So, I run a graduate program in Christian apologetics. If you don't know what apologetics
is, that's not unusual. Sometimes we have large conferences devoted to apologetics,
and half the crowd attending the conference really doesn't know what apologetics is.
So, let me give you a brief definition, and it's very simple. It's offering reasons for faith,
offering reasons to put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what apologetics does.
It's not just for, you know, super intellectual people or people who just love to study philosophy
and things. It's for everybody. It's something that we've actually been commanded to do in the
Scriptures. In fact, the great apologetics verse is in 1 Peter 3.15, where Peter writes this,
always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have. Yet, do this with gentleness and respect. And that last part is very important. We want to
be able to engage people and do our very best to accurately answer their questions, but always doing
this with gentleness and respect. If we're not doing it with gentleness and respect, they might
understand our answer, and it's even a good answer, but it's not going to have an impact on them. So,
we're ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we need to deliver these wonderful messages
with gentleness, reverence, and respect. Well, running an apologetics program, I get a chance to
go to a lot of churches, and some churches are a bit resistant to offering reasons for faith. That's
a bit strange to me because I think the Scriptures are pretty clear that this is something we ought to
be doing. And so, I've really poured over the Scriptures looking for good biblical justification
for doing what I do. You know, it actually encourages me a great deal to know that what I'm doing is
supported by the Bible. So, I've sat down in my comfortable Bible reading chair, and I've read
through the entire Bible looking for the ways God loves to demonstrate the truth of His message.
He likes to demonstrate who He is, His great power, His great wisdom, and His great love for us. He likes to
demonstrate it so that we walk around with knowledge. He likes us to have knowledge. Now, some people
think, well, maybe that's not the way we're supposed to do this. Aren't we supposed to have faith,
not knowledge? I've got to help you out with this one if you're confused by that. Knowledge is not the
opposite of faith. In fact, let me read to you something that came from an editorial piece in a
Los Angeles newspaper. It's from an engineering professor at the University of Southern California.
And he wrote this piece because he was annoyed that the government was helping support faith-based
initiatives in the community. And so, he didn't like the concept of faith entering into the public
sphere. But here's what this engineering professor, this unbelieving engineering professor, says faith is.
He says, faith is unwarranted belief. Faith is belief without evidence or despite evidence to the
contrary. Faith occurs when a person believes that something is true even though he suspects it's false.
It takes large doses of such faith to support the very existence of gambling casinos, psychic hotlines,
astrology columns, mall Santas, and most organized religions.
Is that what faith is? Good heavens, no. The problem is very many people in the churches I've been to,
Christians walk around with an idea of this as faith. And notice he thinks faith is really the
opposite of the opposite of knowledge. It's believing things that you actually suspect aren't true.
But you're just going to close your eyes and you're going to leap into them. What he's describing here,
I call blind leaping, not biblical faith. Biblical faith is very simply trusting Jesus. It's trusting God
to save you. It's putting your faith or your trust in Him. And that trust can be built upon a wonderful,
solid foundation of knowledge. In fact, that's the greatest way to come to faith is if the knowledge
has compelled you in that direction. So I'm going to trust Jesus because, wow, this thing has to be
true. God was very generous in giving us the evidence and good reasons to understand that His
message is true, His Word and His identity. So if you read through the Scriptures, you find this
constantly God demonstrating the truth of His identity and His Word. Now, I don't have time to
give you a whole lot of these passages, but let me give you my favorite from the Old Testament.
I think you're going to like this one. You've probably been delighted to read this passage yourself.
But it's Elijah, the prophet Elijah, squaring off against the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 16, 17,
18. It's quite a remarkable passage. I love the prophet Elijah, by the way, don't you? He's not
a writing prophet like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. He's a doing prophet. You know, he just
wanders around in the desert, you know, and I always picture him looking kind of scraggly. He's got hair
going out here, and he's got a funny look on his face and a scraggly beard. He's got a sword. He's
marching around in a sword and sandals. And can you imagine he would wander into town what the little
children would do, you know, trying throwing rocks at him and hiding, and he'd snarl at them.
He's quite a figure, you know, if you really think about him, somebody very unusual.
Well, it turns out in 1 Kings, the land of Israel is being dominated by a foreign type of worship,
a worship that is not pleasing to Yahweh at all. It's Baal worship. And there are busloads of
prophets of Baal out there, and they're all supported by Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen
of the land. And Elijah is annoyed at this, so he wants to deal with it. And here's the way he dealt
with it in 1 Kings. In fact, let me give the setup here in 1 Kings chapter 16, starting with verse 29.
