Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Thank you for being here and it's good to see you online this
morning for our Sunday school hour.
And you know, I was very encouraged last week for all of
our live streams. It's the first time we ever live
streamed Sunday school here at the church, and it was actually
the most watched of the live streams last week.
And so I'm thankful that there was some interest there.
And I hope that that's the case here this morning as well.
And I'd invite you to turn your Bibles to 1st Corinthians
chapter #1 this morning, First Corinthians chapter #1 as we go
into our second lesson, introducing apologetics.
And we'll talk about what that means in just a moment.
But I'm thankful for the feedback that I received last
week on our series and the contents of the series, and just
the general interest that there is in talking about world
religions and cults. And of course, this is not a
lecture series in the sense of we're going through a Bible
college curriculum or we're trying to teach this in a way
that's more academic, although there is an academic element to
it. There's certainly no doubt about
it. But we want to give you Bible
teaching and Bible preaching even as we look at this very
serious issue of the issue of world religions and cults.
And I want to make clear again something that I said last week,
and you'll probably get tired of hearing me say it, but I do want
to say it just to make plain and make clear when we are going to
be on the attack and we are going to be on the attack as we
go through these lessons. We are attacking the articles of
faith of some of these religions and cults.
We are attacking the authorities of these world religions and
cults. We are not attacking the
adherence of those world religions and cults in the sense
that these are people that we're trying to lovingly teach the
gospel to and trying to encourage them.
We don't want to tell them that they are fools.
We don't want to tell them that they are idiots or anything of
that nature. And listen, you say, why are you
making a big deal about this? I've heard teaching and
preaching to that level where insults are hurled towards those
who believe. These things and well.
That's not a way to love them to Jesus Christ.
Do we want to attack these strongholds?
Absolutely. That are in their mind.
We have to do that by attacking the doctrine.
We have to do that by attacking the leadership of some of those,
by the sense of those who are the true deceivers, deceiving
the masses, if you will. But we want to say to those who
are Muslims, we love you. We want you to come to Jesus
Christ. We want to say to those who are.
Of the. Church of Jesus Christ or Latter
Day Saints that we call Mormons, we want to love you to Jesus
Christ. We're going to teach that your
doctrines false. We're going to teach you that
those who have been the leaders of those groups, those cults,
those religions, that they are faulty in their own thought
processes and likely deceivers of their own sense.
But we want you to know that we don't believe that you're a
deceiver. We want to believe we should
know, we think you've been deceived by false doctrine.
And we want to lovingly show you what the word of God says.
And so I'm not going to say that every week, but I do think it
bears repeating here. This morning had a lot of
comments as well about Catholicism.
People say, well, pastor, where does Catholicism fit in into
world religions and cults And got a lot of different feedback
without even asking the question from that even just last week.
And the answer is where does it fit?
And the answer is, I don't know where it fits because it doesn't
fit cleanly into either one of those.
But I do believe that it fits into its own separate category.
We are going to take a week, maybe 2 to look at Catholicism
and where it does fit. And here's what I do know.
There's a lot of air in Catholicism, isn't there?
You, you can't. That's help over what we've seen
the last week with the election of the new Pope and all it takes
place with that. And I'm actually praying about
preaching a message on the Pope and why we don't believe in the
Pope and those types of things. If I preached, it'd be called No
Hope in the Pope. And so I think I didn't make
that up. All right.
I didn't make it up, but I like it.
And so, but even then, I don't want to do so in a way to attack
our Catholic friends and make them feel that we think that
they are rubes or anything like that.
But the same time you I can't look at anything that happened
over that last week and the Vatican without intense sadness
for the people who follow along with what's going on without any
idea about what the Bible says about any of these things.
Calling this man who a couple days ago had another name who is
now Leo, I believe Leo the 14th and calling him Holy Father.
And it's like I have a Holy Father and it ain't him.
And so blasphemy, you know? And so I think these things need
to be taught and preached, but in a way that is forceful
towards what the truth is, but also extending an olive branch,
if you will, to those who believe those things to say.
We want you to come to the side of what the word of God says.
And let's be honest, a lot of us believe some of those things
early on in our own lives. We got a lot of recovering
Catholics here in this church, don't we?
And I was 1/2 Catholic, I was a Lutheran.
And so we want to make sure that others understand the freedom in
Christ that you all have been able to and I have received, but
particularly those who are of the Catholic faith.
