Sermon for Dick Conner’s Correctional Center July 24th 2016
I stand before you today by the blessing and grace of God, to speak to you about the necessity of teaching Christian apologetics as a part of evangelism to all people, especially to our children.
As you all know I focus mostly on Christian Apologetics, and but for the last few months the Lord has led me in different directions, but tonight I feel led back to apologetics so we are going to “re-look” at the necessity of apologetics as part of our evangelistic efforts.
I would like to state, and hopefully you will keep this in mind as we go through this lesson; our faith is well grounded in historical documentation, scientific facts, and mathematical probability.
The scripture is absolutely provable. Yes, we can prove there is a creator by His creation. We can prove the New Testament is the exact same New Testament they had 1900 years ago, the Old Testament is the same as it was thousands of year ago.
We can prove through the cosmos that Earth could not have just hit it lucky. We can prove that evolution is impossible through just luck with certain chemicals that happened to run into each other. We can prove that independent life forms that depend on each other disprove evolution.
And when we look at these facts it’s fun, it feels good to see absolute undeniable facts that support our faith.
I can stand here and talk to you for a fairly long period of time about how we can prove there is only one possible explanation for our existence, and that is through creation by a higher power, which we call God.
But that’s not my purpose here tonight; the purpose here tonight is to show you the need for you, and every other Christian to learn these facts and how to defend their faith, and to teach it to others.
I am here with one purpose and that is for all of you to become Christian apologists, and well trained ones at that.
According to the Pew Research Center, among people born from 1928 – 1945 the percentage of Claimed Christians is 85% however, among those born from 1990 to 1996 dropped to 56%.
Folks, we are losing our youth! And our Nation!
We have a great commission in Scripture, Matthew 28: 18 – 20 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
And we have a command to accompany that commission: 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
There you have it; it is our commission to take the word to the world, and we are commanded to be ready defend the word.
And I want to share another verse with you to reinforce what I am telling you about the command of 1 Peter 3:15 and that is
2 Timothy 4:14 -16 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: 15: Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words. 16: At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge..
This indicates that if you do not defend the word as stated in 1 Peter 3:15 you could stand in judgment. Let’s take a minute and examine that verse, Alexander did Paul much evil; how? By greatly withstanding their words, much like people will do today, who very aggressively argue in favor of the fallacy of evolution, and as you know they teach it as a science, and reject all teaching of creation.
So he, Alexander, was powerful in his resistance of the truth of Christ, as are many today, and Paul simply says, may God deal with him accordingly, which of course means condemnation to a hell without reprieve. But he goes further, those men who were supposed to stand with him ran from the battle, and Paul prays God will not hold them accountable. We must be able to stand just as powerfully as those who attack us, only politely, with respect.
It’s time to define the words answer and defend used in 1 Peter 3:15 and 2 Timothy 4:14 -16; you will find the word “defend/ or answer” is apology in Greek, and means “to give a logical or legal defense of your position”.
So in short we must be able to stand strong, meekly, and with respect and resist all who declare the scripture to be false teaching, and we must be able to do it in an accurate and logical manner, but there is more to it, than just the defense part, we must become aggressive on the offensive side as well… teaching people scripture, and the defense of it as a normal part of education.
As it stands, most people will not listen to us, they will not pay heed to our evangelist efforts.
So why won’t they listen to us? And why are our evangelistic efforts failing?
As with everything else the scripture gives us the answer.
1 Corinthians 1: 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
When speaking to the Jews, they found it as a stumbling block to their beliefs, the Jews understood what they were talking about, they had a background in the Old Testament, they knew what sin was, they knew how the world began, they knew Adam and Eve had fallen in the Garden of Eden and sin overtook the world. They knew they were sinners. And they knew a messiah was to come and deliver them.
However, the Greeks who were into wisdom, we’ve all heard of the great Greek philosophers such as Socrates, found it foolishness, why? Because they didn’t have a background in the Old Testament, they knew nothing about sin, fallen man, the garden, and the creation of the world, let alone a promised Messiah. They had to be educated, given background information, before they could accept the scripture, and understand it was the true wisdom.
