Evolution contradicts itself evolution is a joke from a naturalistic perspective because you had to have had something to start this process science proves that we're not Eternal that the universe is not Eternal so something must have if there's a beginning something must have started it [Music] so I've been an Atheist my whole life and I was raised Christian but my family never really went to church and I've always been a little bit against it questioning with science and stuff and my friends over here have gotten me into Faith recently I really started to enjoy it
over the last few weeks and then after listening to you on Monday um I believe I had a vision or a dream I was sleeping and I I woke up and I just felt a feeling of God and the dream was um it wasn't like the Western depiction of Jesus it was just uh like a feeling of an encounterment I felt like somebody was trying to communicate with me and then it was just like a really bright light and I don't know if it was God or just my mind making it up I know the
feeling I felt and all I could think when I woke up was this is God like this is what it is it was more of a feeling of understanding and I'm not saying I'm 100% believer yet I'm still working on it I'm always going to be working towards it but I just wanted to like ask question about that I think it's important to talk about and for other people maybe have done any encounterments like that as well thanks for your honesty all right I love your skepticism your skepticism is a clear statement I'm not going
to blindly believe I love the way you say I had a dream maybe it was from God maybe it was just a dream I had the way I have dreams regularly that's good healthy skepticism and I love your conclusion so far it seems to you that it was God speaking to you through that dream and obviously God can do that at any time what was it that pushed you out of atheism um just recently I've been struggling with own things battles with friends and anger and just different types of things and I've tried to go
to church with my friends a few times in the past few months and I was doing more so as I should instead of I'm enjoying it and I don't know one day it was after ball gam like let's go tomorrow like let's do it let's go and I just really enjoyed the um I guess what would you call it the the Sunday morning service whatever and it was just it really caught my eye and I really enjoyed it for the first time like okay this is fun and I look forward to it and then next
week we went again and it was a lot of fun and then you've been here so I've came the last 3 days and I just enjoyed listening and learning cuz I think it's important just to be open to a lot of different things and that's that's I can do is is the truth and that's what it's supposed to be I should learn it and see if it is my truth and it's everybody else is trueth very good I love the way he use the word truth if Jesus Christ was just my personal truth you should
not believe in him you believe in Jesus Christ because you understand objectively he is the truth now why would I think that Jesus is the truth because the evidence of the way he treated people the way he treated his enemies suggests that he really was good I'm not going to trust in Jesus if he's a hypocrite I'm not going to trust in Jesus if he's evil the evidence is he lived a sinless life in John chapter 8 he could look into the faces of his enemies and say which one of you can prove me guilty
of sin and his enemies were silent in first John the Apostle John who was his closest buddy could write in him is no sin you know I wish people could say that about me the unfortunate thing is if they did they'd be lying through their teeth cuz I am a dirty rotten sinner second part about Jesus though is not just his lifestyle but his ethical teachings now I want you to notice how in Matthew chapter 6 which is right at the center of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus calls us to think he's addressing the
issue of worry anxiety which many of us here struggle with I struggle with it and he says therefore I tell you do not worry about your life what you will eat or drink or about your body what you will wear is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothing look at the birds of the air they do not sow or reap or store away in Barnes yet your heavenly father feeds them who of You by worrying and here comes the intellect who of You by worrying can add a single hour
to his life you see he's appealing to our intellect isn't he he's saying kick your brain into gear and realize worrying will never add a minute to your life instead word is a suck anxiety sucks you dry it sucks you empty so you see how Jesus is calling us to think think think think through through things clear clearly and carefully at the moment of the most excruciating pain as he's dying on a cross he prays father forgive them whoo but fourthly and most importantly 3 days after he dies he rises from the dead and over
a period of 40 days he appears to over 500 people Paul writes in First Corinthians chap 15 and if you could read that chapter this week it'd be awesome because Paul is very meticulous in going over the eyewitness reportage that Jesus rose from the dead that is why faith in Christ is not blind faith faith in Christ is evidence that he's reliable and then commitment to him okay now why do think you enjoyed the worship service I mean I miss past Services I felt like it might have been a little disorganized and maybe it wasn't
