Never Again

, let's go ahead and pray. We're gonna be, pressing forward in our study of God's word, but let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this time for us to be together with your people, to study your word, the truths that have been revealed to us. We ask that You would open up our eyes and to continue to help us grow in our understanding of all that you've given us.

you, we pray, Father, that You would help us to learn how to speak, with our, our friends and family. And to share the gospel. And we ask you just to guide us in our time together. We pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen. All right, we're gonna be dealing later with the question, how do we prove God's existence? let me just do a little bit of review. In these courses that we're offering through adult equiping school, we are just hoping that to train our families how to know, live, and speak God's word for His glory.

So we want this material to be stuff that, that you're learning about, but that it's also breaking forth into your life and into your speech. Now, I do have an advantage, Compared to a lot of you folks, when I sit in a barber chair like I did this last week and the barber says, so what do you do for a living? I just can't escape. There's no way to escape that, right?

Or there are a few ways to escape it. I can lie and So on Anyway, I went to get my haircut. This lady says, what do you do for a living? I say I work at the church down the street and, started talking.

Before it, we're into the gospel. And, she said, I came in here today really having a tough time and, and, And I just, I, I have this sense that, that God sent you in here. And, she, her worldview was mixed up. she didn't believe in the exclusivity of the Christian God, but she's got a brother that's been witnessing to her and the Lord just gave me the opportunities, captive audience, so she was my captive audience just to share the gospel.

Over the courses that haircut and I think she still did a pretty good job. I think. So it's a little risky. but just felt the Lord leading so you can pray for this gal named Socorro, Sokoro.

which means, Help. It's a, a Spanish word that means help. And so I appreciate you praying for her. so I want to encourage you guys to take what you're learning.

And, and be looking for opportunities to share the truth. this week with our topic on God's existence, one of the things we're gonna be asking you guys to do this sometime this week is just to find somebody who doesn't know the Lord and just ask them, how do we know that God exists? And they might say, God doesn't exist. they might give you various answers, but I wanna encourage you guys to let that be your leading question of the week.

How do we know God exists, right? You can just walk up to one of your friends and say, hey, I've got a homework assignment, can I fulfill it on you? How do we know God exists? And then just see where the conversation goes, all right?

Does that make sense? All right, let's press forward. our curriculum is we can trust the Bible. We're gonna hit lesson 8.

We're gonna do a little bit of review here., Bill introduced us to a couple of concepts last week. it's only the Christian worldview that can give us the proper perspective of reality, right? we put on glasses, everybody puts on glasses, and they're either made out of the right materials or wrong materials, right? What are some, not so good materials for your glasses to be made of?

Anybody recall? Yeah, so you're, you're looking at the whole world through an evolutionary worldview. You're gonna come through to some Some different conclusions than comport with reality, right? We'll be some other idols that will affect the material of our lenses.

Sitting, selfishness. OK, just a total self-word, focus, just it's all about me and my worldview. Anything else? OK.

Money can be just, everything is about money and materialism. OK. We're all basically good. OK.

Yeah, so you're just walking around saying that everybody's basically good and that's part of your lens system, the way you're interpreting the world. what would be, according to last week, what would be good material, for our lenses to be made of? The gospel. All right.

So if our, if our, if our lenses are made of the gospel, then we have the right material for our lenses to interpret the world around us. Does that mean that every Christian who has gospel glasses on is going to always interpret the world properly? No. So what, what, what can happen to our glasses even as Christians?

They can get smudged, right? And what are some of the things that can smudge our glasses, our gospel glasses? Sin, right? We can, it can get smudged by sin.

we are finite, so we don't know everything. it can get smudged. We get tempted by the devil. The Bible indicates that even Christians can be deceived, right?

There's many commands in the Bible to two Christians about, the warnings of getting deceived, let you not be deceived. And so how do we, if our glasses get smudged according to last week, how are we going to clean that up? With the gospel again, all right? So, we go back to the gospel, we go back to the good news, the relationship that we have with God through Jesus Christ, His life, death, burial, and resurrection, and we continually, we're continually washing those glasses.

That's part of our, we're talking about, we talked about sanctification. let's press forward here. we're gonna take a look at a couple of videos that some of you may remember from last year, as part of our review. Do you guys, does anybody remember the Neutral ground video from last year?

OK, good. Does anybody remember the answer, no answer video? OK. Good.

A few of you guys. Let's take a look at these. We're gonna discuss this a little bit as part of our Review? Now you may have very good evidence for creation.

You might say, see how this is evidence that the Bible is true, and maybe it's very good evidence that confirms creation. I have to think fossils are very good evidence that confirms the world by flood, don't get me wrong, but that's because I'm looking at it properly through biblical glasses. My secular colleagues are gonna look at that same evidence through secular glasses and what's he gonna say? He's gonna say, that's not how I see it.

That's not how I see it. He's gonna come up with a rescuing device to account for that evidence according to his worldview and to add insult to injury, he's gonna say, actually, you're the one coming up with the rescuing devices, my explanation is the right one. And so, and so we think, oh well, maybe that's not a good evidence. Let's try something else then.

What about canyon formation? So canyons can form quickly. He says, well, maybe that one did, but how do that the Grand Canyon formed quickly? You don't know that.

Oh, but, but, well, we need another evidence then look how rock layers can be deposited quickly. Mount Saint Helens proved that, he said, well, maybe those ones can form quickly, but how do that all of them have formed that way? Maybe some of them are slowly over billions of years. Oh, but, but you see animals, they, they reproduce according to their kinds, that's what we'd expect.

He says, well, maybe they do today but given enough time, one kind can change to another. Oh, but, but, DNA has information, it never comes about by chance. He says, well, maybe there's some unknown mechanism that produces it. Give us time, we'll find it.

Oh, but, there's comets out there, they don't last billions of years. Oh, but there's no cloud, he says. Now, it's not wrong to show people that there's evidence that is consistent with God's word confirms that. In fact, I think there's value in that.

But evidence by itself is never decisive because you always require a worldview to tell you what to make of that evidence. Therefore, a philosophically astute person will not be persuaded by mere evidence. And that's probably worth getting in your notes. A philosophically astute person will not be persuaded by mere evidence.

