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Voddie Baucham - How Can You do Apologetics · Voddie Baucham Sermons

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If the only reality that you will allow to enter
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: into your definition, explanation and understanding of what love is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is the horizontal reality, then you end up doing dumb
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. You're in the weeds spiritually, intellectually, emotionally,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: but I won't tell you because to offend you is
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  Speaker 1: the greater sin. See, this is the problem. This is
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  Speaker 1: the problem. But when you see this in its context,
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  Speaker 1: and when you understand what he's done, when you understand
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  Speaker 1: that he starts with this picture of the triune God,
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  Speaker 1: and he talks about our redemption from the perspective of
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  Speaker 1: who the Triune God is, and then when you look
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  Speaker 1: at this picture of mercy and peace and love being
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  Speaker 1: multiplied to us right before he tells us to go
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  Speaker 1: to war, then you recognize that there is no contradiction.
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  Speaker 1: There is no contradiction. So no, the second objection doesn't stand.
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  Speaker 1: The third objection is that people who engage in apologetics
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  Speaker 1: they major O miners. Okay, they major O miners. Part
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  Speaker 1: of this is deserved because of the way we think
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  Speaker 1: about apologetics, right, we think about apologetic. For a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people, you say apologetics and they think about the
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  Speaker 1: teenage boy who is you know, in speech and debate
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  Speaker 1: or you just can't stand to see coming because everything
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  Speaker 1: is about not vindicating the righteousness of God, but proving
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  Speaker 1: that I cannot debate you. And even even Christian friends
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  Speaker 1: are like, oh, if you got little kids, you might
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  Speaker 1: have seen that movie. Oh this little alien he says names. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: because all his friends when he comes around, they go, oh,
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  Speaker 1: that's the sixteen year old kid who wants to be
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  Speaker 1: an apologist. Can't say amen, y'all to say ouch, right,
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  Speaker 1: and we just kind of go, oh, he's obnoxious. He's immature, right,
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  Speaker 1: far less intelligent than he believes he is, right, far
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  Speaker 1: less winsome than he believes he is. And he wants
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  Speaker 1: to be an apologist because in his mind, an apologist
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  Speaker 1: is someone who hammers on other people until they beat
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  Speaker 1: them into intellectual submission. Right, So some of this is deserved.
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  Speaker 1: I remember, you know, as a new believer. I was
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  Speaker 1: I was playing football at at Rice University. I was
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  Speaker 1: being discipled by some teammates of mine. And again I'm
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  Speaker 1: a new believer, and this guy, you know, came to
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  Speaker 1: my door and he was talking to me, and I didn't. Again,
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  Speaker 1: I came to faith. Lady in life, I knew who
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  Speaker 1: these people were. And so I go back to you know,
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  Speaker 1: these guys on the team, these guys who were kind
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  Speaker 1: of mentors to me, Like, man, this guy came to
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  Speaker 1: my door and he was talking about the Bible, but
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. Some just wasn't right. And they were
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  Speaker 1: like how on a white shirt with a name tag
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  Speaker 1: I said elder and I was like no. They were like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: Jehovah's witnesses, Like how do you know? Because it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the Mormons had to be the JW's Like wow, y'all,
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  Speaker 1: y'all are so smart. No, no, we're not. So I
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  Speaker 1: went to the library and just looked up, you know,
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  Speaker 1: everything I could coming into the library and people were
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  Speaker 1: like you come in here like I do today. So
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  Speaker 1: I'm in the library. I'm just like going crazy trying
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  Speaker 1: to find everything that I can find out. This guy
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  Speaker 1: comes back to my house, to my apartment, and I
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  Speaker 1: bore him out. I went back to practice the next
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  Speaker 1: day and know I was like, man, dude came back
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  Speaker 1: like really what happened? And I said, man, he started
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  Speaker 1: talking about this and I told him about that, and
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  Speaker 1: he started talking about this and I told him about that.
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  Speaker 1: It was like you know, I'm gonna have to call
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  Speaker 1: Brooklyn and see if I can get you an answer
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  Speaker 1: about that. And then I told him about this. I
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  Speaker 1: told him about that. It was ugly. And one of them,
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  Speaker 1: Brent apted, one of the most gracious guys I've ever known.
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  Speaker 1: Brent was a senior. And Brent goes, you think he'll
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  Speaker 1: ever come back? And I said, no, no, he's not
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  Speaker 1: coming back. And he goes, isn't that a pity? And
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  Speaker 1: he walked away, and I'm just standing there, going I
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  Speaker 1: don't like him because I understood exactly what he was saying.
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  Speaker 1: You were an obnoxious jerk who was more concerned about
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  Speaker 1: your victory than that man's soul. That's a problem. It is.