And so where that fits in, I don't know exactly, but we are
going to go over those things here in the future and possibly
even during a service in a message as well, just as the
Lord leads. I'm praying about that right
now. All right, we are in lesson 2,
defining apologetics or introducing apologetics rather.
And I will say when I was in high school, I loved debates.
I love debates. I wasn't good at sports.
The closest sport I was really good at was, well, debate.
And so debate was you get up and you argue and you argue
passionately. You argue about these things
that are usually governmental, not necessarily issues about the
Bible or whatnot, but, you know, should the government be doing
this or should politicians be doing that?
And what I loved about these debates was that you would argue
like the world was going to end if your side didn't win over the
next 60 minutes. And then about an hour or two
later, you would be on the other side and arguing with someone
else. And you would argue against
everything you just said about two hours ago.
There was no moral compass that was involved whatsoever.
They were trying to teach you to be able to think through a
situation from all different angles.
I'm not saying it was bad. What I'm saying is I loved it.
I love the arguing. I love the sniping.
I love the, you know, that that passive aggressive nature that
came along with it then I loved every bit of it.
Can I tell you that now that I'm a pastor and I've been doing
this now as a pastor for 12 years and as a in the ministry
for almost 20 years, I don't enjoy debates when it comes to
the word of God. You know, why when it comes to
the issue of, you know, should the government be doing this or
that? Listen, there's a lot of room
for interpretation at times and when we're not even talking
about necessary moral issues, but should the government be
spending money on this or should not be spending our money on
this? You know, I could sit in this
seat and argue one way, and I can sit in this seat and argue
another way depending on what the issue is.
That's not true for every issue. I'm not saying government is
amoral. I'm just talking about certain
issues. But what I've come to find out,
when it comes the issue of the Bible, we are talking about life
or death issues. We're talking about salvation.
We're talking about the issues of whether the Bible is true.
These are issues that cut to the very core of truth itself.
And so I don't relish the fact of going in and debating these
things and trying to argue with people or going back and forth.
No, no, no, I don't want to do that.
But I will say this, There is room for us as believers to be
able to defend the faith and to be able to answer the questions
that are often lobbed our way that come with the issues of
faith. Listen, you may be in the
workplace, in the break room. People know that you're a
Christian. You might be at school and
people know that you are a believer.
You could be in your neighborhood and a neighbor sees
you going to church every Sunday, maybe even on Sunday
night. Maybe you're even crazy enough
to go on Wednesday night. And they see you being able.
And eventually they start asking you questions, right?
And they ask you questions like, well, how is Christianity
different from other religions? They say something like this,
well, I'm spiritual. Isn't that just good enough to
just be spiritual? Jesus was just a good person.
Don't all religions express the same God, just in different
ways? How can you be sure the Bible is
true? These are things that people
will ask you, particularly if they know that you are a Bible
believer. But here's my question to you.
Are you able to answer those questions?
Are you able to, with any type of specificity, say what the
Word of God says about these matters?
And I know it can be hard. I know it can be difficult, and
I'm not talking about a debate. I'm not talking about, well, sit
down for an hour and let me explain to you and pontificate
on all of the different things. And the third declension of this
Greek verb and says all this, I don't even know if that's true,
but anyway, but you understand what I'm saying.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about you and another person just talking
about faith. Hey, you're a Baptist.
What makes a Baptist different from a Catholic?
Could you answer that? I'll tell you if I had one
question that I get asked more than anything, and the 12 years
I've been in New England, it's been this.
What makes a Baptist different than a Catholic?
Now I can answer that in the short version, which is, well,
we believe the Word of God and the word of God only.
And I can answer in the long version, which goes into all
kinds of different things. But can you just tell somebody
what it is that makes you a Bible believer?
How you know Christ can save? That's what I want us to
introduce this morning as we look at this issue of
apologetics. And there are a lot of questions
that are out there about faith, and there's a lot of questions
going on even within our neighborhoods and within where
we live. Some of you might remember,
because I talked about this in our church back in 2020.
Anybody remember 2020? OK, Anyway, yeah, we try not to
remember 2020. A lot of us I think it is.
But back in 2020, I was made aware that the human rights
committee in Easton was going to have a listening session, of
course, all on Zoom, because nobody could see each other back
then. The idea of a listening session
called Navigating Religious Holidays in a Christian Society.
And by the way, that what an odd thing for a town board to be
able to present like, you know, how do you deal with Christmas
if you're not a Christian? How do you deal with
Thanksgiving if you're not a Christian?
