Participants:
Series Code: RQRA
Program Code: RQRA000005A
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00:01 I don't understand.
00:04 Why did this have to happen to me? 00:08 I feel like I just can't make sense of things. 00:12 I need answers. 00:15 Where is God? 00:20 Welcome to Raw Questions Relevant Answers, 00:22 a program where we deal with relevant, 00:24 real issues that are crippling our young people 00:26 and just giving Christ-centered 00:28 practical answers from the Bible. 00:30 Today, we're talking about the topic of finding truth, 00:33 how can I know what's true, 00:35 how can I know it's actually right and correct, 00:37 and how do I balance my life in harmony with that. 00:41 I've got two really close friends of mine 00:43 with us today as our co-host, 00:44 Michelle Doucoumes, and Mark Paden. 00:46 And so we're just going to go ahead 00:48 and start right away 00:49 on addressing these particular questions. 00:51 Here's the first one from a male in Illinois. 00:55 He says, "What is the best way to empirically ask questions 00:58 about what we believe without going too deep 01:01 into the weeds of doubt?" 01:03 What a great question. 01:04 I love this question. 01:06 This is something that 01:07 I've been thinking about a lot recently for various reasons, 01:09 but I think one of the biggest things 01:12 going back to the Protestant Reformation. 01:15 In that time, you had these pillars of the faith. 01:19 You have people like Martin Luther 01:21 or Wycliffe, right? 01:24 These people that had profound influence in shaping 01:29 the culture of the world at that point, 01:32 and what was their means of ascertaining truth? 01:37 It was this. This is the best way. 01:40 If we are going to ask questions 01:42 about this thing, 01:43 it has to be answered with here. 01:45 We have to come to this Word knowing that 01:48 it's the inspired Word of God. 01:50 And then this is the complete system of truth 01:54 that when we come to this Word, this is God speaking to us, 01:56 and this is how we arrive at truth. 01:59 The other key ingredient is that 02:01 we have to have our hearts in a place 02:02 that are willing to hear and learn and understand. 02:06 And if in my heart, 02:09 I don't want to follow God, 02:12 if I don't want to know truth, I'm never going to find it. 02:16 But if in my heart, 02:18 I genuinely want to know the truth, 02:20 if I've gone to God and said, 02:21 "Lord, create in me a clean heart 02:23 and give me a heart that truly, 02:25 honestly desires Your will," you will find it. 02:28 It's like John 7:17 says, 02:30 "If any man wills to do My will, 02:32 he's going to know regarding the doctrine." 02:34 Are we willing to know? 02:36 And also may be willing to actually ask the questions. 02:40 I mean, I think about the Protestant reformers 02:43 that you mentioned, they went to Scripture, 02:45 but they also asked hard questions. 02:47 They grappled with their faith, 02:49 they wanted to know it for themselves. 02:51 And so I don't believe it's bad to ask questions. 02:54 That's not doubt, that's really seeking. 02:57 That's what we're told to do when Jesus says, you know, 03:00 "Seek Me, and you'll find Me 03:01 when you search with all your heart." 03:03 I do though realize that there is danger 03:07 and getting mired in the weeds of doubt 03:09 as the person said. 03:11 And I think of a quote from a book called Mind, 03:14 Character, and Personality Vol. 2. 03:16 It says, "Many pass long years in darkness and doubt 03:21 because they do not feel as they desire. 03:24 But feeling has nothing to do with faith. 03:26 That faith which works by love 03:28 and purifies the soul is not a matter of impulse. 03:32 It ventures out upon the promises of God 03:34 firmly believing that what He has said, 03:37 He is able to perform. 03:39 Our souls maybe trained to believe, 03:41 taught to rely upon the Word of God, 03:44 the Word that declares "the just shall live by faith," 03:47 which is what Martin Luther really quoted a lot, 03:50 "The just shall live by faith." 