How to Witness in a Fallen World

One of my favorite nights of camp is tonight and the reason that I love this night is because I feel like this is the night where I get to help equip you to go home and to live in a world that is hostile to Christianity, that is aggressive towards Christianity, that rejects Christianity. How do you handle that? How do you stand against that? What do you say when unbelievers slander you, question you, and attack you and the God you worship? Do you roll over? Do you stay quiet? No. Now I am not advocating a , “Live by the sword and die by the sword” lifestyle. Jesus is clear that we as Christians are not to be violent people. But we are to be people that are ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us. Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15 “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;” We talked about this a bit last year if you were here but what Peter is saying is that as Christians, we don’t have off days and on days when it comes to giving a defense for the hope that we have in Jesus. It isn’t a, “I’ll do it this day or that day or under this circumstance or that circumstance.” To steal a phrase from Paul in 2 Timothy 4:2, we are to be ready in season or out of season to defend the hope that is in us. This is called apologetics and we are to be apologists. No, we aren’t saying sorry for what we believe in, we aren’t asking permission to believe what we believe, we are standing firm in our beliefs that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh and it is only through faith in Him that we can have eternal life. We don’t defend in anger or with physical violence, but as Peter says, we do it with gentleness and reverence. What we are going to build on from last year is a method of doing apologetics, because believe it or not, there are multiple ways for you to be an apologist, a method that I think is the best way and biblical way to defend what we believe, presuppositional apologetics. What I mean by presuppositional apologetics is that there are certain facts that we must presume to be true ahead of time. Presuppositional apologetics is the apologetic method that takes Scripture seriously. If God is the source of all truth that means that no facts can be produced on its own. God is the starting point for all truth, knowledge, morality, and existence. To put it as simply as I can, without God, you cannot prove anything. Our argument is that God speaks truthfully in His Word and since God is the standard of truth and all truth stems from Him, the Word of God is more than able to provide a thorough defense against any argument that the atheist or unbeliever pushes for. You see a lot of ways that people attempt to argue for Christianity is by arguing for Scripture where really what we do is argue from Scripture and as we argue from Scripture, we show the unbeliever that their lives are completely inconsistent with their worldview. The things that they claim do not make sense outside of a Christian worldview and the Bible tells us that if all we are trying to do is use an atheists own arguments to prove the Bible or God, we’re actually doing their job for them. Our task is to show to our unbelieving neighbors that despite what they claim, they are living by faith. Every day of their lives is dependent upon God and though they claim to not believe in God, everything that they do is contrary to that claim. They do live by faith! They make statements and live in ways that can only come from a Christian worldview even though they deny the Christian worldview. The testimony of Scripture is that God has made Himself clearly known to the world so that man has no excuse when it comes to God. Paul says this in Romans 1:18–21 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” According to Scripture, everyone knows God exists, they have no excuse for their unbelief, and they have knowingly rejected the God who created them. How then do we minister to these people? How do we talk to them? By making them see the impossibility of their worldview. If you have your Bible with you, go ahead and open up with me to 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 and as you do that, let me pray for us.

2 Corinthians 4:1–6 NASB95

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

What is the Unbelieving Worldview?

In these verses, Paul shows the method of his ministry. He isn’t craving to the desires of the world, he isn’t using methods that will just build a crowd, he has renounced those things. He presents the Gospel faithfully and truthfully. Paul and his ministry partners are committed to teaching the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Paul is facing an attack from false teachers and he argues that the issue of unbelief does not come from Paul as the messenger or with the message of the Gospel itself, the issue comes from their own sinful and unbelieving hearts. Paul says in verse 3 that if the gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. What does he mean by that? What it means is that on my own, I cannot convince the unbeliever that the Gospel is true. On my own as an unbeliever, I couldn’t even convince myself that the gospel is true. The only way that someone is saved is if God changes their heart. The goal of the apologist isn’t to win hearts, it’s to shut mouths. Have you ever noticed when listening to a sermon that people can have completely different reactions to it? The same sermon, from the same preacher, at the same time can be delivered and someone will be saved and respond positively and another person will respond in the complete opposite direction. Why is this? It is because of what Paul says in verses 3-4, that the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. That’s the unbelievers worldview in a nutshell, they are blind to the truths of the Gospel and they are dead in their trespasses and sins. The unbelievers worldview claims to have no belief in God and no reliance upon God but they have no way to make that claim without borrowing from the Christian worldview. Even though the unbeliever denies the existence of God, everything that they do is dependent upon the existence of God. Cornelius Van Til, one of my favorite apologists describes the unbeliever like a screaming child that is sitting on his fathers lap and smacking their face. The only way the little hand can reach their face is because they are seated upon their lap. That’s what the unbeliever is doing! They deny and live a life as if God doesn’t exist but everything that they do is dependent upon the fact that He exists! David tells us what the unbeliever’s worldview is in Psalm 14:1–3 “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.” The unbeliever has turned aside, because of their sin they have become corrupt and in his heart, he tells himself that their is no God. Unbelievers will fight tooth and nail to try and disprove the existence of a God that they claim to not believe in. Now stop and think about that for a second. Here are these individuals who spend all of this time and effort to try and prove something isn’t real even though they do not think God exists to begin with. It would be like me trying to disprove that water doesn’t exist while needing to drink it in order to stay alive. It would be like me saying that the sun isn’t hot or bright while starring directly at it and putting on sun screen. They put in all of this effort to deny something when everything that they do says contrary to it. But that is the unbelieving worldview, it is irrational, it doesn’t make sense and that is why it is only the Christian worldview that can make sense of anything.

