Please turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Peter 3. We'll read verses 15 and 16. It says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. And now please turn to Proverbs chapter one. We're gonna read verse seven. And it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. And last but not least, Proverbs 26, and we'll read four and five. It says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, first and foremost, we come to your throne of grace to thank you for who you are, We thank you for what you've done for us. We thank you for what you have done through us, Lord, and what you will do through us. We thank you, Lord, for your word, the sure foundation that we can plant to our feet, Lord, knowing that we will never sway to the right or to the left. As sure as we stand on that word, Lord, we thank you for your Holy Spirit who dwells within us that leads us to truth through this word. And we pray that you would use me tonight, Lord, to speak clearly your truth, that the hearer would have all distractions put away, that you would lead them, Lord, and turn their hearts, conform it to the image of Christ. We just pray that you would be glorified tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. So the title of my sermon tonight is called Biblical Apologetics. And when a lot of people hear the word apologetics, better yet, when they think about an apologist, more often than not, I think people imagine some scholastic type, you know, like a philosophy major maybe. And they create this caricature in their head of an apologist. And with that idea of what apologist is tattooed on their brain, it doesn't really seem necessary for the ordinary Christian in their mind. It turns into this heady kind of abstract mental exercise. Or you may not even know what apologetics is. And you're thinking, why would I be apologizing for Christ? I've actually heard that a few times. But apologetics isn't apologizing. Apologetics is a defense of the Christian faith. Apologetics are used to explain and clarify the gospel message. You must evangelize, preaching the law to the proud and the gospel to the humble. The law is what God has ordained to humble the proud. It's the gospel that God has ordained to draw humbled sinners unto himself. While sharing all of this, there's a much needed place for apologetics in order to clear up the ill-conceived mental presuppositions that have led people to reject biblical Christianity. And the first step in clearing up all these ill-conceived mental presuppositions is to recognize and understand that everyone has underlying presuppositions that they take for granted. A presupposition isn't just an assumption and an argument. It's a personal commitment that's held at the most basic level of one's network of beliefs. A person's presuppositions form a wide-ranging foundational starting point in which everything that is interpreted and evaluated by a person first filters through. They have the greatest authority in a person's thinking, and a person treats their presuppositions as their least negotiable beliefs. A person's worldview is built off of these presuppositions. Every worldview is built upon certain presuppositions. This is like how every house needs a foundation. When it comes to the biblical worldview, which we hold and defend through our apologetics, we have a good foundation. It's built on the rock of God's word, and it will not be moved by any craftiness of Satan or of man. But any unbelieving worldview, any belief system that adds to or denies the truth of the Bible is built upon the sand of human autonomy and is obliterated by the truth of God's word. So seeing now the grounds of this battle that we're in, it's seeing that every good battle plan has an offensive and a defensive strategy. We recognize evangelism as our offense and apologetics our defense. We let the Bible stand as our playbook for both. The word apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia. which is the word that was used there in 1 Peter 3.15 when we read, be ready always to give an answer. Historically, the word was used in reference to preparing a well-thought-out legal defense, where an argument that would be used to refute charges that were levied against an individual, many times regarding that person's philosophical position. Which, if you remember, is exactly what happened to Paul at the Areopagus in Acts 17. And that should be somewhat fresh in most of our minds, seeing that not too long ago, for several Sundays, Pastor Adam, in the Sunday school hour, was teaching through a majority of the Book of Acts. And in Acts 17, we receive a most masterful insight into the way that Paul defended the truth of the Gospel in the midst of a pagan culture. Most importantly, in my opinion, Paul's apologetic encounter at the Areopagus should give us a caution against measuring the effectiveness of our ministry by the results that we see in our own lifetime. The Apostle Paul only saw two people converted, a woman named Damaris and Dionysus, who was a judge of the Areopagus court. But the lasting influence is still seen today. Paul's speech is engraved on a bronze plaque at the foot to the ascent of the Areopagus. It's the spirit of God that uses us in our apologetic endeavors, and it's the spirit of God alone that regenerates the hearts of those that we speak with. One promise that should make you extremely hopeful is that God's word shall not return void. It will bring either salvation to those that God has chosen in his eternal purpose to regenerate and give eternal life to, and damnation to those who have been hardened and been given over by God to hate him. He will be glorified in the salvation of many, showing His grace and mercy, and He will be glorified in the damnation