1/5/2020 - World View

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio. And now the man who preached in 50 states in 50 days, speaker, writer, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. Hi, Alex McFarland here with TNG Radio. We welcome you to a new program and a new year.

What a blessing it is to be with you again. And we're going to talk about worldview, because many people say now, even in the secular news, that we are in a battle of worldviews. Maybe 10 years ago, the word worldview was pretty much relegated to use in Christian circles and theological discussions. The biblical worldview, the Christian worldview, as opposed to other worldviews. But now we hear so much about gender and identity politics and the struggle of progressive, socialist, left, right, and we are in a battle of worldviews.

And so I want to talk about that on this very first program of the year 2020. So we're in a battle where a lot of the things that have characterized civilized society, certainly for the entirety of the United States' existence, but really throughout human history, a lot of these things are up for grabs right now. And in the Western world, in the US, in Europe, in the West, higher education has almost declared war on common sense. And so many things that are just, it's almost like, you know, we would say, duh, anybody would know this.

A male is a male, a female is a female. There are things that are objectively right. There are some things that are objectively wrong.

There are things that are just flat out reality, undeniable. And yet, so much of secular education, public schools, K through 12, and certainly higher education colleges have just, at best, turned their back on what was known to be truth for 6000 years of human history. And at worst, are actively programming young people and students of all strata to turn against truth, to turn against reality, not only moral ideas and ideas about the existence of God and the nature of truth, but even physiology, your own undeniable human biology, that males and females are different. I mean, in many a school, that can be grounds for students being failed or dismissed, the idea that men and women are different. We hear a lot of words kicked around in the news today, like intersectionality.

And I want to talk about that a little bit. But let me say this, there's a word in debate called obfuscation. To obfuscate things means to make things unnecessarily complicated. There's another word that I'm sure you're familiar with, the word sophistry. Now, philo is the word for love. And sophia is a word for knowledge, like love of knowledge. Philo-sophia, philosophy, the love of not only knowledge, but really the love of truth. But the word sophistry implies a kind of trickery, using words to entangle people, confuse people.

And into a state of confusion, you can influence and even lead and lure people. Now, Saul Alinsky is a philosopher whose name has been kicked around in recent years, because Barack Obama famously said that the thinker that he was most influenced by was Saul Alinsky. Saul Alinsky wrote a famous book called Rules for Radicals. And I heard this, I could barely believe it, so I went to see for myself, I went to a bookstore and I found a brand new for sale copy of the book Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. And yes, indeed, as was rumored, Saul Alinsky dedicated his book to quote the greatest radical of them all, the original radical, Lucifer, who wanted to overthrow heaven, unsuccessfully, I might add.

So it's amazing that here's a man that in many ways applauded Satan, Saul Alinsky, who is so influential right now, and there is the assumption among many people, certainly this was the position of former President Barack Obama, that we have to get rid of the existing order, create intentional disorder to introduce a new order. Now think about this, folks, the sophist, the one who engages in sophistry does the same thing, confuses people, blurs issues to try to put in new politically charged words and ideas, and words like intersectionality and critical race theory, and the idea that everybody is inherently racist. I mean, if you say that this behavior is undesirable and this other behavior is good, you're only saying that because you're a racist, it's assumed. Or if you say that men and women are different, then it's assumed or you're accused of being a misogynist.

If you're a male and you say males and females physiologically are different, you must be saying that because you're a hater of women or something like that. There's a lot of sophistry going on, grammatical, semantical gymnastics to confuse people. And you know what, the good Lord made reality so that it's just not that complicated. Truth is really not that complicated.

I mean, there is a God and he created all things. God made human beings and we know right from wrong, we have a conscience. And the Bible says it's written on every heart.

And in fact, history itself and culture tells us it's written on every heart. Look, we know it's wrong to tell a lie. We know it's wrong to bear false witness and slander somebody.

Deep in our heart, we know it's wrong to commit murder, to steal. Now there's a famous author, Flannery O'Connor, and he said this years ago. Flannery O'Connor said, truth does not change because of our inability to stomach it. So truth doesn't change.

Flannery O'Connor was right. Truth doesn't change merely because of our inability to stomach it. Now we're going to come back and we're going to talk about truth, worldview, and the personal applications of them when we come back on Truth For A New Generation radio.

