Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Post Christian Generation. Purifying the Church. The Bible’s Authority. - Highlight Episode 332

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Post Christian Generation. Purifying the Church. The Bible’s Authority. - Highlight Episode 332 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Today yes, with Ken Ham in the studio we're talking about when the world fights against the church.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That never happens.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Christian ministries, oscar, help us understand why.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: This is like, what's the nature of it, the foundation of why the world opposes the church.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Is there something that is to be expected in connection with that?
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Certainly in A.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: It's been happening since the beginning of the foundation of the church, and there's actually a bit of hopefulness in that reality, because throughout history Christianity has thrived when it wasn't in a neutral or positive world.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: The persecuted church in Rome and the Middle East exploded.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: It was the fastest growing church In the 1040 window.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: All of the areas where churches are being persecuted, christianity is exploding.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: It's almost like American Christianity got fat and lazy and we lost our ways, and so there's a hopefulness that this persecution I mean it's almost not right to call it that, but this negative feeling that we're getting from society by God's grace will purify the church and make us more ready to proclaim his gospel.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ken, you've talked often about the lines being drawn.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: You know where it's just becoming more and more clear whether or not you're on the side of righteousness or not.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: You know, and we've seen so much compromise in the church.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But how crazy that we're living in an era where people are getting attacked for saying there are two genders.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Like that, we're looked at as the weirdos, like you know, in connection with some of what Oscar's talking about.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: Well, I think one thing you were saying there, oscar, is that one of the things we have to understand is when you look at the West in generations past and how the Christianized morality permeated the West and the Christian worldview to a degree permeated the West, that's an abnormal situation.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: That's not how it has been throughout history.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: You're right and that's why you know.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: George Marner, a Christian researcher, said Generation Z are the first truly post-Christian generations.
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: So what you're talking about when you say it's now in that negative sense is post-Christian.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Post-christian means anti-Christian, and so we see that connection of the loss from the church because the church didn't stand on God's word.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: And now we see the increasing secularization and there are many in the church sort of waking up and saying wait a minute, something's happened, what's going on here?
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: But I see it as the church's fault and I see it as the leaders who didn't take a stand on God's word, who compromised evolution millions of years with God's Word and Mark.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I heard someone the other day actually it's a well-known Christian leader and they were asked the question well, how do you defend against this without using the Bible?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And I heard this leader try to do that.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Well, no, no, yeah, this is my personal belief.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: But aside from that, right, that's a tragedy we shouldn't do that there is no neutral territory, right?
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: It's like hey, I want you to prove to me that oxygen is real, but I don't want you to breathe oxygen while we have this conversation.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: It makes no sense.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: We have to use the Bible, bring it into the conversation, because it is our ultimate source of authority.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: If I wanted to prove the Bible's, god's word and not use the Bible to do so, well then that now becomes my ultimate source of authority.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: So we all have an ultimate source of authority, but as a Christian, it would only make sense for me to use the Bible because that is my source of authority.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: So when I ask a non-Christian what are you going to use to demonstrate your worldview to be authentic and true, what do they say?
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm going to use common sense, I'm going to use truth, I'm going to use science, and you cannot account for these things outside of the Bible.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: So they begin to the word is borrow from our worldview to make sense of their own worldview.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: When somebody says, you know you can't trust the Bible.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: You know because it's filled with mistakes or anything else you say.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Well, in order to say that it's false, you have to be comparing it to something that is true.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: So where do you get truth within your worldview?
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: Right, we are just merely molecules in motion.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: Protoplasm making decisions?
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: We are just weeds growing up in a field.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: You're growing that way, I'm growing this way.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: We can't say anything is intrinsically right or wrong.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: So you're making truth claims.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Where do you get truth claims within your worldview?
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Where does it come from?
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: If things are evolving, how do we know they're evolving for the better or for the worse?