In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, son of Omri, became king of Israel, and he reigned in
Samaria over Israel 22 years. Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of
those before him. How would you like people to be writing that in the Bible about you? Oh, goodness,
that's not a great epitaph. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of
Nabat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and
worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made
an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings
of Israel before him. My goodness. So, Elijah understands this, and he wants to confront this.
And it says in chapter 18, verse 17, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. This was going to be quite a
meeting. When he saw Elijah, he said, is that you, you troubler of Israel? And Elijah writes or says,
I have not made trouble for Israel, but you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the
Lord's commands and have followed the Baals. Now, summon the people from all over Israel to meet me
and bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.
So, Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the
people and said, how long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if
Baal is God, follow him. Well, this is quite a setup. So, Elijah proposes this little contest between him,
the one outstanding prophet of God in the land, and then 400 plus prophets of Baal and Asherah.
So, that's quite a contest. One man against busloads of false prophets. So, he proposes that
they climb up onto Mount Carmel and they build two altars, right? And what they're going to do is
they're going to put a slab of meat on top of these altars, and they are going to pray to their
respective deities, and they're going to see who sends down fire from heaven to consume the offering.
So, the prophets of Baal get to go first. They build a lovely altar over here. They put a fine
slab of meat on there. The sun is low in the sky. It's in the early morning, and they get to go first.
And so, they begin to chant and dance. You know, I have no idea how they did this, but just imagine.
And they're calling out to Baal to send down fire to consume the offering. And there's 400 of them,
so they can take turns, and everybody can be very vigorous in their activity. And they're moving
along quite well. The sun is getting higher in the sky, but nothing's happening. There's no sparks.
There's no smoke. There's nothing. There's birds flying over, and there's flies gathering on the
meat, you know. It's not going particularly well. So, they ramp it up. They start moving faster.
They chant more. Elijah is over here taunting them. He's saying things like,
hey, guys, shout louder. Your God probably can't hear you. He actually says this, you know,
hey, guys, he might be on the toilet. Keep working at it, you know. So, they're working at it,
and it's not going well. Nothing's happening. And so, their time was getting close to the end,
and so they pulled out, says the text, swords and spears and began to cut themselves,
hoping that a little bit of blood on the skin would attract Baal's attention.
So, they're stagging around. They're bleeding. They're falling and fainting. There's probably a
pile of prophets here, but their time is up, and now it's Elijah's turn. Elijah builds a lovely altar
over here, puts this nice slab of meat on top of it, and he has people dig a trench around the altar,
and he has people bring in buckets of water to pour over the offering, and it's running down into the
trench. I was teaching this to some small children one time, fourth graders, and I asked them,
so why do you think Elijah had to pour water over the offering? And one small kid raised his hand
right away. He had a good answer. I called him, and he said, to make gravy.
So, yeah. I'm sure he could have got the answer out of these guys down here.
So, it's Elijah's turn. The prophets of Baal failed miserably. He's got his altar built. He's got the
water poured, and he says a little prayer, and I always picture him kind of winking at God.
And down comes fire from heaven, takes up the offering, laps up the water in the trench, probably
takes up a couple of prophets of Baal for good measure. It's a definitive demonstration that Yahweh's
God and Baal is not. Definitive demonstration. And the text says that all of Israel was there watching
this. Probably not every person in Israel, but leaders from all the tribes. And they witnessed
this. Now, think about it. What do you think they did once this little contest was over? Do you think
they walked away going, huh? You know, religion's a tricky thing. You know, who can know? It's all so
mysterious, and it's about all that's going on inside of you, and who can really know what's going on?
No, that's not what they did at all. They said, oh my goodness, Yahweh's God, Baal is not, and Yahweh
seems a little mad. And so they ran for the caves. They ran for to hide in the clefts of rocks and so
on. No, no. It was a definitive demonstration. Yahweh's God and Baal is not. God loves to demonstrate
the truth of His identity and the truth of His Word. There are so many examples in the Old Testament of
this. It's a bit difficult to choose others. But when you begin to roll right into the New Testament,
this almost gets too much. I remember as a young man reading the New Testament for the first time.
I became a Christian when I was a 17-year-old, a senior in high school. And I'm reading through
the New Testament thinking, these followers of Jesus are kind of obsessed with Jesus and His
resurrection. And I was reading passages like this. Get this, 2 Peter 1.16. 2 Peter 1.16. Peter writes,
for we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. John takes it several steps further in 1 John
1.1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
It's like they're saying, no, don't you make this mistake for a second. This really happened. It was
not some figment of our imagination. It was not some mystical dream or spiritual vision. He was here.
