Dealing With The Lost 2

The speaker discusses the importance of being able to defend one's beliefs and the role of the Word of God in doing so. They emphasize the need to sanctify the Lord in their hearts and be ready to give an answer to those who ask about their hope. They also mention the importance of not accepting foolishness or condemning others, but rather convincing them of their faulty thinking. The speaker discusses the different worldviews and the need to rely on the Word of God as their guide. They also mention the importance of understanding information and its purpose in different contexts. The speaker briefly mentions DNA and its role in showing the existence of a single creator. Overall, the speaker emphasizes the need to trust the Word of God and use it as a foundation for defending one's beliefs and evangelizing. We talk a lot about evangelism, but then there's this also, when we're giving stuff out, there's this also, how do we defend? How do we defend our position? And what I am seeing, the reason that a lot of evangelism is not taking place today is because a lot of people don't know how to defend or what they really believe. And the ultimate bottom line is, I'm going to go ahead and give you the end result right now, but this is where we're going to be working toward tonight. But I want you to understand that you can trust the Word of God. And this is our defense. This is what we are to stand on, and this is what we are to believe. And so, 1 Peter 3 and verse 15, Peter said, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. In other words, set apart God first, put Jesus Christ, and he uses the word Lord, which means what? Authority, right? He is our King. He is our ruler. And so he says, sanctify the Lord Jesus Christ, not as the Savior that came to die for us. We've already done that, but what are we to do? Now we're to yield to him, the Lord. And so sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks of you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and with fear. And so last week we kind of talked about a little bit the idea, and I'm not going to go through all of what we did last week, but I want to kind of catch us up just a little bit. We know the Bible says that the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. And so really when we are looking at lost people, even Paul said that in 1 Corinthians he refers to the foolish things of this world. He even talked about taking even the apostles in acts. He says they took these foolish people in order to confound the wise. In other words, an unbeliever that has now put Jesus Christ Lord of their life, that has submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord of his life. Now what begins to happen now? We begin to live differently. And Paul, when he was standing before King Agrippa and Hephaestus, what did he say? He said, Paul, you've got to be a nut. You're crazy. And Paul said, no, I'm not crazy. But he said, I understand what Jesus Christ did for me because Jesus Christ came to me as a Savior while I was lost, while I was a blasphemer, while I was a murderer. Now I have made Jesus Christ my Lord, and I'm adding to what he said. He simply said, for the love of Christ constraineth me, compels me. And that's what the essence of what he's talking about in the context is. When we recognize Jesus Christ as Savior, we ought not have any problem accepting him as Lord. And so, man, we need to understand, and he said, be ready to give an answer to every man that asketh the reason of the hope in you with meekness and fear. And so when we talk about this fool idea of Proverbs, the wisest man Solomon gave us two verses of Scripture. And he said, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. And then he turns right around to the next verse, and he says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. And if you'll take them two verses, and you'll write that Scripture down, and you will memorize that Scripture, and you will look, and if you want to have fun, just go through the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and look at Jesus Christ and his interaction with the Pharisees. When the Pharisees would come to him and ask him a foolish question, a dumb question, what did he do? He never got down on their, he never answered them according to their ridiculousness. But what did he always do? He always turned it back on to them and showed them why they were foolish, and what did they do? They either sought to kill them, or they walked away mad and angry because they didn't know how, because any answer they gave messed up their worldview and their idea of what religion was. And so Jesus Christ used these same two verses over and over and over when dealing with the Pharisees and stuff in the Scripture. And so the step one is answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. In other words, don't get and accept their ridiculousness. When people are sinners and try to justify sin, they can come up with all kinds of excuses and explanations. And they have worked these things over, and it may sound good, it may do, but what he's saying is, is don't get on their level. Don't accept their foolishness, because we have an authority in the Word of God. But don't just leave them there. And I think we as Christians sometimes have got to this point to where we have, we've kind of got to the point to where we just