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the month of December here together,
I wanted to start a new series. Lord willing, we'll get all the
way through it, but I wanted to start a series discussing how
to defend the faith. When trying to choose what to
preach on, whenever I come here, I'll go back over your sermon
audio page to see what has been covered over recent months and
years. I promise I haven't seen every
sermon, seeing as there's quite a few on there, and that's definitely
a blessing. But I did skim through them, and I saw where Brother
Harold had gone through some series detailing different denominations
and religions and the differences between them. And so for the
purposes of this series, I'm going to kind of steer away from
that since that's already been done. And what I want to focus
on is to develop a theology behind how do we defend the faith, to
look at biblical examples where the Apostle Paul, for example,
defends the faith. And to discuss how do we apply
this in the cultural realm, in the political realm, how do we
apply this against some of the great oppositions that we are
facing today in the form of the social justice movement, in the
form of secular humanism, the idea that man is the ultimate
determiner of what is true. And so we're going to hopefully
get through all of that over the next few weeks. But first
of all, why go through a series like this? Why even take the
time as Christians to learn how to defend the faith? Well, first
of all, of course, we are explicitly commanded to do so in the Scriptures. Just as a couple of examples,
you have 1 Peter 3.15, but in your hearts honor Christ the
Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense. To anyone
who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet
do it with gentleness and respect. The entire context of 1 Peter
is dealing with suffering and persecution and Christians who
are going through trials in a difficult time. But however, we see here
the command to always be prepared to give this defense. This means
that we must be grounded in the Christian faith, ready to testify
to the lost world, to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Another passage,
which I think is also very clear, is found in 2 Corinthians. 2
Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 6, where Paul and his companions
are defending his ministry. And we see it says, for though
we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the
flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every
lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take
every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish
every disobedience when your obedience is complete. So you
notice the war-like language here, that Paul says his goal
is to literally destroy every single argument raised against
the knowledge of God. I think it is to say that that
covers the spectrum of false beliefs that we see in the world,
that our goal is to give a biblical response to those. And so we
are to defend the faith by wielding the sword of scripture to destroy
those false religions and those false belief systems. Let me
ask you a more practical question to illustrate the importance
of what we see in terms of the command to defend the faith. This will probably resonate with
those of you who have grandkids a little bit more. For those
of you who are younger and do not have grandkids like myself,
try to steer with this train of thought. But my question is,
what kind of a world, what do you want to pass on to your great,
great, great grandkids? What do you want them to inherit? How will you and I live today,
defend the faith today against the giant supposing biblical
Christianity to pass on the faith to the next generation. Listen,
we face some absolutely crazy and insane challenges here in
our day. There are aspects of this which
are not new. The concept of humanity being
prideful, trying to elevate its position and reject the ways
of God, that's nothing new. You can go all the way back to
the Garden of Eden at the fall and you can see that. But we
also live in some aspects that are new. No Christian generation
has ever had the sort of technology that is in the world today. They
didn't have to develop arguments against gender reassignment surgeries,
which by the way, the idea you can even change your gender is
a lie. But generations before us, they didn't have the technology
in the world for them to even have a concept of developing
an argument against such an idea. Nor did they have the technology
to cause the rate of ideas to be so high and so fast in the
world today. You can watch the news cycle
and it changes from day to day to day. The technology, the speed
of the world is absolutely amazing. But here is the point, the faithful
heritage that we need to pass on is not only to our biological
families, to future Christian generations around the world. A heritage of those who did not
buy into the insanity. who did not buy into the lies
and whatever came about, a heritage that was faithful to Christ and
faithful to his word. A heritage that not only saw
the lies of the day and didn't believe them, but a heritage
that also fought against the lies of the day by exposing them
with the standard of God's word and calling lost sinners to come
to Christ and to repent and to find salvation in him. Bad worldviews,
They have disastrous consequences, not just for families, not just
for individuals, but even for nations. It's a terrible, horrifying
reality to watch a government base itself in the lies of a
false worldview. Imagine, for example, the future
children of America in generations in the future living under what
is known as a social credit system. In a social credit system, technology
is used to determine who can do things such as buying, such
as selling or traveling on the basis of your social behavior. And that social behavior then
determines your social credit score. which will determine your
ability to live and to function in society. Under such a system,
the government uses artificial intelligence to not only monitor
its citizens, but also to coerce, to manipulate their behavior. And because the citizens, almost
exclusively, under such a system would use technology for basically
everything, the state is able to track all of the personal