03:52 And so there is this coming together 03:53 of being willing to ask questions, 03:55 but also saying, "Do I stand on what I do know, 03:59 with what is clear from the Word of God, 04:01 am I willing to take that?" 04:03 Sometimes they kind of throw out the baby 04:05 with the bathwater with doubt 04:07 because of the things we don't know, 04:08 we throw out the things that are clear in God's Word, 04:11 and that's not going to be productive. 04:12 It's true. 04:14 And there's kind of two schools of thought about thought. 04:16 There's the Greek view that just questions everything 04:19 at every essence of it 04:20 and then there was the Hebrew means of thought, 04:22 when it comes to, 04:23 you know, Christianity in the sense of... 04:25 There was a sense of faith and an understanding 04:27 and trust and who God was 04:28 and your system as truth was built around this. 04:31 And that Greek means of thought has really kind of permeated 04:33 a lot of what we see now today of. 04:36 So when a young person wrestles, 04:37 they want to tear the whole thing down, 04:39 even things that they knew to be true 04:40 and just try to start from the beginning. 04:42 But we should know 04:44 if we're seeking to know the truth as it is in Jesus, 04:46 let's start with the truth as it is in Jesus. 04:49 Jesus Himself said that 04:50 He was the way, the truth, and the life, 04:52 the way that life should look. 04:54 And so we do have an anchor that holds the soul steadfast, 04:57 and that's in Christ. 04:59 So our system of truth 05:00 should be telling us something about Jesus as well. 05:04 And so any of the beliefs that we may be garnering 05:07 as a movement, as a church, as an individual, 05:10 those things we're believing should give us an insight 05:12 into who Jesus was and be true to who Jesus was. 05:16 So one other thing too that I think 05:18 we need to deal with here in this question 05:20 is their use of the word, 05:22 "What is the best way to empirically ask questions?" 05:25 With the understanding of that word being 05:27 that it's empirical evidence, 05:29 evidence that is evidence and experience-based 05:32 rather than just theoretical and that type of thing, right? 05:36 So you should be true to life. 05:38 Right. Right. 05:39 And I think the key here is that... 05:42 You know what, we do have to experience these things 05:44 and as we... 05:46 Let's say, we're wrestling 05:47 with a question of faith versus presumption. 05:50 The best way to empirically look at that 05:51 is test it in your life, test it in the lives of others, 05:54 see how it has worked in others experiences, 05:57 see examples of it in the Bible, see in that way, 06:00 I think you'll come to a much better understanding of it. 06:03 However, the one thing that 06:04 we need to be cautious about is saying, 06:07 trying to look at scientific evidence 06:13 to prove miracles and different things like that 06:15 where we want to base Christianity on the same metric 06:20 that the world uses for its science. 06:24 True science is Bible-based. 06:25 Right. 06:27 God created the earth, right? 06:28 But when we start getting into the weeds of doubt 06:30 is where we start making our metric 06:34 something that isn't grounded in the Word of God. 06:36 And we're told that the things of God 06:38 are foolishness with men, right? 06:40 So there's this sense of, you know, context, 06:43 I think that's provided towards as well to the Apostle Paul. 06:46 Second question here is, "How can you know the truth 06:48 and how can you be sure that the Bible is true?" 06:50 This is from a female in Malaysia. 06:53 Now we've talked about 06:54 some of the ideas of how to find truth, 06:56 but I think we can kind of spend 06:58 a little bit of time here on how can we be sure 06:59 that the Bible itself is true. 07:02 I think there's a few ways. 07:03 One, the Bible is internally-consistent, right? 