of many, when His perfect justice and wrath are poured out. God's glory is the prime objective. We would rather see God glorified in a center of salvation rather than His damnation, but the ultimate purpose of ministry is to glorify God. We may go many years without seeing even one conversion. But God's grace keeps us going on boldly with perseverance for years more, knowing that God has given me the honor of proclaiming and defending his glorious truth, and he is glorified in this work. That's all that matters. Of course, we want to see the good fruit of a repentant sinner coming to faith in Christ through his work in us, and we should pray for that. All while recognizing that some plant, some water, but praise God, he gets the increase. So it's important to always keep in mind that apologetics and evangelism go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin. And I don't think I'm gonna find any disagreement from anybody in this room with the next statement I'm about to make. Evangelism is a command. It's not just a nice suggestion. Evangelism is a command. And if we really believe that, if we really believe that an almighty, all holy, and sovereign God has in his word already given us the Great Commission, he's already told us to go evangelize the world, But he's also told us that he's angry with the wicked every day, and he's going to pour his wrath out on all of those who have lived for this world and rejected Christ. If we really believe that, brothers and sisters, what are we doing? There needs to be a sense of urgency. People are dying without Christ. People are on their way to hell. I know plenty. I'm sure you know plenty. It doesn't break your heart. If you're a Christian, it should. And if it does, evangelism should be a real part of your walk with Christ. And to be a good evangelist, you need to be a good apologist. And apologetics is always done in the context of evangelism. It's always about showing people Christ, calling people to faith and repentance in Him. And brothers and sisters, the Bible needs to be the foundation of our approach. In the circles that we run in, from as far as I know, by God's grace, Sola Scriptura is still taken seriously. But for most of the people that you come across, even some who profess Christ, saying that the Bible is the foundation of every aspect of our life, it sounds absurd to them. Even in the world of Christian apologetics, the apologetical methods that are accepted in academia are going to tell you to put your Bible down to the side, because not everyone accepts it. But I hope you know better than that, Christian. I've been praying that this sermon would be an encouragement to you. Because if you know your Bible, you can dismantle any false worldview by using it. In our scripture reading for this evening in Colossians 2, 1 through 8, you can turn with me there again if you'd like, we saw in verses 2 and 3 that in Christ, all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. Why would we put our Bibles down? All of the scriptures are about Christ. The scriptures are a treasure chest of wisdom and knowledge. We don't put that down. We hold on to that for dear life. In verse 4, Paul says that he's writing this so that you will not be beguiled by men and their enticing words. What is it that we need to keep at the forefront of our hearts and our minds so that doesn't happen? It's Christ and His Word, His teaching, which is all of Scripture. In verses 6 and 7, as we have received Christ, we walk in him. And that means that he is Lord of all. There is no part of our life that Jesus isn't Lord. There is no part of our life that scripture doesn't touch, especially our apologetic. So we are to be rooted and built up in him, established in the faith. The apostle says, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. As ye have been taught, well, who taught? Christ taught. Christ taught the apostles, and they, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote down the teaching. And in God's miraculous providence, we have those teachings between our hands today. And because of the science of textual criticism, even secular scholarship has to admit that the Bible is the best-attested book of antiquity. The world doesn't want you to trust it. But who is the little G God of this world? 2 Corinthians 4.4, it's Satan. And in verse 8, we get the warning to beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. We have the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience in the Bible. What we don't do is put our Bibles off to the side for even a moment. What we don't do is let information go into our heads without first letting it be filtered through the scriptures. That's what it means to have a Christian worldview. You don't put down your sword. Don't put down your sword because the unbeliever is trying to mock your belief in the Bible. The unbeliever, who I'll grant is in a more respected position than you in the eyes of the world, they're holding a butter knife. And they're in some sort of self-preservational delusion with no legs to stand on. And in a pathetic last-ditch attempt to suppress the truth, he just mocks your much more powerful weapon. Well, what do we say to that? Let God be true and every man a liar. The weapons of the war that we're fighting are not of this world, but are powered by God and effective at tearing down the strongholds erected against His truth. What we need to do is rest in the sovereignty of God. be so filled with his spirit and the truth of his word that it pours out from the depths of our hearts to our lips with conviction, knowing there but for the grace of God go I. We were all once in Adam, and remember that wretched old state that you were in before Christ so mercifully saved you. We were all once