How to Answer the Challenges

I don't want to take any more time away from Dr. Anthony, and he is an expert in creationism. And if he doesn't consider himself an expert, he knows the experts. All right, that's all that counts. And we're so glad to have him. He's going to teach us tonight on how to answer the tough challenges. So please put your hands together and welcome Dr. Anthony. (Applause)

Well, it's a pleasure to be back again in town. So thanks for having our family back in, and you guys are such a welcoming church family. So we're so thankful for that. Let's open up with a word of prayer here. Lord, just thank You for gathering us together. Lord, just ask that this time be used well, Lord, and that You prepare our hearts and minds and give me clarity of thought and speech as we just go through really quickly some of the challenges that we may encounter while we're evangelizing. And we want to be able to give answers the way we're called to according to 1 Peter 3:15. Lord, so I just ask that You just allow us to grow in this area of evangelism, and most importantly, that You give us all a fire to be able to go out and want to share Your word and Your gospel to everyone in the world. In Your holy, precious name we pray, amen.

Okay, so how many of you don't evangelize because you're worried about what kind of questions or challenges you'll be asked?

So we've got a lot of liars in here too.

Just kidding, just kidding. So here's the deal, right? I know in all the research I've done and other evangelists have done that people that don't evangelize — whether they're recognized or not — the number one reason is typically because they're afraid of what they're going to be asked. And so my goal in this lightning round, this 30-ish minutes that I have — I try to squeak a few extra out of Pastor Casey — is that we're going to go through these maybe quickly, but the goal is for you to have a frame of mind that's different by the end of this half hour so that we know how to continue to grow in our witness, grow in our studies, to be able to evangelize better. And so the goal this evening is we're going to learn how to respond to the most commonly asked challenges and questions to Christianity.

So we're going to start with a quiz. How many like quizzes?

No.

Okay, so blank is the power of God unto salvation. I've got four multiple choices here. My intelligence.

My good looks — not that one.

How about my ability to give really good evidences? Is that the power of God unto salvation? What about my ability to answer all their questions? Which one of these is right?

I think I heard none. Who said that? Good. So what does the Bible actually say?

The Gospel.

Look, let's be clear right off the bat. You don't need to know anything in apologetics to share the Gospel. You don't need to know anything in apologetics for God to be able to change the heart of the unbeliever.

I want to make that really crystal clear right off the bat because so many of us panic that we're not going to say the right thing, or what happens if we get that really hard question and all of a sudden, did I just blow it? Did I just prevent this person from coming to Christ?

Right? We've all thought this.

I'm here to tell you that this Bible verse says otherwise. It says that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And by the way, who affects the heart change? Who takes the heart of stone and changes it to the heart of flesh?

God does. Not you.

So God does the work — how? Through His Gospel. So if there's anything that we walk away with tonight, it's this: the Gospel is what changes lives. And so what is the Gospel? The clearest passage in the Bible for the basic Gospel message is 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4. And in case you want proof, verse 1, Paul says, "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the Gospel I preached to you."

And then he goes on to say that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised according to the Scriptures. All of us together, let's say these words that are underlined. What's the first word? Died. Died. Second word? Sins.

Third word? Scriptures. Fourth word? Buried. Fifth word? Raised. And next word? Scriptures. Scriptures again. Do we understand what this is? This Gospel says it's according to the Scriptures.

First and foremost, according to the Scriptures. That is God's standard.

Right? We know this to be God's standard of the truth. This is God's standard. It's according to the Scriptures. And that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection for the payment of our sins is the Gospel.

The reason why people can go to heaven is because while they are yet sinners, Christ died for us. While they are sinners and deserve God's just punishment, Christ's death, burial, and resurrection paid that penalty — partially? In full. In full. Paid it in full.

And so this is the Gospel message we are to proclaim. It is that His death, burial, and resurrection paid that penalty in full for those who repent and believe. That's our message. Memorize that message. Bring that message out to the world and you will have done a great deed with that.