Why? Because if he's clever, if he's philosophically astute, if he's sticking to his worldview, he's gonna come up with a rescuing device for every evidence that you present. You see, and so he's not going to be persuaded one way or the other. Evidence by itself is not decisive because a person's presuppositions tell him what to make of the evidence.

And why is it we have a difficult time with this? Well, I think part of it is we tend to spend a lot of time with people that have the same worldview that we do and therefore they are inclined to interpret the evidence the same way and so we can change their mind on something by presenting new evidence. If you and I had a disagreement about whether or not there are crackers in the pantry, we can settle that disagreement by going over to the pantry, opening up to see if there are crackers there, and we should be brought to the same position based on this evidence because we have the same worldview.

We already agree on the rules of interpretation.

And so, yeah, you see, see the crackers there, there they are. I was right. And so you're, we're, our beliefs are brought into alignment. But if I'm having that same discussion with a Hindu, who believes that this universe is illusion because Hindus have a monistic worldview.

They think this, this world is all illusion and I show him the crackers, he's gonna be convinced? No, he's gonna say that's an illusion too because he's got a different worldview. You see evidence is not decisive when it's a worldview discussion and origins, guess what, is a worldview discussion. And so we need to keep that in mind.

And the problem with many creationists today and virtually all evolutionists is that they argue as if their opponent had the same worldview they do and they get very frustrated because they don't, they say, why don't you understand that this evidence proves my point. Well, we need to think in terms of worldviews. We cannot argue that our worldview is right because of the evidence, because our worldview tells us how to interpret that evidence. And I hope that that is clear.

Somehow we need to show that our standard is the correct standard. How are we gonna get anywhere then? I'm over here standing over on my, biblical presuppositions, my secular friend is standing on his secular presuppositions. How are we gonna get, get anywhere in this debate?

Let me give you the wrong answer before I give you the right answer because good teachers always do that, right? You give the wrong answer first. Well, the wrong answer is this, and a lot of times evolutionists will say, well, let's meet here on neutral ground. He says, he says, maybe there are some presuppositions we can agree upon and maybe those, we can, we can abandon the other ones and one of the ones you have to abandon is that the Bible is the word of God, he says, cause I certainly don't believe that.

So leave the Bible out of the discussion, but we both agree science is useful, so let's just talk in terms of science on neutral ground. Now what's the problem with neutral ground? There is no neutral ground, right? Jesus says, he is not with me is against me.

He does not gather with me scatters. Romans 8:7, the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. Does that sound neutral to you? Hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to law.

God is not even able to do so. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. There's no neutral.

You're either God's friend or his enemy. You're for him, you're against him, you're gathering, you're scattering. There's no neutral ground when it comes to a worldview. We all have a positive worldview.

And so we're gonna call the attempt to be neutral, the pretended neutrality fallacy, and that's what it is. It's a fallacy. Since the Bible indicates that there is no neutral, the claim of neutrality is itself unbiblical. Does that make sense?

If you see, the Bible says there's no neutral. So if you say, oh yes, there is neutral and I'm neutral, you've just said the Bible's wrong, in which case, you're not being neutral. You're taking a position that the Bible's wrong. So neutrality is a non-neutral position and so it's immediately self-refuting.

And so if, if, if this person says, well, yeah, let's meet here on neutral ground, leave the Bible out of the discussion because we don't agree on that. We'll just, we'll just take things that we agree on and if you say, yeah, OK, we can leave the Bible out of the discussion, no problem. Well, neutral ground is really secular grounds because the Bible says there's no such thing. And if you agree to his terms for the debate, really, you've lost.

Because isn't the debate about biblical authority? We're trying to show this person the Bible is absolutely right in everything it says. It says, OK, but let's start the debate by meeting on neutral ground, which the Bible says there isn't. And you say, OK, you've started the debate by assuming that the Bible is wrong.

How are you gonna get to the position that the Bible is true? Right, you, you can't, you can't. Defend biblical authority by abandoning biblical authority. That doesn't make sense.

You started the debate by conceding defeat. That is not a good way to start a debate. Two things to remember when people ask you to be neutral, because the secularists, they like to think that they're neutral and they're gonna want you to be neutral too. Two things to remember when people ask you to be neutral.

One, they're not. 2, you shouldn't be. No one is neutral when it comes to a worldview issue and you shouldn't attempt to be neutral when it comes to a worldview issue. You can't be anyway.

No one can approach evidence without presuppositions and if they think they are, that's a presupposition. All right. So good. So we've got There's certain glasses that have been given to us through the gospel by the Holy Spirit, right?

And then you're engaging your friends and family. They've got glasses that you used to wear as well. Before you were saved, you were taken captive by the devil to do whose will. To do his will, right?

you were suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. There's all kinds of evidence for God out in the world that should, if it was properly interpreted, should drive people to the Lord, but what do they do with that evidence? Every time they suppress it in unrighteousness, they've been taken captive by the devil to do his will. And so when we enter into discussions with our friends and family, there should be a great sense of compassion because we've been there too.

But we need to understand what's behind the scenes in answering these worldview questions. Let me take just a moment. To, actually, what, I'm gonna hit this in the application section. Now, let's do it right here.

Let me, I just want to do a little caveat here on something that An experience that I have, this is actually part of my testimony, in, as a Christian, growing up, going to a public school, not having Christian parents, really having to fight for my faith every day. And I went through quite a lengthy period, high school, early college, actually well into college. Experiencing a number of different things that I thought if I could just get people to buy into certain things, surely they would become Christians because the evidence is so overwhelming in favor of Christ that if I could show them first of all that Christians are cool.

That maybe they'll become Christians.

I call this the cult of cool. I used to bring some of my nonbelieving friends to Christian concerts, hoping that if they could just see a Christian with a mohawk playing electric guitar, that they would fall on their face and become Christians. Or I'd show them Christian videos, back in the day, Steve Taylor, whatever, thinking that people would just fall on their face and think that Christians are so cool, let me become a Christian. Or the Fun and Frolic Club.