data that they have. Not only that, but because of
facial recognition systems and cameras everywhere, they can
also determine where you go to forbidden activities, which would
be church. They can tell whenever you are
walking in the opposite direction of a crowd, which will alert
the police. But the police, you see, under
such a system, they don't actually have to show up at your door
in order to punish you. All they have to do is to notice
that you've been engaged in what they deem as inappropriate behavior,
either in some sort of physical location or online. And they keep track of your social
credit score. It gets downgraded. If you do
something socially positive, like listening to the propaganda
session, I mean the speech of the leader, then you are given
a bonus in your score. But you see the issue is, is
that if you have a low credit score, you're restricted from
doing things. You're restricted from flying,
for example. You're restricted from going
to certain restaurants. You very well actually may lose
your job if you have a low social credit score. Not only will you
lose your job, but you also have difficulty finding another job. And in this completely technological-based
society, you and your family can be completely removed from
any access whatsoever to the internet, which would be crippling
in such a system. Because the government controls
the technology, not only can it make your individual life
miserable, it can actually go back and rewrite the history
books. It can take Christian concepts such as liberty, such
as freedom, and make them incredibly difficult to find. They can even
take translations of the Bible. and edit out the parts that they
don't like and insert new things that they want the people to
believe. Sounds like an absolutely horrifying
future, doesn't it? But it's actually the reality
for people living in communist China today. But that's the system
that they live under. I'm sure you share my sentiment
whenever I say that is not the world that I want to pass on
to my kids or to my grandkids or to my great grandkids. There
are serious consequences for abandoning a biblical worldview. There are serious consequences
when Christians will not defend biblical Christianity in the
public square, declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ. That
is why we do this. We do this for the glory of God.
And we do it because we love others and we don't want to see
them ensnared by the lies of false system, but to be freed
from their sin in Christ. The reason this impacts the government
so much is that if you reject the God of the scripture, you're
left with man seeing himself as the ultimate authority. And
from a strictly human perspective, the government is seen as the
most powerful institution among men. Therefore, whenever the
checks of a creator are out of the equation in the worldview,
the government tries to take over the role of God. In response
to this, the early church declared that Jesus Christ is Lord, not
Caesar. Therefore, we must preach the
true gospel. It is our duty to defend the
entirety of the word of God. Therefore, whenever I talk about
defending the faith, I don't just mean defending the doctrine
of the resurrection or the doctrine of the atonement and so forth.
Christian defenders of the faith, known as apologists, have often
limited their work exclusively almost to those realms. And let's
be clear, those realms need to be defended. It is imperative
that we engage in sharing the truth and in refuting false arguments. But I mean something even more
than that whenever I talk about defending the faith. I mean defending
biblical Christianity across the board, a biblical view of
the family, a biblical view of the government, a biblical view
of everything. providing a robustly deep biblical
Christian faith. That is the heritage that we
want to pass on. Because Jesus Christ is the Lord with complete
authority on heaven and on earth, according to Matthew 28, 18 through
20. Therefore, we are to honor him as the king in everything
that we do, seeking to be faithful for the glory of his name. But
how do we start to do that? It sounds like a daunting task,
and I'm not going to pretend over the next few weeks to be
able to unpack everything that there is on this subject. But
I think that we can start to lay a foundation here. So open
your Bibles with me to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2, verses
1 through 10. What we're going to do tonight
is to lay down a foundation, the basic points of what it means
to defend the faith. And if we're going to do that
well, we have to understand a few essential truths, starting with
the source of truth, wisdom, and knowledge themselves. So
let's read Colossians 2, verses 1 through 10. starting here in verse one. For I want you to know how great
a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, and for
all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may
be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches
of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery,
which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude
you of plausible arguments, For though I am absent in body, yet
I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the
firmness of your faith in Christ. Therefore, as you received Christ
Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and
established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding
in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy
and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to
the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you
have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. One of the great emphasis of
the book of Colossians is the source of wisdom and knowledge. Paul places a primary target
in this letter upon rejecting, showing the foolishness of the
so-called wisdom of the world in contrast to the true wisdom
of God. And Paul, he opens and he gives
thanks for this church in chapter one. He praises them because
of their faithfulness. But the reality is that this
church has issues going on, and that pertains to our discussion
here tonight. So I want you to jump down and
let's read verses 16 through 23, where we see Paul outlining
some of the false religion that he deals with in this epistle.
