worship. Returning in Philippians chapter
1 verse 16, now if someone's using the King James Version, Actually, verses 16 and 17 are
in different order. That is, what we find here in
the NIV in verse 17 is actually verse 16 in the King James, and
then our verse 16 is verse 17 in the King James. It's not an
important issue, and I don't know why the modern translations
have them in the order we have, but the King James has them the
other way. In verse 16 of Philippians 1,
we read, the latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here
for the defense of the gospel. Now this morning's message was
prompted by a conversation I had with one of the sisters last
week, and the word apologetics or apologetical came up. In that
particular conversation, it was used to describe a particular
style of preaching. A certain preacher was said to
have an apologetic or apologetical style. And the reason we're using this
particular verse is because the word translated defense is the
Greek word apologia. Our word apologetic comes from
this Greek word. Now, this word apologetic or
apologetical can be used to describe a style of preaching It can be used, or it is used,
to describe a particular branch of theological studies that are
an attempt to prove the truthfulness of the Scripture. To prove that God exists. To prove that creation happened
the way it did. To prove that there was a flood
over all the earth that extinguished all life except what was in the
ark. To prove that a man named Jesus
actually existed and was crucified. Now this branch of theology called
apologetics, generally speaking, it is trying
to prove the truthfulness of the scripture's claims by resorting
to other forms of information. When I was a kid, probably in my teens, came across a group, Institute for Creation Research,
and they were setting forward what they called scientific creationism. And what they were doing was
a collection of believing scientists from various of the disciplines of scientific
investigation. that might bear on proving that
what the scripture said about creation is actually true. And they did the same thing,
actually, with Noah's story. But they were trying to use scientific
principles to prove that the heavens and the earth were created
in six days. Creation was not that long ago,
and happened suddenly. And then there's another group
now, Answers in Genesis. I say another group now, they've
been around probably since the 70s sometime. They're the ones
that built that supposed replica of the Ark that's in, I believe
it's Covington, Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati, Ohio. I've
seen pictures of it, never been there. I don't know whether or
not it's a replica of the Ark. I always figured the Ark was
kind of like a box. It didn't need to sail. It didn't need
a prowl and a keel and all that kind of stuff. All it had to
do was float because it's not like Noah was trying to go somewhere.
He was just trying to stay above the water. But they've got that ark up there.
It cost a lot to build it. And as was told to me in the
conversation I had last week, they had been to see that, and
afterward they were sitting on a bench or something like that,
and next to them was an Amish lady. I asked the Amish lady,
what did you think of it? She said, well, it was nice,
but aren't we supposed to just believe this stuff? Do we need what the world calls
proof to believe what God has said? We shouldn't. We should believe
what is recorded in scripture, even if every bit of scientific
evidence points the opposite direction. Now, I'll be honest
with you. On this business of evolution,
for instance, I didn't take much science in college, but I was
thoroughly immersed in it. I loved science. I planned a
career in science when I was in public school. And I had an
aptitude for it, science and math. And I can tell you this, for
all that I've read about it, even if I didn't have a Bible
that told me that in six days God created the heavens and the
earth, I'd say however this universe got here, and however life sprang
up in this world, it was not by evolution, because evolution
denies one of the most fundamental principles of physics. Because by the process, and I
say evolution, I'm not just talking here of evolution of life forms. How did non-life
organize itself into something living? And for that matter,
why? Why did the universe organize
itself into what we see? And the key word there is the
word organize, because one of the most fundamental principles
of physics is this, everything tends toward less organization,
more chaos. Things don't get better, they
get worse. And that's true. Now, some scientists
will say, well, you know, every once in a while you get a blip
where it goes the other way. Yeah, blip's the key word there.
You don't get this billions of years long progression from totally
undifferentiated matter that explodes and expands for billions
of years, in the process forming stars, planets, and all the other
things that are part of our universe. Way out here on more or less
the edge of an unimpressive galaxy compared
to many of the others they've found, there is a medium-sized
star with several planets rotating around it, and the third one
from that star just naturally gives rise to life. Now, you imagine that. Do you
have any idea how complex the smallest living thing is? And we went, well, they said,
well, there are some amino acids and proteins are made out of
amino acids. Fine. But I'd sooner believe that I
could stand and watch a stack of bricks long enough for it
to assemble itself into a house, as believe that some proteins
floating around got zapped by lightning or something like that. Some amino acids formed proteins,
and eventually these collected together, and then something
that's sort of living became, and then it became living, and
behold, here we are. the top so far of the evolutionary
process. Brother John Chapman, I thought,
made a very good remark about why people love the doctrine,
and that's what it is, the doctrine of evolution. He said, man would
much rather look at an ape and say, look how far I've come.
