they have no appreciation for the preciousness of them. All they're looking for is something to satisfy their base carnality, their base lust.

And when you throw them those pearls, they turn on you. That's the picture here. So what's the pearl? Well, listen. We know this. We know that in the parable, there was a pearl of great price. What was that?

What's that a picture of? Actually, in the parable right before it, there was a man and he stumbles upon a treasure. Brethren, the treasure of all treasures is Christ. And what's being set forth is the salvation that's had in Christ.

And the way that gets offered is in the gospel message. I mean, that's the reality. What is it that we have that we give to sinners that they find useless and often irritates and enrages them? They have no use for it.

Brethren, it's very, very plain what we're talking about here. What is it that they savagely reject oftentimes? It was a message of Christ and salvation. That which is... Brethren, this is what is precious beyond imagination.

Being saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's clear what the Lord is telling us here. He's telling us that there's certain people we must not talk to about Christ and His salvation. You say, really? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, He actually shows us in other places in Scripture where this reality is. And we'll look at that in a second. There are times to hold your pearls back. So, who are these dogs? That's the question.

Certainly, the dogs and the pigs cannot simply be all lost people. We know it can't mean that. We can't conclude Jesus is forbidding us to preach the gospel to even people that in our estimation might seem like dogs and pigs.

Like, you know, a lot of times we could actually... We could look at prostitutes. In that day, it was tax collectors. Maybe it's the drug addicts. Maybe it's certain homeless people, demoniacs. We come across such people.

You see, you could almost get this feeling like, oh, well, they're kind of doggish. I mean, the kind of sins they're involved with are especially beast-like. But that's not it. Jesus said... See, what you have to hear is this.

Who the “Dogs” and “Pigs” Represent

Jesus said to the Jewish leaders, to the scribes and the Pharisees, he said, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom before you. And do you know what he said to his disciples? He said that every plant that is not of my father's planting, it's not going to go well.

And he said of them, leave them alone. You know, that reminds me of what is said in the minor prophet Hosea when it came to Ephraim and he'd gone after idols. God said, leave them alone. Brethren, what we're talking about here is a certain class of lost people.

Not all. Not all. That would fly right in the face of the great commission that tells us that we are to make disciples of all nations. That would fly right in the face of being ambassadors of Christ. But brethren, we know what Scripture tells us.

The feet. I think of Romans 10. And we have these feet. The one bringing the gospel message. And Paul says this, he said, how are they going to call on a Christ in whom they haven't believed? And how are they going to believe on Him?

A Christ that they haven't heard. And how are they going to hear unless somebody preaches? And how is somebody going to preach unless they get sent? You see, brethren, obviously, we know that this message of repentance and remission of sins, that message is to go out unto the world.

We're not talking all. Paul certainly never interpreted the Lord's words to mean to cease preaching the gospel to the lost. You know what Paul said? Paul said, I become all things to all men. That by all means, some might be saved.

That needs to be our attitude. But you know what? Among the lost, there is a certain category of lost person that our Lord has in mind. And the picture seems obvious. Jesus is describing those. Think about what happens.

Those to whom we bring the riches of God's revelation. And they have no appreciation for it. Instead, the precious truths of eternal life, they just spit them back. It just enrages them. These are the kind of people who evidence a clear hardness against God.

They've abandoned themselves to being just vicious or just indifferent to the truth. This is a class of person who's dog-like or pig-like in that they have no use for that which is most precious. Oh, brethren.

Clearly, it doesn't mean all believers. How would anybody be converted? Lost will only call upon a Christ they believe in. Listen to this truth worked out. The disciples came and said to him, do you not know that the Pharisees were offended?

They heard this saying. And he answered this. Speaking of this just a second ago, every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. Let them alone. I'll tell you this.

The silence of Jesus is terrifying. Can you imagine Herod? Oh, he looked forward to seeing Christ because he'd heard all about what he did. And Christ came. Can you imagine this? The Savior of the world.

And he stands in your presence and he says nothing. There were times he was silent. And you know what he said to his disciples? He said, hey, guys, you go take the message of the kingdom and you go heal and you cast out demons and you go into villages and you in the cities and you look for somebody that's worthy.

You look for these sons of peace. You go into their home and you stay with them. He said, but if you don't find anybody worthy there, shake the dust off your feet and see there's a finality. He doesn't say, well, you go back there.