Colossians 2, 16 through 23. Therefore, let no one pass judgment
on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival
or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things
to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify
you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in
detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous
mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole
body nourished and knit together, Through its joints and ligaments
grows with a growth that is from God. If of Christ you died to
the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you were still
alive in the world do you submit to regulations? Do not handle,
do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as
they are used, according to human precepts and teachings. These
have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made
religion and asceticism and severity of the body, but they have no
value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So notice that
Paul references worthless religion here. Self-made religion promoted
by men who are claiming to have visions from God. They're claiming
to have received revelation from God. This religion is marked
by its promotion of legalism. It is marked by its promotion,
not of the worship of the true living God, but of the worship
of angels. And so Paul here, he writes to
address these issues. In our text, in verses 1 through
10, what does Paul point the Colossians to? He points them
to Christ. He points them to the truth of
Christ. The truth of Christ over against the falsehood of this
religion. And immediately, this is probably
going to seem like an obvious point, but I want you to notice
the opposing nature of these two. What is the source of knowledge
for the believer? Well, if you look at verse three,
it says, all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in
Christ. And where is the source of knowledge
for this false religion? Fake claims of revelation by
puffed up men who are puffed up by their own sensuous minds,
according to verse 18. These are opposed to one another. And before we dive into the concept
about our foundation for truth more, I want to point out how
strenuously Paul deals with these two as absolutely enemies of
one another. He doesn't seek to somehow analyze
this false religion and take what it says and add it to the
claims of Christianity. No, he treats this religion like
it's an enemy. He treats it like he needs to
fight it because he does. It is a system that has raised
itself up against the true knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so the Apostle
Paul is opposing it. And when we are engaged in defending
the faith, when we are engaged in apologetics, that is a basic
component of what we need to understand. You know, I hear
people all the time, they'll say something like, we need to
go learn from the socialists. Or they'll say, we need to go
learn from the neo-Marxists. Or we need to go learn from the
evolutionists. And my reaction is usually something of a blank
stare. followed by a little bit of shock
with a resounding question of why would we do that? Undoubtedly, to be clear, unbelievers,
they know things by the common grace of God. You would much
rather have an unbelieving but skilled heart surgeon perform
open heart surgery than you would me. At least I would hope that
that would be the case. But recognizing that fact, is
much different than me saying, let's go to that unbelieving
heart surgeon and let's learn from his religious beliefs, let's
learn from his worldview and apply that to Christianity. That
would be the exact opposite of what the Apostle Paul is doing
here in this text. Paul does what? He provides the
truth of Christianity and he discusses the errors within the
system that he is opposing here. Fundamentally then, we as a Christian,
we gain knowledge about the truth through Jesus Christ, and we
oppose false religions like Paul is doing here. It is through
the Lord that we know the truth. If you look at verses 1 through
2 of this text, we're not going to say a whole lot about them,
but I want you to notice that Paul says that He wants the saints
whom he has not seen to be encouraged. He wants them to reach assurance
of understanding of the knowledge of Christ. And then in verse
three, he talks about our source of truth, our foundation as believers.
He says about Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. Now, some commentators, who I
very deeply respect, who are very faithful men in many, many
ways and who are fighting the good fight, They want to limit
the reference to wisdom and knowledge here in this passage to dealing
exclusively with things of salvation, of sanctification of our growth
in Christ, and of glorification, our future eternity with the
Lord. And while I respect those men, I fundamentally disagree
with their interpretation of this passage. Why? Because there's
no limitation here. Paul doesn't explicitly point
out, I'm only talking about salvation. No, he says all of the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. And I think that actually
is very cohesive of what we see in the book of Proverbs, that
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. And
the book of Proverbs covers more than just things pertaining to
salvation. It's talking about a comprehensive
understanding of wisdom there. But does that really make sense?
I mean, do you really need the Christian biblical worldview
to provide the foundation to know for everything? Do you need
it? I mean, do you need it to know
that two plus two equals four? Cornelius Bantill, he said this.
He said, the Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything
of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything.
