Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 4)

Romans 8:28-30 and the Doctrine of Divine Election

Tonight, we are starting or continuing on rather our study of the book of Romans. We have been looking at Romans chapter eight, verses 28 through 30. We are now, I guess, in the fourth week of doing that.

And we're going to begin by reading that again to remind us of what it says. And then we're going to pray and ask that God lead us in our lesson this evening. So let's go to Romans 8, verses 28 through 30.

Verse 28 says,. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to be in your house and to study your word.

I pray that right now, Lord, you would open up our hearts to a better understanding, that you would use me, Lord, as a mouthpiece for your truth, and that, oh, God, you would keep me from error. This is the constant prayer, oh, Lord.

And Lord, as we look forward to the future in our church and we examine the need to separate ourselves from a denomination and to move on to demonstrate who we are in Christ, I pray for our church. I pray for a heart that is desiring to be led forward by your word and by those leaders whom you have ordained.

We love you. We praise you. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Close that door and turn the AC on. I don't know if y 'all are cold or hot or not. I feel somewhat like the air is kind of not moving.

And I don't know if you're, huh? Is it 76? Just put the temperature down much lower, but just with the fan on might help get some of the stuffy air moving around. All right. Over the last few weeks, we have examined Romans 8, 28.

We have looked at some very specific and important words. We have talked about the concept of what it means when it says God foreknew an individual. We said that that does not mean that God simply looked down the corridor of time, saw what an individual was going to do.

And then as a result, God responded in kind to their actions. We said foreknowing on God's part is an action wherein God is making a choice. It is a setting of affection upon an individual. And so we talked about the word foreknew.

We've also talked about the word predestination and the word predestined. And we talked about the foundation of that word, the Greek word prohorizo, which means to mark out the end from the beginning.

The word horizo, we get the word horizon, which is the farthest point that you can see. The end. And when it says pro horizon or prohorizo, it's to mark out the end from the beginning. That's what that word in plain English, even though it's Greek, that's what that word means.

We talked about the word calling. And last week we distinguished between what we would call the universal or general call, which is simply the proclamation of the gospel. And we distinguish that from what we would call the internal or effectual call, the call of God, whereby he opens the heart of an individual to believe.

And we made it very clear from the text of Scripture and even from our own experiences that it is God who opens up our heart before we would ever even desire to come. And really, that is the crux of the entire debate.

If it is God who must act on us first, if the Bible clearly teaches that we love him because he first loved us, if that is the truth, then all the rest is merely just side discussion. Because if that's true, then that says the entire amount that it's God's initiation that causes our salvation and not our own.

So tonight I want to go over the concept of election. Now, we are going to really get into divine election in Romans chapter nine. And I could go on into Romans chapter nine and I could plow through it and we could get through it.

And then I would have to go back in the midst of that and answer a ton of questions that relate to the doctrine of election. So what I've decided to do is, like my hero, the Apostle Paul, I want to preempt some questions and I want to do that tonight by answering some of the most common objections to the doctrine of divine election.

So the title I put on the board, I said, if the election is true, then what about? And then I left it blank because we're going to deal with a few different questions. But that's usually how the debate will go.

If I say that as a preacher, I preach and teach the doctrines of grace, sometimes some of what is the doctrines of grace? The doctrines of grace are the total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

Those five things are sometimes called the five points of Calvinism, which is unfair because they were written long after he died. Much better to refer to them as the doctrines of grace, because what those five things teach are that salvation is wholly of grace and not at all of myself.

And when I tell people, well, I teach or preach the doctrines of grace or if I tell people that I teach or preach divine election or or sometimes I will throw out the P word if I'm just in a mood to have a discussion, because you never throw out the P word unless you're in a mood to have a discussion.

Sometimes I will throw out the big predestination word. And in doing so, I am already ready for the questions that are going to inevitably come. And the reason why I'm already ready is because when I was first brought to view of these, when I was first had these scriptures brought to my attention, when I was first forced to deal with the doctrines of divine election and predestination, I know what my questions were.

And doggone it, if every time I've ever taught it, I haven't had the same questions that I asked, asked of me. And it just seems to be somewhat of a vicious cycle is that, you know, and the old adage is, you know, I've heard that question a million times.