If I could just convince my friends that Christians are fun and funny, then maybe they'll come to know the Lord. And so I would pass out tapes of com Christian comedians like Mike Warnke back in the day, which later turned out to be a fraud, take them on our youth beach trips where we go out boogie boarding and surfing and so on. that Christians are fun people and that would overcome their hang-ups and they would all fall on their face and become Christians. Or the smarty pants Club, that Christians are smart people.

that, that we have our own philosophers, we have our own really smart people. And if I can demonstrate that Christians are smart, that people will become saved. And I tried every one of these things with either friends. I tried them with my dad, I tried them with my family.

And guess what? Very infrequently when, I, I don't ever remember saying, wow, you guys are so cool. I think I'll become a Christian. All they had to do is look at me and they could be like, all right, Christians aren't all cool, right?, or they could just look at me and be like, Christians aren't all smart.

All right. And so, this just brings the, the question that we're dealing with and that is just what is the nature of evidence. Bill talked about the glasses that we have. We put on glasses, the Holy Spirit's given us glasses.

Let me just give you three summary points here. Clear evidence is not always clear. And this is not in your notes, you can write this down. This is for free.

I'm not gonna charge you guys for any of this. Clear evidence is not always clear. Did everyone believe who saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Now, I've heard people say, if God would just show up on the scene and do a miracle, I'll believe.

Well, guess what? God did show up. He walked around and he raised Lazarus from the dead. Something that was scientifically verifiable.

Everybody saw it. And yet, there were people that after they saw that miracle, what did they decide? We're gonna kill them. Why did people see the evidence and say we're gonna kill him?

And other people came to know the Lord. What does this teach us about the nature of evidence? Did all the disciples immediately believe when they saw the resurrected Christ? They did not.

Thomas saw Jesus and still did not believe. And yet Jesus says, blessed is the one who has not seen and yet believes. So Thomas, even though, he was, he's slightly rebuked by the Lord, he says, hey, put your fingers here, touch, taste, you want empirical evidence, here it is. But blessed is the one who believes, who has not seen.

Jesus is telling us something about the nature of evidence. That if you're able, if you come and believe having not seen, that is a blessed position to be in. So, clear evidence is not always clear. Secondly, why is clear evidence not always clear?

Bill got into that last week. We see 1 Corinthians 2:14. That the things of the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God, right? In verse 14, nor can he.

That's a very important verb, nor can he. There is not the ability of a natural man to understand the things of the Spirit of God. They have not been able to know the things of the Spirit of God. So they're, they have completely wrong glasses on and they don't have the willer.

They don't have the will or the volition to understand the spiritual things. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:18. You guys have all heard this passage. What do we have the gospel glasses on which helps us properly interpret the world.

But what do people say about the gospel? For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. So you have two different types of people in the universe, just like the video just said, there's two different types of people. There's those that understand the gospel, they have gospel glasses on, and they are continually being saved.

but the word of the cross, the gospel is foolishness to those that are in the process of perishing. And so for people to move from one side or the other, seems like it's gonna require much more than evidence. Write down 2 Timothy 2:23. 2 Timothy 2:23, we just mentioned this, it says, this advice to Paul, or advice to Timothy from Paul.

How Timothy, are you to deal with your congregation? How are you to deal with your ministry of discipleship and evangelism? He says, avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient.

In humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them what? Repentance, that means change of mind, so that they may know the truth. How's somebody gonna know the truth? God has to grant them a change of mind.

If God doesn't grant them a change of mind, they don't come to the knowledge of the truth. Therefore, that's why Timothy should be patient. Because he's teaching and he's waiting for something to happen. He's waiting for a transaction to happen that can only come from God.

And so as he's teaching people who are in opposition, and they are continually opposing him and they don't see the truth, it would be very tempting for Timothy and for all of us to say, what are you stupid? And that would be completely inappropriate. Given the fact that we know that God has to do something with their willer, he has to grant them repentance. Verse 26, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive to do His will.

2 Corinthians 4:3, write that down. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to whom? Those who are Perishing, whose minds the God of this age is blinded, who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, that's the gospel, who is in the image should shine on them. So, we see a lot of factors going on here.

Clear evidence isn't always clear. Why isn't clear evidence always clear? Because people have to be granted the ability to have a change of mind by God. The gospel to us is the power of God.

To them, it's foolishness. And so we're praying for something to happen as we engage people. Thirdly and lastly, what can make clear evidence clear or more appropriately, who can make clear evidence clear? The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the answer to this epistemological question. Do our words bring about salvation? Do our words bring about salvation? No, it's the word of God.

Look at John 16. John 16 Verse 7 to 11. And somehow I picked the wrong Bible. I used to be able to read this pretty well.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go away, I will send him to you, and when he comes, he will convict the world of concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because they go to the Father, and you will see me no longer concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. So the Holy Spirit.

will do this job of convicting.

As we go out. And we open up our mouths for the gospel. The Lord in His sovereignty and His providence puts us into contact with barbers or different people in our lives, and we open up our mouth with the truth. Now the Lord can take, the Holy Spirit can take the words that we're saying, these gospel laden words, and begin to convict unbelievers and bring about a change of mind.

And we don't know how that's gonna happen. It's just like Nicodemus visiting with Jesus in the night. Jesus says, it's very mysterious how people get born again. It's like the wind, it comes and goes.

We don't always know how things are gonna happen. you guys have, I'm I think I've shared, Uncle John's testimony, a few different times in our class. He's coming out to softball games, hanging around with all kinds of Christians in our church. People have been sharing the gospel with him.

It's, it's not really happening at that time. All of a sudden, he goes to a Bob Marley concert. Some person up on the stage just says some Bible verses that he had been hearing. All of a sudden, God grants to him repentance.

He gets born again, and the next day he's calling me, and this is a completely changed individual. How does that happen? How does somebody go from, being totally darkened to suddenly hearing the word of God proclaimed at a concert and now they're a completely different person. It's a work of the Holy Spirit.

So what we see then is God is the Holy Spirit working through God's word in the Bible. So we bring the scriptures, we, we start with the scriptures. We bring the scriptures to bear because the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. All scriptures give by inspiration.

