Alex McFarland Show-66-Standing Strong for Truth

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. How do we stand for truth in a post-truth world?

Hi, Alex McFarland here. Today on the program I'm going to be talking a little bit from 2 Peter chapter 2 about false teachers in the world, but I want to remind you of a word of the year that the New Oxford Dictionary named several years ago. In fact, it was 2016, so surprisingly it was quite a number of years ago, but they named a word of the year, and in 2016 the New Oxford Dictionary named the term post-truth. P-O-S-T-T-R-U-T-H. Post-truth. And they defined it in a very interesting way as being really beyond knowing what is really true. They chose the word post-truth, and they named it as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion or personal belief.

In other words, facts cease to matter so much as opinion or bias. Now, as I'm recording this program, there are examples in the news of how we are really in a post-truth world. And I know this from working with young people and dialoguing with not only college students and twenty-somethings, but really people in general, because the Word of God, the Bible, lays down things that are absolutely true and then warns about things that are absolutely false.

Now, interesting, this does relate to the culture in terms of morals and behavior, but it relates to the Church, the body of believers in Christ, in regards to Scripture and the authority of the Word of God. Let me talk about the culture first for just a second because when it comes down to truth, and as we've said many times in the program, that truth, the classic definition of truth, is that which corresponds to reality. And that's called the correspondence view of truth. In other words, it's the way things really are. If I say that my home state of North Carolina is on the east coast of the North American continent, that's true.

You can look at it. You can look at a globe and you can see that indeed that claim does correspond to reality. If we say that the North American continent is in the western hemisphere on planet Earth, well, that's true. That's the way things really are. But more and more, in terms of culture, there is this, and folks, this is a contradiction, but I'm using this term intentionally, absolute subjectivism. Subjectivism says there's objective truth, whether you and I know it or not. Subjectivism, everything is subjective, that assumes that everything is just mere opinion. But we're living in a world where the assumption about reality, the world around us, it's all subjective.

It's my preference, my opinion. It's my truth. And absolute subjectivism, which is another way of saying just the rejection of objective truth, that's kind of where the culture is. And nowhere is that more obvious than in our rejection of moral truth. There was a day when we knew it was wrong to have sex outside of marriage. We knew it was wrong to break one's marriage vows and abandon your spouse and family. We knew that was wrong.

But now we're 60 years into no-fault divorce, and we don't believe in keeping a covenant and a vow. And it didn't take long for us to really get comfortable with lying and not telling the truth in so many other ways. Clocking in late for work, not being accurate in our taxes. And my goodness, in the academic world, students and professors getting caught plagiarizing my goodness, that's the pandemic. Forget the COVID pandemic. Lying is pandemic for our culture.

And you might ask why, what's the connection? Well, if we abandon truth about marriage, abandon truth about human life, there was a time when abortion was wrong, but now we don't believe it's wrong to murder the unborn. In fact, we don't really have the moral temerity to say the unborn is a human being.

And now that we've gotten comfortable with homosexual sex, now we don't have the clarity of mind to even know what a man or a woman is. And you say, what does this have to do with lying? Well, if we feel no conviction about denying higher level moral truths, morality, marriage, life, murder, just any ethical boundaries, if you can lie to yourself and those around you about higher order moral truths, you really won't feel much compunction about lying about lower order moral truths. In other words, if it's okay to have sex outside of marriage, and if a pregnancy results, then terminate the human life and kill the baby.

If you don't feel bad about those things, you're probably not going to feel very bad about lying about what time you came into work. So there is a cultural fallout from our abandonment of truth. Let's talk about the church. 43 years ago in 1980, my mentor and colleague, the late Norm Geisler, along with some other wonderful people like J.I.

Packer and the late R.C. Sproul, they convened something called the Chicago Council on Biblical Inherency. And they wrote something called the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inherency. And many, many Christian leaders from around the world at the time signed on, many attended, and some of the greatest minds in the church 40 years ago plus, they convened in Chicago and they talked about the fact that the Bible is God's inerrant, infallible word. Well, for decades, ministries would say, we subscribe to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inherency. And that's good. I do.

I would gladly. In fact, you can buy the book that resulted from the conference. There was also a later conference on a statement on biblical hermeneutics.

Well, nowadays, I think about Andy Stanley, the famous son of Charles Stanley. Andy Stanley, listening very carefully, please, when asked about biblical inherency, like a lot of more woke, very often younger professed Christians, they will say they believe in Jesus and salvation, but they will not go so far as to say, I believe in the inherency of scripture. And somebody like Andy Stanley certainly would not be on record signing the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inherency. Now, why? Because for 2000 years of church history, Christians generally have had no problem saying, I believe that the Bible is the authoritative, infallible word of God.