then look at Adam in the Garden of Eden and say, look how far
I've fallen. But having said that, I'm not
trying to convince people by scientific method that evolution's
impossible and that indeed, several thousand years ago, God created
the heavens and the earth in a period of six days. Why? Well, if I did convince
them of that, all I've convinced them of is creationism. And the issue, the fundamental
issue is not creationism. The fundamental issue is Christ. I was blessed by God when I was
studying for the ministry, that I had a professor of philosophy,
and that's where you would find some apologetical endeavors. And he had been trained by one
of the greater Christian philosophers of the 20th century, a man named
Cornelius And he practiced what was called presuppositional apologetics. They like to give big names to
everything. All that meant was, he said, don't waste your time
proving that God exists. You begin with God exists. Do not try to prove that the
scriptures are true. You begin with the scriptures
are true. In fact, he went so far as to
say, and this is something to consider, he said, the moment
you try to prove that the God of the Bible exists, you have
denied his existence. Now, I remember puzzling over
that one. And I had to raise my hand and go, okay, what's
that mean? And so the professor gave a little bit longer explanation
of what Van Til meant by it. And it was simply this, God,
the God of scriptures is the God who must exist. And if you're going to argue
for his existence, Any argument requires that you set forth the
proposition and its opposite and let them go to battle. So you set forth a proposition,
God exists, but then for the purposes of argument you've got
to entertain the possibility He doesn't exist. And he says,
the moment you set out the possibility that God doesn't exist, you've
denied the existence of the God who must exist. Now, if that did that to you,
it did that to me at first. But think upon it. If something
must exist, You deny that existence, that
kind of existence, if you allow, even for the sake of argument,
the possibility it doesn't exist. And that's what we do here. In
that sense of apologetics, we come here, I preach, and we preach not from a defensive position,
thinking we have to prove the things that the Scriptures say.
We just say them. Now, if someone were to raise
an objection, and an answer to that objection
could be given from the natural world, fine. But that version
of so-called ministry is never the
essential or the first and primary presentation of the gospel. Apologetics. we get our Greek word, excuse
me, our English word apology from that. And this just shows
you how words change in their meaning.
Now, when I was a kid, and I imagine it's still being done with kids,
you know, kids are ruffhousing in the house, and one hurts the
other. One that got hurt comes crying, mommy, so-and-so did
this. And you look at the other one,
did you do that? Yeah, okay, apologize. And by that, they mean say you're
sorry for what you did. Express regret for what you did. That's not what an apology originally
was. An apology was more like explain
why you did what you did. Justify what you did. For example, you walk up and nowadays, you
know, nobody's allowed to fight at all, but in my days they did. Kids, that is. See, a couple
of kids, a couple of guys for the most part, girls didn't do
this so much, but they're just going at it and an adult comes
up and, what's going on here? One goes, well, he started it. And so they look at the one that's
claimed, you know, about whom it was claimed they started it.
And that one is called on to justify
starting a fight. Why did you punch so-and-so in
the nose? The idea being there is some,
there's justification for some fights. Tell me what you, why'd
you do that? Now, it wouldn't be a defense in the sense of apology,
the old-fashioned sense of apology, is if he said, well, I just don't
like him. I punched him in the nose. That's
not an apology in the old-fashioned sense of the word. That doesn't
justify punching him in the nose. But if he said, I was walking
by, he stuck out his leg and tripped me. Right in front of
everybody. Books went everywhere. Broke this. Humiliated me. So I stood up and I presented my argument to his
nose. Well that would be an apology. Now whether it would pass the
scrutiny of the judge as to whether that was a justified cause. Nonetheless,
that's what the old-fashioned sense of apology meant. Justify
what you have done. But the word itself, apologia,
as it comes from the Greek, it comes from two Greek words, apo,
which can be a preposition or a prefix. In this case, it's
a prefix, just jammed right on the front of the word. and it
means from. The word apostle begins with
A-P-O. It's made up of two words, that
apo and stelo. Stelo means to send, to send
from. Apostles are those who were sent
from God, sent from Christ. So you got the apo and then you
got the Logia, the first part of the
word is important, the L-O-G. It's a word that is used to form
logos, which means word. Also, it's a word, that L-O-G,
and it was a very important root in the Greek language because
it referred to word, it referred to rational thought. We get our word logic from it. So what an apology was in those
days, or which translated here, defense, was to use reason, rational
argument, to present a case. That's all it meant. You say you believe one, two,
three, whatever. Explain yourself. Why do you
believe that? Give me a rational explanation
or logical. Sometimes we use the word rational
meaning that Also that it comports with what we see around us. So they would say, well, you
can't give a rational explanation for why the Red Sea split in
two. Because they would think that
you'd have to be using physical laws to explain why. But rational
simply means that you follow a logical process in setting
forth your truth. That's all it means. In the Bible, this word is normally
used in the sense of a defense. That is, you've been challenged
