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Voddie Baucham - How To Use Apologetics As A Christian · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Or last night we introduced a concept, that concept of
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  Speaker 1: expository apologetics, the idea of engaging in apologetics. And you
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  Speaker 1: remember that we define that from Peter's Epistle as, in
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  Speaker 1: its essence, knowing what we believe, why we believe it,
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  Speaker 1: and being able to communicate that to others in an
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  Speaker 1: effective and winsome way. And that's at its essence, that's
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  Speaker 1: what apologetics it's all about. It's not about us all
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  Speaker 1: becoming debaters and philosophers or anything else. Is really about
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  Speaker 1: us knowing what we believe and why we believe it
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  Speaker 1: and being able to communicate that. And essentially we talked
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  Speaker 1: about the fact that, you know, the Bible itself has
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  Speaker 1: a limiting effect on apologetics because what I believe is
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  Speaker 1: that which comes from the Bible. I'm not really responsible
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  Speaker 1: to give a defense for something other than what's in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible because that's not what I'm arguing, that's not
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  Speaker 1: what I'm believing. What I'm believing is what is in
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  Speaker 1: the scriptures. And so because of that, if we become
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  Speaker 1: familiar with what we have in the scriptures, we are
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  Speaker 1: able to offer that defense. So what ends up happening
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  Speaker 1: is when we become familiar with these ideas, and when
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  Speaker 1: we use the scriptures as sort of the backdrop and
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  Speaker 1: the foundation for our response, we are able to engage
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  Speaker 1: in a way that may seem unusual, but it's not.
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  Speaker 1: Example of this, I was at Oregon State University several
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  Speaker 1: years ago and they're on the campus. Christian groups got
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  Speaker 1: together and I was going to be there for something else,
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  Speaker 1: and they wanted to do an event on campus, like
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  Speaker 1: a lot of Christian groups often do, and so I said, sure,
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  Speaker 1: I'll come. And what they wanted me to do was
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  Speaker 1: basically give a presentation for forty five minutes to an
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  Speaker 1: hour on the Bible and its reliability and then just
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  Speaker 1: field questions. So we walked on the campus and you know,
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  Speaker 1: these these flyers that they had put up, you know,
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  Speaker 1: come here, you know doctor Vodie Backtom talk about the
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  Speaker 1: Bible and his upliability and said, did y'all do anything else?
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  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, we just put these flyers up. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: that's all y'all did. Yeah, that's all we did. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you put these flyers around campus. And you know, when
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  Speaker 1: you can give people to these people you expect me.
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  Speaker 1: You lost people in Oregon and Oregon State university, who
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  Speaker 1: have no idea who I am to just come over
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  Speaker 1: to the student center because y'all said and it said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we're fine. So the rest of the time that we're there,
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  Speaker 1: I'm just kind of bring giving myself, ready to comfort
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  Speaker 1: these students. When this whole thing flops, I go to
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  Speaker 1: the back room to get ready, you know, because I
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  Speaker 1: want to see. I want to give everything I got.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want these people to think I'm disappointed because
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  Speaker 1: nobody showed up. And I, you know, just this is
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  Speaker 1: all about these these young people. You know, God, teach
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  Speaker 1: them something, Use me to teach them something, use me
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  Speaker 1: to encourage them. There's two people out there, just Lord
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  Speaker 1: help me. It's one of them runs back to the room.
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  Speaker 1: It's time. Are you ready? Yeah, I'm I'm ready. It's
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  Speaker 1: gonna be all right. He goes, they're here, But who's here?
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  Speaker 1: And he said everybody. So I walk out. There's students
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  Speaker 1: like sitting on top of each other. It's normal. I said,
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  Speaker 1: y'all don't do anything other than it's like, no, we
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  Speaker 1: didn't do it, so okay. And having you know, lived
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  Speaker 1: in the Bible Belt for much of my life and
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  Speaker 1: all my ministry I'm used to being on college campuses,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, you do a presentation and people ask questions,
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  Speaker 1: and usually college students ask questions because they want other
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  Speaker 1: college students to hear them ask the question, not so
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  Speaker 1: much because they want an answer. And so we're here.