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  Speaker 1: It is. But that's not apologetics, it's not that's just
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  Speaker 1: that's spiritual narcissism. It's not apologetics. What we're dealing with
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  Speaker 1: is not quippling over secondary or tertiary issues. That's not
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  Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. This is important. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of people are like, no, we just gotta be about
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  Speaker 1: the Gospel, right, And here's what's interesting. Look at what
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  Speaker 1: he says verse three, and apostle under the inspiration of
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit says beloved. Although I was very eager
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  Speaker 1: to write you about our common salvation. How many even
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  Speaker 1: though that's a primary issue. It's the primary issue. Amen,
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  Speaker 1: So he says, I'm the under the inspiration of the
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  Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. I was eager to write to you about
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  Speaker 1: our common salvation. I found it necessary to write Wait
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  Speaker 1: a minute, I was going to write about this. I
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  Speaker 1: find it necessary to write about that. Whatever that is
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  Speaker 1: is either part and parcel of our commonsolvation, or it
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  Speaker 1: is equally as important. Either way, we're not talking about
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  Speaker 1: a secondary issue appealing to you to contend for the
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  Speaker 1: faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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  Speaker 1: We are not talking about a secondary issue here. Apologetics
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  Speaker 1: is not about secondary issues, okay. And part of that
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  Speaker 1: is the problem with our definition and the definition that
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  Speaker 1: I'm operating off of. Is Apologetics is knowing what you believe,
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  Speaker 1: why you believe it, and being able to communicate that
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  Speaker 1: in an effective and winsome manner. Okay, knowing what you believe,
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  Speaker 1: why you believe it, being able to communicate that in
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  Speaker 1: an effective and win some it's not knowing everything about
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  Speaker 1: everything that someone could possibly ask you. This is another
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  Speaker 1: thing that keeps us away from it right, this is
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  Speaker 1: why we think it's the elite of the elite of
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  Speaker 1: the elite. Okay, No, and we'll again, we'll talk about
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  Speaker 1: that when we get to the Peter's passage. But for now, No,
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  Speaker 1: this is this is not secondary and why why is
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  Speaker 1: it not secondary? Verse four? Here's what we're getting four.
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  Speaker 1: Certain people have crypt and unnoticed who long ago were
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  Speaker 1: designated for this condemnation, ungodly people. And they do two things. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: their ungodliness is manifested in two ways. Number One, they
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  Speaker 1: pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. They turned
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  Speaker 1: grace into lawlessness. And number two, they deny our only
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  Speaker 1: master and Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, they deny our only master,
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  Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus Christ. It's interesting because what they're essentially
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  Speaker 1: doing in these in these two things, they're attacking what
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  Speaker 1: we believe and how we behave. I would say, in
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  Speaker 1: light of what we believe, right, that's that's what they're attacking.
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  Speaker 1: What are these two people doing. They're attacking what we
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  Speaker 1: believe and they're attacking how we behave. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: they're attacking the Gospel and its implications. That's why this
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  Speaker 1: is not a secondary issue. Because we engage in apologetics
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  Speaker 1: because people are attacking the Gospel and its implications. If
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  Speaker 1: somebody is denying Jesus Christ, we don't just stand there
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  Speaker 1: and sort of nod our heads and go, well, we
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  Speaker 1: gotta be nice, right. I mean if you leave here
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  Speaker 1: and you know, you say, oh, yeah, you know we
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  Speaker 1: were at this conference and there's this guy, you know,
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  Speaker 1: voting Bacam and you know, and they're like, wait, wait
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  Speaker 1: vote Bocam was teaching you. Guys said yeah, yeah, buddy, Boccam,
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  Speaker 1: may wait hold on the voti pocum. It could happen
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  Speaker 1: you laughing overhere, and you were like yeah, and they
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  Speaker 1: go wow, it's wow. I mean, like a little short
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  Speaker 1: white guy from Mississippi. Two possible responses at this point.
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  Speaker 1: You could say, you know, tolerance of all viewpoints. I
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  Speaker 1: guess that's your interpretation. Or you could say, actually, we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about two different people, and spiritually, what we've decided
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  Speaker 1: to do is the former and not the latter in
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  Speaker 1: the name of being nice. I mean, essentially, we've allowed
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  Speaker 1: people to pervert the Gospel and its implications, condemning themselves
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  Speaker 1: to hell, but we would rather they think well of
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  Speaker 1: us than to press the issue so that they might
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  Speaker 1: think well of God. This is idolatry, pure and simple.
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  Speaker 1: It's idolatry man worship, and it's the fear of man.
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  Speaker 1: It's the fear of man, and it's the worship of man,
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  Speaker 1: which all come down to the same place. You are
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  Speaker 1: at the center, not God, you the other person. I
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  Speaker 1: do not want to incur your wrath and I do
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  Speaker 1: not want to disappoint you, and so I will do
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  Speaker 1: whatever I need to do to be in your good graces.
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  Speaker 1: I will watch you go to Hell if necessary. This
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  Speaker 1: is the heart of the problem. This is the heart
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  Speaker 1: of the problem.