Downhill Apologetics Q&A
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
For our guests, obviously, I'm anticipating that if you're a guest tonight, it wasn't because you saw we were gonna have a question-and-answers time with the elders on apologetics, but for the baptisms, and that's totally great.
But the elders recently taught a series. Each guy got one opportunity to talk about apologetics, and the title of that series was called Downhill Apologetics, and the reason for titling at that is because as Christians who believe in God, the one true God, we don't actually need to feel like we're always fighting uphill in our conversations. We don't always need to feel like we're back on our heels. We're actually the ones who know the maker of heaven and earth. We're the ones who know the only way of salvation. We're the ones who have hope of eternal life. We are the ones with an actual copy of God's revelation to us. So without needing to get into all the mathematical details and the reasons for, you know, the percentages of why evolution couldn't even work, or Grant told me after the service this morning what I was talking about was multiverse. So we happen to end up in this universe because there's so many of them out there. There's so many millions and zillions of universes out there that of course this one had
to be like this with no other purpose. Well, I guess that is more comforting as an explanation for why you're still going to die, but it still actually is not much hope. So our series was related to what do we need to think about, what are some of the principles that we can use as we engage with other people as a defense for the hope that's in us. If they ask us, and ideally we're living lives in such a way that they would be provoked to ask us why we have hope and maybe why they don't what we should say. So we thought, at least initially when we planned it, that each guy would get an opportunity to share his piece and then we'd take questions from other people about it.
So Jim works at home for a company, but he doesn't have to go rub shoulders like he used to have to do. I mean, he used to go into an office and have sensitivity training meetings and diversity meetings and things which perhaps some of you still get to do. Dave also works out of home, so the most apologetics he has to do is to his grandkids. Jonathan works in a Christian bubble, so like he doesn't... But Jonathan does a bad job of staying inside of his bubble even on his cul-de-sac by inviting all of his neighbors over to barbecue and watch movies on his garage door and going to City Council meetings and singing jazz and local coffee shops with his family So he does a bad job of staying in his bubble, but nevertheless his job is a Christian job And I mean I'm a pastor so I show up on Sundays and talk to church people. That's all I have to do so in terms of like our questions that we have about apologetics.
We were thinking maybe some other people would have some good practical questions. So far over the last couple of months, nobody has given us any questions. We got a little bit of feedback, but I'm going to get us started and then we'll actually see if anybody here has any questions and we'll go from there. One of the things that is getting crazier and crazier in our current society, and maybe we have neighbors, definitely we have the public education system that is pursuing it as a virtue in trying to acknowledge and even encourage people in their confusion about their gender identity and their sexual identity.
So even recently there was an article in the, the I'm sure everybody saw it in the Marysville Globe and Arlington Times. It's a big publication. An article about how Marysville School District is trying to create a program based off some government standards and curriculum on how to help young people deal with their gender confusion and their sexual confusion. So it actually took a letter to the editor to even correct the main article that gender identity is different than sexual identity. So I was talking to Jonathan about it earlier today. The quote was from the letter to the editor that corrected it was, you know, gender identity, sexual identity is who you go to bed with and gender identity is who you go to bed as.
So those are different things. And apparently there's a lot of options that people wanna choose from. And some school districts are moving towards not even allowing a teacher, requiring a teacher to address the student with whatever gender pronoun they desire. So a guy says, I actually identify as a woman, so you must call me she. That kind of example. So if you were a teacher, let's say hypothetically, you were a teacher at Marysville Middle School, hypothetically, and you had students who were coming to you. It could be coming to you individually, Or it actually could be confronting you in front of the class. So you call out a student, and then that student doesn't like how you address them, so they start making a big deal out of it in front of the rest of the class.
Let's say, in particular, it's about what gender they identify as. You're in that public setting. So we're not at church, you're in the public setting. You know the overall direction of the school, but you yourself are a Christian and it is your job, you're being paid by these other people. How would you respond to a student who wanted to be identified by what seems to be pretty obviously not their actual gender, not the one that was told them authoritatively on their birth certificate. How dare those doctors make such an identification. But how would you respond and even in light of the downhill apologetics piece?
You know What are your angst? Related to those conversations, and how do you approach that as a as a confessing Christian? You you get a mic yep I? Can address this from when I wasn't a Christian I mean I was one of those kids that Shawn talked about got baptized at nine and then live like hell till I was 37 and then a guy gave me the gospel and that's when I believe I got saved. So I am a real Anabaptist. I got rebaptized and but anyway I lived in New York in the 70s together with my wife. We got married in 71 and moved there and lived there and I was in the art business. We made very expensive picture frames for all the museums stuff like that. I I associated, I've been in Andy Warhol's factory.
