How Should We Defend The Faith & Answering Live Questions

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I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified

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Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. It's the same idea. I would say what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust?

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In the cosmic picture, none. There's no problem. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No, Mr.

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President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year.

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I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

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He is a powerful savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion.

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It is a command. Reverend Holler, don't you sympathize with that?

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I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

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An amazing adventure. We will explore the spiritual abyss. You have not experienced this before.

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Event. But in your hearts, honor

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Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

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Firstpreter315, y 'all, I said preter, preter. My mouth's not working today. It's a day like that, right?

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My mouth is not catching up with my brain this afternoon. Hey, welcome everybody to The Gospel Heard Around the

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World. We are so glad that you joined us. You can get more at apologiestudios .com.

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You get all kinds of great content over there and additional content, Apology Academy, monthly ask me, ask me, see, asks.

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Christian church. Bonson U for free. Thank you to the Bonson family for entrusting us with that amazing treasure.

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And we are so glad you guys joined us today. We're gonna be talking about apologetics. Would you like to know how to defend your faith? Well, that's what we're gonna be talking about today.

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We're gonna play some clips. We're gonna hang out with you guys. We may even open up for some questions live for those of you guys that are in the feed right now.

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And I'm Jeff the Callman Ninja. That's Luke the Bear. What up, though? Over there is Zach Conover.

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He's the director of communications for End Abortion Now, by the way. Pray for End Abortion Now, and please go to endabortionnow .com

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to get your church signed up. Go save lives. Abortion is still happening all over this country. It is not over yet.

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It is only really just beginning. Of course, Roe is out of the way. That helps a little bit, but it still gets us to the same place that we said we always needed to be, and that's establishing justice and equal protection for all humans from conception.

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And I just want to announce. Can I just say this? Luke and I were just talking about this yesterday, and then I'm gonna kick it over to you because I know you guys have stuff to say.

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I do. And we have good news for you guys, too. We just actually, before this, it's taken a little while, we had to film a little commercial, and Gabe Green was just taken forever in the back.

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And so, see Gabe? Gabe Ruth? He wasn't really.

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But we're gonna tell you some cool stuff we have. But you know what's great about this moment? It's sad, but it's also great.

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It's sad, but it is great. Sad because Roe is out of the way, and now you have, of course, the leftists and the pro -aborts doing their best right now to make sure that abortion is codified as law, federal law even.

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And so Joe Biden has been making it very clear over the last couple of weeks, but especially over the last week, that he is working to make sure that Roe is codified as law, federal law, which

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I said, of course, is sad because it is those who hate me love death, and they hate God, so they love death.

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And in this case, particularly the death of the pre -born in the womb, the most innocent and defenseless among us.

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However, it is great because it actually is a vindication of something we've been saying to you all along.

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We've been saying it for years, and it was one of the things we try to constantly communicate to legislators who are putting in bills for us.

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More bills are coming, by the way. I'm gonna announce more near the year end, where those states are and when those are coming in.

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But we even have a trip coming up in a couple of weeks here. We're going to meet with some legislators and our teams in one state.

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But we've been saying for years that Roe v. Wade was not the law. It never was the law.

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Congress creates law in a nation, not the Supreme Court. And so it was a fallacious court opinion that the states had the responsibility, a duty before God, and their citizens to resist and to establish justice in the states.

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Just like in the time of the issue of slavery, you had the

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Dred Scott decision and the states resisting the Supreme Court's evil, wicked opinion.

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They had a duty to do that. So our state should have done that. But Congress creates law in a nation, not the Supreme Court, and we've been saying for a long time that Roe v.

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Wade is not law. Proof, proof, proof now is that what are the pro -aborts trying to do right now?

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What are they trying to do? Are they just saying out loud, plainly, we're trying to codify Roe, even though it's gone now, what

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Roe said as federal law? Because guess what? Roe was never law.

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It wasn't law. It was a court opinion. And if the states wanted to agree with that, they should have created some legislation that agreed with it.

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They should have created law. If the federal government, Congress, in this case, agreed with Roe, they should have created legislation that said they agreed with it.

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That would have been law, technically, in our nation. But a court opinion is not law, legislation.

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That's something that's in a different category. And in this case, the proof of what we've been saying for years is in the fact that right now, our president is trying to codify

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Roe v. Wade as law, federally, meaning it was never law.

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And so it's the duty of the Christian church to rise up, establish justice, protect the pre -born, and that's what we're going to be doing.

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So go to endabortionnow .com and give there. We need you to financially give. We operate as a ministry of Apologia Church on pennies, pennies compared to the massive budgets of the pro -life establishment and industry.

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And let's just be honest. They resist bills of equal protection and establishing justice and abolishing abortion at every turn.

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They have made it their official position to resist establishing equal protection for all humans.

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That's not what we're doing. We're trying to end this and trying to get it behind us and move on. We're not creating an industry.

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We're not trying to create a business. We are trying to establish justice as the Christian church, equal protection, and then move away from this issue.

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That's what we desire to do. And so we need your help to do it. It actually does cost money to do this work.

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We're going to a different state to work with the churches, to create the groundwork, to get with the legislators, getting these churches who are going out to save lives, kits for free and training for free to do what they're doing to save about 10 babies a day on average.

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That costs money, and we need you to be a part of that ministry with us. And so sign up your church to go save lives, get free training, free resources.

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We want nothing from your church. We want to give it all away to you. And if you guys want to be a part of this with us, please go to endabortionnow .com

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to give. Luke? So speaking of sleepy Joe, I may or may not be coherent today. Sleepy Luke.

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Not that I'm sleepy, it's just that my brain is on overload right now. Because we have

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ReformCon 2022 in a week from today, and we're in the final push with all the last -minute details of things.

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And my thoughts are swimming up above right now, and some are drowning.

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And we just tried to film a commercial for ReformCon .org, and I wasn't even sure what year it is.

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It was fun. What's my name? 2022? Yeah, I don't know. But you should come.

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We have tickets available still, and it's going to be really awesome. That's all

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I got. Just kidding. We actually just announced, and you'll probably see them. We have some nifty -gifties.

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Some nifty -gifties. And I'm going to let you say it because I totally butchered it. It's okay. Nifty -gifties. Here's what we've got.

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So I know the economy is very challenging for all of us right now. There is a shortage, apparently, of eggs across the country.

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That's what I heard, yeah. And they've known about it for some time, but it's starting to hit us now. We know that there's going to be some wheat shortages, stuff that's going to trickle down to us, all those sorts of things.

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We know how expensive gas is right now and inflation, how hard it is to go to the grocery store right now for many of us. And so many of you guys couldn't make it out, and we totally get that.

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We thank all of you guys who sacrificed so much to come out to be with us, to be here next week at ReformCon.

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We're excited to do this with you. Very excited to create a conference experience that's like no other.

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Definitely better than Fight, Laugh, Feast. Most def. No matter what. But what was that?

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Hashtag. Hashtag. Most def. Most def. But some of you guys can't make it out, but you want to get this teaching that's been prepared and this whole experience.