kind of ignore them. You know, they're foolish, and I'm not even going to deal with that or respond to that. But our job is not to leave them foolish. Our job is to still evangelize. We are the salt of the earth, and we are the light of the world. And so Solomon comes back and he says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. And I think this is the part of the half that we as Christians are having the biggest problem with today, is because we are not turning around. What we're doing is condemning people. It's not our job to judge and condemn. There's only one judge, and that's Jesus Christ. And he's going to judge later on. Our job is, as I mentioned this morning, is for the ministry of reconciliation. We want to take that fool and that one that does not believe God or accept the lordship of God, and we want to convince them that their idea, their way of thinking is foolish. And we want to try to bring them to God. And so what do we do? We show them how their ideas and their thinking does not logically work, that we cannot accept that. And the only way that we cannot accept it is because we have His authority, the Word of God. We've got to be able to go to this. So we talked a little bit about scientific evidence, and I know Brother Morris is real big into a lot of the scientific evidence and all of that. We talked a little bit last week about DNA. I'm not even going to go into fossils or rock layers or all of these things that we see that people argue with all the time over evolution or creation. Understand, when we're talking about evolution and creation, we are basically talking about two different worldviews, and there's a lot of different worldviews. And so I use these because these are the ones that we probably deal with more here in our country than anywhere else, but it doesn't matter what worldview that they may have. They may be a Buddhist. They may be these other religions or whatever, but it all comes down to they have their own worldview. They have the way that they see things and view things. And so what we have to do is, you know, I read an illustration one time about bank people, them teaching them how to recognize counterfeit money. You don't study all of the counterfeits in the world. You study the real thing, and when you know the real thing, when a counterfeit comes, you're able to recognize it. And that's what the world wants us to do. The world wants us to set aside the original. They want us to set aside what we believe in our foundation and step over into their fantasy land, and then they want us to try to argue and try to defend without using the Word of God. Folks, I cannot. Not only am I a preacher of the Word of God, but don't ask me to go into any argument, any debate, any counseling session, any life decision, anything in my life without this thing right here, because it is my guide. It is my instruction. It is my counsel. It is everything. And so we looked at the deal about information, and what we do know about information is that all information had to have someone that originated it, and it has to have a purpose. When you get a book, say a dictionary, I used that this morning. What is the purpose of a dictionary? The purpose of a dictionary is written to define words. That's its purpose. In that defining words, what's the easiest way to define words? It is set up logically to be able to fulfill its purpose. It's in alphabetical order, right? So if you have a word, you can easily find it. It's not to sit down like a novel and read. It's to go and look up that word, find the definition, and apply it to whatever you want to. Now, a novel, on the other hand, has a whole totally different purpose. What's the purpose of a novel? To tell a story, to entertain, to take us somewhere on an adventure or whatever, right? I like mysteries, and I like reading mysteries because it takes me on a path, it takes me on a journey, and I love to try to figure out what's going to happen before it happens. And so what does it do? When it lays out, it spends a lot of time setting up stages. It talks a lot, uses a lot of adjectives in novels. It uses a lot of things, tying, it goes through, and the first few chapters, what are we doing? We're explaining all of the characters, the ins and outs, the places that they are. And so it has a different purpose, but no matter what it is, even our hymnal is set up for a purpose. It's to sing and praise God, and so there was somebody behind it that put all of this information together, and they had a plan, and they had a deal, and so that's information. We saw that information, DNA, DNA which is in our body contains the instructions to build the organism. And so the fact that you and I are here today, we're all different, we're all unique, but guess what? Through our DNA, we have a single creator, God, that is taking our DNA and what? Information that created you and I. Not two people have the same DNA. And so we look at it, and so when we look at DNA, its intended purpose is to have life with that. And so the question then asked, does DNA make sense? When you look at DNA, and I'm not going to go all back through that because we talked about that last week, but when you look at DNA, and you look at it under a biblical worldview, and you look at it under a worldview, which one makes more sense? See, they always talk about Christians as we have blind faith, right? We just