We saw Him. We heard Him. We touched Him. This is what we're proclaiming. They wanted to make sure
nobody got it wrong on that count. There was knowledge involved in this. It was not some
mystical apparition. Now, Jesus Himself was big on demonstrating the truth of His teaching.
In fact, really the whole center point of Christianity is about a demonstration.
When Jesus was wandering around the Holy Land during His ministry, He was often confronted by
Jewish teachers of the law. And on several occasions, they confronted Him and said, hey,
show us a sign, right? Show us a sign. Give us some evidence that you are who you say you are. We need
something going. We need a sign. And Jesus would respond, I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, but He'd say,
I'm not going to show a sign to a bunch of rascals. Except for one. Tear down this temple and I will
raise it up again on the third day. And John tells us he was talking about the temple of His body.
The resurrection of Jesus was going to be the great sign, right? And it really is the center point of
Christian demonstration. It's something that sets Christianity apart from the other great world
religious traditions in rather dramatic fashion. And it also makes Christianity testable. The Apostle
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says that if Jesus did not come back from the dead, our faith is worthless.
It's empty. It's of no account. That is a crazy statement. You don't find that kind of statement in
other world religious literature. I consider that passage in 1 Corinthians 15 by the Apostle Paul to
be one of the strangest passages in all of religious literature. It makes Christianity testable. And
Jesus was interested in people having knowledge. And His resurrection from the dead in front of
eyewitnesses was going to be the great sign that He truly was the Messiah, the very Son of God,
and had conquered death for all of us.
Now, Jesus showed His love for demonstration in another way as well. Mark chapter 2. Thank you so
much for reading the passage this morning. I'm glad you were able to hear it from the text because I
think I'm going to give a bit of a dramatic reading. I'm not going to display it in terms of
interpretive dance. I won't go quite that far, and I didn't bring my leotard, so that's not going to
work anyway. But I love this passage. Actually, I love the gospel of Mark in general. If any of you have
ever studied the ancient Greek language, you know, Koine Greek, you get to appreciate the gospel of Mark
because it's got this very simple cadence. It's obviously written by a person who was not super good
at the Greek language. But so it has, you know, it's almost like it's written by a 10-year-old or
something, the way it plods along. But it also has this texture of authenticity that's quite remarkable.
In fact, just a little sideline here on the gospel of Mark. I've been part of a team exploring some
ancient manuscripts that have been found. There's been some new manuscripts found, and I don't know if
you know about these yet, but they've been found in a very unusual place. Ancient Egyptians around the
time of Jesus and the apostles, they loved to have funeral masks when they died. Now, we're not talking
about great kings and queens who had gold masks and all that. Even people who had just modest incomes
would like a burial mask. It was an Egyptian burial tradition. So if you were an everyday Egyptian and
you wanted a funeral mask and you couldn't afford a gold variety, what you would do is you would have
somebody make you a paper mache mask. They'd take papyrus fragments that they found in local
garbage cans, basically, and they would use some glue and patch them together and make a mask.
Well, it turns out the papyrus fragments that they were using to make these masks contains all kinds of
interesting things like letters to kings, pieces of the writings of Homer, the great Greek poet,
people's laundry lists and grocery lists, and on occasion, a piece of the Bible, for goodness sakes.
So once this was discovered, we were collecting these masks and dissolving them in a solution that
wouldn't harm the manuscripts. And they'd float apart, and we'd take the scraps, and we'd read them,
and we'd found several passages of Scripture. And these date to the earliest fragments ever found of
these books. And we found a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that almost certainly dates back into the
first century, probably just a decade or two after the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have never had
a fragment that went that early. The earliest fragment we have had before this is the John
Ryland's papyrus, which dates at about 125 AD. It's a fragment of the Gospel of John found in the Egyptian
desert. This predates it by 30 or 40 years. It's a fragment of the Gospel of Mark. So this dashes the
objection to Scripture that it was written very late, many generations after the events that they speak of.
And hence, they could have been doctored or tampered with. No, no. We've got fragments now pushing right
back on to the time of these events. So these announcements will be coming, so keep an eye out
for them. So back to the Gospel of Mark, Mark chapter 2. In Mark chapter 2, it's a big deal. Jesus is coming
to Capernaum. Jesus is coming to Capernaum. Capernaum's a sleepy fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of
Galilee. Nothing happens in Capernaum. It's a dead zone. I mean, you fish, you cook fish, you sell fish,
and you just live your life. It's a bit boring. So when there is a fellow like Jesus of Nazareth
coming to town, this isn't a ticket, right? This is something you want to make sure you attend.