And that doesn't mean that it's not a legitimate question, because that's what we need to do. We need to understand how to answer the common questions, because if this is something we are going to teach, it's something if it's something I'm going to teach and believe, then I have to understand that every new person I come across that has never heard this before, they're going to have the same six or eight questions that I had immediately upon hearing it the first time I heard it.

So that's what we're going to deal with tonight. And I want to just say these questions may not be worded the exact same way that you would word them. But the the spirit of the question is there and that I want to just mention that to you, please understand that when I ask these questions, there's a spirit in the question that is is almost universally asked.

Why Election Does Not Make Evangelism Unnecessary

And the first question is, if divine election is true or if God predestines, then what about evangelism? OK, I always like to start with this one because of all the questions that I'm asked, this one is the first almost every time.

If what you are saying is true, Pastor Foskey, then that means that evangelism is unnecessary because God has already determined whom he will save. And if God has already determined in eternity past whom he will save, then your evangelistic efforts are either unnecessary because God's already chose the person or they're unaffectual because if God hasn't chosen them, then there's no reason to minister the gospel to them.

So to a double edged sword, it either is it's either unnecessary because they're saved no matter what, or it's unaffectual because they're not going to be saved no matter what. As I said, I've dealt with these questions so much, I've heard the objections so much, I can almost enunciate them in my sleep.

So tonight we're going to start with the subject of if we believe in election, what about evangelism? Well, let's begin by simply addressing one thing first. And that is, if somebody ever asks, why do you evangelize?

The first answer, and really you could stop here, but the first answer is because Jesus told me to. I mean, and honestly, if you need more than that to evangelize, if you need more than the command of Christ to evangelize, then you really might need to search your own heart on that, because if God commanded it and Christ commanded it when he said to his disciples, he says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit.

If Christ gave that command, then it doesn't matter if I understand why. Now, I do believe I can understand why. And we're going to get to that in a moment. That's I'm just simply saying, even if I did not understand why, for instance, Jonah was given a command by God and he didn't understand why.

He says, go into Nineveh and preach repentance. In 40 days you will be destroyed. And what didn't Jonah do? He said, uh uh, no way. And he went and hopped on a ship to go to Tarshish. And what did God do?

God said, uh uh, no way. I'm sovereign. You're not. And he gave him the first submarine ride. Love that story. It's real quick. That's the way it kind of happened. And he ended up on the shores of Nineveh and he preached repentance anyway.

Why? Because God had given the command. Jonah did not do what God said, and he was effectively shown I'm more sovereign or I'm sovereign and you're not by God. So if the question is from the person who believes in divine election, if a person believes in divine election and does not believe in evangelism, then they have truly.

Become what we would call a hyper Calvinist. Now, some of you have never heard that word before, but I do want to differentiate now very quickly. There are people who we would call hyper Calvinist, and that's not a Calvinist who eats too much sugar in the morning.

A hyper Calvinist is a person who says that because God is sovereign, he will save whom he will. I have no responsibility to proclaim the gospel. Now, some of you have heard of the primitive, primitive Baptist movement.

The primitive Baptist movement was historically a hyper Calvinistic movement to the extreme. And I've never seen a church like this, but I've heard of a church. I've heard of churches like this. So you may challenge me later and say, well, what church are you talking about?

I'm only telling you what I've heard through various people to the extreme that the preacher would not even preach to unbelievers, that they wouldn't allow them to come. Now, I've never heard of a church.

I've never been to a church that ever taught that or talked to anybody. But again, you hear these things and I can imagine there are people that go to such extremes. OK, we would call them hyper Calvinists, meaning that they have taken a beautiful truth, the truth of divine election, and they have they have changed it, distorted it, and they have destroyed its real meaning.

OK, but there are people like that. We need to understand that they are there. All right. The concept of evangelism. Is not something that anyone who believes in divine election should ever negate or give up, because if you believe in divine election, then you believe that God ordained the end of all things.

That's what predestination is. God has ordained the end of all things. The destination. And there's a root word to destination. What is it? Destiny. What is what is what did you say? No, no, no, no. I'm sorry.

The root word is destiny. OK, so when we talk about destination, we also could be talking about destiny. And when you talk about the end, you're talking about the final destiny of an individual, their destination, where they're going.

