My Apologies Pt. 2

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Kid time!

Your teachers might tell you that stripes come from different eras
Animals die, covered in dirt, new animals live, covered in dirt...
Leaves layers of over time
You can go back and look through time
But what if there’s a different explanation
Let’s add dirt to a jar
Then let’s add some water
And we’ll mix it up
Now we’ll let it sit and we’ll come back to it
Watching Frank Turek
“You don’t need apologetics, you just need the Bible”
If you’re a Christian youth going to secular college
75% chance you will leave the church
Why? Because you’re intellectually skeptical...
Professors laugh and scoff at Christians
Frank Zindler (American Atheists) argues this:
“What is incredible about the Bible is not its divine authorship; it’s that such a concoction of contradictory nonsense could be believed by anyone to have been written by an omniscient god. To do so, one would first have to not read the book, which is the practice of most Christians; or, if one does read it, dump in the trash can one’s rational intelligence — to become a fool for god, in other words.
Why do you need apologetics?
To respond to people like that!
What happens when “smart people” have tough questions?
They say the bible is a bunch of inaccurate, made up fairy tales to make certain men more powerful.
Do you say, “Read John 3:16?”
You can’t just use the Bible to convince people that don’t believe in it!
You have to explain why we can trust the Bible!
That is apologetics!
I cannot give you a complete apologetic lesson
I’ve had to trim down everything I want to say to bare bones
Maybe I’ll write a book someday
For today, you get a lesson (not really a sermon)
YouVersion: My Apologies Part 2
1 Peter 3:15 and Genesis 1
We are looking at scientific, philosophical and spiritual reasons to believe
1 Peter 3:15 ESV
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

1. Has the bible been corrupted?

Short answer - 99.5% accurate
The rest has no major impact on doctrine
To answer, we have to know what the Bible is...
Jesus didn’t come down and hand a printed copy of all 66 books
Each book has it’s own story
Different author, audience, purpose...

Does the Bible today match the original?

WE DO NOT HAVE THE ORIGINALS
But, that doesn’t mean what we have isn’t accurate
Heard of “Homer’s Iliad?”
No one questions the authenticity of the text we have
Because we have more than 2,000 copies of it!
No one questions stuff from Demosthenes (400), Julius Caesar (251), Pliny (200)
Average Greek writer has less than 20 copies, and NO ONE questions
But people do questions the Bible… with 5,838 copies… in Greek!
Another 18,524 in other languages like Latin, Aramaic, Arabic, etc.
Just the NT! The OT adds another 42,000 copies!
66,262 copies of biblical text!
BY FAR the best recorded example from ancient history...
Also closest ancient document to the original
We don’t have original copies, probably because they were used!
Ephesian letter was passed from church to church
When it became tattered, someone said, “We need to copy that!”
What do you do when you replace something old and tattered?
Probably throw it away...
However, we have some pretty old copies!
Let’s look at the Iliad again:
Oldest copy full copy is from 900's AD
The original was written around 762... BC!!
That’s a 1,600 year gap from the original to our oldest evidence!
Yet no one questions whether the writing is original, why?
Because the art of copying is important!
Abe Lincoln says, “Not everything you read on the internet is true...”
It wasn’t like that 1,000+ years ago
This was your profession, you needed to maintain credibility
Oldest NT fragment from Mark from possibly 150AD
There’s a fragment of John from Egypt - possibly from 125AD
Only 25 years after Apostle John died!
Much better than 1,600 years...
The OT - Dead Sea Scrolls
Found 2,000 year Ein Gedi scroll burned to a crisp!
Used x-ray and CT scans to make models
Then measured areas of higher density
Blank parchment is less dense than ink with iron/lead
They read text, know what it was?
The book of Leviticus — exactly how we read it today
No changes over 2,000 years!
We have some scrolls back to 5th century BC
All copies say THE SAME THING
With a difference of 0.5%
The original NT authors were in the know
The NT was written by: 4 disciples, 2 friends of disciples, and 2 half brothers of Jesus
You can’t have more reputable sources!
Let me connect one more dot:
What do you with the gap between the Apostles and our oldest copies
Codex Sinaiticus mad in 325
How do we know it didn’t change?
We know the "Chain of custody”
Example:
Eusebius<Pamphilus<Origen<Clement<Pantaeunus<Justus<Primus<Kedron<Anianus<Avilius<John Mark
He knew Peter/Paul, mentioned in Luke/Acts, wrote Peter’s gospel
That means 17 NT books are directly preserved right there!
What’s crazier? They quoted Scripture in their writings
They all match what we have today
3 guys (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp) cited 25 NT books completely
There is so much more to look at...
It’s easy to see, a corrupted Bible is a pretty poor argument