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  Speaker 1: I do my presentation about an hour and right, sister,
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  Speaker 1: and he listened and then hands going up all over
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  Speaker 1: the place from students who were Wickans, Pagans, Bahi, Hindu, Buddhists,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, just all you name it. And these people
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  Speaker 1: were asking what the real questions, legitimate questions. So for
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  Speaker 1: about an hour and a half, you know, we stood
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  Speaker 1: there and did that and answered questions and it was great,
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  Speaker 1: it was wonderful. I just had to go, Lord, I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 1: I even doubted you. And so we went out to
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  Speaker 1: eat afterwards, and these students, you know, these leaders from
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  Speaker 1: the Christian ministry, they're just quiet. Do I think it
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  Speaker 1: went okay? All right? I mean it was, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it was exciting. We had some great gospel conversations, and
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  Speaker 1: you know a couple of people, you know, have follow
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  Speaker 1: ups and and the other I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's great, right, So what's wrong? And one of them, goes, Dude,
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  Speaker 1: we're a little scared of you right now. He said,
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  Speaker 1: why because you just stood there for an hour and
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  Speaker 1: a half and these people ask you these questions. You
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  Speaker 1: don't know what the questions were. You ask the questions.
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  Speaker 1: You're awesome, he said, No, I'm not awesome. Half man,
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  Speaker 1: half amazing, but not necessarily awesome. I said, you know
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  Speaker 1: what's interesting about that? He said, think about all the
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  Speaker 1: questions that I was asking, and I let you know
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  Speaker 1: a little secret. If you understand seven or eight categories
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  Speaker 1: of theology, the basic categories of systematic theology, and know
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  Speaker 1: a couple of key passages were those things are discussed,
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  Speaker 1: no one will ever ask you a question that you
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  Speaker 1: can't answer, and if they do, they're asking you something
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  Speaker 1: that you don't believe, so you don't have to answer no.
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  Speaker 1: So we went over what questions will I ask? Was
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  Speaker 1: I asked tonight? Well, you were asked this question and
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  Speaker 1: this question yep, that question falls into the doctrine of
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. You know in revelation. Yep, that question falls
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  Speaker 1: into that category. You asked this yep, falls into the
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  Speaker 1: whole question of the nature of God. It was about
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  Speaker 1: this question. Yep. The nature of Christ, exclusivity, the trinity
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  Speaker 1: basically yep, yep, this one falls into the problem of
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  Speaker 1: evil and suffering. Yep, this one falls into everything fell
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  Speaker 1: into those seven or eight categories. Every question from that
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  Speaker 1: night and every question that you will ever have to
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  Speaker 1: deal with is going to fall into those same categories.
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  Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, we talked about catechisms and confessions, right Our
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  Speaker 1: confessions are broken up into these major categories as well.
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  Speaker 1: Our catechism designed to teach us those confessions are broken
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  Speaker 1: up into those same categories as well. You see, it's
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  Speaker 1: only when you get out of a few of apologetics
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  Speaker 1: that falls into this category here, which will basically be
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  Speaker 1: presuppositional apologetics. It's only then that you feel like you've
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  Speaker 1: got to run off into every other field in order
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  Speaker 1: to be able to talk to people and actually engage
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  Speaker 1: in apologetics. Listen, I'm not denying that it's helpful to
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  Speaker 1: know things about science, or about philosophy, or about God
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  Speaker 1: bless you wonderful. If you know things about that, that's great.
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  Speaker 1: But as far as doing apologetics, it's about you always
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  Speaker 1: being ready to give an answer for the reason for
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  Speaker 1: the hope that is in you, and you do not
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  Speaker 1: believe what you believe because some philosopher told you. You
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  Speaker 1: don't believe what you believe because some scientists told you.