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: All you know is that they are evolving.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: But, you can't tell me that rape is intrinsically wrong in all places, at all times, for all places, in all places, for all people, unless you have an objective standard by which you're making claims and you're very angry at my worldview when in reality we are all.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: We all have an appointment with death and we're gonna die and nothing really matters.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: They're angry because it's a spiritual issue, right, and that's why exactly and they come at us in a way that is saying we're the only ones that hold a particular view.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, like we talked about the circular reasoning Same thing.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: You turned it on her.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: But again, what I love, Ken, about what you guys do at Answers in Genesis is that you help believers to be able to handle themselves in those situations.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It's not complex I mean, the things we're talking about here aren't anyone can learn them but it's getting equipped so that you can intelligently answer the world in a clear way.
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: When we've asked how many people do you know of someone who committed their life to the Lord?
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: Jesus Christ, became a Christian as a result of coming to the ark?
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: It's 6.3% If you're looking at a million people and there's more than a million.
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: But if you're looking at a million people, that's 63,000 people.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: If that's anywhere near valid, do you realize the incredible impact gospel impact it's having?
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: Because we don't hide the gospel and we don't hide that we're on about God's word.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and so we're an evangelistic ministry.
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: And so those attractions the Ark, the Creation Museum and so on they're evangelistic and that's why they have such an impact.
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: And I think what's happened is many of these theologians, seminary profess and others, because of their compromise, they try to make out oh, you're just not about young earth, you're just not about evolution, right?
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: Uh?
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: No, we're on about god's word in the gospel, and those issues that you compromise with are undermining God's Word and the gospel and you're actually helping the atheists.
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: Ever thought about?
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: that so true that those who compromise are helping the atheists.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Well, what makes me mad is they wax eloquent about all their theories and all these things, they do nothing to reach the lost and they're professing to be Christians.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Back to this persecution thing you were talking about both Ken and Oscar.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: We need not fear persecution.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: I always think back to the early 1980s.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I was preaching in the local speaker's corner in the city of Christchurch and I came in and a friend of mine had started speaking.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I'd given him permission to use the area.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: His name was Wally, and while he was preaching the gospel, a whole stack of peace protesters came across and stopped him speaking and I just felt how dare they?
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: It was like I just felt angry.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: So I just jumped down and started speaking, sharing the gospel.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: They ran across from him to me to put my fire out and when they did it, wally would burst into flames.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: And it just kept going back and forth.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: They're running back and forth, and what I got out of that was you don't realize the fire of God dwells in you until the winds of persecution blow against it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: It's just something special supernatural comes up in you an indignation that wants to preach the gospel, and you see it happen again in the book of Acts.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: They try to put the fire out with the winds of persecution.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: All they did was inflame it.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: You know Tozer said to be right with God often means to be in trouble with man.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: You know Spurgeon went on to say that the world has never burned at stake a casual Christian right.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: So when we begin to consider that we must be doing something right right, we're talking about not just stepping on toes but being kicked in the shin.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I would imagine that the enemy has Ken Ham's picture on a dartboard, if you would, and wanting to take that out, but it's just a reminder to anybody who's listening and thinking about their family member, their friend, their neighbor, their coworker who are atheists and you think, man, they're so far from the gospel.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: They're not any further than any other lost person and it's only a matter of the work of the Holy Spirit to bring them to the saving faith.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And God means to work through your faith, faithful prayer and your faithful proclamation of the gospel.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been extremely encouraging for us, Ken, I know, for those that are listening and friends, those of you listening.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I hope you've recognized today that what we do as a church when the world comes against us is we go toward them in love, we stand up for the truth, but we don't forget that we're their servants.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: We're bringing them the gospel and they hated our master.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: They're going to hate us, and so let's remember that.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Let's not get discouraged by it, but let's remember God is sovereign and in control.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And you know, Ken, we joke a lot, we rib each other a lot, and that's a part of our really, it's a part of the affection, of our friendship.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: But you guys at Answers in Genesis, you as our friend, are our closest allies in ministry and the Lord only knows the value that you bring to our lives through your friendship, through your encouragement and through your stand on truth.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: We always talk about this.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Our allies are getting fewer and fewer.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: I think about the same thing.
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: I mean, when I think about who in Christian ministry and what leaders in Christian ministry you know can we really be close to and be friends with, and well, you're number one, wow.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: And then I try to think of number two.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Without the jokes and fellowship.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.