SPEAKER_02: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Well, a very good morning.
SPEAKER_01: It's so good to be back.
SPEAKER_01: I've crisscrossed the state.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Up in Bottenau, there's no more gophers left there after I went hunting up there.
SPEAKER_01: And then I went down to Medora, saw the bison, but I left them alone.
SPEAKER_01: It was good.
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful state.
SPEAKER_01: We're really blessed by God to be in such a beautiful state.
SPEAKER_01: And I see so many new faces.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gone for like a few Sundays.
SPEAKER_01: And there's so many new faces.
SPEAKER_01: So make sure before you leave today to just turn around and see who's new and just woke up and introduce yourself, okay?
SPEAKER_01: This uh morning's message comes from Romans chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: But before we get there, I want to tell you a little story about the nuclear energy program and the former Soviet Union.
SPEAKER_01: The Soviets prided themselves in their RBMK 1000 nuclear reactors that came into operation in the Soviet Union around the 1970s.
SPEAKER_01: However, this RBMK 1000 reactor had some design issues.
SPEAKER_01: The problem was once the reactor started up, you could not shut it down.
SPEAKER_01: The ability to shut it down in the act of in the event of an emergency was complicated.
SPEAKER_01: But designers came up with this idea to soothe the uneasy consciences of everyone.
SPEAKER_01: They called it the EPS5 button.
SPEAKER_01: It was a red button on the console to shut it down in an emergency.
SPEAKER_01: Something happens, you just hit the EPS5 button.
SPEAKER_01: But this was only a matter of theory.
SPEAKER_01: It was never tested nor proven.
SPEAKER_01: And on that fateful day of April 26, 1986, at 01 23 AM, an engineer at reactor number three in Chernobyl finally resorted to hit that APS V button.
SPEAKER_01: What did it do?
SPEAKER_01: Well, hitting that red button unleashed a series of catastrophic events.
SPEAKER_01: First, it caused a spike in the fuel rod temperature.
SPEAKER_01: Then a massive spike and buildup of radioactive steam, finally leading to a pressure buildup rupturing the cooling system of reactor three.
SPEAKER_01: The rest became history.
SPEAKER_01: In the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, it came to light that the EPS-5 button was really speculative theory.
SPEAKER_01: This thing was never tested, never proven to work.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it was just a cover-up.
SPEAKER_01: It was a clever invention of politics and engineering.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they could convince people to embrace this idea of a button that could shut down a reactor in blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: It was an exercise in blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone seemed to have forgotten the reality of the truth.
SPEAKER_01: You see, my dear brothers and sisters, in evangelizing the lost, we will inevitably be challenged by people who have forgotten the truth.
SPEAKER_01: They will outright begin ridiculing you for your belief in Jesus Christ and the God who created all things, seen and unseen.
SPEAKER_01: You see, sharing your faith with the skeptic, with the doubter, with the mocker, with the agnostic can be an intimidating thing.
SPEAKER_01: And Christians often backpitle out of it.
SPEAKER_01: You see, dealing with a skeptic or a doubter or an atheist or an agnostic is often an intimidating thing.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we as Christians often feel like we live in this ivory tower built up by our blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: As we share the gospel with people, we will find that we might have lost all sense of rationality, reasoning, and logic.
SPEAKER_01: When people start sneering at our claims as Christians, we feel like everything we hold to is unproven, untested, and unrealistic and nothing but a blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: Now, ever hearing the doubter, the skeptic, the intellectual, the philosopher, hearing them speak, you would think that their belief system is a flawless bastion of proven, tested, and realistic-based evidence-based facts.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't the saying we follow the facts, but you Christians follow the fantasies of your faith?
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is true.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we feel if if we get into a conversation with a doubter or a skeptic and we can't give all the counterclaims and counter-arguments and answer all their questions, we would look like religious goobers.
SPEAKER_01: And sharing the gospel with people, we often sound, we think we sound like mindless religious fanatics.
SPEAKER_01: Especially when people come up with all their lofty arguments against the existence of an all-powerful, all-benevolent creator, God.
SPEAKER_01: We feel like we've committed intellectual suicide once they begin throwing out their claims against the existence of God.
SPEAKER_01: But don't think for a minute you have committed intellectual suicide.
SPEAKER_01: For believing in a creator, God, who sent his only begotten son to redeem humanity from the penalty of sin on the cross and rose on the third day for their justification.