by something. In fact, in 1 Peter 3, verse
15, it says, Always be ready to give an answer for the hope
that lies in you. The word translated answer is
the same word used here. And what he's saying, be ready
that you can explain to people. why you believe what you believe. Now Paul says he set for the
defense of the gospel. Now because in our way of thinking a defense is always part of a
contest. There are some who take on a
particularly argumentative type of preaching. That is, every time they come
in a pulpit, they come in the pulpit as though they are being
confronted with people who are challenging them and don't disagree
with them. And the purpose of preaching in every situation
like that is to go through all the arguments to prove this or
that point of the gospel. Well, we do. argue in its non-combative
sense in that we present rational arguments as to why what we say
is to be taken as truth. But we do the best we can. When
I say we, I'm speaking of me formally and impersonally. When
I'm preaching, yes, I make arguments. I put forth rational thought,
at least in my head it's rational. But I'm not going outside the
scriptures to do it. I stick with the scriptures.
And I do it in a way, I hope, primarily, I'm not trying to
win a debate. I am not in a contest with anyone. Why? Because even if I do a poor job,
and by the standards of debate, I would have lost the debate,
it doesn't change the fact that these things are true. What you and I believe, and what
we're told to go out and tell the world, our job is not to prove it. by any other means than opening
the Scriptures and telling people what's in here. Now, if we get a challenge, for
example, we believe what in theological circles is called unconditional
election. And if you were live where I
came from, down in the southeast, you might as well fire a gun
at somebody and tell them that God, without regard to what anybody
did or would do, chose some, not all, for salvation. They would get mad. They'd get
angry. And the most that we can do the most that we should do. We
should not respond to such challenges in anger as though by our forceful
presentations, our loud and contentious arguing, we can somehow convince
these people that they're wrong and we're right. And see, there's
the key. It's not that they're wrong and
we're right. It's that God is right. We're not trying to make them
believe us. Our hope in preaching is that
they would come to believe God. And therefore, as Paul said to
Timothy, that when he's to correct and
rebuke and exhort, it says, with all longsuffering and gentleness. Gentleness. The last thing we want is for
someone to believe what we said because the force of our personality
convinced them of it. Paul said that he came to them
in weakness. Why? He said so that it'd be
quite obvious that the work done there was the work of God, not
of Paul. And all that needs to be done
is to present the gospel. And if challenged by those who
know what the Bible says or think they know what the Bible says,
then from that Bible, show them that these things are true, that
this is what God has said. And if they won't believe that,
there's no use going any farther. Really. There's no use trying, and I
see this in a lot of stuff I read on Facebook. Well, this is, the
church fathers believe this. Now, you say, who are the church
fathers? They were the ones of the next generation after the
apostles who supposedly had been trained by the apostles. Well, admittedly, that seemed
like it should carry some weight. These guys were actually taught
by the apostles. You know who else was taught
by the apostles? Demas, who forsook Paul, having loved this present
world. Hymenaeus and Alexander, taught
by the apostles, and led some within the church
off into false doctrine and false practices. And you know something? John's the only apostle to talk
about Antichrist under that name. And I tell you, by watching popular
religion and popular Christianity, you'd think Antichrist was the
predominant subject of scriptures. It's mentioned four times in
two books. Three times in 1 John, once in
2 John. And here is what John said about
Antichrist. He says, you've heard it said
that Antichrist would come. I tell you, there are already
many Antichrists in the world. And here's what he said about
them. They went out from us. These were men trained by the
apostles. Taught by the apostles. and went out and started divisions,
denominations so to speak, claiming they were Christian,
claiming that they were telling the truth, and no doubt people
said, well, yeah, I know this guy. You know, he was a disciple
of John, and John was that disciple whom Jesus loved, so no doubt
this guy's got it right. No, this is somebody who went
out from John, and John says the fact that they went out from
us proves they never really were part of us. But they'd been taught
by John and the other apostles. Now, that doesn't mean that all
those early church fathers were wrong, but I've read some of
what they wrote, and I thought, well, I can be pretty sure of
this. John didn't teach it to this
guy. Paul didn't teach it to this guy, because it's not what
Paul and John said in the Scriptures. And they'll talk about synods,
and what synods came up with. Well, I agree. I guess they called that a synod,
what went on in Dort, and they came up with what's popularly
called the Five Points of Calvinism. Well, I agree with those five
points, though I don't know, I've never read that document
that they produced, so I don't know all the details of how they
presented it, but I believe those five doctrines, but I don't believe
it because a bunch of guys got together in Holland some, what
would that have been now, 400 years ago, something like that,
and said, this is what the truth is. I believe it because you
open the Bible and there it is. God's sovereign. Man's totally
depraved. That's the only one of those
doctrines that you don't need the Bible to know that's true.