How do you deal with Easter if you're not a Christian?
Why on earth would they think this was a good idea for our
town tax dollars to be spent on? But for some reason I thought
that I'd heard about the separation of church and state.
Now, I don't even believe this was separation of church and
state in the way that the liberals do, because I believe
what the Constitution says about the separation of church and
state, which is nothing not found in the Constitution at
all. Well, I'm getting way off and
this is nothing to say, but we're going to get where we're
going. I hope we're having a good time
while we get there. All right, Amen.
But the idea is this, the separation of church and state
was never in our founding documents.
It was something that was mentioned in a letter between
the Danbury Baptist Society from Connecticut and Thomas Jefferson
and private communications. And they were concerned about
this, listen, government interference in the church
because that had been history, that had been history here in
the colonies. And they were still concerned
about this. And he said that there should be
a wall of separation between church and state, not the idea
that Christians were not allowed to be in the sphere of
government or that Christian ideas were not to be in the
sphere of government. That was never even thought of.
That was never even considered. Listen, FDR signed Bibles, but
not personally, but he had his signature on Bibles, had a
letter in front of Bibles that were sent onto the front lines
in World War 2. And he basically said this, you
need to read this. And our government printed them
and sent them. Nowhere along the line was the
idea, well, government shouldn't even talk about this, but yet
it's the same type of people that say, well, you can't talk
about Christianity in the government that says this.
Let me help you navigate religious holidays in this very
Christian society. But in all of this, saying all
this, there was a board member of who I will not name, but
there was a board member of whom I know here in our town who made
the following statement and I've transcribed it for us here
today. It says this about the guest
speaker who was going to talk in the session.
She, the guest speaker, actually thought, would you also want not
to just talk about what the differences are about these
religions, but where the religions intersect as well?
So understand that all three of those religions, now this is
talking about Islam and Judaism and Christianity, that all three
of them have the same God. And at the end of the day, it is
the same being, you know, talk about where all of them are a
forgiving creature, a forgiving God, not this Hellfire and
brimstone. So I thought that might be nice
and helping to debunk. Some of the myths that folks
might have about some of the major religions that are out
there. So this board was saying,
listen, we need to get together and teach people that all these
gods, they're just one God. And he's not hell fire and
brimstone. He's just this accepting God.
And I couldn't believe that we were getting theology coming
from this town board here at East.
Now there's a couple. Problems.
Well, there's more than a couple problems with what she said, but
one of the problems was this. Well, it's factually inaccurate
because the Bible does not teach what she said.
The Bible doesn't teach at all. But it's also interesting
because, well, neither Judaism nor Islam nor Christianity would
agree with that statement. Muslims wouldn't agree with that
statement. Judaism and the teachers would
not agree with that statement. They don't believe that Jesus is
God. They don't believe these things.
And so it was unbelievable to me that that would even be brought
up. And so I actually.
Wrote a letter I thought very kindly to the Human Rights
Committee and they ended up. Thankfully changing the
direction of what that listening session was to be and offered an
apology for what a board member had said here.
And I would get it in a Christ like way.
I put it forward in a way that was not attacking but also
inviting them to come to our church at the same time.
Now it hasn't exactly happened yet in the last five years, but
the idea is we should be able to engage with these.
Things we should be able to engage with these ideas and not
just evacuate the sphere of people saying what they want to
say about our God. And not be able to say no,
that's, that's actually not what the Bible teaches.
Again, not angry in the sense of you say, well, righteous anger.
No, no, I think most of our anger when it comes to these
issues is not righteous. It's just a lot of times we just
want to go for it. But at the same time, what I'm
saying is can you answer in the spirit of Christ?
Christ attacked error. Christ had no problem attacking
error, but he also was very kind to those who were coming to him
in. The spirit of wanting to know
more. At the same time He called the
Pharisees Vipers because he knew they wanted nothing of Him and
that they were spiritual hypocrites and that they were
taking those who needed Him and we're driving them even farther
from Him. But at the same time he looked
at those others and said, go and sin no more.
The ones that the Pharisees had no time for.
And so can we ask ourselves these questions?
Can we answer these questions? This isn't just pie in the sky,
sky stuff we're talking about. These are the type of things
that are right where we live, but maybe we don't realize it
because we're not able to answer these questions or we don't want
to talk about these questions in the break room or at the school
or in the neighborhood or wherever it is.