accept this invisible God, and our faith is just blind. We really don't have any evidence to support God or anything else. But when we look at the worldviews, what is the worldview of evolution? As I mentioned this morning, that we started with slime, and everything began to turn into other things, and down through the millions and billions of years, all of a sudden, we now have human beings. And so this process has taken this long time. Why do they keep adding time? Because with enough time, anything is possible, right? You can take two dice, and you roll them enough times, and you're probably going to get double six, right? But what happens when you add billions and millions of dice? The probability that you're going to get the two same numbers ends up, that's why the lottery makes so much money. Why? Because in order to give away, it looks like they're giving away, but you know in order to give away millions of dollars, do you know how much money they had to take in? And so the probability, it's a win-win. If I can get you to buy into this deal, because you just have to have one shot at this big deal, and it's a shot in the dark, it's a one in a billion chance of winning the lottery. But guess what? I'm willing to risk that chance. And so it comes down to, what is the probability? Does it make more sense that we were formed and we were fashioned by God in His image, that we were created with looking at our body and everything else, or did all of this just happen? Just happen and take place? You know, the thing that blows my mind is not only did it have to take place in order to be a male, but it also had to take place to be a female. You can't have the human race without a male and a female. And so when I come to the Bible and I read, in the beginning, God created male and female in His image, created the male and female, him and her, then that makes sense. Because DNA, when I look at DNA and I look at individuals, we see similarities all around the world. We're similar. But every single one of us is different and unique. There's also, and I think Brother Moore is going to teach you about this next Sunday in Sunday School, but irreducible complexity. Think about it for just a minute. What would happen if you lose your brain, your heart, and your lungs? Which one can you not survive with? You've got to have all of them. They're pretty all-important, aren't they? And so what the irreducible complexity is, is that not only does this body have a DNA and information which says that there has to be a writer and it has to be for a purpose. Irreducible complexity says that I all of a sudden evolve, but I cannot evolve and reproduce or do anything without my brain, my lungs, and my heart all evolving at the same exact time. Because without any one of them, I couldn't survive. And so now you start getting the probability of evolution. So see, when you look at it, it just doesn't make sense. And so it's not a blind faith. It's that what I see and what I experience fits with the world of God. It fits with my worldview. And so when we think about that, and we talked about this in class this morning, but C14. And the main thing about C14 is it doesn't last forever. And so it's not there. It's always diminishing. It's always giving up. And so it's decaying and going bad. You look at comets. They talk about comets and the age of them. Do you realize that a comet is constantly losing material? The reason that you see a comet is because that is part of its material as it is being burned off. A comet doesn't grow. It gets smaller. It decreases. It dies. They cannot exist forever. And they'll tell you that a comet that's so much big in size can only live a certain amount. But what? It's supposed to be millions and billions of years because they are part of what came with the Big Bang, but they can't live that long. That is there. When you talk about, but see, every worldview, and this is the part that I really want you to focus in tonight, because when you deal with lost people, here's the first thing that's going to happen. They are going to use what is called a rescuing device. Every one of you has a rescue device, and every one of you uses it. When your ideas or your beliefs are challenged, you have a conjecture designed in your mind to save you from a contradictory evidence. And so it's not about the evidence because why? When they look at the comets and they say they can't exist forever, why do we still have comets if we're millions and billions of years old? You know what they do? Well, there has to be some black hole, an orc cloud is what they call it, way out there in the galaxy somewhere that are creating these comets. Have you ever seen an orc cloud? Neither have they. Have you ever seen a comet being produced? Neither have they. But what is it? It is a rescuing device. It's the same thing that you use. When somebody challenges you on something, you automatically have a response to defend what you say. That's our human nature to be able to do that. And so it's not about the evidence because everybody has them. And that's why when you deal with people, homosexuals, when you deal with the things that we are dealing with today, they have their rescue device. They have something in their worldview that is already, well, I was born this way, or they got something that has happened in their life that has brought them to that. It's a rescuing device