But what we have to understand is that God does not only ordain the end, God also ordains. What we call. The means to the end, there are things that must take place in time for this to result. And if God has ordained this, then it flows by logic that he has also ordained this.

OK, now let's just break it down to the easiest way I know how to break it down. And some of you heard this before. But for those of you who haven't, it's my favorite illustration ever, because I've never met a Christian ever who would say that the birth of a child.

Was not ordained by God. Ever. I've never met a Christian, Arminian, Calvinist, anything who would not say, yes, I believe the birth of a child is ordained by God. Now, I guess there are some out there, but personally, I've never met one because most know that Psalm 139 talks about God forming us in the womb, that God bringing our very parts together to form us and that he established our days for us before we ever were.

I mean, we read that. And those people who've read that passage, there's no doubt, whatever you believe about divine election, there's no doubt birth is ordained by God. So in this case, birth would be an end if God has ordained birth, that would be an end.

Now, nine months before the birth, there was an activity of interaction between two parties. There was an interaction between two parties that brought about the birth. If this is ordained by God, then the necessary means also must be ordained by God.

And some people say, well, I don't know, because what if this was, you know, I don't know about this. This is this starts getting into the idea of will and human will and free will and things like that.

The issue is, if this is the end that has been ordained, this was a necessary. Nobody's ever been born without that except one person. So we understand one being necessary for the other. Thus, all must be ordained.

All right. Now, having said that, let's look at it without the issue of human birth in mind. Let's look at it by spiritual birth, what we would call rebirth or born again. Right. If God's purpose is that the elect be born again and the necessary means of the elect is that they hear the gospel and believe then the gospel is the means the rebirth comes.

So evangelism is a necessary means to bringing about the end of God's ordained rebirth. OK, no one just like no one has ever been born apart from that mutual physical interaction. Likewise, no one has ever been reborn apart from the preaching of the gospel.

So now you understand we have a part in God's ordained plan. We play a role as gospel preachers and I'm not the only gospel preacher here. Every one of you is a gospel preacher. If you are a believer, God has called you to share the faith, to share the gospel.

Even if all you know is that Jesus is alive and he saved your soul, then that's what you're supposed to proclaim. And that's our job. We share the gospel and we must negate that simply because we believe that God has ordained the ends.

Here's the beauty of it. This is the part I said I did say I thought about it, but I said I might end up doing the whole thing on evangelism. So if I do, that puts another week of answering questions, but I ain't going anywhere.

Yeah, well, good. I don't have to hurt because there's a few other things that I really want to say on this particular subject. We talk about evangelism. I want to ask you, and I don't want necessarily I don't want to embarrass anybody.

I know a few of you would talk, but I know some of you wouldn't want to talk or so I will never ask people to raise their hand because I don't want to embarrass anybody. Let me ask this question. We just said evangelism is the means to the end.

The end is the rebirth. Evangelism is the means to the end. So if somebody asks, because the first question is, why do you evangelize? The answer to that is what? Because Jesus commanded me to evangelize.

That's not the easy one. That's a softball. Knock it right out of the park. Second question, why did he command it? Now, now, now you now we say because evangelism is the necessary means for someone to hear the gospel and that God would open their heart to believe.

The gospel, that's a necessary means. Now, the question is, how should you do evangelism? Because let me tell you what evangelism has become. Evangelism has become in our day and age. A sales pitch, evangelism has become a sales pitch.

I know because I have gone to the sales classes. I've been encouraged to go and listen to these great evangelists who could prove that they could save anybody as long as they had enough time. Rick Warren wrote in his book.

I'm not a fan of Warren. I read his book a long time ago, and at the time I thought it was all right. But the further I the further I go down the rabbit hole of what he taught. The more I'm less impressed with, huh?

Yeah, absolutely. But one of the things that he said, and it never struck me so hard until later after thinking about it, one of the things that Warren says in his book, he says, he says, I can win anyone to Christ as long as I find the key to their felt needs.

As long as I find the key to their felt needs, I can win anyone to Jesus Christ. Well, there's an ancient Greek word for that baloney. And see, we know it was Greek because it's pronounced baloney, but it's spelled with a G.