Now, having said all that, you didn't come for me to just say this, right? You want to know some of the common challenges and questions. And so we have to ask this question: if I'm telling you that the Gospel is all we need, why does God give us things like 1 Peter 3:15, which says always be prepared to give an answer?

Well, there is this realm of apologetics that we really should grow in as Christians. And so this goal of apologetics is that we should be able to answer questions.

And you're not going to be an expert when you start at this, right? Nobody starts at the expert level of answering questions. And in fact, no one ever gets to the pinnacle where they can answer everything.

So it's this continuum, the rest of our lives, as we're growing in Christ, as we're growing in holiness, as we're growing in the knowledge of Scriptures, by coming to church, by doing Scripture readings — naturally you will get better at apologetics.

And so the thing I want to make sure we understand in this is: what is the role of apologetics versus the Gospel, right? And so I like to say it like this. Our job is to use apologetics as minimally as possible so that we can get to the law and the Gospel as quickly as possible.

And on Saturday morning, that's my task — to show us how we use the law to show people their sin and then give the Gospel message.

And so the way we like to say it is 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5: "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but of divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." We can use apologetics to break down people's strongholds.

When I'm on a college campus, I do not believe that when somebody asks me the question "Did Noah really get all the animals on the ark?" — I don't believe that when I answer that question for them, that that's going to save them.

But I'll tell you what it does do.

When they ask me that question, they think they've got a gotcha question on the Christian. They think they stumped the Christian. And yet this Christian says, "Oh, I've got an answer for you. Let me tell you how Noah had all the animals fit on the ark." First of all, he didn't have to have every animal. It was two of every kind, seven of some. There are only a few thousand kinds of animals, so maybe a few thousand animals would have been on the ark. And guess what? They would have only taken up like 15% or so of the ark, leaving plenty of room for Noah's wife's shoes and clothes. So there's plenty of room on the ark. I used to use my wife in that joke. She doesn't like that. (Laughter) But the point is that when I can give an answer like this, I can break down strongholds. Again, not to prove that God exists, not to prove Christianity — just to show them, "You know what? I've got answers." In fact, even if I don't have all the answers, Christianity provides all the answers. We get to account for everything in this world that we see.

And so apologetics is used for that purpose — to break down these strongholds and get to the law and gospel as quickly as possible.

And there are some people who say, "Look, what if I don't really want to learn apologetics? What if I just want to go out and give the gospel?" Well, I think R.C. Sproul says it best in his book, Defending Your Faith. He says that's the ultimate cop-out.

That doesn't honor Christ. We honor Christ by setting forth for people the cogency of the truth claims of Scripture, even as God Himself does. We must take the trouble to do our work before the Spirit does His work, because the Spirit does not ask people to put their trust and faith and affection in nonsense or absurdity.

We show them that we have a rational worldview.

We show them we can answer those questions and go right to the gospel after that. Okay, so let's get into some of the biggest questions and challenges.

How many of you are terrified when a Muslim comes up to you? Or a Jehovah's Witness?

Yeah, how about a Roman Catholic?

They terrify some of us, right? So I could go on down the list of all kinds of religions. What about religions you've ever heard of? I mean, within Hinduism and Buddhism, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of whacked-out cults that belong to them. In fact, any time you go to Los Angeles and do some witnessing — as I've done multiple times — you will see the newest Buddhist cult out there that you've never heard of before. They're popping up all the time. And so how do we handle religions? I'm going to give you the biggest secret of them all. I can take every religion on this planet that has ever been made, that exists today, or will ever be made in the future.

And I can put it in one of two categories.

And what do you think those categories are?

Doing. I've got to do stuff to earn my way to whatever the next place is, right? Heaven, the next life form — if you're Buddhist or Hindu —

whatever that paradise is, right? Or what it really is is the Christian heaven. But it's either you work your way there, or it was already done.

And guess what? Every single religion that has ever been made, that exists today, that will ever be made in the future —

which category does it belong in, except for one?

They're all work-based, right? Every religion says doing. There's only one that has ever said done. And that's Christianity.

