Evangelism: The Message Content - Repent and Believe in the Exalted One - Pastor Josh Ritchie

2 Timothy 1:8-12 - Faithful to the Call; The Antidote to Shame - Thomas Easterling

The Purpose of Christmas: Preparing For Advent - Mark 1:35-39

Philippians 4:11-13 - Learn to be Content - Carlos Pamplona

The lecture presents a comprehensive refutation of Unitarian biblical counterfeits—particularly Islam, Jehovah Witnesses, and modern Judaism—by demonstrating their internal contradictions, philosophical inconsistencies, and failure to meet the preconditions of intelligibility. It argues that Islam's claim of divine revelation is self-defeating, as its assertion that Allah is beyond human comprehension undermines the very possibility of the Quran being a valid revelation, while its shifting doctrines and reliance on the concept of abrogation (nasikh) reveal arbitrariness and a lack of divine immutability. Similarly, other Unitarian variants are shown to fail the 'one and many' problem, as their conception of a singular, unchanging God cannot account for attributes like love without dependence on creation, thereby compromising divine sovereignty and coherence. The sermon further critiques Mormonism as a polytheistic counterfeit rooted in the fraudulent claims of Joseph Smith, whose history as a convicted con man and inconsistent, contradictory narratives—including the forged authenticity of the Book of Mormon—undermine its credibility. Ultimately, the Christian worldview is upheld as the only one that consistently satisfies the preconditions of intelligibility, offering a coherent, self-consistent, and morally grounded foundation rooted in the triune God, the historical reliability of Scripture, and the fulfillment of divine revelation in Jesus Christ.

Jesus, as the Messiah, embodies the past, present, and future hope of humanity by meeting profound spiritual and physical needs through miraculous healing and provision, demonstrating that His ministry is a foretaste of the coming eternal kingdom. The healing of the blind, lame, mute, and crippled in the Decapolis—despite the region's pagan idolatry—reveals the supremacy of the God of Israel over false gods and points to the ultimate restoration of creation, where all suffering and death will be swallowed up. The miracle of feeding 4,000 people with seven loaves and fish, occurring on a mountain reminiscent of Sinai and Zion, echoes Old Testament patterns of divine provision and foreshadows the final banquet in the new creation, where God's people will feast eternally in a healed world. These signs are not merely wonders but theological declarations: they affirm Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel's hopes, the conqueror of sin and death, and the one who inaugurates a kingdom that is both present in grace and future in glory. The sermon calls believers to live with eternal perspective, investing in souls, stewarding earthly realities as shadows of the eternal, and organizing their lives around the hope of Christ's return, while urging unbelievers to repent and place their faith in Him for eternal life.

Mark 1:29-34 - The Great Physician - Pastor John Weigle

Rekindle the Flame of our Faith by being Faithful To God

This sermon presents a powerful exposition of authentic faith through the story of a Canaanite woman who persistently seeks Jesus despite three escalating obstacles: His silence, His declaration that He was sent only to Israel, and His metaphorical reference to her as a dog. The preacher emphasizes that true faith is not merely intellectual assent but a persistent, humble, and worshipful trust in Jesus as Lord and Messiah, even when God's actions seem contrary to one's hopes. The woman's faith is validated not by her ethnicity or background, but by her unwavering persistence, her agreement with God's truth, and her reliance on His character and promises, demonstrating that salvation is available to anyone who comes with genuine, faithful trust. The sermon concludes by calling believers to a deeper, more faithful faith—directed to Christ in worship, sustained through trials, and rooted in the conviction that God's promises are trustworthy, even when His timing is mysterious.

This lesson presents a robust theological and apologetic critique of Islam as a prominent biblical counterfeit, arguing that while it borrows key elements of the Christian worldview—such as monotheism, prophetic revelation, and a sacred text—it fundamentally fails to uphold the preconditions of intelligibility due to internal inconsistencies, arbitrariness, and doctrinal contradictions. The speaker emphasizes that Islam's claim to confirm earlier revelations is self-defeating, as it contradicts the biblical principle that later revelation must align with earlier divine revelation, and highlights numerous doctrinal discrepancies, including the denial of Christ's divinity, the rejection of original sin, and the absence of atonement, which undermine its moral and theological coherence. The lecture further exposes the Koran's historical and textual vulnerabilities, particularly the destruction of variant manuscripts under Caliph Uthman, which renders its claim to textual perfection arbitrary and unverifiable, in contrast to the Bible's extensive manuscript evidence. Ultimately, the argument from truth demonstrates that Islam's reliance on the Bible for legitimacy only exposes its contradictions, while the argument from folly—promised for the next session—will further dismantle its worldview by showing how its foundational claims collapse under their own weight, revealing Islam as a system that cannot account for logic, morality, or human experience in a coherent way.