Defending the Faith in a Hostile World

So I want us to look at a couple of a couple of passages here. If you have your Bibles with you, open them to Ephesian six. Ephesian six, and I when we talk about defending the faith, a lot of times people get upset about defending the faith. We get upset. We don't like the idea of apologetics. We don't like the idea of you know, us claiming to be right and assuming that other people are wrong, and so on and so forth. So there's there's that idea. We have a problem with that. But then we also have a problem, and probably more of a problem with the idea of engaging forcefully in a disagreement over ideology, because what I like to call the eleventh commandment, the eleventh commandment is thou shalt be nice, and we don't believe the other ten right. And so there are Christians who if they see you engaging forcefully on an issue. Let's save abortion for example, you're engaged in a debate about abortion, and let's say that in your advocacy of a pro life position, you are less than kind. There are Christians, especially millennials, and I'm not trying to pick on millennials, but you know who you are, especially millennials, they are more offended by you being less than kind in a debate about abortion than they are about babies being slaughter than the womb. And ironically, they will be less than kind toward you about being less than kind on the issue of abortion, and will feel completely justified in their attack on you because you violated the eleventh commandment, which is far more grievous than violating the sixth? Do you see that? And it's crazy how this happens. And then another way that this manifests itself is, you know, abortion, homosexuality, whatever. What you often see is people will come at you you're engaging on these issues, and they'll say, the reason that we have all these problems is because of people like you, because if we were more loving. Oh oh okay, so the problem is not sodomy. The problem is us being less than loving on the issue of sodomy. So we've got these two issues. Number one, from an ideological philosophical perspective, we don't like the concept of agetics. And then two from a dispositional perspective, just our disposition is that we just we don't want to engage in these battles. In fact, we don't even like the word battle. We don't like war language. We're Christians. We should not be engaging in battles with people. Should be loving people. And so I want to look at two passages of scripture. One if Egypt, chapter six, begining verse ten, Finally, be strong in the Lord, and then the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So metaphor number one wrestling hand to hand combat. That's metaphor number one. Okay. And again it's not me. I don't write the mail, I just deliver it. Okay. So that's metaphor number one, wrestling hand to hand combat. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood verse thirteen. Therefore, take on the whole armor of God that you may be able to with stand in the evil day. Having done all to stand firm stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the Gospel, to peace in all circumstances, taking up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. By the way, this metaphor is not a metaphor for wrestling. This is a metaphor for combat. This metaphor is the uniform of a Roman soldier, a centurion, all the way down to the sword. So if you don't like combat language, you got a problem with God. Next passage, in fact, there's a third one I want to add here. Go to Jude. Don't ask what chapter, Go to Jude. It reads Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. By the way, that's three references to the same group of people called beloved and God the Father kept for Jesus Christ. That's Christians, it's all of us. May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. Don't miss that, all Christians. And then he says, may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. Because one of the things that people think about apologetics and about this war language is that it stands in opposition to things like mercy, peace and love that we're supposed to be defined by right. And so verse two he says, may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. Verse three, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints now at Bagoninzio. Mind. And I don't think we need to be running around throwing Greek terms everywhere, but that one just loves saying it. And pego ninjami. It literally means to wrestle, to engage in hand to hand combat. So verse two he wants mercy, peace and love to be multiplied to you, and in verse three he wants you to go hand to hand in combat, which means that there is no contradiction between being a loving Christian and engaging in the combat of apologetics. Now two Corinthians, Chapter ten, and let's beginning verse one. We usually like to go to verse four, but verse four is in the middle of a paragraph. We've got to go to verse one to really put this in its proper context. And we see some really some amazing nuances here with the apostle Paul, I, Paul myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Now don't miss that. There's play on words. There's plays on words here. Entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. So we got meekness in gentleness. I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I'm away. By the way, that's an accusation made against Paul that he's responding to, Oh, you don't talk big like that when you're present, But when you get to pin in your hand and you write letters, all of a sudden, you're bold, right, So