I know a lot of the people in that whole scene. One of our best salesmen was a sodomite. And the company was owned by Jewish people. Actually, five brothers and three of them survived the concentration camps and started the company in the late 40s in New York. And during that whole time, I was exposed to all kinds of people that didn't know what sex they were or didn't know how to identify and everything and Everybody in this situation. I was in was very comfortable with no you aren't you're a guy. You're a guy acting like a woman you're You're not Using your equipment properly that was well accepted by these people they knew that they knew they were deviants and they didn't mind that.
And you could up, right up front tell them, you're nuts, you know, you're, and then the AIDS crisis came on. This salesman eventually did die of AIDS. The Continental Bazz where Bette Midler started, that was all part of this time. And all of those people that were operating on that edge, when you met with them, even as a pagan, and I would tell them, you're breaking all the rules, this is not good, you know. You're nuts. I mean, are you kidding me? And they would agree that, yes, I'm doing this because I want to. And one of the most interesting things I had a guy tell me was that the real sin of homosexuality, or not being able to identify with the right sex, is that they are totally consumed with sex.
It doesn't matter. It's just they're consumed with that narrow subject and they don't get off of it. And until I became a Christian and then read Romans 1, you see how that progression goes, that he just gives them over, over, over, and once they get to that point where they have no identification, there are no rules anymore, they are totally given over, and then the end resulted that and they give hearty approval to those who do likewise. So I see, and the way I deal with it all the time with people, like if I meet somebody and they want to talk about this, I just say, well, you realize you're a sodomite, kind of making a hard edge for them.
And most of the people, when you're straight up with them like that, they go, yeah, yeah, I understand that. So the issue is that their heart, not really their self-identification and all that nonsense, They're just rebelling against God. That's the way I deal with it and have dealt with it. We have hired in our business, and we have very small business, but at one time I had two different stories, one up in LA. We hired a guy that, when we hired him, we knew what we were getting, and we said, you can work for us, but you're going to be exposed to the gospel, and you're gonna be exposed to Christian teaching, and we expect you to do what we expect you to do.
You need to show up, do your job, not be flaunting around, I don't want you showing up in a dress or any of that kind of stuff. And he did fine for a while, but then he just fell off the wagon and he would be gone for two or three days and come back in just a wreck. So we had to get rid of him. But it was sad.
So you would be as clear as you possibly can. While also at least, I would know for you, you would also talk to them for the next eight hours if they wanted to talk about it. big time. You just would not, you're not being clear and then pushing them away. You're making sure we have our terms defined and we understand where the, your approach would be, we know where the line is and now we can talk about it as much as you want. And we had people that both Gil and I were friends with that were just way out there. I mean, and you You know, always, I mean, there are people too when they're screwed up. And the thing, you know, we can get self-righteous and sexual sin is a special category, no doubt about it.
Because if the Holy Spirit resides in you, you're sinning against God with your body. But sin is sin. And some of these people, they're just screwed up and they don't even know how to find any way. So if you talk to them realistically, sometimes they go, yeah, you're right, I'm making that choice. I realize I'm a guy, but I don't really want to be a guy. And why not? Well, it might be all kinds of reasons. And it's sad, but it's true. But the whole thing of to accept it and to create all these categories. I mean, my favorite joke is when I was in high school, if I could have gotten into the girls locker room, and all I had to say is I wish I was a girl, are you kidding me?
Where do I sign up, you know? It's crazy. It's just crazy. Jim, how about you? What would you, in those situations? Well, your particular situation I'll get to in a second. It's okay. I'm just asking the question. I don't expect anybody to actually answer it. I just talk about what you want while around the subject. Well, because it's a very real question, very real example that people are facing today. Because, I mean, the short answer is at some point, we are going to be in a situation where where it's gonna cost us to stand up and speak the truth.
As Sean mentioned, I worked for Hewlett Packard for 24 years and I had started in about the 70s, we were getting sucked into all the diversity training classes. And I've shared with some of you before, but we were in one particular diversity class, the lady up front who herself ticked off about four boxes on the diversity thing. But anyhow, she was up there drawing little charts on the screen and she was talking about how There are certain things that are immutable about us that are just who we are and we can't change them. And she's like the color of your eyes and she's listing things off. And she says, your sexual orientation.