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And so we have a live stream. Yes, we have a live stream. And here is the good news.

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So if you want to just get the live stream, you can go to reformcon .org, go under tickets, just get the live stream.

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But you can also partner with us in ministry. And here's what we do for all of our All Access Ministry partners. Which is ideal.

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You're a part of this, so we wanted to bless you. So here's what it looks like. If you've already paid for and donated for an

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so that you're not dumb. Not that NSA. That's a tagline. Hashtag not dumb. Don't be dumb. NSA .edu.

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That's good. That works. Yeah, it does work. NSA, don't be dumb. I like it.

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I'll have to run that by Ben, see if he likes it. All right, so let's talk. Here we go. We're going to talk about apologetics.

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Last week, we did a little bit of a discussion on apologetic methodology. We talked about foundations. We talked about that charter verse of Christian apologetics that I just did at the beginning of the episode today, 1

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Peter 3 .15, and Zach astutely pointed out that it is often forgotten that there's something before the words that say always being ready to give a reason to fence.

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Most important thing. Yeah. It says first to set Christ apart as Lord, and James has done some good talks on that,

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Pastor James. Dr. James Weiss did some good talks on that particular verse, really pointing out that what Paul is doing there is actually referring to Jesus as God, and so you set him apart, sanctify

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Christ as Lord as Kurios, and as Lord as Yahweh, and then you're always being ready to give a reason to fence, and so Christian apologetics begins with fidelity to Jesus Christ, and that is to say, at the start of this discussion of Christian apologetics and defending the faith, we need to make sure that we are

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Christians. Yeah. Christian apologists defending the Christian faith, and Jesus says, you are either with me or you are against me.

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There is no neutrality with Jesus Christ, and that's a key issue here. Apologetics has to begin that reason defense of the faith with Christ set apart as Kurios, as Lord, as God, and then you proceed to defend the

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Christian faith. Christian apologetics starts off with fidelity to Jesus Christ, recognizing that there is no neutrality with Jesus.

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You're either with him or you're against him. There's no middle ground, and so what's really important for us as we start this discussion of defending the

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Christian faith is that we actually talk about discussing defending the faith as Christians, not as neutral parties trying to just figure out where the evidence is going to take us, and not defending some general theism.

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It's amazing to me is that when we have this discussion, people will oftentimes sort of react to, are you saying that there are

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Christian apologists who don't defend the Christian faith as they're doing

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Christian apologetics? Are you really suggesting that that actually exists? If you want,

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I could search the videos where they explicitly say that, that I'm not defending the Bible here. I'm not defending the

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Christian God. I'm just defending a general theism, and let's just see where the evidence takes us to because let's just say you start using philosophical argumentations, whether it's the cosmological argument or the teleological argument.

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You're using arguments, but you're saying in a neutral way. I'm not saying Jesus. I'm saying we use this argument that says that every effect has a cause, and we can't do that with infinite regression and go back and back and back.

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There has to be an initial first cause, and say that the atheist grants it and finally goes, all right, you got me.

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It is too obvious that there's design in the universe. It is too obvious that you've got to have this uncaused cause or this unmoved mover.

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Great. I'm going with Buddha. Or aliens. Right. Or fantastic.

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I'm going to go over there with Islam. I like that one. What have you really accomplished at that point?

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I think you can reason through that to say, well, if we're not reasoning from the beginning with the call of the gospel wrapped up in our apologetic methodology, we'll get to that place.

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If we're arguing from a position of neutrality with Christ not set apart as Lord, we can get to that place where we're just throwing out evidences and trying to see what sticks on the unbeliever.

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And one of the things that Dr. Bonson used to say is that we don't, in our apologetic endeavors in our defense of the

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Christian faith, want to be found as enemies behind lines. Meaning that I am actually assuming the pretended neutrality that the unbeliever assumes, or using his principles or his methodologies as I'm trying to point this person towards theism.

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Because that's not what we're trying to do as Christian apologists, as those who are defending the Christian faith. We're not just trying to get people to believe some general theism.

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What did Jesus do when he came to crowds of people and calls them to come to himself? He says things like, you have to come and die.

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You have to take up your cross. You have to love me more in comparison to your mother, your father, your sister, your brother.

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You've got to come die. Count the cost and come, or don't come. That's how Jesus calls people in crowds to come to him.

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Like that. He doesn't placate to them. He doesn't placate to their fallenness. He just simply says, come to die or don't come.

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Give me a try. Give me a 60 -day trial. Rick Warren said that. 60 -day trial. I couldn't believe it. I was sitting at Christmas time.

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It was years and years and years ago. It was Christmas time. News was on. Rick Warren's on. And he actually suggested to people that they try

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Jesus out for, I think he said 60 days, 60 or 90 days. Give him a try. Give him a chance. And he thought that was a wonderful suggestion.

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That's not the gospel that Jesus preached. And that's not the way that you actually get people to understand the call of Christ, the command of Christ to repent and believe by saying try him out.

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No, it's total submission. It's unconditional surrender. That's what it means to come to Jesus Christ.

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A lot of people don't like that. They're like, oh, that's tough. How are you going to convince the rabid unbeliever for unconditional surrender?

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Man, we've got a problem understanding the gospel if we think that. That is the call of the gospel. You come to die or you don't come.

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And so we can't play neutrality. And that's the start of Christian apologetics is no neutrality, abandon the myth of neutrality, and recognize, and this is it.

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I see you want to say something, Zach. Recognize that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So the great benefit of Christian apologetics that are faithful and consistent is that you actually get knowledge.

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According to God, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And so if you want knowledge, if you want understanding,

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Scripture is really clear. It starts with God, and it starts with the fear of God. And so isn't it great to understand that according to God, if you start with fear of God, reverence, submission, and awe before God, you get knowledge, you get understanding, and it's the fool who says in his heart there is no

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God. It's a powerful thing to start in the discussion of Christian apologetics. I think that's where it does start is ultimate commitments, starting points, what you're committed to, what you won't relinquish, because the unbeliever has those things too.

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They have things that they won't relinquish, just like we do. I was going through a Van Til's apologetic, which has got commentary by Greg Bonson in it.

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It's a really awesome starting point for the discussion, but he says something that's pretty profound in here. He says, as it turns out, the apologist, that's the

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Christian, defends what the theologian has learned with the tools and insights refined by the philosopher for the evangelistic purpose of seeing the unbeliever's heart and mind changed.

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He's talking about the relationship between apologetics, theology, evangelism, philosophy. They're not unrelated things.

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They're interrelated. All of these tasks come under the common umbrella of applying God's word to the hearts of men.

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This is what we were made for, to receive God's word and apply it to our lives. That's one thing

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I love about this approach to defending the faith. Not only is it consistent, not only is it faithful, it demonstrates fealty, obedience, loyalty to Christ, but it's not disconnected from the theological foundation of what we know to be true, which is what's grounded in scripture.

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In other words, theology can't be separated from apologetics and evangelistic methodology and engagement.