2. How can Christianity be the only way to God?

This usually isn’t against Christianity, more in defense of other religions
In 203 AD, 22 year old Christian woman Perpetua went on trial
The Roman govt. charged her and sentenced her to death
Not for worshipping Jesus, but for ONLY worshipping Jesus
People usually land here because they’re lazy!
Can’t we all just do whatever we want? I don’t wanna wrestle with truth
You do you, Imma do me...
Combined with that, they say, “All religions are pretty much the same”
There’s a huge problem, they’re not!
There are some similarities, but they’re not the same
I mean, all sports are pretty much the same, right?
Tennis, basketball, soccer… they all have nets, balls, special shoes...
If you can play volleyball you can play hockey...
If you can play basketball you can be jockey...
Similarities do not mean they’re the same
World religions ARE NOT the same!
Islam
Personal God
Created world
Man is sinful
Heaven or hell
Buddhism
No personal God
No creator
No sin
Reincarnation based on works
How can these both be true?
Was the world created by God or not?
When I die, will I be reincarnated or not?
To say “it depends on you” is to give you the highest authority in the universe!
God exists, if you think He does...
If you believe you’ll go to heaven, you will!
So the first time someone believes something, it spontaneously exists?!
I believe the Lions will win the Super Bowl…
Yeah, we know how that’s gonna go
Believing something doesn’t make it true...
Often, positions aren’t based on truth
It’s based on “do whatever you want to do!”
Can be AD HOMINEM
It’s not based on the position, it’s based on the person
Jesus is the only way? That sounds awful arrogant - can’t be true!
I don’t think so, but let’s say it’s recieved that way...
Does it change truth?
If an arrogant chef makes a delicious cake, does his/her arrogance make it taste worse?
If you say yes, that’s ad hominem!
The arrogance of the chef does not change the flavor of the cake
It changes whether or not you want to believe the cake is good
Christians may seem arrogant by saying Jesus is the only way
BUT It doesn’t change the truth about Him being the only way
It changes whether or not someone wants to believe He is
So then we come back to the original question this way:
What statement does Jesus make?
It was our short answer last week - Jesus says so
John 14:6 ESV
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
He’s either right or wrong

3. Has science disproven God’s existence?

Short answer - absolutely not!
Chinese paleontologist Jun-Yuan Chen, “In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America, you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.”
“Science” has become a club
If you’re a western scientist, all the cool kids are secularists
If you’re a Christian, they want to dunk your head in the toilet
It’s not science versus religion
It’s “what conclusion does science point to?”
You believe in the God of chance
The secular scientific community believes in many doctrines that are as mysterious, unverified and fantastical as some of the wackiest religions on earth
Like aliens planting life on earth, life forming from crystals or sludge being zapped by lightning
Secular scientists like to say God has been disproven
God was a crutch!
We no longer need God to explain things
Let’s look at some evidence
Layers of sediment for example...
Scientists explain that soil is deposited in layers over time
The lower you dig, the older evidence you find
Proves evolution over millions of years
Disproves God created man right after the animals
That is scientific evidence disproving God!
But what if it actually proves God?
Look at the jar
What if the reason we have layers isn’t from deposits over time
What if a huge amount of water came and stirred everything up
And it all settled in layers like this
What would you call it if a bunch of water came in at once?
A flood! Yeah, maybe like the one in the story of Noah’s Ark?
Let’s look at Einstein’s theory of relativity
Speed and time have a relationship
The faster you go, the more time lags
Hafele-Keating Experiment in 1971
4 cesium-beam atomic clocks (very accurate) onto planes
Flew around the world twice
Compared them to clocks at US Naval Observatory
The clocks were different
They were only off by nanoseconds
But could be calculated using theory of relativity
Which clock was slower? The one on the plane
Has since proved many times the faster you go, the slower time goes
At a certain rate of speed, time actually stops moving forward
The universal speed limit is the speed of light
To go the speed of light is to stop time
It’s interesting to look at Genesis 1 then...
Genesis 1:1–2 ESV
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
There was nothing at this point
God’s Amazon package was there, but He hadn’t opened it yet
In the beginning is a reference to what? Time!
The beginning is the origin of time
Then how does He kick off the beginning of time?
Genesis 1:3 ESV
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
No matter what you believe...
God made it, it made itself, it’s not really here, you made it...
The fact that we exist is OUTRAGEOUS!
There should be nothing here at all!
Nothing spontaneously exists, but here we are!
SOMETHING crazy happened!
Skepticism will only lead you to believing nothing
The fact we exist means there is something to believe in
I believe it all points to God