And look, I'm not talking about going and creating debates
everywhere we go. That's not what I'm talking
about. But can we answer reasonable
questions and doubts that others have about the things that we
believe? First Peter chapter 3 verse 15
says And you might remember this from our series on 1st
Corinthians, or rather First Peter.
Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready all way to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope
that is in you with meekness and fear.
Meaning if people ask you about the hope that was in you, can
you answer it? And can you answer the question
in the right spirit? That's important, isn't it?
Can you answer the question? And can you answer the question
in the right spirit? Now the word answer as it's
found in first Peter chapter 3 verse 15 is the Greek word
apologia. And that's where we get the term
apologetics. Now the word apologia is
compound of two Greek words, APO meaning from and logos meaning
the word. So apologetics means this.
Can we answer about our faith from the Word?
It's not. Apologetics makes it sound like
we're apologizing for being Christians.
You know, it's just, I know I'm a Christian.
I apologize. I hope that doesn't offend you.
Now, that's probably the way some people feel about it today,
but that's not what we're talking about.
Apologetics means can I answer that which I believe from the
Word? Can I defend the faith?
Now listen, does God need us to defend him?
I think he's doing pretty well on his own, isn't he?
He doesn't need us to defend him, but at the same time does
he need us to spread his gospel? He he doesn't need to, but he's
chosen us, hasn't he? He's chosen us to.
And he's chosen us also to defend his faith, not because he
needs a defender, He does not. But he has put us in this arena.
He's put us in this sphere so we can talk about our faith and
then say, don't you need this Jesus?
Don't you need this in your life?
I had some of the questions you did.
I was going a different direction before too.
But then Jesus Christ found me and saved me.
And don't you need that in your life as well?
And that's what we are trying to be able to do to give an answer
from the Word in our own defense and in defense of the Lord.
Isaiah chapter one verse 18 says come now and let us reason
together. Say it the Lord though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, they they be red
as Crimson, they shall be as wool.
And this word apologia is. Found in some form or fashion 18
different times in our New Testament.
Hey, let's reason together. Let's reason together with the
Lord. Let's see what the Lord says
about the questions that people have.
So apologetics is a branch of Christian theology that engages
in a reasoned defense of the Christian faith.
It sets forth a rational basis upon which faith rests, and
through that, it challenges all forms of claims springing up
from error. So what does it do?
It establishes that the faith that we have is reasonable and
logical, but it also answers the questions that come from error,
from those who do not agree with the truth.
Which brings us to this understanding here in First
Corinthians chapter #1 I know you may have thought we forgot
about that, but there are really two world views when it comes to
these things. There's only two world views.
Even though the views of error come in all types of different
flavors, it really comes down to two different ways of thinking.
And so we're going to read this. I'm not going to make much
comment, but I do want us to read as we go here.
So First Corinthians chapter one verse #18 says, For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness,
but to unto us which are saved. It is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God please God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that belief. For the Jews require a sign, and
the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified,
under the Jews a stumbling block, and under the Greeks
foolishness. But unto them which are called
both Jews and Greeks, 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 calling, brethren, how that not many wise
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble or cold,
But God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise, and God had chosen the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty.
We'll stop there for just a moment.
You might think, well, pastor, I don't know that I can actually
engage in these type of conversations, because who am I?
You might think, well, I've never been to Bible college.
I've not been in church very long.
I've been away from the Lord for a while.
I'm too old to be able to pick up this kind of thing.
Pastor, who am I? And according to what I just
read right here, if you are saved and you are led by the
Spirit, you are the very perfect person to be able to confound
the wise. Why?
Because the wise, quote UN quote of the world are fools in the
sense that they reject Christ. They try to make up all types of
other things that sound good. Listen, doesn't an evolutionist
sound smart on his face? I mean, let's just be honest on
its face. If you're to take everything
away and just listen as evolutionist who talks with so
much certainty about billions of years and looks down his long
nose at you for believing that God actually created this world
and that he created it around 6000 years ago or so.
And that everything we see has just been around for around 6000
or so years and would speak very condescendingly toward you.
I would speak very condescendingly toward what you
believe. And it's easy for us to feel
like we're not enough. Well, I'm not a scientist, what
can I say? Well, I've not been in church
forever, what can I say? I've, I've never been to
seminary, what can I say? Well, according to this, you
were the perfect person for God to use.