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All of those things are related to one another, interrelated. Like he said, the apologist defends what the theologian knows.

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What does the theologian know? Well, his knowledge is based on God's revelation. And so that's what informs the manner of engagement, like you pointed out, from the beginning.

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And I think that's where a lot of people trip up, is they're willing to go a mile with the unbeliever and say, okay,

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I'll play along. I'll surrender this ultimate commitment of being a Christian just temporarily to get you where you need to be.

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But what they don't realize is they've done what, you know, Proverbs 26 .4 forbids us from doing, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

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And so you are entering into that foolishness because you're commanded to love the Lord your God with all of your mind.

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And so when you don't do that, you're being dishonest from the outset and really introducing dishonesty into this whole endeavor.

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But twofold apologetic methodology, verse 5, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

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So there's a commitment that you have to maintain the ultimate foundation. But then as Bonson goes on to explain, you can actually step into the unbeliever's system of thought and demonstrate, do an internal critique, and show them where that thought logically leads to.

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So it's not contradictory. You're entering into it at the same time and showing them this is where everything leads to, which is nowhere, if you don't start with God's truth.

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Without getting us off subject, did you see the cover of the new Bonson book coming out? No. No Other Standard?

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Nice. Theonomy and Its Critics? Oh, good, from American Vision, right? Yeah, No Other Standard, Theonomy and Its Critics.

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I can't wait for that. That's by Bonson? Yeah, it's an old one. They're reprinting it.

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Oh, they're reprinting it. I thought they were putting a new book out. Thank God for American Vision. They're bringing back all these obscure classics.

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Americanvision .org, good stuff. Thanks to Gary DeMora for all the work he's doing. So, yeah, the question when you're...

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Okay, look, think about it in this way. You're having a discussion with, say, your standard fair naturalist and materialist everyday atheist today, right?

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He rejects God's existence or she rejects God's existence. And they say, you know, they just don't believe there's enough evidence for God.

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And they think that book over there, that Bible, is just filled with myths and contradictions. They think that Christians are irrational.

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They think that, you know, Christians display the foolishness of their own position by all the hypocrisy that's displayed regularly from Christians.

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And so they got a moral issue with Christians and how they live their lives and the hypocrisy that's inherent and all those sorts of things.

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You're talking to that person and making all these claims about what's right, what's wrong, how you ought to live in this world, problems with myths and all the rest.

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And, you know, they appeal to science and evidences and they just want the truth. What's amazing here is that oftentimes

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Christians will sort of like, you know, placate to those things, buy into the emotional appeals that the person is, you know, making at the time, and just not think about something that's rather profound.

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And that's that they don't have a right to talk like that. Right? Like, the person puts so much pressure on the ignorant

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Christian. And when I say ignorant, I don't mean that offensively. I mean ignorant in terms they haven't thought these philosophical things through very much.

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They put so much pressure on the Christian, the Christian feels the need to actually say, oh shoot, no, this really is true.

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Let me see what I can do to convince this guy. And they start just being like, okay, well tell me what you need to know. Like, what do you need? Like, archaeological evidence?

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What do you want? Do you want, uh, shucks, do you want like some historical proof? Shucks, do you want some historical proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

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I can do that. Do you want to see that the Bible has actually been transmitted faithfully down through the centuries?

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And we can get back to the autographa and exactly what the original was through the free transmission of the text.

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And then, you know, we've got over 5 ,000 Greek manuscript pieces and copies in the New Testament. We've got the early church fathers quoting from the New Testament.

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We get pieces together like that. We get all these, you know, thousands and thousands of translations from the original

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Greek text into other languages. You know, we've got more testimony from the New Testament than any other work of antiquity.

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And our manuscripts come closer to the time of the writing than anything else. And what do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about cosmic ripples?

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And do you want to talk about, you know, you want to talk about the design, the clear design?

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What do you need? Do you need evidence of design? What will satisfy you? Maybe we can look at human

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DNA and look at the fact that, you know, at the bottom of all human life is words, right?

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Like it's actual language. It's information. And if you take out any of those letters, you've got gibberish and life isn't possible.

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Do you want to see like evidence for design at that level? If you stretch the human DNA strand out, it goes all the way out to the moon sort of a thing.

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Like, what do you want? Like, what do you need to see? Do you want to see the complexity and design of all of life and the systems that operate in the world to show clear evidence of design?

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And people just throw, throw. And it's like, wait. Hold on. All those discussions and evidences are actually amazing and they're obvious and they're everywhere.

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But we almost miss something completely. They assume certain things. And they're not supposed to be talking like that.

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Right? Like, why are you asking me to abandon my commitments, my commitments to God's self -attesting authoritative word, right?

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Why are you asking me to abandon my commitments to a self -attesting word which gives me the ground to make sense of all of your challenges, even the emotional appeals of the hypocrisy in Christians.

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You know who talked about hypocrisy a lot? Jesus. Jesus talked about hypocrisy a lot, and so I've got a basis with Jesus as Lord to hate hypocrisy.

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Why? Because God cannot lie. That's from God's Word. God cannot lie.

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I'm made in His image, which is why I obviously hate it when people lie to me. That's why we hate hypocrisy, because guess what?

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God's not a hypocrite. He's the reference point for truth and not lying, which is why image -bearers of God have this instinctive repulsion to, like, liars, and you shouldn't be lying.

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You have to tell the truth. Where's that come from? Oh, if I stand with Jesus, I get that, and I also get the emotional appeal you're making about the hypocrisy of Christians, and I can actually acknowledge what you're saying.

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Yeah, I know. It's horrible. It's horrible. Jesus hates it. We ought to hate it. I hate it. I hate it myself.

29:09

We need to put this to death. But you know what? With Jesus, I can make sense of that emotional appeal. I don't know why you're making it, though, and when the atheists start saying, you know,

29:17

I want to believe things on evidence and proof, I'm like, man, that's weird. It's almost like you're sounding like you're a Christian.

29:24

It's like Jesus says, I am the way, the truth. There's an actual standard of truth. There's objectivity in the realm of the question of what truth is, and you're acting like you've got that in your worldview, but you're a naturalistic materialist.

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You believe that all of us are cosmic accidents. You believe you're just stardust. You believe there's no meaning in the universe. You don't believe there's any absolute standard of truth to begin with, so what are you doing appealing to all of that?

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It sounds like you're acting like God is, and you just don't want to know him.

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It sounds like you're acting completely consistently with what God's revelation says about you, and that's that you're self -deceived, that you know the

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God that I'm talking about, but you just don't want him because you're a rebel, because here's the deal. You're acting exactly like the rebel.

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You're the man. You're the man. You're acting like the rebel that the text referred to. God said that this is precisely how you'd live in his world, and actually what's amazing is that what you're doing corresponds with what he actually said.

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You're living inconsistently with your own principles and your own presuppositions. You're living inconsistently with what you ought to be doing if your worldview were true and your commitments were true.

30:28

You're borrowing from my worldview in order to attack my worldview. You're talking about things like myths.

