How to Communicate the Gospel to Modern Ears

Today's broadcast of the Christian Worldview was previously aired. How to communicate the Gospel to modern ears. Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis joins us today for that topic right here on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the best news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. So how to communicate the Gospel to modern ears, and we're so glad you joined us this weekend as we discussed this very important and relevant topic today. You know, Western civilization has changed drastically in the last half century, particularly in the shift from a broadly comprehended Christian worldview to the religious pluralism and secular worldviews are so prominent today. For example, when a Christian today speaks about basic things like God and sin and salvation, it's likely the hero will have a very limited understanding of these subjects.

He or she will consider stories in the Bible to not be historical events, but rather just fiction. And research bears this out, as our guest Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis writes about in his new book, Gospel Reset. So what should Christians in the church do to reach our changed culture, especially the younger millennial generation that has been most affected by this worldview shift?

Well, some examples of this ideas are popular pastor Andy Stanley recently stated that Christians need to quote unhitch, unquote, the Old Testament from the New Testament because people stumble over the Old Testament. Others believe the way to reach this generation is through becoming culturally relevant to them, particularly through Christianized rock and rap music and inserting messages about social justice causes and how Jesus changes, quote unquote, messed up lives. So I hope you enjoy the gain from the conversation today with Ken Ham, who explained what he believes is needed to communicate the gospel to modern ears. Let's get to the first segment of that interview.

Ken, it's great to have you back on the program. We're going to talk about your brand new book today, Gospel Reset, and we're titling the interview or the program, How to Communicate the Gospel to Modern Ears. And I want to start out by reading a few paragraphs from the promotional literature that came with the book, because I think this summarizes well what you're trying to get across in the book. It says, the message of the gospel hasn't changed, but the way people think has changed dramatically. When you proclaim the power and the hope of the gospel, are you assuming the foundation has already been laid? In our post-Christian godless culture, this is a faulty assumption.

A fast-growing majority in our world has no concept of sin and therefore has no understanding of a need to be saved. In order to reach them, our choice of words and the starting point of our gospel conversation need to be adjusted. So in the beginning of your book, Gospel Reset, you talk about this changing culture we live in. You did a big survey of people's beliefs and church-going.

Tell us some of the key findings from those surveys. Well, one of the things that we have found, and this is well-known fact, is that two-thirds of young people are leaving the church by the time they reach college age, and very few returning. And so when we did the research on that, we found out that the reason that they really left the church, because they started to doubt the Word of God because of science, because of millions of years, because of evolution, they had questions about how can we be loving God with all this death and suffering in the world, and it really indicated a failure on the part of the church to teach them how to defend the Christian faith against the sceptical attacks of our age. And particularly when it came to the book of Genesis, so much of the church told these people, you didn't need to believe Genesis is written, you could believe in evolution, millions of years, it didn't really matter, as long as you trust in Jesus. But here's what's happening. It's a failure of the church to really stand on the authority of God's Word, and a failure of the church to equip generations with answers to be able to defend the faith, and it's resulted in many of those young people starting to doubt and not believe the Word of God.

You see, let me put it to you this way. When I was a youngster, millions of years ago, in Australia, back in 1959, Billy Graham came to Australia, and I remember my father saying, oh, he's the evangelist who's known as the Bible says man, because he would say the Bible says that we're sinners, the Bible says we need to repent, the Bible says trust Jesus for salvation. Well, you see, it's interesting because many people did respond back then in Australia, being said it's the closest Australia ever came to revival, but most of those people didn't go to church, but the point is the Bible was still respected in the culture. We inherited the British system, and the Bible was read through during the year at school. In fact, even in my high school days, I remember reciting the Lord's Prayer on assembly before we went into school, and so when somebody came in and said the Bible says, well, they know what the Bible is, the Bible is God's Word. If you use the word God, they would think, oh, yeah, the God of the Bible. By the way, when you say the word God today in public schools, which God?

There are many Gods. See, it's a changed culture, and what I'm saying is when we say today to the younger generations, like the millennials and Generation Z, if we say the Bible says, already in their mind they're thinking the Bible, but it's not really true, it's just a book of mythology. I mean, what I was taught at school showed it was wrong, even my church, what they taught said you didn't need to believe Genesis, so you're saying the Bible says, but what does that mean? You can't trust that.