Because it's not by ourselves, it's not by our works. It's not us trying to do enough good to outweigh the bad. It's that Christ did it already, right? So it doesn't matter what religion we ever run into — it's that we know, and this is where we should be making some connections now, right? Why is the gospel the power of God unto salvation? Because the gospel says you can't do it.

The gospel says it was done for you.

No religion — no religion out there besides Christianity — has that.

No religion ever will. There is one God who took on flesh to pay that sacrifice and then rose again.

And so when I talk to the Muslim, if I know nothing else, preach Christ and Him crucified.

When you go to the Buddhist, and you don't know what else to say, preach Christ and Him crucified,

right? If we just do that alone, that is a stark contrast to what they believe.

Because every one of those false religions — they're doing their best to work their way to heaven, or whatever their paradise is.

This actually seems pretty easy now, doesn't it?

We give the gospel. This is what we do.

Okay, having said that, let's go through some of the false religions, right? I can't leave you hanging.

So, how about your friendly Mormons?

A couple of Mormons that I met in New York City, maybe three or four years ago now. And one of the things I like to do is to have one or two things in the back of my mind always regarding the false religions or the cults. Now, granted, what's the one thing we know about Mormons already?

They're doing. Doing, right? This is going to be a common answer, by the way — remember that. Doing, right? So we can talk to them about the gospel and the fact that they have to continue to do it, because here's the big question, right? You ask them, "How do you know if you're going to go to heaven when you die?" Or, "Do you know if you're going to go to heaven when you die?"

They have no confidence in it. Every false religion is the same way. They have no confidence about where they're going to be. Why? Because they never know if they've done enough.

They never know.

So we can always do that with a Mormon. One of the things I like to do is show some of the inconsistencies in the worldview. I like to ask the Mormon, "Hey, do you believe the Bible is true?" And they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I believe the Bible is true." "Okay, that's good. So let's open our Bibles to Isaiah 43. But before we get there, do you believe that not only the Bible is true, but that God doesn't change?" "Yep, we believe God doesn't change." "Good, okay." Usually I ask a third question. I'll say, "How much time do you have?"

Because I like to nail them down, right? Because what you're going to find is they'll tell you 15 minutes, and as soon as you ask them this, they'll be like, "Oh, you know, I've got to go. I've got an appointment." It happens all the time. "Hey, I thought you said you had 15 minutes." So okay.

I like to ask them this question: "Do you believe that you can become God of your own planet one day?"

"If you wear your special garments and do all the temple work" — you can just do all that kind of stuff.

And usually they're kind of taken aback by that. They're like, "How'd you know?" Right?

And then they'll admit to it, to which I say, "Hey, let's open our Bibles to Isaiah 43." By the way, here's a note to take. Mark in your Bibles Isaiah 43, 44, and 45. And when you mark it, start studying those three chapters. And the reason why is there's a common theme in those three chapters. God is speaking. God says multiple times there is one God.

He says multiple times there are no other gods besides Me. He says that there were no gods formed before Me, nor will there be any formed after Me. God makes it really clear there's one God always.

And what gets really fun is in one of the passages, Isaiah 43, verses 10 through 11, it says this.

Who's that talking about?

That's talking about Christ.

That's a powerful, powerful set of verses right there when we are talking to not only Mormons, but you can imagine when we are also talking to Jehovah's Witnesses. Because what do Jehovah's Witnesses like to say? What do they like to believe? Jesus is not God in the flesh, right? Now some will say, "Well, He's a mini God," or they'll say, "He's kind of a God, but not God in the flesh, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit." They believe that Jesus is not really God, and they believe the Holy Spirit is merely a force.

And so Jehovah's Witnesses — I love to bring up Isaiah 43, right? Who is this talking about in Isaiah?

It's Christ. And they know it. They ignore it, they have their excuses for it, but they know it.

One of the other questions I really like to ask Jehovah's Witnesses — and this is a great one, by the way, it's my favorite one to ask — is, "Can you tell me why Jesus was put on the cross?"

Why was Jesus put on the cross? Why did the Romans put Him up there and actually kill Him? And why did the Jews incite the Romans to do it?

Because He said He was God.