You know what the shaking the dust off the feet means? You're done with them. It's over. Listen to this. Acts 13, 46, Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly. They were in Antioch of Pisidia. There were two Antiochs.

Antioch in Syria. Antioch in Pisidia. They were at the second Antioch. Listen to what happens. It says, they speaking boldly said, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

Behold, we're turning to the Gentiles. Do you recognize that when people spurn the gospel, they have counted themselves unworthy of eternal life and to have Christ himself or one of his servants basically say, now we're done with you.

See, that's what he's telling us. There is a time to be done with people. It's a fearful thing. Again, you see it in Acts. The Jews incited the devout women of high standing leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, drove them out of their district, and they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium.

Again, Paul reasoned in the synagogue. This is Acts 18. Every Sabbath at Corinth, he tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. Paul was occupied with the word testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.

And the Jews, they opposed him and reviled him. And here's what he did. He shook out his garments and he said to them, your blood be on your own heads. I'm innocent. From now on, I go to the Gentiles.

So he's done with them. This is a truth that you find throughout Scripture, folks. God being done with somebody. We could go into many other texts, but for the sake of time, we're not going to do that.

When to Stop Pressing the Gospel

Our proclamation of the gospel is not to be done mindlessly and just indiscriminate. If people have had an opportunity to hear the truth, and they reject it, they disdain it, they stubbornly turn their back on Christ, even if it's just a stubborn disinterestedness, Jesus does not encourage us to keep bombarding those individuals with the truth until they believe.

Rather, he says, shake the dust off your shoes and move on. And here's the thing. If we persist beyond a certain point of offering the gospel, you know what we encourage? We basically cheapen the gospel.

And you basically encourage sin. You encourage this thing to be stomped on by pig's feet. Brethren, don't cheapen the gospel by putting it under pig's feet. Brethren, I think we need to look at something here.

We are very prone to an error. Now, I recognize this. In many circles, just simply trying to convince people that they need to not deny Christ, especially people in reformed circles, to actually persuade people that, look, there's a perishing world out there.

We are the light of the world. Christ has handed the baton to us. Do you know what Christ did when he came? He went seeking and saving sinners. And you know what he did? He went throughout those villages of Palestine.

And what was he looking for? He was looking for his lost sheep, undoubtedly. But he came proclaiming this message of the kingdom. And now that baton's passed on to us. And you know what? Sometimes just getting people out of their comfort zones to actually go in search of God's lost sheep is a task.

And so I almost feel hesitant to get to a place where I have to say what Jesus is clearly saying here, where it's almost like you want to encourage, but you also want to put the brakes on at a certain point as well.

And we can have this wrong thinking. We're very prone to error here. Brethren, we do want to use our might, our resources to widely and universally spread the message, this glorious message, into the dark places.

But that's what Paul did. Paul went out preaching the gospel. Where would he go? Into the synagogues. And once the Jews rejected him, then he'd go out to the Gentiles. What was he doing? He was proclaiming the cross.

He said he's not going to know anything else but Christ and Him crucified. That was his message. But you know what? We can easily fall into this erroneous mindset that we have to keep on talking to everybody until they believe.

That is an error that I've seen. You get Christians that, okay, they've got the courage to go out. They've got a love for Christ that compels them to go out. They've got a burden for souls, like at least a little bit like Paul had, where his desire for his fellow kinsmen was that they be saved.

There's an earnestness there. There's a love for mankind there that compels people to go forward. But we can easily fall into this erroneous mindset that you know what? We come across somebody and we give the gospel to them and they don't believe right at once.

We can fall into this erroneous mindset that we have to keep preaching until they believe. We have to keep after them. We have to keep on talking. Consider our Lord. Consider the Lord. See, I think this is very instructive.

Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler

Rich young ruler. What good thing do I have to do to obtain eternal life? Of course, Jesus challenged him about good and He called him good master. And we now recognize all that. He said, keep the commandments and which commandments.

And He's going through all this. But listen, brethren, I'll tell you this. He said, one thing you lack. What does he lack? Well, he had this idol in his life. What was that idol? It was his riches. He said, go sell everything.

Give to the poor. You come follow me. You'll have treasure in heaven. And you know what? The man was rich. The man was sorrowful. And the man walked. And you know what did not happen? Jesus did not plead with him.

Jesus did not say, I think you misunderstood me. I think we'd better have... Do you know what the average Christian would have done right then? Engage that man in another 40 minutes of conversation. Jesus let him walk with no more words to him.