It's profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction. And, and we bring the Bible to bear in our conversations. All right, so that is our my little treatise on the nature of evidence, the neutral ground thing. we just have to remember, if we leave, if we leave the gospel, if we leave the Bible behind and try to enter into these conversations, it's the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation.

It's the gospel that the Holy Spirit is using to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. so, I don't know if I, I probably already told you guys about the conversation I had with a guy at a restaurant about a month ago. He wanted to get off on all these tangents and so we ended up talking about dinosaurs, we talked about the flood, we talked about aliens, we talked about a million different things, but I kept trying to, give him various pieces of evidence for things that I knew.

And just kept trying to get it back to the gospel, where I could at least give him a basic presentation that the, the core need that we have is forgiveness of sins, to have our guilt, overwhelmed by the forgiveness that we have in Christ.

And as hard as I tried to get things back to the gospel, this guy was just on one rabbit trail or the other. I think he was a little, what? But, you do it, you do what you can and then you just let the Lord, let the Lord, guide. If they don't wanna talk, if they don't wanna, if they don't let, let you get to the gospel, then, you just, you just roll with it, right?

Any questions you guys have before we look at the next video? So as Christians, what are we wearing again? What glasses? Gospel glasses, but we can always see perfectly, right, Brian?

We never get smudges. Never. No, yeah, we do get smudges. So we need the ongoing conviction of the Holy Spirit, ongoing flow of the gospel, continual sanctification.

Let's look at one other video, that should help us in our evangelism, the no answer answer. oh, I think I went past you. Do I go back one more? Let's see what I should do.

Now you may have very good evidence for creation. You might say, see how this is evidence that the Bible is true, and maybe it's very good. Let me try one more. OK, here we go.

How do we take this information and use it practically in say a debate with a critic of creation, and I want to show you what I call the don. strategy. I've written some articles on this, so maybe you've seen this before. If you haven't, this will revolutionize the way you do apolog.

It's very powerful. It comes right from the Bible. It's a strategy for defending the faith, and by the way, God knows how to defend the faith. So we ought to, we ought to heed what the Bible says about how to defend the faith.

It's based on Proverbs 26:4-5. Proverbs 26:4 says, do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. And I have to point out that when the Bible uses the term fool, it's not just engaging in name-calling, it's not just saying, well, you're just a fool, OK? It's using that term to describe someone who is dense, someone who is perhaps very intelligent but who refuses to use his intellect in the way that God has intended.

And so when I use that term, that's what I'm, that's what as well. We shouldn't go around calling people fools, but the Bible says if they haven't, if they haven't accepted biblical authority, they are. We need to keep that in mind. Now we're not to answer the fool according to his folly.

We're not to embrace his standard, his presuppositions, otherwise, what? We would be like him. And so if somebody comes to you and they've got silly presuppositions, which we're gonna represent here as such. And for example, this person says, let's leave the Bible out of the discussion.

Well, that's a silly presupposition. Why would we leave the Bible, the inerrant word of God, out of any discussion, Especially one that deals with origins. That doesn't make sense. Let's leave the Bible out of the discussion.

If you say, yeah, OK, we can leave the Bible in the discussion, well, then you become like Him. You've answered the fool according to his father, you've embraced his presuppositions, and now you've become foolish too. Now where are you gonna go? You've conceded what you're trying to prove, you're not gonna go anywhere.

So never buy into the presuppositions of the unbeliever, but then the next proverb says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. That may sound like a contradiction, but it's not because the sense is different. we are not to answer the fool according to his folly in the sense of embracing his presuppositions, but we are to answer him according to his folly in the sense of showing where his presuppositions would go if hypothetically they were true.

We're gonna reflect back to him his own philosophy so that he can see how absurd it is and therefore cannot be wise in his own eyes.

It's kinda like I'm not gonna live in your house. I'm just gonna step inside for a few minutes, destroy all the furniture, and then leave, OK? It's just a temporary, refutation of your worldview, an internal critique which I mentioned earlier. So somebody comes to you and says there are no absolutes, there are no absolutes, so you can argue with me, but you can't use absolutes because there are, there are no absolutes.

Now you're not gonna embrace that standard, don't answer according to his folly, but you are gonna answer him according to his folly by reflecting that philosophy back to him and saying, well, actually, if there were no absolutes, you couldn't say there are no absolutes. You see how silly you're being? OK, you're reflecting that philosophy back to him, so he cannot be wise in his own eyes. He sees the absurdity of his own presuppositions, very powerful strategy.

Let me show you how it works on a silly example and then some more realistic ones. Suppose somebody says, I don't believe in words. Prove to me creation is true without using words cause I don't believe in words, so you can't use words. And I, I use that because it's a lot like the people who say, oh you can't use the Bible because I don't believe in the Bible.

And a lot of, a lot of creationists would say, oh, you don't believe in words, I guess you can't use words then. I guess we'll use charades or something to prove that creation is true. No, don't answer the fool according to his folly. So follow that don't answer, answer strategy.

First of all, you're gonna use the don't answer part. You're gonna say, I don't accept your belief that words don't exist. I don't accept your standard. Now, by the way, you don't necessarily have to say that, but, but in some cases maybe you do.

Make it clear that you don't accept, you don't embrace the standard. But then do that internal critique, reflect it back to him and say, but for the sake of argument, if words didn't exist, you couldn't argue anyway. The fact that you're able to make your case demonstrates that it is wrong. You just use words to tell me you don't believe in words.

Don't you see how absurd that is reflecting back his philosophy to him. It's a great argument. What's he gonna say now? If he says nothing, your point stands unrefuted.

If he says anything, he proves your point. See, it's a great way of arguing, an irrefutable way of arguing, really. Don't embrace the presuppositions of the unbeliever. Never put on the suit.

But do reflect it back to him so that he can see the absurdity of his own position. And let's take that, that, strategy now and apply it to the areas of knowledge that we've already talked about, logic and morality and science and so on. Suppose somebody says, I believe in naturalism, they're probably not gonna be that upfront about it. You're gonna have to listen and figure out their worldview, but it becomes clear they're a naturalist.