We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of Adams,
etc. He continues on, and he says,
We do not mean, of course, that one must go to the Bible rather
than to the laboratory if one wishes to study the anatomy of
the snake. But if one goes only to the laboratory and not also
to the Bible, one will not have a full or even
true interpretation of the snake. And so, Van Til is getting at
the idea that the scripture itself is foundational for everything. And so, therefore, as Christians,
we say that our source of truth, our source of wisdom, our source
of knowledge is Christ, who has revealed himself in the scripture,
making it our ultimate authority, our ultimate foundation. Now,
I want to give you two quick examples here. as practical illustrations
to demonstrate what Vantil is saying. And the first one is
a math professor from Brooklyn College. This math professor
is named Laurie Rubel. And among other things, she got
quite a bit of media controversy and attention for saying this.
She says, the idea that math or data is culturally neutral
or in any way objective is a myth. So if you believe in objective
math, if you believe that two plus two equals four, then according
to this teacher, you believe a myth. Not only that, she goes
further. She says that if you believe
that two plus two equals four, such ideas as that reek of white
supremacist patriarchy. That might sound shocking, it
is shocking, but this is a real professor teaching at a real
college who garnered major media attention over this nonsense. Another example is the Oregon
Department of Education. They released a mathematics project
to supposedly assist in, quote, removing white supremacy from
the classroom. What they ended up doing is they
defended a document that says that if you focus on getting
the right answer in a mathematics equation, then you are participating
in the practice of white supremacy. Other instances that this document
lists of so-called white supremacy are expecting students to show
their work or address mistakes as they occur. Now, why all this
talk about white supremacy? Well, we'll have to cover that
in the part of our series on social justice for that one.
But what I want you to see here is that it is actually true that
you need the Christian worldview to provide the foundation for
such basic statements as 2 plus 2 equals 4. You see, an atheist
can recognize that. An atheist can recognize, hey,
yes, 2 plus 2 equals 4, but they don't have a firm foundation
to anchor that reality in. We do. Triune God of the universe. We can know truth because He
reveals it. It is objective because that
is His truth. It is constant because He is
upholding the universe itself. Therefore, all truth, including
the laws of logic, the laws of mathematics, are rooted in God. Therefore, if you want to have
a firm foundation for mathematics, you're going to have to come
to biblical Christianity for it. And so since all truth is
found in Christ, how are we to know truth? Well, we know that
he has revealed himself generally in the universe. and specifically
in the scripture. Romans 1, 18 through 23, it describes
the revelation of God generally in creation. Before we read that
text, I know we've covered a lot of ground. Do we have any questions
here before we turn to Romans 1 here real quick? Does anybody want to argue that
my calculator is wrong when it says 2 plus 2 equals 4? All right, Romans 1, 18 through
23. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known
about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For
his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the
world and the things that have been made. So they are without
excuse. For although they knew God, they
did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became
futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory
of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds
and animals and creeping things. Now what I want you to notice
here, this is a description in large part that you have about
the general revelation that we have in creation. But this text
never says that that revelation is sufficient to save. It never
says that that revelation is sufficient for you to know the
commands of God. General revelation condemns the
sinner because they do not worship God as the creator. They do not
worship the God that they know exists. The creation testifies. It gives glory to the creator,
but it does not preach the gospel for salvation. We can learn much
through nature. We can learn much through creation,
but we need the foundation of special revelation. We need the
foundation of the Bible. That is where God has revealed
himself. It is a special revelation that we may know him, that we
may know how he has called us to live, that we may understand
the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, what happens whenever
it comes to defending the faith? We're sitting here saying, we
believe all of this because of the text, because scripture is
our ultimate authority, because God has revealed himself here.
What happens whenever you go down into the lost world and
you're defending the faith? Someone else comes along, And
they say, well, I believe what I do based upon my ultimate authority. They might not word it exactly
that way, but that is the root of their thinking. Everybody
has an ultimate authority. Everybody has an ultimate standard,
even if that's just their own mind, just their own opinions.
But just like the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2 here shows how
our standard as believers is Christ. Whereas the followers
of this false religion had dreams as their standard, so also we
need to expose the false standards of those who are practicing other
belief systems. What are some common false standards
that we see in the world today? You have the Quran, right? You have the Book of Mormon.