SPEAKER_01: That very thought, my dear brothers and sisters, is not committing intellectual suicide.
SPEAKER_01: Not believing in it is.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, they embrace it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's unpack the second part here of Romans 1, verses 18 to 22.
SPEAKER_01: And I will show you how people will put a blind faith in their own ideas, they will trust human speculation, and that those speculations will impact everything in life.
SPEAKER_01: How they interpret and see everything in life will be different.
SPEAKER_01: Their values, their decisions, their choices will be impacted by this blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: A guy who would argue against this idea of faith was a man named Bertrand Russell.
SPEAKER_01: He was a British philosopher and atheist and critic of Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: And he wrote many books as to why Christianity was just fantasy.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody once said, Professor Russell, what would happen if you die and one day you actually stand in front of God and he says, Professor Russell, why did you not believe in me?
SPEAKER_01: What would you say to God?
SPEAKER_01: And this is what his reply was I would say to God, not enough evidence.
SPEAKER_01: Not enough evidence.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that is the argument of the agnostic and the atheist, the doubter and the skeptic, not enough evidence.
SPEAKER_01: You see, my dear brothers and sisters, you would need to get good at biblical apologetics to address the stupidity of the atheist and the agnostic.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's not a matter that there is a lack of evidence, it is more the idea that they don't care about the evidence.
SPEAKER_01: And as the Bible says here, they suppress all the evidence.
SPEAKER_01: Look at your Bibles there in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Hang on to that verse.
SPEAKER_01: We will come back later to it.
SPEAKER_01: But look at the second part of that verse.
SPEAKER_01: Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who do what?
SPEAKER_01: Suppress the truth in all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: They suppress the truth in all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19, because that which is known about God is what?
SPEAKER_01: Evident within them.
SPEAKER_01: It's evident within them.
SPEAKER_01: For God made it evident to them.
SPEAKER_01: It's inside and it's from the outside.
SPEAKER_01: The evidence against unbelief and doubt and skepticism is firstly inside, and evidence to the contrary is from the outside.
SPEAKER_01: Internally, it's imprinted on the moral conscience of every human being, and externally, nature and creation.
SPEAKER_01: Let's unpack this verse, these two verses.
SPEAKER_01: Verses 18 and 19 really shows that the agnostic, the skeptic, the atheist, the unbeliever really has a predicament.
SPEAKER_01: He's in a predicament because there's so much evidence to the contrary that the wrath of God is revealed against them.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the ignorance of the unbeliever is not something about the lack of evidence, it is all about the aversion to that evidence.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: It says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19, for that which is known about God is evident.
SPEAKER_01: It is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.
SPEAKER_01: Those two words in the NASB, evident, comes from a fascinating Greek word.
SPEAKER_01: The Greek word is phanaros, phanaros, which is used widely in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It means something that is very apparent.
SPEAKER_01: It is very evident, it is widely known.
SPEAKER_01: It is obvious.
SPEAKER_01: It is very obvious to people, every created being, it is obvious.
SPEAKER_01: God made it obvious.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to go down, dive deep into the ocean to find God.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to travel to the moon to find something that speaks of God.
SPEAKER_01: God says it's within us.
SPEAKER_01: Ecclesiastes 3 11 says, God has set eternity in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Every human being leaves the womb pre-cremed with this concept of God.
SPEAKER_01: Every person born of a woman has this idea that God exists.
SPEAKER_01: Every human being you can say has this divine awareness.
SPEAKER_01: And think of it, when you were a child and you were disobedient, and you snuck into the pantry and you took that cookie before dinner, you would go, I wonder if God sees me.
SPEAKER_01: Every human being comes pre-programmed with this awareness of something bigger and greater than Him.
SPEAKER_01: There is something that says to every human being that there is something beyond this life.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the concept of God is not as alien as many would claim, but it's woven into the very fabric of our existence.
SPEAKER_01: There's something deep in every human being that echoes God.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, human beings suppress it.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll explain to you soon how they suppress it.
SPEAKER_01: But let's look, that's the internal evidence.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's look at the external evidences against unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: For since the creation of the world, verse 19, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature have been clearly seen.
SPEAKER_01: It can be seen and it can be understood through what has been created.
SPEAKER_01: So they are without excuse.
SPEAKER_01: As I traveled to the western part of the States, right up there in Madora, we had spectacular sunsets.
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder how many being uh humans stand there and say, well, chance and necessity, this all happened by accident.