outside of the Word of God. And so the debate over origins is most ultimately boiled down to a debate over competing worldviews. And as Christians, that's where we need to focus. We don't need to focus on the sin. We need to focus on the sinner. And understand that that sinner is the way that they are because they have a bad worldview. It's our job to give them a biblical worldview. It's our job to present Jesus Christ. And so a worldview, what exactly is a worldview? A worldview is a network of our most basic beliefs about reality in light of which all observations are interpreted. You look up the definition of science, you will find that science is literally observation. How many of you took chemistry in school? How did you learn chemistry? By following a thing of instructions, right? Take this chemical, take this chemical, put it together, and what does it do? The teacher never would set us down with a whole box full of chemicals and just say, hey, y'all start playing with it and figure it out. There's no way. What do they do? They do things to teach us about chemistry that they know are controlled and safe, right? They wouldn't turn us loose with a bunch of chemicals in a classroom. And so what they are doing is they are observing. And because they do it, guess what? If you follow the directions and do what the directions said, they know what kind of results you are going to get. And when we look at the Bible and we look at this world, what we see is a world today that is a world that we should have because the Bible tells us because of sin, because of the flood, because of all of these different catastrophes, different things that have happened, we would expect to find a world that we live in today. And so you either have God's truth or you have man's truth. I've talked about this a lot in Genesis 3. The whole thing boils down to two trees in the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, knowledge, and the tree of life. And who did we say this morning is life? Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world. He is the life of man. And so it comes down to Adam and Eve had a choice. You may eat of every tree, including the tree of life, but do not mess with the tree of knowledge, for in the day thou knowest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And it wasn't that God was not wanting them to have knowledge. I believe that given time, God would allow them to see knowledge. God would allow them to know good and bad. But I believe that there's this process that has to be, you know, it's just like bringing up a kid. You try to shelter them from evil as long as you can for as much as you can, but eventually you've got to equip them to go out into an evil world, right? You've got to equip them to do that, to be ready to respond and all of that. And so he has these two trees that are there, and what did Satan convince Eve of? That God is holding back something of you. And if you'll just eat this fruit, then God will not have absolutely nothing on you. You will be just like God, because you'll know everything. You've experienced everything. You'll have seen everything. And that is man's truth. And that's where this thing of evolution comes out. And evolution is just a process that is based on what has been proven is an atheist that came up with a geological column because he hated God, he did not want to know God, he did not want to accept God, and so he came up with an entire deal. And everything that we have, carbon-14, nitrogen, argon, all of these ways of dating stuff, and everything else is all because to fit into an atheist idea of what this world, this worldview that he has. And so they made it all up. People today, these kids, they don't know what they're talking about when they say they're an animal or whatever. It's their worldview. It's what they've made up in their mind. It's something that they have evolved and it fits into their world. If we come from monkeys, right? And that's what the schools, from the time that they are very, very young in the school system, that's what they teach is that we are descendants of monkeys. If we are nothing but animals, wouldn't you expect us to act like animals? And that's what the world is doing. We have ingrained this for years now into people's mind that you did not do nothing but evolve from animals. And now we're shocked when they act like animals. But if we were drilling into their head that you were designed and came from God and was created in God's image, then guess what? We shouldn't be surprised when they want to act like God. And that's where the church is failing and education is getting better because education system has our kids more than we have them. And they drain in this stuff and they drill in this stuff and so these kids are having this worldview that they're nothing but animals, that they just evolved. There is no God. There is no Creator. There is no judgment. There is no sacrifice for sin. Everything is right according to me. And this is the worldview that they're growing up in. And so they're just going to put that conjecture that's going to fit into their worldview. And I use them because these are the two biggest worldviews, but any worldview out there will work. The difference between them and us is we interpret the same evidence differently because of our worldview. When I look at sinners, I'm not shocked that you're a