Stay tuned. Now Nehemiah's burden to leave his post is noted in chapter 1, after which he prayed and prayed and waited for God to move. Chapter 2 notes that four months later, God presented an open door to speak with the king and request permission to leave.

It took twice as long for permission to be secured than it did to build the wall. God's timing is not our timing, but it is always perfect. Like Nehemiah, be patient, wait on the Lord, follow His leading, walk with and learn from other watchmen, and you will be blessed. Be bold, be faithful, be a watchman. IAmAWatchman.com Alex has written many books to help you defend your faith. One of them answers questions from skeptics.

It's cleverly titled, Ten Answers for Skeptics. Today's skeptics are looking for authenticity, integrity, and straightforward truth. And in the book, Alex McFarland identifies the ten most common types of skepticism that plague doubters' minds and offers believers proven strategies for connecting intellectually and spiritually with those who are skeptical about the claims of Christianity. Learn how to answer intimidating questions, identify the root issue behind those questions, and dismantle the spiritual bombshells dropped by atheists.

Plus, find encouragement to face hostility by persevering in love. The ultimate apologetic Christians can offer as a witness to our loving God. Check out Ten Answers for Skeptics when you visit AlexMcFarland.com. When we're told to do something, we like to ask, why? We don't follow traditions merely for the sake of tradition. We seek a biblical worldview and search for reasons behind answers. For the Christian who wants to dig deeper, there's EngageMagazine.net, packed with relevant articles from movie reviews and life tips to culture and the believer's spiritual life. Share truth. Apply scripture. EngageMagazine.net. You don't need to have a Bible degree from Liberty University to love, serve, pray, worship, or obey God.

But it can make life more vibrant when you do. When you're ready for a religious studies degree, you'll find more than 60 ministry degree options, from a bachelor's to a doctorate of ministry. And you'll pay one low block rate for divinity courses at Liberty University, where we train champions for Christ. Go to Liberty.edu backslash explore to learn more.

That's Liberty.edu backslash explore to learn more. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex McFarland is a voice you can trust to speak the timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation Radio. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. I'm so honored to be speaking with you about worldview and really the call to simplify. And let's get back to meaning what we say, saying what we mean, and understanding that words have meaning. And truth is not complicated.

It really isn't. Knowing what is morally right, morally wrong, and we're in a battle of worldviews, but carefully, consistently, certainly prayerfully, lovingly, all of us, whether you're a believer or not, we should be committed to that which is true. None of us want to believe that which is false. And understand this, that there is a certain timelessness of truth. Moral truth is beyond time.

It's eternal because it emanates from the character of God. And what was true still is true. What was false still is false. What was right, what was wrong, these things don't change.

I mean, clothing styles come and go, and they redesign automobiles and cars get updated. But moral truth doesn't change. And really, ultimately, all human beings will be judged in light of what they did with known truth. It's a very frightening thing to ignore or outright deny known truth. And we human beings, I believe this is proof we have a sin nature.

Outwardly, we argue, and we try to rationalize and legitimize. And, you know, I was watching a program, it was a reality show with a psychologist on it, and there was a married couple. And one spouse was flagrantly cheating on the other one. And when cornered, the cheating spouse and the person with whom they were cheating, they said, well, but you don't understand, we were stressed.

Our home life was not the thrill it had once been. And they listed a dozen reasons to try and legitimize why they were committing adultery. And the fact is, the bottom line was, truth is black and white. You don't cheat on your spouse. You don't break a marriage vow. And all of the attempted legitimization in the world is not going to change the stark reality of when people stand before God. And it's going to be a yes or no proposition. Did you repent when the Holy Spirit called you to?

Did you amend your sinful behavior in light of God's overtures to turn and engage in righteous behavior? You see, truth, truth claims, they're called propositions. And, you know, all propositional statements are binary. They're either true or they're false. The USA is in the western hemisphere. Either it is or it isn't.

The state capital, Washington, is on the eastern seaboard, not the west coast. It either is or it isn't. Homosexuality is in harmony with the details of human physiology, or it's not. It's either morally right or it's morally wrong. Heterosexuality, it seems to harmonize with human biology. It creates the perpetuation of the human race. Children can be born. It's not laden with not only the condemnation of Scripture, but the guilt of 6,000 years of human society.

So either it's true or it's false. And so we're in a battle of worldview, and part of the problem is that we try to legitimize that which deep in our soul the Spirit of God has told us is wrong. Now, worldview determines how we live. Worldview speaks to a number of issues like origin, purpose, destiny. Where did we come from? Why are we here?