as um appealing or maybe it wasn't something I needed at the moment I've had so many past conversations about theology with friends and thatting going back and forth but for some reason that morning I just really enjoyed it and again it was very organized and just made sense the points were clear and it came to me at that point just felt right good and I've continued over the last few weeks and reading on my own a little bit and studying with my friends and talking and it's I don't know I just became Came Upon me
I feel like I don't knowz I've always had I've always been understanding of a lot of things but recently I feel like I've just come more to really give it a shot and really put my heart into if I'm going to try to believe it and it's been going well so far so I felt better from it I felt honestly I felt better the last few weeks over it good we want evidence we want to use our intellect but that's not enough we want to spiritually connect with God and one of the ways we do
that is to worship and when people freak out when they hear the word worship I say whoa whoa whoa time out every body worships to worship is to consider ultimately worthy so what does the typical University of Tennessee student think is ultimately worthy in this life for some I'm afraid it's Sports I mean I love sports and I love being here and gosh it was great to talk with some football players and the basketball team last night with Stuart we had a great time we love sports but you can take Sports and Make It ultimately
worthy in your life and that means you're worshiping sports for others of us it's pleasure stimulate my nerve endings give me a sensation of pleasure that's what's most important to me fine you are worshiping pleasure now come on Cliff I'm here to make a good education so I can get a high-paying job because we all know what the bottom line is in life making money fine so you worship the pursuit of money now Jesus Christ says if you do that if you worship any one of those options you will ultimately be empty but when you
learn to worship me I will satisfy you in a far deeper way because guess what sports pleasure and money I'm going to lose one day and you're going to lose one day it's called death but we will never lose Christ for he is the Eternal God who promises us eternal life in heaven and that is why to consider him ultimately worthy of our Allegiance is healthy worship and so that's what I hope you and I do on a daily basis when we pray we're worshiping God second point about worship it involves your mind and that's
why I love your point about order some of us are more orderly others of us are more spontaneous and that's cool no no problem but you better find a group of Christians that worship God in a way that you can connect with it involves realizing Jesus really loves me so worship involves the whole you and I'm so glad you found a church where you can worship and experience his presence in a deeper way I guess I'll be Catholic New York like that's where most my family was y um this was a Baptist Church and seeing
on that there's so many baptisms and like these people were crying right before they I get baptized in front of this whole group crowd of people and I like really like I almost thought like I was very emotional about that's really awesome like you're professing your love for God Christ whatever it may be in front of a whole crowd of people was the feeling you could feel from them and the love it was like I think that was also another connector because yeah I've had family members get baptized I was baptized when I was little
I don't know if that really means anything to me at this point and if I do continue my faith I will get baptized again good um but that was a really big part of it was seeing just the love and the love for I guess God or Christ to was and it really just I guess caught me I don't know that's a great point that is why we need to meet together and have what the Bible calls Fellowship now the point that you're making is crucial all right so you're from New York yes and I'm
from Connecticut right next to you guys all right all right so there's an oped writer for the New York Times named Nicholas Kristoff and he's not a follower of Christ I don't think and he doesn't agree with a lot of Christians but he went to Africa and in Africa he learned about and met a 22-year-old Christian white woman from the United States she went to the garbage dump of the local town and she met a teenage girl who had already gone into labor to bring her first baby into the world she didn't have enough money
to get a cab to go to the hospital so there this teenage woman is in the garbage dump of the town giving birth to a baby she quickly gets a cab this American missionary girl and she gets the woman to a hospital and the baby is born safely and Nicholas Kristoff this incredible cynic skeptic who writes for the New York Times said I might not agree with her theologically but there is no question in my mind that what conservative Christians are doing in Africa is crucial because it means there going to be more schools more