That's no longer authoritative. We live in a culture where even when we start with talking about the Bible, we have generations who don't believe the Bible. They've been inoculated against the Bible.

We've got to deal with that. And then the second thing is, if you say to them, you know, you're sinners, repent of your sin, well, they haven't been given the foundational understanding in Genesis. They don't know what sin is.

They don't understand what it means. They're not going to understand the Gospel. And so we have a major problem with these younger generations that have been leaving the church, that are much more atheistic in their philosophy.

Generation Z, Barna came out with some research recently saying that generation Z, those 13 to 18 years old, are twice as likely to be atheistic than those 30 years or older. So we've got to recognize the change that's occurred in the culture and the secularization of the culture. We can't present the Gospel in the same way. Okay, we're going to get into that, how to present it to different ears today, modern ears. That's our topic today with Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, how to communicate the Gospel to modern ears in light of his brand new book, Gospel Reset, subtitled Salvation Made Relevant.

We have it linked on our website, thechristianrealview.org. I'm thinking that before, let's say the 60s in this country, that apologetics wasn't probably something that were done in churches. And yet people, as you were saying, in Australia, British Empire, America, had a sense of reverence for God in the Bible. Is it really the fact that the entire society has lost any sense of reverence for God or the authority of Scripture over our lives?

It's a complex issue in a way, but I think it's fairly easy to understand. It's interesting, you know, some of the great preachers of the 50s and the 60s actually taught against apologetics because they looked on it that, hey, you know, we shouldn't be out to prove God's word because this is the word of God and we take it as written and what do you need apologetics for? But what they didn't understand was that generations of kids were going to public schools where they were being taught apologetics, secular apologetics. They were being taught, this is why the Bible's not true because you came from ape men and evolution is true and millions of years is true and the Bible's a book of mythology and there never was a global flood. And we had many of those in our churches, leaders in our church are saying, trust in Jesus, this is the word of God and you need to believe God's word and they didn't deal with what was happening underneath the surface.

In fact, if I can put it this way, here's what I believe was really happening in a sense. In a way, the devil was really saying, look, you Christians, you go on and teach, you go on and teach your congregations, teach your kids that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead. That's okay, I don't care if you teach about the resurrection, you can teach about the virgin birth, you can teach about Jesus walking on water, raising the dead and healing the blind man and healing the lame and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and the Jordan River as miracles.

You can do that, that's okay. And while you do that, you can tell them all those things but I'm going to get them not to believe the book and I'm going to get you to hand them over to me and I'm going to take them through an education system and inoculate them against the book. I'm going to get them to believe the book is not true. Once they believe the book, the Bible, is not true, then they're not going to believe all that other stuff you're teaching them, they're not going to believe about the resurrection, they're not going to believe the gospel and that's what I believe has happened. And so we've seen a change in our culture, we've got these younger generations now that have been so secularized, so indoctrinated against the Bible and we've had our churches who have ignored the teaching of apologetics and now we have these generations who have no, that they don't believe the Bible is authoritative for a start and they don't understand the foundations of the gospel because much of the church has ignored the book of Genesis, hasn't taught the book of Genesis which is foundational to all our doctrines, to our worldview, foundational to the gospel. And so now we have a culture that I would say they're like the Greeks in Acts 17, which is what I say in the book, not the Jews in Acts 2, they're like the Greeks in Acts 17, a pagan culture who had no understanding, who believed in evolution, the Greeks believed in evolution, so when Paul presented the gospel to them it was foolishness which is why Paul then said let me tell you about who the real God is, you have this altar to the unknowing God, he's the creator to find who God is and explain his terms and really explain the foundations of the gospel and then some were converted. I'm suggesting we have an Acts 17 culture in our Western world, not Acts 2, but most of the church doesn't get that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani Okay. Let's get into that next and our guest today and the Christian real view is Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. You can find out about all of them at answersingenesis.org. We're discussing Ken's brand new book today, Gospel Reset. Now you write on page 18 of your book, we are not imparting the gospel in a way that the next generation can grasp. Of course, the message of the gospel hasn't changed, but the way people think has changed dramatically, that's what you've just been saying. And here's the sentence I wanna ask you about, therefore, we must speak the truth of scripture in the language of culture.