You also come to the issue of our culture where humanity is
seen as the ultimate authority. Some say they just want to follow
the science, where modern scientific discoveries are seen as the ultimate
standard, which changes based on Dr. Fauci's every press conference. But what then is the task of
defending the faith? We must proclaim the truthfulness
of the scripture, of the Christian worldview, before which men must
bow, and we must demonstrate the irrationality of all other
views. Listen to Proverbs 26, 4 through
5. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like
him yourself. Answer a fool according to his
folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Hold on a second, that
sounds a little bit confusing here. Did Solomon have a little
bit too much wine at the palace whenever he wrote this particular
proverb? Well, I think that we all know
that's not the case here. At first he says not to answer
the fool according to his folly, lest you be like him. In other
words, don't agree with him. Don't act like he's correct.
Don't answer him like you agree with his foundational commitments,
because you don't, because they're unbiblical. They're wrong. It
doesn't matter what it is. If they're not based upon scripture,
they are wrong. However, verse five says, answer
a fool according to his folly, lest he think he is wise. Now
that point means we must show the unbeliever the folly of their
beliefs. We must take them to their conclusion.
How do we do that? Well, if you get anything at
all out of this series, remember this, and you'll be able to deal
with 90% of the unbelievers that you come across who have objections
to the faith. In order to be a skilled Christian
defender of the faith, we must become like two-year-olds. We
must ask the question, why? Why do you believe that? Based
on what standard do you believe that? By what authority do you
believe that? Suppose you run across someone
who says that they believe that murdering babies in the womb
is completely fine, right? You're out in the park with your
family and you come across this person who is avidly pro-abortion
and they want to talk about it. You know what you should ask
them next after they say they're pro-abortion? Why do you believe
that? By what standard are you basing
your opinions on? What are they gonna do? Well, they're probably
gonna say something along the lines of, Well, I believe in abortion
because I believe a woman should have the right to choose. Well,
why do you believe that? Based on what standard do you
believe that? If that's the case, then should she be able to choose
to kill her five-year-old? Should she be able to choose
to kill her 10-year-old? Should a 60-year-old mom who is dealing
with a 40-year-old son who has special needs, who is providing
care for that son, should she be able to murder him at any
point in his life that she desires? The conversation is over in terms
of them being able to give a rational response. Because what have you
just done? You've exposed the inconsistency
of their ultimate standard, the inconsistency of their worldview. Because they can't give a legitimate
answer, they can't give a consistent answer because they're not rooted
in biblical authority. And so what we're doing is we're
pointing out the arbitrary nature of their standard. The fact that
their beliefs do not hold up under any scrutiny whatsoever.
But what do we do then? What do we show them? We don't
just say, here's their rationality of your position. We say, here's
the truthfulness of biblical Christianity. Here's the gospel. Here's Jesus Christ. Repent.
Place faith in him. Come to the truth of the scripture.
That is what we do. We do both at the same time. Because the Bible itself is inspired
by God. It is the only consistent foundation. for our beliefs. Every other
worldview will be reduced to absurdity. Biblical Christianity
is not because it is grounded in God himself. Which brings
me to another point that we need to consider, which is the nature
of the unbeliever and their beliefs, which will go a long ways in
determining how we view defending the faith. But before we dive
into that, are there any questions so far? Clear as mud? All right. Now, what I want you to notice
in Colossians 2 is that in various verses, we get the Apostle Paul's
opinion about this false religion that he's facing. We get to see
what he thinks about this religion that has been raised up against
the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so let's work through a few
of these verses, starting with verse 4. I say this in order
that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. It's all
the unbeliever has to offer, plausible arguments. The Greek
language here is primarily emphasizing enticing words. In other words,
the nature of those seeking to attack Christianity is to use
powerful speech as their weapon. They don't have truth as a weapon.
And so what they're going to do is they're going to use emotional
lines of argumentation that seem very appealing at first glance,
at quick glance. But as you dig down deeper, you
find out that they're not appealing at all. But they will swipe away
many, many individuals in the attempt to make that emotional
argument. What does that mean? That means we have to be grounded
in the truth. We have to be ready. We have to know that we're going
to face, in many points, an emotional line of argumentation. And we
keep our cool, and we keep pressing the truth for the biblical viewpoint.