he refers to the meekness and illness of Christ. And then he says, I, who am humble and face to face with you, but bold toward you when I'm away that's sarcasm. I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. That's a threat. Are you catching this now? Verse three? For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. There we go again with war language, so personal hand to hand combat language. Now, in fairness, when he's talking about this wrestling, he's really talking probably about Greco Roman wrestling, maybe making a reference to the Isthmian games, right, he's not, he's using that metaphor. But here and also in Ephesians chapter six, there is no doubt, but he's talking about combat. He's talking about combat. And I believe that we I'm not going to say must engage in combat over these issues, because I believe we are engaged in combat over these issues. There is a war being waged, and it is a war being waged against us, a war being waged against the Gospel. So how do we how do we do this one? Though we walk into flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. I think here and in this passage if you look back at Ephesians, Paul says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers. And here Paul says, though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. We're not at war with people. Amen, somebody, We're not at war with people. I'm not at war with Robin DiAngelo or Ibram Kindy. I'm not at war with Christians who have adopted their ideology. I'm not at war with those people. I'm at war with those ideas that stand in opposition to the truth of the Gospel. And I think that's the important thing. And think about how slick Satan is on this. So God commands us to engage in this combat. Right, we see it in jude we see it in Ephesians, we see it in Second Corinthians. There's no doubt but that God calls us to engage in this combat. But the adversary has sneaked in and has been so slick that he has made Christians have an aversion to the very combat that we're called to engage in. God calls us to do something, and the enemy has caused us to think that that thing we're called to do is actually evil. Did you see that? That's sinister? And that's where we are. That's where we are. And part of the way that he's done that is to remove this reality that we are not at war with the flesh. We are not at war with people. We walk in the flesh, but we are not waging war according to the flesh. And that's something that we need to keep in mind, not only in the sense of fighting against that aversion that we have, but we also need to keep it in mind on the other side, because there's a ditch on both sides of the road. On the one side of the road, there's the person who doesn't keep this in mind, and they're loath to engage in the combat of apologetics. And on the other hand, there's a person that doesn't keep this in mind, and they love engaging in the combat of apologetics, but they make it personal. They're mean, nasty, obnoxious. Right, the gospel is offensive enough. It doesn't need your help, amen, somebody for that. We walk in the flesh. We are not waging war according to the flesh. We need to keep this in mind. Keeping this in mind, by the way, means that it will keep us on our knees. Keeping this in mind means that we will be forever mindful of the fact that we're not calling upon our own abilities, but we're calling upon God himself. We're not waging war according to the flesh. This has nothing to do with you being intelligent enough, or sophisticated enough, or aggressive enough, or has nothing to do with that. We're not waging war according to the flesh. Four for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. So, first, in order for us to gage in this battle, we have to understand that it's a spiritual battle. And secondly, in order to engage in this battle, we have to understand power of our weaponry. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. Number One, their power is divine and not human in origin. Amen, It's God's power. But secondly, because they are divine, they have the power to destroy strongholds. This word strongholds can also be understood as fortresses or castles. This is an amazing use of terminology here, and we kind of miss it. We kind of miss it because of where we're situated in history. But put this in its historical context. Paul is saying that our weapons are of divine power and they have the power to destroy strongholds. Now, Paul is living during a time where if someone is in a fortress or a stronghold, the only way that you can defeat them is through siege warfare. In other words, you would have to encamp around their fortress, around their city, around their wall, and you would have to build siege works. Literally, you'd have to have engineers in the fields, and it could take you, you know, days, weeks, depending on the side of your siege works and the size of the fortress that you were attacking, just to build your siege works. And then as you engage your siege works, it may take you weeks or months in order to break through, or you'd have to starve them out and hope they didn't have sources of food and water, and hope that they would run out of resources before you would run out of resources. It could take years to siege a fortress, and Paul says, our weapons are so mighty that they can do an an instant what it takes man weeks, months or years to accomplish. There wasn't a weapon known to man that could do what Paul just said. Now, you and I, you know, we can be seduced into not understanding this text because we you know, we got bunker busting