It's a pleasure for me to be with you this evening. Normally I'd like to preach, but this is just teaching. And if we were a little bit smaller and a more intimate group, we could just have question and answer while I'm teaching. So while I'm speaking, if something's not clear, feel free to raise your hand. It doesn't mean I'll answer. But feel free at least to raise raise your hand and I'll try to address questions. Well, we're going to talk about apologetics tonight and three other Sunday evenings. And I would like to begin with a biographical introduction before we get into the topic. And the biographical introduction will hopefully explain the way in which I'll be teaching apologetics these four evenings. Apologetics is real important to me. It's real important to all of us, but it's been something that's been important to me for a long time in terms of my studies and in terms of use. It's an important part of the ministry the Lord has given to me. And as I'm presenting apologetics tonight and over the next three nights, there'll be something that I hope is conspicuously absent. I won't use names in terms of schools in Reformed apologetics, that there's this school, and there's that school, and this school is a good school, and that school is a bad school, and let's beat up on the bad one and embrace the good one. In terms of my own biography, one of the major schools is what's called evidentialism. And Dr. Gershner was probably the best proponent of that school when he was alive. And he was my teacher and friend. So in terms of biography, I just want to let you know that I know the school in terms of friendship as well as academics. It was Dr. Gershner's recommendation that was the best for me when I applied at Westminster Seminary, even though Dr. Gerstner and I didn't always agree on everything. We remained friends. And also in terms of another school of apologetics, I taught at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia and had a good friend who was an old Dutchman who also headed up a school that's well known in reformed apologetics. And then finally, there's a third school. And if what I'm saying now doesn't make any sense, that means you're under 40. And that's OK. I'm over 40. So these names are important to me, anyway. And there's a third school a guy used to teach at Butler University and then at Covenant College. And he was a friend, too. So in terms of apologetic schools, when I speak about one or about another, I'm speaking about people. I'm speaking more about not just ideas that are floating abstractly in the sky, but these are ways that Christ can be presented to other people. So my hope tonight, beginning tonight, and in the next three weeks afterwards, is to present a biblical defense, a way to biblically defend Christianity, and hopefully it won't have a school name attached to it. What I want to do is, I'm not preaching, but it's the Word. I want to present the Word and what does the Word say about itself and how it can be, how unbelievers can hear the word of Christ and how can we argue in a manner that gives Christ glory. So, in the four weeks that I have with you, I'll have three topics. First of all, we'll define apologetics. That's what we'll do tonight. Secondly, we'll talk about the practice of apologetics, and I would suspect that I'll spend the most time on that. Then thirdly, we'll talk about the goal of apologetics. So tonight we'll talk about the nature of apologetics, then the practice of apologetics, then the goal. Let me, since tonight I'll be talking about how apologetics is defined, let me go to the practice of apologetics, and then the goal of apologetics, and then turn to the first the first one in just a minute. When we practice apologetics, where we'll spend most of our time, is to talk to unbelievers and speak to them to speak precisely where they are. That is to speak to an unbeliever in a way that they can understand. In apologetics, what we'll do is answer their questions. Simply answer their questions. and will also challenge their falsehoods. We'll restate the truths of God in a way that they will be able to understand. And the goal of apologetics, where I'll spend probably the least amount of time, is in fact our goal is to have the non-Christian acknowledge God as their ultimate starting point. And they can only do that through conversion, ultimately. And we'll also challenge them to forsake the human mind itself as their, what we'll call, the ultimate starting point and give God the rightful place in their lives. And we can't do that, there's no human persuasion that can do that. So tonight we'll define apologetics and spend most of the time in the time remaining looking at the practice of apologetics. Now I recognize that I'm not across the street at the college. I'm not down in Pittsburgh at the seminary. We're here in the church. So, what's the most formal definition of apologetics I can give you? You have your pencils ready? It's simply defending the Christian world and life view against other world and life views. Defending not that God exists. Defending not just that Jesus is alive. But it's, to speak precisely, the whole shooting match. It's the whole ball of wax. It's the whole world and life view. What it is to be a Christian from 6 a.m. Monday morning till 6 p.m. Sunday evening the week later. How we view all of reality. It's the defense of that great big picture against those who have another picture of reality. It's not so hard. But it takes a little bit of Bible study. So let's turn in our Bibles to