Now why? Why do a lot of younger Christians not want to go so far as being on record saying that they believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God? Because that Bible contains prohibitions against murder, sodomy, fornication, homosexuality, transgenderism. They want Jesus, but not the responsibility for holiness and righteousness that comes along with being a disciple of Jesus. Stay tuned. We're going to come back, talk more from Second Peter about our crisis of truth and what you and I can do to make a difference when we return.

Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics. Teaching in more than 2200 churches around the world, schools, and college campuses, Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God. He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith, while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com or you can contact us directly by emailing booking at alexmcfarland.com.

He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. I hope you're doing well. We're talking about biblical thinking in a post-truth world. Before the break I was making a point, and I think it's a very important one, those that want the blessings of salvation, but without the baggage that comes along when having affirmed that the Bible is the Word of God. Now I will say the Bible is the Word of God.

It is. In many places the Bible attests to its own authenticity. And the Lord, Jesus, said the scripture cannot be broken. John 10 35. In John 5 39 Jesus said, search the scriptures for they testify of me.

What a lot of people don't realize is that if you equivocate on the Bible being the Word of God, what you may not realize is you've equivocated on Jesus being the Son of God. It's like if you say, I love my Corvette, but I hate Chevys. They're no good. Well, a Corvette is a Chevy. What if you say, you know, I love my Mustang, but don't buy a Ford. Fords are junk. That's not true.

I don't believe that. But I'm saying, look, if you don't like Ford, then by extension, you don't like your Mustang because there's a connection. And if you undermine and devalue the Word of God, you've undermined and devalued the Son of God. If somebody like an Andy Stanley or any of the hipster pastors went on record and said the Bible is the infallible authoritative Word of God, then the left could say, oh, wow, if you're on record believing that the Bible is the Word of God, does that include those passages like First Corinthians six that condemn homosexuality?

See, it's almost like this. People want the blessings of Jesus, the loving Son of God. They want the assurance of heaven, if there is one, and the confidence that one would not go to hell just in case there might be one. But not all of the accountability that comes with having been on record saying that I believe the Bible is a complete and total infallible Word of God. Now, folks, let me just say, having spent three decades researching and writing and earning degrees and writing books, the 20th of which will come out in the fall of 2023, having interviewed scholars and visited 72 sites in the Holy Land and going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem and broadcasting from the Bible Museum in Washington and interviewing scholars from around the world, let me just say it is my conviction, and I am zealously stating this, that yes, the Bible is the infallible, eternal, authoritative Word of God. The Bible is inerrant.

That means without error. And what you have in Genesis through Revelation, you have the written, revealed Word of God, and it is authoritative and true. And I believe, as the risen Christ affirmed, that heaven and earth will pass away, but God's Word will never pass away.

Not one jot nor tittle will fail. In fact, that verse even implies that not only are the words given by God, the very punctuation itself. Now here's my point, folks. Not only does no sin ever cease to be an offense against God, no matter what people say, it doesn't change reality. Sin is still sin. God is still God. Righteousness is still in conformity to the character of God.

Now, we're living in a time of fallacy, and a fallacy is a wrong way of thinking. And what I'm going to do, I'm going to read a scripture, and then I'm going to point out some types of fallacies that are very subtly and very frequently slid in, really kind of put in under the radar in the news to mislead people about things like transgenderism and other things. But I want to read from 2 Peter. I recently had the honor of teaching 2 Peter at the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina, the Cove. And it was part of our series in the summer of 22, we did 1 Peter. Summer of 23, we did 2 Peter.

I will be back at the Cove next year, July 12 through 14, although we haven't announced the topic for next year yet, but we had people from 25 states come even from as far away as Germany to come and study the Word of God for three days together. But 2 Peter 2, which we recently went over, speaks about the danger of false teachers and their destruction. It says in 2 Peter 2, but there were also false prophets among you, just as there will be false teachers among you, they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their pernicious or depraved ways, their evil conduct, and will bring the gospel into dispute. In their greed, these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been waiting or hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

