Tonight is Ask the Pastor night. It will be one of two of these sessions that we're going to have. And I just want to introduce this again to say that this is not Stump the Pastor, this is Ask the Pastor. I will not consider questions that are obviously just asked to make fun of something or to stump me in some way. In fact, I have scripture for that, 2 Timothy 2.23, but foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strife. So we don't want to have any strife around here. But all the questions that have been submitted have been very good questions and I think very worthy of our consideration. Before we get started, let's just have a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You have given us so much truth, so much of Your wisdom that You have recorded for us in the Scriptures that we might apply these things to our lives in very practical ways. And Lord, I just pray that as we consider these questions tonight, that it would be helpful to us, that it would be a good lesson for us in terms of applying Scripture but that it would also instill in us a confidence in Your Word, that Your Word is indeed a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, and Your Word will guide us in the way of Your wisdom. We thank You for this, in Jesus' name. Amen. And really that is the basis of our confidence in terms of answering questions that come to us in our life. We face different circumstances, different trials, different decision points that we may have in our life. And what we can learn from this tonight is that we can go to God's Word and we can find answers to life's most perplexing questions. And sometimes those answers will be very clear and obvious and direct and just come to us right off the page of Scripture. Other times we have to dig a little bit. Other times we have to approach the Scriptures and look for principles that may apply in a given situation, a given question, a given circumstance. Now I have a backlog of questions. I actually have some that were submitted last year for the Ask the Pastor and I didn't get to them. So I'm going to start with those first. And this one was submitted last year and I'll call this Contrasting Peter and Judas. And here's the question. Peter and Judas both betrayed Jesus at the end of His life and both recognized the error of their ways. Peter found faith and forgiveness, Judas found only despair. What made the difference and is there any hope for someone like this? Well I invite you to open your Bible to Matthew 26 and we'll take a look at a number of passages that may apply to this question. But I want to begin by saying to be technically correct Peter denied the Lord, whereas Judas betrayed him. And I think it's interesting that throughout the Scriptures that distinction is maintained. And so there is a difference there. But it is true that both of them recognized the error of their ways. And so if you look at Matthew 26 and verse 75, it says, And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said, unto him before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out and he wept bitterly." So it's very clear that Peter did recognize the error of his ways. He was very remorseful, very grieved over what he had done. And then turn over to Matthew 27, just down the page here, verse 3. Then Judas, which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself." So he also saw the error of his ways and he ended his life. Now the questioner states that Peter found faith and forgiveness, but Judas found only despair. What makes the difference? Well, the difference is found in the question itself. And that is the difference is faith. The difference is faith. Peter had faith and Judas surprisingly did not. Judas had that privilege of being there among the 12 who spent all that time with Jesus. But apparently he never truly became a disciple of Christ. Faith made the difference. And let's look at a few passages that highlight that difference. Look over to John chapter 6. John chapter 6 in verse 68. Now notice what he says next. and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve." Boy, that really highlights the difference, right? Judas was a devil. He was a deceiver among the twelve. Now back up just a few verses and look at verse 64. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray Him." Well among those that believed not was Judas. He's really referring to Judas there and others who may be among the disciples who were following or the supposed disciples that were following after Jesus, the crowds that were following Him. Many of them were not true disciples. Many of them were not true believers. And Judas was among those who did not believe. Judas the betrayer was among those who did not believe. John MacArthur writes this, quote, And Luke chapter 22 also paints a vivid contrast. So turn over there, Luke chapter 22 and verse 3. Now notice what happens here concerning Judas. It says, "...then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot." being of the number of the twelve. And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them." I mean, do you realize that? That Judas was demon-possessed, devil-possessed? If not possessed, at least demon-controlled. And really this simply cannot happen to believers. Believers cannot be demon-possessed. We can be troubled by Satan and his minions, but we cannot be possessed by a demon. So Judas was demon-possessed. Now look down at verse 31. You know, Satan's busy at work and he's trying to bring down Peter. And look at verse 31, And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. Now stop to