Where are we going? Now, at this point, some people might say, yes, but everybody's got opinions, and the Christian worldview is merely an opinion. But here's the difference about the Christian worldview.

The Christian worldview not only harmonizes with known moral truth, people throughout history and all cultures, they have this knowledge of morality. You can call it conscience. Thomas Jefferson called it self-evident truth.

Other thinkers like Aristotle have called it natural law. We've all got this moral conscience about us. But Christianity even goes beyond that and gives very specific truth claims about who God is, why we need to be saved from sin, what God did to send the Savior, and what was done to prove the identity and work of Jesus Christ. You see, yes, it is a world of opinion.

Everybody's got an idea and a position and a preference, and everybody has really dozens of subjective things they think and assume and say and often do. Christianity, though, the specific propositional claims, and remember, propositions are either true or false. Christianity's propositions are backed up with objective evidence.

For instance, Jesus is the Son of God. That truth claim is either true or false. Either he is or he isn't. Now, a lot of people today that are relativists would say, well, it's true for you, but not for me. No, it's not true for or against anybody.

It corresponds to reality. He either is the Son of God or he isn't. And in light of his miracles, his prophesied coming, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his ability to physically resurrect himself from the grave, in light of compelling lines of objective evidence, Jesus is shown to be the Son of God.

Now, objectivity stands above the fray of human opinion and cultural tides and trends. And so when we say something is objectively true, we're saying it's true whether anybody believes it or not. So Christianity does make many exclusivistic claims. There is one God. There may be innumerable false gods, but there's only one true and living God. There are 10,000 ways to go to hell.

There's one way to go to heaven, and that's through a born-again, new-birth relationship with Jesus. You repent, you believe. Now, these exclusivistic, tough-as-nails claims, they could be false or they could be true.

What makes Christianity different, the biblical worldview is different, because the claims of Christianity are backed up by independent, investigatable evidence that supersedes and eclipses anybody's opinion about the claims or about the evidence. Now, this is worldview, and the worldview that you hold are the fragments of viewpoints that you may erratically live amongst. They might be true, partially true.

They might be entirely false. But for your eternity, not only the soul of people but the destiny of the nation, it behooves us to believe that which is true. Stay tuned.

We're going to talk more about this when we come back. If you're a Christian parent, you, of course, want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages 5 to 12, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

Did Jesus ever sin? The book and video lessons are great for groups of any size and was produced with the goal of equipping kids to stand strong for Christ in any situation. The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, the book, study guide, and video series, you'll find it at afastore.net.

That's afastore.net. Christians don't necessarily agree with one another when it comes to questions of religious pluralism, homosexuality, the role of government, abortion, and war. Too often we manage these disagreements by ignoring them. Yet we're called to engage the world for the sake of Christ.

How can we be effective if we avoid society's most pressing questions? In 10 Issues That Divide Christians, Alex McFarland challenges us to drill down to the biblical core of 10 current issues, such as social justice, evil and suffering, pornography, and environmentalism, as he echoes the biblical invitation, Come, let us reason together. Only by engaging the scriptures deeply, thinking clearly, and speaking truthfully, can we and God's family address our differences and discover the peace that comes with unity of purpose. 10 Issues That Divide Christians.

Find this book and many others at alexmcfarland.com. Timeless truths in a soundbite culture. Truth for a new generation radio. Welcome back to Truth for a New Generation.

Alex McFarland here. And as we get into our continued conversation about worldview, I'm going to quote Proverbs 4.26. And if you have a moment and you're able to turn there, turn to Proverbs 4.26. While you do, I want to remind everybody that this summer we're going to be at the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove in western North Carolina. Just a beautiful, beautiful retreat center. I'll be there July 27 through 31. And we'll be going through the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel, Bible prophecy, how God writes history in advance. And I would love for you to be there. We'll have ample time to talk and fellowship with people from all around the country coming to the Cove to learn the Word of God. And we're going to look at how God writes history in advance. And I want you to be there. Together we will learn the Bible. We'll go over Bible prophecy, Daniel, Revelation, Old Testament, New Testament. And we'll talk about so many things.

And there'll be time for Q&A. And I just look forward to getting acquainted with you. Over the last few years I've been to the Cove and everybody who's ever been knows what an amazing place it is. And I've met a lot of friends from around the USA and Canada who come to the Cove.