clinics and more hospitals because people who love Christ are showing their love in very practical ways and helping Africans Christ calls us to do exactly that and it's as we love each other and love whoever we're around that the truth and reality of Christ becomes more easy for people to see Evolution I don't understand how I can be a Christian and believe in like creation but then also have like material bones of like meanderthals all these other things that kind of contradict what a lot of Christians believe so how is a Christian can I believe
in creation but also Al not ignore the fact of evolution you can't be a naturalist who says there is no God and all of a sudden we popped up out of nowhere and then came from Pawn scum Evolution contradicts itself evolution is a joke from a naturalistic perspective because you had to have had something to start this process science proves that we're not Eternal that the universe is not Eternal so something must have if there's a beginning something must have started it must have and so most cosmologists thank heaven are honestly saying that and they're
agreeing with it so what is your origin that's a philosophical question what is the origin of the universe what's the origin of you the DNA cell what's what in the world is your origin and if you can't really come to the point of saying well here it is this is what I'm actually postulating so many atheists just don't postulate they just start with oh look it's process because there's origin and then there's process so selective adaptation I am fully on board with it does not contradict the Bible at all the Bible does not talk about
that type of science the Bible does not talk about Evolution talks about taxonomy naming of animals it talks about hypothesis with Daniel when he is the one saying hey watch me eat vegetables with my friends versus those who are eating meat and then check me out see what I look like so there is forms of science like that something like Evolution not even close and so why as a Christian would I step up here and say oh obviously evolution is antithetical to the Bible completely that would me being an inconsistent Christian who would be adding
to the text in some ways so for us as Christians to say no we're going to leave room for we don't know what Adam and Eve exactly looked like I don't think they are white Americans blonde hair blue eyes but some people think that and so how God used evolution in such a way as to go about ultimately not creating life but being part of the process in no way contradicts the Bible there is so much of evolution that we consider dark um Annie Dillard that pit her prizewinning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek she was
not a Christian but then she went to her Creek bed behind her house and watched Evolution operate and she said just about everything in my pond back there is violent I mean you have a frog getting its brain slowly sucked out of by a type of beetle that hops on its back well why in the world if evolution is just normal and that's all there is why do I have a type of revulsion to that why is that bad well it ushers in a type of moral obligation we as Christians have to say there is
some type of moral obligation of that is bad that is actually it's a natural process but I have a problem with the darkness within it as opposed to if there's no moral obligation you got to strip half of your Humanity away and say no the Frog getting mercilessly brutalized like that a slow death is totally normal it's just part of our normal processes so my friend then why in the world do you have such a tough time with the evil that you see in this world it's just part of the normal process of this world
don't have a big issue with it you could say oh my friend you know you know I it hurts me that he's going through this type of tough time okay but but don't say it's atrocious don't say it's evil don't say it ought not be that way because you're ushering in some type of moral absolute where there must be something outside of personal powerful cultural to say that that is absolutely wrong and if you don't say that well then there's no Martin Luther King Jr who made a real difference because Martin Luther King Jr would
have had to say no in the great state of Alabama right now racism is fine because culture says it f says it's fine those who are in power say it's fine so who am I to go and say Ah that's wrong okay Martin Luther King Jr racism is wrong from your perspective that doesn't mean it's wrong unless there is a God who you're saying there's a law Above the Law very similar in The evolutionary process why do we look at so much of it and say ah there's parts of it that's violent Andy Diller became
a Christian because she saw there are parts of it that are really wrong and I believe that there ultimately is real right and real wrong even when you look at the evolutionary process why is the Trinity so important of why do we need it what does it show uh so what do we get from that if we live for love and I know some of us aren't loving certain people in our lives right now so it might get in the way that point and they might say no no no I don't really live for love
I have a lot of difficult people in my life but I think if you really get down to it on your deathbed every single Pastor I know will say the thing we want most on our deathbeds is to know we've been loved and that we have loved well enough to know that we have been loved and we're still loved and that we have loved enough so the whole point of life you boil it down let's be real it really is love we want love and we want to be able to give love fully to others