think about that. This is Satan's desire to take down people who are true followers of Christ, to in some way hinder the church, the ministry of the church, the advance of the gospel around the world. Satan wants to sift you like wheat. What does Jesus do? Verse 32, But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me." So what a contrast we have here. The devil entered into Judas. The devil wanted to sift Peter like wheat, but Jesus prayed for Peter. And Peter was under divine protection from Satan. So quite a contrast that we have here. Peter already had genuine faith. Jesus prayed that his faith would not fail him. His faith would sustain him. His faith would endure this trial. And that is true of any true believer. Though we may go through dark days, though we may even struggle with sin and temptation like Peter did in denying Jesus. Nevertheless, the Lord will not give up on us and the Lord will not cause us to lose all faith. He will be with us. He will see us through. And Jesus Himself is interested in our enduring any test of our faith. Now, the last part of the question that's been posed says this, is there hope for someone like Judas? Well, the only hope for an unbeliever, of course, is found in the gospel itself. And any unbeliever has an opportunity to receive the gospel as long as they are living and breathing and walking this earth. The one who puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and trusts in Him for their salvation, that person can become a believer and can be converted. And so, yes, there is hope for someone like Judas, even the staunchest of atheists, even those who would hate the church and hate the gospel and hate Jesus and speak all kinds of blasphemies against Him, Jesus said, that can be forgiven. But to reject what the Holy Spirit is trying to bring to you in presenting the gospel to you, to reject that to your last and dying day, that is the unforgivable sin. And there is no hope for the unbeliever once he passes from this life. There is no second chance. The one who rejects the gospel is without hope if they reject it to the very end of their life. And when a person dies without faith as Judas did, their fate is sealed eternally. There is no way back. So, interesting question, quite a contrast that we see between these two individuals. And if you're interested in studying this out a little bit more, I would commend to you the book by John MacArthur, Twelve Ordinary Men. This is a book that we do have in our Resource Center. It's a very interesting read. It's one of the books, when I picked it up and started reading it, I could hardly put it down. It was such an interesting book to read. Of course, he's talking about the Twelve Apostles and he profiles them as ordinary men. ordinary people like you, like me, and yet men that the Lord used to establish His church on this earth. So thank you for that question, a very, very interesting question. I want to get to another one that's a little bit challenging for us. And so if you would turn to Hebrews chapter 3, Hebrews chapter 3, and the question is, can the saved fall away? Can the saved fall away? Here's the full question. I've always heard that once saved, always saved. Hebrews 3, verses 12-14 seems to contradict that. Can someone who is saved fall away? Or is falling away just evidence that they were never saved to begin with? Very good question. And it brings us to, here in Hebrews 3, let's read these verses, verse 12-14. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. Now the wording of the question that's been posed to us tonight probably comes from the New American Standard Bible, that translation and the way it translates verse 12. And let me read that for you from the New American Standard Bible. It reads, Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. So we have a Greek word that's been translated departing in the King James or falls away in the New American Standard. And that Greek word is aphistemi. It's kind of an interesting word. The noun form of the word is apostasis, apostasia. And that may sound a little familiar to you in terms of English words. The English word apostasy or apostatize or apostate, those words come from this Greek word. And so we might rephrase the question, can the saved apostatize? Well, the first thing we need to determine here is to whom is this warning being addressed? We see in verse 12, it says, take heed, brethren. Now brethren is a term of endearment. Often we will refer to one another brother or sister. We're talking to, we would assume we're talking to a believer. Now this is of course referring to a group of people collectively. The writer of Hebrews was collectively addressing a group of people that were predominantly believers. But his concern was that a certain one among them might have an evil heart of unbelief. That's his concern here in this passage. What is this referring to? What kind of person has an evil heart of unbelief? Well, it's commonly understood that this is referring to an unbeliever. This is referring to someone whose heart has no faith. It's an evil heart of unbelief. This is someone who has not embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ. They may be, you know, in this group of people. They may be mingling with them. They may be attending the assembly. In our day and age they may be coming to church. They may come to church every Sunday. They may be a regular attender. That doesn't automatically make them a believer. We understand that. And so the writer's concern here is here's this group of believers over here and he's writing to