understand the defense of the Christian world and life view as a unit. And to understand the Christian world and life view as a unit, we go to God's Word and we turn to the book of Genesis and we see the Christian world and life view being unfolded there in the garden. As we turn to the creation narrative, we see that God made everything good. And in the first chapter, God begins to tell us that he is making, in verse 26, man in our image, in our likeness. And this man that is being created has a task already. As he's created in the image of God, he's created to rule. He's created to rule over the fish and the livestock. Now why is he created? To rule. Because he's made in the image of God. And God rules. He rules and reigns over his creation. So as we begin to look at God's Word, we see something about the nature of God and the nature of humanity. God reigns and rules. We reign and rule as his image bearer. Then the Lord continues in verse 28. were to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and to subdue it. Again, the notion of ruling comes into play. We're to rule over all of these things. Now, why are we fruitful? Why do we subdue the earth? Well, God is not fruitful in terms of bearing children, but he is fruitful in his creativity. And once again, as he rules, so we find we rule. Then in verse 29, God begins to give Adam commands concerning life on the earth. Here's everything to eat in the NIV that I have in front of you. I give you every seed bearing plant. These will be for your food. Every green plant is given for your food. Now, as Adam is created in the garden, just like us, he needed to eat. But eating is something that needs a commandment. Something as important as eating is given specific instructions by God. You're to eat of these plants and later, of course, will be the prohibition. You may not eat of this one particular fruit. So if we think about something as basic in terms of life as eating, we try to have three meals a day. God is in control not just of the abstract notion of ruling and reigning, but he's also in control of the very practical day-to-day work of eating food. Adam, before there is sin, needs to eat and needs to be instructed by God in how to eat. These things are good. This one thing is really bad. Now, it may look good, but to eat it is death. So it is bad. And how does Adam know that this fruit that's on the tree is bad? Do you think that it looked ugly? Do you think that it had briars and thorns? Well, as a matter of fact, the Bible tells us it's pleasing to the eye. Remember as Eve is offering it? It's good for food, and it will make us wise. It was probably just as attractive as any of the other fruit. So what made it a fruit of death? A fruit of poison? It was the Word of God. The command of God. So I submit to you this. Do you know that in the Garden of Eden, God is giving to Adam and to Eve an entire system of ethics? It is good before sin, to do what God commands. It's bad to do what God commands not to be done. So, Adam is to rule and reign like God. Adam is to eat certain food at God's command. And Adam knows the difference between beauty and ugliness. Between good and evil before the fall from the mouth of God. In the beginning, God put us in the garden, yes, to take care of it, but he also gave to us everything that is necessary for life. As the story continues, we notice in verse 18 of chapter 2 that God notices and cares enough for Adam that it's not good for him to be alone and Eve is made. He makes a suitable helper. He doesn't make a hippo or a giraffe He doesn't make some other type of creature. He makes Eve. He makes woman for man. And he gets pretty excited when he sees her. She's perfect for him. Then the fall comes. And the fall is a miserable story. But before we finish all the good part, do we know about Adam's self-identity before the fall? Do we know what Adam knew about himself before the fall? Now at this point you may be saying, oh man, how do we know that from the Scripture? Self-identity of Adam before the fall? But think about Adam from the first day of his birth. I said birth, didn't I? First day of his formation. He wasn't born a little baby. He didn't have a belly button. And the narrative is beautiful. God, in a sense, makes this gingerbread man. You see that? You've read it a hundred times. He goes down and he kind of scoops up the earth and he has it in his hands. It's a beautiful story. And he breathes the breath of life into the mouth of Adam. So, I see Adam as a big, fully formed man at this point, because he's got to do all this work and he's ready to be with Eve. He's not a little boy, he's a man. And as the breath of life is blown into his nostrils, can you see the gingerbread man suddenly open his eyes? He's been kissed by God. And as he opens his eyes, he sees his father. He, as the mother, carries the little baby and nurses her baby and cares for her baby. The Lord wants us to see Adam as being swept up in the arms of God and given a kiss, a breath, an intimate blowing of life from the mouth of God into the mouth of Adam. So Adam opens his eyes and he knows that God exists. And he knows that he's a creature in God's garden. And that it's God's garden. And he hears God commanding him, be fruitful, multiply, take care of this earth, eat this food, don't eat this food. He recognizes God as his king, his lord, but more. He's also, can I say playmate? Now we can't say that, I know this is church. But look at the narrative again in terms of naming the animals. You're to rule over the animals, and