Guest Speaker - Dr. Sean McDowell

Several of y'all have asked me my thoughts on what happened yesterday in our nation and with President Trump.

I'm not going to share that with you today. We're going to pray for our nation at the end of this service. I'm not going to share my thoughts today because we have a guest and I don't want him to hear what I really think about this. So we'll talk about that next week. Okay, we're starting the book of Daniel and that goes right along with my sermon next week.

We will pray today, but we'll talk about this more next week. But several months ago some pastors from Cross Assembly went to an event and heard Sean McDowell speak. They invited him to come to our church. He accepted that invitation and then the pastor said this, please tell me he's doing the Q&A. I said, what do you mean?

They said it was amazing. He has the ability to take questions from people about the faith. Here's some questions I have about Christianity.

Here's some struggles I have with the Christian faith and he can answer them on the spot. And so here's what I decided to do. I decided let's just do a whole Q&A thing today. So here's what I want you to do.

I think we've got the texting phone number somewhere up here. I want you to do one of three things. Number one, put yourself in the shoes of an atheist or an agnostic and maybe friends or family members that don't know Jesus who are atheists or agnostic who have some questions about the faith. I want you to put yourself in their mindset and text those questions. Or number two, maybe you personally are struggling about some issues within Christianity. The transgender issue or why should I trust the Bible or there's some things you're struggling with. If that's you, I want you to text that as well.

And what we'll be doing is just going through as many of these questions as we can today. But again, I'm so delighted to have Dr. Sean McDowell with us. He is the Associate Professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University. He's also a prominent author, prolific author and podcaster. He graduated summa cum laude from Talbot Seminary and received his PhD in Apologetics from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

And he's married to his high school sweetheart, Stephanie, and they have three children. When we get through today, he's going to be out there. I think we caught the fireside room is just right out here to the right. And he'll be signing books. Some of you have told me, man, I follow Sean all the time online. I've always wanted to meet him. When we get through the service, he's going to be out there. Go by and get one of his books and just speak a word of blessing over him. But church, you ready?

We don't do stuff like this usually, but I want to do something different today. Are you ready to try something different? Well, will you welcome Dr. Sean McDowell? Sean, if you'll come on up here, brother. Great to have you. Honestly, thank you for being here, brother. Have a seat.

Sean, it's wonderful to have you here. And so I'm just curious because you deal with Christian worldview issues and hot topics and all that. What's your take on what happened yesterday?

Let's start soft and build our way up. So a couple of things I've been like many of you, I've been following the story closely, reading the New York Times, watching CNN, watching Fox. Unfortunately, this morning I got on Twitter and I'll tell you, there are conspiracies all over the place. It hasn't even been 24 hours. There's people arguing that Trump staged this to get his now iconic photo doing this number.

There's people saying the Democrats staged this to kill him. I mean, if there's one thing Christians should care about, it's truth. It's truth. So there's a proverb 1820 that says, the first to speak in court sounds right until the cross-examination begins. Let us be peacemakers that care about truth and just not say foolish things until we know. Second, I'm guessing for a lot of you here, this was for different reasons, really traumatic.

Number one, that it's just a president. But number two, maybe some of you have recently gone through some suffering and pain and this triggers it. I was hesitating to say this, but we had a family member yesterday pass away. And then this happened. It was a heavy day. I woke up this morning with just a heavy feeling on my heart.

I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. So rather than us as Christians leaning into politics saying, well, this caused it, this is the reason, you vote this way. What if we use this opportunity to realize there's hurting people around us and ministered for and prayed for them and cared for them, and then we can get to politics in due time? All right, good shot, I love it. The whole discipline of apologetics, it's not theoretical for you. I think I understand correctly, Sean, I went online, did some research. You actually had a crisis of faith in your life. I mean, you grew up, your father was kind of the guru of modern apologetics, you grew up in a Christian family, but you wrestled with the faith. So let me ask you this. Number one, tell us a little bit about that. And then number two, what would you say to parents here today, because we have some, whose kids who've grown up with the church said, I don't know if I believe this anymore.