You can just look out and say, yeah, man's a mess. Man's a mess. But remember, Tim James said
one time, people say, election's deep. He said, okay, God chose
the people whom he'd save. What's so deep about that? What's
so hard to understand about that? It's not hard to understand,
people just don't like it. But the Bible says it. And all
the other doctrines, it comes out of the scriptures. Yet, if you've listened much to my
preaching, you'll notice I don't spend a lot of time trying to
prove any of those doctrines. A little bit, but not a lot,
because we do want to show that what we believe is the truth. And we do that by referring to
the scriptures. What is it? He said, I've been
set. We're back to Philippians 1. I've been set for the defense
of the gospel. First of all, let's notice this.
He said, I have not, he did not say I've been set for the defense
of the church. He did not say I've been set
for the defense of Judeo-Christian ethics. He did not say, I've been set
for the defense of creationism, or a worldwide flood, or the
Tower of Babel, or the reality of the Exodus. None of that. He said, I've been set for the
defense of the gospel. Now, why that? Because the Gospel
is the Word of God. Actually, he didn't even say,
I've been set for the defense of the Bible. The Gospel. Now, the Bible is a description
and defense of the Gospel. But there are a lot of people
that, at least intellectually, they are slaves to the Bible.
The Pharisees were. They were committed to the Bible,
to knowing what it said, word for word. They had no idea what it meant. They could quote vast portions
of the Scriptures to you. but they were like parrots saying
words they did not understand. The Word of God is not a book,
it's a message. You say, how do you know that?
Well, it says in the book of Romans, faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God. We know that for at least the
first 2,500 years of human history, there was no Bible. Moses didn't
come along, if we take the biblical chronology as being complete,
Moses did not come along until about 2,500 years after creation,
and he's the one that wrote the first book in the Bible. Now
if the If the Bible is the Word of God, and don't misunderstand
me, I'm not casting any shade on the Bible as though it's not
from God. It's not reliable. This is a
little bit of a technical argument, but it needs to be made because
we need to understand what the Bible means by that phrase, Word
of God. There was no Bible for the first
2,500 years. Now, if faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God, and the Word of God is the Bible,
and there was no Bible for the first 2,500 years, then nobody
had faith for the first 2,500 years of human history. When
the Bible says, Word of God, it's talking about a message.
Talking about the message of Christ, it's talking about the
gospel. Peter said this, the word of
the Lord endures forever and this is the word which by the
gospel was preached to you. The word of God, as the Bible
uses that phrase, is first and foremost Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the
beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. And the Word became flesh. He's the Word of God. In the
book of Revelation, it pictures him as someone on a white horse. And He was called the Word of
God. And then so far as what we speak
about Him, in telling the truth concerning this One called the
Word of God, that's the Gospel. That's the Good News. Jesus Christ
is the Good News of God. It's the testimony of God about
how sinners like you and me can be made right with Him, and that
He can justly bless us. Why? How can God defend forgiving
you and me? How can He defend justifying
us? To justify means to declare righteous. How in the world can God justify
Himself in justifying us because we know that we're anything but
righteous? How can God then justly call
us righteous? You say, well, I don't know if
the Bible ever argues that. That's exactly what it's arguing.
Paul says that God set forth Christ to be an atonement in
blood. so that he might be just and
justify the one who has faith in Jesus. God could have just
said, yeah, everybody's righteous. He could have done that. It would
have been unjust to do that without a sacrifice that took care of
the sin problem. So God's apology, if you would
say, his defense of declaring His people to be
righteous is this, My Son, Jesus the Christ, bore their sins in
My presence, and I, as judge of all the earth, dealt with
their sin. And in dealing with their sin,
their sin was put away. They don't bear it in my presence.