But needless to say, this is not a compliment by the Apostle
Paul about the false religion. Look at verse 8. See to it that
no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit. according to
human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the
world, and not according to Christ. The argument of this religion
was steeped in human tradition. Oftentimes, you can spot a false
belief like that by the emphasis upon human tradition. For example,
if you're in a conversation with someone who claims that they
believe the scripture, but they have a false belief, whatever
that false belief may be, You can notice it by their lack of
an ability to stay within a text of scripture. Reformed believers
have no problem going to Romans chapter 8. We have no problem
going to Romans chapter 8, working through it step by step, and
just letting the text say what it says. But if you want to see
something interesting, watch an Arminian go through Romans
chapter 8. Watch an Arminian go through Romans chapter 9.
Will they stay in the text? Nope, they won't. They can't.
They can't just work through the text and exposit the passage.
Why? Because their view has human
tradition. It's the same thing with other
more dangerous beliefs, we would say, such as Roman Catholicism.
If you get into the cults who do not believe in the Trinity,
you'll see that emphasis upon tradition as well, where they
cannot just walk through a text. And instead of all of that, we
must be grounded in the text of Scripture. If you're walking
through a passage of Scripture, you should be able to understand
it within its context without having to impose your own opinions. If we can't do that, it's our
opinions that need to change the proper interpretation of
the Scripture. What we see again is a low view
of these arguments given by the Apostle Paul. He says this religion
is nothing ultimately but being based in human tradition. Now
go down to verse 18. Let no one disqualify you, insisting
on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about
visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. We've already
discussed the part about visions and being puffed up, but I want
you to notice that Paul specifically says that these people are puffed
up without reason by his sensuous mind. Paul just called them irrational. If they're without reason, he's
saying that this is an irrational belief. Other translations would
say that it is a vain belief. This is all according to the
fleshly, according to the sensuous mind. These unbelievers, they
are lost in the darkness of their sin. They have no rationality
in terms of their worldview and belief system. That is because
they do not have the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's their
belief system that is irrational. This is described further in
Ephesians 4, verses 18 through 19. where Paul describes the
unbelieving Gentiles. He says, they are darkened in
their understanding, alienated from the life of God because
of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality,
greedy to practice every kind of impurity. This is how unbelievers
are described consistently in the Bible. It's how we once were
before Christ saved us. And this is the reality of what
we will face as Christians seeking to defend the faith. What will
change the heart of the unbeliever, it is the gospel message, the
power of God working through the gospel. Therefore, we must
also always, there we go, make the preaching of the gospel central
to our defense of the faith, because it is how God saves lost
sinners. Now look at verse 23 with me for a final description
of the false religion being described here. These have indeed an appearance
of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity
to the body, where they are of no value in stopping the indulgence
of the flesh. Now this verse is completely
full of rich truth for us to consider around defending the
faith. But first of all, notice how Paul says that these views
have an appearance of wisdom. The idea here is that the asceticism,
the concept of you self-inflicting yourself to a dangerous extent,
being promoted by this false religion, the idea is that, well,
it sounds like it might be good. And Paul says, yep, sounds like,
but it only sounds like, because it's not actually good in the
end. This false religion has these concepts as to how you're
going to deny yourself in this self-inflicting fashion. And
Paul basically says, that's just a poisonous idea wrapped in fancy
gift wrapping, that concept would apply to many of the aspects,
many of the battles that we're facing today as biblical Christians.
That's all these things are. They're just ideas that are wrapped
up in fancy gift wrapping, but are poisonous on the inside.
They try to sound good, but they aren't. Paul says this is self-made
religion. It's not divine. It's made by
human beings. There is no divine authority
behind these religions. Every other religion other than
Biblical Christianity has no authority from God. It is purely
an invention from man. And so what we have seen here
is the unbelieving thought, it is opposed to God, it is built
on human tradition, it is built on false claims of revelation,
it does not possess divine authority, it is without reason, And it
is promoted by those who are darkened in their sin and in
their understanding because they are spiritually dead. But that's
the scriptural view of false religions made by man. It is the view described by those
beliefs that human beings hold who are lost in their sin. Now,
does that mean that whenever we're defending the faith, we
just go up to an unbeliever and we tell them they're a nutcase?
No, we do not. We're called to give the defense
with gentleness and with respect. We once held those views. The
difference between us and them is not that we're more intelligent.