Has Jesus changed your life? These change your life.
Then you have something that you can speak of that the
evolutionists cannot. You have something to speak of
that the godless cannot. You have something to speak of
that to them might seem like foolishness.
But according to this, it's the power of God.
It's the wisdom of God. Listen, don't feel less than.
Don't feel like you are not enough.
Don't feel like you cannot listen.
You don't have to have your face buried in books talking about
apologetics for years and years and years to be able to talk
with someone about the word of God.
Listen, your memory doesn't have to be great.
Well, Pastor, I would, I would do these things, but I can't
remember all these arguments. I can't remember all these
verses. I can't remember all of these
things. Listen.
I get that, but did Jesus change your life?
Can you tell somebody about that?
Can you tell them how he changed your life?
Some of the greatest soul winners in the word of God were
people that said, you know what, there's a lot I can't tell you.
There's a lot I don't understand myself, but I want to introduce
you to Jesus because he'll he'll be able to teach you and he'll
be able to. And listen, we can't always be
able to do that in the sense that what we can't take someone
to Jesus, but we can bring them to church.
We can have them understand the word of God.
We can maybe get some book. You can even tell someone, you
know what? I don't know the answer that
question, but maybe we can look it up together.
Just be honest about that. These are good things that you
can do. But according to this, listen,
God can and use you, There's two world views, that which believes
that God is not and that which believes that God is.
That's it. And if you were on the side of
the Lord, like in Exodus chapter 32 when Moses said who is on the
Lord's side? If you're on the side of the
Lord, He can use you to be able to help those who are in the
midst of their own spiritual confusion.
Now verse #28 the base things of the world, and things which are
despised, hath God chosen. Yeah, and the things which are
not to bring to, not things that are, that no flesh should glory
in His presence, but of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who are of
God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and
sanctification and redemption, That according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Going to be a lot of people who would maybe drive past this
church this morning. First of all, not even knowing
it's a church. Maybe thinking that we're an
extension of Eastern Pool and Spa and so many people are
getting chemicals over there that people are parking over
here to get them. I don't know.
There's a lot of people that may not know what's going on here.
And if they do know what's going on, they may look down on us.
What could a group of 40 or 50 people do for Jesus Christ?
Well, my answer to that is I don't know, but I do know that
11 did quite a bit. I do know that that group got to
120 by Acts chapter 1, and they did quite a bit.
I do know that by the time you get to Acts chapter 19, I didn't
believe it is that the disciples were accused of making the world
go upside down, that the whole world order had changed because
of believers who are proclaiming the word of God.
How much can we do? I don't know, but I know this.
We're on His side. So we can probably do a whole
lot more than we think we can, and we could probably have a
whole lot more impact than we think that we can.
So yes, there are these two worldviews.
And we, as those who are starting to understand this
issue of apologetics, should be able to try to learn more about
how we can answer for our faith. Isaiah 2914.
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work
among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder for
the. Wisdom of the wise men shall
perish. And the understanding of the
prudent men shall be hid. Again, you don't have to have a
doctorate on your wall. You don't have to listen.
You don't have to have gone to junior college.
You don't have to have finished high school.
But if you know Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit lives inside of
you, you've got a wisdom that the world cannot understand.
And you don't have to. You don't have to huddle back
and fear from anybody when you know I have the Lord, I have his
word. I'm learning a little bit at a
time. I have something that the world,
I have peace, I have joy, I have an eternity that the world wants
but cannot have. But they can't have if they
understand what the word of God says so.
In. Saying all this, understand that
the Scriptures must be our sole and final authority for all
areas of life. Now, are there other authorities
in life? Yes, I can think of three
specifically that are instituted in the Word of God, the family.
God has the final word on what a family is.
His word is what tells us what the family is and how it
operates the church. The Bible tells us that God has
instituted the church. Jesus Christ died for the
church, and they're supposed to be order in the church.
Paul told Titus to set in order the things that we're wanting in
the churches, as he was on the Isle of Crete.
So there's to be order. Who sets that order?
Well, God's Word sets the order. That's why we don't just do
whatever we want to do in church and we do what the Word of God
says as best as we are able, but He also set government up as
well. That government is real.
Romans chapter 13 makes it very clear where to pray for and obey
our government until the government decides that they are
going to be in the opposition to God and His Word.
And then we have to respectfully but yet forcefully say we will
not do that which the government is telling us to do that.