30:33

The Bible's filled with myths. You know, if you read the Bible, you would understand just how it is that Christians hate the idea of myths because the

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Bible doesn't purport to be anywhere near in the realm of things like mythology. It's historical revelation,

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God acting in history, and the whole idea of myths is something that Christians are commanded to resist, and so if you hate myths, man, you'll love the

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Bible, but apparently you don't. That's coming from someone that says we came from an explosion or fish or monkeys or something.

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Inorganic matter becoming organic. As if mythology was a problem.

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You believe that bacteria, somehow in a long chain of things with no meaning and no purpose came into this right here.

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You believe that no information created information. Information came from that, but we're the ones that believe in myths.

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You get what I'm doing. The point is that when it comes to a position of Christian apologetics, if you stand with Christ, if you start your thinking with the

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Word of God, fear the Lord's beginning of knowledge, if you start there, then you get the fountain of knowledge that the unbeliever pretends to want, but resists at every turn, and so what we're saying is...

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The schizophrenic nature of their position is they're standing on the very things that they can't have. They're professing one thing, standing somewhere else, and like you said, that part of the apologetic methodology is to say you're in the image of God, and that's the reason why you're appealing to these things right now, but it's borrowed capital.

32:23

Explain that. Borrow capital. The unbeliever is wanting certain things that don't comport with his worldview.

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For example, he wants to make appeals to things like the dignity and value and worth of human beings.

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He says that you can't hurt human beings. Well, you ask him, why is that? Is there something valuable about human beings?

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Well, yeah. According to what you have instructed us about what human nature is, simply the random result of evolutionary processes and the fact that we are just cosmic accidents, etc.,

32:59

etc., that's not a tenable thing to hold to. Dignity and worth and treating people with respect and loving your neighbor and helping the old lady across the street and doing all of these things that benefit humanity, there's nothing to ground that except something transcendent, and that's how the truth of God is established, is it's established transcendently.

33:24

You talked about the transcendental argument for the existence of God. That stretches into this discussion.

33:30

It is that things like worth, dignity, value of human beings, that can't be accounted for unless it has a transcendent reference point.

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So when I say borrowed capital, the unbeliever is appealing to things that his system does not give him the right to appeal to.

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And so he must put one foot in the Christian worldview and say that, yes, human beings are valuable, well, because they're made in the image of God, and yet I deny

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God with the profession of my mouth, but I want these things over here. I have to have this in order to even stand, to begin with, to make an argument that it's wrong to hurt people.

34:06

Well, I think a perfect example of this, and not to, again, derail the conversation, but there's been a lot of talk lately about this

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Dahmer series on Netflix, right? I haven't watched it or heard it's just hard to watch in graphic, but a lot of people are very upset about this.

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No, I won't watch it. But why? To go along with what you were just saying, especially if you're an atheist, why are you upset about this?

34:27

Why are you upset that Dahmer killed and ate people? Why is that a problem for you? Why is that a problem?

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No one gets angry when rocks bump into each other falling down a mountain. I mean, think about it. Those rocks are random results of evolutionary processes in a long chain.

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When one bumps into another and breaks it, no one sheds a tear over it. So what's the difference between these other random results of evolutionary processes?

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And someone could just come up with all kinds of excuses that don't provide any ultimate grounding. They could say, well, I personally find it icky.

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Great. Your likes and dislikes are irrelevant in a universe without the

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Christian God. They're irrelevant. It's just your personal preferences. Some people don't share your personal preferences, and guess what?

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They're other random results of evolutionary processes, and you're not in charge of them. You don't have the same brain.

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You don't have the same nervous system, and maybe they actually enjoy hurting other people.

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You've lost any appeal to obligate them to conform to your standard, because there is no ultimate ought.

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There isn't a universally agreed upon way that they should behave. There's nothing to ground that.

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You might be able to appeal to a society and say, well, the majority of people have decided that it's wrong to do this.

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Okay, well, what about a different society that rises up that says that it's not, or says that it is okay to do that?

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What's the ought? So they win. Yes. They have more numbers. The majority is with them, and they can enforce it.

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World War II Germany. If you can get the majority to believe that slavery, kidnapping and enslaving black people is a good thing, then according to that perspective, it's a moral thing.

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There's no ultimate behind it to appeal to. Nothing's transcendent in that position. It's just sort of like the whim of the people at that moment.

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At this point in time, people really enjoyed this. At this point in time, they started not to, and so it's moral.

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It's immoral. It's moral. It's immoral. Nothing's transcendent. God's law doesn't work like that. The law of God is based upon His unchanging eternal character.

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It's not situational ethics. Right. The transcendent law we appeal to in God's word from His revelation comes from His mouth, so there's your certainty.

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It's the revelation of God Himself, but it also, His law is coming from His own character.

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And so, for example, God is love. That's defined in Scripture. Love does no harm to its neighbor.

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And so when you think about the Christian ethical system, it's coming from a transcendent law that's objective outside of the

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Christian. It doesn't even matter if the Christian likes it or not. Whether we agree or not. Doesn't even matter if you like it. By the way,

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I'll be the first to say, in agreement with the atheists, I think that the modern evangelical that pooh -poohs particular issues of the

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Old Testament, and it's like, well, I don't really like that anymore. I'm a New Testament Christian. It's like, well, you are inconsistent and honestly foolish.

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You're making God look like a sinner. Because, like, you know, for example... You can do an internal critique on the Christian, too.

37:25

Christians make mistakes, too. We all do, but we gotta be corrected. Someone said the other day that they were, like, horrified that one of the videos we put out,

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I was refuting the pro -aborts who were saying, like, we should just be able to kill children at will because of rape.

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And so, of course, I push on that. Okay, well then, from your perspective, what's wrong with rape? Like, I know why

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I think it's wrong. I got a basis to believe that it's absolutely immoral, and that the rapist actually deserves capital punishment.

37:52

Now, why do I believe that? Because it's Jeff's personal thing? Like, he feels like that works for him? No, I believe that because God says in his word.

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Like, he defines it. This is so evil. It's so much an injustice, perpetrated upon another image -bearer of God, that the answer to it, if there's proof and evidence, right?

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It's real. The answer to it is capital punishment. Like, that's what God, in his revelation, says. So, Jeff Durbin, Luke, Zach say, that's the word of God.

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That's justice in that case. The modern evangelical hears me in a debate with a pro -abort and goes, Jeff, you just affirmed capital punishment.

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That's not in red letters. That's not pro -life. It's like, wait, wait a second, wait a second. It's the most pro -life thing

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I've ever heard. Scripture says, you shall not kill. Ratzak, murder.

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It has to do with the unjustified taking of human life. Moses literally goes, you shall not kill. God said that.

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And then, within the space of a few verses, he tells you what to do if someone does kill in an unjustified manner, and that's eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.

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In other words, he says, look, no one goes, hey, Moses, that's a contradiction.

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Like, no one did that. Everyone understood. No unjustified taking of human life. And if you do, if you do, this is the just response from God.

