Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is September 25th, 2018, and those of you listening at a later time period, years down the road, you know what happened here. We, living through history right now, obviously do not know what is going to happen. But I will confess to being somewhat I'm not confused, I understand exactly why this is, but very, very deeply disappointed in a lot of what I'm seeing from Christian people regarding current events in the United States and the specific issue of justice, not the social justice stuff, we'll talk about that a little later, But the issue right now in the United States is the nomination hearings in regards to Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court of the United States. For those of you outside the United States, those of you inside the United States, nominations to the Supreme Court were not an overly politicized or a controversial event until the 1980s when the left began to politicize them with the situation with the Justice Bork and then with Justice Thomas. The right has refused to follow suit. uh... it is always the left that is uh... doing things like they're doing now in that this political theater but not just political theater they recognize the supreme court is the only mechanism they have for the continuing transformation of american society that is the overthrow of the republic They recognize, you know, they're not dumb people. The founders, John Adams, I've quoted it many, many times, said the Constitution is only sufficient for religious and moral people. It is completely insufficient for the governance of any other. And it is now attempting to govern a people who are neither religious nor moral nor ethical, even at the highest levels. And so the wheels, they're wobbling and things are going on. And we see this stuff taking place. But what concerns me is, again, primarily because of emotionalism. The next generation seems to not think, but emote. Thinks that emotion is the primary mechanism of Christian expression, rather than biblical teaching. I'm just stunned, and part of it, and I keep using the term stunned, I shouldn't, I am, I recognize that what I'm seeing and hearing comes from people who are generally ignorant of the Old Testament as a whole, but especially the law, the Torah. I would imagine that only something like Habakkuk or Zephaniah is less known than Leviticus or Deuteronomy is, or maybe some places in 2 Chronicles. But there are favorite passages that we have in the Old Testament, and then there are the passages nobody even bothers to read anymore, let alone ponder or consider. And given certain forms of dispensationalism, There are many, many, many people who just don't think that the Mosaic Law is at all relevant. It's all passed away, we're not under the law, we're under grace, and therefore why should we even bother reading these things? Not recognizing that it is those passages of Scripture, which our Lord and Savior considered to be the very words of God, that when interpreted in a consistent fashion provide us with tremendous insights that have been enshrined in English common law and hence are the foundation of our own legal system. And so to see people, I watched a woman on television last night being interviewed, to see people completely willing, and I recognize, I hope you recognize, that the fundamental driving force in our experience right now is the fanatic religious dedication to abortion as the sacrament of the left. And anything that maybe even remotely might threaten it is the greatest heresy in the world and it's worthy of calling an absolute crusade to destroy. And that's what we're seeing in our land right now. Personally, by the way, just in passing, I could be wrong about this, no one really knows, but I see Judge Kavanaugh pretty much cut out of the cloth of Kennedy. I think he'll probably be put on Supreme Court, but I'm just sort of sitting back going, could be interesting, could be interesting, might not be what we end up thinking, that wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the first time. Kennedy was thought to be a lot different than he ended up being. But anyway, that's neither here nor there at the moment. The simple reality is that we have a number of people expressing a willingness to overthrow fundamental elements of justice in our society, specifically due process and the presumption of innocence. They likewise seem, and these are Christians, even Christians are willing to do this, and it's a sad thing to recognize that 98% of the Christians with whom I would speak, or people who at least claim to be Christians, have nothing to draw from from their study of scripture to even begin to address the topic. Let me give you some examples. In the law of God, in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 19, if you want to look along, Listen to these words. No, I'm not, you don't need to. A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed. On the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed. Now, we know Jesus repeated that. He even brought out in his, in John chapter 5, John chapter 8, A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed." Oh, that can't! How can that be? People would get away with stuff. Again, if that's the way you think, you are not thinking as a Christian. You may be a Christian, but you're not thinking as a Christian. Yes, evil can get away with being evil. in this life. The underlying foundation of anything we're going to read in scripture is that God is going to judge. There is going to be a final day of judgment, and any judgment that we engage in in this life is simply a temporal approximation of what is eventually going to be done before the throne of God. And so, well, that would leave some people without getting justice. No, they're going to get justice in the next life. And as long as you don't really think there's going to be a next life, and as long as you don't think that that kind of justice really matters, then you're going to be very, very unhappy in this world. Very, very unhappy. Because you're trying to bring cosmic justice, which only God can bring, and will at the Great White Throne Judgment, into now and put that power in the hands of men. And we weren't designed to have it. We can't do it. We have too much ignorance. We have too much error. We have too much sin. You don't want that power now. Once you engage, once you buy into secularism, once you buy into the evolutionary theory, man's just an animal, there's no transcendent meaning. That's all you got. You got nothing more. You got nothing more. So, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed. Now you see, God already knows it. Justice will be done. But you can't have a single witness. That pretty much ends everything that's going on right now from a justice standpoint, from the law of God. It's all single witnesses, and what's worse, what I'm hearing, and I can't confirm this, but I've heard a number of sources saying this was some kind of repressed memory thing, that you sit around the psychologist for sessions and you bring these memories out, and didn't we already learn how ridiculously absurd that is years ago? I guess not. On the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed. And, next verse, Deuteronomy 19, 16, if a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, Then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who will be in the office in those days. The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you." I didn't write it. That was written long before I came along. I may be old, but I ain't that old. False witness is an evil amongst the people of God. Because it is an abuse of the one system of justice, the demand for honesty, the demand for integrity, that is to mark the people of God. And so if someone rises up and tries to get a certain punishment brought against you, and it's found out that they were a false witness, it didn't happen, then the punishment you wanted to give to them is to be given to you. Oh, but that would mean that people wouldn't report things. Yeah, if you can't prove it, you don't report it. Oh, but, but, but. And what's the but, but, but based on? but then they won't get justice. Not in this life, but they will get justice from God, the judge of all the earth, who does right. That's why we are seeing what we're seeing today. We are seeing a wholesale willingness to overthrow all basic standards of justice that we have held since the Magna Carta. Why? Because the worldview has changed, folks. This is, we are in that transitionary period. So, we've still got a system that was built by people who believed that justice would be done in God's time, and that our justice system is to approximate His as best we can, but that there have to be safeguards built in so that it cannot be abused and bring the innocent into improper judgment. But the worldview that substantiated that, we've rejected. And we haven't put in a system that will then be consistent with that worldview. Folks, what's consistent with that worldview, you don't even want to know about. It will not have liberty. It will not have freedom. It will not have peace. It can't, because it does not correlate to the world God has created and the people God has created. But that's where we're going. And we're going there fast. Like I said, watched a lady last night. I think Judge Kavanaugh should have to prove his innocence. Well, good luck with that. Good luck with that. 35 years ago. People say, well, you can investigate stuff that's that old, not of this nature. If you had a little stained blue dress, you might. But you don't have that. And of course, that's the wrong side of the political spectrum, so we don't have to worry about that anyways. Everybody over there is just free game. You can do whatever you want. But we don't have that in this situation. You do not have that kind of... There's no physical evidence here. It's all unclear, clouded memories. That's all it is. There's nothing more. That's it. So you don't have the kind of evidentiary material. It's not like one of these cold cases where you go back and get DNA out of a skeleton or, you know, any of that kind of stuff. You find somebody's buried box that has all the information in it. There's nothing like that. In other words, justice cannot be done sitting around, we need the FBI to investigate, is absurd. It's ridiculous. But the reason that people are doing it, because we're in this in-between age where we've lost the worldview that makes sense of the structures we have and we haven't succeeded in destroying the structures yet to build new ones which will be horrible and that we don't want to see destroyed but that's up to God then notice during 1920 the rest will hear and be afraid of and will never again do such