What would you say to them? That's a great two questions. So first off, some of you will recognize the name Josh McDowell. My father's written, I think, 150 books. He's spoken to more young people live than anybody in world history as far as they can tell about the gospel. He had a dramatic, came from a broken family and tried to disprove the Bible back in the 50s before there were any books written on this stuff almost, ended up becoming a Christian and spending his life proclaiming, writing, speaking about it. When I was 19 or 20 years old, mid-90s, I got online, and this is before Google, but it really was kind of the first time I'm asking like, what is an email address?

What is a website? And I'm searching around and came across a lot of the atheist skeptical web began responding to my dad's book, Evidence that Demands Verdict, chapter by chapter. And I saw doctors, lawyers, historians arguing that the Bible is full of errors and evolution is true and Jesus never existed.

I had never heard this stuff and it rocked me. I remember that moment going, for the first time thinking, I could be wrong about this. So I knew I had to tell my dad, but obviously, you can understand the hesitation of one of the world's greatest apologists son going, yeah, not sure that I buy this dad.

We're in Breckenridge, Colorado on a family vacation. And I remember as best as I can lean over saying, dad, I want to know what's true, but I'm just not convinced Christianity is true. And he looked at me and he goes, son, I think that's great. And I remember thinking, did you hear anything that I just said? And my dad is a guy like the glass is 99% full.

He's just an optimist. And he said, look, you can't just live on my convictions. You have to discover and follow what you think is true. Don't reject what you've learned growing up out of spite like some kids do. Only reject it if you're convinced that it's false. And you know, your mom and I will love you no matter what.

Honestly, his response was exactly what I needed. So if your kids are questioning things, don't take it personally. In some ways, I wonder how can kids not question things with TikTok and with social media and with the internet, with so many perspectives out there. Don't take it personally.

Don't freak out. Just express your love and your confidence that Christianity is true. Last thing I'll say about this is studies consistently show that kids don't leave the faith because of doubts and questions primarily.

They leave the faith because of unexpressed doubts and questions. So even if you don't have an answer, just expressing, hey, this, I'm not unsettled by this. God is big enough for your questions. I love you no matter what.

Now let's go find an answer. That's the best response I think we can give and then just trust God through the process. Wonderful. Sean, I love that.

And again, any questions like this, text him. I'm going to just jump right into this. Sean, I don't know if this will make sense.

I thought we already did jump right into this. No, no, no. This is easy, man. Okay, all right.

My goal is to make you sweat and cry today, okay? I feel it, man. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Sean, here's one. If God demands our praise and worship, we see that all over the Bible, well, doesn't that mean he's just a big narcissist? What kind of God would demand you worship him and praise him? That sounds like narcissism to me.

When I was 20 years old, this is the first time I heard this objection. Somebody, a preacher who was an evangelist, who's now a humanist, by the way, he said, God is selfish because it's all about himself. I thought, well, yeah, we say you shouldn't just focus on yourself and yet God says that. Isn't he selfish? Isn't he narcissistic? Well, the problem is that we're comparing God with us.

It's wrong for us to be narcissistic and selfish because that's to ignore other people and we shouldn't put the focus upon ourselves. But God is not human. He's not finite.

He's not created. God is the kind of being by his very existence that we should talk about. We should worship.

We should focus on. In fact, think about it this way. If you're standing there looking at a mountain, you go, wow, that mountain is beautiful. And you go, what's the matter with you?

You should be looking at something else. You'd be like, wait a minute. That mountain, by its very nature, we should stand in awe at that. And if you don't see the beauty and majesty of that moment, that mountain, and take a moment to enjoy it, something's actually wrong with you. Well, God's not just the mountain. He's the creator of the mountain. He's the self-existent, all-good, all-knowing, eternal, perfectly good creator of the universe.

It would be wrong not to worship God. Wow. Love it. Shawn, we're going to just do a little 180 here. The thing of transgenderism, our church is a Bible-believing, evangelical, fundamental church. And yet, even in our church, we have young people saying, I think I'm a male in a female body. We're seeing this rise in our culture of transgenderism.