You know, and everybody's sitting there scribbling notes to themselves at their desks. And I just couldn't let that lay. And so I said, excuse me, you know, what makes you say sexual orientation is immutable, something that we can't change? Well, we all know we're born with that. And I said, well, I don't know, I've read a lot of scientific studies that would argue with that, and you would probably have your studies that would say that's a true statement. I mean, again, how can you say with certainty that that's immutable? And she started tap dancing because she couldn't. She couldn't defend that argument. And she finally says, well, can we disagree? Something makes us different. I said, yeah, I can agree that it makes us different, but don't just don't tell me that it's immutable. So the point I'm making there is this, you know, the ability or the willingness to speak up to challenge, you know, when you're when they're hearing it, they're making their truth claims, we have to still be willing to speak up, but in a way that's again respectful.
One of the problems I see going on today as people, as the world is pushing back against us Christians, is they don't accept the notion that we can disagree, we can say that's not true and not be a hater at the same time. They want to instantly label you as a homophobic or whatever. They want to throw you in this camp of you're out to kill all the gay people. And so we have to also stand up against that lie and say no. I personally for several years, one of my direct managers for several years that I had was a lesbian. Had no problem working for her. Had a good working relationship with her. We never got into a conversation about her lifestyle, but I could respect her humanity.
She's still a person. still made in the image of God, so she was due a certain respect based on that. But when it came time to have these discussions I had in our situation with our HR department, the Diversity Council had written a statement, and the verbiage was to the effect of, we celebrate the things that make us different. And they listed off, and in the list was your sexual orientation. And I wrote a letter off to HR and I said, you know, why would you put that statement out there and ask all of your employees to agree with it when you know for a fact that at least half of your workforce is not going to celebrate that particular attribute?
You can say we recognize these are all the different things that make us different, whatever you want to say, but don't ask us to celebrate that. And again, the point I'm trying to make is that as Christians, we still need to be able to stand up, resist, say that's not true, that's not right. But it is coming down to a day and an age where to do so is going to probably cost us a good chance you could get fired. There are already cases of teachers who refuse to use Z or whatever the current pronoun is and we're ending up being fired for it. And so I think as Christians we're going to have to be willing to speak up and take the consequences as they may come.
And Jonathan, I want you to answer what you think as well. It does seem like, though, like in an apologetics sort of context, I might not actually know how DNA works, but I feel pretty good about identifying a man or a woman. I feel pretty comfortable on those grounds. There might be questions every once in a while. I watched Saturday Night Live when I was in high school and it was time for androgyny with Here Comes Pat and there was questions about whether Pat was a guy or a gal. So I'm not saying there's never any possible confusion, But the guy girl, which is which, seems like a biggie on the eye chart sort of opportunity.
Not one where we really need to feel, again, back on our heels like, yeah, you know, we're not really sure about this. That seems like one, how we go forward from there, you know, and how we address these image bearers who are confused about that is what we're talking about. And yet at the same time, this seems like one of those not, this is like a surface level and pretty obvious issue that we ought to be ready to talk about. So Jonathan, what would you say if you had to interact with a student like that in a public school context or if you were giving counsel to somebody who did have to do that?
And also you asked about what angst accompanies that and the angst that I would experience is any angst associated with liking being employed. So, I think the number of stories of faithful public school teachers who are obedient to Christ getting fired for speaking the truth is only going to escalate without being an alarmist. Or our culture is going to see the insanity and the unsustainable nature of this sexual revolution because you don't have to be a logic student to see that it just can't, it can't actually continue at the clip that it is and society to function well. Anticipating that we would talk about this some, but more hypothetically kind of teasing it out, Sonia and I had this exact scenario conversation yesterday and some teachers will be, some faithful Christian teachers will be okay calling the student by a preferred name, but not a preferred pronoun.
And I would say that totally depends. So on the pronoun front, I don't think that as a Christian, I could, in good conscience, call a young man she, even if he asked me to. And even if it meant that I had to lose my job as a result. So practically, I would not be needlessly offensive, but I would try to avoid it. But if I was pushed to it and caught and called out publicly or whatever I say, yes, I did because Lyle is a boy, right? I would have to. And then that actually might have, I might be relieved of my duties as a result. Similarly with a student who, I'm no longer Sam, I'm now Samantha, I would say, okay, A name is a name, but why do you want for me to call you Samantha and not Samuel now?