bombs. You know moa Abs Mother of All bombs, right, we got stuff, We got nuclear weapons that can wipe out a city like that. Right. And so here's our temptation. Our temptation is to say Paul is referring to a weapon that is more like our nuclear bombs. No, that's not Paul's point. Paul's point is, no matter how powerful in the human natural realm your weapons are, I'm talking about something exponentially more powerful than anything your puny human mind. And can imagine whether all you know is siege works or whether you know nuclear weapons, what I'm talking about is more than that, because our warfare is in a completely different realm. And saying that that's good news, why is it good news? I get letters, I get emails all the time from people who are flat out discouraged. They've had to leave their Christian organization, They've had to leave the ministry that they were working for, They've had to leave their church, I get emails from people who've been asked to leave their church because their church is bringing in DeAngelo's White Fragility and Kindy's how to be an Anti Racist and some of these other things. And these people are coming in and saying, no, no, no, no, no, we can't do this. These things are antithetical to They're being asked to leave their church because they're not willing to check their privilege. There are a lot of people who are discouraged. They are major conservative seminaries and seminary, leaders of seminaries, leaders of ministries, leaders of Christian organizations who are espousing the ideologies of critical theory and critical race theory and intersectionality all over the place. And it's easy to be discouraged right now because of the divisions that we see. It's also easy to be discouraged because you know, for me, what I find heartbreaking is there are real issues. There's real sin. Is there racism? Of course there is? Is there injustice, of course there is. And you know, one of the major problems I see is that as we go down this road of this social justice mentality, we're going down a road that Christians can't go down very long and it's distracting us from things that are very real that need to be addressed and cannot be addressed properly from that worldview. So it's easy to be discouraged. But remember, we walk in the flesh, but we're not waging war according to the flesh. That's number one. You're looking at what you see, that's not the whole battle. Number two, the weapons of our warfare are more powerful than anything we could possibly comprehend. They're enough. And I've had people say things like, you know, is this going to you know, ruin the church? Is this gonna No? No, the gates of Hell cannot prevail against the Church, certainly, Robin DiAngelo and IBRAMX KINDI can't. So no. Now, mind you, what we're seeing is catastrophic, it has been and it will be, but it won't defeat God's Church. So as we engage, recognize the power and significance of our weaponry. So what do we do. There's two things that we do. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. And to we take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience. When your obedience is complete So here are the two things that we do. Number One, destroy every argument and lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. We have to go to war against these ideologies. We have to we have to identify them, and we have to identify the danger that they pose, and we have to dismantle them. Now, not all of us do this in the same way or to the same degree. You're from the same position or whatever. And one of the things that I've been talking to people about recently is, you know, it's interesting a lot of people when you start talking about critical theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality and all this, you know sort of stuff, cultural Marxism, whatever, they say, Oh, you're just trying to shut down the conversation about race. I mean, there's a whole lot that I can say about that. But let me just say I've been talking about these things for over a decade. This is not my response to George Floyd. I've been warning about critical theory and cultural Marxism since two thousand and four, five six. In fact, people have often thought I was, you know, a little overreacting, if you will, and over emphasizing these issues. So I'm not talking about critical theory critical race theory and intersectionality because I'm uncomfortable in conversations about race. Try again, I have zero discomfort in conversations about race, none, none at all. Been preaching about race since forever, in fact, been arguing that race as we talk about it is an unbiblical ideology because the Bible knows nothing of race. The way we talk about it biblically speaking, there is one race. You could argue that there are two, the race of the first atom and the race of the last atom. But you know, physically there's one race, and we are all the race of Adam. Amen, somebody. There are multiple ethnicities, but there's one race. Are our ethnicity is important? You better believe they are. You better believe they are because it's what God did, and it's how God. Can you please turn that light officer at just soul? Can you thank you? Thank you? It's what God did, and it's part of this beautiful tapestry that God is putting together, part of the beauty of God's creation. Amen. So it's wonderful. It's part of your story and how God used your story to bring you to Christ and how he It's wonderful. So yes, absolutely, these things are important, but critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality, these things are