Um, it's it's such a arrogant thing to say that I could win anyone to Christ because you know why I think it's an arrogant statement, because Jesus couldn't win everyone to Christ. OK, I wanted you to I wanted you to think about it before I went back and redacted what I just said.

I wanted you to think about what I was saying. Could Jesus save everyone? Absolutely. We've gone through this. God, at the beginning of the world, he made a decision. I he had he really if you think about it, logically, there were three choices God had.

He could make a choice to save no one. Right, he could make a choice, save no one. And had he made that choice, he would have been just in doing so. If God would have just said, hey, they said, I'm going to take my hands off of them, let them all go to hell.

God would have been absolutely just in doing that. He didn't do that. Thank the Lord. God could have said, I'm going to save everyone, no matter how bad, good or indifferent, everyone's going to be saved.

He didn't do that, did he?

No, because we know a lot of people that are going to hell. And the two states that we just looked at is is what we would call total annihilationism or total universalism, neither of which does the Bible teach.

Then you have the final one, and that is what we call particularism. People don't like the word particular because it tends to make you think that some people are left out. But if you think about the particularism, it's just to simply say that God made a decision to save some.

And if you believe in hell, you have to believe in that statement. He did not make a decision to save all. And when Jesus came into the world and preached the gospel, he said he said he was asked, Jesus, why do you teach in parables?

He said so that seeing they will not see and hearing they shall not understand. He said, I explained to you the meaning of the parables, but to them or he says to you, I explain the truth. But to them, I give parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they will not understand.

Wait a minute, I thought parables were divine analogies of kingdom truths. Were they? Well, in a way they were. But the only reason we know what parables mean is because Jesus told us. If Jesus hadn't given us the definition of the parables, we could have run wild, particularly with the parable of the sower.

You come up 1500 meanings of the parable of the sower. If Jesus didn't come right behind it and say this is what the meaning is, the sower is the or the seed is the word of God. And the birds are the or the devil and the and the thorns of the cares of the world and the rocks of the hard, stony hearts of men.

I mean, he goes to the explanation of what it means. We understand what it means because he told us. Have you ever heard some wild things people come up with from Jesus's parables?

Absolutely. All right.

I'm getting well kind of way off course, but I do want to I just going back to the subject of evangelism, this is important because the question is. How should we do evangelism? Should we be Jesus salesmen?

And obviously your answer is no, because I don't think anyone would ask. I don't think even the Armenian would answer yes to that because they would say, oh, well, obviously we're not being just seven.

But the question is, does our methodology mirror our theology? Ask that question. Write that down. Does our methodology mirror our theology? Does the way that we proclaim the gospel mirror our belief that God is sovereign?

Number one, I'll show you how it often does not. Number one. Oh, well, I can't share the gospel with him. He's already got his religion and he won't listen. How many times have you heard that? How many times have you heard people say, well, you know, he's a Muslim and Muslims are hard to reach or he's a Mormon and Mormons are hard to reach.

I'm not going to answer the door. I'm not going to talk to them because they're difficult people. They've already established their faith. I don't really want to rock the boat for them. What have you just done in saying that you've judged, you've denied God's sovereignty and you've established the idea that somehow you're the one that's going to say Jehovah's Witness comes to my house and then realizes he messed up.

No, I mean, Jehovah's Witnesses come to my house and and I have two choices. I can say, you know what, he's already fed. He's already bought into his religion. I'm not going to say anything to him. I'm just going to say thank you for the Watchtower book.

Have a good day. Go on about your business. Or I can proclaim the gospel to him, knowing, knowing that it will never be me, but it will be the spirit of God that opens his heart. However, how will they believe unless someone preaches to them?

Absolutely. And that's what we have to remember. And that, again, goes back to why do you think Dr. James White goes to other countries and goes on Islamic television and preaches the gospel because he has a death wish, because he believes in divine election.

He believes that God has people in those Islamic countries. He believes God has people in those African countries. He believes God has people in China, in Germany, in England and in all of the other places.

And because God has people in every tribe, tongue and nation, we can proclaim the gospel to all men knowing that God's people are there. He used to go. One of the things that fascinated me about Dr. White is that Dr. White used to go to and I know I build him up a lot, but he's he really I consider him a friend.