There's no movie theaters or video games or concert halls in Capernaum. If a guy like Jesus is coming to town,
you get there, you get there early, and you attempt to get a front row seat because this is going to be the best
thing that happened in town in a very long time. Jesus is coming to Capernaum. So then the text says that he was
set up in a home teaching. It was very likely Peter's home. Peter had a home there, and it's likely Jesus had set up in his
home to give this little talk. I always imagine Jesus giving a nice talk on the kingdom of God.
But interestingly, the focus of the text is not on what Jesus was talking about, but all these strange
occurrences taking place around him. Now, people wanted to get there, so many got there early and
filled the home. In fact, the text says it was filled to overflowing. People were packed out, maybe 10 deep
outside, craning their necks, hoping to hear what's going on inside the home. Then the story takes a quick
shift. So it moves away from this message of Jesus in this home to four guys, four men. I love these guys.
How about you, there's guys like this all over this room too. These are guys who are gonna go hear Jesus,
and they said, wait a minute, let's go get the paralytic, right? The guy who can't use his legs.
So these men are filled with compassion, and they want to go get their friend who can't use his legs,
which is a terrible sentence in those days when you really have to use your body to make a living.
This man was probably dependent on people giving him things and helping him out in every way.
So they had compassion. They run down to get him. They put him on a mat, and they trot him down to
where Jesus is teaching. And they stop, and they look, and they go, oh, they can't get near the place.
It's jammed. Here's why I like these guys. They were not daunted by this. They found a way to get
this poor man up on the roof of the dwelling, right? They found a way to get the paralytic up on the roof.
Now, I don't know how they did that. The text doesn't say, but I'm imagining maybe two throwers and
two catchers, you know, or maybe a special rope and pulley system, you know, but they get this guy
up on the roof, and they start to dig through. They're pulling up tiles, and they're starting to
dig around, you know, and could you imagine the scene inside as people are watching the ceiling
shaking, and there's dust falling, and a leaf. And suddenly, a little beam of light breaks through,
and the light is hitting the dust in the air, and it looks very spiritual and ethereal, and all the
people who got there earlier were going, I'm so glad I got here, you know. So, and I'm sure Jesus was
standing there going, what in the world is going on here? The hole gets bigger, and a head pops through.
A guy looks around, the head disappears, and the hole gets even bigger.
Light is pouring in, there's dust everywhere. As if this is not strange enough, moments later,
the ceiling of this little dwelling begins to give birth. They have this poor man probably wrapped in
his mat with some ropes, and they're stuffing him through the hole they've made in the roof.
They're pushing and pop. This man goes through, and he's got a hold of a rope. His arms are
plenty good. He's got the rope, and he's spinning around, and he plops on the floor, you know, cross-legged,
and dust puffs up, and now there's light pouring in. There's dust everywhere. There's four heads poking
through the big hole at the top now, and as the dust begins to settle, you can see everybody leaning
forward at Jesus standing there, thinking, what in the world is the rabbi gonna say about this?
And so, Jesus sees this scene. This man is sitting in front of him. The dust is settling. There's
light pouring into the room. Still plenty of dust in the air. And Jesus says this,
son, your sins are forgiven.
Some of you have the same look on your face, I think, that they may have had. You're kind of like...
Now, okay, here's the funny thing when I read this text. Why didn't the crowd leap to their feet and go,
what a happy day? You know, this man's sins have been forgiven. This is a great day. You know,
why didn't they do that? Well, if this man's sins have had really been forgiven,
that is an invisible spiritual act, right? And you can't see it happen, so you kind of have to trust
the guy who's saying it. There's...some of you are probably medical doctors and nurses and so on here,
medical professionals of various sorts. I think you would agree with me that there's no LED light
in a person's temple that starts flashing when their sins have been forgiven, right? There's...you
can't go to the doctor and say, doc, you got to check this...the sin state I have. And he takes some
instrument and he plunges it into you and pulls it out and goes, nope, you're good. You know,
there's nothing like that, right? It's not a physical event. It's a spiritual event. And so,
you have to trust the person who's talking about it. And I think Jesus knew that, right? So he says,
son, your sins are forgiven. And of course, the text says that there were some Jewish teachers of
the law in the room going, hey, wait a minute, who can forgive sins but God alone? And I'm sure Mark
throws that in there to, you know, just give everybody the clue. That's exactly right. That's
the question people should have been asking. But most of the people, I think, were just going,
can he do that? Is that all right? And their partner at the event would say something like,
you know, well, let's...whatever we do, let's hang in there. The word on the street is that he can make
lunch. So we'll just wait for this. So, son, your sins are forgiven. There it is. And Jesus leaves it
hanging in the air. In fact, just to give you the same kind of example, say the door opens in the back
of the room here. And in walks a man with a long white robe, right? And a beard. Maybe he's got a
big hat and he's got a staff and sandals. And maybe he has some little disciples following him or
something. And he walks in. He comes down here and walks right up to the stage and pushes me aside.
