Transcript

It's one other thing to keep in mind, and I'll let you go.

It's one other thing to be kept in mind.

This has tremendous apologetic application as well.

It's not just because of Jehovah's Witnesses or anything else.

It has tremendous apologetic application.

Here's why.

Most Christian apologists present a method of defending the faith that basically says what you do is you get together with the unbeliever and you say, I'll tell you what, let's stand on this neutral ground and let's just reason together.

I will lay aside my presuppositions, you lay aside your presuppositions, and let's just come together on neutral ground and we'll just reason with one another, and I will demonstrate to you the reasonableness of believing that there is a God.

That's a very, very common perspective.

A very, very common That's a very, very common approach.

But think about it for just a moment.

If this is true, if Jesus Christ as the Son, the eternal Son of God, created all things, could someone explain to me how you can find anything that's neutral ground in what He Himself has created?

Because if it exists, it exists because He made it.

If it's a fact, it's a fact because He defines it.

And so any Christian who pretends...

so who pretends there's such a thing as a neutral ground upon which to stand is actually being deceptive.

I mean, if I follow that through, what I'm saying is, okay, we'll stay on this neutral ground, but I really don't believe there is any neutral ground.

But I'm going to try to bring you along and pretend that there is, but eventually somewhere we're going to get down the road and I'm going to have to start telling you about who Jesus really is.

And you might end up actually reading this.

And if you read this, you're going to go, wait a minute.

this is the Jesus you're trying to convince me I need to bow the knee to and believe in, you lied to me back at the start because you said, oh yeah, I can lay aside my presuppositions.

Here's some neutral ground, but you don't believe there is such a thing as neutral ground because if Jesus is actually the creator of all things, there is no neutral ground and you lied to me.

And I don't ever want to have that happen.

I don't ever want to be in a situation where someone comes to me and says, you deceived me.

You're a black part of what you actually believe just to try to get me to come along.

That's why I can't engage in that kind of apologetic and that's, that's why the Bible actually says in Romans chapter one, what is mankind doing?

Is it, is, is mankind really in a situation where, well, I don't know if God exists.

I'm not sure.

There's, you know, there's this and there's that, what does Romans one say?

God has made his existence clearly known through what has been made so that man is unapologetous without an apologetic.

And that man is suppressing that truth.

He's holding that truth down.

That doesn't mean every person has as clear an understanding or suppresses in the same way.

There's religious suppression.

There's, there's pagan suppression.

There's, there's elitist scientific suppression.

There's different ways of holding the truth down.

But the fact is when you bring facts to a rebel who's already holding other facts down, they're just going to suppress that fact as well.

You got to be dealing with their rebellion first and foremost.

And so there's a lot of implications.

There's a lot of, of, of results from understanding the radical nature of the Christian claim.

that.