And it's because I'm actually a girl. I would say, I cannot in good conscience call you Samantha in that case. And Proverbs 26, 4 and 5 speaks to this, the fallout when you answer a fool according to his folly, and when you don't answer a fool according to his folly, or even the prescription in certain contexts, answer him according to his folly. In other contexts, don't answer him according to his folly, let's become like him. I think answering a student according to his folly means that you call him exactly what he is when he has to be called a girl. He is being foolish in calling black-white, male-female, and the rest, and it is answer him according to his folly to say, dude, you're a guy. And then we can anticipate and be ready for the blowback when they borrow our terms and throw our biblical language back in our face and call us unloving or even homophobic or what have you. But using our terms is a different probably Q&A.
Well, and it seems like there would also be a difference in how the student came and presented themselves. So that requires wisdom on the part of the teacher to know, is this student hurting? I'm going to answer that student differently. I still am not going to change pronoun probably for them in that conversation. But I would handle them differently than if they came as a soldier on behalf of whatever the gender or sexual cause was. They come as a soldier, then I'm probably going to laugh. They come as a... Like an agenda, an axe to grind? Yeah. If they come to try to make it a battle, then I'm going to laugh at the foolishness, at the insanity.
individually, clearly looking for answers, looking for help, that would be the time for gentle, tender truthfulness rather than seeing them as the huge enemy. And probably in a school setting, since that's the hypothetical scenario, my biggest battle would probably be with the administration, not with the students. So, I would want to have a bigger fight and argument with the administration and what they're requiring than I probably would want to have with the student or in front of the class. Like, if it was in front of the class trying to make it a battle, then I would probably try to diffuse that in the class before they take out their cell phones and start recording it.
I'm going to try to diffuse that and try to get it to an individual and depending on where that goes, you know, I would want to go talk to my bosses, to my employers, about how we're going to handle it and fight there, rather than keep fighting with the student. Were you going to say something? Just that it's a lie. So the reason why I couldn't call a young man a girl, call him she, or vice versa, is because, and the reason why I said it, but I did it by good conscience, is because it's lying. So if the administration is requiring that you do that, they're doing nothing less than requiring that you lie. And if they say, well, truth is fluid or it's relative or the rest, at a minimum they're requiring you to violate your conscience and then you define employment elsewhere.
It's easy for me to say I get that. It's not flippant. Another thing that as Christians we can be doing in the meantime or even as preparing for those kinds of conversations is to actually like the gender that God gave us and actually value the gender that we're not. So husbands actually loving their wives make masculinity look good and wives actually submitting to their husbands makes femininity as they're joyful about about it makes that look good. And as then husbands and wives have kids or even grandkids, that fruitfulness is a platform from which to speak. If we are coming from the same platform of just being unthankful about some other issue than our gender or our sexual preference, if we're as complaining to God about just something else that we deem more righteous to complain about, we act confused about some other challenge that we're in, well then, it's little wonder that, that they don't really want to hear any kind of answer that we have.
So, you know, when you go to a job and you're able to express thankfulness about your wife, or you're able to express thankfulness about your family and being with them, and not that it's not messy, but that there's great blessing in it, Well, that's part of the platform to then speak from. Do you have to have that platform to speak the truth? No, but is it helpful? Well, yeah. I would rather stand on a big board out in the middle of the ocean than one-legged flamingo on a little stick, on a straw coming up out in the middle of the ocean. I'd like a bigger platform if I can have one. So. Yeah, I'd like to comment also that the advantage the enemy has often, not even just in the Christian community, but even in the larger culture, is fear.
Yeah, I think back to my examples in Hewlett-Packard days, if all of the people who were outraged at what they had been just taught in the diversity class as they were leaving and grumbling to themselves and each other, if they had all marched down to HR in mass and said, have you ever done another class like that, we quit, that would have caused, I believe that would have caused HR to back up seriously, the school situation. If the number of teachers who really in their heart do not want to accept this nonsense, went down to the department head and said, you require this, start looking for our replacements. I mean, if all of a sudden 50 teachers said, we're gone tomorrow if you don't knock it off.
The Wizard of Oz out there, the big scary face on the screen would all of a sudden, in many cases, back down. Not always. There are some that will die on their hill. But in many cases, we operate under fear, fear of loss of job, fear of what people are going to say about us. And they pick us off one or two at a time. And that's how they slowly get the culture to shift. I believe if we would be more courageous and less fearful and be willing to confront the face on the screen, you would find out in many cases they would start to backpedal, especially all of a sudden they realize they're going to have a major revolt on their hand.