an evil thing among you. You mean you're supposed to learn from the punishment of others? Yeah, yeah, that's, um, yeah, that's there. That's there. Now, especially in regards to the time issue, waiting for all these years, going through therapy and coming up with memories and all the rest of this kind of stuff. Let me, let me read you, um, Deuteronomy 22, beginning of verse 23. If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death, the girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor's wife, thus you shall purge the evil from among you. So, notice the location In the city, the assumption is that if someone cries out in the city, there's going to be a reaction. Sadly, in many of our cities, things are so bad that the reaction will be to close the windows, bar the doors, and hide. But in Israel, the reaction is assumed to be that people will come to the aid of the person who cries out. So, if this adulterous situation arises in the city, then both are punished. But notice what happens right after this, verse 25. But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. But she should do nothing to the girl. There is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her." So the assumption of the law is, out in the field, there's nobody to hear. I mean, you gotta remember, there weren't that many people back then. And if you're out in the field, you're alone. The assumption is there's nobody else nearby. So, the law assumes... Now, you go, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. What if they plot to take advantage of just that? She might get away with it. Yup, she might. The point is, it's better that she get away with it in this life, because she's not going to get away with it in the next life, than to have her cry out, she is raped, and then she gets executed as well. The point is, the law is saying, leave the door open for an evil person to escape, rather than punishing an innocent person, because that sheds innocent blood. Every January, don't we have that big push to, you know, read through the Bible in a year? I guess we don't make it to about February? Because it doesn't seem like anybody knows these verses are there or cares that they're there. How many of the people in our society right now could look at that and go, that's duder duder what? Duder duder wubba? I don't know what that is. Who cares? It doesn't matter. There's a problem. There's a problem. And if you think, well, I'm just a New Testament Christian, well, that's why Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy all the time, and Leviticus, so on and so forth. So, as I listen to people saying, let's make people, you know, any accusation automatically disqualifies you. The insanity of that is hard for me to understand. It truly is. And if you have fallen into that, may I just really strongly suggest you step back and think that through for a second? Especially if you call yourself a Christian. Do some reading. Do some reading. I just don't even know what else. What else to say? So, some thoughts along those lines from the scriptures. A video came out over the weekend. I think maybe it was Sunday. I think it was on Sunday. A video came out of Dr. Keller from New York City. It's a cell phone video, so it's not overly, you know, it's not professionally made, but it's understandable. And I have the volume maxed out, so hopefully you'll be able to do something with it. It's not the best recording, obviously. But it is Dr. Keller talking about the statement on social justice and the gospel, and I commented on this on Twitter because basically what he does is he, I think, illegitimately makes reference to something called speech-act theory. My understanding is he's not making a proper application here at all, but the way he presents it is that you can have the meaning of words, but then you have the actual impact of the words. And the impact of the words may actually be the opposite of what the words actually mean, but that that's more important. And so what you have here is you have a pastor basically telling his audience that the statement on social justice and the gospel is inappropriate, because even though he can't provide specifics from the words that he would disagree with, it's what the words do. And what the words do is that they tell you that you shouldn't be concerned about racism or the poor or injustice. So, the literal argument is, the words don't say this, but that's the effect. To which you go, once again, we have entered into We've gone down the rabbit hole a long ways here, and Alice is now talking to us, and words just don't seem to have any meaning anymore. And it gets pretty frightening when Christians are so buying into the narrative of the day that they will actually apply such concepts to fellow ministers with decades of ministerial experience. Fellow ministers that they themselves have spoken with at conferences and everything else. But now, in service of social justice, we can read their words and their words will say X But we can dismiss what's actually being said, because they actually mean why. So let's take a listen to what Dr. Keller said at this, and hopefully we'll be able to play it for you, you'll be able to hear it, and so on and so forth. It's less than three minutes long. They got technical terms for it. They talk about, in other words, you could say, you know, I love the way you look. And that may be perfectly true, but it depends on what you're trying to do with the money. Under certain circumstances, that could be a kind of coercive statement. So in other words, there's what it says is true, and then what is it trying to do? So when I go through there, if you go really, really strictly, I think just about anybody would take about 80% of it. You say, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And then there's even some places where you really push it. You say, I kind of see why they would say that. It depends on how they might define church and things like that. But in the end, what concerns me most about it is not so much what it's saying, but what it's trying to do. And what I fear is, and I think they may be responding to some sins on the other side, is at this point I feel that the Christian church is being, because our country is so polarized politically, But increasingly, the Church is becoming an extension of the various political parties. So I've said this before and I'm going to say it again. If you talk about the Evangelical Church, for example, there's now becoming a red Evangelicalism and a blue Evangelicalism. There are churches that are sort of lining up to become more extensions of a particular political party than they are really looking at the word of God's sentence. Because I actually do think that if you really take a look at, there's a lot of things the Bible says about sex and gender that really come out pretty, sounding politically today, conservative. And a lot of things the Bible says about race and justice and the poor that today come out sounding extremely liberal. And therefore the churches, at the very end of my talk I try to say, the churches cannot identify so completely with one party and I think that's what this thing ends up doing. It's not so much what it says, it's what it does. It's trying to marginalize people who are talking about race and justice. It's trying to say you're really not biblical. And it's not fair in that sense. So that's the reason why when somebody starts to go down with me and say, would you agree with this? Would you agree with this? I would say, you're looking at the level of what it says and not the level of what it's doing. And I think what it's trying to do is it's really trying to say, don't make this emphasis. Don't worry about the poor. Don't care about the injustice. It's not really that important. That's what it's saying. Even if I can agree with most of it, I don't like it. So that's what it is. It's what it's doing that I don't like. So, it's not what it says, it's what I feel about it. It's what I feel it's doing. It's the motivations that I can impute to its authors, many of whom I actually know and have spoken at conferences with them, but I'm just going to impute to them the opposite intentions from what they've actually said, the articles that they have written, that have even expanded upon points, Um, this is coming from a Christian, from an allegedly reformed person. Um, to where, yeah, the words are okay, but I just sort of feel like this is what they're doing, see. And of course, we're used to this now. We hear this from the left all the time. It's emoting, it's feeling, but he didn't say that, but I'm sure that's what he intends. And so you just put this lens in front of everything. And again, as I've said before, the whole reason that we got together in Dallas and started work on this project was most of us, certainly I, had made the false assumption that within Reformed circles, there was this dedication to the idea that words have meaning and that if you're going to present something to be believed by God's people in the Reformed context, You need to be able to make a strong exegetical case. For that argument and that belief, that teaching, and since there isn't going to be an exegetical case, this kind of redefinition of genders and sexuality and all the revoice stuff and now the living out stuff, which is just one step down from revoice and all that kind of stuff. We just figured our dedication to to exegesis would be a sufficient bulwark, a sufficient wall to keep this from happening? Well, I suppose on one level you could say that it would have been, but would you like to hear your pastor speaking as Dr. Keller just did? Yeah, you're just looking at the level of the words. Well, that's a good place to start now, isn't it? Because once you get away from the actual words, things start getting really gooey, don't they? Yeah, they do. They start getting really messy at that point. So, the next day he had this tweet about how the cross is God's giving up power. And, you know, you just think of all the places where the Bible talks about the cross being the very power of God unto salvation and the power of God to elect people of God in 1 Corinthians 1 and stuff like that. And you just go, I think I know exactly what he's saying there. This is putting biblical teachings into the context of power, oppression, you know, privilege. This is what happens when you start taking these external filters and making them the primary filter through which you're looking at things and then expressing things. Because it gives you points with your people. It gives you points that people who want to hear you using that kind of language. Now, of course, he had his defenders. Well, I think it has to do with this. And it's like, if you listen to him talking recently, you