by the way, I'm going to bring the animals to you. And if you'll look at it while I'm speaking, you'll see that there's an excitement on God's part to see what Adam is going to call these different animals. Now God could call the hippo, hippo. But he wants to see what Adam will call Hippo, which is water horse in Greek. It's a big fat water horse. So his name is Hippo. By the name, the wording of Adam, God is working with him. They are in this relationship. It's like the family naming business. Except it's Adam who's taking charge and God is being the bring over the animals gopher. How much more intimacy can anyone want? Such intimacy with God was part of Adam's everyday experience. And I submit to you that that's normal. Intimacy with God, knowing that God exists, from the heart yielding obedience to him, not wanting to eat bad, evil fruit. and wanting to do those things that he commands. And they weren't too burdensome. He has to take care of a garden and there's no weeds. He has to love Eve. A tough job again. So, it's just good or good for Adam. And he's with God and the sad part of The fall, when we read the fall, the narrative says, and God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And it sounds as if it's as normal as saying, and this morning Titus shaved his face. Well, no big deal. He shaves his face every morning, most of the time. And God was walking through the garden in the cool of the day as if this is a normal thing for him to leave the realms of glory and to take a walk in his garden. This is intimacy. We were created to be intimate with God. And when people aren't intimate with God, they have issues. And that's where apologetics comes in. Does that make sense? So in the beginning it was good, but the evil one intruded himself, and he tricked Eve and Adam, and he presented to Eve a non-Christian world and life view. From the very beginning, the issue is of course power and control, but from the very beginning the issue is Whose world and life view will win? Has God really said, the evil one asked? And finally, when she's listening, he says, you will not die. And I submit to you that the evil one's argument hasn't really changed much over the centuries. We stand with the Word, and we don't receive the intimacy of the kiss, and we don't hear the command the way Adam did, but in fact, we hear the Word of God preached. And we are now tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, and even greater intimacy. So things have not really changed, and apologetics is simply recognizing the reality that there is a true world in my view and set against it is a false, evil world in my view. Satan presents to Adam and Eve a reality that is skewed. If you eat this fruit, you will obtain things that you don't have. Now, what were they going to obtain? They'll be like God. Well, tell me how they weren't like God. It says they're created in his image. He's having this intimate relationship with them. They're ruling and reigning just like God. So how much more like God could you want to be? Well, the answer is easy. It's wanting to be the creator rather than the creature. We are creatures created by God in God's playground. When we're in heaven, we will be creatures created by God in God's playground. We'll never be the creator. But the sinful human heart wants to be set free from the shackles of God. We want the freedom to be laws unto ourselves. We want to call the shots. We want to say that evil is good and good is evil. And when we do that, we're askew. We're out of sync with reality. Our world doesn't fit because we can't escape God's world. This is God's world. All worlds are God's world. So anytime someone tries to persuade us that there's some other reality, some other world, well, they're just giving us emptiness. And that's what the evil one gave to Eve. It was emptiness that brought death. Oh, she knew good and evil, didn't she, afterwards, and so did Adam. But they knew it in a way they should never have experienced. They knew evil because they were evil. And now they are unlike God. Satan claims to be like God, where, of course, lies. They lost what they had. And they went from that which is good to that which is hideous. That's in the garden. And we also learn some other things just looking at the garden. God spoke definitively to Adam and Eve. He spoke to them with authority. He spoke to them words of truth. It was true that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, they would die. It was true that it was good for them to be fruitful and multiply. Can God ever speak words that are not true? Of course not. He is truth. So when he speaks, whether it's to Adam in the garden or to us in his word, his words will be true. We can bank on the truthfulness of his word. Jesus in the book of Revelation tells us, if anybody adds to this book or takes away from this book, may all these plagues be on them. He is truth. He is the incarnation of truth. You believe that, don't you? But Adam and Eve doubted that truth and that was the beginning of their descent. When you and I doubt that truth, we fall into trouble. So apologetics is also defending what we read about in the book of Genesis. That is, that God exists and that he loved us enough to speak to us. It's an act of condescension on his part. Why does he walk through the garden in the cool of the day? It's not as if he needed some shade. Why does he play with Adam, bringing the animals for them to be named? It's not that he was bored. It's because he loved him. Why does he give commands? Because he