And he says, show me logically how the earth could be 6000 years old. You, I hope you're mentally zooming in on two words, logic and naturalism, because we already saw those two things don't go well together, do they? If you're a naturalist, nature is all that there is, you can't have universal and material and varying entities like laws of logic. And so now what we're gonna do is use the don't answer, answer strategy to expose the absurdity of this person's worldview.

We're gonna say, well, first of all, I don't accept your belief in naturalism, so I'm not even gonna attempt to prove creation on your standards. But for the sake of argument, if naturalism were true, you couldn't prove anything because you, you can't have laws of logic if you're a naturalist. See how powerful that strategy is because it goes right to the heart of the issue fast. All right.

Good. I was trying to remember where I had read this particular story. there's a gentleman that was witnessing to some people that were arguing that, there are basically no absolutes, no moral absolutes, and he said, well, if, is there anything that you think is absolutely wrong? And they finally admitted, yeah, destroying the world or being bad environmentally, that's absolutely wrong.

To go out and destroy the trees and to destroy our environment, we can admit that's, that's a moral evil. And so then he just began to question them on how do that? What's turning the mirror back, on what basis do that? to which this young couple didn't really have any reply other than that's just what we believe.

And then he asked a really an excellent question that I've, I've used in, in this similar type of debate, and that is, on what basis then, on what basis do you feel like we as humans have a moral responsibility to take care of the environment? Why, why should humans feel any sense of obligation to care for the earth? If we've all basically evolved from slime and it's just survival of the fittest and here we are at the top of the food chain, why should that matter? is it wrong, if it's not wrong for animals to go around and slaughter each other, why should it be wrong for human beings to slaughter Nature, to which they, they really don't have a reply.

this is, this is similar to what Bill was talking about that your worldview is going to be self-contradicting on some level. If you are trying to approach the world outside of a gospel or biblical worldview. you can't say that I'm an environmentalist. I believe in evolution, evolutionary worldview, and then somehow think that human beings have any sense of responsibility for their environment.

The only way that you can come up with an idea that human beings have a stewardship over their environment is to borrow from the Christian worldview where God has told us that we are to have dominion over the environment and that human beings are responsible for their care of other human beings, for the care of other animals, and so on and so forth. Does that make sense? All right, any questions you guys have? Because we're gonna apply this now to our que our, our question of where did God come from?

How do we know God exists? Any questions? Comments, criticisms, or concerns. All right, so you're, you're in, you're talking to a friend or family member.

And they say, how do that God exists? I don't believe in God. I can't see God. I've never seen God.

In fact, when I look out at this world and I see so much evil in it, I just can't believe a good God could possibly exist and allow, people to molest children. Look at all these Roman Catholic priests that have been molesting boys, and they've wrecked their lives. I can't possibly believe in a God like that. How do we respond?

How do we respond to someone who says they don't believe in God, and if the Christian God exists, he's really a jerk. Yeah, Mitch, that's why we believe the Bible explains. Excellent. I, I love Mitch's answer is my first place is going to, is to be to go to the Bible.

the Bible is the ultimate answer, and the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Now, just like they said in the video, we're gonna not answer full according to his folly, answer full according to his folly. there's certain things I'm gonna bring out to try to demonstrate, where their worldview leads. But I'm gonna, more and more, I am just starting with the scriptures.

So, if somebody asked me, how do God exists? I'm not gonna assume that they know anything about the Bible. Most of the people I'm talking to these days, they've never read Genesis. They have no idea what it says.

And I'll just ask them, hey, have you ever read the book of Genesis? And the real typical answer I'm getting these days is, what's that? And so I'll say, well, let me, can I read you just a couple of verses from the Bible or I'll quote it, quote it to them. And so, let's open up the Book of Genesis.

I think this is the first place that we want to start. These are verses that we've gone through in our sermon series. How does the Bible answer the question, where did God come from? How do we know it exists?

You open up to the very first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's about as complex as the Bible gets about answering the question, where did God come from? The Bible presupposes God's existence right at the very beginning of the book.

Never even bothers to try to prove the existence of God. The, the Bible, which we believe from a Christian worldview, obviously comes from God Himself. God just starts with the fact that he does exist. And as we'll look at it some, some later passages, he knows that everybody knows in their hearts that he exists as well.

And so it just starts in the beginning, God. So when time began, God was already there, and he created the heavens and the earth. And so we, we start with the Bible and we'll, a lot of times I'll just say the Bible never really tries to prove it, prove his existence. The Bible presupposes that he is there.

And they'll say, what's, you can't do that, where, where did God come from? And at that point, a lot of times I will flip over to another line of reasoning or another line of, of questioning. We'll come back to these verses in a second. Let me see if I've got it.

no, I don't have it up there. Yeah, I do. I think it's after the slide. OK, here we go.

OK, so the, so you, you show them Genesis one, and they say, well, I don't accept that. Where, where did God come from? The Bible says that God existed, but I just don't see any evidence for God., one of the things that Jesus would do a lot of times when he was engaging people, he would ask questions back to them. They would ask him a question, he says, well, let me ask you a question.

And he would, in a sense, try to answer full according to his folly. So what I'll do is I'll ask, I didn't want all that to pop up at the same time, that's OK. where did matter come from? I'll follow up with a question.

Well, can I ask you a question? Sure. Where did matter come from? And most people will say something like matter came into existence at the Big Bang.

To which you ask what? Where did the Big Bang come from? Where did the material come from to start the Big Bang? And they'll, and they'll give, if, if they're a student in any way, which most people don't, they, they don't know the research or the background of this, they'll say, well, there's scientific studies, that are being performed where we're getting closer and closer to the answer of where material started from in the universe, but if they're honest, they'll say we still don't know.

And so I'll suggest that there's 3 possible there's 3 possibilities for where matter came from. Either matter is eternal. And this is what some of the The philosophers that Paul was engaging with in Acts 17, some of them believed in eternal matter. And so, in fact, time just cycles on itself and matter has always existed.

So that's one possibility. The other possibility is spontaneous matter. There was nothingness and that's what the Big Bang is trying to, trying to prove is that basically there's absolute nothingness, then suddenly there's something that something just pops out of nowhere. That's been scientifically disproven, the idea of spontaneous generation.

