Apologetics and The Culture / with Eric Hernandez

This is City Post Church, we're about three things, build

equipped and send all under the lordship of Jesus Christ, a

small Church Plant in Fort Worth Texas, who decided to do things

a little differently. I would almost I had to Crystal,

I love City Post because of the people.

It's where I belong, we truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community.

We've been able to build to do ministry.

Like Jesus perlite to push back Darkness.

This is City, Post podcast. Men, thank you for that

Applause. I'll wait till it dies down,

before it begin here. I'm already feeling the love

this morning. Thank you, guys.

My name is Erick Hernandez. I'm the Apologetics lead for the

Baptist General Convention of Texas and I want to go ahead and

jump in as we get started. If you want to know more about

me, you can go my YouTube channel type my name Erick

Hernandez. Just don't read the comments

section. If there's kids around, you

know, how that works. But, I want to get into this.

I when I stand behind the pulpit, I first want to say

thank you, too. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate his hard. Got to talk to him.

I love what he's doing here. I see God doing a great thing

here and I think there needs to be more churches like this who

dive into God's word and care about bringing people who are

going to expand on God's word. So you have you are blessed to

have a pastor like this. When I step behind the pulpit, I

like to start with the Bible verse and we're going to start

with the verse but not necessarily from the Bible, but

from like an atheist Bible, if you will Richard Dawkins and

we'll get the slides up in a second, he's known as one of the

four horsemen of the new atheists.

It's the name they give themselves.

It's not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but essentially,

he has a book called The God Delusion.

And in this he has a famous quote that we're going to get to

in a second. So just talk awkwardly amongst

ourselves while we handle the technical difficulties and And I

believe at the end we're going to have some, have some

questions that we're going to get into.

And in fact, I don't know if we want to maybe, do some do a

question or two while they're setting up the slides.

For the psyche. What do you guys think?

Should we Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, so good question.

So a few things to consider one, the question assumes.

So every time you you're answering questions, especially

if you're out there talking with people you're not just answering

the question. You're answering the question

are right? There's a person behind this

question and there's usually hidden assumptions within these

questions. So for example, if God is all

loving, why would he allow evil? The question assumes that an

all-loving God in the existence of evil are somehow incompatible

but that's simply not the case. So, there's lots of ways ahead

at this. I had an eight, this once want

to tell me this and In your prayers.

Next year, I'll be coming out with a book on engaging with

non-believers and I had one one person.

One time. You said kind of same thing if

God is all loving wise are evil. I said, well, are you saying

that if God exists and is all loving that there?

Shouldn't be evil. He said, yes.

I said why he said? Well because he's all loving, I

said, right? And he said, but evil exists.

Yes. Go on.

It was kind of it was kind of awkward for a little bit and he

goes well, there shouldn't be evil, why not?

Because it's a loving, correct, but evil exists.

Yes, go on. In other words, there's no

explicit contradiction in it. Now to try and get to what he

was getting at a civil. Let me put it this way.

Are you saying that if God is all loving, then he went to

allow some kind of any Carm to come to his children.

He said, yes. I said, okay.

Well, let me ask you this suppose.

I take my children to the dentist which includes painful

shots, right? That that are going to hurt in

my soul. All loving father, and he said,

Yeah, because you're only doing it for a greater good.

I said, ah, so if I as an Earthly father can still allow

pain and suffering and lives of my children and yet still love

them. In fact, it's because I love

them. Then how can that not apply it

to a god whose Farm worker than I am?

Now, what about evil like mass shootings and things like that?

Again, a few things put it this way, so I have a daughter who's

right now 13, she'll be 14 when she eventually gets her license

to drive, which scary thought, right?

I'll give her the keys to the car, she loaned, the car, it'll

be her car, but if she wrecks, it whose whose fault is it.

Well, hers, not mine, although I bought it for her.

In other words, there is a level of responsibility and Dominion,

God has given us on this Earth. So when he gives us the keys to

the car, if you will, then when it gets wrecked, it's not his

fault on top of that, where the hand of God here on Earth.

So it's not God's job to Eradicator, remove evil.

Now we'll God one day, remove evil.

That's another implicit assumption within the question,

is to assume that because God not has not gotten rid of evil

now that he never will, but if you read the end of the book we

went right Godwin's. So to say that there is All

right. Now assumes one that there

shouldn't be evil if God is all loving.

We see how that's not what the Bible teaches.

In fact, he said you should expect persecution.

You should expect a trials and tribulations on top of that,

he's given us a level of Free Will and II like a Norman

Geisler. Once put it, he said that God is

responsible for the fact of freedom, but human beings are

responsible for the acts of Freedom.

So while God has given us free will, if we want to get rid of

evil, we should start by looking in the mirror and if he did

start to get rid of evil, well then maybe you should start with

us. Right?

We don't consider that do it. There's a lot more to hit and

touch on. I don't know if we should do

another question. I'm sorry.

Oh, zero 202. Don't tell anybody.

Which is my birthday is nothing important on there.

Oh, thank you. Oh yeah.

That's right. Just past go figure.

Okay, let's jump into this, Richard Dawkins wrote a book.

I said called the light illusion.

Here's one of his famous quotes from his book.

He says the following He says, the god of the Old Testament is

arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.

He is jealous and proud of it. He is an unjust unforgiving

control-freak, a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser a

misogynistic homophobic, racist infanticidal Phyllis Idol,

pestilential megalomaniacal sadomasochistic, capriciously

malevolent bully, What do you think?