He looks like Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings movies. You know, Gandalf the White.
And he pushes me aside and he says, lo. Because that's what religious guys say for some reason.
Or maybe he says, behold. Or maybe he really, you know, does a great number on it and says,
lo and behold. And he stands up here and he's a very impressive figure. And this is a very unusual
circumstance. They have a man dressed all in white with a big hat and a staff coming up,
pushing me aside and saying this. And he says to you, my children, your sins.
They are forgiven.
Now, why aren't you leaping to your feet, you know, and going, what a happy day. This is great. Our sins
have been forgiven. You know, Gandalf has told us so, you know. Well, this is a very strange circumstance,
but you get the point. It sounds interesting and somewhat attractive to have your sins forgiven.
But you don't know if Gandalf can really do it, right? Even if he's proclaiming it, you don't know
what's really going on. Because if it's true, it's an invisible spiritual act. It's exactly where
Jesus was. Son, your sins are forgiven. But he did not want people left in a state of unknowing.
And this is the big crescendo of this particular biblical story. Jesus says this. He says,
so that you will know, so that you will know, so that you will know that the Son of Man has the
authority on earth to forgive sins. Pick up your mat and go home. This guy gets to his feet, maybe for
the first time in his life. He scoops up his mat and he starts to walk out of the room. And people are
backing up, making a way for this guy as he walks out. And the gospel of Mark uses the strongest language
in, uh, use the strongest words in that language. They were astonished. They had never seen anything
like this. And guess what? Everybody in that room had excellent reason to believe that God could indeed
forgive sins. Because Jesus demonstrated it through a miracle right there in front of people's eyes. The
man they knew for years not to be able to use his leg was suddenly on them walking out of the room with
his mat. They'd never seen anything like it. There was excellent reason to believe that Jesus could indeed
forgive sins. I think there's excellent reason to believe that Jesus has come back from the dead. I think
it's one of the best attested facts of the ancient world. I've studied this for years. And I think God was
incredibly generous giving us the evidence that Jesus truly was alive at point A, dead at point B, and alive
again at point C. We can know that. And I use the word know intentionally. We can know that to be true.
And not just in some spiritual way. We can know it that way if we'd like. But also the facts of history
testify to that. And I wish I could give you a case for the resurrection of Jesus right now, but don't have
time for that this morning. Maybe another time. But the evidence is compelling and actually quite
overwhelming in terms of the testimony you get from ancient history. It's remarkable. Jesus came
back from the dead. And you can know it to be true from the facts of history, as well as from the Holy
Spirit testifying in your heart. God wants us to know. He wants us to know that our sins can be forgiven.
And he wants us to know that we can have eternal life by trusting in him. Now, some of you may be hearing
this for the first time. This is the real deal. You can know this to be true. And I encourage you to
study it out. Think through it carefully. Read the text of Scripture and read some very smart people who
helped to interpret that text. And what you will find is Jesus is indeed the Son of God,
the unique Savior of humankind, who not only can forgive sins, but after he was killed
by a Roman execution team on a cross, he came back from the dead on the third day. And you can know
these things to be true. And by putting your trust in him, saying, all right, I'm pretty sure I'm not
going to be able to save myself. Jesus, I'm going to trust you. You do that this morning. You will enter
into a whole new existence. You will be a child of God. You will be born again. And you will inherit
eternal life. This is something we can jump up and shout praises about. Join me in a word of prayer.
Our Heavenly Father, our great King, what a joy it is to serve you. What a joy it is to know that you
didn't leave us stranded in our own time without a witness, a witness that you are who you say you are
and that your word is true. Lord, if there's any among us today who are wondering if they should
commit to you, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would move in their hearts, that they would
understand that they've been alienated or separated from you and that you can bring them back, that you
can forgive their sins, you can make their lives right, right now, right at this moment, and that
you could give them eternal life, give them a new birth and a new outlook on life starting today.
In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you all so much.