SPEAKER_01: You have to be a fool to think that.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the existence of God, his eternality, his creative power, and the totality of his divine nature can be clearly seen in creation itself.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are a scientist, you will know something about the constancy of the laws of physics.
SPEAKER_01: You take something, you drop it.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's predictable.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There's something that says there is a God who has ordered all these things.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 19 is such a wonderful psalm.
SPEAKER_01: The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and the expanse, and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands.
SPEAKER_01: Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: From the creation until now, 247, 365 days of the year, nature impresses upon the human mind the existence of a creator God.
SPEAKER_01: But the doubter and the agnostic, well, they will look through a radio telescope or they will look into an electron microscope and say, I need more evidence.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you've got a PhD, and you're asking for more evidence?
SPEAKER_01: You see, the existence of God and his attributes have been made very plain and simple and clear and straightforward to all moral creatures through nature, and only the fool will demand more evidence.
SPEAKER_01: On April Fool's Day, you need to give the unbeliever Psalm 14.1.
SPEAKER_01: The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
SPEAKER_01: April Fool should be, April 1st should be Atheist Day.
SPEAKER_01: You see, God has so wonderfully and marvelously created and constructed this universe that every portion of it speaks of Him.
SPEAKER_01: You have to be a fool to look through a radio telescope observing the galaxies, and you look into the electron microscope and you see microscopic organisms, and you say, not enough evidence to believe in God.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Robert Mount says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, there, seeing the beauty and the complexity of creation carries with it the responsibility of acknowledging the Creator, both as powerful and as living above the natural order.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: You see, acknowledging God comes with a problem.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is acknowledging God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the problem is not that there is a lack of evidence.
SPEAKER_01: The problem for people is submitting to God.
SPEAKER_01: Despite the burden of truth, doubters and skeptics and critics will demand more evidence.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not the lack of evidence that is the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Submission is.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21 there.
SPEAKER_01: For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is the stubborn refusal to acknowledge God because if God is out there and he created me, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm accountable to him.
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm accountable to him, I have to submit to his ways of doing things.
SPEAKER_01: And so rather than do that, let's come up with a different plan.
SPEAKER_01: A plan that can assure autonomy and a dependence.
SPEAKER_01: A plan that could promise freedom without accountability.
SPEAKER_01: And that comes in the form of all the isms that we have in this life.
SPEAKER_01: Skepticism, atheism, humanism, Darwinism, existentialism, nihilism.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever ism is out there is nothing more than well-constructed unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we as human beings, we like cockroaches.
SPEAKER_01: We don't like light.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been in a place where there's a lot of cockroaches?
SPEAKER_01: You turn on the light and they just scatter.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: This is what John 3, 19 and 20 says.
SPEAKER_01: This is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because their deeds were evil.
SPEAKER_01: We love our sin.
SPEAKER_01: We call our favorite sin precious.
SPEAKER_01: For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that is so evident in human beings that they just don't like the idea that they are sinners.
SPEAKER_01: They will avoid this at all cost.
SPEAKER_01: They will avoid you bringing up the topic of God, judgment, resurrection, eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: They would not want you to talk about that for one, for fear of judgment by God, and number two, because they love their sin.
SPEAKER_01: So when people throw out this thing, well, I'm agnostic, or I follow the science.
SPEAKER_01: It's nothing but a ploy.
SPEAKER_01: It's a stubborn ploy not to give God the glory or acknowledge Him for their existence.
SPEAKER_01: So don't be derailed when you share the gospel or speak about God, about all these arguments against them.
SPEAKER_01: It's just deploy.
SPEAKER_01: The one day I was in the outdoors, and this probably Judah Heyer was uh hiding behind this bush.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, this is California, it's dry.
SPEAKER_01: The bushes don't get that bacon dance.
SPEAKER_01: And he was making out with his girlfriend, and the next moment he came out there and he saw me, and I'm like, I'm standing in with my kids in the park, and I'm like, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what he says to me?
SPEAKER_01: You didn't see that.
SPEAKER_01: No, I did not see that.
SPEAKER_01: What did he do?
SPEAKER_01: If I could just tell myself that there was no one looking, I'm off the hook.
SPEAKER_01: I'm off the hook.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the second part here.
SPEAKER_01: The affinity towards lies.
SPEAKER_01: You see, there's the affinity towards this speculative lies that people concoct and they embrace it.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because number one, it promises autonomy and independence from God, and number two, it promises that there will be no consequences when there is actually consequences.