I talked to him a couple of times a week on the computer. And it's on it's honestly an amazing thing to get to talk to somebody who's so well known because he opens himself up and allows for that. It gives me an opportunity to ask questions to somebody who is I would consider a a wonderful teacher in the faith.

And one of the things he did for 18 years, he went out to Mesa, Arizona. He lives in Phoenix. Mesa is where they have the conference for the Mormons, the big national conference they do. And he would stand out there for 18 years, not in a row, but he went 18 years every year and he stood out with tracks and books that he and the ministry had written and would give out these tracks and would continue to preach the gospel to them.

And he saw people that even today I've talked to these people who were saved out of Mormonism because of his preaching of the gospel, not because of him. Not because he's an articulate gospel teacher, not because he's smarter, not because he can parse the Greek language better than anybody I've ever heard.

Not because of that, but because he obeyed Jesus's command to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And you don't know, I've been told that you can plant, you know, our job is to plant the seed.

Absolutely. I mean, it may it may take a while for it to germinate. It may take something else to to to water it, to nurture the ground, to to bring it up to the point where it bears fruit. Yeah, we have that responsibility.

Go and preach the gospel. Anybody who says that somebody who believes in election can't believe in evangelism is ignorant or lying. They're either ignorant or they're lying. I've had that said about me.

I had a guy one time I'm going to mention there's a person in church, he said, you know, I get upset because Keith doesn't give an altar call at the end of his sermons. No, my answer was. I said, number one.

I said, show me in the Bible the concept of the altar call. We see when they proclaim the gospel. The people would ask, how can we be saved? And then they answer that. Yeah, I changed it to him of introspection.

And the reason for that is because, number one, oh, this is a good question. Be careful, because I go all night. Let me ask you this question before I even go to what I was about to say. Let me ask you this question.

What is Sunday morning for? You know, it's for worship. It's Sunday morning worship service design. And before you answer, think Sunday morning worship service for believers or unbelievers. It's for believers and unbeliever will come in and unbeliever will see the believers doing what believers do.

And that is worshiping God. And they hear the proclamation of the gospel. But I've heard people say, well, we design our services around unbelievers. That is not biblical. It is not biblical to design a service for unbelievers, because unbelievers cannot worship God.

If you're designing a worship service for unbelievers, what you're designing is a rock concert to get people excited about the rock concert. And then when the rock concert is over, guess what else is over?

Then they're gone. If you want them on a hot dog party, you better keep them with a hot dog party, because as soon as the hot dog party is over. They're gone. Because I am one for unbelievers, you're creating a dynamic, you're creating a dynamic.

Yeah, yeah. And again, I'm only saying this. I'm not saying that it's wrong to at the end of the service say if there is someone here whose heart has been pricked and you want to come forward and you want to pray right now, that's fine.

But let me tell you something. Let me tell you where I think the failure comes. It's where I think the failure comes. When I was in seminary and I love my seminary, I love the guys that taught me and I respect them to the end.

But I will say this, there's one place where I deviate greatly from what I was taught in many places. But this is one particular. I was taught, number one, that sermons should be 30 minutes long. Mine can only take what the seat can endure.

And if you haven't struck oil in 30 minutes, stop boring. That was I remember those two statements. The other thing I was told was that 10 of those 30 minutes are to be dedicated to the evangelistic appeal.

Beloved, I don't know about you, but I can't exegete one word in 20 minutes. Y 'all know that it takes time to look at the text of Scripture and to open it up and to understand what it's saying. Now, it's not true.

There's some passages you can go through a little quicker than others. If you if you understand the text in the context of what you're doing. But but, you know, there are times we've stopped at one word and stuck with it in this one verse for weeks.

The point of the matter is this. What is my job? Is my job to feed the sheep or is my job to go out and bring the sheep in? Well, it's both, but when do I go out and bring the sheep in on Sunday morning only?

Or is that what I'm supposed to be doing the other six days? Is that what my life is supposed to be about? Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice. So when an unbeliever comes in and God is calling their heart and they hear the gospel preached, his sheep will hear his voice and will respond.

Remember what he said to the Pharisees, though, great passage on election, by the way, this is I think it's in John 8. He said to the Pharisees, he says, you don't believe because you're not my sheep.

He didn't say you're not my sheep because you don't believe. He said, you don't believe because you're not my sheep. That's a wonderful passage on divine election because it says what comes first. They were already the sheep or they weren't.