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The just response is that the state executes the person who went so far as to do this evil thing, like rape, like murder.

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But the modern evangelical doesn't want to appeal to the law word of God. They don't want to appeal to God's revelation, so they go,

39:26

I just personally, I'm not okay with capital punishment. Pastor Jeff, you told people, like, you believe that rapists deserve capital punishment.

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Like, I don't think that's right. So my response to that person is this. Okay, quick question. There's many ways of getting at this, but here's a quick question.

39:40

Humbly, please answer this. Was capital punishment, when God decreed it, capital punishment, when he commanded it, was it just or unjust?

39:53

Think about it. Was capital punishment, when God commanded it, was it just or unjust?

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They're not going to say unjust. Okay, so if somebody says... Well, some Christians would. Well, if somebody says, well, then we go, have a nice day.

40:08

If they said, okay, it was just, great. So are people still murdering people now? Yes. Does the state, does

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God still require the state to execute the sword of justice? Yes. Okay, so people are still killing people today, after Moses, after Jesus.

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Does God want us to do something that is just or unjust in their case? Well, he'd want you to do something just.

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Has God already defined what's just when it comes to murder and rape and those sorts of things? Yes, he has.

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In his word, he's revealed himself, and God is unchanging. His standards don't change. His standards don't change.

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Do we want murderers and rapists to know Jesus and repent and believe the gospel? Yeah. That's different than the obligations of the state for victims' rights.

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Justice must be done. That's what God says, justice. What we don't want is to apply a standard of injustice.

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And in order to say, come to that position that says absolutely no capital punishment, you have to assume a lower standard of value on human life than God holds himself.

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Because God himself says that this is how valuable people are. Yeah. This is how valuable.

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I place no secondary level of protection on people. That's how valuable they are. If you unjustly end the life of this person, you have forfeited your life to live.

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That's how valuable people are. That's how valuable image bearers of God are. And so if you're going to assume a position that says, no, that's unjust, you now have to take a subpar view of human life and its value.

41:33

Yeah, and so I know where this is. A little tangential. Well, hold on now. You're right, except this is my talk for ReformCon, is that actually the revelation of God is not just for church.

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It's not just for It's not just for what we do on the walls of the church. It's not just for our worship.

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It's not just talking about letting God order how we do worship within the walls of the church.

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It's not just talking about our songs and those sorts of things. Actually, the revelation of God is over all of life.

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Yeah. Because Jesus is Lord. This is the word of the living God, and so the revelation of God is the place of certainty for every single realm of life.

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Everything. So guess what? This Christian apologetic methodology is just resting upon what we are supposed to believe as Christians anyway, and that's the revelation of God is supreme.

42:25

Sola Scriptura, the principles in Sola Scriptura, are actually the very things, the core of what's in presuppositional methodology.

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It's just the core issue. The revelation of God is supreme, and it goes everywhere. So what do you want to talk about?

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You want to talk about the civil sphere? Yeah, it's there too. You want to talk about philosophy?

42:47

It's there too. You want to talk about homemaking? It's there too. You want to talk about child rearing? It's there too.

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Education? It's there. Hey, art? The arts? Creation? Business?

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All that. It's the revelation of God that's supreme. The question is, by what standard? And the answer is,

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God says. That's really where it's at. And that's the question everywhere. It's not walking into the church and just asking, by what standard?

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It's walking out into the world in every area and saying, by what standard? Shall we learn?

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Colossians 1, Christ came to reconcile all things to himself. Not some things.

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Not just church things. Not just spiritual things.

43:29

All things. You're right. It wasn't such a tangent after all. Max, how do you get this bar to go away in the bottom here so I can play this video for everyone?

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You can't tell me. Do you know, Max? How do you get the bar at the bottom to go away? Are you a

43:45

Mac daddy? Okay, hold on. I'm just going to do my best.

43:52

I don't know how this works. Can you full screen that? I can full screen it, but the stuff at the bottom is still there.

44:01

It looks kind of cheesy, but I want to show everyone this. This is Dr. William Lane Craig in his own words talking about, well, we brought up neutrality at the beginning of the show.

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That's kind of the key thing we're hanging on right now. God's the starting point. He's the foundation.

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Self -attesting word in Revelation. This is Dr. William Lane Craig. The man is more brilliant than I'll ever be.

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He's got a greater mind than I'll ever have, and I really mean that. However, I believe he makes some serious mistakes.

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You can have a great mind, and you could be, I mean, just the guy is brilliant, and still make a lot of really bad mistakes at the beginning that start to work its way out in methodology.

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And so this is Dr. William Lane Craig talking about, well, I'll let you see it.

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Here we go. Unbelievers not to think of the Bible as divinely inspired. Over 50 % of evangelical pastors think that the world is less than 10 ,000 years old.

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Now, when you think about that, Kevin, that is just hugely embarrassing.

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We're not arguing for Christianity tonight. I haven't presented an argument, a moral argument, for Christianity or even for the

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God of the Bible. Over half of our ministers really believe that the universe is only around 10 ,000 years old.

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This is just scientifically, it's nonsense. You ought to rejoice in my argument tonight and just say,

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I'm going to be a theist, but I'm not going to be a biblical theist. We're not trying to disprove Allah's existence.

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We are arguing for a generic monotheism that is affirmed by Jews, Christians, Muslims, deists, and theists of many sorts.

45:42

Are you certain that God exists? No! Good. And here's what I hear. General theism.

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I want to bring you to a God that can't save you. Yeah, exactly right. That one hurt. That actually caused me physical pain.

45:55

No, the one about the Allah one. That one especially was like, oh! Lawrence Krauss, famous physicist, atheist.

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Are you certain that God exists? No! Really? Do you act like that in church when you're worshiping? Do you tell your kids about Jesus like that?

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Like everything I'm saying to you right now? Could be. Not true. No thanks. I'll be honest.

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I don't want that kind of Christianity. There's not a grounding for truth. No, that's not how the apostles preached the gospel.

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That's not how Jesus preached the gospel. That's not how the Word of God comes into the world. Let's be honest with ourselves. That apologetic methodology, that kind of neutrality, is just simply not

46:40

Christian. You can't classify it as Christian. Look, I'm saying this as somebody who, from very early on, was very, very focused upon Christian apologetics in my relationship with Christ.

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Bible college, you know, Norm Geisler, I read William Lane Craig, I was part of class work to read these guys.

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I was in that realm because I was just, I knew how overwhelming the evidence and testimony of Christ as Messiah and the

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Word of God as the Word of God and God as Creator. I knew how overwhelming all that evidence was, and so I just wanted to learn it and master it.

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And by the way, I still love that stuff. I think it's amazing. I still read that stuff. I think it's incredible. But in terms of a foundation, a foundation for arguing for Christ and all that,

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I mean, I think you can see the contrast there. Here you have William Lane Craig, famous Christian apologist, not certain that God exists, and arguing before the public that he's not trying to get you to believe in Jesus.