Is against the word of God and the apostles were a great
example of that. They were told you can't preach.
And they said this, well, you know, you could say what you
want, but we've got to preach. You do what you need to do and
we'll do what we need to do because we've been commanded to
preach the word of God. And we have great respect for
the government. We must have great respect for
the government. Pray for our government.
But at the same time, all where do all of those entities get
their authority from? From the Word of God.
And so we respect those authorities because we respect
ultimately the word of God. It is our sole authority for
faith and practice. And listen, as Bible believing
Baptist, we don't just say that as a tagline.
I don't just say that as a tick. You know, I just kind of say it
Bible believing Baptist, just kind of throw it out there
without thinking about it. No, we believe the Bible.
I am not a Pope. I know a pastor named Johnny
Pope. That's as close as I know to a
Baptist Pope. And Can you imagine being a last
name, being Pope and you're a Baptist?
I mean, there's got to be so many, so many jokes that are
involved with that, that I'm glad we're not close friends
because honestly, I don't know that I could handle that.
But here's the idea. I'm not a Pope.
I'm not your father. I'm not your reverend.
No, no, I just want to take you to the word of God.
We don't have any other books. We don't have any other
authorities. We don't have any other fathers
that are the teachers. Listen our.
Fathers, our teacher. Through the Holy Spirit and and
the Son who is the word. These are our teachers.
The Holy Spirit is our teacher. This is what we have here, that
it's all about believing the Bible and the Bible alone.
And listen, when you come down to the place of believing the
Bible and the Bible alone, it changes your life.
It changed the way you look at everything.
Psalm One 19106 Thy word is true from the beginning, and everyone
of Thy righteous judgments endureth forever.
Everyone of Thy righteous judgments endureth forever.
We go to Psalm chapter 19. Don't know that we're going to
get done with this lesson today, and that's OK.
We'll get what we need to get Psalm chapter #19 because we've
got to get to the place in apologetics.
If it's from the Word, we have to understand that our answers
come from the Word. By the way, that means that you
don't just say, well, my pastor said, listen, that's a good
place to start, but that's not a good place to end.
OK. When you're first a believer,
you're just doing what you hear the pastor say and pray that the
pastor is preaching what the word of God says.
But you got to get in the word for yourself, Say pastor,
doesn't that undermine your authority to tell people
something like that? And my answer is no, No.
It reminds people where the true authority is.
What authority do I have apart from the Word of God?
I have not. If I don't lead as the Word of
God tells me to do, and I don't preach as the Word of God tells
me to preach from the Word as it is, calling out the Word of God
to people as they are. Listen, then, I lack authority
in every sense. So to remind you that you get
your answers from the Bible is not to diminish who I am.
It's to remind you that whatever authority I have comes from that
same book. So Psalm 19, great Psalm, look
at verse #7 you're talking about the word of the Lord.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure making.
Why is this simple? The statutes of the Lord are
right rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is
pure and lightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean
and during forever. The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether meant.
If you're looking for some verses to memorize, verses 7
through 9 of Psalm 19 are great verses to memorize.
What do we see about the Word of God here?
And it's used in all types of different forms, whether it's
the law, the statutes, the commandments, the judgments.
What do we see? The Word of God is true.
I love that. This lesson goes right into
11:00 and what we're going to be talking about today from second
Peter chapter #1 again. But you can trust that the word
of God is true when you can't trust what the world says.
You could trust what this book says from cover to cover.
And like Brother Turner used to say, I even believe the, I even
believe the cover because it says Holy Bible on it.
You remember that one? OK, good.
Just say yes, Marshall. All right, good.
So thank you. All right, so yo.
I believe the cover because it says Holy Bible, that that's the
way it is now. More to be desired.
Verse 10. More to be desired.
Are they than gold? Yeah, the much fine gold.
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
And I'll tell you, Scott, Lisa can produce some pretty good
honey. But I'm thankful for the word of
God. Amen.
That no matter how good that honey is, Aaron, it's delicious.
I am glad that the word of God is to be more desired even than
that because it's something that we're supposed to crave.
It's something we're supposed to desire.
You say, well, I don't really get that.
We'll get into it a little bit, get into a little bit more and
the more you get into it, the more you desire it.
There are times when I I realize I've read and I kind of maybe
just read to be able to finish my reading for the day and I had
to come back to it later and say, you know what, I need a
little bit more like that wasn't enough.