That's from page 18 of your book. I know exactly what you mean by that, but that could be misinterpreted to say, well, we need to adjust not only the methodology of how we communicate the culture, we need to lead with how can we attract people, but we also sometimes when that takes place, when you adjust the methodology, sometimes the message of the gospel gets softened and some of the clear cut lines that need to be there are missing. Explain that more what you mean by saying we must speak the truth of scripture in the language of culture and what you don't mean by that as well. What it really means, it's got nothing to do with changing the message of the gospel at all or watering it down, which I know happens a lot today in many of our churches who try to make it what they would call palatable and don't wanna talk about you're a sinner and don't wanna talk about hell and so on.

It's got nothing to do with that. It's to do with the tactics of how to reach the culture with the same message, not changing the message, but the tactics on how to reach them and we need to understand, if I can put it this way, that the generations today, the millennials, generation Z, really speak a different language and what I mean by speaking in different languages is something I alluded to before. Generations ago, when you went into the public schools in Australia, in America, in Europe, United Kingdom, Canada, and you said the word God, most of the teachers and students would think of the God of the Bible. They'd think of one God. But if you go to the public schools today in those same countries and you say God, they'll say, which God? There are many gods. Okay, we'll take our first break of the day and let Ken Ham finish the answer to that question after this first break here on the Christian Real View.

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We have a very full segment ahead, so let's get straight back to the interview where he was talking about speaking the truth of Scripture to a changing culture. When Paul went to the Greeks in Acts 17, they believed in many gods. Now there were atheists, there were pantheists, but there were all sorts of temples, there were idols, there's all sorts of false Greek gods.

You can go to the British Museum in London and see the statues there of all these Greek gods. When Peter went to the Jews in Acts 2 and said God, they would immediately think of, yes, there's one God, the creator God that had the writings of Moses. He's the God that made Adam and Eve. They understood that and they understood about the sacrificial system because God made coats of skins for Adam and Eve and the first blood sacrifices are covering for their sin. They understood it was to do with the promise of the Messiah to come and that was their stumbling block, that they didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah. But when Paul went to the Greeks, the whole message of the cross was foolishness to them because they had no foundation, not like the Jews, they had no foundation to understand the message. So what Paul had to do was to find his terms and that's what I'm saying. I'm saying we need to be looking on the culture today as more like in Acts 17, a Greek culture, so when you say the word God, many people aren't hearing the God of the Bible anymore like they used to. If you say sin, they don't even know what you mean by sin because they don't understand the account of Adam and Eve and the fall of man and that we committed high treason against the God of creation. They don't understand that.

In fact, you know, we've got problems like this. Generations ago, when you and our churches said to kids, you know, come forward in church and sit down here and let's have a Bible story and they would come forward and they'd hear you talk about something in the Bible, maybe Jesus, you know, feeding the 5,000 or something. But today, if you ask congregations as I do, as I travel all across America and other parts of the world too and I say, when I say the word story today, what does that mean? Well, people say it means fiction or fairy tale. So even the word story has changed meaning.

So kids get the idea. Our church, we have stories from the Bible, which means they're not really true. We go to school and we learn real stuff about millions of years and evolution. So church, we learn these fictional stories and at school, we learn, we learn true stuff.

We learn real stuff. And we've got a problem today in that we have generations that no longer believe the Bible is a book of history, that it's a book of true history that we can, that we can trust. And so what I'm saying is we have got to reach today's generations in a different way. We've got the same message, the message that we rebelled against God, the message that we're sinners, that we don't deserve anything, that we're under the penalty of death because of our sin, that God's Son stepped into history, died on the cross, be raised in the dead, offers a free gift of salvation. And if we receive that free gift of salvation, we spend eternity with the Lord. If we don't, we'll spend eternity within, within hell, separated from God forever.

We're not changing any of that message. It's saying if you're going to go and proclaim that message to today's generation, you've got to realize you've got to start right at the very beginning to explain the foundation. But even before that, you've really got to start at a position of, of helping them understand why you believe the Bible can be trusted, why you believe it really is the Word of God and answer their skeptical questions to help them understand the Bible is true, it is God's Word, and this gives us the true history of the world, who we are, what our problem is, and what the solution is in Jesus.