Suffice it to say that he just said a lot of really nasty

things about the God that you and I worship.

How does that make you feel? Mmm.

Now, the more important question though is, how would you

respond? You want to talk to him?

Okay. Now we don't have time to go

into responses. A great book, I would recommend

is by Paul. Copan is got a moral monster

where he goes through. A lot of accusations.

In fact, came out with a part two to this book called as got a

vindictive bully. but I'm reminded of something Christ

said in Matthew, 5:13, You said you were the salt of the earth

but if the salt loses its purpose, its function, it is no

longer good for anything but to be thrown out and walked on by

people. Now I find that because are such

a wide technological Gap from the time.

This was written and now we often miss the point of some of

these ancient biblical illustrations.

So to understand the context of what Christ is getting that with

this analogy, you have to first understand the purpose of salt

and Biblical times because you see back then they didn't have

refrigerators where they could just buy me at.

The store and then you know put in the fridge to store it for

long periods of time. So instead they use salt and in

these ancient times Salt acted as a preservative to prolong the

shelf life of meat salt was a way to keep meat from spoiling a

rotting So, with this in mind who is the salt of the earth?

Us you meet we are the salt of the earth.

Now, given the illustration, the next question becomes.

Well, if we represent the salt, what would be representative of

the meat? The world, our culture society.

And so here's my first question for you, this morning, is the

meat going bad. Turn on the news, right?

Look at social media but now get at the deeper underlying Point

that he's making with the illustration suppose, you live

in ancient times, and you go to the local market, you buy a bag

of salt and you come home and you begin to add the salt to

various pieces of meat. But you notice something strange

happening, you know, you notice that, no matter how much salt

you add, or what type of meat it is, it continues to spoil and

perish and rotten just as it normally would, as if there were

no salt to begin with. And if this continues to happen,

well, then at some point you're going to have to step back and

stop asking what's wrong with the meek?

And at some point you have to step back and ask yourself what

is wrong with thee? Because you are the salt of the

earth. And you said something

interesting, he says, if it loses its function, the only

thing it's good for us to be walked on by people as a church

being walked on today. But you are the salt of the

earth. I have a couple questions when

people ask me, what is apologetics I like to.

I like to do this because we're going to go into some versus

shortly but the best way I know how to explain it is to do this.

I say, let me ask you two questions and allow me to

respond to the skeptic or an atheist.

Here's the first question. Are you a Christian?

Just think about that for a second and the second question

is why should somebody else be a Christian?

Now, it's two questions for a reason because what I often find

is that a person's answer to the first question, does not

necessarily apply to S and I've gotten a lot of answers, but

here's one example in particular where this person implicitly

answered this question, some years ago, I was speaking at a

men's conference this was years before I was with Texas Baptist

and this gentleman approached me who was actually the keynote

speaker for this conference and I was one of the speakers and

we're backstage and he approached approaches me in a

kind of condescending tone and says.

So you do apologetics I said, yeah.

And he said, well, you know what, they say A man was an

experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument I

said, what do you mean? He says, well, I have my

testimony of how God changed my life and that's my personal

experience that no one can argue against.

So, I don't need apologetics to defend my faith because of my

testimony and no one can argue against my testimony said, okay,

Now, I remember an apologist. Once said, if someone tells you,

they don't need apologetics. It shows how little evangelism

they actually do. So I asked him.

I said you ever do any evangelism.

He said, yeah, I said what do you do?

He said once a month, my church. We go to these apartments near

our church and we set up this area the station and we cook hot

dogs and hamburgers and we interact with the community.

We play basketball with the kids and then I stand up and share my

testimony. That no one can argue against

because. See, I was, I was addicted to

drugs. I was in gangs I was Violent.

I was going through a divorce. I was an alcoholic, but the one

true, God saved my life and because of my experience, my

testimony, no one can argue against that.

And I do this all without apologetics.

It's okay. And my first thought was, I

don't know why this guy's trying to argue with me prior to

friction on stage with me. And I said, well, you do realize

that you're essentially give me an argument as to why we

shouldn't use arguments. But setting that point aside,

let me ask you a hypothetical. So let's say, you go for lunch

and you go to these apartments but let's say five hours later,

a different religious group comes and let's say they're

Muslim. And they come to the same area.

Same Apartments they set up their station.

You cook hot dogs and hamburgers interact with the community play

basketball at the kids. But then, their leader stands up

whom I do as Muslim and he shares his testimony and let's

suppose for the sake of argument that his testimony was like, I

don't know, 10 times better than your testimony, right?

Let's say he was in 10, different gangs addicted, to 10

different types of drugs, had 10 bottles of alcohol from to 10

different types of violence going through, 10 divorces at

once. Because, you know, in Islam you

can have more than one wife, right?

but then he stands up and he grabs a microphone and he leans

in and says but the one true God Allah Changed my life.

Now earlier you told me that a man with an experience is never

at the mercy of a man with an argument.

So, based on this personal man's testimony, which according to

you, you cannot argue against, would you drop to your knees and

become a Muslim? They said, no, of course not.

I said right that's that's kind of my point.

Now don't hear me saying what I'm not saying here, but let's

put it. Biblically scripture says that

the preaching of the Cross is power to those who believe that

it's you and I but it is foolishness to those who don't

which means that our job as Believers is, how do we take?