I didn't really, I didn't really get into it the way that I
should. And the word of God, it's
everything to us. Now drop down to verse 414.
The Word of God supposed to change our lives, isn't it?
Do we just read the Word for the sake of reading the Word?
No, it's supposed to change us, isn't it?
Let the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength in my Redeemer.
What does that mean? That what?
Comes out and what stays in should be affected by the word
of God. The words that come out of your
mouth should be tempered by the word of God and what stays.
In your heart should be tempered by the word of God.
And why can we trust that? Because it is true.
Because it is right and righteous all together.
As we just read now there's four areas in saying all of that.
There are four different areas that we're not going to get to
all of them this morning, but let's maybe.
Get to the first one. There are four areas in which we
see that we have a fundamentally different outlook with those who
I'm going to say we'll call them secularists for the remainder of
this lesson, even into next week.
The idea is there God or is there not a God now?
I'm not even talking about Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
I'm just talking about the fact is there a God or is there not a
God now? Is it enough for us to establish
that there is a God? That's not enough, is there?
That's a good step. But there's more to it.
There is a God, and his name is Jehovah.
There is a God. He's also known by his other
identity, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
The three in one, the one in three, three persons and one
being, not three individual gods.
But one God. But at the same time, I do
believe that it's important for us to understand that there is a
place for. Some type of conversation about
is there a God or not a God? Because it kind of gets those
who don't believe in God to start to think, well, there has
to. This has to.
Have come from somewhere. This has to have started from
somewhere. And what I found to be the case
with the atheist that I've talked to or the agnostics and
agnostics are literally more than just they don't care about
if there's a God or not. It's not that they're anti God.
It's just like I don't really think about it.
I don't care whether there is or not.
But when I talk to atheists and agnostics about this, you know
what I often find is the case? They don't think about the
logical conclusion to what they're saying.
They're willing to say there's no God, but they've never really
thought about down the line what that means because there's
repercussions. It's important to think about
the repercussions of what we believe, isn't it?
It's important to think about the logical conclusion of those
things. I'll use this as an example.
For several years here at in Easton, I had two different
funeral homes that would call me on a very regular basis to do
funerals if someone did not have a pastor.
And a lot of times it was unbelievers.
And I will tell you probably the hardest thing that I've ever
done as a pastor over the years, and there's been several things
that have been hard. But one of the hardest things I
would say would be to go into a room not knowing anybody and
just having an obituary in your hand and a sermon and trying
within about an hour to get to know all the people in that
room, to try to offer them comfort and then to be able to
give them a service. All while knowing that very
likely the person that you are eulogizing was not a believer.
It's a hard thing say. So pastor, what do you do?
Do you just preach them into heaven?
Well, no, I'm not going to give them false hope.
I don't even really talk about where they're going because I
don't know. I just talk about what the Bible
says for those people who are still sitting there, say, you
know, I want to give you comfort who are here today, and I want
you to know that you can find comfort in the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And these funeral homes let me
do that for years. And honestly, I got a lot of
good feedback from that, even if it didn't get as many necessary
professions out of that as I would have liked.
But yet the gospel is being preached in ways that hadn't
before. But here's what I'm saying about
this. It's amazing to me how many
times I would talk with families even that they would tell me,
atheists tell me they didn't believe in God.
Or maybe, well, if there is a God, you know, one of those
things that they would say. It's amazing to me how much they
wanted to talk about heaven. It's amazing to me how much they
wanted to talk about an afterlife, a place of peace, a
place of comfort. And you know, when you are
thinking of atheism and you are thinking of agnosticism or even
secularism, a place and a life, a world without God, there is no
room for heaven. There is none.
Why? Because in their minds, this
world came from cosmic chaos. This world is an accident.
We shouldn't even be here. And you think that there would
be a heaven that would come from that?
And they say, well, we believe in science.
Well, scientifically, how can you prove that there's a heaven
that God lives or some entity lives?
They can't. Well, I just pray their souls at
peace. How do you scientifically prove
there's a soul? I have a quote from an atheist,
We'll get to it next week that talks about all these different
things. And he talks about the soul of
man. And I'm thinking, oh, hold on a
second, what did you say? The soul of it.
You don't get to lay claim to that because you can't prove it
within your worldview. But you see.
What I'm saying that these groups of people don't think of
the end result of their thinking.
All they think of is in the here and now.