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Just a general theism. That's not the gospel call. No thanks. That's not

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Christian. And I mean that with all due respect, but let's just be honest with ourselves in terms of what's faithful and consistent.

47:58

That's not faithful, nor is it consistent. We just have so many foundations in Scripture otherwise, too.

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Acts 2 .36, Luke 1 .4

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when he's talking about the historical record of Theophilus. 1

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Thessalonians 1 .5 Again, conviction, certainty.

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Colossians 2 .2 Talking about the believer's hearts that they 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. Hebrews 6 .11 So there's so many places in Scripture that really,

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I mean, not only act as an epistemological foundation, like how

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I know what I know, this is how I know truth, but that knowledge of truth is what is supposed to get the

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Christian to the end. It's what's supposed to carry us so that we persevere.

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And so if our foundations are off there, if we don't have a basis for certainty, if we can't know that, then we can't finish well.

49:21

It really has implications for the Christian life, not just defending the faith. Very good. Super chat question.

49:28

Kay Roach, thank you for that blessing. And you asked a question, Pastor Jeff, Great question.

49:45

So I would say, first of all, you have to start this question with the law word of God from the Old Testament. It's one revelation of God.

49:52

We have two testaments, but one revelation of God. It's the same God, it's His revelation. And so when you look at the

49:57

Old Testament, one of the things that God says about His law is that it's just. One of the things that He says about His law is that it's good.

50:05

One of the things He says about His law is that it's actually eternal in duration. Read Psalm 119 to see how

50:11

God feels about His law. One of the things you also see is that one of the blessings of the New Covenant was that the law of God, the

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Torah, was going to be a part of the blessings of the New Covenant because those laws would be internalized.

50:23

Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, 31. But also that the law would go forth to bless the world with justice and righteousness.

50:30

You've got Isaiah chapter 2. The nations are going to stream up to God's mountain and the Torah, the law, is going to go forth from the people of God into the world.

50:38

You've got Isaiah 42, the promise that the Messiah Himself was going to establish justice in the earth.

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He wouldn't grow faint or weary until He's done so. And that the coastlands would wait for His Torah, so much for the law of God being irrelevant in the

50:51

New Covenant. We could keep going with this, but let's just move into the New Testament. The New Testament makes it very clear. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 -19, that He did not come to destroy.

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Do not even let it enter into your mind. Do not even begin to think. Don't even get the germs started in your mind or the thought that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. And then He says that if anyone teaches anybody to even disobey the least of these commandments, you'll be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So, that's how Jesus feels about the law.

51:25

The Apostle Paul, in the very same section, Romans 3 -4, where he's describing that you cannot ever be justified by the law.

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It will only shut you up before God. When he says that, that we maintain, Romans 3 -28, that a man is declared righteous, justified by faith apart from the works of the law, he says literally within a space of a few verses after that, he says, do we then make void the law through faith?

51:52

So, here he says, ready? You cannot be justified by the law in any way. It is through faith alone apart from the works of the law.

52:00

He then says, so do we then void the law through faith? He says...

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So, actually, justification by faith alone and Christ alone establishes the law.

52:14

And you see throughout the New Testament the inspired apostles and writers just assuming the abiding validity of the law word of God after the resurrection and after the ascension of Jesus.

52:28

They assume it's abiding validity. They appeal to animal husbandry laws. Don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain.

52:36

Well, that's weird. We've got to obey that law? Yep. You take the general equity of that law and you apply it into paying people who are working for you.

52:43

You see that the Apostle Paul quotes things from the Decalogue. Ten Commandments. Children obey their parents and the

52:50

Lord. First Commandment with promise. You see even an appeal to things like...

52:57

We brought it up, so I'll just throw this out there just so it's a part of this discussion. Acts 25, the

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Apostle Paul appeals to capital punishment. While he's doing this trial thing, he actually says if I've done anything worthy of death then

53:12

I don't object to dying. He affirms the goodness and justness of the fact that there are things worthy of death.

53:20

So he says, as an inspired apostle, post -cross, post -resurrection. The work of Christ is done.

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New Testament's in effect. He says what? He says if I've done anything worthy of death, I don't object to dying.

53:32

So that's good. So the inspired apostle apparently believed in capital punishment under certain circumstances.

53:38

He believed that. But when it comes to the question of okay, but what about some of these people today that say

53:43

I see all that, so I guess I've got to obey everything in the Old Testament. I would say we need to read the

53:49

New Testament. Ephesians 2. Exactly. The New Testament writers tell you to assume the abiding validity of the law word of God in their writings by just appealing to it as though you're supposed to know.

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You're supposed to know this. They just freely pull from animal husbandry laws.

54:08

Laws of justice. Don't receive an accusation against an elder unless it's the base of two to three witnesses. They appeal to the law.

54:14

Oh yeah, you're supposed to know this too. But they tell you where that law of God from the

54:21

Old Testament, wherever it's from, that was meant to be transformed under the

54:26

New Covenant has been transformed. And they give you explicit reason as to why. So for example, you have examples, and I think this is the best way to put it, where these were training wheels.

54:38

We're in the New Covenant now. They're off. So for example, there are laws of the Old Testament in terms of the people of Israel, how they were supposed to interact with the foreign nations, how they're supposed to dress, how they're supposed to eat, dietary restrictions.

54:51

And those things that they were told to do were actually things that were supposed to teach them about being separate, to avoid syncretism.

55:00

Don't blend the fibers together, different fabrics together. Don't blend. That was supposed to teach them. It was training wheels.

55:05

Be holy. Don't be like the surrounding nations. Don't blend their practices into your practices. And I want you to do this down to your clothing.

55:14

But now that we have Christ filled with the Spirit of God with a finished Atonement and the

55:21

New Covenant itself, we don't need training wheels anymore. Training wheels are off. Training wheels are off, guys.

55:26

Although holiness still applies. Holiness still applies. But the training wheels are off. You don't need to do those things anymore.

55:31

For example, Ephesians chapter 2, the apostle actually explains why the holiness code is actually now done away with.

55:39

It was meant to be this dividing wall. It was meant to be something that actually kept the

55:44

Jews distinct in so many ways from the surrounding nations. But now that Gentiles and Jews are being brought into one body, those training wheels are off now.

55:53

We are one body in Christ. We are all together. And those training wheels are not necessary anymore because now we have

55:59

Christ. We have the New Covenant itself, Spirit of God within us, and the law written on our inward parts. And so we don't need the training wheels anymore.

56:06

So that's why I had bacon last night. That's why you love shrimp, too.

56:12

Gosh, I hate shrimp. Sea cockroaches. Disgusting sea boogers.

56:19

You don't like seafood? The only way I could do that is if I was sitting around a campfire on a beach with Jesus and Peter and he was like, take and eat.

56:27

And I'd be like, okay. Joyful obedience. Another great example of this, too, is we're going through the book of Hebrews right now, chapter by chapter in our reach group on Wednesday nights, and teaching through it, we're talking about the

56:39

Melchizedek priesthood of Christ and how the Aaronic priesthood was really just a sign and a pointer to a greater priesthood.