Why? Because do you know what? Jesus is not up for negotiation. And Jesus threw out His requirement. He threw it out there. And the man basically said, no, I'm going to keep my idol. And he walked. And you know what?

There's really nothing more to say. If you present people... Did you hear what he offered him? We'll have treasure in heaven. The man basically said, oh brethren. He said what so many say. Brethren, I'll tell you this.

If you come and you offer people, I would offer you forgiveness of all your sins. And you don't have to purchase it by your own merit. This was done freely for you. It's yours at the taking. But you do have to purchase it without price.

You can't bring your own righteousness. You need to submit yourself to the mercy of the Savior. He has His terms. His terms are total surrender. You lay down your arms and be willing to be saved the way He saves.

He will save you to the uttermost. He offers you eternal life. He offers you glory. He offers you'll be the bride of Christ. He offers you joy unspeakable. He offers you such things as you can't even imagine.

If people just... Whatever. They just yawn. Do you know what kind of insult that is? You just offered them the greatest pearls and diamonds and treasure imaginable. And they spit at it. And sometimes we have this idea, well, if we keep talking to them for another 40 minutes, our continually talking to them is going to persuade them.

That is not what Jesus said. That is not by His example what you find. Our Lord didn't stop Him. Our Lord doesn't continue. He doesn't plead. He doesn't try to explain in different terms. Brethren, we've got to proclaim the gospel to people.

But when we find out very quickly that people aren't interested in what we have for them, you know what the temptation is? The temptation is to feel that, well, if we keep talking to them, somehow we're going to change their minds.

But that doesn't happen. Brethren, think about what Jesus said here. We are bringing a message. Do you recognize the Christian message? Do you recognize the things we know from this book? The only hope mankind has.

There is no other hope than this. Man has nothing else that he can put his confidence in that will actually hold him up in the end. Jesus calls this pearls. He calls it a pearl of great price in the parable.

Do you recognize that? It's highly, highly, highly valuable. He doesn't call it mud. He doesn't call it dirt. He doesn't call it dust. It's not gravel. The picture is of a man who has something extremely valuable.

We bring to the world such light that if believed will bring men out of their wretched state. Men are headed to hell. Do you realize what it is to actually have a remedy that saves men from their sin, and from the guilt of that sin, and the consequences of that sin, and from the wrath of God?

Do you recognize the wrath of God is revealed against men, against all of their ungodliness and unrighteousness? Brethren, this is going to break forth and explode on their heads. When death comes, judgment.

And with judgment, they're going to have to give an account for everything they've thought, everything they've done, everything they've said, every word they've spoken, Jesus says, they're going to have to give an account for.

We will have to give an account for. You actually have the remedy for how to stand in that day and be robed with righteousness, not your own, but based on the merits of another. It's the greatest news that could ever be given to mankind.

And you go to somebody with this greatest pearl of all pearls, and they basically turn their shoulder. What an insult. They under pig's feet. And it may not seem like, well, you know, that's my grandmother you're talking about there.

We'll call it what it is. You see, this is where one of the problems is. We have these loved ones in our life, and we give the truth to them. And because we love them, it's very hard for us. And you know what can happen?

Loving Christ Above Family Approval

You get to where you love your loved ones more than you love the glory of Christ. You say, what do you mean? I mean just this. If you've got a grandmother that you love, but you see, you keep throwing those same pearls at her, and her pig's feet just keep stomping on them.

You're doing exactly what the Lord says you should not do here. Brethren, if people aren't interested in this treasure of all treasures, stop talking. That's what Jesus is saying. The gospel is precious and should be given to those who desire it.

And listen, often dogs and pigs show themselves by their wanting to debate. Brethren, don't debate. Have you ever heard anyone say, well, let me tell you how I got saved. I was in a debate with a Christian, and the Christian won the debate, and I got saved.

You've never heard that. Because debating doesn't produce this. Jesus did not debate with the rich young ruler. Paul doesn't debate. I mean, he gets to a place where he's presented the truth in the synagogue, and they opposed it.

And he said, your blood be on your own head. You're not worthy of eternal life. And he said, I'm going to go to the Gentiles. Brethren, many will talk to you. But it's just debate. They're not interested in your Christianity.

If anything, they're interested in disproving you. They're interested in winning the debate. Or they're even interested in deconverting you. But they're not interested in the truth. And brethren, I'll tell you this, while you stand there debating with people, you could possibly be speaking to somebody else that is actually interested.