sinner because why? The Bible says you're a sinner. And the Bible says that if you're living by the flesh, then guess what? You're going to be a fornicator. You're going to be an adulterer. You're going to be a liar, right? And so it shouldn't shock us when sinners do what's natural for sinners. The Bible tells us that. But do they have to stay that way? Absolutely not. When we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, Corinthians says we what? We become a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. We were once in darkness, but now we have been made light. And so there's a change that happens and takes place. And so our worldview, our mind gets shifted. Romans chapter 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed where? By the renewing of your mind. And so you've got to change your worldview. And that's what we as Christians are dealing with. It's not that we hate sinners. It's not that we should be close to God. We should mourn because of sin, but we don't hate the sinner because they're doing what was natural. Jesus Christ, while we were yet sinners, died for us. What was He doing? He was so founded and so focused on His worldview, right? Because it was His plan from the beginning that He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of Himself of no reputation and took upon Himself what? The form of a man. He became obedient even unto death. Why did He do that? Because the only way you and I could get back to God is if He died. That's it. And so what was His worldview? His worldview says, I've got to die. This is part. You remember the Bible says Christ was a lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. And so when we get into this, understand the evidence is all the same evidence. Everything that we have, there's nothing. Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. Every worldview. Matter of fact, I got a free book today because it's the first and my logos, they give me free books every day. And I got to pick one out and so I picked out mythologies and stuff. And of course, the first chapter deals with creation and origin. And it goes to the Greeks, to the Romans, to all over the world, all of these different ideas of how creation happened. And you know what? Every one of them has similarities. But there's only one, the one that's biblical that we accept that comes back to God. Everything else comes back to man and who man was that was there. And so I was just finding it. It was fascinating because we all have the same stuff. Too many people think that it's a battle of sorting out different evidences. And that's where we're Christians. We're going to have to watch out. It's not about presenting the evidence because they're going to come up with a conjecture. They're going to come up with that rescuing device and they're going to have an answer for everything in their mind. And so the real battle is over the same evidence. What we have to do is we have to really believe the word of God and we have to stand on it. That's our foundation. That's our truth. So the evidence for creation and the evidence for evolution is this battle. So how do we resolve this battle between worldviews? How do I convince somebody else of my worldview? How do I convince a fool that God is real and this word is real? How do I do? That's what the Christian needs to learn and what we need to do and be able to do. And there is absolutely no way to resolve this debate since we have different worldviews. We'll just argue and argue and argue. Nobody wins a debate by arguing. I've shared this several times and because of COVID, he hadn't been around much. I have received two letters, but for the last 12 years, I've had one particular Jehovah Witness that comes to my house once or twice a year. Not once have I ever argued with him about their belief and my belief. He keeps coming back. He keeps bringing new material. He keeps talking to me, but you know what I do do? I say, man, I appreciate your determination. I appreciate you hanging in there. I appreciate your enthusiasm, your dedication. I wish I could get my church members to go out every single week and visit people in the community and tell them about Jesus Christ, right? I tell them, but I said, here's where your whole idea and worldview messes up. There is a man called Jesus Christ who is the Son of God. And so what do I do? I show him where his worldview makes the Bible makes sense without Jesus Christ being God. They can't do it. They can't do it. And so you cannot give up your stand. You cannot give up this thing. There's no such thing as neutral ground when it's a battle over worldviews. And that's what the world wants you to do. They want you to convince them that there is a God without using God's Word or talking about God. I can't do it. Neither does the Bible. The Bible just simply says, in the beginning, God. Hebrews 11 says, by faith we accept that these worlds were framed, that this world was made by God. Neutral ground is a secular concept. And therefore, it is neutral. Christians who try to debate on neutral ground have already lost since they've given up what they're trying to defend. Now let me give you a couple of Scriptures about neutral ground. The Bible says in Matthew 12, verse 30, that he that is not with me is against me. And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. You're either with Christ or you're not. Either