56:46

It was supposed to give way. That shadow was to give way to the greater substance of what Christ does with that office.

56:51

And so explicitly in the text, in Hebrews 7, I believe it is, the author of Hebrews says that this is the criteria of the only one that can hold this priesthood now.

57:03

He continues on the basis of an indestructible life. That's what makes him different than the man who had to offer the sacrifice even for his own sin.

57:12

Not just the sins of the people. Here's the office that Christ occupies and why it's superior to anything that came before him.

57:18

Not only is he a better sacrifice, but he's also the true priest. And so the Aaronic priesthood, there's been an administrative change, a transference of that archetype, that Old Testament archetype, and that has culminated now in the office that Christ occupies, in this office.

57:34

So can you say there's been a change of law? Yes, in a sense, because the priesthood has reached its ultimate culmination now in Christ.

57:42

So the biblical authors say this law has been changed, but it's been changed because this was supposed to give way to a greater thing, and that's

57:49

Christ. And thank you for pointing that out, because this is important. It's been changed in administration.

57:55

However, it's not irrelevant. That's very important. Because we still need

58:01

Christ and his sacrifice to take away our sins. You still need a mediator. You still need a blood sacrifice. So guess what?

58:06

It's like, yeah, we don't do the temple anymore. We don't do the priesthood anymore. We don't do the animal sacrifices and Yom Kippurim.

58:11

We don't do any of that anymore. But guess what? All of it still is relevant today. Today in the new covenant, you still need a blood sacrifice.

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Only we have one that's done. It's forever. It's complete forever. And it's able to perfect forever those who draw near to God through him.

58:26

And we also have a high priest. Today, you still got a priest. And guess what? You still got a temple today. And guess what?

58:31

God still demands you to be holy today and separate today. The difference is is now all those basic building blocks of the old covenant order with that temple in one place and that dying priesthood and the animal sacrifices constantly being repeated and the clothing ritual and the diet ritual.

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Now it's completely transformed. Still relevant. Every bit of it is relevant in the new covenant.

58:57

It's completely transformed and fulfilled into this glorious thing. Yeah. So don't miss that.

59:03

Don't miss the substance. Don't shrink back in unbelief and go back. That's the message. That's the message of the author of Hebrews.

59:09

Press forward in faith because now you have not the shadows, but everything that it pointed to.

59:15

And so this I actually responded back to Kay Roach when they asked this question. But I think we've done shows on Hebrew roots.

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I know we have in the past. But this is important because the chat today is it's like a smorgasbord of questions that are like all over the place.

59:30

And so if you are in the chat and you ask all kinds of questions, just go to apologiestudios .com and type in the search bar what it is you're looking for.

59:39

And most likely we've probably answered it. We've already answered it. Tracy, you asked a question.

59:46

I'll make sure you say your name right. Garika. Hi, I noticed you have tattoos. As a born -again believer, is it okay to get tattoos?

59:53

I've gotten some looks from fellow church members because I got a Hebrew tattoo on my arm that says Jesus Messiah.

01:00:00

No one in our church has tattoos. So let's answer this question. Let's see here.

01:00:07

Make sure I get the reference right because my brain's not working right now. Leviticus 19. Don't mark your body for the dead.

01:00:17

Very important because Christians are often abused with this. And this comes down to,

01:00:23

I think, all of us having to always make sure we have our commitments to rightly interpreting, rightly handling the

01:00:28

Word of God intact and together. And so we've got to be very cautious about proof texting. I hope we can be in agreement on that, that we can't just grab verses out of the

01:00:37

Bible and just throw them at people and say, see, it says this. It's like, well, if you just read the verse ahead and below it, you would see it actually not saying what you're saying.

01:00:45

We need to never be in a place where we're like that. I don't ever want to be like that. I don't ever want to be in a place where I'm mishandling

01:00:50

God's Word because I've got a favorite proof text when it actually doesn't say that. It's dangerous to handle

01:00:55

God's Word in that way. So in Leviticus 19, that's the popular text.

01:01:07

I'm just going to pull up the full thing here. People hear the word tattoo and they go, okay, so that has to do with the body art people are wearing today.

01:01:22

I thought it was 1928. My mind is not working today. It's 2028. Leviticus 1928.

01:01:29

You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves. I am the

01:01:34

Lord. So there it is right there. We can't get tattoos, right? Right. So notice the context. Read the text about mediums.

01:01:43

This is 31. Necromancers. Do not secretly seek them out. Make yourselves unclean by them. And in 28, comes right after 26, 27, and you shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.

01:01:57

This is warnings in many places in Leviticus 19 against syncretism and adopting the practices of the pagan nations.

01:02:07

Notice the text itself. 28. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.

01:02:14

I am the Lord. It's interesting, actually. Ancestor worship has been a thing throughout history.

01:02:23

It is actually still a thing. It's very popular in Polynesian cultures. You still have today.

01:02:30

Yeah, you still have today in some Polynesian cultures, you have people who, when their dead relatives, when they die, they will actually take their ashes and the black ash, and they will put it in, they'll make it into like an ink, and they'll tattoo their bodies with the actual ashes of their dead relatives, and it's very, for them, it's a very spiritual thing.

01:02:56

It has a lot of deep meaning to it. The life force of that person lives on through you. Exactly. And so even,

01:03:02

I grew up in Japan, and Japanese culture is huge, huge on ancestor worship.

01:03:08

I mean, it's like their thing. Most definitely. And so it exists, it has existed in history, it still exists.

01:03:14

There has always been this problem of ancestor worship. It is still prevalent today, but what's being referred to here in Leviticus is the practices of these pagan surrounding nations, from their occultic practices to the practices of what they do with their dead relatives, and the ancestor worship.

01:03:31

So what did they do? Same thing that many of them do today. They would tattoo and cut themselves, mark themselves, for the dead.

01:03:40

It's in the text. For the dead. For the dead. So this text cannot be appropriately and consistently applied to someone today using modern body art.

01:03:56

You get a picture of their child on their arm, or you've got a little angel

01:04:03

Any number of ones to choose from. A flower, something like that. Body art, it can't be applied because it's not talking about the same thing.

01:04:11

Luke, did you put any of the ink in your body as a form of ancestor worship? No. So you didn't cut or mark your body for the dead?

01:04:17

No. So that's not what Leviticus is talking about. It's specifically referring to a pagan practice that was done then, and is done now, about ancestor worship and cutting or marking your body for the dead.

01:04:29

And so it doesn't apply to modern body art. Now I'm not telling people, this is really important, as a

01:04:35

Christian, if you don't want to do any body art at all, any tattooing at all, for the glory of God, then

01:04:41

I actually celebrate you. I say, praise God for that. You're doing that for the glory of God. I know your heart's intention behind doing it is to worship and glorify

01:04:48

God, so I say praise God for that. But for the person that does do it, this doesn't apply to them.