Ken Ham with us today on the Christian Real View, the president of Answers in Genesis. We're discussing how to communicate the Gospel to modern ears, specifically millennial ears, who haven't grown up with the foundational understandings of biblical doctrines that come right from the very first book of the Bible in Genesis about who God is, what sin is, what is the consequence of sin. I'm guessing you've probably heard this story from the Christian Post that's titled, Christians Must Unhitch the Old Testament from Their Faith, Says Pastor Andy Stanley.

I'm just going to read a few paragraphs from this article that came out recently. Stanley explained that while he believes that the Old Testament is quote, divinely inspired, it should not be the go-to source regarding any behavior in the church. To justify this, Stanley preached last month about Acts 15, which described how the early church decided that Gentile converts did not need to strictly observe Jewish law to become Christians. First century church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value system, and regulations of the Jewish Scriptures, said Stanley. Peter James and Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish Scriptures.

And my friends, we must do the same as well. And then the last paragraph I want to read and let you comment, Ken. For Stanley, the difficulty lay with the Old Testament and is concerned that many Christians are turning away from the faith because of certain passages in the Hebrew Bible. Stanley argued that the early church showed that there was a need to move past the Old Testament for the sake of Gentile believers and that the resurrection of Jesus was enough. Quote, Jesus' new covenant, his covenant with the nations, his covenant with you, his covenant with us, can stand on its own two nail-scarred resurrection feet. It does not need propping up by the Jewish Scriptures, unquote. The Bible did not create Christianity, he said. The resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity. Your whole house of Old Testament cards can come tumbling down. The question is, did Jesus rise from the dead?

And the eyewitnesses said he did, unquote. Sorry for reading such an extensive portion of the article, but I think it gives a different perspective on this from one of the most popular pastors in America saying, we actually don't really want to go back to the Old Testament. That confuses people. That makes God seem like a harsh God.

And they don't understand that God at all. We just simply need to preach the resurrection of Christ. How would you respond to Andy Stanley's comments there?

Well, David, I think there's a number of things that we need to say. First of all, I've heard a number of sermons by Andy Stanley even before this particular one that he gave. And one of the reasons that he wants to unhinge the Old Testament is because he doesn't believe in a literal Genesis because he thinks that science has disproved the Bible in Genesis. And he gave a series of sermons dealing with that, showing that he really didn't understand what Genesis was saying because of what he was taught about the Big Bang and millions of years. And he actually said when it comes down to science and the Bible, science must win. And when he's talking about science, he's not talking about observational science.

He's talking about what I call historical science, Big Bang, millions of years, evolution and so on. And so already he sees that conflict and he recognizes that. He recognizes that there's lots of young people today that say, how can you trust the Bible when we're taught about evolution and millions of years and that's called science and so on.

So what he's really saying is, well, you don't need to worry about that. And the most important thing is the resurrection. And he actually makes statements in other talks and other sermons that the foundation of our faith is not the Bible, but it's the resurrection, it's Jesus. Well, where do you get the message of Jesus from?

When he said, we've got to listen to the eyewitnesses, where do you get the message of the eyewitnesses from? That comes from the Bible itself. Not only that, if you're going to talk about the message of the Gospel, you're going to say, then we're going to get rid of the Old Testament and you're getting rid of Genesis and getting rid of the Old Testament. Then wait a minute, when Jesus in Matthew 19 was asked about marriage, he said, haven't you read, he was made the beginning male and female, oops, can't quote that now. So you can't deal with the gender issue and said, you know, man shall leave his father and mother and cleave and his wife and they'll be one flesh.

Wow. Now we can't talk about marriage because Jesus was actually dealing with the doctrine of marriage based on the history in Genesis. What do you do with Paul in Romans five by one man sin entered the world. Where did that happen in Genesis?

Well, get rid of that now. How, how do you preach the Gospel? How do you preach the message of Jesus death and resurrection and, and explain what that means if you don't have the foundations in the Old Testament going back to Genesis and you know, the whole of the Old Testament of course is looking forward to the coming of Christ. In fact, Christ is there in the Old Testament, pictured in many, many ways, even in, even in the way the tabernacle was constructed and the temple and, and so on. The whole sacrificial system that was set up right there in Genesis is pointing to the one who will come, pointing to the cross. In fact, the first time the message of Jesus is preached is Genesis 3 15.