It's the grace of God acting in our lives. It's that he has
saved us. And so we want to be firm on
the truth. We want to be unyielding in our defense of the faith,
unyielding in our proclamation of the scripture. But we also
want to give this defense out of hearts full of humility, realizing
that we were once lost sinners. and we are debtors to the grace
of God. And so we have this attitude of humility, but we must also
see the reality of how the scripture describes these false beliefs,
the reality of how it describes the unbeliever. It means that
there must be no gimmicks in our defense of the faith. We
don't go around trying to make Christianity tasteful to unbelievers. We don't go around trying to
curry favor with them by pretending like we actually agree with them
whenever we really don't because we see the nature of the unbeliever.
We see the nature of their belief system because the Word of God
has spoken. We understand our job is to expose
the irrationality of those views and to give them the complete
teaching of the scripture, to give them the gospel. It is the
truth of the Bible by the power of God that will bring salvation.
There are many questions here about the nature of the unbeliefs
that unbelievers hold. All right, I want to cover a
third foundation here for apologetics from this text, and it is that
a biblical defense of the faith holds the sufficiency of Scripture
into Christ as Lord. Read verses 6 through 10 here
with me again. Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk in Him. Rooted and built up in Him and
established in the faith, Just as you were taught abounding
in thanksgiving, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy
and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to
the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you
have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority."
Notice the entire theme. You and I are called to walk
in Christ. That we are rooted in Christ.
We are grounded in Christ. We are established in him. We
are built up in him. If you're missing the message
here, the idea is we are completely dependent upon Christ for everything.
We are completely grounded in him. And the problem with holding
to a false religion is you're not holding on to Christ. There
is no God there. There is no gospel. There is
no Lord who can save you. There is no Lord of glory. The
problem with holding to a false religion is you reject the Lord,
you reject the truth. But this reality that we are
to walk in Christ, it covers all of our life. In other words,
we are to bring him honor and glory and everything, and that
includes how we defend the faith. I read 1 Peter 3.15 earlier,
and as you notice the very first part, it says, but in your hearts
honor Christ the Lord is holy. A biblical defense of the faith
is committed and it is built upon the Lordship of Christ and
the authority and sufficiency of the Word of God. Why? Because
he is the head of all rule and authority, as Colossians 2.10
says. He is the Lord who we are called
to honor. In other words, how you and I
go out and defend the faith, it must be biblical. You see, some
Christians, and they are brothers in many cases, but they have
a bad theology around apologetics, around the fitting of faith.
They go out and they say things like, well, I think God probably
exists, or it's more likely that God exists than not. Well, you
can't show an example in the New Testament of the apostles
doing that. You can't show an example of
Jesus Christ doing that. You can't show an example of
the early church doing that. Why? Because we know with certainty
that Priun God exists. And we know with certainty that
Jesus Christ is Lord. And as such, we undertake defending
the faith with unbelievers from that position. With certainty
regarding Christ. Not with pride, but with confidence
in the Lord. Not only in the Lord, but also
in the scripture itself. We're Christians. We uphold Sola
Scriptura. Scripture alone is our authority.
It is sufficient, without a doubt, I believe it is sufficient, not
only to teach us how to grow in Christ, but also how to defend
the faith itself. So we must be distinctly biblical
in our defense of the faith. What does it actually look like?
What does it look like as an example for someone to go out
and to defend the faith and to engage in believers? Well, I
think it's pretty safe to say the Apostle Paul was a very biblical
Christian. And so we're going to be taking
a look next week at Acts 17. Depending on how long-winded
I am will dictate how if we get to any other passages or not.
But Lord willing, we will at least get through Acts 17 and
see Paul's interaction with unbelievers in that account. Are there any
questions here before we wrap up here tonight? All right, well I'll add this
too, if anybody wants any further resources on this issue, I do
have documents and stuff, resources that would be great for yourself,
kids, grandkids, books you can buy from various Christian apologists
who are very faithful, free resources that you can do. If you want
that, just get with me, I'll print it out for you or email
it to you, whatever you would like as far as that goes. Lord
willing, I'll be back with you next week, barring any major
health issues or anything like that. Brother Ron, I'll turn
it over to you for the prayer time.
Wednesday 12-1-21 Bible Study
Series How to Defend the Faith
| Sermon ID | 121821329562033 |
| Duration | 45:46 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Language | English |
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