01:04:56

If they're getting a Jesus fish or they're putting a verse on their arm, and if somebody says, watch, here's where it goes, they'll say, yeah, but your body is a temple of the

01:05:08

Holy Spirit. Another verse that needs to be read in context, if you go to where Paul says that your body is a temple of the

01:05:15

Holy Spirit, what's it specifically in reference to? Sexual morality. What people do with prostitutes. Joining yourself together with a prostitute.

01:05:23

Does the principle apply of treating your body as a temple? Yes. But does it have to do with a tattoo?

01:05:31

No, it has to do with holiness, and not joining yourself together with an unbeliever, doing their practices.

01:05:37

And just to be honest, the history of tattoos and body art goes far beyond even pagan practices.

01:05:44

Christians throughout history tattooed things about Jesus on themselves. Crosses, the

01:05:50

Jesus fish. What's the technical term? Ithaca? Yeah. And someone says, yeah,

01:05:55

I just don't think you should mark your body. Marking your body is always sinful. Then I would say, why does the book of Revelation have

01:06:01

Jesus coming down with something written on his leg? That's a sharpie.

01:06:09

The point is, I think it's just wrong to mark your body. If you're setting that standard as a form of personal piety, you just gotta be careful.

01:06:17

I'll honor you in it. But you gotta be so careful, because if you say it's always wrong to mark your body, then you're gonna get to the book of Revelation, and you're like, oh no.

01:06:27

Oh no, it says he has a mark on his body. Now, I understand that it's symbolic, and it's a vision, but the point is, if it's sin to do it, you can't have

01:06:35

Jesus doing it, or having it. If in principle it's wrong, then you're not gonna give that to Jesus as a symbol.

01:06:43

You get the point? And so I think this is one of those areas we have to agree with each other. Look, we're gonna be okay as Christians.

01:06:48

Let's have unity around this. If you don't agree, don't agree. Don't do it to the glory of God. If you do it, then do it to the glory of God.

01:06:55

I hope that it's meaningful for you, and I hope that you're ready for some pain. There's something to be said for wisdom.

01:07:01

What are you getting? You gotta be really careful in terms of wisdom. Where you put it, how much you put it.

01:07:08

Sometimes, whether you like it or not, you're not gonna get certain jobs if you go tattooing your face up.

01:07:13

And besides, personally, if you get tattoos all over your face, you just gotta use wisdom.

01:07:21

Is that gonna be appropriate or work in every circumstance? Are you gonna scare children? You might.

01:07:29

Wisdom should be applied there, but I think we need to be as Christians to say, let's be unified around the essentials. Let's agree to disagree on these things for the glory of God, and not let these things be hindrances to ministry together.

01:07:41

Yeah, and I know you touched on this a little bit. I've been answering this question far longer than you have.

01:07:47

Oh, really? Since I was 18. Respectfully, those that are making that objection about the

01:07:57

Leviticus passage, my first response, like you said, is, well, have you eaten shrimp lately?

01:08:04

Or, hey, what are you wearing right now? Does your shirt have mixed threads? If you're going to live by just that one verse, what does the rest of the verses in that passage say?

01:08:17

And there's a lot of things that you're probably also breaking. So, let's be consistent.

01:08:25

Let's see here. Matt, thank you, Matt, for that blessing. What's up, Matt? God bless

01:08:30

Apologia Radio. Let's cut the head off this wicked giant called abortion and raise his head in victory over the enemies of Christ.

01:08:36

Amen. Hey, I want to thank everybody so much for being with us on today's show.

01:08:41

Don't forget, you can get the live stream of ReformCon. If you want to do it, please do, and do it quickly.

01:08:50

ReformCon .org tickets. You can just go purchase it there, but I would recommend actually going to ApologiaStudios .com, signing up for the annual

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All Access. And when you do, you get not only All Access and you're partnering with us in ministry, but you are also going to get the live stream for free.

01:09:05

If you're already a monthly partner with us in this ministry, you are helping us bring the gospel into so many areas of the world, and more is coming, all glory to God.

01:09:13

But you're going to get 50 % off. So, if you're already a monthly ministry partner with us for All Access, you're getting 50 % off of the

01:09:21

ReformCon live stream. Just check your email. I think that's about it, right?

01:09:27

Sorry, I was reading the question. I think we just answered that,

01:09:33

Jacob, earlier. Sorry. What was your question? Is there anything else?

01:09:41

No. Please come to ReformCon. We're not going to be doing Apologia Radio next week. No, we won't be, because we will be at ReformCon 2022.

01:09:48

We'll be posting live stuff. We're having a live show. Not on Thursday, though.

01:09:57

Either Friday or Saturday. Hey, guys, get your tickets for the live stream.

01:10:03

Get them. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you guys that show up. This has been a labor of love.

01:10:09

It's been a lot of work for the team. I want to personally thank Pastor Luke, and Christine, and Tim, and especially that crew for all the work that they've been doing.

01:10:21

You guys just don't know how much has gone on behind the scenes to make this all a thing, but also make it something that we really want to just do well to the glory of God and that you really enjoy.

01:10:31

Pray for us. Get your live stream. ApologiaStudios .com. Get that yearly All Access.

01:10:37

You're going to get the live stream for free. For those of you guys, again, that are All Access, you get 50 % off the live stream.

01:10:45

We wish you were here with us. If you can't make it, we understand. Hopefully next time.

01:10:50

We're thankful for all of you guys and all that you guys do. Please pray for us before we end abortion now. We have some serious stuff right now happening.

01:10:57

States with bills and legislators ready to drop them next legislative session. We've got teams on the ground ready to go to get these things past hearing stage and voted on.

01:11:07

Please be in prayer because we just have so much work to do in this area. Go to endabortionnow .com. Sign your church up.

01:11:13

Get free training and resources. Please give financially. We do need it for this next year's mission.

01:11:19

That is Luke the Bear. Go vote, please. We have men that hopefully will be in place that want to put in abolition bills, but they've got to get voted in.

01:11:35

This election is incredibly important. If you don't think so, look at the state of our finances in our nation right now.

01:11:45

And it's the Baptist Catechism by John Piper. Somebody in the chat is yelling at us because we're not answering their question. Baptist Catechism, 1689,

01:11:52

London Baptist Convention of Faith. John Piper had pulled together a little good book for it.

01:11:57

Just look up John Piper Baptist Catechism. You'll see that it's super easy. Google John Piper Baptist Catechism.

01:12:05

Bethlehem. They put that together. When we were trying to put it together, we were like, nope, it's already been done for us.

01:12:14

We'll just borrow yours. Thank you to the Super Chats, Disciple, Kay Roach, Naomi Summers, Jacob Reynolds.

01:12:24

Thank you guys for blessing us. All of you guys for praying for us and blessing us in this ministry. I wish we could just do a whole show where we literally just go through comments of people coming to Christ, families coming to Christ, babies being saved.

01:12:35

We should do that sometime, just so you can see all that you guys are a part of. This is not simply our ministry.

01:12:40

It is our ministry. And all these successes are to the glory of God, but it's because of a team of believers who work to make it happen.