know, what's what's the current big push, you know? And that's that's what the current big push is. And so it was very disappointing that Dr. Keller had no criticisms of what the document actually says. Um, that's generally what we're getting from people. Uh, the criticisms end up taking different, different forms of, well, what it should have said or it said too much, but, but actually, you know, when people have tried to dig into the text, it's been fairly easy to demonstrate that. Well, did you read the section before the section after, or, uh, you know, like, did you read the next sentence type of thing? Um, yeah. And, and it's, it's not difficult to identify the external. factors that are involved here. So what you hear there at the end, you're just looking at the words. That's good. And Dr. Keller, I'll tell you what, we'll just stick with looking at your words. Because that's what we're going to be judged by. And we don't have anything else to look at. So, um, I'm not sure how you think you can get past that, but hey, there you go. There you go. Okay. Well, with all of that done now in the first, uh, first half hour, uh, we can now get started because, um, there's a lot to get to, um, over the, um, over the weekend. I started to notice, I forget how this happened, to be honest with you. I started seeing these, I think it may have been, I think it may have been because I had seen a link to an article on a social justice subject from someone who is opposing the social justice movement, the neo-Marxist version, by the name of Cody Liebold. And I remember having just glanced at an article or something and so the name stuck and then my daughter and I were talking and she mentioned the same name and so it was sort of stuck in my mind there and so when I started seeing, I forget, I'm trying to remember what brought this about but I was communicating somehow with Jeff Durbin about something, and he had said something to me. Anyways, I started coming across this stuff from the new Christian intellectuals. And if I'm guessing correctly, the primary people in this movement are all under 30. And one's already talked about replacing me, so I'm feeling young, though. I think I could probably outride any of them, but anyway, I'm not quite old enough to kick off quite yet, but I've got lots of this white stuff down here, and they don't have that. In fact, I'm not sure that Cody could actually grow one of these. Nothing personal, Cody, but you look real young on your picture there. But they're getting ready to replace us, and they're the intellectuals. And finally, I ran across this thing on Facebook, and I'm just going to read it to you. This is from Cody. Which is more important, the battle against cultural Marxism or the battle against presuppositionalism? Well, one is an effect and the other is a cause. Cultural Marxism is an immediate threat to my life. But presuppositionalism is a greater and wider threat long term. Yeah, I'm not changing it. I'm reading it directly. I agree with the well-known presuppositionalist Jeff Durbin. Jeff Durbin is now that young kid that showed up out there is now a well-known presuppositionalist. Congratulations, Jeff! You just need a little more of this white stuff, and you're gonna be... That'll really help with the credibility really well. Yeah, yeah! I agree with the well-known presuppositionalist Jeff Durbin that there is a way to argue for God that is immoral. We just disagree about which method is the immoral one. So he's saying that to argue for the existence of God as a presuppositionalist is immoral. And it's worse than cultural Marxism. I see presuppositionalism in professors and pastors as running interference for a growing trend of fideism in congregants. It dulls our swords, diminishing our ability to fight the external battles or to keep young souls in the church. Now, so the young people that are going into universities and losing their faith is because of presuppositionalism in the church? I'm sorry, Cody, you do not have near enough life experience to even get close to making that comment. 99%, 99% of those individuals were not in Reformed churches where presuppositionalism was being taught. Okay? 99%. The rupture of young people is primarily from what we would call evangelical churches, where they've been entertained in In children's church and then young people's church, they've got basically no doctrinal foundation, they've never been challenged, they've just been entertained all the way through. And now all of a sudden they're thrown into the wolves, and they have no foundation, no meaningful Christian worldview of any kind whatsoever. To blame that on pre-suppositionalism, I'm sorry, is just fantastically absurd. I mean, this is imbalanced on a really big scale. I mean, you're way too close to this. You're looking at the bark of a tree, and you're missing the forest, man. I mean, this is not even close to balance. And I ain't the only one that's ever told you this. I happen to know that. I know many young people who left the church, and I can't say they were given a compelling picture of what faith is or why it makes sense. Yeah. But that you have a thousand times greater opportunity to have been given a meaningful presentation of the Christian worldview in a reformed church than in a non-reformed church. And amongst the reformed people is where you're going to find presuppositionalism. It is an inconsistent system in a non-reformed... I know there are non-reformed presuppositionalists, but I don't get how that works. Because presuppositionalism When you ask the question, what am I to defend? It is defending the reformed gospel, the fullness of that gospel, sovereignty of God, deadness of man and sin, all the rest of that stuff. That's not what's being taught in the vast majority of these churches, that these people are leaving. Too many churches are atheist factories. That is why I'm zealous against presuppositionalism. The stakes of the battle are high. Our camp is not in order. So I saw this, and I posted it on Facebook, and I said, what? What? What? What? And what's interesting is, on Thursday, my plan is to do the Radio Free Geneva, and it's going to have to be a long one. Well, I'm not sure how long it's going to last. respond to Mike Winger's video that has been sent to me 47,000 times. People keep saying, I want to hear it, but it's like, stop, I've already said, I'm going to be dealing with this, I saw it. I'm sorry, it's not difficult to deal with, and if you're reformed and you don't see what the problem is, I'm concerned that maybe you've embraced a system you don't understand or something. I'll just be straight up with you on that because it's pretty obvious where the problem is in the argumentation. It's not super strong argumentation. There's a basic error right at the beginning. It's repeated over and over again. Don't even have to play the whole thing because it's just repeated over and over and over again. Um, but we'll, we'll get to that on, on, on Thursday. So I had said, you know, I need to listen to the video. And so on, uh, Saturday I put that and then people had said, Hey, did you hear he had a conversation with Saiten Brutenkate? And so I found it, converted it. and put that on my iPod as well, and I went for a really long ride, so I had plenty of time to listen to both of them, and found the presuppositional discussion actually more interesting than the other one that I'll actually be addressing. And so I was already thinking along these lines, because listening to he and Psy going back and forth on presuppositionalism, he had made some comments on Romans 1, that I was like, I think maybe I'll include this, too, in the Radio Free Geneva, because this is a really important issue, and so we'll tie that together. Well, then at the same time, all this other stuff comes out, and I see all these people starting to make comments about presuppositionalism in Twitter and stuff, and they have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, none! Now look, let me just say off the top, I realize there are different flavors Presuppositional ism if you read k scott oliphant you've got covenantal apologetics Different terminology that's used You know you've got van till and then you get van till and clark going at it and and then you've got their interpreters everywhere from from greg bonson A bunch of people i've i've talked to a bunch of people over my lifetime who sort of feel like they've got the inside track on the interpretation of what Van Til really meant, because Van Til's original language wasn't English, and his English writing isn't all that great, and most of us aren't going to be reading it in Dutch or whatever it was anyway. And so, I'm well aware of the fact that you cannot simply go, well, this is presuppositionalism, and I get to define it. There are going to be differing emphases Um, given the individuals to whom you're speaking, just as there are all sorts of, you know, it's like listening to classical versus evidential and all the rest of this type of stuff. And there are dividing lines, however, and that's what I think people are missing or what the real dividing lines are. And once you lay them out, I think it provides clarity. Now, my understanding is that the guys at Choosing Hats has already had a dialogue with these young guys, and that'll be coming out. So that'll be useful. And I would direct people to other people other than myself for a number of different reasons, one of which I'm going away for three weeks. But the most serious reason is I've taught Christian philosophy religion many, many times on the graduate level. I'm a presuppositionalist not because of some philosophical framework that I've developed. I'm a biblical Trinitarian and I'm a biblical presuppositionalist. Biblical exegesis is where I think it's at. I think for the people of God, you open the word of God, I've seen it change people. And the teaching that has the longest lasting effect, I would believe, would be declaring the whole counsel of God. Yes, I just saw something on Twitter. Pedro saw it right before the program, almost lost my lunch, but decided I didn't want to even touch it. So I get it. Um, I shouldn't watch. I should actually, I'm about to go over here. So we'll probably need to move over here. Uh, that way I can't see Twitter. My, my OCD won't, uh, won't kick in, um, or whatever it is. Um, I am a squirrel. I am a, uh, Twitter, uh, biblical presuppositionalist. And when I have presented this material to classes and seminaries literally since the late 90s, I've always done so pretty much in the same fashion. And I've done it on this program in years past, but we have a lot of new listeners. And just because I did it once, ten years ago, I got to realize that doesn't mean everyone's going to remember