When I was in school, in high school, they had chapters on this. I don't know if they still have it, where they would show like a piece of meat, right? That's open and not covered, and then you show another piece that's of meat that's completely covered. And it used to be an ancient, times that people thought that flies would just spontaneously generate from meat.

But when they covered the meat, they could demonstrate that no, flies don't come from meat that's covered. They come from meat that's not covered. They were able to discover that flies were landing on the meat, leaving their larvae, and the larvae came from old meat. Do you guys remember any of that in high school?

It was all to disprove the idea of spontaneous generation, that there's no such thing. You don't get life from non-life, right? And you don't get stuff from non-stuff. And so, scientifically, this has been disproven.

But so many scientists today will take the faith leap and say when it comes to the Big Bang, we have spontaneous matter. The third possibility is created matter, is that you have a being who has created all things, which begs the question, where did the creator come from? And we have a, a further response to that. But I, I asked him which one of these three seems most logical.

More often than not, a lot of the unbelieving people I'm speaking to, they'll say, what do you think is the most common answer up here for people who do not believe in God? What do you think they choose out of the three? Yeah, spontaneous matter is the most popular answer if you don't believe in God. Most of them would say eternal matter seems nonsense.

Although some, some scientists will say eternal matter. They'll say the universe is eternal. It's just been contracting and expanding forever. but most people will say spontaneous matter, even though it violates all known laws of science.

So what you've demonstrated when they give that answer, you say, so you are gonna argue for something that contradicts all known. Laws of science, and if they're honest, they'll say yes. And so here's what I, I do at that point. I say, OK, great.

I respect your answer, but I just wanna make this clarifying point that we are outside of a scientific discussion. We're not talking about faith versus science, we're talking about metaphysics, we're talking about faith versus faith. So as long as we understand those ground rules that we're no longer having a scientific discussion, we're talking about belief systems, let's continue this discussion. Because in their minds, what they're, what they think they have is they think they have the scientific worldview versus your faith position, which is a leap of weak faith, when in reality, we're both dealing with metaphysical questions that cannot be circumscribed by the scientific method.

Nobody can go back to the beginning and you can't put it in a test tube, you can't measure it, you can't repeat it, you can't test it. The scientific method does not apply. So now we're gonna need to ask, OK, so what's most logical, and I will suggest that created matter is most logical because to me it doesn't seem logical that matter just is eternal. If stuff came from non-stuff, you still have the problem of stuff organizing itself.

How did the stuff begin to organize itself? How did that organized material suddenly become life? And how does life suddenly grow up into human beings where we can have a logical discussion that we're actually dealing with speech and interpretation of speech and laws of logic. That just does not make sense.

However, if we have created matter and the creator organized the stuff and gave his living beings, ultimately the human beings, the ability to converse, to understand each other, to use words and to have laws of logic, that makes the most sense to me and I'll ask him, so what do you think? And more often than not, because they're reading this evidence through wrong glasses, what are they going to say to my arguments? What do most people say when I, when I developed that really, what, what I think is a wonderfully well developed logical argument.

What do they say?

Yeah, they reject it because they're, they're, they have the wrong glasses on and even though I've I've for the sake of argument, I've come over to this philosophical side, most people are not gonna be convinced by this. But I just try to demonstrate to them that the Bible is, it's not anti-rational. there is a rational explanation for what the Bible says. But then I try to get as quick as possible back to God.

And so let's go to, let's go to Exodus chapter 3. We see in the beginning In the beginning, God created. But what God is this? According to the Bible, we have a very clear explanation of, of, of the God that we're dealing with.

Exodus chapter 3. Verse 13. Then Moses said, I, we're gonna go 13 to 15. If I've come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask, what is his name?

What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say to these people, of Israel, I have sent you. God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord, that is Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

So God identifies himself as I am who I am, and then he calls himself Yahweh, which in the Hebrew we have no consonant, no vowels there, so we're not really even sure how to pronounce it. But we just know it's the four different Hebrew letters that we today pronounce as Yahweh or Jehovah. and so we have this God called I am. That, that idea gets repeated throughout the Old Testament.

You get to the book of John, Jesus is identifying himself. He says, before Abraham was, what does he say? I am. When they come to arrest Jesus in the garden, he says, who are you seeking?

They say, Oh, I'm good, Brian. I'm OK, man. Thanks. I really appreciate it though.

Thanks a lot. I do need to get my glasses checked though. Thanks, bro. so then you get to, Jesus in the garden, they come to arrest him.

They say, he says, Who are you seeking? They say, Jesus Nazareth. What does he say? He says, I am.

In your translations, it says, I am he. Literally it says I am, and what happens to everybody that's standing around? They'll automatically fall. If there's anything called slain in the Spirit, this is the only place we see it.

Jesus says, I am, and they all get slain in the Spirit, so to speak. They fall over miraculously. Jesus Christ himself proclaiming the name of God on his own lips, I am, and people automatically fall down. And so the Bible has given us indication that I am, Yahweh is God.

Jesus comes to the New Testament says, I am, Jesus is God. And so that is what we see with the God of the Bible. We can develop the, the deity of the Holy Spirit when we get to the doctrine of the Trinity. Let's finish with this.

I'm gonna give you guys a What we, what we're doing in the doctrine class. This, this is like a A Cliff Notes response to the whole idea of God's existence. And so, I will email you guys these notes, so don't feel like you need to furiously write this stuff down. It's all gonna be emailed to you as long as you're signed up for the class, you're gonna get it.

we've already argued that all people have an inner sense of God, right? You don't, you don't always tell people this, although sometimes I do. in fact, I did with this lady that was cutting my hair the other day. Because at one point, you could tell she started to feel, it seemed like She was feeling a little bit uncomfortable with some of the concepts that we're talking about.

And she said something like this, I just think it's, it's so neat that, somebody who's struggling or has a need that they can just go to that spirit or that person that they believe in and call upon them. And that just having faith in someone or something can give us comfort. That was her response. And I listened to her for a while and I was like, yeah, that's, that's interesting, but.