them and he's saying, my concern is that there's some among you that are unbelievers. Now let's look at verse 13. What were the Hebrews exhorted to do? It says there, to exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. people can get hardened by sin. They become confirmed in that sin. They become confirmed in their unbelief. We think, of course, of the Old Testament. We think of Pharaoh who hardened his heart toward God and then God hardened his heart. And so he was rejected by God And of course he was used as an example to glorify God. So here, the concern here is that these believers need to be exhorting one another, challenging one another to make sure everyone is in the faith. To make sure that they're not hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And then look at verse 14. And we might ask the question, who are the true partakers of Christ? Well, it's those who keep the faith to the end. They're the true partakers of Christ. If someone claims to be a Christian and they start down what appears to be a Christian life, but they abandon Christianity and they end their life denying Christ, we would have to confirm that that person was indeed an unbeliever at the end of their life and they never were a true believer before that. See, those who don't keep the faith to the end are not true partakers of Christ. And I would refer you to 1 John 2, verse 19, where he describes these kind of people. He says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out. that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us. What John's saying here is these people left the church, if you will, and it just made very clear that they were not true believers. They were there in the assembly among other people who were believers, but they themselves never were of us, John says. And so really all three of these verses in Hebrews chapter 3 are addressing the same issue. It's the issue of unbelief of certain individuals within the broader assembly of believers. The issue is unbelief and specifically it's the kind of unbelief that departs from or falls away from the living God as it's described here in this passage. It is the unbelief that rejects God. that rejects the salvation that God has provided. And as we look at this passage, we could maybe put on our thinking caps and try to look at it from the perspective of somebody who believes you can lose your salvation. And we read through this passage and we could almost see what they're thinking in this passage. It's a challenging passage. Does this passage describe someone who once was a true believer but now has stopped believing? Or does this passage describe someone who made a profession of faith but who now demonstrates that in fact they are an unbeliever? Of course, our position is that it's the latter. This is someone who made a profession of faith but never truly, genuinely believed. And now that they have come to that point where they are turning their back on God, they're falling away, they're departing, they're rejecting God, it's just making manifest the fact that they're not a true believer. And I'd like to give just a few supporting arguments for this position. Number one, the passage itself gives no indication of prior belief. If you read through this passage, you read through from verse 12, very clearly it's talking about someone who has an evil heart of unbelief. There's no indication of any prior belief in that statement. The second supporting argument is this, the verb ephistemi does not imply prior belief, but rather it speaks of rejecting God by rejecting the truth that He has revealed. That's really what the verb is indicating. And the third supporting argument is the tense of the verb itself is important here. It indicates a decisive point in time when a person rejects God and the gospel and becomes hardened in their unbelief. They've heard the gospel, but they've rejected it. In other passages, of course, this would be the fourth supporting argument, other passages make it clear that once someone does believe, they can never lose their salvation. Believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1.13. Believers are held securely in the hands of the Father and of the Son, John 10.27-30. And believers are kept by the power of God, 1 Peter 1.5. And that last one makes it just abundantly clear that the security of our salvation does not depend on us. It's the power of God that keeps us saved, if you will. And so the warning here of this warning passage, and this is one of the five warning passages that we find in the book of Hebrews. The warning then is to those who have heard the gospel and have rejected it. Those who have attended church and sat under the preaching of the gospel, and perhaps they have done so for many weeks or months or even years, but every time the invitation call has been given they have refused to budge, they have refused to believe, they have not truly embraced the faith. And I would say most definitely this passage is a warning passage to children who grow up in Christian homes. who have been brought to church every Sunday all their lives by their parents, and who just think that they're going to skate by. But they have never personally made that decision to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a warning for such children. You must individually receive Christ. And make sure you do so when you have the opportunity, lest your heart would be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, lest you would reach that point of rejecting God and rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ. This