what was said back then. And so what I want to do with the rest of our time today, however long it takes, is to go through three primary texts of scripture. One of which is, I was interacting with one of these young men, online and I watched a debate he had done where he made some what seemed to be very odd commentary on Romans 1. Basically saying it was Christians that not only non-Christians but Christians suppress the knowledge of God in the context of Romans 1 and what was included in Natural Revelation and I kept asking him on Twitter, can you show me Someone who has exegesis the text in the way that you have Because I can give you everyone from Calvin to John Murray and all sorts of other people Critical commentaries critical published commentaries that can be examined that all go along the same lines as what I've published if you want my exegesis of Romans 1 God who justifies, right there. Entire chapter on Romans 1, check it out. He wasn't able to give me anybody. Well, what are you objecting to? No, I'm asking who has done it like you've done it. And as is often the case with young people, it didn't seem to be the recognition that it might be good that you not be off on your own. It might be good that if, you know, you've got the the buffer zones of remaining in the mainstream of reformed exegesis and things like that. Might be a good thing to do. So, we're gonna look at, we're gonna start with Romans chapter 1, because it is absolutely central. I know I've done it before. But I'm going to make specific application to the issue of how we defend the faith. And as I said, and as I've said in critiquing William Lane Craig or anyone else, apologetics is a defense of the faith. Therefore, your theology must determine your methodology of apologetics, not the other way around. It is a great danger when your apologetic methodology determines your theological conclusions. That happens way too often. Way too often. So, we have a gospel, and the gospel that I seek to defend, I believe to be a full gospel, in the sense that it begins with God, it begins with the triune God, it begins with God's self-glorification, it is grounded in the final reality that in the ages to come, that triune God is to be glorified in everything that he has done in time. and it is not a man-centered gospel. It cannot find its focus in man. Man is graciously and gloriously and mercifully and lovingly redeemed in the gospel. Man is likewise the recipient of just wrath and anger and punishment. but man is not the center of the gospel. The triune God is the center of the gospel, and the triune God's singular redemptive act in the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and ascension to the right hand of the Father is the central redemptive focus. All of history looks forward to the cross and backwards to the cross. And that's all about God. That's all about God, and it's not about man. It is not about man. Man is a creature, man is a dependent creature, man is made in the image of God, but man is a fallen creature, and we are not the central, determinative factor in even the definition of what God has done in this universe by any stretch of the imagination. So, I believe that if you start with the sovereignty of God, the deadness of man and sin, the perfection of Christ as Savior, there is only going to be one consistent, now it's not going to be super thin, there's going to be some people that are going to have, you know, various ways of fleshing certain things out, you know, the guys that are choosing hats don't have to do it exactly the way that I do it and things like that, but we all, since we have those commitments, are limited as to how we can think about the person to whom we are speaking. Because the Bible gives me the parameters as to how I'm to think about this other person. This person is made in the image of God. That's the connecting point between me and them. It's not their worldview. It's not their philosophical systems. I'm also told that they are in rebellion against God. They're suppressing the knowledge of God. and that they are utterly and completely dependent upon the Spirit of God to free them from slavery to sin. That they are not capable of doing what is pleasing to God. Romans chapter 8, verses 7-8. If you take that seriously, it is going to impact your apologetic methodology. And if your apologetic methodology is dependent upon your treating them as someone who can lay aside all of their rebellion and the impact of the rebellion upon their thinking, You're going to use a completely different methodology because you're presenting a different gospel. And so you're going to come at it in a completely different way. So, I think it's just a basic reality that when you say to a general in the army, defend, the first thing he's going to say is defend what? What do I need to defend? Because then he's going to go to the maps, and he's going to look at those maps, and with his expertise, he's going to see what the approaches are, and what the good ground is, and what the bad ground is, and what the possibilities are, and he's going to be able to put his troops and his armaments out in such a way as to defend what he's been told to defend. That's why we have to start with theology first, so we know what we're defending, and then the methodology follows from that. I've never had anyone even try to refute that. I've had people skip around it, I've had people misrepresent it, I've had people ignore it, people say that they don't like how I look, as if that's an argument. These days, in social media, that's sort of the level of things. But I've never had anyone who's even been able to try to refute what I just said as a basic fundamental principle that makes perfect sense and is consistent with biblical revelation. So, with that, Okay, don't look over there. Yeah, you're talking to people. Yeah, yeah. Romans chapter 1, for the wrath of God is being revealed, present tense, against all ungodliness and righteousness of men. Now, I emphasize present tense there. because of the fact that God's wrath, very often in our thinking, is put off solely to the final judgment. And hence, we don't see the reality of His wrath in continuation of death and everything else that goes on, and the relationship to judgment. I can't tell why God brings judgment against one person before he brings judgment against the other, or why he brings such clear judgment against one when somebody else seems so much more evil to me. That we're not told, but we are told that God's wrath is revealed. Not shall be revealed in the future, but is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and righteousness of men, and then you have a description of these men. And this is where I think we had some issues, um, with what was said about Romans chapter 1 and the debate that I looked at. In the original language, you have an article, uh, you have anthropon, men, tone, tein, alathion, and adikia, katakonto. So, the tone goes with the participle at the end, katakantom. The ones suppressing, and then this is called a bookends methodology, you use the article, then you've got a descriptive phrase in between, the truth and unrighteousness suppressing ones. And so this is functioning in an appositional type way to describe these men upon whom the wrath of God is coming. And they're the ones suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Now that's an active, they're doing something, they're expending energy in the suppression of truth. And I've often used the illustration, if you have a swimming pool, and you have one of those beach balls, and you try to submerge it, you can't push a beach ball underwater and then just leave it there. It's going to come popping straight up to the top. So if you want to keep it submerged, you have to suppress it. You have to actively put energy into the suppression of that ball, or it's going to pop right back up to the surface. and this is a ongoing attitude of mankind, not just certain of mankind. There's some people who really, I don't know why, if you want to see whether someone is approaching Romans chapter 1 with an open heart and mind to hear everything it has to say, or whether there are certain aspects of it they're trying to avoid, See if they come up with this argument. See if they come up with the argument that, well, are you saying that everybody does everything in Romans 1? Because if you're saying everybody suppresses the truth of God, then you have to also say that everyone commits every sin in the sin list at the end of the chapter. And I, automatically, I become very suspicious, because I've heard this from all sorts of different people. This is very commonly one of the objections that homosexuals use when you point out that verses 26 and 27 are plainly, unequivocally about mutual homosexual relationships, not just pederasty or something like that, but mutual homosexual relationships burned with lust for one another. They'll say, well, but that's not about those of us who have a monogamous relationship, because we're not like those who are hating God, and they go to another part of the thing. If you remember the amazing cross-examination with Barry Lynn in 2001 in New York, where he was just lost in Romans 1. I mean, remember, I had to borrow my Bible and show him, because he hadn't looked at it in so long. He, too, said, well, there's different lists, and it's not this, and it was just lost. He had no idea what he was doing at that point. The ability to walk through consistently in Romans 1 should be a signpost that says, this is a good thing. So, the ones who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, these are the ones upon whom the wrath of God comes, and it's against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, the ones suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known, not knowable, Ta'nostan means that which is known of God. There's a group here in the Valley of the Sun in Phoenix. used to be reformed, but they've embraced this idea that men don't know, and that it's receiving this knowledge that is the... and it's led to all sorts of... it's just one little thing, and yet it's grown into this whole thing. That which is known of God is, from there on, manifest and Altois. Now, and Altois, it's a plural, and hence, you could understand it as amongst them, in them, you can take the them as a group, you can take them as individually, so you could appropriately see this as Um, an external revelation or an internal revelation? I think it's both. Because it has to do with, it's going to be said to us very directly, that it has to do with what we call general revelation or the revelation of creation itself. And I think we see that both internally in our conscience, in our created nature, and the beauty of life itself within ourselves, as