Do you think people can be born, quote, unquote, in the wrong body? What's your take on the whole transgender movement? Well, first off, I think as Christians, we need to lean in with compassion on this.

There are a lot of people who are hurting, and who are in pain, and who are experiencing gender dysphoria. And they're wondering, is the church a place that they can wrestle with this, and they'll be loved through it? There's a way to lead with compassion without compromising biblical truth.

That's the key is to maintain both. So how we speak about this, the stories we tell about people who experience this, let's make sure they hear us speak about it in a way that they don't feel uniquely judged as if they're the only sinners. And when Paul says, all have sinned, he didn't literally mean all. So let's speak about this with compassion, and grace, and love towards these individuals made in God's image. With that said, do I think somebody can be born in the wrong body?

The answer is no. God has made us body, and God has made us soul. We are embodied souls. So a part of our identity is, in fact, our bodies. And so, no, I don't think somebody can be born into the wrong body. Somebody can think they're born in the wrong body.

The question is, how do we love people with biblical truth? And I'll say this, what's very interesting is there's been a narrative going around culture, so to speak, that child-affirming gender care is the best for kids who have gender confusion. And that if you, a parent, don't affirm their gender identity, this kid might take his or her own life. Now, if you're a parent, and your child is going through this, and you're told by doctors that you don't affirm this, your child's going to commit suicide, of course you're going to listen to the experts and feel bullied into affirming this. Just a few months ago, there was a report out of England called the CAS Report, C-A-S-S. Look it up, it's incredible. And basically saying, there is no scientific data backing up this narrative that we should lean into gender care. And just two days ago in the New York Times, Pamela Paul had a long article. She's a left-leaning journalist, and she said, even in Europe, they're realizing that this care is not best for kids.

But in the U.S., we're staying entrenched and refusing to recognize that this kind of care isn't working. My point is the biblical narrative, if you believe that, you're on the right side of history. It's only a matter of time before the truth is going to come out of this. So bottom line, let's love these individuals, let's care for them, which involves speaking with compassion, but also not compromising biblical truth. All right, Shawn, just fundamentally, what in your opinion is the best evidence, proof, or case of God's existence?

All right, so I know you want me to give one, but here's the reality. If I had to pick one, I probably would go with the resurrection of Jesus. Because we have powerful evidence that Jesus lived, that he was crucified, that he was buried, that the tomb was empty, and that groups of people, including skeptics like Thomas and Paul, who was persecuting Christians, said they had seen the risen Jesus, and it transformed their lives, and they went out willing to suffer and die for this. So if that's true, that affirms the existence of the God that Jesus, when he was incarnated, believed in and taught about. So with the resurrection, you get the existence of God, you get life after death, and you get the uniqueness of Christianity all wrapped up in one. And I think the historical evidence is compelling.

But if I was just going to talk about an evidence for the existence of God, I probably would use the moral argument. Namely, if there's an objective moral law, then there's an objective moral law giver. And I think the reason this is so powerful is written on all of our hearts, we know there's right and we know there's wrong.

Nobody's really a relativist. I mean, take this example, this tragedy of what's happening in Israel right now. Right now, I'm not taking sides on this, I'm just making a simple point. Both sides are claiming that the other side, whether Hamas or Israel, is committing genocide. Both sides are claiming this. But nobody's saying, you know what, I'm on team genocide. I think genocide is okay, and you should do it.

Nobody's saying that. My point is we all know there's right, we all know there's wrong, because Romans says it's written on our hearts. So if there really is an objective moral law, and objective moral duties, and objective values, then there has to be an objective moral law giver outside of matter.

So I think the moral argument is powerful, but I look at this as a cumulative case. We now know the universe had a beginning and it's not eternal. If the universe had a beginning, that points towards a beginner. We know the universe, the laws of physics are exquisitely fine-tuned.

Well, if they're fine-tuned, that points towards a fine tuner. We now know when we look at life, you know, in the average cell, some would argue, if you take one cell in your body, and by the way, there's like 100 trillion cells in the human body. If you took the DNA out in one cell, it would be six feet in length.