loves him. We parents know, of course in my family I never had to say this, that I'm saying these hard words because I love you. In other families apparently parents have to do that. But after a while actually the kids know that we say it because we love them. If we didn't love them we'd say nothing and they would go to jail. So even words of warning and words of command are loving words when they're from a loving parent or a father who's the creator. So the Christian world and life view is based upon the reality of creation itself. That God exists. That he cares enough for us to speak to us in his word. And as we confront the non-Christian, have you ever had this happen? You know, you tell the non-Christian, I go to Geneva College, you know, that's the one up in Beaver, yeah, that one. Oh, that Christian, yeah, the Covenant, yes. So, like, you really believe that Bible stuff, right? And we all, you know, you kind of put your head down and you say, well, yes, and we stumble around. But then, we're starting to sound like Eve, aren't we? As she listened to the to the talking of the serpent and eventually was wooed by him, why don't we take the attitude when somebody challenges us, say about the Bible, well, let me tell you about somebody who loves me, who happens to be the creator. Let me tell you about the book that he's given to me, about himself. And when we see the scriptures, the word of God as a loving act of condescension on God's part, it becomes more precious to us. It's an extension of himself. as, say, you're engaged to someone and you have to be separated, you'll write letters explaining how you think and feel, and those letters are precious to your fiancé. So God writes to us these precious letters from Genesis to Revelation. And after the fall, we see almost immediately that God makes two kinds of people. We sing about these all the time in the Psalms. In Psalm 2, for example, we sing about the kings of the earth who are in plots and they're trying to overthrow the king. Those people we call the ghosts. And the sheep are the people, as Titus was reading from Exodus, the sheep are the ones who are called together by God. They enter into covenant with God like Adam's covenant with God. and they receive commands on how to worship. They are the people of God. That's the sheep. So you've got two kinds of people in the Bible. It transcends issues of black and white, male and female, rich and poor. There are only two kinds of people according to the Word of God. The sheep and the goats. So as sheep, we look at the world from the eyes of being sheep. And then there's the Canaanites, and the Moabites, and the Jebusites, and the Perizzites, and the Mosquitobites. All those people who just hate our world and my view. We call them goats, and in fact, the interaction between Israel, the sheep, and the goats at times is pretty bloody. God commands the people of God to take from the wicked ones. And the wicked ones, for example, the Egyptians, As we think about the slavery that they underwent in Egypt, Pharaoh is Satan himself. Pharaoh was like a roaring lion seeking to devour the people of God. Things have not changed, dear brothers and sisters. The evil one is still like a roaring lion seeking to devour us. And we need to stand, and as was mentioned earlier, be ready with joy, with courage. Be ready to give an account for that hope that is within us. Because as we look at the Word of God, as we see the Christian world and life view, there's one thing, dear people of God, that we can know. We can know that God exists. That He has created this world. that He has made us in His image. And that applies, by the way, to the non-Christian as well as to the Christian. After the fall, although the image is marred, it is not obliterated. The man and the woman who are outside of Christ are still there, the image of God. And the repercussions of that are, of course, enormous in terms of issues like abortion and euthanasia. But as we stand before those who are unbelievers and they fight against the king, as they stand against Messiah and his sway, they're the ones who are in the wrong world. They're the ones who see things through rose-colored glasses. It's not us. We know the truth because the truth is given to us by God. And it's our task to speak back to them. The truth. In conclusion, as we think about our interaction with unbelievers. The truth is that your neighbors, your friends who don't know Christ are running headlong to death. The truth is that outside of Christ, there's nothing but misery. There is no certainty. There's no love. And that's while we're still here on the earth. And ultimately, there's hell and destruction. So what's the most loving thing that we can do as we interact with the non-Christian? Can we say to the person who has terminal cancer, well, it just seems to be a chest cold. It seems that you have the flu. Is that the most loving way to interact with that person? No. No, we speak the truth in love. is that person is running headlong into a buzzsaw. Don't we shout and say, stop, stop, that is the way of destruction. With a person who appears to be suave and sophisticated, the person who has it all together, you know they're wearing a mask. So what good is it to say, boy, that's a lovely mask. The best thing is to tear the mask off and say, you're ugly. You need to get made whole. Stop pretending. And finally, guess what? Paul tells us, we'll see next time in Romans 1, that in fact, they know that God exists. And in fact, you'll have occasion. when someone will say.