What the world deems us foolishness and how can we

translate that to demonstrate its power?

I submit to you that is in part, the discipline task of

apologetics So if a personal testimony won't do anything for

a non-believer because I work with this group called Maven and

every year we take a few trips, we take students on essentially

what our apologetic mission trips.

One of those trips is we go to Utah and I guarantee you in

terms of niceness and how kind and testimonies you're not going

to be a Mormon in that. I guarantee you.

But does their testimony convert me to Mormonism or in indulgent

do that? No.

So if that wouldn't do what would be the appropriate

response to these questions? And because I like you guys,

I'll give you my answer, I have one answer for both questions

and it's really profound. You might want to write this

down. Why are you a Christian or find

my Christian watching? Someone else be a Christian.

My answer is because it's true. What are no idea, right?

Imagine that. Imagine if we preach the gospel

not just because we believe it, that's good because we get great

feelings about it, but because we are convincing convicted that

it is actually true. We put it to you this way,

suppose you ask me, Eric, why do you think water is H2O?

And I said, oh, let me tell you why.

Because ever, since I started to believe water is H2O, I've

become a much better husband to my wife.

A much better father, to my children.

I'm so much happier now and in fact I meet with some friends of

mine and we get together once a week and we sing these great

songs about how water is H2O. And tears, just just roll down

my face and then we read these, we have these great book.

Studies of how water is H2O 66 books to be.

Fact. And recently this the secular

rapper came out and said he believes water is H2O so it's

got to be now. It's funny but if we reflect on

this for a second how much different of an answer is that

when you ask your average Christian, who are you a

Christian? Because you are the salt of the

earth. First Peter 3:15 is one of the

1 Peter 3:15

go-to versus for apologetics and it says to set Christ apart in

your heart as Lord be ready to give an answer some

translations, say defense and that were defense from this.

Verse actually, comes from the Greek word apologia, which is

where we get translate the word apologetics, which means that

biblically speaking apologetics can simply be defined as giving

a defense for what we believe and why we believe it.

Now, let me put this in context because I don't want you to miss

this. This is a new testament

commandment to every new testament believer, which means

if you're a Christian here, this morning and you are not engaging

in the discipline and task of apologetics, then you are in

biblical Rebellion Disobedience, to the word of God.

Biblically speaking. And if you take issue with that,

you can take it up with the author.

I didn't write the book. I just read it.

But this is what the Bible commands us to do.

If you're taking notes, you can write down the word stronghold.

And just a fair warning. We're going to get into some of

the strongholds but I am Hispanic and I have ADHD so that

makes me talk fast. Sometimes naturally when that

comes out, thanks for laughing, I'm a mental disorder.

But at the, at the end of this, I'll give you a link where you

can download my slides for free. If I'm going too fast for you

and I brought some material I touch on later.

Sankranthi ins chapter 10, verses 4 to 5 Paul says that the

weapons of our Warfare are not carnal but then in the context

he says that the purpose of spiritual warfare is to tear

down. Demolish destroy strongholds.

Now the next question is what's a stronghold?

Well, he actually defines it for us in verse 5.

And he says, in as much as a refute teardown.

He says arguments reasonings and every high and proud thing that

sets itself up against the knowledge of God, which means

biblically speaking. A stronghold can be defined as

thoughts. Ideologies beliefs are set of

beliefs reasonings philosophies arguments presuppositions.

Anything that goes against the knowledge of God, these are

strongholds. And according to Paul, this is

quite literally part of the spiritual warfare within our

culture. Which means a person cannot come

to a knowledge of God or even a deeper knowledge of God with

such strongholds. So we've already seen, you're

the salt of the earth. We've already seen that, you are

to be ready to give an answer a defense.

You are commanded to be able to do this and then on top of this,

now we are commanded to when it comes to spiritual warfare,

engage in the culture and recognize identify and respond

to the strongholds that we find in our culture.

So we can put it this way if you want to be effective in

evangelism, if you want to be effective in discipleship, if

you want to be effective in spiritual warfare then,

biblically speaking. You cannot do it without the

discipline and task of apologetics again biblically

speaking. there are three dominant strongholds within our

culture, and I want to go through these briefly and before

I do, I want to Inform you, why? This is so important in our day

and age especially these days. Some years ago again, before I

should Texas Baptist. I was invited to speak at this

church at this for this youth group and I won't mention the

name of the church, but meet me in the lobby.

So let me a 5 maybe we can talk. And this pastor wanted to have

lunch with me. So, as we're having lunch, she

says, I know you do apologetics and all but, you know, I just

don't think it has a place behind the pulpit.

Maybe Bible study maybe a small group, but certainly not a

Sunday morning service like we're doing here tonight.

And well, because I'm about to preach for his youth group later

that night. I don't want to argue with the

Pastor said us. Okay, we can agree to disagree

and thankfully, my sermon that night wasn't on apologetics

Nevertheless, as a service starts and I'm about to preach.

The youth. Pastor asked me to come up and

says, just take a few minutes to introduce yourself.

So I briefly mention my role as an apologist and out of respect

for the past reading, go deeply into it.

But I said, if you want to know more, come see me after the

service and you can ask me questions, whatever question you

like As I step off stage, and I'm gathering my things out of

the corner of my eye. I see this young man and his

mother and they start marching straight towards me, like really

fast. They stopped right in front of

me. And the the youth says, he looks

at his mom and says, tell her, and he points at me, tell her,

you said we could ask you questions, right?