07:07 It's amazing that you have 66 books 07:09 that are written by 30-something authors 07:11 on the span of 3 different continents I believe, 07:13 over the span of like 1,200 years or more. 07:16 And yet, all of these people 07:17 with different experiences in different places 07:19 end up telling the same picture of God 07:22 and the same picture of man. 07:24 I mean, if you were to assemble, 07:26 you know, five scientists or doctors to say 07:28 whether coffee is good for you or bad for you 07:31 and have them assemble those into one book, 07:33 you're not going to get 07:34 an internally-consistent article. 07:37 And yet, over the span of this long 07:39 and these different many places... 07:40 These many different places, how was that possible? 07:43 There was a divine mind guiding these individuals 07:45 as they wrote. 07:47 2 Peter, is it 1:20? 07:49 2 Peter, I believe it's chapter 1 07:51 where he talks about the fact 07:52 that the Spirit of God prompted them 07:54 and moved them and carried them along the way 07:56 as far as the people who wrote the Bible. 07:58 And I think it's an important premise for us to know 08:01 that there's a divine mind behind the Bible. 08:03 And its internal consistency and its cultural consistency 08:07 attest to this as well. 08:08 How is it the Jamaicans know who Abraham is, right? 08:11 This is a book written by nomadic Jews to a large degree, 08:14 and yet, Jamaicans know who Abraham is, 08:16 and they're putting their faith in the God of Abraham. 08:18 Why? 08:20 Because the Bible speaks to the very issues 08:21 of all of our lives throughout all the salvation history. 08:25 It was just as relevant to Moses as it is to me today. 08:29 How's that possible? 08:30 And you can't say that about other books of history 08:33 as you can of this powerful book, 08:35 and I believe this 08:36 because there's a divine mind behind it, 08:38 let alone prophecy and other things. 08:40 You know, another big thing for me has been Daniel 2. 08:44 Honestly, the whole Book of Daniel, 08:46 you hear God prophesize 08:49 how a kingdom is going to come about, 08:52 which kingdoms would rise and fall at what times 08:55 and all of that happened. 08:56 Yeah. 08:58 And to me, that gives me a lot of faith in it 09:00 that if God is able to predict the future, 09:04 I think He's able to tell me how I should live, you know. 09:06 Yeah. Yeah, that's huge. 09:08 Prophecy, like you said, Daniel, Revelation, 09:11 we can see things actually happening 09:13 through history like the Bible said. 09:15 Archaeology shows the same thing 09:18 that they find things in archaeology 09:19 the Bible spoke about, 09:21 people didn't realize that it existed, 09:23 things about the Babylonian Empire 09:25 and other kingdoms of the world 09:27 that the Bible had spoken this a long time before. 09:31 And also, even though 09:33 there are some little differences, 09:35 like the gospels have small differences, 09:38 people say, "Wait a minute, that's not consistent, 09:40 " like you were saying, Dee. 09:42 But at the same time, it actually, in a way, 09:45 shows more the consistency. 09:47 People wrote in their own way, they saw it in their own way. 09:50 It shows this wasn't just a collusion 09:53 or something that was put together. 09:55 Also something that speaks to me 09:57 is how vitally it shows the reality, 10:00 people's good sides and their bad sides. 10:02 Add to that, yes. Can I just point out? 10:04 Those discrepancies were not theological discrepancies. 10:07 Those were little tiny details of an event. 10:10 Yes. 10:11 Like all three of us go to the same event 10:14 and tell how many people were there, right? 10:17 Like, there can be differences in something like that, but... 10:19 The overarching picture of who God is and who man is 10:21 and the condition it's in, none of these change. 10:23 The internal consistency still applies. 10:25 And it does discredit this idea of collusion. 10:28 They wrote with different experiences 10:29 and different point of views, 10:31 all telling the same overarching picture 10:33 of the purpose of why Jesus came, 10:35 the impact that it had, 10:37 and the truth that it lay or the... 10:40 What that means to you, what that means to me. 10:42 And I think it's amazing. 