In Acts 17:23 this is exactly what Paul did: Acts 17: 22 Then Paul stood up before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription: To an unknown God. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.…
You see they were polytheist, believing in many gods, which is the same thing as atheism.
We have all been hearing how those in Washington will not use the term Islamic Terrorists, now most of us do not know why, but that’s the way it is at this time.
The opponents to this rightfully state, to fight an enemy you must identify them, and to take it a step further, you better know where the battle field is; for instance if we were invaded by a foreign power and they were attacking New York, and we sent our troops to Boston, it certainly wouldn’t do those folks in New York much good would it?
We now have several generations of men and women who are “Greeks” in America. We as a country put a lot of value on Education and “Wisdom”, and yet so many people have not had bible training as early America did, so when seeking wisdom, they see the bible and Christians as foolish and consider it intellectual suicide to believe in something they think of as foolishness.
By the way I refer to anyone without basic biblical knowledge as a Greek, and not in a derogatory way, but simply as a means of identification.
So when they now say they do not want us to speak about salvation, nor teach it to their children it is not that they are mean, or evil, in fact most are very nice compassionate people, they are concerned with what their children are being taught, and in their minds we are attempting to poison their young minds with legends and fairy tells.
So when we start speaking of the grace of the cross to Greeks it is the same as sending our troops to Boston to fight the invasion occurring in New York.
So we must identify the battle and the enemy, the enemy is the ignorance of both basic bible instruction and it’s defense. This didn’t occur when our country was young, all education of children was based upon scripture through the text book all children were taught from, the McGuffy reader, which was all based upon scripture. For instance, when teaching the alphabet it went something like this A is for Adam the first Man, B is for the blood of Christ, and C is for Christ who shed is blood for thee, and D is for the deity of Christ and so on.
So I think we have identified the battle ground, and that is in education of all Americans, Christian and non Christian alike.
And the enemy is ignorance of the truth.
So the enemy is ignorance and we must defeat this enemy through education.
The answer is learning the truth and how to defend it and then teaching it.
Let’s look at two more verses: 2 Thessalonians 2:10 and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. 11 For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, 12 in order that judgment will come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness
Matthew 24:24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
So there will be a powerful delusion which will come upon the world, and false teaching and teachers will rise up that even deceive the elect if possible.
Has there been any greater delusion that has come upon the entire world than evolution? Has any other delusion even been worldwide? Has there been any other delusion brought upon the world that caused a general decay in morals as evolution has?
I would think most of you would want to know how to help stop this great disease of the mind, this great delusion.
So let’s make a quick point here:
Let’s get back to evangelism; for that is what our entire goal is to honor the great commission isn’t it.
If all you teach is Christ was crucified for your sins you will lose your Greek listener almost immediately, now don’t get me wrong, we have to get there, it just can’t be the first thing out of your mouths for they have no background knowledge to understand what you are talking about.
We must attempt to reach out to all people; we still have the great commission, and the command to obey. We must reach the Christian community and convince them to learn Christian defenses; it is our obligation as competent evangelists.
So the question becomes, how do we enter the battle, with any expectation of winning the battle when we come across so much resistance?
When you go onto the battlefield empty handed you will be defeated, you must be well equipped for the battle.
Knowledge of truth is the weapon we must use to confront the Greek mind.
How do we use this tool?
Again, where do we find the answer? Yep, in the bible.
Let’s look at a few more verses:
Matthew 13:1 That day Jesus left the house and sat down beside the sea. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, while the entire crowd stood on the shore. 3 Then he began to tell them many things in parables. He said, “Listen! A farmer went out to sow. 4 As he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on stony ground, where they did not have a lot of soil. They sprouted at once because the soil wasn’t deep. 6 But when the sun came up, they were scorched. Since they did not have any roots, they dried up. 7 Other seeds fell among thorn bushes, and the thorn bushes grew higher and choked them out. 8 But other seeds fell on good soil and produced a crop, some 100, some 60, and some 30 times what was sown. 9 Let the person who has ears listen!”