And I thought my goodness is everything.

Okay I'm thinking did I say something wrong and I said yeah,

is everything all right? And then his mom looks at me and

then she looks at him and she kind of hesitates and says, well

as long as you're okay with it, I'll let y'all talk and she

walked off. I said, what was that about?

And what he said. Next broke my heart.

He said, well, I'm an atheist. I don't want to come to church

but my mom forces me to come so I come but I've always had

questions. And as you begin to ask these

questions to those in my youth group, they can answer them.

So, they sent me to the youth pastor, and when he couldn't

answer them, they sent me to the pasture, but it's now gotten to

the point where they had a meeting and they sent me down to

this meeting and they said, if you're going to come to church

sit down, shut up and stop bothering people with your

questions. But then you looked at me with a

glimmer of hope and said, but because you don't come here, the

rule doesn't apply to you. You're an exception and you said

we could ask you questions. So if you don't mind, can I ask

you some questions? We talked for at least an hour.

So much. So that the person with the keys

of the church said you have to leave, I have to go home and as

I'm walking to the car I remember thinking to myself,

what books have you been reading?

Sure, kid, smart kid and sure enough.

Richard Dawkins was one of them a few other atheist.

And I said, why are you satisfied with the answers?

I'm giving you that. Like, yeah, I've never heard

this before and I had to leave his one.

I said, look, I'm going to, I'm going to have breakfast with a

pastor tomorrow before I leave. I said if you'd like I can ask

him if we can continue this conversation over the phone or

through email, he said that would be so great, I would

appreciate that. Next morning, I'm having

breakfast at the pastor and I didn't waste any time.

I said pastor, I know what you said about apologetics

yesterday, but you realize you have an atheist in your youth

group, right? And he said yeah that's so and

so we're praying for him and he kind of said that nervously and

kind of chuckled, I said, you know, it's going to take more

than that. He's such a bright kid, you only

have one high school in the small town in Texas.

If you lose this young man, I guarantee you he's going to take

at least half that youth group with him.

I have respect for you. I didn't want to give him my

contact information. I said, but and I pulled out my

card. I said here's my personal cell.

An email, would you give this to him?

Because he said that he'd be he'd want to continue the

conversation and if you're okay with it would you hand this to

him so we can continue talking. That was almost 10 years ago.

And I doubt the kid ever got it cuz I never heard from him

again. But you are the salt of the

earth. There are three dominant

strongholds within our culture that the church needs to be able

to learn how to recognize and how to understand and how to

respond to. I'm going to briefly, go through

the three first and then with the time that we have left will

give some responses to them. First one is known as

post-modernism or relativism and it essentially The View that

truth is relative. There is no right or wrong.

There is no absolute truth. So say, for example, suppose

there's a dog to the right of this Podium.

And I could say there's a dog to the right of this Podium.

But someone in the front row can say, no, no, actually, there's a

dog to the left of the podium. Well, who's right?

And who's wrong? What we're both, right?

And in the same way says a postmodernist.

It doesn't matter what God you worship, what religion you would

here, too, because there is no absolute truth there.

In truth is not objective as a relative to each person and each

person's perspective. So if you don't agree with

same-sex marriage, says a postmodern.

Yes that's fine but don't tell someone else they can't marry

who they love because that's your truth.

Not theirs. And you don't agree with

abortion. That's fine too.

But don't tell this young lady who got molested a rate that she

can have an abortion because that's your religious morality

and you cannot impose your religious morality on to someone

else because it's true for you, not for them stronghold.

The second one is known as scientism note, the ism and this

is far more than an appreciation of science.

It is, if you want the big word, it is an epistemic view within

philosophy a way of knowing things.

And it is essentially The View that the only way or the best

way to gain knowledge is through science.

So a person who holds to the stronghold may say something

like. Well, if it cannot be

scientifically proven then either cannot be an owner,

cannot be true. So you want me to believe in God

show me the scientific evidence or show me a scientist if you

want me to believe in the afterlife that has gone to

heaven with lab equipment and been able to empirically test

verifiable data that can be reproduced in a lab and shown

the evidence of this. Because if you cannot prove it

scientifically, then why should I believe it?

Because it's either not true or it cannot be known stronghold.

Okay. And the second one is known as

naturalism. This one really hits home for

me. It is a view that the physical

world is all that exists. Nothing more.

Nothing less. And this is very rampant in our

culture. Freshman year of college, I

decided to take my first philosophy class.

Later found out my professor was an atheist but I enjoyed it

because he allowed us ask questions which was not like the

church that I was attending at the time.

And eager to learn more. I want to take another class in

philosophy, but everybody warned me.

If you're going to take another class, whatever you do, do not

take Professor Pena's class because if you take his class,

he's going to try to make you lose your faith.

He's antagonistic. And his goal is going to be

converted from Christianity. And my thought was before, can I

sign up? Not because I wanted to Lose My

Faith because I had questions and call me crazy, but I knew

that if something is true and I'll truth is grounded in God,

then I shouldn't be afraid to learn or be educated.

And I knew that if Christianity were true, I should know.

I need to know why. But I also understood that if

Christianity were false, I'd still like to know why.

And perhaps this is the guy for the job.

And here is the pivotal moment in my day in life and Ministry.

One day he walks into class and he reaches into his pocket and

he pulls out this antidepressant pill.