Anyhow, getting back to the issue of evangelism, I knew I was going to spend time on this tonight. I hope I'm not. I hope I'm not boring you tonight because there is a there's a guy once I knew, Roy Hargrave.

I know, you know, Roy Hargrave is a tremendous teacher of the gospel. He he's pastor of River Bend Community Church in Ormond Beach. I thought it was Daytona. OK, it's Ormond Beach. River Bend Community Church in Ormond Beach.

Roy Hargrave taught a sermon one time and he got ripped apart by his fellow Baptists because they're Baptists. He's reformed, but he's still a Baptist. You can be both. Ergen Kanner, if you're watching, you can be both.

I'm sorry. That's the whole other subject. He's not watching, but it doesn't matter anyway. The point is. He was a Baptist and he taught a sermon and the sermon was called The Idol. Call. Evangelism, the idol called evangelism, and right away people got offended by the title, as some of you may be offended by the title, you may see that and say, wait a minute, that sounds hyper Calvinistic.

That sounds dangerous. That's saying evangelism is a bad thing. Now, what Roy was saying, and I believe this absolute truth. Is that in so many churches, evangelism has taken the place of worship and really all evangelism is for, as John Piper that said, all evangelism is for is to create worshipers.

The ultimate goal is to worship God. Evangelism is to create people to worship God, not create them, but to to to share the gospel so that they become worshipers of God. That's what evangelism is for.

And evangelism doesn't create the elect of God. Evangelism reveals the elect of God. It shows who they are. Alex, you have a question, buddy? I'm yes. Evangelism is sharing the gospel. That's a very good question.

It means telling people about Jesus. Very good. The word evangel means good news. So when we share the good news about Jesus, OK, you're welcome. Thanks. That was a good question. But this Roy said it's an idol called evangelism.

What he was saying was he was saying that worship has gotten lost. And so many other things have gotten lost and it's been replaced with this salesman approach and that it's all about it's all about seeing how many people we can put in our churches.

And now what do we see? We see churches not with hundreds. We see churches with tens of thousands. Should that excite us or should that worry us that there are so many people who say they believe in Jesus that have really no commitment to the gospel?

These huge evangelistic crusades that go out and they see 20 ,000 people say, how many of those 20 ,000 people have a genuine heart conversion? And how many of those people simply went down because the other people around them went down and they felt like it was the right thing to do?

I've said this before. I know you all heard this, but when they had those big evangelistic crusades, they take the people that they train as counselors and they make them sit all out in the audience so that when it's time for the evangelistic appeal and the pastor comes up and gives the appeal, they will stand up first and start walking down because they say their logic is, well, this will help someone whose heart is right on the edge and they just they don't have enough in them to take a step forward and you standing up next to them might be the impetus to step them forward.

Beloved. Is our eternal destiny based on our standing on a preface and leaning back and forth? Is that really what we think? Yeah, and that's what they say. I've heard that they say God voted for you and the devil voted against you and you get to break the time.

I say, what kind of what kind of gospel is that? Well, it certainly puts the emphasis or certainly puts the responsibility back on you, and that's what we want. We want it all to be our responsibility.

We want it all to be our choice. We want it all to be up to us. And that's why evangelism is so popular in that style, because it makes it very much man centered, not about God. I am not afraid to preach the gospel to anyone, Muslim, Mormon.

It doesn't matter. Why am I not afraid to preach the gospel to anyone? Because, number one, it's not my gospel. I'm not preaching Keith Foskey's opinion about the truth. I'm just preaching what Jesus Christ said was the truth.

So I stand on a foundation that's not my own. And two, I'm not going to change their heart. What did I say on Sunday? Remember what I said on Sunday about creation and evidence? I don't know how many of you listen to the sermon.

How many of you were here Sunday? But what did I say about the evidence? I said evidence never convinces. Now, it gives us who are believers something to be encouraged by. But you can lay all the evidence at the feet of Richard Dawkins, that Jesus Christ lived, he resurrected, and he's at the right hand of the Father right now.

You can give all the evidence in the world. There are 500 people saw Jesus alive after he came back from the grave. There was no reason why they shouldn't have been able to just produce the body and show that he was still dead if he was still dead.