Growing Deep

Growing Deep in the Gospel

Defending the GospelDefending the Gospel

Why Defend the Gospel?

Why Defend

the Gospel?

Why Defend the Gospel?

1. It is one of the ways we love others.2. It goes hand-in-hand with evangelism.3. To remove obstacles to belief.4. It helps Christians to know their faith.5. To protect the Church from heresy.6. To follow the Biblical examples.7. Because the Bible tells us to.

What is Apologetics?

What is Apologetics?

It comes from a Greek word apologia which means to give a reason or defense.

… always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you…

1 Peter 3:15 (NKJ)

What is Apologetics?

Apologetics is presenting reasonable defenses for the truth of the gospel and Christianity.

Goal of Apologetics

Goal of Apologetics

1. To strengthen and to mature the faith of Christians.

2. To remove obstacles and clarify issues in order to bring unbelievers to a recognition of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and have them repent and put their faith in Him.

Angry Young ManWhy Do People

Refuse to Believe in

God?

Why Believe?

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV 84)

Why Believe?Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.

Romans 2:14-16 (NLT)

Why Believe?

The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The sk ies d isplay h is craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.

Psalm 19:1-2 (NLT)

Why Believe?

...since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:19-20 (NIV)

Face in Shadow

Bible

Why Unbelief?

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT)

Why Unbelief?

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,who put darkness for light and light for darkness,

Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

“The atheist does the opposite of the regular idolater. He quote-mines the Scriptures and searches out the harsher judgments of God, and builds an image of God he finds to be repulsive. Then, once he has made his idol, he flatly rejects it. And so he should. The image that he has made of God is evil. It is without love and mercy. And so the atheist has the same problem as the idolater. The image only exists in the atheist’s place of imagery...in his imagination.”

Ray Comfort

Why Unbelief?

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Psalm 14:1-3 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (NLT)

Why Unbelief?

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

John 3:19-21 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

1 John 4:4-6 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.

Ephesians 4:17-19 (NLT)

Why Unbelief?The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:18-20 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Romans 1:21-23 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Romans 1:24-25 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts w i th o ther men , and rece ived in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Romans 1:26-27 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

Romans 1:28 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey t h e i r p a r e n t s ; t h e y h a v e n o understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Romans 1:29-31 (NIV)

Why Unbelief?

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Romans 1:32 (NIV)

Why People Refuse to Believe1. Their hearts are deceitful, wicked, darkened

and hard.2. They love sin and darkness; hate God and

the light; want to be their own god.3. They are alienated from God and His life.4. Their minds are corrupt, they suppress the

truth, their thinking is futile, they are ignorant and are enemies in their minds.

5. They are not thankful.6. They are prideful and arrogant.7. They are blinded by Satan.

The Making of an Atheist

“How do leading atheists account for their unbelief? As one reads Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens, two principal lines of argument emerge: the problem of evil and the scientific irrelevancy of God.”

Problem of Evil

...one cannot, whether by appeals to evil or anything else, eliminate the need to explain the existence of the universe.

At most, evil should prompt us to reconsider what kind of God exists, not whether God exists.

Scientic Irrelevancy

The notion that science is sufficient to account for a l l of human knowledge and experiences.

Naturalism can explain neither the existence of the cosmos nor its vast instances of design.

Descent into Atheism

1. Precipitated by some personal rebellion.

2. Withdrawal from contact with fellow believers.

3. Growing doubts about their faith.

4. Continued indulgence in sin.

5. Conscious rejection of God.

Descent into Atheism

Because God failed to live up to their expectations or allowed something bad to happen.

Willful Rebellion

Faith of the Fatherless by Paul C. Vitz, teaches psychology at New York University. (atheist who became Catholic)

Intellectuals by 20th century historian Paul Johnson.

Degenerate Moderns by E. Michael Jones

Willful Rebellion

Reflecting on his change of mind, Vitz observes that his “reasons” for becoming an atheist in the first place, during his college years, were not intellectual so much as social and psychological.

Willful Rebellion

“The philosophical systems and social ideals of many modern intellectuals were decided by their will to be immoral, not their quest for truth. They wrote the books they did to suit their personal lives, not vice versa.”

Paul Johnson

Willful Rebellion

“ T h e r e a r e u l t i m a t e l y o n l y t w o alternatives in the intellectual life: either one conforms desire to truth or one conforms truth to desire...”