heading for hell, and Jesus Christ rescued us and filled us with his spirit. How can we just go through life after such a love has been shown? and not live for Him, and not desire sinners who, in their current state, are where we once were, blind, deceived, God-haters, who, if not for the effectual call, the active and passive obedience of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit and regeneration, we would still be where they are, there but for the grace of God go I. Listen and ask the right questions in light of what the scripture teaches. If you just let an unbeliever talk, their worldview collapses on itself in light of scripture. I believe it was Cornelius Van Til, who was a hero in the world of reformed apologetics, who famously said, just let the unbeliever talk. Just let him keep pulling out that rope and he'll eventually hang himself. People that you talk with are going to claim to be neutral, but there is no neutrality. Let's look at Romans chapter one. Let's read verses 18 through 32, just to refresh our memories of what we're up against. So Romans chapter one, read 18 through 32. It says, For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they are with that excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like two corruptible men, into birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause, God gave them up to vile affections, for even their women did it change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affections, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. So that's what we're up against. These people love their sin. They know that God exists, but they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. We let them know straight away, I'm not neutral and neither are you. We both come to evidence with certain presuppositions. A Christian scientist who looks at fossils and interprets evidence, he does it within a Christian worldview, looking at the evidence within a framework of Christian presuppositions. A scientist who's an atheist is going to look at that same evidence and they're going to interpret it according to their godless worldview. And so we don't just lay evidence out because of the noetic effects of sin. We know that the unbeliever is going to be interpreting the evidence with the wrong methodology. Because the unregenerate mind is so corrupted by sin, we address the methodology itself. What we do is show the incoherency and the arbitrariness of their worldview. And we do that by proving only the Bible provides the preconditions of intelligibility. Now, what are the preconditions of intelligibility? To make any rational sense of the world, human beings must start out as knowers. We don't come out of our mother's womb as a tabula rasa or as a blank slate. Everyone, being made in God's image, come out knowing. We must know certain things to be true. And based on these facts, our worldviews are built. Think about it this way. In order for a scientist to know that a certain study is accurate, they must rely on instruments that are used to conduct the study. They carefully calibrate the equipment to ensure everything functions properly. In order to know that a conclusion is accurate, the scientist must first know that his instruments are accurate. In the same way, human beings, in order to know that what is being perceived by our brains is actually accurate, we must first know that our senses are reliable. that nature is uniform, that the laws of logic and mathematics are sound, that morality is upheld, and so on and so forth. In order to trust the reliability of your mental and sensory faculties, a person must first know that they're valid. These preconditions of intelligibility are only valid if they are upheld by some personal force outside of the human being, the same way that the scientific instruments can only be trusted if they are first validated by a scientist. The Word of God is this validator. It makes sense of the preconditions of intelligibility in such a way that without the God of Christianity, you can't account for the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, absolute truth, or absolute morality. A lot of Christians are intimidated when they come across an atheist. You know, atheists love to say the word science, and they love to say it a lot. And that can be kind of unsettling, especially if you're not a scientist, or if, like most people, you got C's in your high school science classes. But it can be especially daunting if your idea of apologetics is that you have to give and interpret scientific data and evidence. But if you can learn to have a biblical apologetic and attack the ground that the unbeliever stands upon, questioning him on how he knows that his reason is valid to make truth claims. How does he know anything for certain? If he says that he does know anything for certain, how? And if he says that he can't know anything with certainty, then why are we even here talking? You'll hear really ignorant things sometimes. Like, all I know is that I know nothing for certain. That's like really big on secular campuses nowadays because of postmodernism. If you don't know about postmodernism, it gripped the minds of most of society after it gripped the educational system in the 60s and 70s. It teaches that nothing is absolute. Everything is relative. So when the question, what is truth, is asked to a postmodernist, the answer would be, well, truth is whatever makes you feel the safest, whatever you want to believe it is. When you ask them what is love, they'll say, well, love is love. However, your perverted little heart wants to express it. What is a woman? Well, a woman is anyone who identifies as feminine. What? You shouldn't be intimidated to talk with these people. All they're doing is they're wielding