The Impossibility of the Contrary

How then are we to minister to people that see the world in this way? How do we defend the faith against these people? In order to do it, we must start with God as the starting point. As I mentioned earlier, our arguments aren’t for the Bible, they are from the Bible because it is in Scripture where God reveals Himself most clearly to mankind. Van Til summarizes the method like this: “The Reformed method of apologetics begins frankly “from above.” It would “presuppose” God. But in presupposing God it cannot place itself at any point on a neutral basis with the non-Christian. Before seeking to prove that Christianity is in accord with reason and in accord with fact, it would ask what is meant by “reason” and what is meant by “fact.” It would argue that unless reason and fact are themselves interpreted in terms of God they are unintelligible. If God is not presupposed, reason is a pure abstraction that has no contact with fact, and fact is a pure abstraction that has no contact with reason. Reason and fact cannot be brought into fruitful union with one another except upon the presupposition of the existence of God and his control over the universe.” To sort of break down that statement, this means that when it comes to God, no one is neutral. Scripture testifies of two people: the People of God and the People of the Devil. You are either for God or you are against God. Their is not a single person in all of creation that can truly say that they have no opinion or thought on God. What Van Til is saying is that we as Christians need to ask unbelievers what they mean when they say what they say and do the things that they do. What we do as apologists is argue from the impossibility of the contrary. Greg Bahnsen said, “From beginning to end, man’s reasoning about anything whatsoever (even reasoning about reason itself) is unintelligible or incoherent unless the truth of the Christian Scriptures is presupposed. Any position contrary to the Christian one, therefore, must be seen as philosophically impossible. It cannot justify its beliefs or offer a worldview whose various elements comport with each other.” So let’s simplify this because I know that this is probably sounding pretty confusing. Last year when we did this, I don’t think I spent enough time simplifying this so here’s my attempt to right my wrongs. I want us to think about 3 aspects of human existence: Logic or knowledge, morality so right and wrong, and the uniformity of nature which means that their are laws and processes in place that have remained constant in the universe across space and time. Now I know that still sounds kind of complicated, I promise you, I am going to do my best to make those terms as simple as possible. When it comes to logic, it comes down to reasoning. Where does anything come from? Look at creation, look at the world, look at facts that people make, where do these come from? Truth does not come from nothing. In order for something to be true, in order for something to be known, it has to come from somewhere. Who gets to decide what the meaning of life is? Only the One that created it. So when someone makes a truth statement, where does truth come from? Who decides whether or not something is true? God, whose Word is truth. In an unbelievers worldview, we don’t have a creator, we are the results of an evolutionary process. Everything in the created world is an act of chaos and chance. All we are is a cosmic accident. How can there be consistent truths in a world that came together by pure chance and accident? Really, there can’t be. Take something like 2+2. What is the answer to that question. It’s 4. Has it always been 4? Yes, it has but what is stopping 2+2 being 35? In a world of pure chance, even something as simple as 2+2 can’t be consistent. The only worldview where that is possible is in a Christian worldview. Let’s look at morale arguments and we will walk through an example later on. In a world where everything is about survival of the fittest, what purpose is their for right and wrong? The unbeliever can’t make any claims on morality in a non-Christian worldview. They have no right to say something is right or wrong, good or evil because in their worldview, there is no such thing as human value and no such thing as absolutes. Do you think that an atheist would say that something like the holocaust was wrong? The unjust killing of possibly millions of Jewish people by the Nazi’s was a vile and wicked event but why do we think that? We believe that murder, the taking of human life is wrong, but what makes it wrong? Who gets to decide if it is wrong? Even if I say for some reason that murder is right, that doesn’t make it so. Deep down every person will agree that murder is wrong but what makes it wrong? If this world is nothing more than chance and those that survive are superior and the fittest, wouldn’t we want more death of the weak so that we could be strong? No one will truly want to argue that way but that is the unbelieving worldview outside of God. The reason that so many people will argue against murder is because in their heart they know that every single person is made in the image of God but they reject that reality. Outside of a Christian worldview, the unbeliever cannot make any moral claims although they strive to pursue morality. Finally, think of the uniformity of nature. What this means is that what was true in the past will continue to hold true into the future. Think about gravity on Earth. What’s the old saying about gravity? What goes up, must do what? Must come down. Would you say that gravity here is consistent? Has there ever been a day in your life here on earth where gravity did not operate as it always has? No there hasn’t. Will gravity continue working in the same exact way that it always has tomorrow? Yes it will or we assume it will. Why would we assume that though? If creation was the result of the big bang, of chance particles colliding, this nothing that produces something, can we really be sure that what was true then will continue to be true in the future? Take sitting in a chair. Every time you sit in a chair, you have faith in the chair that it will be there and it will hold you up. You don’t question that it will, every single one of you came in here tonight and you just sat down and trusted the chair to hold you up. But why did you do that? Because you assumed that what was true of the chair this morning would be true of the chair this evening. The unbelievers worldview will not allow that and it is our duty to make sure that they recognize the inconsistency of their lives. Their entire life is being lived on the assumption that what was constant at one point will continue to be constant in another. We assume that as the sun goes down tonight that it will come up tomorrow. A universe based on random, impersonal chance cannot account for universal, unchangeable natural laws. The only way that this can happen is if there is a Creator who is sustaining these laws. When it comes to handling these arguments or when it comes to the discussions that you have with these people, something that you can do is just leave the unbeliever room to talk and let them keep talking because at some point they are going to run out of rope and kill their own argument. At some point they will make a claim on morality or on the uniformity of nature or on truth claims and you will be able to call them out on it. Hold them accountable to what they are saying, help them to see just how much they are borrowing from the Christian worldview and how they are living a lie. Bring them to Scripture and have them see where God has clearly made Himself known and that they are not neutral when it comes to Christ.