Six feet in length. All the DNA in your body strung together would go from here to the sun and back about 200 times. I mean, what DNA does this store as information? One estimate was close to 8,000 books of information in one cell. Well, whenever we see information like a book, we know it comes from an author. A blog comes from a blogger.

A text that's legible comes from a texter. When we see more information in the cell, the most reasonable information is that it comes from an author, that of life. That's where information comes from. I point towards consciousness. Consciousness can't emerge from physical matter. If we're really conscious beings, that points towards a super consciousness that exists who created us. So my point is, there's a cumulative case of a dozen plus arguments for the existence of God and the uniqueness of Christianity.

But if I had to pick one, I'd probably go with the resurrection because it gets right to Jesus, life after death, and the existence, the truth of the Christian faith. Yeah. So, Sean, let me follow up on that. So how do people like, and I'm kind of going from memory, you know, Sir Fred Hoyle who has that analogy of a tornado hitting a junkyard and creating a fully functioning 747 airplane, but he was still an atheist. How do you explain that? When you have the kind of information in every cell, that teleological argument, that kind of precision, put yourself in the mind of an atheist. But how do you still say, despite all of that, I still don't believe there's a God?

So I don't know enough about Fred Hoyle in his story. He's actually the one who coined the term big bang. Interestingly enough, the universe just seemed to bang into existence. Well, if there's a big bang, there's likely a big banger and a cause outside of the universe to bring it into existence.

That's all some of you will remember from this morning, just for the record. Now, I can't speak to his personal story, but there can be a lot of reasons we believe what we believe. There can be psychological reasons. Some, even people like Freud said, you just would believe in God because you need kind of a heavenly father.

You project your father into the sky. Well, that might be true, but there also can be people for psychological reasons that don't want to believe in God because maybe they had a broken relationship with their father. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so to speak. There can be psychological reasons. There can be moral reasons. I've had people distinctly tell me, I had a young man tell me one time specifically, he said, why would I believe in your God when there's a bunch of girls I can just sleep with when I want to? If this belief sends me to hell, so be it.

And that was kind of a chilling moment. I've had a few people tell me that. There can be moral reasons. There can be reasons of the will, right?

The famous song, I did it my way. There also can be, so we've said emotional, relational. There can be intellectual reasons. Sometimes the power of worldview. If you really don't think God exists for whatever reasons and you come across the cell or the origin universe, if you're convinced God doesn't exist, maybe it's because the problem of evil or unanswered prayers, then in the back of your mind, if that's your starting place, you're going to have to conclude that there's some reason beside God, even if we don't know what that reason is. So bottom line, there's a proverb that says the purposes in a man's heart are deep and a person of wisdom draws it out.

If I'm talking with somebody and they refuse to believe in God, I just want to know what's the root? Is it really intellectual for you? Is it emotional? Is it moral?

What's the heart of the issue? And that comes by asking questions, praying, and just listening to where that person is. Yeah. Yeah, there was a book a few years ago, you're probably familiar with it. It's called The Making of an Atheist from Taylor University.

I can't remember the author, but he said exactly what you're saying. I've talked to these brilliant atheists and agnostics and we've done studies. He said, usually, it's not logical. It's either they had a horrendous experience growing up and they're projecting that on God, or that there's some immorality in their life and the idea of a God is too taxing for them to say, I want to continue to live this life like this if there's a God. Fundamentally, though, exactly what you said, it's a worldview. It's not really logical. And so it's kind of interesting, the making of an atheist. Shawn, if God is good, if he's all powerful, if he's all loving, like we say, well, then why does he allow things like suffering and cancer and devastating hurricanes like we've seen in Houston?

Does it make sense? He's a good God. He's a loving God.

He could stop all this mess. Why does God allow suffering? Hands down, I think this is the biggest objection people have to God. I think it's also something Christians wrestle with, right?

The minor prophet Habakkuk said, why do I keep crying out violence, God, and you do nothing? The challenge of the problem of evil is it's not just intellectual, it's personal. We feel it.