And he says, now, religion wants us to believe in something like

a soul, which is supposed to be immaterial, and it's because of

this soul that we can have hope in an afterlife and seeing our

family and friends that have gone before us. but the problem

is according to Christianity, your emotions, your Sensations,

your beliefs are also allegedly supposed to be in this

immaterial soul, but here's a problem.

If I were to take this antidepressant pill, it actually

has the power to change and affect the alleged immaterial

states of my soul, like my emotions and my Sensations.

But how can that be? How can something tiny and

physical have the power to affect the material?

Because every time we look at the brain, always see, our

neurons firing. That's all scientists ever

discover. And every time a scientist looks

at the body and our microscope, all we find are the base

elements of carbon hydrogen and oxygen, but no scientist has

ever found anything. Even remotely close to something

like a soul. How can that be?

Well, the answer is simple. He said I'll explain it to you.

It's really easy. The answer is that there is no

salt. There is no Heaven.

There is no hell. There is no God.

There is no afterlife. You are just a physical meat

machine, a brain and body and we need to learn to live with this

fact. Get on with our lives and stop.

Believing in these fanciful. Foolish fairy, tales class,

dismissed stronghold. How would you respond to

something like that? Because as a freshman in

college, this was the first time I met someone that didn't

believe in the soul and gave an argument against it but

something even more troubling. Cross my mind because to

paraphrase Paul in First Corinthians 15, he essentially

says, if there is no resurrection of the Dead, if

there is no Resurrection, Christianity is false and people

should actually feel sorry for us because of how dumb we are.

Well, by the same token. I would argue if there is no

soul that I'm principal. How can there be a resurrection

of me if I'm a soul and body? And if there is no soul in

there, can be no resurrection. And by the same token, if

there's no Resurrection in Christianity, would be false

stronghold. How would you respond to

something like this? Well, we're at a time.

So if you want the answer you get my DVD back there.

A case for the sold for only $20.

It's a whole hour into this. I'm joking.

Well, we'll go through some responses but while I'm on the

topic, I would like to mention. We do have some ensure that we

brought that I brought with me. This is one of the newest is my

favorite. This has become my area of

specialization, if you will, I also did a debate.

Well, I've done it quite a few debates at this point of the

Soul. This is a to our debate on the

soul with some, with some interviews afterwards.

What we're talking about today is spiritual warfare of our

culture. This is what were mainly

touching on. I have that DVD back there as

well. For $15.

I'm going to briefly touch on some evidence of God towards the

end if you want to go really deep.

We have a course, it's an eight. Plus our audio course on

apologetics is the most expensive thing we have is $50.

We also have download cars if you'd like there's a few other

debates I have up there and people usually ask do you have

like a package deal and what I often say is if To give it a

nation of $100, you can take everything on the table, that's

22 plus hours including notes and if you get the package,

you'll get my download card for free of my very first debate.

The professor I'm just talking about.

Has anyone seen the movie? God's Not Dead.

Yeah, the movie stop watching. It's a horror movie.

I hate that movie, but it was a it was a similar situation

because five years after I graduated from this Community

College, he was actually my first public debate on God's.

Distance. So actually debated my former

professor and what's interesting about that is that the church

lunatics. It wasn't even my church.

It was it's a long story, but I know the church and expect a lot

of people to show up. So instead of putting us in the

sanctuary, they put us in the gym and long story short

including online. There are about 600 people that

watched that debate, and that night there are more atheist

when Christians at church because I out influential, this

professor was If you get the packaging get that for free,

another thing I want to mention this, in a few weeks actually

will be in San Marcos. One of my jobs, in Texas

Baptist, we organize three Unapologetic, evangelism

conferences, every year, the next one's February 25th, if you

like to come, you can grab one of the Flyers.

You can scan that and find more information on that.

And I want to, I want to be perfectly transparent her this

morning, anything that you purchase here this morning, all

proceeds, 100% of the proceeds will go directly to feed a

hungry family. Yeah, my hungry family.

I've got two kids who are like, outgrowing their clothes and

eating everything and I will take all the help I can get.

I have no shame in saying that. So, let's get into this.

At a score of once worked at, I have this lady come up to me and

she said, Eric, you cannot say Christianity is true because

there is no truth. I said, really.

I said, okay I said, well then I just have one question.

I said is that true? Because if you're telling me,

there is no truth. And yet you say that.

As, if it's true, then by your own standards, what you just

said, cannot be true. It's what we call in philosophy.

Self-defeating, it's a statement that defeats itself.

I was once invited on a secular left wing liberal, radio

station. And the reason I mention that is

because there were very atheist leaning.

But as a way to show their tolerance towards other views

every other month, it would invite someone from the

community to come on and talk on their show and they said, would

you like to come on and talk about Christianity and why your

question I said I'd love to and as my boxing you know we're

about to walk into the live studio.

He stops me and says oh by the way though we also take

questions. Are you okay with that?

You know, people will call in if they think it's interesting, if

they want to challenge you. We get calls sometimes we don't.

Last time, we had a pastor on the show, he got like one or two

calls, so you might get some calls, this is sure that's fine.

By the first commercial break, I'm barely on my second Point.

I've only been talking for like, 10 minutes and at the commercial

break, he looks at me and says, I know you got a lot more, you

want to share, but all the phone lines are ringing.

So, would you want to start taking calls?

I said sure. Why not.

First caller calls in and says, who are you to tell people?