The Example of Moral Arguments

One last thing before we close, I want to remind you guys that tomorrow morning will be our question and answer time so bring any question that you have and if you have any apologetics question or even pushback from what we talked about tonight or over the past few days, be sure to ask them. I’ll try my best to answer as many as possible. But let’s take a minute or 2 and use the moral argument for God and see what it looks like in action. Let’s say that we meet someone that believes that abortion is ok and that it is fine to end the life of a child in the womb. I know it’s a sensitive subject but it is also a realistic one that Christians will need to be able to answer about. What do Christians believe about life? We believe that from conception, their is life in the womb of a mother. We don’t believe that a child only becomes a child after it is born. We believe that size does not determine life. We believe that what is in the womb of a mother is not just a clump of cells, it is a living child. We also believe that level of dependence does not relate to whether it is a human or not or if we have the right to kill it. Some will argue that because the child in the womb is dependent upon the mother, the mother has the right to kill it because it wouldn’t be able to survive on its own anyway. Let’s take my 7 and almost 4 year olds. If something were to happen to me or my wife and my kids were left on their own to survive could they do it? If they were left totally to themselves, no outside help, could they survive? Probably not. They are dependent upon an adult to provide for them so by the argument of the pro-choice crowd, they aren’t human at 7 and 4 so I should have the right to kill them because they rely on someone else. When an unbeliever uses the argument that women should have the right to terminate their pregnancy, we know that it is wrong because the Bible says that it is from the womb that God knows children, that God stitched that child together in the womb of the mother, and that child is made in the image of God. The moral argument will fail on the side of the unbeliever because in a chance and chaotic universe, it should not matter what is right or wrong for either the mother or the child. But in a worldview where life is precious, where morality is instituted by God, there absolutely can be a matter of right and wrong. So we are running out of time but they way that I would argue against the unbeliever on the life of the unborn is by pointing them to what Scripture says about children, what Scripture says about life, and where that life comes from. Their worldview does not allow for the importance of any life because there is nothing in creation that gives it value. As soon as the unbeliever starts talking about human rights and value, they have wandered into Christian territory and it is our job to make them aware of their wanderings. I know that was a lot of info and I know it was a little bit different than what we are used to from the last few days but I hope that it was helpful. I hope you were able to see that you don’t have to just play defense, you can play a little offense. If you have any questions, let me know but let’s first go to the Lord in prayer and then we will go to Him in worship.