a butter knife, and they're just doing it really arrogantly. You're holding a bazooka. Another silly statement that gets thrown around by atheists is science tells us that evolution is a fact. But first of all, science is a process. It doesn't talk. The logical fallacy of reification is defined as attributing concrete characteristics to something that's abstract. So if you ever hear someone ever say, you know, science says something or other, they're committing the reification fallacy. Science doesn't tell us anything. Scientists who interpret evidence do, but in order to even start to interpret evidence, you need the laws of logic. You need absolute truth. You need the uniformity of nature. You see where this is going. We want to get to the root. We want to get to the foundation, and the atheistic worldview is irrational at its core, and it cannot consistently provide the preconditions for intelligible experience. The atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability of the mind to understand the world, moral absolutes, nothing. It's not only the atheistic worldview, though. No other religion, period. No school of philosophical thought. No science textbook. None of them can give you the foundational answers that Christianity does. Only Christianity can give you an answer as to why we can, or better yet, as to why we should even do science, math, logic. No other religion, no school of philosophical thought, no science textbook can account for absolute truth or absolute morality. Only Christianity can account for why it is always wrong to murder another human being. Only Christianity can be consistent in a statement like Black Lives Matter because we know that every human being is made in the image of God and is, from conception, valuable, due dignity, due respect. Atheism can't account for a statement like Black Lives Matter. If everyone has just spawned from a primordial ooze, and by random circumstances and chances, we just happen to evolve into the beings that we are today, why would any life matter? We're just all bags of protoplasm in their worldview. The atheistic worldview cannot give you a reason for why humans have inherent worth. They just take it for granted. You may have heard of David Hume, who was an 18th century Scottish skeptic, or Bertrand Russell, a 20th century English philosopher. And they both wrote in strong opposition to religion, and especially against Christianity. But both brought up a problem in their writings that only the Christian worldview can solve. It's called the problem of induction. The problem of induction questions our reasoning for believing that the future will be like the past. How do we know that tomorrow is gonna be like today? This is of utmost importance for the modern science, for modern science, because what is the scientific method? Observe, hypothesize, analyze, and test, and then repeat. You can only do that if you know for certain that the future will be like the past. This is a huge philosophical question that has still yet to be answered according to the atheistic worldview, and it never will be. The atheist has to jump into the Christian worldview to do science experiments. And then he jumps out back into his unbelieving worldview when it's time to interpret them. And so, do we as Christians, do we have a reason for believing the inductive principle? Absolutely we do. I would argue that we alone do. What needs to be done in order to figure all this out is called an internal critique. What we do is we set the Christian worldview side by side to the atheist worldview, or Islam, or Mormonism, or Jehovah's Witness, or Roman, whatever the cult is, put it there next to Christianity. And what we're going to do is we're going to compare them. We're going to put them side by side and ask which one of these best comports to reality or to the inductive principle or to the laws of logic or whatever topic's at hand. And then through that, we'll see which one provides the preconditions for intelligible experience. And I'm going to say atheism's view of reality and historical eventuation cannot provide a cogent reason for what all of our reasoning just takes for granted. it is debunked by its philosophical arbitrariness. In contrast, it is more than reasonable to believe in the God of the Bible because logically, he alone can be the precondition for reasoning, period. And if someone doesn't think so, let's do an internal critique of what you're offering and then compare it to Christianity. And then we'll see which one best comports to reality. Without fail, it's gonna be shown that reality is that which comports to the mind of Yahweh. Only the Christian worldview can make sense of the world that we live in. Only if the God of the Bible is who He is, only if Jesus Christ is that great I Am, can humans make any sense of their existence or their experience. Our God is the foundation for intelligibility, and that's why Proverbs 1-7 needs to be at the forefront of our mind when we engage the heathen. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and destruction. wisdom and instruction. The Bible is the Word of God. It tells us everything that we need to know about our human experience. Our Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, in Chapter 1, Paragraph 1, it says, Although the light of nature and works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation? Brothers and sisters, the sword of the Spirit is our weapon in this spiritual war. And do not get it twisted, we are in a spiritual war. This war is not against flesh and blood. It's against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. We don't put our weapon down when we enter battle. We brandish it boldly. We wield it skillfully. Know this though and take it to heart. It's really easy to get so wrapped up in study and argumentation that private communion with God starts to dwindle. We get puffed up in knowledge and then we start to lean on our own understanding. And then we forget that what we're doing is primarily spiritual in nature. What Pastor Adam has been telling us is a much needed reminder. We need to be praying as we study the scripture. There needs to be a real give and take conversation going on between us and our God in those daily secret times. Think about the seven sons of Sceva in Acts 19 when they had no power over the demon they confronted. As religious as they may have been, they had no relationship with God. They were not believers in Christ. They did not possess the power or the presence of the Holy Spirit. There was nothing in them or in their words that would cause a demon to listen to them. And one demon, if you remember, got fed up with their antics and then he gave them a whooping that every generation to come would remember. And so as we go making disciples, we are attacking the enemy on his territory and taking what he delusionally believes belongs to him. Turn with me to Mark chapter 3. In verse 27, Jesus is speaking. And Jesus says, but no man can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except that he will first bind the strong man, and then he will spoil his house. So as you enter evangelistic opportunities, stand firm on the Bible. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, because Jesus Christ has bound that strong man through obedience to God's will. And he has authority to grant life and forgive sins. And he has commissioned us to go into all the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that he's commanded. and surely he is with us even to the end of the age, but you better know him. If you are not filled with the Holy Spirit, you will bear no fruit. Charles Spurgeon's famous quote that every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter, it's true. He wasn't saying that everyone has to pack up and move overseas, but as you go, as you go through the places of life that God has providentially placed you, are you concerned at all for the lost souls that cross your path? Spurgeon also said, have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself. Be sure of that. Evangelism is a command, but God's commands are not burdensome for the Christian. Christ's yoke is easy. His burden is light. Evangelism is a joyous routine for a Christian. We are being used to bring glory to God. We have the honor of being used by God. for his eternal glory to which Christ is heir and we co-heirs in Christ. We love God and we love our neighbor and our hearts desire nothing more than to speak of our heavenly father and the truth of his word. Is that statement true of you? Be honest. If not, I would encourage you to check your heart. But if it is true, then let's do apologetics biblically, God's way, to his glory. And so let's turn to Proverbs 26. And then we'll read verses four and five. Proverbs 26, four and five. It says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. So before we get into the meat of this, let's just answer one simple question. Who is a fool? Sometimes people you talk with may think that the Bible is using words in the same way that we would in our modern speech. They're gonna think that you're being abusive, calling people names. And so in Matthew 5, 22, you don't have to turn there if you want, Jesus said, but I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Rachah, shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. So before you go and lead off your evangelistic opportunities with the word fool, make sure you're not using it in that way. And I would encourage you probably not to use it at all, you know. But the best thing that we can do is to make sure we define our terms as soon as the words come up. Make sure to tell the person how the Bible uses the word fool here, descriptively, applying it to someone who's spiritually ill-informed. The word isn't being used to make fun of someone. It's a moral judgment. Yeah, it's a moral judgment. It's not an intellectual one. And how else does the Bible describe a fool? Well, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. It's Psalm 14.1. What else does the Bible tell us about fools? The wise man builds his house upon a rock, Jesus tells us. The foolish man builds upon the sand. It's Matthew 7, 24 through 27. And what Jesus is saying is that his words are the rock, the rock upon which everything is built. The wise man builds upon the rock the foundation of God's word, while everyone else builds their life on the foolish and the destructive sand of human autonomy. Now with that said, this is what God's word is telling us in Proverbs 26, four and five. Let's just read it one more time again. So it says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. And so, do these two verses appear contradictory to you? Which one is it? Do we answer them according to the folly or not? You know, is it one, is it the other, is it both? It's both. What we have here is a two-fold procedure that works very well in apologetics. The first step is to not answer a fool according to his folly. Why not? Lest you be like unto him. When someone who is an unbeliever throws out an objection against your Christian faith, don't use the presuppositions of the unbeliever. Don't answer the fool according to his folly. Don't answer in terms of his worldview. Because if you buy into his most basic presuppositions, if you're gonna use his assumptions, then you're gonna end up just like him. His presuppositions determine where you can come out in an argument. So if you buy into the secular presuppositions, if you buy into the secular assumptions that this person