They're wrong. I said, excuse me, he says, who

are you to tell people the wrong, I'm okay.

Because, so you start talking about God, and I don't care,

everybody believes in something, but then you started mentioning

Christianity, are you telling me that if I'm not a Christian, I'm

wrong, I said, yeah, that's kind of how it works.

If it's not true. It's false.

That's so basic logic Works. He says, you can't do that.

Who are you to tell people? They're wrong.

I said calm down. Let me let me see if I just

understand you first. Before I answer your question,

are you telling me that it is somehow inappropriate or perhaps

immoral to tell people they're wrong?

He said, yes, you can't do that. You cannot tell people they're

wrong. I said okay.

Well then I just have one final question.

I said then can you please explain to me why you're calling

me on a live public radio to tell me that I'm wrong.

If it's wrong to tell people that they're wrong.

Now it is funny when you get the answer, there's a lot more we

can go into but don't raise your hand.

But who here could have given a response prior to my answer?

Because you are the salt of the earth.

Scientism science is the only way to gain knowledge about

reality. There's lots of say here in the

DVD we go much more deeper into it.

In fact, I recently updated it on our download cars and it has

more content, I would recommend the download cards more than

anything. And suffice to say, this is

false for many reasons, I'll just give you one example

because I could take hours on each point often have sometimes

atheist. So say Eric give me scientific

evidence for God and my response was typically and why would I

want to do a silly thing like that?

And because they look at me, kind of confused by that, I have

to offer an explanation and I'll put it this way in a nutshell.

See, science is a wonderful tool for studying the physical world,

but it is a tool that is limited to only study the physical

world. And God, if he exists is by

definition a non-physical entity, which means you cannot

use something like science, which is limited to the physical

to try and investigate something non-physical is what we call a

philosophy, a category fallacy, what's a category fallacy?

It's like saying how much does the number two way?

What does it smell like? And how many can you put in your

pocket? These questions are applied to

numbers because numbers have neither.

Wait, no shape, no colors. I can put it this way.

Suppose you go with your friend to the beach, and you separate

for two hours. And two hours later, he comes

back with this metal detector and he says, I just made a

remarkable Discovery. I just discovered there was no

plastic on this beach. And confused by this.

You kind of look over his shoulder and you see the beach

is littered with plastic? He said, what are you talking

about? Of course, there is he goes no?

No. In fact, I don't even think

plastic exist, why not? Because I just spent two hours

with this metal detector. Call me the beach and I found a

lot of metal but not once, did it ever detect an ounce of

plastic? Of course you see that his

problem is that he doesn't have that.

He has a metal detector, not a plastic detector.

And the same way to try and try and argue that you need

scientific evidence for God is trying to like, it's like trying

to look for plastic with a metal detector.

It's simply the wrong tool for the assessment.

What about naturalism? There's lots to say again but

before I go into this and we could have done this for each

stronghold but suffice to say that each of these strongholds

we've talked about have crept into the church and we haven't

realized it. I can prove it to you with this

one. So first, let's do this.

A little bit of audience participation if you don't mind.

Can you please point for me? Can you point to what part of

your body thinks? Can you point to what part of

your body thinks? Okay, I see people doing this

brain. Is that what you're saying?

Right, does your brain think? Yeah.

Do you need a brain to think? Okay.

Here's my next question. Does God.

Have a brain? I didn't hear anything that

time. I'm sorry.

This is a Christian Church. I'm Mormon Church?

Christian church, right? Christians are now huh?

No God doesn't have a brain. In fact, the Bible says that God

is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit,

huh? Are you meant his image?

Hmm. Looks like we have a conundrum

here. Hey, do you need a Brenda sink?

Now if you say yes, we're going to do that all over again.

And I'm running out of time. But let me put it this way.

I'm gonna come clean because I like you guys.

That was a trick question. No, part of your body thinks and

throughout the history of Christianity, there has always

been this doctrine of a self, a soul that, you are a soul made

in the image of God. And your soul is immaterial and

within your soul, you have the faculty of mine which is also a

material so it's not your brain. That thinks it's your soul that

thinks using your brain while embodied as an instrument.

So for example, if if I can show you that in order to play

certain keys, I need certain notes.

I need certain keys, does it follow that?

Therefore The notes of the music are inside the piano.

No. Does it follow that?

If I broke open the piano, the notes that fall out.

No, however, if you were to detune the piano, you would

actually affect the way, the Muse play correct in the same

way, you are a soul with a body and if you mess with my body,

then sure you'll mess with the way my knees.

Music is played. Just like you would, if you did

tune, a guitar piano, but it doesn't follow that.

There is no. So it just follows his a cause

and effect relationship while I'm in Bodied.

And you are the salt of the earth.

Again if you want if you want to go really deep in that you can

get the material we have back there but I want to leave you

with this. I want to end with an argument

for God's existence that would refute naturalism.

One of my favorite arguments does anybody know who this

gentleman is dr. William Lane Craig if you don't

know who he is not a big deal, just one of the greatest living

Christian philosophers and theologians of our time.

Other than that no biggie you know it's whatever he has an

argument known as the Kalam cosmological argument.

One of my favorite arguments and it's really easy.

It's the name is a mouthful but it's only three sentences in

philosophy. We call these premises to

premises that lead to a conclusion and it's easier to

memorize and you can share this with someone in 30 seconds or

less. So if you're in a taxicab with

someone, if you're an elevator ride, if you follow someone to

the bathroom and they sit down, you've got at least 30 seconds

and you can, you know, get your witness in there.