we do it well at times and do it poorly at times and so what does the Trinity say trinity says father son holy Spirit throughout time loving one another so the very very essence of all of what we strive for comes from the source of all life which is coming from love father Son and Holy Spirit rather than let's just say it's just the father well if you're just one being you can't love you need relationships to have love and so the Christian world view says this is the only world view where you can get
love from the very beginning to the very end that will be eternal atheism let's take that one so not just one God but let's say no Gods well you're just an accident you popped up out of nowhere strong eat the weak so don't love just work to get ahead and if you do love make sure there's something in it for you always and I love hearing atheists say that because some do some are consistent saying that oh it's always about me ultimately that's that's the point of love and then they're going nowhere they're just going
to death well does that fit your experience maybe that's true maybe we're out here and completely wrong about all of this but that does not fit my experience whatsoever what is the difference between their Natures uh we see Jesus says he needs to leave so the helper can come to you but then we also see how them coexist whenever he's baptized so can they see each other is that even important to necessarily break that down and kind of I know I'm not going to understand the full nature of it because it is God but I
mean it would make no sense to me if there's a God that created the entire Cosmos who created us we are microscopic ants compared to him if if we're to say oh we should know every single attribute of God perfectly oh come on that's completely unfair we don't have anything like my dad was saying earlier Einstein himself said he knows way less than 1% of what there is to know about how the universe works all right so we have to have that type of humility when it comes to the Trinity and understanding God and so
yes you have Christ yes you have the dove representing the Holy Spirit and when Jesus leaves the Holy Spirit comes and the reason why he put such a heavy emphasis on what the holy spirit is is because the holy spirit's going to be able to get to every single person because the holy spirit is not a physical being like Jesus was so every single person at once Jesus canot have been in India and the us at the same time the Holy Spirit can a lot of world religions you know they they say you know Jesus
was a real man Jesus was a you know but they just see him as like a good teacher or Prophet or something like that now how do you deal with that sort of thing in in that context on every major University campus in the United States the idea that Jesus is the way the truth and the life is considered narrow-minded intolerant bigoted thinking I could not disagree more why if I say to you every religion leads to Heaven is that a truth claim I would say no or I would say yeah yeah there we go
okay let's think together if I tell you guys every religion every philosophy leads to Heaven is that a truth claim of course it is guys I'm saying whatever you believe the truth is we're all going to heaven if I say to you half of the world religions lead to Heaven half of the world philosophies lead to Heaven is that a truth claim yeah of course it is right I'm saying half the religions are right half the religions are wrong that's a truth claim right all right when Jesus says I am the way the truth the
life no one comes to the father except through me is that a truth claim of course it is now the reason I'm trying to drill that into your heads is because the arrogance Creeps in on all three of those points when someone says you know I'm really open-minded I'm a really tolerant person as opposed to you you Christian because I believe that all religions lead to Heaven well guess what when you say all religions lead to Heaven you are contradicting the majority of humanity because the majority of humanity is Muslim Christian and Jew over 50%
So when you say all religions lead to Heaven you are contradicting over 50% of the people on this planet no problem unless you tell me that that's truly openminded and tolerant no it's not it's a truth claim let's be honest and if you say only half of the religions lead to Heaven you are making a truth claim you're making a judgment you are saying half the religions are right half the religions are wrong and if you say the Quran teaches the way to heaven you're making a truth claim that it's Muhammad who is reliable in
telling us how to get to heaven and if you hold to Jesus statement in John 14:6 I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except by me you also are making a truth claim Cliff what's the problem with you why are you emphasizing this because some of you are being intimidated academically and intellectually because you live in the same culture I do let me ask you what is the ethnic Heritage of the majority of people who believe that all religions are the same and lead to heaven what's the