get all in or get all out. Because either you are bringing people to Christ and you're in the ministry of reconciliation, or the opposite of the ministry of reconciliation is the ministry of destruction and you're sending people away. You're one or the other. You can't do both. There's no way. And he says there, you can't be not with me and against me. In Romans 8, verse 7, it says because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. In other words, why are we enemies with God? Because of the subject of the law of God, right? If God is real, and we are created in God's image, and we know that God gave the law to Israel, right, then this is what He wants us to follow. And He said in order to be blessed, you have to obey the law because I'm God. I'm the Creator. You don't have the right to make up what you want. Then he said, James 4, verse 4, says you adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. And so how do we resolve this debate? How do we stop all of this? Because that's what I... I'm real strong, and unfortunately in my scientific apologetics class, I don't get these young preachers until they're fourth-year or fifth-year students. The good thing is, is I get them as a second-year student in pastoral epistles, which I'm able to give them some good advice early, so hopefully they'll come back for the other. But we are spending all of this time, and we Christians are our worst enemy. These educated religious people are our worst enemy. We do more destruction for ourselves and against God than the world and Satan ever will. You say, what do you mean? Well, you read these commentators and you read these people that want to take the Word of God and say, well, this didn't really happen. This is not really true. This is not really a true story. This is just a parable. This is just something that is... What are they doing? They're causing doubt to the Word of God. And when we do that, guess what? Either we're with Christ, or we're not with Christ. Christ said all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. Either it's all good, or none of it is any good. And that's where Christians, we've got to decide. We've got to accept, and we sit here and we argue over which translation is the best translation. And by definition, what is a translation? Somebody's opinion on interpreting a word. If I gave a word to Austin and Angela and told them without talking to each other, Austin, interpret this word. Angela, you interpret this word. I guarantee you, even though they both speak English and Spanish, because she came up with a Spanish background, Austin came up with an English background, I guarantee you they will give me two different words. But they mean the same thing, practically. And so we argue over translations, and everything we have is a translation. And so God, you know, we can't water it down because people say what? Well, I can't believe this version, so what version are you going to believe? If they're all translations, then what we're doing is this idea we are getting onto the world stage and the world's platform and trying to defend God. No, I have to defend this just as much as I defend anything else. There are translations that I like a whole lot better than others. And it's not because somebody else's opinion. It's because I've got my degree in Greek and Hebrew. And I've read and I've looked and I've examined, and there's some versions that are better than others. There are some that are literal word-for-word translations like the King James Bible, and there are others that are paraphrases. In other words, what's the one thing I tell you when you're interpreting for me in Mexico, Austin? Interpret what I say exactly. I don't want you to paraphrase. I don't want you to interpret my words. I want you to say what I'm saying. When Brother Rene talks to me, you don't interpret what they're saying. You tell me what they're saying, and I'm watching their body language, and I will interpret what they're saying. Because the message is not to Austin, the message is to me. And my message is not for Austin, my message is for the people. He is just the interpreter. And so a word-for-word translation is a lot better because that puts the interpretation into whose hand? Our hand. My hand. I get to be the one that interprets. If a paraphrase like the New Living Translation is a paraphrase, then what am I doing? That author, because of their worldview and their biblical background, is taking things and says, you know what? I don't think this is really of real good. There's no really way to translate this exactly, and so here's the phrase that I would use. And what happens instead of translating, they become an interpreter. I don't want an interpreter. I want a translator. And I want the people to do the interpretation. Does that make sense? And so we destroy ourselves by arguing over all of this stuff. And so if we're going to win the Christian world, here's what we've got to do. Folks, we as Christians have to be consistent. We've got to all get back on the same page. What do we need to get back to? And I've mentioned it this year a lot. Getting back to the basics. Jesus Christ, our key verse for this whole 200th celebration that we had, we put it on the new sign everywhere as what? Redeeming the time because the days are evil. And so what are we to do? Man, we're to focus on Jesus Christ. I don't have time to