Now why? How do we know false teachers and water down the gospel, preach the love of God without the holiness and judgment of God, how do we know that God will judge these people? Well, verse 4 of 2 Peter 2 says, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, and he protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. And if he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless, for that righteous man living among them day after day was tormented in his righteous soul. I love the way King James says Lot was vexed in his soul. It means he was tormented by the ungodliness of the realm of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We have a word for what they're doing today. Sodomy. It's homosexuality. God rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah because of their incredible perversion, much like the perversion that our nation is so insistent on promoting today. If the Lord did that, judge the angels, judge the lost world, condemned and judged the peddlers of falsehood, but God knew how to protect the righteous, 2 Peter 2, 9, and 10, then if God judged then, and since God doesn't change, Malachi 3, I the Lord change not, then God will again judge sin present and future as he promised that he would do. And it says this, that we the church are to repent and turn from these things. Okay, listen to this in verse 19 of 2 Peter 2, and it goes on in great depth. It talks about the greed, the pride, the immorality, and it's always about money, and it's always about moral license. The people that deny the word of God, distort the word of God, they do it for notoriety, they do it to protect their platform, they do it because they themselves live immoral lives.

Look, we've seen it time and again. Show me someone who is morally lax in their convictions, and I will show you someone eventually it will come out, that they are morally lax in their own behavior. And 2 Peter goes on and it says that they promise freedom, verse 19, while they themselves are slaves of depravity, for the people are slaves to whatever has mastered them, 2 Peter 2, 19. And it says that the church is to escape the corruption of the world if we've embraced Jesus, were to live like it, stand for these things, and not become comfortable with sin again. And it goes on very graphically, it talks about people that return to sin, they're like a dog, a dog returns to his vomit, 2 Peter 2.22.

And a sow that is washed returns to wallowing in the mud. Very pictorial, very graphic language. Now think about this, we've got to take a break, and when I come back I'm going to unpack the phrase that 2 Peter 2.19, people are slaves to whatever has mastered them. We'll talk more about that when we return after this brief break. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Over the last several decades, it's been my joy to travel the world talking with children, teens, adults, people of all ages, about the questions they have related to God, the Bible, Christianity, and how to know Jesus personally.

Hi, Alex McFarland. I want to make you aware of my book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. You know, we interviewed hundreds of children and parents and families to find out the questions that children and people of all ages are longing to find answers for. In the book, we've got practical, biblical, real-life answers that they have about how to be a Christian in this modern world.

My book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, you can find it wherever you buy books or at resources.afa.net. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Is something true just because somebody claims it's true?

Is something false just because someone claims there's no such thing as truth? Hi, Alex McFarland here. Welcome back.

We're going to continue our discussion of these things about a culture in crisis and how do we stand for that which is right and real in a post-truth world. Hey, I do want to say thanks to everybody who is coming to our events this summer. My tour schedule is on my website alexmcfarland.com. And even as I record this, I'm just a little bit away from getting on a plane and going to Indiana for our third of six youth camps this summer. When August of 23 rolls around, we will have been in front of 1,250 teenagers. We did a youth camp in Georgia. We did a youth camp in Colorado. Our third youth camp, Indiana, is just coming up. And I want to say thank you. Thank you so much to all the people that pray for this ministry, support this ministry.

Every year, we're seeing thousands, yes, thousands of people of all ages open their heart and accept Christ and get born again by putting their faith in Jesus. And we are in front of so many teenagers and middle school, high school, college students. And I think you know me well enough to know that I and my staff, we're teaching the truth.

We're encouraging these young people to love God and country. And I do want to say that at our recent board meeting in conjunction with the appearance at the Billy Graham Training Center, we brought two people before our board that we want to hire to help me lead our national viral truth clubs. Now, we've got a great administrative staff, and I want to say thank you to everybody who's been praying for us. Since COVID, over the last three years, we've gone from really myself as a traveling evangelist and broadcaster. We have five staff members now.

We want to add two more. And we've got to do this, folks, to help save our nation. Look, this is not merely about growing Alex McFarland Ministries and the Truth for a New Generation conferences we do, the literature we ship out.

Although I really believe for the last 20 years, God's enabled me to do a very vital work in bringing people to Christ. But we're talking about the future of our nation. And we know the gospel is for the world. But if America does not have a return to morality, God, and belief in truth, oh my goodness, I really fear for the future of our Constitution and our blessed nation.

Two hundred and fifty years of American greatness is evaporating before our very eyes. But we must do what we can do to put a stop, and with God's help, stand for truth. And I want to say thank you for those who helped do that. We still really, by August, need to raise about another fifty thousand dollars to underwrite all that we're doing with our camps. There are airplane flights, literature, printing, t-shirts, all the things that go with equipping twelve hundred and fifty youth to stand for truth. And we're going to do more than twice. Next summer we're going to do at least ten camps and maybe more.