Over and over and over and over — like a hundred and some times in John alone, right? Jehovah's Witnesses, by the way, they know exactly what it is. We just had this happen to us on our way down here to Florida on our drive down. We took a walk through a park. It was in Tennessee — was it Ruby Falls? I can't remember which park we were at. We did some hiking. And my wife was handing out tracts faithfully, and it turns out this one group of people wouldn't accept the tract from us. Now, almost always, when somebody will refuse a tract, it's a Jehovah's Witness. Almost always. So ask the question, "So what do you believe?" And they'll tell you. And then you go right into this question: "Why was Jesus put on the cross?" They — just like every other Jehovah's Witness I've asked — they know the answer. Because Jesus claimed to be God.

Oh, yes, He did. He certainly claimed it. He said it time and time again. Places like John 8:58, where He said, "I am."

So Jehovah's Witnesses — when we bring this up to them, what do we do right next? We go right to the gospel message.

Follow me so far? Good.

Okay, how about our friendly Catholics?

Sadly, we have a lot of Protestants who think Catholics are Christians, right? This is a huge battle today. And so we have to understand first and foremost what Catholics believe. Because in theory, they believe in the Trinitarian Godhead.

In theory, they believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins.

The problem is that they don't believe that Jesus' sacrifice was for full atonement.

Why? Because while Jesus' death paid for original sin, they still have to keep in God's grace by doing — guess what? Good works. Good works. There we are, back to good works again. And so they have to add to it. So the question I like to ask Catholics — and this is kind of a cheeky one — is, "So what percentage of your salvation is of Christ, and what percentage of it is your works?"

That's great. Yeah, they don't like that one.

Is it like 75/25? Is it 90/10? I mean, what is it? They hate it. They hate that question. But it's true.

Because if you ask a Catholic, "If you die today, would you go to heaven?" — what would they tell you?

"I think so. I think I've done enough good."

Yeah, right? Yeah.

"I'm not sure how God's going to weigh those scales of justice." Good works versus bad works.

Very common. Muslims. Muslims are really interesting because — do they believe in Jesus? Yes. Well, they say they do. Yes. All right? They say they believe in Him. In fact, they'll say He's one of the greatest prophets. Right? And when you go to New York City and other places, when you see Muslims out there witnessing to people, they have on their tents "John 17" written. They have quotes from John 17 talking about Christ and His love.

I kid you not — I've got tons of pictures, though it's not in this presentation. So they are doing their absolute best to reach out to people, acting like they believe in Jesus. The problem is that they don't actually believe He's God in the flesh. They think that the Jesus who was on the cross wasn't actually Jesus — that He was switched for either Judas or somebody else.

So Muslims have a whacked-out view, which is interesting though, because I'll ask a Muslim — since they claim they believe the Old Testament like we do — again, you can go to Isaiah 43, right? We can go to that passage for all these cults and show how Jesus is in that passage: "There is no other God beside Me. I am your Savior." But I like to ask Muslims, "What happens to prophets in the Old Testament who told a lie?"

They get stoned. They die, right? "Guess what — Jesus claimed many, many times in the New Testament that He's God.

Not merely a prophet, but God in the flesh."

You can bring up John 8:58 again here, where Jesus is saying "I am," and He's pointing back to the burning bush with Moses.

So that's a great one — an easy one to be able to talk with Muslims about. You don't have to know anything else about the religion, but can just point this single thing out to them.

Hindus, Buddhists, and the thousands of other breakoffs from them — guess what? They also don't believe Jesus is God. But guess what they also believe about Jesus? He's a good person. He's a prophet.

So, fellow Buddhist, can a good prophet lie?

Because you know what Jesus claimed about Himself in the New Testament — hundreds of times — that He's God in the flesh. And then we give them the gospel, right? See, this is how we have to start thinking when we're encountering these cults, because while they may have very different religions, they all have the exact same basis.

Almost every false religion, by the way, denies the deity of Christ.

Catholics are the ones that arguably believe in it.

New Age — very similar to Buddhism. Hinduism is a big breakoff. In fact, a lot of New Age is creeping into Christian churches today. Things like contemplative prayer, Enneagrams.