wants you to buy into, and you use them in that argument, you're going to end up in the same place that they are. Don't answer the fool according to his folly, lest you be like him. When you answer the fool, you have to use your presuppositions and your worldview, which is based on the Bible's presuppositions and the Bible's worldview about God and the world that he created. You're going to show him how history, math, science, morality, it all makes sense from within the Christian worldview. You'll never be able to show the truth and sensibility of God's word from within the unbelieving worldview. From within their worldview, Paul tells us that the gospel will be foolish. But God makes foolish the wisdom of this world. And that brings us to the second step in Proverbs 26, 4 and 5. We've been told not to answer a fool according to his folly. Now we're told to answer the fool according to his folly. That is, accept his presuppositions, take his basic assumptions, and answer him according to the operating assumptions of his worldview. Why would we do that? What will the outcome be? lest he be wise in his own conceit, lest in his own self-sufficiency, lest in his own pride and autonomy, he thinks he's wise. You answer him according to his worldview so you can show how absurd it is. Answer the fool according to his folly so that he'll have nothing to stand on. He'll have no reason to be proud. Many of the unbelievers you're gonna come against, they're gonna think they have everything figured out. They have all the answers. They think they understand life, but they don't. Answer them according to their folly. Show them what their folly is, lest they be wise in their own conceit. Again, we can think of this as a twofold apologetic procedure. The first step, where you don't answer the fool according to his folly, is a positive presentation of Christianity. showing that it does make sense out of science and logic and moral values. It does make sense out of the dignity of man. It does make sense out of human freedom. It's a positive presentation of your worldview, not buying into their assumptions. That's step one. And when I say step one and step two, I'm not trying to put them in chronological order. Depending on the way the conversation goes, two might come first. But the way Proverbs 26 does it is it puts the positive one first. And so that's the first step. And then the second step here, you answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. Now you use the unbelieving worldview and reduce it to absurdity. Like the example I used earlier with atheism and murder. An atheist is going to say that murder is wrong. And when they do, we jump into their worldview. And we say, wait a minute. According to macro-Darwinian evolution, we all just evolved from a Big Bang and a primordial ooze, right? They'll say, right. Well, how does that grant any value to our life? We evolved from the same stuff that a cockroach evolves from. Why don't we get mad when someone steps on a cockroach? What gives humans any more inherent dignity than a cockroach according to your worldview? You just jumped into their worldview, you tore everything apart, and now you can jump back into your worldview. And you can easily present a positive case for Christianity and show that you can make sense out of this moral problem. We were made in God's image. Thou shalt not murder. Love your neighbor. This simple question of why humans have inherent worth is so simple that everyone takes it for granted. Everyone is made in the image of God and that is why they know these things instinctually. The fall has so warped their thinking that in order to have their sin and ease the guilty conscience, in order to ease their cognitive dissonance, they say that God isn't true. So that way they can have their sin and try to ease their guilty conscience. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. It's almost like a beach ball in the pool. If you've ever been in a pool and you hold a beach ball under. I mean, you can get it under there, but it's going to be trying to pop up, and eventually it will pop up. And that's what we do. We look at the atheists and we say, I see that beach ball that you're trying to shove under the water, and I'm not going to let you do it. And this is why the world's going to hate you, because we don't let the unbelievers steal from our worldview. We press them on these beliefs, these beliefs that everyone takes for granted. And then we ask them how their worldview can account for the most basic assumptions that we make day by day. We remind them that they live like they know God exists. We remind them that every breath they take, they prove the scriptures true. You can also use the laws of logic. In a positive presentation of the Christian worldview, we're going to explain that these logical laws govern all thought and all language. They're transcendental, in that they transcend every language and every culture. Whereas vocabulary, grammar, and syntax change from language to language, the laws of logic are unchanging. They're also immaterial, universal, and knowable. That sounds awfully familiar. God is also transcendent. He's unchanging, immaterial, omnipresent, and knowable. The laws of logic come from the mind of God. Man is made in God's image, and that's why we use the laws of logic. But the atheist might respond, well, I can use the laws of logic, and I'm an atheist. But this is a straw man. We're not saying that the atheist can't or doesn't use the laws of logic, or the scientific method, or make truth claims, or believe in morality. We're saying that they do inherently know these things and do these things, and that's what shows that they're made in God's image. They do those things, but they have no foundational