SPEAKER_01: Let's unpack verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to verse 21 rather.
SPEAKER_01: For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their what?
SPEAKER_01: Speculations.
SPEAKER_01: Hang on to that word speculations.
SPEAKER_01: And the foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise, they became fools.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna unpack a few Greek words here for you, not to show off, but because it's very fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: The first word here is the word dialogismos, which is the word that sounds like dialogue.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And that's the word behind the English word speculation there.
SPEAKER_01: And it speaks of reasoning back and forth, exchanging opinions, deliberating well thought, well thought reasoning.
SPEAKER_01: It also means to consider things systematically and carefully.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the doubter and the agnostic, the atheist, whatever ism is out there, it's nothing more than systemized, well-reasoned, well-organized unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Says Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Peter Lillerbeck from Westminster Seminary.
SPEAKER_01: Human philosophy is nothing more than well-reasoned, organized, systemized unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the Darwinist will say, I was begotten by time and chance, never made.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the reasoning of the unbeliever is speculative, it's circular, it's self-defeating.
SPEAKER_01: It says there that these speculations were futile.
SPEAKER_01: Futile.
SPEAKER_01: People write sick books.
SPEAKER_01: And you come to the end and you're like, what was this all about?
SPEAKER_01: Who's taken a philosophy class at university?
SPEAKER_01: Put up your hands.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all, you gotta take that.
SPEAKER_01: Who thoroughly enjoyed that?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, one, two.
SPEAKER_01: Who?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we got two here.
SPEAKER_01: Keep up your hands.
SPEAKER_01: Who left there fulfilled with all the answers in life?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I risk my case.
SPEAKER_01: You see, people who do not want to face the truth come up with non-truth.
SPEAKER_01: And they love it.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what?
SPEAKER_01: You've just set aside that which is so evident and so clear, you know it on the inside, you see it on the outside, and yet you choose something else.
SPEAKER_01: That, my dear friends, is called intellectual suicide.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the Bible says there they became foolish within their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Their hearts were darkened and they became fools.
SPEAKER_01: I love that Greek word there.
SPEAKER_01: We get the English word moronic from there.
SPEAKER_01: The two Greek words there for fools and foolishness and folly is very insightful.
SPEAKER_01: It really speaks about the person who is dull, the person who is unintelligent, the person who does not have the ability to put the facts together properly.
SPEAKER_01: It's like somebody you give them a Rubik's Cube for two-year-olds and they and they just keep going, they can't figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: Not that I've ever solved a Rubik's Cube.
SPEAKER_01: No, I have.
SPEAKER_01: You put a screwdriver in and you pop it apart.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Paul's reasoning here is only the fool has the inability to conclude from creation that there is no creator.
SPEAKER_01: Only a fool can do that.
SPEAKER_01: One famous Dutch theologian in the early days of Westminster Seminary, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Cornelius Van Till, said the following: unless you believe in God, you can logically believe in nothing else.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when people come up with all the answers to life and they deny the existence of God, I'm like, I have a problem listening to you.
SPEAKER_01: You're not a very intelligent person, are you?
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I am.
SPEAKER_01: I am.
SPEAKER_01: I've got a PhD and postdoctoral research papers that I've written, and I'm employed by the state.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I should be very intelligent.
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe a thing that you're saying from this point on.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not a very smart person.
SPEAKER_01: You can't even figure out by looking at that sunset there in North Dakota that there's a creator God who put all these things in order.
SPEAKER_01: You can't figure out.
SPEAKER_01: What can I drop?
SPEAKER_01: That that is pretty predictable.
SPEAKER_01: Things aren't just random.
SPEAKER_01: There's order.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Robert Mount says the following.
SPEAKER_01: He says, disbelief requires an act of rebellion against common sense.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever met somebody who acts against common sense?
SPEAKER_01: You go on YouTube and you go, Wow, how did you not see this coming?
SPEAKER_01: How did you not figure out you're gonna break a leg when you do that?
SPEAKER_01: And these things are believable.
SPEAKER_01: A few years ago I was on the roof.
SPEAKER_01: I got on the roof easily.
SPEAKER_01: I got off the roof with difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember watching all those YouTubes about the kids just jumping off roofs and landing like a cat.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought the trash bin will catch me.
SPEAKER_01: I really believed it will work out.