And there's a lot of times where they think I don't want to be
responsible to a God. I don't want to have to put my
life out in and to be able to have to answer to a God in the
afterlife to be in the judgment. And so they all they think about
is here and now. They never think about what the
logical conclusion of that is. Basically, in your worldview,
when you are dead, you never were.
You never mattered. You just returned to dust.
There's nothing else. There is.
There is nothing. You can't you.
Can't lay claim to heaven, you can't lay claim to a soul, you
can't lay claim to peace. You can't lay claim do any of
those things. That's the logical conclusion
that they don't think about. So what do we need to do as
apologists? Not apologizers, but as
apologists for the word of God? We have to remind them, listen,
the Bible does talk about these things and it talks about them
very specifically. And if you don't believe what
the word of God says, there is an alternative and it's very
bleak. It's not just bleak for the
afterlife, it's bleak for this life.
Because if there is no God, if we just came here by mistake,
then what are we even doing here?
What even matters? Who's to say what's right and
wrong? And we want to look at four
different areas and we'll look at these next week.
The areas of reality, the areas of knowledge, morality and
purpose. All of those are hinged upon
understanding the God that there is a God.
And I would say even more than that, the God of the Bible.
But I'll leave you the with this illustration.
I've used it here before A while back I've mentioned my the dear
man who led me to Christ, his name Steve Baker, and he's
currently through the process of succumbing to ALS very very
quickly led me to Christ 1996 worked with me for years to be
able to show me 1998 rather showed me what the Bible said
about salvation and has become just a a dear mentor to me
through the years. And I went to go visit him last
year before any of this happened with ALS.
And as his habit was he would go door to door literally knocking
on doors telling people about the about the Lord.
I was very happy to go with him. I remember talking to a man and
he was Australian. The accent is what I remembered
and he was very upset that we were there.
I mean, just that we were there at his door.
He was very upset. We were very pleasant and
brother Baker never one to back down and said, he said, well,
what do you think about the Lord?
And he gave us some of his thoughts about the Lord and it
was not very polite, but he said this, he says you, you see this,
He says you see this house, you see, see those cars I have out
there. You see everything.
I did that, I did that and the total arrogance of that.
I mean, just common sense tells you you didn't do all of that
yourself. You didn't make that, you didn't
create that you didn't you know, you work, but you probably work
for a company where there are other people working.
And if you owned your own company, you needed other people
to be able to buy your products. And also like you didn't do that
all yourself, but whatever, you did it.
My brother Baker is just gently and genuinely as he could just
looked at him, he says, you do have a beautiful house here.
He says it's great. He says, I bet somebody built
it, so I bet somebody drew up the plans for it.
He says, or did it just come out of nowhere?
And he said, well. Of course somebody built, but
that's not the same thing, he. Says it's exactly the same thing
he said. Either this.
Whole world. Came out of nothing, or there
was a true creator God who not just created but then is
intimately involved with every aspect of humanity from
beginning to end, he said. The thought of just a house
appearing out of nowhere is ludicrous.
It's ludicrous. Who would believe?
That but yet we believe that about the world.
Like I have a quote here. We'll, we'll examine it again
next week. So when you hear it next week,
pretend you never heard it before.
But Doctor Van Gill says this. The godless overlooks the fact
that if one 0 = 0, then a billion zeros can still only
equal 0. The idea is, well, nothing can.
Can something appear out of nothing now?
No. But out of a billion years,
sure. Well, no.
If it's, if it can't, now, it can't, no matter how long you
give it. If a house.
Couldn't appear out of nowhere. You mean the universe did come
on think it all the way through. But they don't.
So we're going to help you with that over next week as we
continue in this idea of introducing apologetics.
Are we to get in fights with people about the Lord?
No, we answer with. You may want to.
I don't want to say who's nodding his head, but his name
rhymes with Dave Chapin. But he's he's like, I'm just
waiting for somebody to argue. Hey, we always have an answer
ready. With what?
Meekness and fear. Why?
Because our flavor of godlessness might be different
than theirs, but we were there once.
Well, listen, I wasn't a Muslim. Yeah, but you didn't believe in
God. Well, listen, I mean.
That's not like I was ever involved in a cult.
Yeah, but you didn't know God, so just understand they need God
just like you needed God. Answer them with meekness and
fear and love them. Listen, don't hold back the
punches of the truth of the Word of God.
Make sure you say exactly what the Word of God says.
But at the same time, we want to love them to Jesus Christ
because they need the gospel message.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.