Poor Modern Internet Arguments
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How about a brush with great evil or even in general? A friend of mine began questioning God’s existence after he lost his wife. She was my age and she left behind four teenaged girls. And he began to say, “How could God be good when he took my wife? My partner, my lifelong partner, and left behind these four beautiful girls, that can’t be God.” And he was wrought with pain and anguish. But not just experience what great evil can leave us, questioning God. The contrast of the present evil that we experience against the light and the goodness of God, and the joy of salvation, it can cause a person to cry out to the Lord, in confusion and desperation. Exposure to many bad arguments with not enough focus on the good arguments. I hope you’re going to get a ton of good arguments here. I think you are, I looked at your schedule, I’m excited for you. I wish I could stay.
But we live in the age of the internet which is a fantastic thing. You have more access to more knowledge than ever before and more quickly than every before. That includes false knowledge and bad arguments. You’ve been exposed to so much bad philosophy already. And that’s a C. S. Lewis’ quote, “Good philosophy must exist if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs answered.” Right? It’s that important, and we’re starting to reel from the pain of getting so much bad philosophy through the internet and through the media. I’ve had to tell my logic students; I teach an internal logic class at the University. And I have to tell them that many times, I have to offer the internet atheists that are coming after me better arguments against God’s existence than what they’re giving me. Because their arguments are so bad and so wrought with fallacies. So, exposure to bad arguments can cause people doubt about God. Limits of human knowledge, do you realize that doubt is common? It’s not just a religious thing, it’s common, it’s a human thing. Right? Doubt is a human thing. If you’re human, you’re going to have doubt about something at some time. Because nobody has a God’s eye perspective on the universe. So even in the fields of science, even in fields of philosophy, we still have doubts. We don’t know it all.
And then finally, I didn’t want to leave this one out, a lack of living in the presence of God can cause people doubt, right? You know a lot about God. You know a lot of information, you crammed it in there. When I cram it in there, stuff comes out the other side. Starting to lose things out the other side. Great, you can have a lot of information about God, yet not really know Him personally, right? Not really experience trusting God, not really watch him change your life. And I think a lack of people really practicing the spiritual disciplines, being in prayer, being alone with God. Letting God, trusting God and trusting what happens, a lack of doing that can cause a person’s doubts. “Are you really there? Are you really working in my life? I don’t see it.” Well, are you practicing living in the presence of God? Have you given trust over to him and see what he’s done with it? So, whatever we learn and whatever you learn here in the next 2 weeks, that should impact your eternity. That should impact you for all of your life, right, and starting right now. So, this knowledge should begin to wash over you and change you in some way.
So, a lack of living in the presence of God, now, how do people respond to doubt? We got two great reactions in the New Testament I want to share with you. You’ve got Thomas’ reaction, which I’ve heard a lot of sermons on. Um, Thomas’, we call him doubting Thomas, like the poor guy gets labeled, right? Doubt Jesus one time, labeled for eternity. So, doubting Thomas and then we got John the Baptist. So, I want to show you these two different responses.
Now Thomas’ reaction, he demands evidence. If you read through that passage, the varied translations say different things, but what he’s saying is, “Unless I get the evidence that I’m looking for, I will never believe.” Right? “You meet me where I’m at, you meet my demands, or I will never believe.” Think about that motive there, about the heart condition of that person. Right? This sounds to me like Carl Sagan, “God put a glowing cross of stars in the sky, so that we can believe, we can know you’re there.” Meet my demand, meet my demand for evidence. Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosopher, he was asked in an interview, what he would do if he died, and he found out there was a God, and he met God? What would he say to God? And he said he would say, “not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.” Sounds a little bit like doubting Thomas, “you didn’t give me what I wanted; therefore, I will never believe.”
So, we got the Thomas, right? But look at John the Baptist. You got Luke 7:18-28, I would read through them, but timewise, I’m not going to. I would suggest reading. If you don’t read the John passage, read the Luke passage on John the Baptist. So, I want you to see this. John the Baptist, was the prophesied messenger of the Messiah, right? He’s prophesied about, the Old Testament prophesies about the messenger, who would make the way for the Messiah. So, you’ve got John the Baptist prophesied about and Jesus prophesied about, the Messiah, right? Now, John the Baptist in this passage, he’s in Herod’s prison and things look really bad for him. So, he’s experiencing pain and suffering in Herod’s prison, right? And the Messiah’s not turning out quite what he thought the Messiah was going to be. He probably had more of a political figure, religious political figure, who would save Israel, presently. And that’s not quite what – As a matter of fact, John the Baptist currently is not being saved, he’s in jail. And like I said, it doesn’t look good. Now, I’m going to spoil. If you haven’t read the story and you don’t know what happens to John the Baptist, it is bad. He gets beheaded over a dance, right? This girl dances for the King and she asks for John the Baptist’s head on a plate. That’s how he dies, the great messenger of the Messiah. So, it’s going to end ugly.
So, John’s having doubt, he sends his disciples out to Jesus. Jesus is out teaching in front of a crowd, who would know John the Baptist’s ministry of proclaiming the Messiah. They might have even been there, when John the Baptist himself, baptized Jesus and said, “Behold, the lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.”, pronounces Him as God. John the Baptist asks Jesus a question though his disciples, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another.” Wow, the guy who is proclaiming the Messiah asks him, “Are you the Messiah? Because, I’m having some doubt.” I’ve never heard that before in The Church. I didn’t know, if this guy can doubt, anybody can have doubt, right? This is the guy proclaiming Jesus is the Messiah, and he was prophesied about, and he’s having some doubt. But look at what he says, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” He doesn’t say, “You give me evidence, or I will never believe.” Right? You see him asking this question out of his own pain and suffering.
Let’s look at some of the responses that Jesus gives. To Thomas, you get a rebuke in front of the public. A lot of people have twisted this and say you’re supposed to believe without evidence. You know, you seen because you believe – or “you believe because you’ve seen Thomas but blessed are those who have not seen and believe.” That’s a rebuke. Look what he gives to John, he doesn’t answer the question, what he does first – well, he does. What he does first is he performs physical miracles. And those miracles coincide with Isaiah. With the prophet, what the prophet – The Messiah, I’m sorry, what the Messiah would do. These are the miracles you would expect from the Messiah. So, he performs those miracles. He gives physical evidence, empirical data of who he is, then he reasons. He gives the scripture; this is who the prophet is – or the Messiah is. I keep saying prophet, prophet out. This is who the Messiah is, this is what he would do, and so he gives them that. And then, instead of rebuking John in front of the group, he lifts John’s character back up. He makes the case for the integrity of John’s character and says to the crowd, “and among those born of women – “, that’s everybody, “none is greater than John.” Wow, do you see a difference between Thomas and John and their doubt? Do you see a heart condition, maybe, going on? One guy’s just suffering, life isn’t going the way he thought it would. This is not – Jesus is not doing what he thought he would do, so he has some questions. Life got really hard for John. And Jesus not only gave him the evidence that he’s looking for, but he lifts him up.
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