10:44 You know, the prophecies in Daniel that say that, 10:46 you know, when Jesus will be baptized, 10:48 when the gospel is going to go to the Gentile world, 10:50 there's just these amazing things 10:52 that God has throughout the Word 10:53 to show that it's verifiably accurate. 10:56 And if it can be that true to life, 10:59 I'm reckoning it can be that true to my life. 11:01 Yeah, sure. 11:03 One more question here. 11:04 We say, finding truth, question three, 11:08 "Should I rely on what the preacher says 11:09 to be true or should I study for myself?" 11:12 This is a 25-year-old female from the United States, 11:15 and I think that question was somewhat asked in jest, 11:17 but there's a lot of truth to this. 11:19 Because when you're in a situation 11:21 where you hear someone say something, 11:23 the easy thing to do and the intellectually... 11:27 Lazy? 11:29 Lazy-ish, I don't want to be mean, 11:30 but like that's easy. 11:31 Anyone can just say, "Hey, so-and-so said this," 11:34 and this person's stuff is solid, right? 11:36 We like this person, we love their sermons, 11:38 we love their books. 11:40 The problem is God wants you 11:41 to have an experience for yourself. 11:42 We talked about this in a previous program 11:44 that when Jesus in Matthew 25, I believe, 11:46 tells the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins. 11:49 The wise virgins spent their own time 11:51 in preparation to receive the oil, 11:53 the Holy Spirit for themselves. 11:55 Someone else's experience with God 11:57 cannot get you into heaven. 11:58 Yeah. 12:00 Someone else's understanding of the Bible 12:01 can't get you into heaven. 12:03 You need to have your own experience, 12:04 and it's not just like you better or else, 12:06 I mean this in the context of you have the privilege 12:09 of having your own experience with God. 12:12 God can speak to you in the same way 12:13 He spoke to them by you searching out 12:14 the Word for yourself. 12:16 They're not a better person than you, 12:18 and just because they may have an education, 12:19 original language or something else 12:21 does not mean that God can't give you understanding 12:23 in the Word of God for yourself, 12:25 and God wants that for you. 12:27 Yeah. 12:28 Yeah, it's a crazy thing 12:30 because God does use other people to speak for Him. 12:34 That's what we see in Scripture, 12:36 the Holy Spirit speaking through men. 12:39 And so it's not that it's wrong to listen to other people, 12:42 but I think of the Bereans in the Book of Acts. 12:45 In Acts 17, it talks about Paul visiting Berea 12:48 and how they were more fair-minded 12:50 because they searched the Scriptures daily 12:52 to find out whether these things were so. 12:55 And Paul was a smart guy. Paul knew his Bible. 12:57 Right. 12:58 And made a convincing argument, 13:00 but they still wanted to see for themselves 13:01 that it was true. 13:02 You know, here's a one other example from the Bible 13:04 that I think really does this. 13:06 Matthew shows this. 13:07 Matthew 23, Jesus says... 13:10 He's speaking to the multitudes and to His disciples, 13:12 and He says, "The scribes and the Pharisees 13:14 sit in Moses' seat. 13:15 Therefore, whatever they bid you to observe, 13:17 observe and do but do not do what they do." 13:20 Right? 13:21 And then it goes on to show how many abuses they had done 13:24 and how much they had corrupted the Bible. 13:27 And yet you had a whole generation 13:29 who was willing to reject the very God of heaven, 13:34 Jesus Christ is prophesied throughout Scripture 13:37 because they were listening to their preachers 13:41 rather than studying the Word of God. 13:42 And their preachers happen 13:44 to coincide with the worldview that they wanted. 13:46 Exactly. 13:48 They wanted a messiah to look one way, 13:49 but the messiah was prophesied to look a different way, 13:51 and they missed a blessing. 13:53 Thank you again for taking time to join us today 13:55 on Raw Questions Relevant Answers. 13:57 You can submit your questions by going to our Facebook page, 13:59 RQRA3ABN. 14:02 We'd love to hear from you 14:03 and can't wait to have you here the next time around 14:05 on Raw Questions Relevant Answers. |
Revised 2018-08-20