We've got so many wonderful open doors. And so I want to say thank you for the people that pray for us, praying for our board to have wisdom, all of us to have energy and resilience, and then just help a generation. I'll put it this way, we're trying to woke-proof America's teens. And for those that go to my website, which is Alex McFarland, and give online, you may give securely, or you can mail in a contribution.

You could just write on the check, TNG, as in truth for a new generation. But thank you for your prayers and support. And you have my promise, you have my word, that we will not bow, we will not equivocate, we will preach the gospel, stand for truth, and empower a generation to help stand for what will save our nation, which is truth. Now, back to the subject at hand. As I'm recording this broadcast, there was an Associated Press story today, and several news outlets call me to comment on it. And it was basically an article about transgender children. And it had just the most urgent tone, transgender children not getting proper health care. And parents, it said, parents of transgender children are very upset, because they have to travel to many states to get adequate health care. And doctors, it says, doctors that want to give transgender children care are very often afraid. You see, many, many medical doctors, they will say, oh no, transgenderism is wrong, boys are boys and girls are girls.

And you've got a five-year-old male that wants to transition, and the doctor, out of fear, won't help that child transition. And parents are upset, and children aren't getting what they need. Well, folks, I'm reading these articles, preparing for interviews and being asked to comment.

And the part of me that teaches logic at colleges is just about to, you know, scream. Because in this sort of coverage, and I assure you, believe me, it is intentional. Whenever the mainstream media, they assume that transgenderism is true. They assume that everybody's on board with it.

And if anybody is not on board with it, they assume it is either out of ignorance or malice or fear. If you think a boy and a girl are different, and males cannot turn into females, and females cannot turn into males, if you believe in traditional morality and objective human biology, there is the assumption that you have the stand you have because you're ignorant, you're biased or racist or transphobic, or you're just hateful. Well, folks, these are all fallacies big enough to drive a truck through.

Let me just give a couple of fallacies that are so present in news coverage today, so ubiquitous in education. One is what we call circular reasoning. Circular reasoning would be like this. Transgenderism is true. Just ask any transgender person. But in circularity, or sometimes it's called begging the question, you assume as true, what you're trying to prove is true. And one of the claims in your argument is essential to the proof of the argument. You know, transgenderism is true.

Just ask any transgender person. And on the flip side, somebody could say something like transgenderism is not false because those who think it's false are wrong. Do you see how it's very circular, and you assume what you're trying to prove? But then there's something else, and it really could be the fallacy of what is sometimes called bifurcation. And this is very similar to something we talk about a lot called the non-sequitur.

Now, think of non-sequential. A non-sequitur is something that simply doesn't follow at all. Somebody says, I believe transgenderism is false. And somebody goes, well, yes, that's because you're not transgender. Well, it's false because it doesn't correspond to reality.

Doesn't matter the proclivities of the person observing the claim. But bifurcation and non-sequiturism, this is an example. If you're against gay marriage, you must want gay people to be miserable. No, that doesn't follow at all. If you don't believe in transgenderism, well, that must be because either you want children to be able to transition, or you have malice and animus against transgender children.

Let me say this as we close. There are no transgender children. There are only children caught in the crossfire of adults that are either imposing a false ideology or don't have the courage to stand against a false ideology. There are no transgender people. There are only people.

Now, people who maybe are intentionally or antecedently the victims of false teaching. But there are males and females. And let me encourage you, please believe what God says. The Bible says in Genesis 1.27 that God made male and female. If transgenderism is true, then God Almighty is wrong.

And I don't think any of us believe that. Folks, it is time that we must pray. Mark 9.26, some things are only accomplished through prayer and fasting. We have got to pray for our culture. We need to stand against darkness and falsehood in the name of Jesus. I'll remind you what Dinesh D'Souza recently said.

We did an event in the spring of 2023. Dinesh remarked that there have always been sin and sinners. There have always been people that are anti-God. But we're living in a time when many people, elected officials, educators, celebrities, we're living in a time when many people are anti-reality, said Dinesh.

And it's true. Folks, please have the courage to stand for what not only common sense and rationality says is true, but the Word of God says is true as well. It is time to be at our best. Think clearly. Think rationally. Think bravely.

Think biblically. And we're here to help you do that. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404, or by calling 1-877-YES-GOD-1.

That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarland Show.

Do you have a desire to deepen your faith, better understand Christian apologetics, or to get a biblical perspective on current events? Well, I've tried to make it simple for you to do just that. On my website, alexmcfarland.com, there's a new section called Ask Alex Online. It's simple, it's clean, and you can read my answers to common questions about God, faith, and the Bible. So visit the website alexmcfarland.com and look for the section that says Ask Alex Online.