satanic and they're antithetical TOI Biblical truth. And so we have to come against these arguments. We simply must destroy these arguments. Not people, but these arguments. And then the last thing is the second one, is we take every thought captive to obey Christ. We take every thought captive to obey Christ. Folks. This is about developing a biblical worldview. This is about us as Christians, learning to think biblically about everything. Part of the problem, part of the problem that we're having, is that as Christians, many of us have not thought biblically about race and ethnicity, and so we don't have a well developed theology in this area. So now along comes this well developed theology. And yes, it is a theology, It absolutely is a theology. It's a well developed theology from critical theory and from critical race theory and intersectionality. And here we are. We know that there are things that are wrong that need to be made right, but we don't have a well developed theology and we don't really think well about these things. And now all of a sudden, here comes this well developed theology and we don't have an alternative to it, and we don't have an answer for it, so some people are beginning to adopt it. We have to take every thought captive. Thoughts about sexuality. We have to take those thoughts instead of just parroting ideas from the culture and falling prey to every wind of doctrine that comes our way. We have to take every fought captive. This is how we wage this war. This is how we engage on these topics. Recognize that we are in the midst of a battle, that we are under attack, that we are under siege. Recognize that this battle is a spiritual We we're not at war with people. This is a spiritual war. Recognize that the weapons that we have, this gospel that we preach, this Bible that we have in our possession, this absolute truth from the One True and Living God that is ours, these things most surely believed among us. These things are more powerful than any weapon we can comprehend. And they are enough. They are sufficient. The Bible is sufficient. I do not need sociologists and psychologists to complete me in my thinking about humanity. I don't go to sociology, text and psychology, text and political science texts and then bring them as a lens through which I view the Bible. No, I take the Bible and I use it as the lens through which I critique those texts. There's one leading voice in all of this movement. It was interviewed on a radio program a while back, and he was making the statement. He's talking about, you know, broad reading, and I'm all for broad reading, amen, all for broad reading. I mean, I read all kinds of stuff, right, But he was making the argument talking about reading sociology and political science and reading the social sciences and these other things, and he made this argument. He made this statement that without sociology and the social sciences, the Bible doesn't make sense. Leading evangelical voice. No, the weapons of our warfare, they're mighty for tearing down and destroying strongholds, fortresses, and they're sufficient. They're sufficient. So what do we do? We use them? And that too pronged effort to destroy arguments, lofty opinions. And again, even as we do that, I mean, we keep Peter's words in mind. Right, always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you? Yet do it with gentleness and respect. The way I define apologetics is this knowing what you believe and why you believe it, and being able to communicate that to others in a winsome and effective manner. So when we destroy arguments, that's how we destroy arguments, Amen, And then take every thought captive. Think through these things, develop your own biblical theological understanding in these areas, and hold fiercely to biblical truth. And this is the way we'll navigate through these waters. Not all of us have to stand in the same post, not all of us have to do the same work, but all of us, in principle, have to be about this same business. And so oftentimes, you know, people say, I'll get this from people. Well, you know, you talk about all of these ideologies and all these theories and so on and so forth, But I don't hear you talking about ABC XYZ. Fill in the blanks, man. Nobody can talk about everything, Amen, nobody can talk about everything. I'm standing on the wall that I was assigned to stand on. And for me to go and try to stand on everybody else's wall, it's for me to not be faithful to my assignment. I preach the whole Council of God and in local church pastorate, systematic preaching through books in the Bible. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. That has been the hallmark of my ministry. But when it comes to a broader public ministry and I'm doing events like this, I can't systematically preach through all the Counsel of God in a weekend conference. But I can stand on the wall to which I've been assigned, man my post and defend it to the best of my ability. And that's all any of us can do, and trust God for the greater results. I don't have to know what's going on in every corner of the battle, just what's happening on my wall, and that's all you can do. So be encouraged. The weapons that we have are more than enough. Be encouraged. God's not calling you to fix everything everywhere. Be encouraged. There are thousands of prophets who have not bowed the knee to bail and be encouraged. At the end of the day, the Bride of Christ will be defended, she will be protected, she will be present deserved, and she will be restored, redeemed and rescued by her Savior. Inenct Yeah,