E. Michael Jones

Willful Rebellion

“For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the phi losophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

Aldous Huxley

Willful Rebellion

“We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless.”

Aldous Huxley

Willful Rebellion

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I’m right about my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

Thomas Nagel - Atheist Philosopher

Descent into Atheism Summary“The descent into atheism is caused by a complex of moral-psychological factors, not a perceived lack of evidence for God’s existence. The atheist willfully rejects God, though this is precipitated by immoral indulgences and typically a broken relationship with his or her father. Thus the choice of the atheistic paradigm is motivated by non-rational factors, some of which are psychological and some of which are moral in nature.”

James S. Spiegel

Willful Blindness

“This is where our willful blindness originates: in the innate human desire for familiarity, for likeness, that is fundamental to the ways our minds work.”

Willful Blindness

“That we fight so hard to protect our self-esteem is a universal. It doesn’t matter how successful or wealthy people are. They all need to feel they’re good people, even, or especially, when they’re bad.”

Willful Blindness

“It feels easier to be blind than to deal with uncomfortable feelings.”

Willful Blindness

“If you maintain an illusion, you don’t have to make the hard choices. Life just goes on. But if you accept reality, it forces a huge decision and many people want to avoid that.”

Willful Blindness“Nations, institutions, individuals can all be blinded by love, by the need to believe themselves good and worthy and valued. We simply could not function if we believed ourselves to be otherwise. But when we are blind to the flaws and failings of what we love, we aren’t effective either. As Colm O’Gorman said, we make ourselves powerless when we pretend we don’t know. That is the paradox of blindness: We think it will make us safe even as it puts us in danger.”

Willful Blindness

“Much of our identity is defined by what we believe and we actively seek confirmation of those beliefs. Actually, we go even further: Our brains treat differently any information that might challenge our closely held beliefs.”

Willful Blindness

“Fear of change and fear of conflict have the same effect.”

Willful Blindness

“As human beings, we are highly driven to find and to protect the relationships that make us feel good about ourselves and that make us feel safe. That’s why we marry people like us, live in neighbourhoods full of people like us, and work with people like us. Each one of those mirrors confirms our sense of self-worth.”

Why Willful Blindness?

1. To feel good about ourselves2. To confirm our sense of self-worth3. To protect our self-esteem, even if we’re bad4. To avoid uncomfortable feelings5. So you don’t have to make hard choices6. To believe we are good, worthy and valued7. To confirm what we already believe8. To feel safe and avoid change and conflict

Heart Idols

1. Comfort/Security

2. Affirmation/Approval

3. Power/Control

What Can We Do to

Help People Find

God?

Address the Heart

1. Pray for God to open their hearts - Acts 16:142. Pray for wisdom and guidance3. Love them and invite them into your life4. Live out the gospel in front on them5. Show them that no one comes to God in their

own power or thinking6. Encourage them to seek God7. Ask Questions8. Show them what is needed most to find God

Show Them

For those God fo reknew he a lso predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Romans 8:29-30 (NIV)

Show Them

… just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Ephesians 1:4-5 (NKJ)

Encourage Them

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 4:29 (NIV)

Encourage Them

…For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him. But if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.

1 Chronicles 28:9 (NLT)

Encourage Them

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJ)

Encourage Them

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Acts 17:26-27 (NIV)

Encourage Them

For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:12-13 (NIV)

Encourage Them

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

Hebrews 11:6 (NLT)

Questions to Ask

What do you mean that you don’t believe in God?Why do you believe there is no God?If there is no God how did the universe come into existence?If God was real would you want Him in your life?

Why are you so angry when I talk about God?

What is Needed Most

A Humble and Sincere Heart

…God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

James 4:6, 10 (NKJ)

A Humble Prayer

“God, if You are real, I want You in my life. I beg You, please open up my heart to You and give me understanding of You and the truth.”

Reection

How would you summarize why people refuse to believe in God?

What are the best things we can do to help people believe in God?

Growing Deep

Grow Deep!

Man Reading

Bible

Despreisus.roupper part

despreisus.ro

Despreisus.ro lower part

Last Word

Take a hold of the gospel so

Jesus can take a hold of you!

Last Word

Take a hold of the gospel so

Jesus can take a hold of you!

Last Word

Take a hold of the gospel so

Jesus can take a hold of you!

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9 (NIV)