All this stuff is nonsense from New Age mysticism — kundalini spirit. All this stuff is coming into Christianity, sadly, and a lot of it through the SBC.

Beth Moore and others. Well, she's no longer SBC. She now went to a heretical church — the Anglicans.

The New Age guys also don't believe Jesus is God. So what do we do? New Age typically believes He's a prophet. To which — what do we do?

Can prophets lie? Can prophets lie, right?

Same thing. Scientology — in that same group? Scientology is a little different. Scientology has this... they believe in some type of ecumenism mixed with humanism. Meaning this — and really humanism is the base — they believe the power lies in us, right? The power lies in our mentality. We get closer to God the more we learn and the more we know. So that's what they believe. In the background, they believe that all kinds of... you can have any type of religious background.

It's all valid. It's just that the way you get to the higher level is through knowledge. It's a mental ascension. And you find this with Hare Krishnas as well. They're actually quite similar. Even though they're a breakoff of Hinduism, they have a lot of similarities with Scientology.

But again, we don't need to know much about Scientology because what do we do with them?

Gospel. We go back to the Gospel.

So don't get thrown off by whatever nonsense somebody throws your way — you just go back to the Gospel.

Judaism.

Guess what they don't believe?

That Jesus is God. So here's one of my favorite things to do with people of the Jewish faith — I even sometimes do this with Muslims — is I will open up Isaiah 53.

And I'll tell them, "Hey, I'm going to read this to you. I want you to tell me who this sounds like."

And guess what almost every Jewish person will tell me?

"Well, that sounds like Jesus of Nazareth." To which I explain to them, "You're right.

And this was in your Forbidden Scroll — Isaiah 53 —

which was written about 700 years before Christ came on the earth.

Just one of 350-plus messianic prophecies that were fulfilled in the Old Testament."

I go, "He's the Messiah you guys have been looking for."

And then I give them the Gospel.

I've made my point very clear when I've done that.

And there are other passages you can use too, right? But Isaiah 53 is the clearest. And a little-known fact — when you talk to people who are of the Jewish faith — in rabbinical school and when they're reading in their temples, they often skip Isaiah 53. It's called the Forbidden Scroll for a reason, because they know that it is clearly talking about Jesus Christ.

And so it's just literally passed over. There are a lot of Jewish people you'll run into who have never even heard of Isaiah 53. Or they've heard of it, but they know they're not supposed to read it. It's only for the top rabbis — to which I like to burst their bubble and read it for them.

Did you have a question?

That was it, okay.

Okay, so that gets us through some of the false religions. Question?

(Inaudible)

Yeah, so that's good. So I was telling Pastor Casey earlier that, you know, when you're sitting in a hot tub, it's amazing how many conversations you can have with people. And we've had some good ones over the last couple of weeks, and yesterday was no different. The first couple we ran into were co-pastors of a church — husband and wife — to which I didn't poke them right in the eye to say, "Women can't be pastors, and they can't teach over men," and all the other stuff Scripture teaches.

So I didn't poke them in the eye right away on this stuff, but we had some good conversations. And then they get out of the hot tub, and then I'm like, "Okay, I finally can relax." Two minutes later, another couple comes in — turns out they're Messianic Jews.

Now, some Messianic Jews are people who are Jewish who get saved, and they're very orthodox in their beliefs.

They believe the New Testament, but you know, kind of like all of us in our sin as we are getting sanctified, right?

A lot of Jewish people are still shaking off their stuff, right? So the ceremonies that they may still follow, the feasts — all that kind of stuff — they're still kind of shaking it off as time goes on.

They're okay, right? We talk to them, have a good time, we recognize where they're at, God's growing them, and that's a good thing. The one we ran into yesterday — and this is the point of the story — is that we should always ask lots of questions. Dig in a little bit.