SPEAKER_01: I had it all pictured.
SPEAKER_01: I ended up landing on the trash bin, and that thing just bottomed out on me, whacked my head, and it was so loud that my wife came out there and she's like, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'm only acting out what I saw on YouTube.
SPEAKER_01: You see, there there was a you see, I did not quite construct things in a logical order.
SPEAKER_01: You see, I had to let go of that which is real and evident and so clear for something that is stupid.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever taken a kid to a park?
SPEAKER_01: If you have, I'm not sure if you've looked at the monkey bars up close.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You call the monkey bars up?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what they call.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Getting frowns here.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe because it's so cold, kids don't go to the park.
SPEAKER_01: But in any case, if you inspect that those monkey bars, some of them actually have peanut butter on.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're like, no, no, no, no, no, don't touch that one.
SPEAKER_01: Just just swing past that one.
SPEAKER_01: Because you'll slip.
SPEAKER_01: How many other kids get on there with their grimy little fingers and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?
SPEAKER_01: And what if happens if I let go of one monkey bar to hang on one that is covered with peanut butter?
SPEAKER_01: What happens?
SPEAKER_01: You slip and fall.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's the unbeliever.
SPEAKER_01: The unbeliever hangs firmly on divine evidence revealed to them internally and externally, and they say, I want to let go of this to hang on the peanut butter covered bar.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna hang on there for dear life.
SPEAKER_01: This is what 2 Kings described for us.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Kings 17, 15.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected they rejected his statutes and his covenant, which he made with their fathers, and his warnings and which he warned them.
SPEAKER_01: And they followed vanity and became vain and went after the nations which surrounded them concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them.
SPEAKER_01: We will let go, like the Israelites, that which is firm and unmovable, the solid rock of biblical truth.
SPEAKER_01: We will let go of that to embrace something like atheism, agnosticism, existentialism, whatever is and is out there, Darwinism.
SPEAKER_01: You see, to be an atheist, you have to let go of God before you can hang on to atheism.
SPEAKER_01: You have to let go of God because you come out of the factory pre-programmed with the sense of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, my dear brothers and sisters, stop being fearful of all the arguments and speculations that there is against God.
SPEAKER_01: Bring up the topic with your friends, your neighbors, your family members, your co-workers.
SPEAKER_01: And lo and behold, you will find that they're not as smart as they portrayed themselves to be.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, there was an investigation as to why this fiasco happened.
SPEAKER_01: And it was nothing more than a blind faith in a red button on a console that read EPS5 shutdown.
SPEAKER_01: People put so much faith in that button, if this reactor starts cooking, we just hit that button and we can shut it down.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that didn't help.
SPEAKER_01: And you see, people put so much faith in something that overpromises and underdelivers.
SPEAKER_01: This is Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Valerie, well Valeri.
SPEAKER_01: Valerie Legasov.
SPEAKER_01: He was one of the firm opponents of the RBMK 1000 reactor.
SPEAKER_01: He said that these are ticking time bombs.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, there's about 20 more of these around the world.
SPEAKER_01: Just FYI.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if they still have the EPS5 button on them, but here's the thing is he warned that we are putting way too much stock in that button.
SPEAKER_01: And this could be an experiment of futility and blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what he said.
SPEAKER_01: I love these words.
SPEAKER_01: He says, when the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember the truth, even if it's there.
SPEAKER_01: But it's still there.
SPEAKER_01: Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Sooner or later, that debt is paid.
SPEAKER_01: You see, human beings who reject this idea of God who created the heavens and the earth and who sent his only begotten son, so whoever so believes in him will inherit eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: People who go against that are not as smart as we think.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, they need to let go of that and embrace lies, and they will tell themselves lies over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
SPEAKER_01: The truth is always out there, and at some point in life, they will need to reckon with the truth, and that is your job.
SPEAKER_01: That is your job, dear brother and sister.
SPEAKER_01: Your job is to go out there and remind people that the truth is still out there.
SPEAKER_01: Your job is to go out there and remind people that truth is still out there.
SPEAKER_01: Let them rather deal with the truth now than at some point before the throne of God.
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you my life, I've had so many people that I would go, I don't know, I don't know, I d I I don't think now's the time, always a better excuse.
SPEAKER_01: And then they die in a car accident, and I go, Wow, I should have.
SPEAKER_01: Now they have to reckon with God.
SPEAKER_01: There is a consequence.