I said, God is who He is regardless of what you are, I think. He is a person and whatever concept you have of him or whatever concept I have of him. He is there. He is him regardless of what we think.

If you came up to me and said, hey, I know your son Joshua, yeah, that 6'4 guy that plays basketball, plays the saxophone, blonde hair, blue eyes, I would say, no, my son is 5'7, brown hair, plays piano. And so you could think that my son, but if you give the wrong data points, I would say you don't know my son. And people can say they know God, but God is a person. And, and I, and I told her, I said, and by the way, I believe that everybody knows who the true God is, at some point because God has put it in them.

But what we like to do in our lives is we wanna live our lives according to our standards rather than his, and by nature, we create a new concept of God in our minds to appease our guilt. And she got real quiet at that point. And, and that's, that's what we do is people, they have an inner sense of God, they know that. this lady that Wayne Gruden was flying on an airplane with, he was having a conversation with her.

She said she didn't believe in God or didn't know if he existed. All of a sudden the plane started freaking out and all of the, those oxygen masks dropped down, and she cried out, Oh Lord Jesus, help me. Right there after that conversation. And just revealing something that was in her heart while she was trying to while she was trying to repress it.

Yet Scripture recognizes that people repress this inner sense of God. they even deny that he exists. Sin will cause people to deny their knowledge of God. We see in Romans, the inner awareness of God becomes stronger and more distinct in the Christian as the Lord gives us a change of mind.

The Spirit bears with our spirits, right? That we are his children and we have a, a deeper sense of God's presence. letter B, we believe in the evidence that is found in Scripture and nature. While we understand that the Bible is authoritative, and in fact, it's the only firm sense of authority that we have, because the Bible is relating reality, as Christians, we can look at, we can look at nature with the right glasses on and see that there's evidence for God everywhere.

so we see the evidence in scripture. We see evidence for God's existence found in nature, especially a man himself. When you guys look at Psalm 119, it speaks of how that the glory of God is declared, throughout the heavens and throughout the earth. And so God has left a witness of himself in nature, and if properly interpreted, it should lead people to thankfulness.

But what they do by nature without the movement of the Spirit is they repress it in unrighteousness. so thus, for those who are correctly evaluating the evidence, everything in scripture and everything in nature proves clearly that God exists, that he is the powerful and wise creator that Scripture describes him to be. However, while the traditional proofs may have some value, they cannot bring unbelievers to saving faith. When we talk about traditional proofs, we're talking about those proofs that were originally, at least I would say organized by Thomas Aquinas.

It's not like Thomas Aquinas just created these out of thin air. Christians had been using this type of stuff for many years. The thing that Thomas Aquinas brought to the equation though, is Thomas Aquinas brought what we would call natural theology. What do we mean by natural theology?

He took the perspective that That God has placed knowledge of Himself in the Bible, and he has placed knowledge of Himself in nature, and they are of equal authority. And so we can start without the Bible, set the Bible over here, look just to nature, and we can reason from nature without the Bible. By using the various traditional proofs. This is, this is the age-old philosopher's questions.

Descartes picks this up later on when he says, I think, therefore I am. What is Descartes saying in that statement? Was Descartes an atheist, a non-Christian? No, he's actually coming from a Christian worldview, but he's saying on the most basic level, setting scripture aside, what can I know for certain?

I think, therefore I exist. That's what he comes to. If I can think, I must exist. And later, other philosophers said that's not necessarily true.

But he, that was, that worked for him. I think therefore I exist. And from there, he tries to build a system that eventually comes to the God of the Bible without starting with the Bible. Let me just quickly in the last few minutes we have.

If we don't finish all this, I'll just post it. so this is the way Aquinas and others would argue. You have the cosmological argument. Every effect must have an adequate cause.

God is the ultimate cause. Once you get back to God, you get to the uncaused cause, is the way they would argue. The teleological argument experience tells us that there's a purpose in the universe, therefore, there must be an intelligent designer. So we look out in the world, it seems like the world has purpose, therefore, there must be a purpose maker.

There is the ontological argument, no being can be imagined to be greater than God. He is the ultimate being as the ultimate being, therefore, he must exist. This is like a much higher philosophically than I can really grapple with. Believe it or not, this argument is really working for a lot of people in the philosophical realm.

A guy named Alan Plantiga, has anybody ever heard of Plantiga? He uses this and he's finding success at least breaking down some intellectual hangups that people have. Ultimately, they gotta be convicted of sin and believe the gospel, but he's, I, I have no idea what it means, but I just tell you it, yeah. OK.

Then there's the moral anthropological argument. There must be a lawgiver behind the morality of man. You go find cultures all over the world. There's two things you're gonna find in every culture, whether or not they've been coming into contact with the Bible.

You're gonna find people are made in the image of God, and so there's nobility. And you're gonna find people are falling, therefore, there's sin and depravity. Every culture, you can find nobility and depravity. This is where some of the Christians got it wrong, like Western culture where we thought that Christianity equals civilization, and then you would go discover civilizations that have been untouched by Christianity, and they find nobility there, and they would be like, whoa, this contradicts our idea.

It wasn't because the Bible got it wrong, they, they had it wrong. Every culture has nobility and depravity, right? So it's not, it shouldn't be surprising to find a non-Christian culture that has good things in it, because they're made in the image of God. But you're also gonna find depravity there and the need for the gospel.

So anyway, so there's the moral argument, it must come from God. The value of the traditional proofs, this is what Gruden says, because all these arguments are based on facts about the creation that are indeed true facts, we may say that all of these proofs, when carefully constructed, are in an objective sense valid proofs. They're valid in that they correctly evaluate the evidence. Here's the problem though.

If it is true that sin causes people to think irrationally, then these proofs are attempts to cause people to think rationally or correctly about the evidence of God's existence, in spite of the irrational tendencies caused by sin. This is where Aquinas got it wrong. You can't go with natural theology, lay the Bible aside, try to enter some neutral ground, and prove to people that God exists. Just about, you can go on YouTube.

And find all kinds of non-believing secular philosophers or apologists or whatever, who will go down the line of these traditional proofs and just rip them to shreds and laugh at them, that this does not prove God. And here's what they say, even Christians will say this, cosmological argument. Infinite regress, that's the problem with it. You have cause after cause after cause, then you get to the uncaused cause.