Because it turns out this Messianic Jew doesn't believe... She first of all believes that all Israelites will be saved

because they're the chosen people of God. And then she believes that hell virtually doesn't exist. I had to get it out of her by asking her a number of questions before she would say, "Well, some people might go to hell, but the vast majority don't." So she was as ecumenical as it gets, which actually is quite common among Jews today — they believe that, yeah, they might be the chosen people, but in general people go to heaven, and there really is nobody who goes to hell. So we see that a lot today.

Okay, because I'm hitting about 30 minutes right now, we've got to go quick — unless you beg your pastor to go a few extra minutes.

How do we respond to this one? Somebody says, "I'm a good person.

I haven't murdered anyone. I haven't done any terrible things. I'm not as bad as that guy."

Yeah, I'm putting it on you — sorry.

So here's how I deal with this. I say, "What would a just judge do?" This is a great thing that I may repeat on Saturday, and I'll probably end here, and we'll have to do the others a different day.

So I set up what I call the courtroom scene. So let's say I've given somebody the good person test. I've asked them, "Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever lusted?" And I've walked through these to show them that they're sinners, right? They've broken God's law. And a lot of times I'll ask them — I always ask them — "Where do you think you'll be when you die? I mean, you've obviously broken God's law continuously." And some people say, "Boy, that doesn't sound so good." To which I say, "You're right, but here's some good news for you." I'll give them the gospel. Some people say, "Well, isn't God like a forgiving God? I mean, won't God just look past it?"

Yeah, because He's loving, right?

To which I say, "Well, I want to set up a courtroom scene." I said, "Hold that thought for a moment. Let's pretend" — and now whatever the age this person is, I'm going to guess like 10 years younger, right? And I'm going to say, "Hey, you're about 40, right?" Which always, for females — "You now won them over in this conversation, right?" So, "You don't look a day over 25."

And so, okay, let's just assume you're 40 years old, and let's assume for the first 35 years of your life you lived a perfect life — you never broke a law, never sinned. Now that's impossible, right? And they'll acknowledge, "Yeah, that's impossible." And I say, "You're right, we couldn't do this. We sin every day of our lives, probably every hour of our lives." Okay, let's just assume you went perfectly for 35 years. And then let's assume five years ago you decided to rob a bank. You got away with a million dollars. Didn't get caught. You go five more years not breaking a law, not sinning once more. You maybe even gave away a lot of that money — you just did it for the fun of it. Now imagine the cops come knocking on your door. By this time, I've gotten their name, by the way. So let's just say Jane, right? So I'll say, "So Jane, the cops come knocking on your door, and they arrest you, put you in front of a judge." And the judge says, "Jane, we couldn't tell it was you before, but this camera that we couldn't read — we can now read it. It's clearly your mugshot. You clearly robbed this bank for a million dollars. How do you plead to these charges?"

"Jane, how are you going to plead?" And usually, because you've used their name and you've gotten them engaged, they'll say, "Well, I guess I'd be guilty." I say, "You're right, Jane, you'd be guilty." Now, will you be able to tell the judge — if he's just, if he's fair, if he's righteous — will you be able to tell the judge, "Hey, judge, okay, you got me. I broke that law five years ago, but you know, I'm a pretty good person. I mean, I treat people well and I love people, and I walk old ladies across the street. I gave away most of the money anyway — and did I mention I love people?" Are you going to be able to get off for your crime?

To which Jane will almost always say, "Well, no, of course not. I would be punished for my crime."

And I say, "You're right. Now imagine the God of the universe, who is perfectly just, who is righteous.

How do you think He's going to view your — not just one sin in your life, but your tens, if not hundreds of thousands of sins in your life?

Are your good works going to be able to erase the debt you owe to God for your sins?

Because if it doesn't work in a human court, how do you think it's going to work for the perfect judge of the universe?"

To which almost always, at this point, they get it.

And then we give them the good news of the gospel.

It's a powerful one to be able to use to show people their sin — and for the one who's resistant and still thinking that God's going to forgive them anyway.

So on that, I've been at 34 minutes. I'm going to stop now, and I thank you all for paying attention. I know it was kind of a lightning round. I only got through about half my slides. We'll just do them another time, so no big deal.

So thank you. If you have any questions, I'll be here afterwards.