In fact, a few weeks ago, I had an Uber driver.

That wasn't a Believer and I let him to cry.

So this is one of the first arguments I led with Premise.

One, everything that begins to exist has a Cause Premise, two

the universe began to exist and based on one and two, you

conclude that therefore the universe has a cause now to

understand the argument, we have to unpack a few things and we

can start with this. You have to understand that at

the Inception of the universe, three things came into existence

that did not exist prior to the universe namely time space and

matter. So we can put it this way, if

there were no Universe, there would be no time, no space, and

no matter you with me now to people.

Thank you. So, We look back to the argument

we can actually unpack further of this argument by looking at

the thing by understanding, the cause of these effects because C

in philosophy, causes are logically prior to or greater

than an external to their effects.

In other words, the person that caused my phone to exist, does

not reside within my phone, making it run, because as a

cause of my phone's existence, his existence was external to

prior to, and greater than my phone you with me.

So, with this in mind, if A thing that begins to exist has a

cause and time space and matter how to beginning.

Then we can actually logically deduce attributes of this caused

by looking at the facts, which means that whatever caused time

space and matter must be prior to external to, in greater than

time space. And matter, which means a cause

of the universe must have been timeless spaceless immaterial.

Do you know someone like that? I hope so, so we can put it this

way. If the universe began to exist,

we now know that there must exist, a Timeless spaceless

immaterial entity. Now, at this point, I had a

non-believer stopped me once, and he said, wait a minute.

You're trying to talk about God and I said, I don't know, you

think so, maybe and he said, but but why God, why couldn't

something natural? Have caused the universe?

Why do you have to point to God? And I said, well, because nature

had a beginning, and if everything that begins needs a

cause that The nature itself would need to cause, but to

argue that something natural cause all of nature is

essentially to argue that nature had to exist prior to its

existence in order to bring itself into existence which is a

logical contradiction. So of nature had a beginning,

you would need something beyond the natural.

Something Transcendent nature something like I wish there was

a word for that. There is Supernatural, literally

beyond the natural and then you Anita being that is unimaginably

powerful. Why?

What? To create something out of

nothing. I heard a joke once these

scientists went to God and said, God, we don't need you to create

life, we can do it without you and God said really miss it.

Yeah, he says, show me, show me how you do it and they said,

okay, no problem and they bend over to get some dirt.

And God says, what will come out?

Get your own dirt, you would need a bean.

That is also personal, why in a nutshell because Universe didn't

have to exist, it was caused to exist, which means it was a

decision, made decisions, come from mines, which have wheels

and wheels are grounded in persons.

And so we could say, if the universe began to exist, and if

you present this, take a deep breath for dramatic effect.

If the universe began to exist there must exist.

A Timeless, spaceless immaterial, Supernatural,

unimaginably, powerful personal beam.

And I just call him God for short.

And I have the privilege of calling him a heavenly father

and I pray you too, as well. If you want to pull out your

phones, like I said you can find more about me here on YouTube,

you can type my name in Erick Hernandez.

If you want a link to my notes or the slides from today, you

can go there. Use your phone, you can scan

that. But I want to leave you with

this. And if you want some more

information or the Flyers back there, I'll be back there as

well. Our next conference, let me put

this up to really quick or is that it?

There we go. That's the information for our

next conference. Lots of great speakers that I

don't want to get into and talk about because I want to leave

time for questions but you are the salt of the earth.

You are commanded to be ready to give an answer to fence, and you

are commanded to identify and respond to the strongholds in

our culture. Let us not just learn to present

the gospel but let us learn to defend it in this day and age.

Because we live in a culture filled with doubting Thomases

and what did Jesus do when he encountered a friend that was

doubting? Of course, he hit him over the

head with the Bible, right? No.

His initial response was to approach Thomas where he was

doubting and said, if this is what you need, if this is what

you're asking me for. And he puts himself in a

vulnerable position and lift his robe and says, touch, see, and

it culture filled with doubting Thomases.

Let us do one of the most loving things you could do with an

unbeliever and be like Jesus and say Here's what you're looking

for. His what you're asking for and

allow them to touch the evidence for themselves.

But that requires that, you know, the word know how to

present it and know how to defend it because you are the

salt of the earth. Thank you.

Right? So a few things.

So, the first premise is based on what's called a metaphysical

principle, it's a principle. So, everything that has a shape

has a size, there are some things that we know what it's

called a priori without having to investigate.

For example, if I want to know, whether it's hot or cold, I have

to leave my, I have to leave my chair to go look outside, but if

I want to know whether the number two is even or odd.

Well, that's something I don't have to leave my chair do.

And something I can investigate just by simply looking at logic

and deducing attributes of whatever, I'm looking at.

And the same way everything that begins has a cause because we

know that things don't come. To existence without a cause of

out of nothing. So, to the person who says well

thanks in fact in my evidence of God I give a much longer

response. Lawrence Krauss is an atheist

scientist has no things can come out of nothing.

They can come for no reason, but he's appealing to his something

called quantum mechanics and specifically what's called a

Quantum fluctuation. Where he says that it's like a

sea of fluctuating energy, but here's the point.

When he says something can come out of nothing, he's actually

talking about this Quantum vacuum.

Well, that's not nothing. That's something right?