reason as to why they can or should according to their worldview. Logical reasoning requires the existence of a transcendent and immaterial God, not a profession of faith in him. The atheist can reason, but within his own worldview, his reasoning cannot be rationally accounted for. So once we lay out that, And once we show them that their worldview cannot account for it, or once we show them that our worldview can account for all of these things, then we do the internal critique of the unbelieving worldview. And then we bring forth the negative presentation, saying something like, if the laws of logic aren't from the mind of God, they would have to be merely man-made constructions. And if that were the case, then different cultures could adopt different laws of logic. In that case, the laws of logic would not be universal laws, and rational debate would just be impossible. Everybody's going to claim a different law of logic, and everyone's going to be right in their own standard. Or if someone says the laws of logic are simply the product of electrochemical impulses in your brain, same thing. We'll say the laws of logic can't be regarded as universal in that thinking. What happens inside your brain cannot be regarded as law. It doesn't necessarily correspond to what's happening in another person's brain. So again, each would be correct according to his own arbitrary standard. Or someone may say, we can use the laws of logic because they have been observed to work. But this is to totally miss the point. Everyone agrees that the laws of logic work, but that's because they're true. The real issue is how can the atheistic worldview account for absolute standards of reasoning like the laws of logic or like absolute truth? Why does the material universe feel compelled to obey immaterial laws? And moreover, the appeal to the past in order to make deductions concerning the way matter is going to behave in the future from a materialistic viewpoint is viciously circular. Remember Hume and Russell, who I mentioned earlier, they both admitted this in their writings on the problem of induction. The atheistic worldview, where everything is chance and there is no God, and you're using arbitrary assumptions, it cannot in any way account for the laws of logic or anything else in existence. So step one, Proverbs 26, 4 and 5 is the positive. We tell the believer why our worldview makes sense of reality. In step two, we're doing an internal critique of the unbeliever's worldview, showing why theirs cannot. In closing, what I'm calling biblical apologetics tonight is more popularly known as presuppositional apologetics. And it works with any worldview. We saw atheists, it works against Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, you name the cult, it'll work. I chose to give examples tonight of atheism because I think that's what most of us are going to see in our society where we live. But I'm sure most of you understood that most of what I said tonight, all of this, this isn't original to me. I got this from sitting on the backs of giants. Most of this is going to come from Cornelius Vantill, Greg Bonson, Jason Lyles, a modern guy. You got Dr. James White. You can learn a lot from just listening to debates like that. But the most important thing is to know your Bible, know God, speak of him, and do it boldly, knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord. And most, I wish I had time to get into some of the other worldviews that worship false gods and explain why they can't, you know, provide the preconditions for intelligibility. But if anybody has questions or you want to talk more about it, I'd love to sit down and meet up and talk and maybe have some lunch. Most apologetical methods, they're going to start with man and then work their way to God. This method starts with God and then works its way down to man. This is a thoroughly reformed Christian apologetic. I'd also love to go over the methods that are probably more familiar to you and why I don't believe those are biblical methods, but we just don't have the time. I would just say that God can, has, and does use unbiblical apologetical approaches to bring some of his elect to himself. We all know that God can strike a straight line with a broken stick, but that doesn't mean we go around looking for that broken stick. One thing that every apologetic approach outside of this reformed apologetic approach does is it puts man on the judgment seat and it puts God on the defendant seat. When you're in court, who gives evidence to who? Man doesn't need evidence for God. All of creation cries out to his glory. We've read Romans 1. People know that God exists. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness. What men need is a spiritual shaking. They need their worldview exposed for the absurdity that it is. And then this is where our Reformed apologetic comes in. I hope it was edifying to you, and I really do pray that God will use this to give you a deeper hunger for his word, as well as evangelizing the lost. And like I said, if anybody has questions or wants to talk about this, I'd love to do it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, first and foremost, we come to your throne of grace to thank you again for who you are, for what you've done for us, for what you've done through us, for what you will do through us, Lord, we praise you. We thank you for your word, Lord. We pray that by the power of your spirit that we would be bold in sharing it with unbelievers, that you would use us for your glory. We pray that you would protect us as we leave this place. We ask that you would please, Lord, give us people to talk to this week, give us ministry to get into. We pray that you would use us in it and be glorified. In Jesus' name.