Why do you stop there? Where did God come from? It's infinite regress. How do people, how do that the God of the Bible is the ultimate cause?

OK, so you say that there must be an ultimate cause, but maybe it's just an, an impersonal force. Why do you get to the God of the Bible? Eventually, you get to the place where you have to have faith imparted to you by the Holy Spirit through His word. Teleological argument.

How do you come up with the God of the Bible? Perhaps the God of the universe is impersonal. Does the presence of a natural catastrophes mean that the designer is a bad one? So in the Christian worldview, we see creation and chaos because of the fall.

The fall gives us the explanation for chaos. If you try to start without the Bible with the teleological argument that there's purpose in the universe, then how do you explain tornadoes that just wipe people out, Christian and non-Christian alike. How do you, how do you, how do you deal with disease that will just go through and just rip people to shreds, little, little babies. The ontological argument, the starting point is assumed, not proved.

They would say, yes, we know, that's why it is an ontological argument. even if we grant the starting point, how do you come to the God of the Bible? Are you seeing a theme here? You might be able to somehow logically get people to say that maybe there's some impersonal force out there that started it all, but you're never gonna get to the God of the Bible with the traditional proofs.

The moral argument, again, this does not lead to the God of the Bible. So some questions, do they lead to the God of the Bible? Answer. No, none of them do.

is there certainty in them? No, there's not. You can, you can give probability, but you can't come to certainty with any of these arguments. Could an unsafe person be saved by accepting these arguments?

I would argue, no, there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved, that is Jesus Christ. And you can't get to Jesus Christ from the teleological arguments, leaving the Bible aside. You only get to Jesus Christ through special revelation. Can they help in removing intellectual hangups?

I think maybe. I'll use some of these arguments sometimes to talk about morality when people say there are no morals. I'll say things like, well, do you think it's a Do you think it's OK for people to torture babies just for fun? It's it OK to torture a baby just for fun?

I, I've never heard anybody say yes, that's OK. People know intuitively it's not OK to torture babies for fun. Well, how do that? Where do we get this idea that there is a morality, that there is right and wrong?

Is it, if you think there's no morality, is it OK for me just to take out my gun and shoot you or shoot your wife or shoot your kids? People know intuitively, even when really, really bad things happen, when 9/11 happens, right? When I, what did everybody on all the secular news channels say? Let's be praying.

We're praying for you. We're praying for the victims. Somehow just good luck or we're thinking good thoughts doesn't work. most of you guys, or many of you guys know that my wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, about, about 1 month or 1 month, about 5 weeks ago.

And, I've got a lot of believing and unbelieving, friends and family, but it's interesting, I, I had an unbelieving family member say, tell Katie she's in, in my prayers. What does that reveal? That when real life happens, somehow good luck, we're thinking good thoughts, hoping for the best, isn't satisfactory, right? Even somebody who does not acknowledge God in their own life feels compelled to say, She's in our prayers.

Right? There's just something built in. Let's see. Only God can overcome our sin, enable us to be persuaded of his existence because of all the things that we've talked about already.

And so we are ultimately dependent upon God to remove the blindness and irrationality caused by sin. This should give us comfort and compassion. Comfort that it doesn't all depend on you, right? When I was a younger believer, I would just be racked up in my guts that why it was that I would share what I thought were compelling reasons to believe and why people just wouldn't believe.

And I just felt like I'm doing something wrong. I'm just doing something wrong. But if we just will go out and be faithful, just open up our mouths for the gospel, pray. We can be comforted that it's ultimately in God's hands.

Also, it gives us compassion because we realize that the person that we're talking to, while on one level, they are culpable, they, they're a volitional human being who must choose to repent. We're also, they've been taken captive by the devil to do his will, and we're waiting for God to grant them repentance. So, it's, we should be very patient. With people.

We have every reason to be compassionate and patient with our unbelieving friends and family as we're sharing the gospel. All right. I, I just think this is one of the, for me, this is one of the most important life lessons for me personally in my life. As, as far as how to think about my witnessing evangelism and apologetics.

it just gives me great comfort, boldness, compassion, patience. Any questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns? Say it again. praise the Lord.

Yeah, Mitch couldn't help but think of Isaiah. That question before God. Right. Before me, there was no God, yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. For me, there was no God, nor shall there be after me. Awesome. Yeah, So knowing, let's, we'll pray with this, knowing that God is in the business of granting repentance to people, right?

The fields are white with harvest, the holy, the gospel's out there, the Bible's there, it's in our hands. God is doing work. When you come into contact with people, God in His sovereignty and His providence is giving that person a grace. Because you've got this truth that will rescue them from the devil in hell.

And so now they've been they've bumped up into contact with you. What a grace in their lives. So let's be willing to share that grace. There was something I said in my sermon, a couple of weeks ago that we'll follow up on, I think in the next message.

It's a little different when you're dealing with family members that you see all the time, all right? There are some different approaches. you wanna take advantage of those, those people you don't get to see all the time and it's their lucky day concept. Let's share the gospel.

But once you've shared the gospel with family members and they've rejected the gospel, there are some other nuances to that, all right? so I would not recommend that every time you see your family on every single instance, you just like boom, boom, boom, hit them with the same message, just hoping it's gonna work. There are, there is some wisdom issues there, if that makes any sense. We'll hopefully hit that next week.

Let's go ahead and pray and I'll be up here for questions. Lord, we thank you so much. That it does not all depend on us. But, the evidence that you have put in this world and in your word is overwhelming.

And you have also just put your Holy Spirit in this world through the church. And so we are just thankful that we look at the book of Revelation, it's not like we're trying to figure out who's gonna win, but the game's already been decided. We already know that we are on the winning side and so you're telling us just to go out and play the game and, and it's, it's exciting to see what you're gonna do. And we pray, Father, that by your grace that you would help us to open up our mouths for the gospel with compassion.

And also just being comforted, that it doesn't all depend upon us. But help us just to take part in this harvest and to rejoice in it and give you glory. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.