Ask yourself why. Of all of the sexual confusion that's out there, that represents if we're generous 4 or 5 percent of the population maybe. Why is 4 or 5 percent of the population telling the other 95 percent how they should live and how they should, what pronouns they should use? It makes no sense. It's because they're using that fear factor to silence the majority who are all going back in their own private spaces saying this is crazy, this is nuts, but not speaking up. So another issue that is hard to believe that we're actually at a point where we can't get our senators to vote that once a baby has been born and is out of the womb even, we can't get them to vote to put in protection for the life of that kid.
So obviously we want to go back to even conception and protect life from conception, but we can't even, we're apparently at a spot where we can't even get people to agree that killing infants, you know, that previously they said they acknowledged, you know, they're out of the womb as arbitrary on one hand as that is for deciding that that's when life is. But so we're at that spot, and we've got states in our United States that are pushing for the freedom to do that kind of killing. What is the Christian response? What is the Christian response on Facebook if you have Facebook? What is, you know, should a Christian say something?
should a Christian share the, you know, somebody's clever post about, you know, pointing out the insanity of it? Is that a responsibility that we have when somebody's talking about it at work? Do we need to engage them in that? Or can't we, is it possible to let that go over coffee?
you know, that maybe the person is excited about it or obviously if they're asking us a question about it, the door is open. But what is a downhill apologetics approach to the issue of abortion and now infanticide, you know, in our day and age, was that Christian response look like? I think you come straight up with them. The issue of the outside the womb kind of thing, most polls show that like they could not pass that if it was election stuff. It's state legislatures that do it and they get rolled over by all this way you don't want to offend this person, you don't want to offend that person. So I think if you speak up, up because I've never really met anybody where I'm having that discussion and you would ask something like that, do you believe that you're killing a person and they always start off well, it's just cells that aren't doing.
And they get to a certain stage and yes, that's a viable thing. And most reasonable people that I've talked about abortion, they get to that point where you have this little person inside of you that's kicking and moving and you know, you can look at the pictures and see them, will say, okay, that's a person, that's it. Most of the population says, that's enough. So to think that now where the people are actually saying, the person's born and because the mom still wants to abort them, we kill that, is there's not a lot of people that are gonna go, oh no, that's really a good thing. They know it's crazy. And you just have to speak up and put them on the spot.
There's only so much of this stuff that people are going to take, normal people that understand. In order for the population to survive, we have to have men and women and families and they have to make babies or there won't be the next generation. You know, pretty soon they're gonna go enough is enough. And I think we're starting to reach that. And it's fascinating how God is giving us people to lead the movement against that, that are so far outside God's box. I mean, Donald Trump and all these kind of people. But at least they're saying, no, stop, that's enough. I can't handle that anymore. That's not right. And I think that you do have to stand up.
And again, you don't have to be mean. You can discuss these things with people. If you can get them, calm down. You can talk about it. And I always find that people do have these lines. I think one of the most famous thing for the abortion is Nat Hentoff, was one of the most liberal people. He was publisher of the Village newspaper in New York. Really incredible, big time liberal. When he studied abortion, he came out against it. How can I be a liberal and not protect an unborn, undefense, you know, doesn't have any defenses? I have to protect that life. And it made everybody nuts. And so they just dismissed him and threw it under the thing.
But he was true to actual liberal thinking. I want to protect these people. So when you talk to people about it, I think you can get that. We're going far afield, though. I do want to get a plug in. I don't know how long we got. The apologetics seminar was this book, Always Ready, I think is really a good book to talk about presuppositional apologetics and the idea of defending the faith. Subcategories of what's going on in our society going to hell in the hand basket is, you know, they're interesting points. But if these people were Christians, we wouldn't even have these discussions, you know, if they were Christians.
Regardless what the, you know, Episcopalian church says with their lesbian priests and their whatever, so. Yeah, see like, I wouldn't say that we're going far afield because I don't think that what people need at Hewlett-Packard or Microsoft, or I don't think what they need is a better understanding of Van Til and what page number to go to find out what Van Til said about apologetics. I think we need to actually be bold. So far, the gender or the abortion question is like getting thrown a softball. And these ought to be easier, more obvious ones to answer. Yeah, there is some evidence that the pro-life side is actually beginning to have some influence.