Even if we Grant, what he's saying is true but yet he'll

say, well, nothing has nothing has mass.

Nothing has weight. Nothing has Dimensions.

Like, wait a minute, that's not nothing.

You're talking about something because nothing is the absence

of everything. So nothing cannot cause

something. So spices that he's off on

there, it's a metaphysical principle and we have just no

evidence of anything coming from nothing.

There's always causes to stop looking for causes in the

universe, is literally to stop doing science.

And when we look at causes and their effects, I like how

Johannes Kepler was One of the fathers of modern science and I

like the way he put it he says science is simply thinking God's

thoughts after him. So when you look at the way

something is created or done, he says, Ah, this is what God was

thinking, when you made this. So we know things have causes a

metaphysical principle. It's a, it's a, it's based on

two dudes from logic itself that I think there's no way around

that. I think you had a question.

Yeah. Yeah, I understand question.

So there's let me answer it indirectly.

One of the, in my opinion, one of the better argument for

atheism. I don't think any of them are

good but there's something that's like, well, that's a good

try. It's not as the argument from

what's called Divine hiddenness. It is the idea that if God is

exist in is all loving, he would reveal himself to everyone who's

seeking him, but the atheists argue.

Well I'm speaking. I'm not finding him or or then

that means they're either. He must not exist so must not

love me. Well, they conclude you just

must not exist in a nutshell. I I think so, the Bible does say

that God hides, and this is, this is why I'm saying

indirectly I disagree with the atheist argument from Divine

hiddenness. I don't think there are people

who are genuinely seeking God and he's not revealing himself

to them. So the question is, are you

generally speaking now? Let's Suppose there are because

I think there can be some instances where people are

seeking, but God's not revealing.

Well, if they're still alive and breathing will then you still

got a chance, right? Like, don't give up just yet.

We even see in Scripture that Jesus spoke in Parables to hide

himself, his deity from other people.

So we know that God often does at times.

To do this. On top of that.

Now, to answer your question, I To give you the nutshell here,

scripture seems to imply that the more revelation of God that

you have the more responsibility you incur upon yourself.

So if you knew right now, there was a little girl, you know, I

don't know being hurt in the bathroom, you would have an

obligation to stop it because more knowledge requires more

obligation. I think God hides himself from

some people because he knows no matter what he revealed to them,

they're going to continue to reject him.

So counter-intuitively and ironically, it then becomes a

sign of God's grace and mercy to not reveal himself to some

people knowing he's going to reject them and the more

Revelation you reject, I would argue the more condemnation you

have in the afterlife. So ironically while people are

rejecting God in his love and mercy he hides from them to not

incur further punishment in the afterlife because no matter what

he reveals are going to reject him.

I sure am. Yeah.

Yes. So I'm glad these are written

because I don't want to call people out.

So this is helps me kind of be a little more Stern with the

question. It's not his job to.

I don't know. Why do you know why?

Unfortunately there's lots of touch on, but I think the way

the church has presented God to the world has been really

harmful because we present God to the world as if it's some

magical genie that you make a wish.

And he asked, you know, he'll Grant you three wishes.

When in reality, that's not often times I see people convert

not so that they can serve God, but so that God can serve them.

So in their mind will God, why aren't you doing this?

And guys, like, it's not my job to, it's yours.

You're the salt, you have dominion.

So first of all, it's not God's job to do it.

On top of that. He, if you read scripture, If

you go on the website, look up Romans 7 and I have an article

in there about spiritual formation in essence.

What Paul is saying is that we have to present our bodies as

living sacrifices. What does that mean?

If I want to learn how to play piano, then I present my fingers

and my wrist as instruments of righteousness, if you will to my

piano instructor. So he shows me how to play the

piano and he's going to make me do drills over and over and

over. And the point is not to get good

at the drills. It's to get muscle memory and

teach my body. How to play the piano in the

same way. This works in the Spiritual

round. This is spiritual formation.

So why do you fast not? So you can get good at not

eating or lose weight. It's so that you teach the

principle to your body that I'm in control.

Not you. I tell you when to eat, you

don't tell me when to eat and I beat my flush into submission.

So, here's here's a, here's a prescription.

If you want to, if you want to get better at this so to speak,

if you want to get better at your life and and and have a

stronger will to overcome, your sinful, lustful desires,

whatever the case is, next time you go to the grocery store and

let's say you're online and you your looking at your basket and

you say, you know what, I shouldn't take those bag of

chips do this, don't grab the chips and make sure no one's

looking and put it in the candy aisle, don't do that.

Get out of line, and go put it back where you got it from, why?

Because essentially you want to be able to control the things

you cannot currently control. That's what Romans 7 is talking

about. What I want to do.

I don't do. And what I don't want to do end

up doing. So what you do is you take

control of the things you can control to strengthen your will

to eventually get to the point where you cannot do what you

currently cannot do. So, if you want to do what you

can't do, you have to start living differently and do what

you haven't done before, take control of what you can control

and strengthen and build yourself every time.

You look at scripture before. Jesus had Miracle time.

I like to say, he had mountain time, right?

If you want to perform like Jesus, you have to live like

Jesus. Sure.

I drive a Kia Soul because when I teach on the soul it makes for

funny jokes. Thank you.

I'll be back there. If anybody wants to.

I drive a Kia Soul because when I teach on the soul it makes for

funny jokes. Thank you.

I'll be back there. If anybody wants to.