Go Back, hear that: Let the person who has ears listen…. Listen…
It would be a pretty poor farmer who just threw his valuable precious seeds just anywhere, no, the wise farmer prepares the ground… first.
Apologetics is much like the farmer. He begins by preparing his field. Often he may have to prepare a field by removing all the barriers of planting seed, such as removing rocks, or tree stumps, or even trees. And he does that one tree stump or rock at a time, doesn’t he; using the proper equipment.
Once he has the field cleared, then he plows the field so he can plant the seed. Once this is accomplished he proceeds to plant the seeds.
That is the purpose of apologetics… preparing the field of the mind to receive the seed of evangelism.
Now, right here I want to add again that the source of all these obstacles is hidden in modern education. Teaching things like evolution and calling it science, and in addition to that teaching postmodernism ideas as “keeping an open mind” when in fact it is closing their minds to the absolute truth to life. Some of these educators hide their true agenda which comes from their father the devil, masked by educating them in mathematics, sciences, and other skills needed to compete in a very competitive world, but most are just Greeks, untrained in the reality of creationism, and Christianity, both do equal harm, but only the Greek member of this group can be changed.
Just think about it, a baby is born with a clear mind, and the only way obstacles can get in there is through what it is taught as a child, by a misinformed parent who him/ herself was misinformed as a child, or simply do not know how to teach scripture and the defenses of it, and then the evil of public schools.
Think how much more valuable land is that has no obstacles to planting compared to a field full of stumps and rocks. Yet, even that rocky field has value, it’s worth the work of clearing to plant the seed for a good crop.
Before we can plant the seeds in the good ground of a prepared mind, we must clear that mind of the obstacles Satan has placed there, such as belief in today’s greatest lie; evolution. We must prepare the listeners mind by preparing his mental field for the planting of the seed that will lead to eternal life in a place too wonderful for the human mind to perceive.
WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES THAT MUST BE REMOVED
- Evolution
- Post modernism philosophy
- False religions
- False Christian doctrines
I am going to wrap this up this evening with a story, I know we are out of time, but just bare with me a few more minutes.
I want to share with you again, many of you have heard me tell it before, an article titled “Buckethead and Bubba, which appeared in the Christian magazine “The Rock” and was written by Russell L. Ford who was a frequent contributor to “The Rock”. Russell has been an inmate for many years, and spent many of those years as an apologetics Evangelist
He wrote about his apologetics experiences in prison, and his articles appeared in the magazine between 1994 and 1998. This article was the cover story for the November 1992 issue of This Rock.
And to summarize the story he tells how his original idea of apologetics was physical, being a big man over 6 feet tall and 225 lbs, when someone criticized the scripture he would simply tell them to “shut yer face while you still got one” and that would put an end to the discussion. However, he didn’t convert many people like that, so he learned a better way.
He learned how to present the truth in a logical / provable way that didn’t offend, and he made the following accurate observation:
He stated: I finally realized I had to become a competent apologist or we would never see Christ’s most forsaken children come to the warm embrace of his Church.
We must return to Evangelism, and do it correctly. That means we must become Christian Apologists.
Teach Christian doctrine supported by strong apologetic arguments to the educators in both public, and private Christian schools, to Sunday school teachers, to our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors, and to anyone who will listen.
When you take time to learn how to defend the word of God to all who question our faith you embark upon an amazing journey, a journey that will leave you with a faith that is unshakeable, the kind of faith we are told we must have to be heard by God, the kind of faith that empowered the apostles to go to horrible deaths, praising and singing on their way to their execution.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.…
And I would like to add, unless we become competent apologists we will never see most of our children come to the warm embrace of the Church, nor will we turn America from its present evil until we take the education of all children from the people who are propagating this evil, and return it to the church where it began, and still belongs. Thank you for your time.