There's a recent poll taken, it had been taken a month ago asking the question, and they said the poll is accurate, the plus or minus 3.5%. Do you see yourself as pro-life or pro-choice? And a month ago, before all of these, New York and Virginia started passing these crazy abortion laws. It was still coming out like 54% pro-choice and pro-abortion, I prefer to say, and about 45, 46% pro-life. They took the poll just a month later after all this garbage broke out, and it's now 48, 48, and they found that the biggest shift of opinion was among the millennials that to view themselves as progressives, more leaning in the democratic direction.
In that millennial, in that 35 and under crowd, there was a huge shift in their attitude. All of a sudden, once having declared themselves as pro-choice and now calling themselves pro-life, take what you will out of that. But there is some indication that, with our apologetics, as we proclaim the truth, as we don't let them get away with using fancy terminology, you know, fetal tissue and all this kind of nonsense. Wait, wait, let's be clear. Tell me what's different about this baby. You know, one second before birth and one second after birth. Tell me what's the fundamental difference. You know, it travels six or eight inches.
You know, what's the difference? And you pin them down and they start squirming. There's a few of them that are bold enough to say, I agree with you, that is a real human baby and I'm okay with killing it. But I'd rather pin them down to that kind of a position and let them tap dance with all their terminology. Force them, to be honest at least, with what they're advocating. And when you begin to do that, you'll find that many of them all of a sudden get real squeamish with their position and wanna back away from that point of view. Yeah, in terms of the downhill part, we like life. That seems like an easier position to defend or like to promote.
We like life. So, yay life. That seems like the uphill looking down. I mean, it's discouraging looking down, but seems like a better position if you had to choose. Which would like if you were in a debate, you signed up for a debate club and you had two choices. You get to defend life, you get to defend death. Well, I would like to try the life side please, if I get to choose, you know, what team I'm on. So, are you gonna say something? Just that it's valuable to have something to say at all. So yeah, Christian should engage in the conversation, whether with coworkers in the grocery line or on Facebook. But so many Christians actually don't have, they act like they're fighting uphill, instead of downhill on this.
So even just looking at motives, a lot of times the pro-abortion camp will just argue loudly. It's her body. It's her body. You don't get to tell her what to do with her body. And there are a few, like, emperors got no clothes on type. I have a question. Does the baby have a body? Or the god that the pro-abortionist will appeal to is autonomy, being a law unto themselves and wanting that sort of power or autonomy, a law unto themselves, and the God that we appeal to is the living God. And we know then that the very best reason that they have is choice, options, power. I have a right to do with my body what I want to do.
Well, God actually says something about that, and you don't have a right to simply, arbitrarily, snuff out the life of one who is made in his image and likeness. He's clear about that. So we have scripture, we have, but you're destroying the image of God in another human from conception through death. And hopefully, birth actually happens in between there. So we have, yeah, that's a lot better argument, and it's actually not subject to change or to cultural whims. So it's important to have something to say.
Also, I mean, even related to that, and this part of why our current educational situation has contributed to this mess is when you consciously divest students of a culture, they forget where they've come from, they have no idea why they have a right to spew their opinion loudly or to drop F-bombs at the President's direction on Twitter. Like, where did those rights come from and when many of them are reading like one classic and then a lot of a lot of garbage they don't know where they've come from so there there is a degree of ignorance that fortunately we can do something about that is raise your kids in the nurtured admonition of the Lord and show them how they've gotten to where they are even like his 21st century Americans and and they'll see that the rights that they champion to cram their agendas down the throats of other people have been secured on the backs of Christians that they're trying to shut up.
Yeah, as you're talking, I'm thinking, in this whole downhill apologetics way of thinking, the abortion issue, the gender confusion issue, issue all of these things, we are speaking the truth and we have to recognize that that truth is also God is placed in every human heart and mind. The awareness that there is a God and they know that they know they are killing a baby. They know they're going against nature. They're just telling themselves lies but they covered up with clever terminology and so they They want us to think it's like a, there's really, you know, it's open for debate, and it's not. We speak the truth clearly and plainly and lovingly, and that is going to continually prick at what's already in their heart and their mind.
They already know what we're saying is true.