argue a lot of things that are irrelevant. You remember when Paul was approached in Acts, and he said, what about these people that are speaking evil against Jesus Christ? He said, leave them alone. Leave them alone. At least they're preaching Jesus Christ. You know, we have got so much division even amongst religion. I am not a Protestant. Amen? We were here before the Reformation. We need to understand that. But guess what? Most Protestants believe in five basic statements of faith. And if all we did was look at them five basic statements of faith, every one of us would agree with them five basic statements. The separation and the division gets past these five basic things. All of us as Protestants, and even us as Baptists, believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. That's why Jehovah Witness and Mormons, I don't consider them a religion. I consider them a cult because they reject Jesus Christ as being God. So, no, I'm not going to promote Jehovah Witness. I'm not going to promote Mormon. They also, every one in the Reformation and us, believe that this is our sole authority. This is it. This is what God has given us. The Mormons and Jehovah Witness I don't accept as a religion because why? They say this is good, but guess what? They accept other Bibles, other things to be the Word of God. And Catholicism is real close to being a cult. Because not only do they say this is the Word of God, but the Pope has more say-so and acceptance than the Word of God. And so under that definition, I would put the Catholics in the same exact place that I would put the Jehovah Witness and the Mormons. So you see what's happening? So instead of getting down on the Methodists, and I hear this a lot, right? There's going to be Methodists that are going to be in heaven. There's going to be Church of Christ that are going to be in heaven. There's going to be assembly of God that's going to be in heaven. And instead of doing away with all of these religions and saying, well, if you don't believe like me, then you're going to go to hell. What? Let them preach their gospel. We are to preach this truth and what the Word of God says. At least they're preaching Jesus Christ and salvation by grace. They may change it into works later, and they may add to it, and they may get around to doing it, but what happens? If it is not biblically based, it will always come back and blow itself up. The only thing that can stand is the Word of God. That's why, you know, the people at Berea in Acts, why were they commended? Because they searched the Scripture, this new religion that the disciples are teaching about this Jesus Christ. What did they do? They didn't just accept this talk that's going on. No, they went to the Scriptures and they searched, does this stand on the authority of the Word of God? You should not take what I tell you as the gospel, because there's an authority that's higher than Brother Donny. This is the authority that's higher than the Brother Donny. And so everything I say needs to fit to this authority. And so you need to search what I say. Does it match Scripture? Does it stand on Scripture? And if it stands on Scripture, then guess what? As a church member, you have the responsibility to accept it and to live it. If it doesn't stand on the Word of God, then guess what? You also have the obligation as a Christian to show me why my thoughts are foolish, so that you don't become just like me. So, let me wrap this up. Let me skip over here right quick and wrap this up for you. The unbeliever cannot stand on his own worldview because it's irrational. We have got to be consistent. Therefore, the unbeliever must stand on the Christian worldview to even be rational. When you listen to them argue, the unbeliever stands on Christian principles. They stand on the law of logic. Everybody of a different worldview, even evolutionists, even atheists, believe in uniformity. They believe in morality. I have not talked to one single atheist that was not wearing clothes. Not one single atheist that thought it was okay just to murder somebody. Murder is wrong. So see, everybody, even in their worldview, has some morality. They believe in the laws of logic. I can't just tell you that this is not a church building. This is a pizza because that's what I want it to be is a pizza. The laws of logic says, guess what, I'm looking at it. It's looked like a building. It's shaped like a building. We use it for an auditorium, so guess what? This is an auditorium, even though I say it's a pizza. And so there's laws to logic that fit. And so what they do is they want to stand. Why did we get morality from the Word of God? Adam and Eve were naked until what? Their eyes was opened and then what? They saw their nakedness. And who clothed them? Who gave them morality? God. He clothed them. After they went to hide in fig leaves, He said, no, that's not going to work. That doesn't do it. But here's how you clothe yourself. And guess what? Mankind ever since has wore clothes. And we have morality. We know it's wrong to kill. We know it's wrong to steal. We know it's wrong to do all of these things. And so the unbeliever has to take Christian principles in order to argue against the Bible. The fact that he is able to argue at all proves that he is wrong. If you can just believe and make up anything in your reality, who's to say you're wrong? And that's what we're having