Therefore, when I see them, I see someone without sin. And therefore,
justice compels me to say, they are without sin. They are righteous. I am set, he says, for the defense
of the gospel, of the good news, of God's favor and complete blessing
based entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ and
his work in our behalf. Says the apostles, they have
a twofold, basically a twofold message. They went out preaching
Jesus is the Christ and Christ is all. And they did that in an apologetic
fashion by this. from the Scriptures, they showed
that Jesus is the Christ. They knew, you know, and defense
is kind of a good word, because when we go out there and preach
the gospel, we know right away the world stands opposed to it.
We were opposed to it at one time. So in that sense it's defense,
the world has already set forward its idea that salvation is by
works of some sort or another, and we're going out there saying
it's not, it's all together by the Lord Jesus Christ. So when we go out there, we have
to prove our point, but we don't prove it with anything else but
the Scriptures. Remember the story of the rich
man and Lazarus? And the rich man finally said,
well, send Lazarus back. I don't know if he said, I can't
remember if he said Lazarus or just send someone back to warn
my brothers. Well, that would have been pretty
convincing, wouldn't it? Somebody raises from the dead, comes to
your house and says, listen, I heard your brother, he's down
in hell now, but he certainly doesn't want you to come here,
so he told me to come let you know that there is a hell, and
you all are on your way there unless you repent. You say, oh
yeah, that would get them. Do you know what was said back
to the rich man? They have Moses and the prophets. If they will
not believe that, they won't believe even if a man rises from
the dead. And you know what? A man did
rise from the dead, and they still don't believe. Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from
the dead, and they still don't believe it. It's not those things
that make people believe. It may be against our nature,
but we've got to realize the only thing that makes people
believe is the testimony of God in the
Gospel. Just telling it to them. That
doesn't make any sense. You've got to convince them somehow.
Yeah, you convince them by what the Scriptures say. The Apostle
said, He has begotten us again through the word of truth. It's not magical, but it's miraculous. I have preached and some have
believed. And it's a miraculous thing to behold. Because I did not get them to
believe by terrifying them with hell. or manipulating them with mama's
in heaven waiting for you. Where I come from they always
get to the end of the service and then they bring down the
message, you know, and start what they call the invitation.
And they always had some sentimental story to tell. Soften them up,
you know. There's nothing natural to tell
people that'll make them believe. There is simply opening the scriptures
and showing out of the scriptures what God has said. Paul said in verse 18, But what does it matter? The
important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives
or true, Christ is preached. Now in verse 16, he said, I am
put here for the defense, for the apologia of the gospel. And what was his apologia? Christ preached. He said, I determined to know
nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified. What is real apologetical preaching? Showing from the Scriptures that
Jesus is the Christ. He's the Messiah. He is the Savior. Or as Peter said, God's made
Him to be Lord in Christ. And secondly, Christ is all. And in those two statements is
wrapped up everything the Bible has to say. We don't have to be contentious.
We don't have to speak like thunder. We don't have to give them what
for. We just tell them what God has
said and has had recorded in his book concerning Christ. And that is our rational argument. And that's for those of us that
have been called to this work. or any kind of gospel preaching
work, and it's for us who are believers, because that's what
Peter said. He said, it was written to everybody,
all the believers, be ready to give an apology, a rational,
word-based description or explanation for the hope that lies within
you. And part of the things that you'll
declare is that Jesus is the Son of God. And if they say,
prove that. Well, He's the Son of God. Yeah,
but I want proof. Well, He's the Son of God. That's as far as you can go with
it. There's nothing behind that that proves it. It's just so.
and he bore up my sins in his body on a tree." Well, how can
you prove that? Well, in the way you're asking for proof,
I can't. That's why it's called faith. But that doesn't mean
that what you're saying is not rational. It's rational based
upon what the Scriptures declare. So all preaching of Christ is
apologetic in the sense that Paul used the term. We are setting forth our Lord
in clear, plain words. Remember the word, the L-O-G
root is for word, for rational thought, all that kind of thing.
We use words. And we put them together to make
a reasoned argument. Jesus is God in human flesh. sent to save God's people by
the sacrifice of himself in their place. And through him, and through
faith in him, Everyone who believes is justified from all those things
they could not be justified from in the law of Moses. He is all. No one needs anything less than
Christ or more than Christ. That's our message. And if they will not hear that,
they won't hear it though one rise from the dead. Or if you
somehow got a hold of a video of the six days of creation.
Or if you could dig up a piece of the ark and put it on display. Or if you could find a trench
at the bottom of the Red Sea full of Egyptian chariots. None of that will make anybody
into a believer. But if you preach Christ from
the Scriptures, all of God's elect will hear
it and will believe it. And that's all that's necessary.
All right.