I'll put enmity between you and the woman, your seed, her seed, it shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his heel. The next time it's preached is Genesis 3 21 when God made coats of skins for Adam and Eve and set up the sacrificial system, picture what was to come in Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So if you do away with the Old Testament, you do away with the foundations of the Gospel, then, then what are you left with? And if you say that the message is about the resurrection, but how do you know the resurrection is true? We weren't there to see it happen.

We don't have a movie rerun of it. You can say there were witnesses, but how do you know you can trust those witnesses? It's only if we have an infallible word that we can trust. And of course, you know, God's word says all scripture is inspired by God. But you know, this whole idea that Andy Stanley is giving there really illustrates the point to me that he recognizes we have generations today who don't believe the Bible because of what they've been taught at school and through universities and the culture. And so instead of teaching them that the Bible is God's word, it is a book of history, giving them answers and standing boldly on the Word of God and showing them it is the foundation of their faith, what he's doing is saying is basically throw the Bible away and just trust in Jesus, whatever that means.

What does that mean? You know, when New Tribes Mission went to pagan cultures, say in Papua New Guinea and so on, Papua Indonesia, and taught them trust in Jesus, they thought they had all these conversions to when they really analyzed it, they found out that those natives were just doing whatever they thought the missionaries wanted them to do. It was some sort of experiential thing that they did, some sort of emotional thing they did, and they realized they didn't understand the gospel.

So then they said, we got to do something different. So they started at the beginning in Genesis and taught about the origin of man and the origin of sin and the origin of death and that we all come from Adam, we're all sinners and so on, laid that foundation. Then when they got to the message of the cross, then they understood, then there were real conversions. What people like Andy Stanley is preaching, that is not the gospel. The gospel starts in Genesis, the gospel is the message that we are sinners and we need to repent of our sin and that we need to receive the free gift of salvation. I mean, that is the gospel. Okay, Ken Ham with us today on the Christian Real View, talking about how to communicate the gospel to modern ears. Change the message, change the methodology.

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They make a good gift and so hope you can take advantage of that before the offer expires on Father's Day weekend. Today in the program we're talking about how to communicate the gospel to modern ears. This is an important and relevant topic for today. A lot of different ways and means and methods and messages are changing out there within the church and Christians to try to reach the culture and specifically the younger generation. And our guest on the program is Ken Ham. He's the president of Answers in Genesis and also the president of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter, amazing theme parks I guess you could call them in southern, I think it was southern Ohio and their website is answersingenesis.org. He's also discussing the topic in light of his new book Gospel Reset, Salvation Made Relevant and we have it linked on thechristianworldview.org.

Let's get back to the final segment with Ken Ham and then we'll have some follow-up discussion after that. Ken is saying we need to go back to the very foundations and help people understand what they didn't learn in church growing up and just don't learn widely in our culture and schools anymore about who God is and sin and the need for a redeemer. Other evangelicals have done different things to try to reach out to this new up-and-coming millennial generation. We had a large event here in the Twin Cities recently that was advertised at least to the churches in the area as being an evangelistic outreach event.

The event itself was about four hours long and I'd say it would be more accurately described as a Christian rock and rap concert with about a 20-minute gospel type presentation in the midst of it. And the gospel was presented in such a way that people have problems, were messed up, there are problems in the world, there are injustice issues in the world, and by believing in Jesus, your life can be changed and so can society and culture as well. What do you make of that sort of methodology, Ken, where the Christian contemporary music, rock, rap industry is used as the attraction element to millennials and then someone comes up and tries to give what I consider sort of a man-centered, add-Jesus-onto-your-life gospel type message?

Let me just say this, I'm not against music, I love music, right? But one of the things that I have actually seen happen in churches, they recognize there's something wrong. We've got an exodus from the church, we see that the coming generations are extremely secularized, we recognize that the culture itself is collapsing from a Christian worldview perspective, we see moral relativism permeating the culture, the church is not impacting the culture, it's not impacting coming generations like it used to, but instead of understanding what the real issue is, that there's been an attack on the Word of God and say, in fact, 2 Corinthians 11-3 warns us that the devil is going to use the same method on us as he did on Eve, and that method in Genesis 3 was, did God really say is to attack the Word of God? And instead of recognizing what the Genesis 3 attack is today, what much of the church has done, because, see, much of the church has compromised God's Word in Genesis, and even that much of the conservative church has said it was a controversial issue, I'm not going to deal with it, others have said, well, we don't need to believe in Adam and Eve, and you can believe in millions of years evolution, and unfortunately, much of the church has unhinged the Christian worldview and Christian doctrines from the foundation in Genesis.