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  Speaker 1: You believe what you believe because of what you find
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  Speaker 1: in the text. So again, if we understand these categories,
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  Speaker 1: and we understand the key text, the seminal texts that
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  Speaker 1: deal with these issues, we can answer questions. Different people
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  Speaker 1: will ask the questions in different ways, where you're going
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  Speaker 1: to get the same categories of questions. Is there a
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  Speaker 1: little work that needs to be done, Yeah, there's a
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  Speaker 1: little work that needs to be done. There is. But
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  Speaker 1: once we do that work, we can be comfortable and confident. Now,
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  Speaker 1: don't make this mistake, because here's the reality. God saves sinners,
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  Speaker 1: not apologetics, love and dog. What happens is as people
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  Speaker 1: go out and they get all ready with their apologetic
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  Speaker 1: and somebody asks you a question and they just serve
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  Speaker 1: it up and you can see it coming and you're
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  Speaker 1: just ready to just get boom. Here's your answer, and
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  Speaker 1: you give them the answer and it's just the greatest
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  Speaker 1: answer that anyone had ever given to this question. Nobody
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  Speaker 1: had ever been able to answer that question for them before.
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  Speaker 1: Finally they have an answer, and you say there it is.
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  Speaker 1: They're about to bow the knee and come pray and
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  Speaker 1: receive Christ, and they just ask you something else and
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  Speaker 1: then answer that question, and it just covers all the
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  Speaker 1: bases and just wow, that's great, Thanks so much for that. Well,
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  Speaker 1: what about which is why ultimately in apologetics you have
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  Speaker 1: to get to the gospel. Apologetics ultimately is just sort
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  Speaker 1: of pre evangelism. Right, We're sharing the gospel and people
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  Speaker 1: ask us questions because we're sharing the gospel, and then
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  Speaker 1: we answer the questions so that we can get to
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  Speaker 1: the heart of the gospel. So what I want to
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  Speaker 1: do tonight in the time that we have is I
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  Speaker 1: want to kind of you know, go two birds with
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  Speaker 1: one don't because expository apologetics is not just what happens
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  Speaker 1: as we do apologetics with unbelievers as individuals who encounter
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  Speaker 1: unbelievers out there in the culture, out there in the world.
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  Speaker 1: We need to be able to do that. We need
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  Speaker 1: to be ready to give answers in that regard, and
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  Speaker 1: we need to be able to use the scriptures and
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  Speaker 1: rely on the scriptures to give those answers. Why, because
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  Speaker 1: these are answers that were given under the inspiration of
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit and are going to be more powerful
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  Speaker 1: than any answer that we could come up with on
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  Speaker 1: our own. So we need to be able to do that.
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  Speaker 1: But then secondly, there are a lot of a lot
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  Speaker 1: of preachers here, and as preachers, we need to learn
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  Speaker 1: how to preach apologetically. We need to learn how to
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  Speaker 1: preach the Word of God. And part of that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: part of this is part of doing apologetics from the pulpit,
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  Speaker 1: is this, stop assuming that everybody out there agrees with you. Amen, Hallelujah,
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  Speaker 1: Praise the Lord. When you're pairing your sermons, assume that
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  Speaker 1: they are going to be people out there with their
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  Speaker 1: arms folded saying prove it, because there are. And assume
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  Speaker 1: that even if there aren't people out there with their
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  Speaker 1: arms folded, go and prove it. Assume that there's a
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  Speaker 1: person who works with a person who sits there with
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  Speaker 1: their arms folded saying prove it. And when you bring
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  Speaker 1: up this issue, they're thinking about a conversation that they
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  Speaker 1: had at work and they're going, yeah, this person asked
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  Speaker 1: me a question about that and I couldn't answer it.
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  Speaker 1: And if you dodge the apologetic issue in the text,
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  Speaker 1: you're basically communicating to your people