warning is for you. The warning is that it is possible to become so hardened in unbelief that one dies as an unbeliever. John chapter 12 verse 48, Jesus says, He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. And so the admonition is, when you hear the gospel, receive it. Don't delay, don't put it off, don't put off that decision so that you can go off and sow your wild oats and indulge in some sin. because that sin can harden your heart and confirm you in unbelief. Turn to faith in Christ before it is eternally too late. If you'd like more information on this particular question, Pastor Walker preached a message on this passage in 2011. The message is entitled, The Danger of Unbelief. And it is, by the way, one of the top 10 downloaded sermons on Sermon Audio from our church. It's a helpful sermon and I commend it to you. Well, the third question we're going to consider is going to consume the rest of the time that we have this evening. This is an important question. The question is this, along the lines of your recent Gospel for All series, how would you respond to a deist? Someone who believes in a God who created or started the world and now merely observes it, watching it and us completely fall apart. That's the way the question is worded. And so I would title this, The Gospel for Deists. Now when I was going through this series, the Gospel for All, we would take an entire Sunday evening to consider one group of people. So I've got to kind of squeeze all that down into about 20 minutes here. But let me just summarize for you a little bit about what deists believe first of all and then we'll talk about what deists need to hear. Deists emphasize the transcendence of God. Now you understand the word transcendence is referring to the fact that God is over and above all of time and space, all of creation. He is not bound by it. He is transcendent. So they emphasize the transcendence of God and deny the eminence of God. Now the word eminence is referring to the very presence of God. We talked about this this morning. You cannot go anywhere and escape the presence of God. God is here. God's power is being displayed. He is involved in His creation. That's the eminence of God. And so deists emphasize transcendence and they deny eminence. According to a deist God designed, that's the preferred word, designed the universe and then stepped back and just let it be. The God of the deist is the impersonal watchmaker God. This is an illustration that has been used to explain this. He's the watchmaker God, a God which wound up the universe like a watch and which now lets it run on its own. So that might help you to understand what a deist is thinking. So a deist does believe in God but he's a God that's out there somewhere and he's just kind of off in his own place and he's not involved at all in our world. That's the way a deist believes. Now deists trust in human reason. Reason is really king in terms of their belief system. They trust in human reason and what can be observed in nature, and these things determine what they believe, what they even believe about God. And they are skeptical of everything else. If you visit the website of the World Union of Deists, and yes, such a website exists, you will discover their motto is this, quote, God gave us reason, not religion, end quote. Interesting. So deists do not believe in miracles or anything supernatural because God's not doing anything here, you understand. They don't believe in any divine revelation. They don't believe that God is revealing anything. He's not interacting with us in any way like that. And consequently, they do not believe in the inspiration and the authority and the inerrancy of Scripture. To them, this is just a book of fiction and myths. Deists consider their belief system a, quote, natural religion or philosophy, in contrast to what they call revealed religions. You see, ours is a revealed religion, according to their terminology, because what we believe is based on what the Bible says. But they are of a completely different opinion. And so of course this creates a real barrier for us to share the gospel with a deist because as soon as we open our Bible they'll just say, tsk, put that away. Most deists have a vague conception of the afterlife. but they haven't really thought it through. They have no revelation to base anything that they believe on. And so their thinking is that there's something out there beyond this life, but they don't know what it is. They do believe in God. They somehow, many of them believe that God is going to reward good and punish evil, but they don't have any particulars because they don't have any revelation upon which to base these beliefs. Now there've been some very famous deists throughout the years. And some of these might not have called themselves Deists, but many of them would have called themselves Deists. Let me just give some names to you. First would be Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine wrote a widely published pamphlet, The Age of Reason, in 1793. And that pamphlet is still being quoted today. In fact, if you go to that website, the World Union of Deists website, they will frequently quote Thomas Paine. Then there's Benjamin Franklin. He was definitely a deist. Thomas Jefferson was certainly a deist. And there's Ethan Allen. And then there's a couple that we can't say for sure, they wouldn't come out and call themselves deists, but they seem to be deistic in their thinking and this might surprise you. George Washington and James Madison. Leonardo da Vinci was a deist. Mark Twain was a deist, and