today. And that's where it has got to this ridiculousness where you don't understand. I'm not a guy. I'm a girl. Or I'm not a girl. I'm an animal. I'm a cat. I'm this. I'm whatever. How am I going to argue with that without going, no, the Bible says God made them male and female in the image of God. So I've got to have a standard. But the fact that they can even argue messes them up. And so it all comes down to Adam in your past or an ape in your past. If Adam is in our past, then guess what? There are absolutes from God, and God sets those rules. Right? God said, you get to do all of this. Enjoy everything. But, He set the rules. He set the parameters. If we come from an ape, what does an ape do? Whatever an ape wants to do. Go take your kid and throw him into the gorilla pit down there at the Little Rock Zoo. Maybe he'll come up and scoop them up and love them and play with them. Or maybe he'll do what? Rip them apart instantaneously. Why? Because he's a wild animal. Right? How many magicians do we have to see get mauled from raising tigers? There was a guy on TV yesterday that was not allowed into a baseball stadium with his service animal. You know what his service animal was? An alligator. An alligator. And he's standing outside. They will not allow him to take this alligator into the deal. And he was upset. And there was people that was coming up scratching this big old huge alligator that's in a little bitty old harness underneath the throat. He's just rubbing his head and rubbing under it. He said, oh, he likes to be scratched under his mouth. That's great for a little while, but how long is that going to last? Eventually, it's going to show its nature. Right? Because he's an animal. And so, folks, here's the basic bottom line when dealing with the world and lost. We can't step outside of this. We've got to be firm on what we believe. God gave us this, and this is our defense, and we can't give it up. God nowhere in the Bible proves that He's a God. He simply says, in the beginning, God. And He tells us, guess what? You've got to accept that or not. It's your opportunity. You can either have the tree of life, or you can have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Which do you want? Do you want it your way, or do you want it God's way? And I think if God made me and created me for a purpose and for a reason and made me who I am, I'm going to trust God over trusting me. And so, guys, we cannot give up on the Word of God in Christianity. We've got to hang in there with Jesus Christ. But we can't just let the world do what they want to do. We've got to make a stand. We've got to say, this is why your thinking is foolish and messes up. And then when we go to there, then once we understand that, then we can begin to tweak the surface of evangelism. Then Jesus took all types of methods. Some He went to and set by a whale. Some He went to their house. Some He did this with. Everybody He came in contact with was a different method for bringing them to reconciliation, but the one thing was always true. He always, never did let them get away with their foolish ideas without putting them and showing them why their ideas and their worldview was foolish. And once He did that, then what did He do? Then He said, now, when you understand your ideas and worldview is foolish, let me tell you why mine is. Go read this week a story that you're familiar, The Woman at the Whale. Where should we worship? Jerusalem? Or over here? We're Samaritans, right? They ain't going to allow us in Jerusalem, so we've been worshiping over here. Which place is true? Can we worship God in either place? Or which one's the most important place? And what did Jesus say? Let me show you why you're foolish. It's not about a mountain. It's not about where you are. It's who you're worshiping. Go back and read it. And He says, based on your worldview, guess what? Here's where the problem is. The problem is not with a mountain. The problem is, is you're not worshiping God. And what did the woman, when she heard this, her whole worldview was crushed. And what did she immediately do? She leaves Jesus Christ and she runs into the city. And what's her message of evangelism? What's her apology or her defense? Come see a man which knows all things. He knew my inside life. He knew my personal life. But guess what? He also knew the ridiculousness of my worldview. And guess what? His makes sense. And so all of these people came to Jesus Christ because why? Her simple... She didn't go down there and say, let me tell you the Roman road. It wasn't written yet. What did she say? Come see a man. He made a big enough impact in her life. Made a big enough difference that what? She was willing, even though she was an embarrassed woman, a woman that was living with a man. She had done... Had how many marriages? I'm not good with numbers. Like nine marriages, right? All these different husbands. She's not with a guy right now. She's just living with the guy. And what happened? He said, you are wrong. You're wrong. And she presented to him. Guess what? I'm God because I already knew that. And man, all of a sudden when He crushed her worldview, she went all in. And what did she do? She shared Jesus Christ. And if we're going to win people for Christ, guess what? We've got to go all in. We've got to trust Jesus Christ and what He says. Let's stand and have a verse of invitation.