skin color of those folks where do they live the skin color is white and where they live is in Western Europe and the United States why don't you try looking into the face of an Arab or a mus or a African or a South American and saying don't you agree with me that all religions lead to God and they're going look you in the face and say you're a stinking idiot isn't it interesting that the place that most accepts are the people who most accept all religions are the same they all lead to God is
made up of white folk who live in Western Europe and the United States oh my goodness you talk about some elitism oh my my goodness let me ask you another question what's the color of the skin and the gender and where they live of the majority of atheists the skin color is white the place is Western Civilization Western Europe and the United States oh my goodness so the majority of atheists on this planet Earth are white westerners H wonder what's going on here just what I'm trying to get you guys to do is just think
this stuff through and when you think it through all of a sudden Jesus Christ begins to make more sense and then here comes the next one and I've heard two presidents of the United States say this we have to progress beyond the idea that Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life we have to accept all religions and all people yes a follower of Christ has no option but to accept all people and to love all people that's true but to say that all religions are the same means you're either not very religious
or you've not taken the time to study the major world religions because they're not all the same there are similarities like the Golden Rule you'll find in almost every major world religion but there are also some real contradictions they can't all be true because they contradict each other okay how have I not answered your excellent question I think in the context of just looking at it here in the US right we have you know it's like a Melting Pot so you have everyone from different cultures you know India who believes in mult you know multiple
different gods all this stuff right um how would you express to them that you know it you know as as you're saying it's this truth that you're talking about right and like every every way is a truth-based or for what you're saying right like like every religion leads to heaven so in that context how do you know for sure that you know Christianity versus Muslim versus you know all this or toes the point of Enlightenment during Hinduism like how you know in that context how do you know for sure that it's you know Christianity and
the lie in our culture is cuz I choose Christianity have you ever thought of the arrogance of that have you ever thought of the arrogance of saying the reason that Jesus Christ is the truth is cuz I choose him well who are you Cliff who on Earth Do You Think You Are are well you know I live in a culture that emphasizes choice choice choice choice so in my culture I just choose that Christianity is the truth Cliff that begs the question the question is what is the evidence that Jesus Christ is reliable or what
is the evidence that he's false it all comes down to who is Jesus Christ and the conclusion that that he was a good teacher is false because he makes very extreme claims by both his words and his actions to be God in human form he is either a crack poot or he who he claim to be God in human form but this Middle Ground option oh yeah Jesus he's my buddy he's my he's my homeboy he's uh he's really the he's really you know the best teacher you could ever find it's not an option he
has the sing AUD aity to claim to be the Eternal God revealing himself in human form the guy's either a quack or is the truth well how do you answer that question is he a quack or is he the truth by reading the gospels and finding out for yourself how did he treat people how did he live his life secondly what did he teach ethically now come on guys Robert Kohl's is professor emeritus at Harvard he was a ology professor and he writes the ethical teachings of the sermon on the bound all the ethics since
Christ are simply footnotes to that Sermon on the Mount it's ethical genius Matthew 56 and 7 so when you watch the way he treats people when you read his teachings for yourself and you better not take it from me you better go back and read the gospels for yourself because you got to figure out is Jesus reliable or is he not and thirdly you watch the way he dies nailed to wen Cross Beam instead of cursing his enemies the way I would have he prays father forgive them for they know not what they do now
if you can't respect that I'm not sure where your head is you got to at least respect that but fourthly and most importantly three days after he dies he rises from the dead and over a period of 40 days he appears to over 500 people who see him risen from the dead and they're willing to die not for their belief they're willing to die not for their faith they're willing to die not for their culture they die for what they claim to have seen the dead Christ risen from the dead the evidence is Jesus is
reliable you can trust him no Cliff I can't I trust somebody else okay fine then just tell me who are you trusting and what's the evidence that they're more reliable than Christ hey guys thanks so much for watching this episode hit that subscribe button we love for you to join the family also want to invite you to our church in new Canan Connecticut it's new Canan high school and it meet Sundays at 9:30 :0 a.m. [Music]