They recognize that there's a problem, and they recognize coming generations don't seem to be interested in the Bible or in Christianity, so they water down the teaching of the Word and they make the church look more entertainment-oriented, and I've noticed that music has become the center instead of the teaching of the Word. You know, I sort of say to people sometimes, you know, tongue-in-cheek, but actually sort of seriously, in a way, I go to churches sometimes where they have an hour of music and they stand up and sing three choruses 50 times each for an hour, or something like that, if you know what I mean, and then they give me 20 minutes to speak, and, you know, one of the things I say is, okay, if you want an hour of music, how about give me equal time, I'll have an hour to speak from God's Word. But see, even some preachers that may have that hour, if they don't understand where these coming, where these generations are at, and they don't understand the doubts they have about the Bible, and they get up and just say trust in Jesus in some subjective sort of way, these young people have, they don't have any concept of who Jesus is, you know, Jesus is a swear word sometimes, and who is Jesus, just a man or whatever, they don't understand. When you tell them they need to be saved, they don't even know they're lost, they don't understand what it means to be lost, and unless you really deal with where they're at, and where they're at is, they have doubts about the Bible, they don't even know what the Bible is, we got to start at a different point today, we can't even get up and say, well, you know, Jesus will solve your problems, we got to get up and say, let me tell you about this book, this is the Word of God, let me tell you what that means, this is, this is a revelation from God who created us, who knows everything, has given us the information we need to know about who we are, where we came from, what our problem is, what the solution is, now the world today is attacking this book, you've probably been told that this book is not true, it's just a book of mythology, let me tell you why this book is true, let me, let me answer some of those skeptical questions you have, when you say, you know, how can we trust this book, hasn't science disproved this book, and deal with that, and then say, you know, now I've dealt with some of those, now let me tell you what this book says, that we're all descendants of Adam and Eve, and oh, by the way, science confirms that, we're all one race, and, but that's why we're all sinners, and this is why there's death in the world, that's not God's fault, it's our fault, we sinned against God, and why God's son stepped into history to die on a cross, to be raised from the dead, and so on, that's what we need to be presenting today, we, we, it's, it's sort of like reading a murder mystery novel, like an Agatha Christie novel, you don't start at the end with whodunit, you start at the beginning, so you understand the plot, and you understand the foundation, but with the Bible, you've really got to start at a position of helping people understand why the Bible can even be trusted, that's where we're at in today's world. Yeah, that is the proper and correct way to start, is to tell people the whole big meta-narrative of Scripture, and that starts right in Genesis 1-1, and Ken Ham, we appreciate your coming on the Christian Real View today, and we very much appreciate and are grateful for all you're doing to lift high the authority of Scripture, and the Gospel itself, about who Jesus Christ is, and why he came to earth to save us from our sins, and preaching that full Gospel message, we just wish all of God's best and grace to you, and answers in Genesis.

Hey, thanks a lot, David, appreciate it. Okay, you just heard an interview with Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis, if you missed any of it, you can go to our website, thechristianrealview.org, and hear the, the repeat, the replay, the podcast of it, you can download the podcast, you can also get a link to Ken's book, new book, Gospel Reset, Salvation Made Relevant, that we were discussing today. So basically, in the conversation today, we're talking about three different ways of reaching this younger generation that is biblically, pretty much illiterate, or just the broader culture that is biblically illiterate, and the three ways Ken Ham is saying, everyone recognizes the same problem here, people are, younger people are leaving the church, secularism is, is becoming the norm, younger Christians don't have orthodox belief anymore, according to Scripture, and so Ken's Ham saying, we need to reach the culture, reach them in a different way, and his different way is actually to go back to the original way to explain a fuller picture of what the gospel is from beginning to end, not kind of cherry pick proof text verse and, and kind of just try to give a lighter, quicker message for shorter attention spans, but he's actually saying, to reach them, we need to explain more, you need to have more foundational work, explain the things that we, that people used to understand about God and about sin and about creation and about everything in Scripture, uh, he's saying we need to explain the whole God, the whole Bible more fully to them, and I brought the example of the recent story about Andy Stanley, Andy Stanley is saying, no, we see this what's going on in the culture, the younger generation, but we need to alter the message, that's why he's saying we need to unhitch the Old Testament from the New, the Old Testament makes people stumble, it can be offensive and misunderstood by people, people don't get it, and so we need to unhitch that, all we need to talk about is the resurrection of Jesus, but of course the Old Testament is the foundation for the New Testament, it's, it's all one book, it's all a progressive revelation about the coming of, of Christ and who he is and why he came, I mean look, look what Jesus said himself about the, the Old Testament, uh, in Matthew chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount, he said, do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets, that's, he's talking about the Old Testament, I did not come to abolish, or I'll add this word, unhitch it, but to fulfill it, for truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke, just the smallest mark of the pen, shall pass from the law until all is accomplished, whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps, teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, and so Jesus himself is saying, no, no, we don't unhitch the Old Testament, the Old Testament is very relevant of the, the progressive revelation of who Christ is, the whole sacrificial system, the, as Ken was talking about, the foundations for how we know who God is, that he's the creator, what sin is, how it's, how it's a rebellion against God, the consequence for sin, which is death, the early pictures of the gospel and the, in the killing of animals to have skins, to cover Adam and Eve, it's all there in the Old Testament, so what Andy Stanley is saying, altering the message, I don't believe that that is for sure the right thing to do here to reach this culture.