I'm not even sure that, and there are many others. Deism had its heyday in the so-called Age of Enlightenment, especially in the 18th century, and it began to fall into decline in the 19th century. And so there aren't really a whole lot of people today that would self-identify as a deist, but they are out there. They are organizing themselves and they have a website and I think they're trying to recruit more members. There are many people though that are on this planet who would consider themselves an agnostic. And many people who call themselves an agnostic kind of believe somewhat like a deist. So if you ask an agnostic, do they believe in God, they usually can't be, quote, very sure. But many of them are kind of sort of sure or maybe thinking maybe possibly there is a God. OK, I would put them in the broad category of deists. And then there are actually many who profess to be Christians. But in terms of the way they believe and think and the way they live their lives, for all intents and purposes, we would consider them practical deists. Because as far as they're concerned, they're able to live their lives any way they please and God isn't going to do anything about it. That would be a practical deist. Well, that's what deists believe. What do deists need to hear? Well, as I emphasized in our series, The Gospel for All, they need to hear the same gospel message that everyone needs to hear. It's the same gospel. It's the same gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the message that by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to pay for our sins, through faith in Him, a deist can be saved. They need to hear the message of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel for all. It's the gospel for the deist too. But we recognize that as we approach different people, we have to kind of start at different points to get them to that place where we can present the gospel to them. And I would say a very good place to start with a deist is by sharing your own salvation testimony. Because in doing so, you are presenting the truths of the gospel, but you're also informing that deist that you have personally been touched by God, that you have personally been reached by the revelation of God. the truths of the gospel, and that you have become a changed person as a result of that. You're challenging their whole philosophical system in sharing your personal salvation testimony, especially if you can get other people to come and share their salvation testimony. And this deist starts to realize, you know, maybe there is something to this. May have been thinking wrongly all this time. So begin with your salvation testimony. But after you've shared your salvation testimony, there would be generally two ways to deal with a deist from that point forward. The first way would be apologetically, to use apologetics. And this is an approach that has been tried for decades, actually for centuries. The Anglican Bishop Joseph Butler took this approach in his treatise, The Analogy of Religion, which he published in 1736. And this was a direct challenge to the deist. For the deist to contemplate human consciousness after death, to contemplate man's moral nature, to contemplate the moral government of God, which is implied in God's natural government, to contemplate life on earth as a state of probation, that is, before facing God. And Butler encouraged the deist to reason not in absolute terms, but in terms of probability. That is to say, not everything is so black and white. Sometimes we need to think in terms of probability. What is the most likely scenario? What is the most likely explanation for what we see, say, in creation? Well, that has already brought the deist to the point of recognizing that there is a designer, there is a creator. And so the deist has already made some inferences. He's already looked at nature and he's thought it through what is most probable here. When I look at the complexities that I see in nature, there is a designer, there is a creator, there is a God. And so encourage the deist to think in probability terms. So you might pose some questions like this. You might ask the philosophical question. Deism supposedly relies only on facts and reason. How then can you be so sure that God does not interact with His creation when the evidence provided by Christians the world over is that God does personally interact with them. So now you've shared your salvation testimony with them and maybe you've had some of your friends share salvation testimony with them and then you extrapolate from that and you say, and there's millions of us that have been personally reached by God, affected by God's revelation. Why is it you can be so sure that God doesn't interact with His creation when I've given you all this evidence that He does? This is an apologetic argument, but it's one that really might get the deist to think. Here's another approach. You might ask questions pertaining to the personal nature of God. That is, God is a person. He's personal. He's not impersonal. You might pose it this way. From the nature of man, we can observe that man is, number one, intelligent. Number two, self-aware. Number three, volitional. That is, we have a will, we make choices. Number four, we're moral. We have a compass, which is our conscience. Number five, we are social. Number six, we are able to communicate. Now all these things are true of humans, right? And then get the deist to stop and think about this. Is it not reasonable to conclude that the Creator God surpasses all of these capacities that we find in His