well as externally. The beauty of the world outside of us, and its order, and so on and so forth. But the point is, that which is known about God is evident within them or in them, for God manifested it to them. He made it manifest to them. This is something God did. God does this revelation. The question is, does it work? Does it happen? And this is one of the first foundational issues of presuppositional apologetics. And that is, does general revelation get through? Or do we need to help it along? Do we need to present better arguments? Or something along those lines. This verse is saying God has manifested it to them. The revelation does get through. Because he's the one who does it. And then you have the further explanation, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, the invisible things of him, by means of what has been made, have come to be understood, and then he defines what he meant by those invisible attributes. That is, his eternal power and his theates, divine nature. Not the Trinity, not the Gospel, These are basic realities of who God is, and we're going to see here in just a moment, the next verse is going to tell us what this does is it communicates to man clearly that even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. The level of revelation, in general revelation, is enough to show man God exists, the true God exists, you know you should give thanks to Him, you know you should honor Him as God. That's the level of the creation around us or the creation within us. That's the level of what it reveals. It doesn't reveal the Trinity or anything like that. You have to let the text define this. but his invisible attributes, eternal power, divine nature, have been clearly seen. Clearly seen! Not just to the greatest of the philosophers, not just to the guru on the top of the mountain, but have been clearly seen, so that aista ainai autous anapologetus so that with the result that they are without an apologetic, unapologetus. You hear the term apologetic there, unapologetus, but there is a alpha privative tacked on the beginning, without a reasoned defense. It does not say that they are without arguments. It does not say that they are just never going to argue against the existence of God or anything like that. If it's a reasoned defense and they don't have one, it's because of the clarity of the revelation that's been given to them. So, they are going to have to, just as they suppress the truth of God, here's what that looks like. Any argument they're going to present against the one true God is going to be an inconsistent argument. They're living in God's world. They're not going to be able to give an argument that is going to be consistent with God's world. Doesn't mean that they're not going to have arguments, as anyone who's been on almost any forum ever, like back in the days of PhytoNet. Wow. We've been arguing with atheists for a long, long time. Before the internet I was arguing with Dennis McKenzie. Yes, I know it's all on our website. I would handle a few things differently today than I did back then, I'm sure. Hopefully have advanced in my understanding since I was in my twenties somewhere. But anyway, they have their arguments and they can sound very convincing. But they are unapologetus. They do not have a consistent apologetic. That is the teaching of scripture. Why? Well, why are they unapologetus? Deati nantes, though knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks. So, the level of knowledge that they have of God's existence is enough to convict them that they need to glorify God and that they need to give thanks to Him. That's the limit of general revelation, and this is why I was asking Where are you getting all this stuff about philosophy being revealed and Romans 1 and all the rest of this stuff when the extent of what is known of God renders man in a situation where it is necessary for him to glorify God as God and to give thanks to God. That's it. That's what's there. All this gospel and the stars stuff, or whatever else it might be, doesn't have a basis here. But, they became empty or futile in their dialogus mois, their dialogue, their thinking. So, here's the next important point. Sin, rebellion against God, when the creature made in the image of God rebels against God, The result is an impact upon the entirety of that individual, including their thinking process. They became futile in their reasonings and their non-understanding hearts. Asunetas. Non-understanding. were darkened. The light goes out. The light goes out, there is an impact of sin in the mind and spirit of man when there is rebellion against him. That is the teaching of Scripture. It's right there. Now remember, if you're sitting there going, Could this just be certain people, but you're just a general guy who just hasn't heard the gospel, but lives a fairly decent life? Look, a couple things. When I hear people saying that, I automatically know anybody who's talking about someone who's living a pretty decent life is pulling my leg. Yeah, the person might not be a mass murderer, but in comparison to the holiness of God, that ain't a decent life. They're selfish, self-centered, quick to anger. I mean, I'm really concerned about what your standard is when you say they're living a decent life. But more importantly, we could expand upon that, but This is normally a three-hour lecture. I'm trying to get it done today, so I have to keep moving. But more importantly than that, what you need to understand is... Let's look at Romans. Let's step back for a second before we jump back into the text. Romans 1, 2, and 3. I think every Christian should have an outline of books like this in their mind. You should just know what's being discussed. Romans? Of all books. Romans, John, you bet. Why not all of them? We got all the time in the world, we don't need to be watching half the stuff we watch anyway. Romans 3 is where you're gonna get to the gospel. So all this is the bad news. This is the bad news that's being presented. And what Paul's doing is in Romans 1, People say, the Jewish reader or listener of the Book of Romans is going to go, yeah, Paul, you tell those pagan Gentiles. Because Jews made similar, not identical, but similar arguments about the Gentiles as a whole, but then pride themselves on their knowledge of God because of the scriptures and things like that. Romans 2 says, oh, really? You think just because you possess the scriptures that somehow you're right with God? Those very scriptures condemn you because you don't do what they say to the Jew. So, Romans 3 comes along and says, so, what do we conclude? That we have convicted all men of sin. All men of sin. All you've got at the beginning of 3 is, well, you know, the Jews do have an advantage, they have the Word of God, but that Word of God says these things about the universal sinfulness of man. If you're going to come up with a category where Romans 1 is only about especially bad people, Romans 2 is about the Jews, Romans 3 sounds like universal sinfulness, where do these not-so-bad people fit in anywhere? The reality is, the argument of Romans 1, 2, and 3 gets us to the point of saying, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Period. That's why there is only one way of salvation, that's why there's only one righteousness that will avail, and that's found in Jesus Christ. So, if you step back, you'll have an answer to the people who try to say, yeah, that Roman's one thing, you know, no. It's universal sinfulness all the way along. So, when it says they became futile in their speculations, their foolish heart is darkened, a heart without the Spirit of God having brought regeneration, futile in its reasoning. foolish, non-understanding in its heart. That's the description. That's the person we have to deal with. We have to be serious in recognizing what the Bible says about the person to whom we are trying to bring the gospel and whose objections we're seeking to respond to. We can't treat them as if they're some moral neutral agent that could just lay aside their presuppositions. lay aside their rebellion, and all of a sudden the light's just gonna shine. No. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and then you have this, uh, it appears as metaloxone or just aloxone, either a strengthened form or another, there's variants as well, but it's the idea of exchanging. They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and of crawling creatures. Now, by the way, just in passing, that language comes directly out of the Greek Septuagint in the creation account. Why is that important? Because even though we're not emphasizing that in this particular run-through of Romans 1, one of the primary mechanisms being used to get around the teaching of Romans 1, especially verses 26 and 27, is to say that there is some external category that we need to put this Romans 1 into that would basically leave a way out for homosexuals. That's what Brownson does. Well, it's stoicism. No, it's not. It's Genesis 1. It's the creation account. Same terms are used in the Greek Septuagint. Can't get away from it. And if Brownson was exegeting any other text on any other subject, he'd see that. And he did used to see that. until one of his children came out as gay, and then all of a sudden he doesn't see it anymore, and I think that's very, very, very relevant. Exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, and herpetone, crawling creatures. This is idolatry. So you have the incorruptible God, and then you exchange that for something else. This is the effect of sin. This is idolatry. And idolatry is a horrific sin, and it's really at the root of everything else. It's at the root of everything else. You're not treating God as God. Therefore, God gave them over. Same term, paradigm that is used of the delivering of Jesus via Judas to the Jewish leaders. God gave them over in the desires of their hearts. So, their hearts have become foolish. Foolish hearts desire foolish things. And so, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored amongst them. So, When God's, this is part of that wrath that is being revealed from heaven. You give people over to the desires of their hearts. The problem is the desires of their hearts are not what is going to cause life, it's going to be what causes death. When we talk about the culture of death, the culture of death just flows from the fallen state of man. And unless God by his grace is constantly restraining that culture of death, well you end up with what we've got today. For they exchanged, that same term again, except in the strengthened form, they exchanged the truth of God. They had to have had the truth of God. But they exchange it in the lie. And they serve and worship the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever and ever. Amen. And so there is a twisting. There is supposed to be a worshiping relationship There's supposed to be a worshipping relationship between the creature and God. And we are made to worship. So we're gonna worship something. And what do we end up worshipping? Four-footed beasts, everything in the creation. Because to worship the one true God, to worship the one true God is to expose ourselves as the rebels that we know ourselves to be. For this reason, and this is the context then, for this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions, for the women exchanged a natural function for that which is against nature, that which is unnatural. Likewise, also the men, abandoning the natural function of the woman, and burning in their desire one for another. This is why it's not just pederasty, it is mutual. Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own bodies the just or due penalty of their errors, verses 26 and 27, are an illustration. They're an illustration of the depth to which this twisting of the creator-creation relationship goes so that man is impacted even at the level of his sexuality, even at the level of what has always been understood to be the natural function that is absolutely necessary for the continuation of the species. There have been times in man's history when man has become desperately close to getting wiped out, and I'm not just talking about the flood, but when the plague came through, wow, a lot of people died. And everybody understood, we've got to have kids just simply to keep things going. You can't have kids when you're burning with lust for other men, and when women burn in lust for one another. This is an unnatural desire. It is against the created order. It does not bring life. It only brings death. It does not bring life for the individual. It does not bring life for the community. It only brings death. And so, this is not the point of what Paul is going for. It's an illustration of the extensiveness of the effect of rebellion in the mind of man. Every aspect of man is touched. And the illustration is homosexuality. Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things without proper. And then you have the long list, which normally I would go through because there's lots of interesting things to look at. For example, in verse 30, theostogeis, which is normally translated, haters of God, could make a pretty strong argument, is actually hated by God. You can make an argument, I'm not saying, I'm just saying that it could go either direction. But the conclusion, although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Sin loves company, and you love to have other sinners along with you. It helps to ameliorate the guilt that you feel. And man, do we see that in our society all around us right now, if you have biblical eyes to see. But here's the point. Chapter 2, Jews, you're in the same boat. Possession of the law is not the same thing as obedience to the law. Chapter 3, yes, the Jews have an advantage because they were given the oracles of God, the Messiah came through them, who is God in human flesh. However, then you have these catena of passages that are cited, beginning in verse 10, from the Old Testament scriptures themselves. None righteous, no not one. There's not even one that seeks after God. And then the conclusion being, this is why we're justified by faith, because we're all in the same boat. The Jew is justified by faith, the Gentile is justified by faith, there's only one church. Only one church. And any attempt to get around this disrupts and destroys that very message of the Apostle Paul, which is central to an understanding of where he's coming from. If we take seriously what Romans chapter 1 says, what does it say about our apologetic method? Well, there is a bunch there. It says that the unbeliever is unapologetus, that the one rejecting the one true God is without a reasoned defense. That means we can do an internal critique of any worldview that does not acknowledge the existence of God, and we will find inconsistencies. By the very fact that we live in God's world, that also means that we need to be very concerned about having a consistent expression of our own worldview. That is, we need to look at the whole counsel of God. But it also tells us that the mind of the person to whom we are speaking, and we may love this person, this person may be a family member, this person may be our best friend in the world, but that mind is darkened. Asunetas, without understanding. And hence, if we really believe this, we've got to be a bunch of crazy, nutty Calvinists. Because you can't resurrect a person, you can't talk one of these people into the kingdom. There has got to be a God out there that has a spirit that is actually able to raise dead sinners to life in the way he chooses to do so by the means of the gospel, or we've got no reason to be here. We've got no reason to be doing what we're doing. At all. So, yeah. If you take biblical anthropology seriously, what it says, what Paul will go on to say in Romans chapter 8, the mind set upon the flesh is death, it is not able to submit itself to the law of God, it's not able to do what is pleasing to God. You're really going to start approaching people by saying, I'll tell you what, How about you assume nothing? One way or the other about God. I'll do the same thing. Let's just stand down here on neutral ground and reason with one another. There are two reasons why that's absolutely absurd for a Christian. The first we just saw. If you're talking to a rebel sinner, they're spiritually dead. They're suppressing the knowledge of God. And all the knowledge you give them, as long as they keep suppressing it, they're just going to keep working harder to suppress it. Something else has to happen. The other reason that that doesn't make any sense is found in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, in talking about the Son of God, verse 14, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Describing him, we have these words. He is the image of the invisible god. Prototokos Pasei Ktiseos won't have time right now to go through Prototokos. Has that been put in a newsletter or just on the site? on-site and the newsletter. A whole long thing on Pertoticos, all of its uses in the Greek Septuagint, meaning firstborn, all the rest of that kind of stuff, available to you if you want to look it up at aoman.org. So, I will just give you the conclusion without all the arguments, because it's not part of what we're dealing with right now. He is the icon, the image of the invisible God, what we know about the Father, because we've seen the Son. John 118, Hebrews chapter 1, the exact representation of his person, etc., etc. And he is the firstborn of all creation, the one having preeminence over as the incarnate one, as the one who is the revelation of the Father. He has preeminence over all creation. And then we have verses 16 through 17, because in him tapanta were created. All things were created, not just the pan, as in pantheism. but the concrete reality of creation. In him were all things created, whether things in heaven or upon the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or powers or authorities, tapanta di autu, the all things through him, kai ais autan, and for him were created. Now, that's a description of the Creator. That is a description of the Creator. The Jehovah's Witnesses try to put the word other in there, all other things, because they want Him to be a creation, but that would cause the Apostle to actually not be arguing against the people he's arguing against. He's arguing against the Proto-Gnostics. He's using their very terminology. They believed, they used terms like the Pleroma Fulness, they used terms like the Eons, these intermediate beings coming down from the One True God. Paul is cutting them off at the knees, long before they even became a fully flowering religious movement. Evidently, somebody had come into the Church of Colossae and he had gained knowledge of what they were saying. he responds very strongly to him at a very early period. Much earlier than a lot of scholars are comfortable with this, but if you look at what happened to Colossae shortly after the time of the apostles, you've got no way around the reality that Paul had this knowledge very early on. Um, he is propontone, before all things, and taponta, enauto, sunesticon, and all things hold together in him. They have their substance in him. Again, something that I would normally, uh, expand upon, but we can't in light of how much we still have to cover. But the point is that Christians present a radical idea that our savior is our creator. And he entered into human flesh. And that's what comes a little bit later on in chapter two. where we're told, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the cosmos, and not according to Christ. So, you can have people who have philosophy, empty deception, the traditions of men, the elementary principles of the world, these are their standards, these are their ultimate standards. And that is in opposition, rather than Cata-Christian. Now, this is a radically embarrassing thing for many Christians to say at the Areopagus today. That a Galilean preacher is the standard of all philosophy and human knowledge. And if Jesus was just a Galilean preacher, that would be understandable. But Gaius wasn't just a Galilean peasant or preacher. Verse 9, Hati enato katoikai ponta pleromate steateta somaticos, for in him is dwelling all the fullness of deity in bodily form. And I think it is relevant that katoikai is present. This is the resurrected Christ. and yet he still exists, somaticos, in bodily form. The term theatetos means that which makes God, God. Pleroma is a favorite term of the Gnostics. But Paul says, no, ponta pleroma, the fullness of deity, dwells in Christ bodily. that's why he is the one by which all things must be qatar he is the standard of all things because he is the incarnate one and it is in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge have been hidden that is a scandal to anyone who wants to be an intellectual in the areopagus today you will not be allowed to do that That is an affront to the intelligentsia of our day, to say that Christ is the standard. But if Christ was the incarnate one, if Christ is the one in whom all things were made, how else could it be? What else could it be? Now, apologetically, here's the second reason why the common mechanism of apologetics doesn't work. How about you and I? Let's just lay aside our swords here. I won't assume anything and you don't assume anything. Let's just step down here on this neutral ground and let's just reason with one another. I already pointed out, you're dealing with someone who has a darkened mind. You're dealing with