Now the other one I brought up was about a recent event here in the Twin Cities, and I would call this, and this is not just at this event, but it's really the mainstream pop culture Christian youth worker mentality needs, says we need to alter the method of how we reach this younger generation and adjust the message, so we need to stay abreast of what they're interested in, and then I'll get more into that right after this last break of the day here on The Christian Real View. There's an abundance of resources available in Christian bookstores and online, but the sad reality is that many of them, even some of the most popular, do not lead to a sound and strong faith. A key aim of The Christian World View is to identify and offer resources that are biblically faithful and deepen your walk with God. In our online store, we have a wide range of resources for all ages, adult and children's books and DVDs, Bibles and devotionals, unique gifts, and more. So browse our store at thechristianworldview.org and find enriching resources for yourself, family, friends, small group, or church. You can also order by calling our office toll free at 1-888-646-2233.

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Normal retail is $49 plus shipping. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Today's broadcast of The Christian Worldview was previously aired. Final segment of the day here on The Christian Worldview radio program. Our topic is how to communicate the gospel to modern ears or how do we reach this generation that doesn't have more basic understanding of Christianity and the younger Christian millennial generation that's leaving the evangelical church. How do we reach them?

And we've heard from Ken Ham today and he says that we need to reach them in a different way. And by that he means we need to explain a fuller presentation of the Bible from beginning to end. Not assume that they have basic understandings of who God is, who man is, and who Christ is, but need to explain it more fully. And we gave the example of Andy Stanley who said recently that we need to unhitch the Old Testament from the New Testament because the Old Testament is offensive and misunderstood. The resurrection is all people really need to hear about. By the way, you can read that article from The Christian Post.

We have it linked on our website thechristianworldview.org. And right at the end of the last segment, I was getting into a third idea is by what I call the pop culture Christian youth worker mentality. And they believe that you need to alter the methodology and adjust the message. And what I mean by that is they need to stay very much in tune with what this millennial generation, the younger generation is interested in. They're interested in rock and rap music, dressing a certain way, skinny jeans.

They're interested in social justice causes. They're totally immersed in the internet and social media. And they're talking about sex and relationships. And then when you know what they're interested in, then you use their interests to keep them interested at all costs. So you craft everything around their interests. So you never allow them to be bored.

You always keep them in an excited state. They have short attention spans after all. And then as far as adjusting the message, it's always a positive message. So therefore the hard truths of scripture about sin and God's righteousness and his judgment are either eliminated or softened. But the core problem with this approach that Andy Stanley's promoting here or the pop culture Christian youth worker mentality is promoting, the core problem there, the great liability is that it lacks, it shows a lack of trust in God and his sovereignty to save people and the power of the word and the spirit to save people in their lives. In other words, it's saying we need to, that the message isn't good enough. The message of the gospel, just a clear message of the gospel isn't enough. We need to tweak the methodology and the message a little bit in order to win people.