And then, of course, at some point it takes the Holy Spirit then to finally cause them to repent and stop believing the lie, but it's not a case of having to really convince them what's true. They know what's true. They are trying to mask it. So we're always arguing from the position of strength because we know it's true, they know it's true. They're just not willing to give up their lie. And so we just keep hammering and chipping away on that and trusting that God will break through the fog. Yeah, I mean, probably me more than than you guys. I mean, I do stuff with Twitter and Facebook-ish, but I mean I do look at it. And I've taken the approach of I don't make it my mission to share everything I see about abortion. I don't retweet that or like that every time I see it, but I do actually have a reminder in my task system that reminds me to post something about abortion or adoption once a week because like how that I don't think that that's gonna solve the problem but I also feel like that's a good thing to remind myself of that is
that it is actually pretty bad and we do have responsibility and that goes beyond our digital social media lives but also that's where a bunch of people are. So if making disciples is as you're going telling them the truth then why wouldn't I tell some of the people that I'm friends with that I know are not believers you know like well maybe they'll watch that video that is pointing out the obvious. And I try not to choose the most angry sounding things that I can you know with the fire coming out of your head emojis because I'm not sure that stirring up anger is the best approach and there are people who do that but things that are showing the what seems to be obvious relation of a baby and those kinds of things so I don't choose the ones that are the most gross or the most angry but I do actually try to forward or keep going, keep the ball going with some of the good material that's out there.
I don't even have to write it myself. I just see what's already there and keep that going. That's one thing. I don't walk into Starbucks and immediately it costs the barista about his or her views on any of it. And then storm out with instead of paying them my $5 because of their because of their position. Because clearly I wouldn't go to Starbucks anyway if I was a good Christian who had conservative politics. But even though none of you got to ask any questions, we all talked in front of you for long enough. So if you do have other questions, like that'd be awesome and maybe we can address those at another time, you should still use your microphone while you have your one more thing.
As Jim pointed out, in Romans 1, I think that it's like the primary apologetic chapter in the Bible. Because if somebody tells you they're an atheist, just take them to Romans 1, and they will see that they are suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. And it just, when you greet people like that, usually you stop them up. And they'll go, oh, yes, I'm just an agnostic. OK, well, we got that something. There's something bigger than you out there. you just don't know what its name is. Don't trick me, that means you're gonna tell me to read the Bible and find out who that thing is, I don't know. Yeah, that would be true, but you know, at least they're starting to understand it.
But Romans 1, if you really understand that development, it answers a lot of the questions we talked about tonight and keeps you on the track. Yeah, so we want to be honest and humble and bold. So even Jim's comment, you know, Liars aren't always confused. So it's sad that probably more Christians are confused because of the liars than the liars are actually confused about what they're trying to accomplish. Not saying that nobody can be confused and unsure or having struggles, but some of the loudest ones are the least confused. They're the most lying and knowing what they're doing. So that's actually causing Christians to be confused.
And part of the reason for our series is that you would realize that you're standing uphill. So you get to love life and you get to love reality as God made it, not as we have to try to imagine it or make it for ourselves. So we have God's word that doesn't have errors and we have the only way to eternal life. So we don't really have to be afraid to have those conversations even if it makes somebody upset for a while. So be honest and be humble and that'll be good. Jim, you want to pray for us and then we can be done? Well Father, we do thank you for your word for the truth that's contained therein.
us the courage to stand on it, to trust you, even in a world that continually pushes back and is really the same question that's been gone on from the beginning of time in the garden where Satan said, has God said? That's just really what's going on today is people who deny you are just saying, has God said? So help us to have the courage and the boldness to say, yes, he has. And and to not make any apologies for it, help us to not operate fear, not to not be afraid of men whose breath is in their nostrils, and the scriptures tell us. But also as we confront the lies, as we speak the truth to do it in a way that is full of love, full of compassion for those who truly are bought into the lies.
But Father, we do pray that you would bring about a revival within our land, that the craziness that's going on, that would begin to be reversed. As we as Christians interact with the world in our jobs and wherever, that we would have the boldness to speak up, to challenge, again, respectfully. And that we would also not, Father, go into the ditch of truly becoming hateful because we're so repulsed by what we're going on. But that we would still have compassion and mercy even as we speak the truth and love. And so Father, thank you again that we have the uphill advantage, that we know what is true, and again, that even the opposition knows what's true, they're just suppressing it.
So may we, as we're faithful to speak up wherever we have the opportunity, that over time to that would have an impact of beginning to shift our culture, again, away from the cliff of insanity and back towards a path more keeping with your righteousness. We just pray this now in your son, Jesus' name, amen.