SPEAKER_01: There is a consequence to unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: There is a consequence to rejecting God's truth.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they, here's the consequence, they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts was darkened.
SPEAKER_01: Professing to be wise, they became fools.
SPEAKER_01: That is God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Remember in verse 18 it spoke about the wrath of God?
SPEAKER_01: The wrath of God?
SPEAKER_01: How's the wrath of God revealed against the skeptic, the atheist, the agnostic, the Darwinist, the evolutionist, the humanist, the secularist?
SPEAKER_01: How's the wrath of God revealed against them?
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't squash them.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't trample them.
SPEAKER_01: He lets them go.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, as one commentator observes, he says, God's wrath here in Romans 1 is not by God's intervention, but precisely by his non-intervention, by letting men and women go their way.
SPEAKER_01: When we reject God, we become dumber and dumber and dumber.
SPEAKER_01: We're not becoming smarter and smarter and smarter.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to warn you: if you engage the unbeliever, the one who rejects God, the one with stubborn unbelief, the one that holds on to human theories, you're not going to deal with the most intelligent of human beings.
SPEAKER_01: Not that you need to be a condescending, you've got to be graceful and loving.
SPEAKER_01: But you've got to remember, as that famous British theologian C.K.
SPEAKER_01: Barrett once said, he says, once man had fallen from his true relation with God, he was no longer capable of truly rational thought.
SPEAKER_01: You see, my dear brothers and sisters, when you start engaging those hardened skeptics and agnostics, you start engaging them with this topic of God, you might be intimidated with the ivory tower that is portrayed.
SPEAKER_01: You see, their speculative ivory towers of intellectual idealism is not built with marble and mortar.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's whitewashed particle board held together by Elmer's glue.
SPEAKER_01: And its foundation is not this solid rock of divine evidence, but rather sinking sand of human speculation.
SPEAKER_01: Those living in these intellectual, ideological ivory towers have abandoned all rationality, logic, and reasoning.
SPEAKER_01: And they exchanged it for speculative falsehood embraced in nothing but blind faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so your job, my dear friends, is simple.
SPEAKER_01: You go out and you go shake that ivory tower with this.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't take much to shake something made of particle board and held together with Elmer's glue.
SPEAKER_01: Your job as a Christian is do not come up with all these counter arguments and engaging people at their level.
SPEAKER_01: You simply give them the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I believe everything came about by chance and necessity.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm telling you everything happened by chance and necessity, says the evolutionist.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I hear what you're saying, but in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain to you exactly how that took place.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to come up with some smart scientific proof.
SPEAKER_01: You use the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you why.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 10, and I have it up there on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Don't use science or whatever you want to use.
SPEAKER_01: Use the divinely given power tools for the destruction of these intellectual fortresses, these ivory towers.
SPEAKER_01: We are not destroying, we are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You can only do that if you know how to use this.
SPEAKER_01: This is a powerful tool.
SPEAKER_01: This is a sledgehammer.
SPEAKER_01: This is a jackhammer.
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as you start jackhammering at that foundation, you'll be surprised how quickly it falls.
SPEAKER_01: I would love to talk to you more about this idea of biblical apologetics.
SPEAKER_01: And in the fall, I will present a three-week seminar on biblical apologetics.
SPEAKER_01: If that interests you, uh, do send me an email.
SPEAKER_01: I would love to have you enrolled in that in the fall.
SPEAKER_01: But for now, my dear brothers and sisters, rest assured, don't be intimidated.
SPEAKER_01: You have everything in your hands to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And lo, he said, he is with you until the end of the age.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we are far too quickly intimidated by those who have abandoned all rationality and logic, who put their faith in in a system created by human minds.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we we have everything for life and godliness.
SPEAKER_01: Your word is a two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: It can pierce the heart and the mind, the soul and the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It goes between the bone and the marrow.
SPEAKER_01: And every joint it can pierce.
SPEAKER_01: It's powerful.
SPEAKER_01: It's powerful to destroy all lofty arguments raised up against the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that we will not be fearful people, but bold.
SPEAKER_01: Bold as lions, but gracious as lambs.
SPEAKER_01: May we gently and gracefully and lovingly engage people in this topic of the creator, the creator God, who is benevolent, who seeks fellowship with human beings, who sent his only begotten Son to provide payment for their sins.
SPEAKER_00: I pray God that no one will leave here today not convinced that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your holy name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_02: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.