That just really shows a lack of trust in God and the power of the word and the spirit to save people. The other thing it does is, I heard someone say once, and I think it's true, what you win people with, you are winning them too. What you win people with, you are winning them too. So if you win them, so to speak, with an altered message, you know, changing the message, unhitch the Old Testament, you are winning them to unsound doctrine. That's not sound doctrine. You're winning them to a false God as if it's a different God in the Old Testament.

It's the same God in the Old Testament as the New Testament. And you may be winning them to false conversion because they're not really understanding, as Ken Ham was talking about, the full gospel from Genesis to Revelation. Secondly, when you win them with entertainment and pop culture, in other words, when you change the methodology, when you're winning with an altered methodology, you are then winning them to a really a false version of Christianity and sort of this, an emotional conversion.

It's sort of like you're saying to them, you can be a Christian and not be different than the world. You know, we're a lot like the world. Look, we have the same kind of music.

We dress the same. It's fun. It's positive. You often hear them say, you know, we don't want to be known what we're what we're against.

We want to be known what we're for. In other words, keep things only positive, nothing negative. You know, and when you come to Jesus, when you believe in Jesus, this is going to improve your life. Add Jesus onto your life. It's going to make your problems go away.

It's going to change your community and so forth. Well, you know what? That's not really, that's not real Christianity that Christ talks about and taking up your cross daily and follow me. You know, eleven of the twelve apostles were martyred. I mean, there's suffering and for me to live as Christ and to die as gain, it's, you know, count the cost before you are, before you believe in Christ, because it's not going to be necessarily an easier life. There may be persecution.

There's going to be difficulties and trials. You know, that needs to be presented so someone can count the cost before they make a volitional decision to put their faith in Christ. They need to count the Christ and real Christianity is that. It's not this first world Christianity, affluent Christianity we experience here in America.

Christians all over the world, North Korea, China, other places are being persecuted, and Africa, the Muslim areas of the world being persecuted all the time. That may be what it means to be a Christian someday, even here in America. And this is really, I hate to say this, but it's kind of a bait and switch. You bait these young people with driving entertainment, with giveaways and fun. And then right in the middle of that, when you've already tweaked them emotionally, then you switch. You switch in this kind of short, shallow, what I consider to be an incomplete gospel message and kind of hope it takes hold.

So you get them into this emotional state with the music. You give them a shallow version of what it means to become a Christian and be a Christian. You use the Bible very sparingly, just a couple of verses kind of plucked out here and there. You put pressure on them over and over to quote, make a decision, you know, text.

If you made a decision, text your text to this number, sign this card, raise your hand. And then after it's over, after the youth group meeting or the event is over, you count professions, you call it a success, you create videos and put them on social media, you put it in your ministry newsletter, you try to raise donations and try to do the same thing over and over again. And this is what has been taking place for the last 30 to 40 years in evangelical Christianity. And it has not created sound Christians or stronger churches. I mean, just the surveys, you read the survey in Ken's book from the America's Research Group, the surveys do not bear this out that we're creating stronger, more grounded believers, especially in the younger generations.

This is a mile wide and an inch deep. And doubling down on more of it is not going to help. Frankly, it's better not to distract people emotionally from the decision to follow Christ, which is a mental and volitional one, it's of the will, from being mentally and volitionally being confronted with the most important message in life, which is this. Number one, that God is your Creator. You are accountable to Him. He is exceedingly perfectly holy. And He will be your just judge. And you are created to worship and obey Him.

That is the foundation. Number two, you have broken God's laws, you're sinful, and you deserve the just penalty for disobeying an infinitely holy God, which is eternity in hell. You are more than quote, messed up. You are exceedingly sinful. And as Ephesians two says, you're a child of wrath. That's what Ephesians two says. And point three is to tell the whole story, that yet this God, this your Creator, He still loves you, despite the fact that you're offending Him and sinning against Him.

And He's proved that by sending His own perfect Son, to pay the death penalty for your sin on the cross. Romans 5-8, John 3-16, and Jesus calls you, He commands you to repent of your sin and place your faith for forgiveness and eternal life and who Jesus is and what He did for you in none of your own works. And once you're saved, you're called to be baptized, sanctified, to suffer for Christ, to share the gospel with others, to be engaged in a local church, to do good works, yes, but with the purpose of sharing the gospel. So go ahead and have fun with these young people, but make the full message of the gospel exceedingly and completely clear. We'll talk more about this coming up on the Christian worldview.

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