Folks, we are losing our youth! And our Nation!

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%.

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.”

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

 

1. Evolution
2. Post modernism philosophy
3. False religions
4. False Christian doctrines

 

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.

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To view the original article just click on:     EVOLUTION

Dennis Prager on Evolution: Stephen Meyer Turned Me Around

David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

October 19, 2018, 4:07 AM

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This is pretty remarkable. Our colleague Stephen Meyer was on Dennis Prager’s radio show earlier this week to talk about the recent volume Steve co-edited, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. Dennis described how, on the theory of evolution — “the creative power of mutation and natural selection,” as Dr. Meyer summarizes the issue — Steve turned him around.To hear the whole show you’ll need to join Pragertopia, the program’s subscription service. I recommend that you do that. But I can tell you a bit of what they talked about. 

Prager’s Journey

On his own intellectual journey, here’s what Prager told Meyer:

Until I met you, to be honest, my view was, I didn’t really care about evolution. It didn’t bother me if it was true, and it didn’t bother me if it wasn’t true. I believe in God as the creator of the heavens and the earth, the God of Genesis 1, and if God used evolution, what do I care? It’s all a miracle, anyway. Then I read you and talked to you, and my wife, frankly, who as you know, knows a fair amount about evolution, and it has become less and less tenable, not for religious reasons, but for scientific reasons, to endorse evolution as it is generally taught.

They discuss the 2016 Royal Society meeting, and Prager reiterates:

I was agnostic on evolution much of my life. I didn’t really care. I believe in God as the creator, and the methodology did not interest me. But I don’t want to believe, or even be agnostic about something that just isn’t upheld by scientists.

That’s a key point. It was the science not the religion that moved him. What impressed Dennis was not theological objections. It was the fact that the field of evolution is in turmoil, a reality that the media largely conceal from the public, as Meyer has made clear in his books. “This is what you opened my mind to,” Prager said. “Scientists are having trouble with evolution!”

Groupthink and Prior Commitment

For the thoughtful layman, this raises an obvious question. Prager asked, “When I hear you say this, I think of all the preeminent scientists of the last hundred years who have believed what you now say is not tenable. If you’re right, what does that say about scientists?”

Meyer explained that scientists are humans after all. It tells us, he says:

That science like every other form of human endeavor can be subject to groupthink, or it can be influenced by prior ideological commitments. In particular, in the debate about biological origins, there is a prior commitment to a materialistic approach to the question. It’s codified in a principle known as methodological naturalism, and it says that if you’re going to be a true scientist, you have to limit yourself to strictly materialistic explanations for everything, not just how nature ordinarily operates, which would be quite sensible, but where nature itself came from.

Theistic evolution, in particular, is a troubled thesis not for scientific reasons alone, but also for reasons of basic incoherence. Meyer: “There’s a logical problem for theistic evolution: Can God direct an undirected process? Well, no, even God can’t direct an undirected process. If he does, it’s no longer undirected.” 

Do consider subscribing to Dennis’s service to hear this for yourself. Steve is as clear as crystal. As Dennis points out, “He writes as clearly as he speaks.” Of Meyer’s previous books, Signature in the Celland Darwin’s Doubt, Dennis says, “They’re very, very important works.” Regarding the Theistic Evolutionbook itself, says Prager, “Don’t let the title in any way intimidate you. Any of you interested in theology or science will find this immensely interesting.” And that is all true.

Challenge from an Atheist

Prager recounts a challenge from an atheist friend: “You want to believe in God, go right ahead, that’s fine. But you can’t use science to argue for God because science can only talk about that which is material.” Yes, that’s an objection you hear all the time. Well, the agent behind the design in nature may be God, or it may not, as far as the theory of ID can tell us. But the agent is certainly a mind. So are we saying that science can’t detect minds?

Meyer nails it: 

Actually, that’s an artificial restriction on the scientific method. Point one. Point two is that we infer the activity of mind all the time. We do it in our ordinary experience. If you’re an insurance fraud detector, and you determine that somebody was manipulating circumstances, you’d infer the activity of mind. If you’re an archaeologist, and you look at the Rosetta Stone, you don’t say, ‘Gee, isn’t it wonderful what wind and erosion did to produce those information-rich inscriptions?’ You recognize that there was a mind behind it.

Prager is rightly taken with the last point. “DNA is a Rosetta Stone,” as he puts it.

Something from Nothing

I think a lesson here may be that reasonable people, without a dog in the fight, but when exposed to powerful ideas clearly expressed, are able to tell sense from nonsense. Prager describes having atheist cosmologist Lawrence Krauss on his show to talk about Krauss’s most recent book, A Universe from Nothing. Lawrence argues for quantum cosmology, Meyer explains, “in which the universe is thought to emerge out of the law of quantum physics.” The only problem? “Laws of physics do not produce matter. They describe the interactions between matter.”

Prager questioned Krauss about the fundamental logic of getting something from nothing, as Krauss asserts about the origin of the cosmos. As Prager recalls it, Professor Krauss responded to the challenge with a comment along the lines of, “It depends on your definition of nothing.” 

“And,” Dennis recalls, “that’s when I gave up.”

The interaction with Dennis reminds me of journalist John Zmirak, the editor of our friend Fr. Michael Chaberek’s book Aquinas and Evolution, who similarly had his mind changed by the power of ideas. Zmirak, like Prager, is a shrewd critic of bad ideas. Zmirak was a theistic evolutionist to begin with. He later recalled:

I started out working on the book quite hostile to its premise. And then something very strange happened. I’ve only experienced it maybe five or six times in my life. (And never while editing some book I disagreed with.) I changed my mind.

Oh, it’s very difficult to concede that you were mistaken about something. Especially, I would say, for males. A changed mind is an impressive testament. An unwillingly changed mind, in Dennis Prager’s case or in John Zmirak’s, is even more impressive.

Update: We are seeking permission to use all or part of the interview with Dr. Meyer for an ID the Future podcast. Stay tuned.

Photo: Dennis Prager and Stephen Meyer.