4. Is there any historical evidence of Jesus?

Short answer - Yes!
There are 33 Christian documents outside the Bible
10 non-Christian documents mentioning Jesus within 150 years
Guys like Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius...
They verify things like His life, death and resurrection
You cannot argue ill motives for this - nothing to gain
That’s 43 sources for Jesus
In contrast, Tiberius Caesar (Emperor at the time) has 10
9 non-Christian and 1 Christian source
If CNN is covering your story more than the Emperor’s… you’re a big deal!
However, you can’t take away the Bible’s account of Jesus!
There are tons of artifacts and documents supporting the bible
Archaeology examples:
The Pilate Stone - an engraved sign with Pontius Pilate
The pool of Bethesda - John 5
Coins engraved with the Syrian governor Quirinius - Luke 2
Inscription of Lysanias near Damascus - Luke 3
Even found an ossuary - box of bones - labelled with the name Ciaphas
The high Priest who sentenced Jesus to death
That’s just the NT!
We don’t have the wine barrels from Cana
Baskets full of fish bones and petrified bread
Because we’re talking about thousands of years
And Jesus was a peasant!
There was no royal archive documenting artifacts for Him!
And yet we have more evidence for Jesus than the biggest names

5. Is God just a mean kid with a magnifying glass?

Is God a moral monster?
First, there’s something called the “moral argument”
Basically, without God there is no morality
God sets the standard for good - actually defines what is moral
Take Him out and morality is whatever we say it is!
Nothing is immoral, it’s just your opinion...
You want to murder puppies… is that wrong?
Yes that’s wrong! I disagree and who are you to tell me?
If morality is established by us, it can whatever whatever we say!
But an atheist can spin that
You’re saying there IS a God and He seems to go against His morality!
He said to wipe out an entire race of people!
Deuteronomy 20:17 ESV
17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,
So here’s the question posed by Frank Turek:
Is God arbitrary or does He give reasons for judging people in the OT?
When Abraham is promised the new land, He has to wait 400 years
Why? Because the Canaanites have not yet sinned to the point of destruction
When they do, it’s because they were sacrificing babies
Metal god named Molek
Heat the statue with a fire and the babies would be placed on the arms to sizzle to death
Philosopher Plutarch says drummers would play loud so parents didn’t have to hear their babies screaming
People always ask why God doesn’t step in to stop evil people
Now when God does, people accuse God of being immoral
Yes, but did He have to correct the issue that way?
Is God committing murder by ending lives on earth?
NO! He has authority… He created life, He can take it away
It’s not right for US to take life on our own, but God can do it any time
And He did! But there was always MERCY
Canaan had 400 years to repent before they were wiped out
He sent prophets like Jonah
When he finally got to Nineveh they repented and God backed off!
Sodom and Gomorrah would be spared for 10 good people!
Ultimately all of these things pointed to one thing: Jesus
God’s one plan has been to orchestrate things so the Messiah could come
You want justice, we should all be killed!
You want grace, then you look to God
God’s not a mean kid with a magnifying glass...
He’s a powerful, just and mercifully kind God

Practical Thoughts

I want to close with practical thoughts
1 Peter 3:15 ESV
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
I cannot possibly address every question you might hear or have yourself
BUT
There are some things we can do
As I said before, without the Holy Spirit, nothing will work
It’s His job to grab people’s hearts… not yours
2. Accept that you may not know all the answers!
Don’t make up or guess answers to baffle questioners!
If you get asked a question you don’t know, admit it and search
Ask a pastor, look in the Bible, Google it!
Ultimately, there are some things you can NEVER know
God wouldn’t be God if you were on His level
So you’re off the hook! But He still may want to use you
3. Study the Scriptures and be in prayer
It helps to study apologetics too, but only to supplement your time with God

Closing

Know this… maybe you are a questioner
Can you accept that there may be answers to your questions?

Prayer

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