And so their website is thecove.org, C-O-V-E, thecove.org. And if you would just Google my name, you'll find it there. And I'd love to see you in late July as we go over Daniel and Revelation. Well, you know, talking about the end times, the Bible does predict that just before the return of Christ there'll be a lot of confusion.

There'll be a lot of people calling good evil and evil good. That's from Isaiah chapter 5. And it behooves all people, as I said earlier in the program, to know what is true, to know what is real. And Proverbs 4 verse 26 is a good verse about worldview, as we're in this brand-new year, and more than ever, all people really need to know that they have Christ in their life. Christians need to know that they're walking with the Lord and living out a biblical worldview, integrating scriptural truth into their life. And Proverbs 4 verse 26 says this, give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Some translations say, mark out the straight path for your feet. Stay on the straight path.

The King James renders it this way. Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established. Okay, when you ponder the path of your feet, the road you're on, ask yourself, am I living God's way? Am I following the Lord's blueprint for my life? The New Year is as good a time as any to ponder the path that you're on. And you can have your feet established on solid ground, in fact, the rock of Jesus Christ. You can be steadfast in all of your ways when you build your life, your values, your beliefs, your behaviors, your priorities in light of God's truth.

And so pondering refers to what you think and believe. The path you're on refers to your destiny. You know, it's been said very famously, sow a deed and reap a habit. Sow a habit and reap a destiny.

But do you know how that begins? Let's go back and I want to give you the full quote. It says, sow a thought, reap a deed. Sow a deed, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a destiny. Because beliefs begat behaviors, whether they're personal behaviors or national policy. That's why the battle of world views is so important.

Let me just say this. I want to talk a little bit about how we arrive at what we believe. There was a movie a couple of years ago called The Life of Pi. And in this movie, The Life of Pi, P.I., there was the story of a man and he tells a person, he asks a person, rather, do you believe in God? And the man says, well, I'm going to tell you a story and it will, quote, make you believe in God. So this sage begins to tell his life story.

And he says, as a child, he thought of very different beliefs, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism. And then he tells the story that he was on a shipwreck and his family died and he survived on a lifeboat alone, now listen to this, with a tiger and a few other animals. And so he tells the story of being adrift at sea in a boat with a tiger and some other animals.

And the listeners are very surprised. And then he goes back and he says, well, no, I really was shipwrecked and my family died and an evil person on the boat committed murder and I lived as an orphan. And the person says, well, that's not a very good story. And he asks, which story did you like, the story with the tiger in the boat and the animals with me or the other story of just being the victim of murder and abandonment?

And the person said, well, I like, with the animals, the more colorful story, I like that story better. And Pye says, so it is with God. Now, the assumption is that belief in God is merely something people dream up to make life's story more beautiful or more enticing. And that's a fallacy because it's dismissive of the evidence for God, the rational necessity that creation had a creator, that design has had a designer, that laws come from a lawgiver, and we do live in a world of moral law and scientific law.

But my point is this. There is a fallacy called reductionism. And when people say, well, you Christians merely believe in God because you want there to be some great grandfatherly person up in the sky, or you hope someday that your relatives went to some sort of heaven, maybe your goldfish did and your parakeet when they died, and heaven and God are merely the fulfillment of some deep-seated wish or need that you have. Sigmund Freud said this. Sigmund Freud basically assumed that everything we believe emanates from our relationship, good or bad, with our Father. And belief in God is merely a wish for the ultimate Father figure, what could be more big and fatherly than the divine arms of God. Well, some people may believe in God out of a wish for something, but that doesn't explain all of the evidence for God.

And sadly we're out of time right now. But we're going to, in the next several weeks, talk about worldview, why it matters, and what is the rock-solid foundation of truth that God has revealed not only through Christ, not only through His Word, not only through the orderly creation around us, but deep in our soul, our conscience, that truth exists, we can know it. And in fact, we're all accountable for what we do with truth. So the truth is that God is calling us to Proverbs 4.26 to give careful thought to the paths of our feet and to be steadfast in all of our ways.

And we do that by building our ways on Jesus Christ the Savior. That's 877-YES-GOD and the number 1. Or give online at AlexMcFarland.com. While you're there, listen to program archives, read Alex's blog, invite Alex to speak at your event, or contact Alex with a question or comment. AlexMcFarland.com. Thanks for listening today and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG Radio.