someone who is in rebellion against God. They are actively suppressing the knowledge of God. And what's going to change that? They can't choose to change that. God has to change that. Something called regeneration has to take place. If you want to start talking about prevenient grace and all the rest of this stuff, this is something Pastor Winger did. Prevenient grace, all the rest of this stuff. Ain't in the Bible no place. It just isn't there. You can try to stick it in there. It ain't there. That's the first problem. But here's the second problem. And it's a much more basic problem. There ain't no neutral ground to stand on. Where are you going to stand? If Colossians chapter 1 is true, Verses 16 and 17? All things created by him and for him, he is before all things, in him all things, soonest it can hold together. Heaven and earth, visible, invisible, principalities, powers, divinities, and authorities, all things created by him and for him, he is before all things. If that's true, where are you going to find this neutral ground? Because if it's ground to stand on, guess who made it? Jesus did. Guess who defines it? Jesus does. Oh, that's so radical. I mean, I'll never get a PhD at a secular university if I say that. Yeah, man. True. But tell me where I'm wrong. Show me where I'm wrong. If Jesus is the one described in Colossians 1 and John 1 and Hebrews 1, it's not just Colossians 1, we could have gotten any one of them. If He is the One who created all things, then tell me how you can have a neutral ground with an unbeliever? Because any ground you're going to stand on is defined by Jesus. Any fact that is a fact is made a fact and defined as a fact by Christ. So, I would have to lie to the unbeliever. I'd have to pretend that that neutral ground was neutral ground, because from a Christian worldview, there is no neutral ground. And here's the problem. You may get away with it. You may get away with it. But here's the issue. Somewhere down the road, let's say You get them to start believing what you're having to say. You're doing the incrementalism. You're slowly getting them to do this and this and this and this. Eventually, you get down to teaching them about what the Bible teaches about this Jesus that you're calling them to follow. And they read Colossians 1. And they look at you and they go, wait a minute. All things? Didn't you tell me just a few months ago, when we first started, that you're going to lay aside all your assumptions and stuff like that, and we were just going to... But if Jesus created all things, you couldn't have done that. You were lying to me. Well, hey, you know, it's for your own good. I can't do that. I hope you can't do that. I know there are people who will do that. But I don't see how that's honoring to God. I don't want to have to tell somebody months down the road, yeah, you know, I sort of got you into this on the sly, but hey, you know, we're great folks and you already, you know, committed so much to this. Don't let it bother you, right? I don't want to do that. I hope you don't want to do that. There is no morally neutral ground. There is no epistemologically neutral ground because God in Jesus Christ made all things. Okay? One more. I know, I know, it's already been 90 minutes and the french fries are burning or whatever it is you're cooking. You can stop this and come back to it any time you want to, I suppose. First Corinthians chapter 1. I said there were three texts. It's not the only text to look at. I'm just simply saying this explains, I think, as best as I can. Why covenantal apologetics, presuppositional apologetics, the simple recognition that your apologetic methodology must reflect the gospel you're seeking to defend, that it must take seriously the electing grace of God, the deadness of man in sin, the sovereignty of God, and the fact that man is dependent upon God for all things, including the foundation of his epistemological life and existence. And that I don't get to put God in the dock, I don't get to judge God, I don't get to stand up, I don't get to crawl up upon the throne and say, God, prove yourself to me. I'm already suppressing the knowledge of God, more than sufficient knowledge of God to know that I should honor him as God and give thanks. To me, that's what presuppositionalism is all about. To me, presuppositionalism rips away all of the complexities of all the philosophical arguments that man has built up to fundamentally create a philosophical apologetic that is not primarily in service of the gospel. Or, to put it another way, the tendency of man is to create a man-centered gospel. And once you have a man-centered gospel, then you need a man-centered apologetic for that gospel. And presuppositionalism rips all that away. Rips it all away. So, when Cody says, I'm gonna destroy presuppositionalism, what he's, I hope, ignorantly saying is, because he thinks that we are against reason. No, we just realize that man's reason is fallen. and thereby incapable, in and of itself, of bringing the possessor of that into the light. We're not against reason, but we recognize that God's reason is not only above man's reason, but God's reason isn't fallen, God's the only pure one, man's reason has fallen. And that man, even before the fall, would still depend upon revelation from God. Now, there's also stuff we get into about, for example, where you start... As I've said, there's no moral or ethical or epistemological neutral ground if you believe Jesus Christ created all things. But the idea of the starting point, and I believe it's the fact that we're made in the imago Dei, the image of God. That person you're talking to cannot live consistently in God's world as a rebel creature. They can't do it. So you're going to be able to do the internal critique of their system. But what it doesn't mean is that we have no right to say that we can prove God's existence by a higher authority than God Himself. And that His Word, likewise, partakes of His authority. Just as Adam responded to that and did not say, could you give me proof of this? Likewise, in the same way, once you say, I can give external evidences, I can give external evidences to the reliability of scripture, that does not make scripture scripture. I've said this many, many times before. If it's theanustos, its authority must be internal and inherent by the nature of what it is, not by some argument that comes from the outside. We can get into all that. All that is interesting stuff. And I think it flows naturally from the gospel itself. But, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we will try to wrap this up as quickly as we can, but without skipping the important part. For the message, the word, the logos of the cross is indeed to those who are perishing, foolishness, moria, but indeed to the ones being saved, us, It is the dunamis, the power of God. You have a direct parallel construction in the original language between those who are perishing and those who are being saved. And I remember years ago, I don't remember why, but I was in a church as a kid. I remember somebody preaching against the non-King James translation of this because it said, to we who are being saved. Well, if it's we who are perishing, we are being saved. They're direct parallels to one another. You can't get around it. They just didn't like the idea of being saved. You're just saved. That's all there is to it. It's all done. It's like, just not recognizing, yes, you can have an absolutely finished aspect of salvation and recognize the continuing aspect of it as well in our lives. Anyway, you have two different groups of people. And if you're perishing, then the message of the cross is going to be foolishness to you. It can be foolishness to you. But if you're amongst those who are being saved, power of God. Now, who gets to determine who's who? And this is where the gospel, as you understand it, makes all the difference in the world and will determine you're apologetic. If you don't believe in the electing grace of God, which is going to be taught a little bit later on in the text, if you don't believe that God has an elect people, if you don't believe that men are dead in sin, then I don't know what you do with this text. But what we're being told here is that it's your nature, perishing, being saved, that determines how you're going to interact with the message of the cross. And as long as you are one of the apolumenois, those perishing, it's always going to be Maria to you. And one of the greatest dangers that I see today in a secular society is when Christians decide that they are going to make the gospel Ah, Maria, not foolishness. They're gonna make it Sophia. Wisdom. To whom? To those who are perishing. You can't do it without mortally destroying the gospel. Can't be done. Can't be done. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the understanding ones. I will set it not. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish, moronic? Tein sofian tu kosmu, the wisdom of the world. The best Sophia of the cosmos. God has made foolishness. It's astounding to me how many Christians, especially young bright Christians, fall into the trap of thinking that the wisdom of this world is something they want to possess. They want to be seen as wise in the eyes of the world. Guys, take from someone who's been there, done that, got the t-shirt, ain't gonna happen. And the choice you're gonna be faced with is fidelity to Christ or pursuit of your dream And I have seen so many lives destroyed because they wanted that dream so bad. Seen it happen decade after decade. Sick of seeing it happen. We were warned. Has not God made foolish who is in this world? You got to answer that question. The form in the language using ook assumes that yes, God has. The answer is yes, he has. Verse 21, for since in the Sophia to Thayu, the wisdom of God, HaCosmos, the world did not know through its wisdom, God. So, God's wisdom is, I'm not going to use the world's wisdom as a means by which you come to know me. And if you want to try to say that Romans 1 actually introduces philosophy and philosophy is a natural revelation, the point is the Bible says that's not the way. You may want to be the way, you may excel in studying it and you just enjoy reading it and all the rest of that stuff. Stop it! You're loving worldly stuff. It is God's wisdom that the world through its wisdom does not come to know Him. But God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save the ones who believe. Not save the well-born and intelligent and philosophers and the people that can follow all the arguments, but those silly little people who believe the message of the cross. They're the ones who are saved. Paul knew his audience. He says, you know, Jews, they seek signs. Give us, by what authority do you do these things? Give us signs. And the Greeks, they're seeking wisdom. Oh yeah, up there on the Areopagus. But we proclaim a crucified Messiah. We know what the Jews want, and they do not want a crucified Messiah. We know what the Greeks want, and they don't want a crucified Jewish Messiah either. Can't even imagine why that would even be relevant to them. To the Jews? Scandalon. Scandalon. Don't even need to translate that one for you, you know exactly what it means. Scandalon. To the Gentiles? Textual variant there, some say Greeks. Morion. Foolishness. When we get moron, yeah, morion. But to those who are called. Tois kleitos. To the call. To the elect. So it says, you might like it, but it's there, whether Jew or Greek, Christ, the dunamin, the dunamis of God, and the wisdom of God. So, the one message, the one person, you're not called of God, foolishness, scandal, you are called of God, same message, same person, Power of God. Wisdom of God. What made the difference? Calling of God. Calling of God. It's all of God. If you shrink back and go, oh man, you know, that's just too much for me, man. You gotta have that free will. You know, I listened to Leighton Flowers. You gotta have that free will, you know? It's not there. It's those who are called. He makes the difference. He makes the distinction by His grace, by His calling. Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your own calling. Look to your own calling, brethren. There are not many saphoi katasarka, not many wise according to flesh. Not many powerful, not many eugenics, well-born, you know, the beautiful people, the elite. But God has chosen, there's God's choosing again, the foolish things of the world. that he might shame the wise, and the weak things the world God has chosen, he might shame the things that are strong, and the not well-born, the things despised God has chosen, the things that don't have any being, in order that he may nullify the things that do have being, or at least from the world's perspective. Why did God do it this way? so that no flesh may boast before God." Because, you see, if it's a matter of the utilization of some philosophical argument... I mean, recently I presented the ontological argument in the church history class. Well, it was actually almost a year ago, but back around Christmas time. And, you know, you sort of have to fill the whiteboard with definitions and, you know, all this background material, and then you lay out the arguments, and you deal with the presuppositional, foundational issues, and the philosophy, and all this stuff. And, you know, if you're really smart by the end of class, you might go, oh, I think I get it. And by the time you get out of church, you don't got it anymore. uh, you certainly couldn't communicate somebody else. And the point is, that's not the mechanism God has chosen to use. It's not just for the people that are smart enough to work through the, uh, cosmological argument, principle of sufficient reason, oh, I got it! I'm saved! I've climbed to the top of the mountain! Paul's point is, yeah, most of you folks there at Corinth, yeah, wouldn't have been you anyways. But if you could, then you could look down at everybody else and say, well, the hoi polloi down there, they're just not quite as bright as me. I figured it out. I got there. So that no flesh may boast before God, but by His doing, Not by yours, not by your wisdom, not by your intelligence. By His doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, redemption. In order that justice has been written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. And see how it's all wrapped up in the gospel. It's all wrapped up in our salvation. No boasting. No boasting. I really think that anybody in Christian academia should probably be assigned to translate and reread 1 Corinthians 1 about every six months. Seriously remind ourselves, you really want that place, the table in academia, don't you? Don't you realize they're never going to let you have it as long as you bow the knee to Christ? That's the very essence of what they're rebelling against. And don't underestimate how powerful that desire can be. I know. I know. I get it. that it is necessary and appropriate to have as your starting place revelation of God, the reality of His sovereignty, an understanding of His gospel, and that as you present your case for the Christian faith, that you never invite the sinner to climb up upon the throne and judge the existence of God. God will judge you, you will never judge God. I've told the story before, I'll wrap up with it. Years ago, I was invited to give a little talk at a university in Chicago. November, December, it was cold. And when I get there, I find out that what the campus group has done, I thought I was going to be talking to Christians, what the campus group has done is they've passed out flyers that say, stump the chump. Are you an atheist? Do you like to argue about God? Free pizza! And so, right at the time we're supposed to start, The sky walks in. And this is an illustration of how your memory fades over the years. Either he had red hair and was wearing all blue, or he had blue hair and was wearing all red. I don't remember which one it was. I think it was the blue hair and all red. If I was going to bet on one of the two. But I need an FBI investigation to find out. Anyway, um, this guy sits on the second row. And so I do, you know, it's a college thing. So I do 10, 12 minutes, only going to be able to go so long before the questions start. And, and, uh, he says, uh, he starts in. And he's a sophomore philosophy student. I think the term sophomore is a wonderful term. It really is. It's from Safos and Morenos. It's a wise fool. The sophomore thinks he's got it all figured out. Now he's got freshmen below him, so he knows more than them, so he's got it all figured out. Oh, he had it all figured out. And he was one of these skeptics. Oh, he was skeptical. He was skeptical of his own existence. Really was. He was skeptical of his own existence. And he had worn this brown leather jacket. Real thick one, because Chicago, it's cold. You don't have a thick leather jacket, the wind's going to slice right through you. And at one point he had made a comment about not even knowing, for example, that his jacket exists. Can't even prove the existence of that. How can you prove the existence of God? Well, we went back and forth for a little while. We broke to have the pizza because the pizza was going to get cold and nobody cared what we were arguing about at that point anyways. They just wanted to eat the pizza. He and I continued talking. I was hungry. Someone brought me some pizza. I never got to eat a bite of it. I do remember that very clearly. But we talked for a long time and I didn't say a whole lot. What I was doing is I was just sort of letting him talk, waiting, listening carefully. And eventually he said something along the lines of, I know I should know, I know I should do better. And that's when I knew I had him. If I recall correctly, Algo could tell me. Algo is in channel, but I don't know if he's active. But I believe his name was Eric, because Algo has heard this story probably about 20 times. And I'm pretty sure his name was Eric. And I said, Algo? I said, Algo, Eric? Yeah, Algo? Yeah. Eric, you're a thief. He's like, what? I said, you're borrowing from my God to hold your world together. You don't believe in him, you don't worship him, but you steal from his truth and his world to hold yours together. And he's like, what are you talking about? And I said, you just said you needed to do better, but you've not given me any reason to believe that you have any basis for thinking what better is. You are living in God's world. You're not living in the world you made. I'll give you an illustration. Your jacket's there on the chair, and you said you couldn't even prove it exists, but I'm going to guarantee you something. When you leave tonight, and it's about 20 degrees and windy outside, When you leave tonight, you are going to take your jacket with you, because you know that in the real world, it's cold outside. You can claim all the agnosticism you want, but you know that you need that jacket. That little shirt you're wearing ain't gonna be enough. You're gonna take that jacket with you. And you know that once you go outside, You're not going to walk down the middle of the road because a truck could run you over and you know that there's certain laws of physics. It means if you get impacted at the front end of a truck, you're going to die. And so you're going to walk on the sidewalk. And you're going to act in such a way that you recognize that you live in God's world. And then pretend that you don't. And he just looked at me like... He even said to me, no one's ever talked to me like that before. And I said, I'm sorry we didn't. We should have done it earlier. I said, here's my prayer for you. I said, every time you steal from my God's world and my God's truth, I pray he will convict you that you have done so. Now, I don't know what happened to Eric. Most people who suffer through that incredibly arrogant period in college, survive and become better people later on, I hope. I don't know what happened to Eric, but I never want Eric to be able to say, I remember that guy came and he invited me to judge whether God existed or not. No. He'd have to say, I remember that guy came and man, he hit me upside the head and told me God's going to judge me and I don't get to judge God. Yeah. I don't remember if we discussed, I don't think we got around to discussing the transcendental argument for the existence of God, the classical presuppositional argument, the impossibility of the contrary, or any of those other things. The key was, he walked away knowing that there was a Christian that had just told him something that he had to think about, and every time he did anything consistent with God's If he was still thinking about it, if God was bringing conviction to his heart and mind, he was getting convicted right, left, and center all the time. And if I had just given him a bunch of philosophical mumbo-jumbo, he could have dismissed that before he was done with his pizza that night. Which one do you think lasted? Which one do you want to give to someone when you're praying the Holy Spirit of God will work in their lives? That's really the question. There you go. Just a biblically grounded discussion of what I think is vitally important in how we approach the apologetic methodology and how we make application. I hope it's been useful to you. I went through it a little bit quickly, but as it is, we went for two hours. Hopefully it's been useful to you. Radio Free Geneva on Thursday. Mike Winger, his objections to Calvinism. We'll get to it then. We'll see you then. God bless.