created being? So you're getting the deist to realize that if God is so much out there, He's so great and He's able to create all of this, is He not greater than us? Is He not bigger than us? Of course He is. And so in terms of intelligence or self-awareness or the ability to make choices or in terms of morals, in terms of being social and wanting to interact with his creation and his ability to communicate. God surpasses us in all of these things. It's just reasonable to conclude that. All right, here's another apologetic approach. We might focus on the omnipotence of God. You might pose a question like this. If God is the Creator of the natural universe and transcendent over it, and the deist is with you so far, is it not reasonable to conclude that God is the Creator of the laws of nature and therefore transcendent over them? Now this is going to get them to start to think a little bit about that because they're all about the laws of nature. They're thinking that God started up the universe, wound it up like a clock and stepped away and now everything's running according to the laws of nature, you see. And you're getting the deist to realize that God is transcendent over the laws of nature. Okay? Then you take them to the next step. And if He is transcendent, then does He not have the ability to do supernatural works? And if He has the ability, is it not probable that He would choose to do so whenever He wishes? So you're helping the deist to think this through. You're challenging their system of thinking. You're getting them to realize, well, if God is transcendent over the laws of nature, then it is at least probable that He is able to do something super above the laws of nature, supernatural. He's able to. Well, yes, He's able to. And if He's able to, will He not do it whenever He chooses? You're really challenging the deist in terms of what they believe about God. But, you know, all of these apologetic arguments are kind of, well, they're just shallow. You're really not going to get anywhere truly with a deist or any person until you actually share truth from Scripture. You're hoping that through all this that somehow you're getting that deist to the point where you can at least, you know, get your Bible open and share some Scripture with them or kind of sneak a quotation of Scripture without them noticing maybe. But it's the power of the Word of God that's really going to reach them. Right? We think of Romans 10, 17, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So we really need to get to the point where we're sharing Scripture with the deist. And so I want to move on to the second main way that we would try to reach a deist, and that is scripturally. We really need to find ways to direct the deist to the Scriptures and then to hone in and focus on the gospel message itself. And so challenge them directly. How can you assume that God, who most certainly is capable of intelligent communication, has not communicated with mankind if you haven't even read the Bible and the Bible's claims to such revelation? Okay, you're challenging them. You're saying, you know, how can you be informed in your beliefs if you haven't even read the very book that you deny is revelation from God? How can you be so sure? You know, you're presuming that it's not revelation. You need to challenge them to get in the Bible. You could also challenge them this way. This would be a second challenge. If human reason can lead us to God, then should you not read what the wisest man who ever lived wrote about God? Where do we find that? It's in the Bible. Who's the wisest man that ever lived? Of course, putting aside Christ, who's the wisest man? Solomon, okay? Proverbs 9, verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. What does that imply? God can be known. God has made Himself known. God has revealed Himself to us. Solomon also wrote this, Ecclesiastes 12, verses 13 and 14. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." You see, the deist believes that in the end God is going to reward good and punish evil. But Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, knew that God is going to do so according to an objective standard and that is His commandments. Where do we find His commandments? In the Bible. This is God's divine revelation to us. God has revealed His commandments to us and this is the standard by which He will judge. So Solomon claimed that God will judge us objectively on the basis of His commandments, on the basis of the Scriptures. And of course we know that no one can live up to God's righteous standard that He's laid down in His commandments and therefore that opens the door for a presentation of the Gospel, that it is by grace and not by works. Well, a third thing that you might do to approach the deist scripturally is to ask the deist what he or she believes about Jesus. Now, it's important to ask this question because deists are all over the map on this. Some of them will go so far as to deny that Jesus was even a historical person. But others of them, and many of them actually, will believe that Jesus was a historical person, but He has been made into something supernatural and able to do all these miracles. They think all of this has been added on to the historical Jesus. They'll use the word mythologized. Jesus has been mythologized. All these myths have been added to the true events that took place and that's why they say that we can't believe what the Bible says about Jesus. But find out what the deist does believe. And then invite the deist to examine Jesus' teaching. And here's something that Jesus said. So you've already talked to them about the wisest man who ever lived, that's Solomon. And here's what Jesus says in Matthew 12, 42. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it. For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater than Solomon is here. So truly Jesus was the wisest man who ever lived because he was even greater than Solomon in wisdom. And if Jesus taught with such wisdom, should not the deist at least read what Jesus taught? Should they not be informed? So challenge the deist to read what Jesus taught. And challenge the deist to consider the evidence of Jesus' resurrection. Now you want to kind of work your way into this point. This is not something that you would necessarily hit on right away, but you want to establish, hopefully you have the opportunity to establish a relationship, a friendship kind of with the deist and you're having this ongoing dialogue with them. You've kind of gone past all of those apologetic arguments and you've gotten to the point where at least they're open to hearing some scripture and you're kind of walking them through these things. And ultimately you want to challenge them with the evidence of Jesus' resurrection. And you want to put the burden of proof on them. to disprove the biblical accounts on the basis of, quote, better evidence. Okay, is there any better evidence? No. What we have preserved in the Scriptures is historically accurate. We know that. We know that we can trust the Scriptures. Besides, God has providentially preserved these Scriptures for us. They haven't been polluted or corrupted over the years, over the centuries. So we know we can trust our Bibles. But the deist thinks we can't trust the Bible. Well, challenge them to find something better. And they need to go and look at the biblical accounts and disprove that Jesus rose from the dead. Well, they can't do that because it's true. Jesus is risen. And what you want to do as you depart, every time you end the conversation with the deist, and move on, you want to kind of leave them with a nugget of scripture. Quote a Bible verse. Leave them with a scripture that might just be used of the Holy Spirit to work on their hearts, to soften their hearts toward the truth of the gospel. Isaiah 57, 15 says this, For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place." Now all of that is speaking of God's transcendence. Okay, you're reading that verse and as far as the deist is concerned, they're nodding their head, yes. But look at what the rest of the verse says. God says, I dwell with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. That's a great verse to challenge a deist in their thinking to realize that God, yes, He's transcendent, but He's also eminent. He's also interacting with His creation. He is also personally involved in people's lives. And He will dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit. You might quote Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, God has spoken. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. There's a lot of revelation in that passage and so you could take them to that and you're challenging them directly from the scriptures on what they believe and what they think. You might quote Hebrews 11, verse 6, So the deist who believes in God and believes that there is life after death and that God is going to reward good and punish evil, You know, you're telling this deist, but you must have faith. You cannot please God. You cannot please this transcendent God unless you have faith. And you're challenging them from the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit can use that verse and that deist's heart to trouble them until they come to that point of saving faith. Now, I looked all over to try to find some resources that might be directly targeted at witnessing to Deus, and I really wasn't able to find anything. I was kind of surprised at that. If you find something, I'd be glad if you would share that with me. But I mentioned the importance of the resurrection, and I would refer you back to a sermon I preached April 8, 2012, entitled, He is Risen, evidence for the resurrection. And in that sermon, I took pretty much an apologetic approach, looking at the evidence that we see presented concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how all of the other ideas that have come up to try to explain it away just have holes in them that you can drive a truck through. So that would be a good sermon to share with a deist. Well, thank you for asking these questions. And we are out of time. And so I will get to some more questions next Sunday evening. And there are still more coming in. So we may actually have a third session at some point, maybe later on in the fall. And so keep those questions coming. I really appreciate it. This just, again, is to show us that the Bible has answers. The Bible has answers to our most challenging questions. to our most perplexing circumstances, our most difficult decisions, we can go to the Scriptures and we can find help in those times. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that Your Word is so helpful to us, so practical. We thank You, Lord, for the truths that it contains. From the very beginning where we learn of creation to the very end, when we see a new heaven and a new earth and all of the things that transpire between those two ends. We thank you, Lord, that you have given us your word, that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, that by it we are warned and we can find great reward. We thank you for these things in Jesus' name. Amen.