I told you, we just lost a loved one yesterday and I feel it and it's natural. One of my kids was like, I just don't understand why. Now, realize every worldview has to address this question. It's not unique to Christians. Muslims have to answer it. Hindus have to answer it. Buddhists, Mormons, atheists, every worldview has to make sense of why the world is so broken. I don't know any worldview that says everything is just great.

And if they said that, no one would believe it. So the question is not, can I answer exactly why God allowed some suffering in your life? I can't answer that. We might not know until we get to heaven. The question is, which worldview offers the best intellectual and emotional response to suffering and evil? That's why I'm a Christian.

I think Christianity offers the best response all different worldviews considered. Now, a few things people would add is like, God didn't want us to just be robots. If we're going to be able to truly love God, we're going to have the opportunity to truly not love God. If we're going to have the opportunity to show courage, we're going to have the choice to, you know, not show courage. We're going to have the opportunity to show compassion. We can also show cruelty. And God made us free beings, and thus we're not puppets, thus the capacity for evil to enter into the world. That's one piece of it.

I think the best response to evil is found in the person of Jesus. So there was actually a Catholic priest by the name of Father Damien. This is in the 1800s. He went to work in a leper colony in Molokai with full awareness of what it could cost him. He realized he had no priest to care for them, to pray for them, to minister to them.

And so he went, and he did for 12 years. One year, he stood up in front of the colony one day, and he said two words that changed everything. He opened up his robe, showed the signs of leprosy, and he said, we lepers. Father Damien had become one of them. Now, did they know that he loved them before he got leprosy? Sure, he was willing to sacrifice everything.

But what changed on that day? He was not an outsider. He stepped into their suffering and pain and became one of them. So who is Jesus more like?

Father Damien before he got leprosy or Father Damien after he got leprosy? Part of the unique Christian response is that God didn't just send a prophet or a book or speak through nature and conscience and angels. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, stepped into human race and understands our pain intimately and personally, empathizes with us, and yet defeats sin through rising on the third day, defeats death, and gives us the down payment that sin and death no longer reign. So when you say, where's God when I suffer, in a sense, it's only in Christianity you can say there's a God who suffers with you. And yet, Pilate says to Jesus, you know, what am I gonna do with you this day? Basically, you know, life and death is in my hands, and Jesus says, you have no power over me. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus says, I lay down my life and I pick it up again. So we have a God who understands, one who has already defeated death and sin, and invites us to trust him in the meantime. That's the beginning of a Christian response to suffering and evil.

His love has shown us fantastic. And I look, I don't want to belabor the point. We've got so many good questions here, so that's why I'm going so quickly here.

Let's go. So how do you, somebody says, look, I believe in God, but I think it's unfair for the concept of hell to be real and in the Bible. How do you explain the concept of hell? God is good, he's a loving God, yet he created hell.

Talk to us about that. Well, first off, I don't like hell. I mean, I wasn't trying to get a laugh out of that, but it's not like, oh, I enjoy defending this. Like, it troubles me as a Christian when I really think about it. So if you're not bothered by it, you haven't taken the time to really think about what it means to be separated from our creator, which involves everything that is good for eternity. The main reason I believe in hell is because I believe Jesus believed in hell. He warned people about the reality of hell.

Now, we didn't use it to, like, threaten and scare people, but he used it to warn people of the reality of the weight of what it would mean to reject God and his free offer of salvation. Now, look, if I told you after this service this morning, I'm going to go out on the closest field and do a clinic about how to become an NFL quarterback. None of you should show up.

I got nothing, literally nothing. I'd be making it up as I go. But if Tom Brady or Philip Rivers to cite a local boy, you're welcome, shows up, you should go because they know what they're talking about. With throughout the history of the world, who has the most credentials to speak about the afterlife?

Well, I'm going to the one who's eternal, sinless, performed miracles, fulfilled prophecy, went to the afterlife, after three days conquered it. I'm thinking that person has the kudos to speak on it, and I should trust him even if it doesn't all make sense to me. All right. Good. All right. So, how does free will work if there's a guy that is all-knowing, omniscient, he knows the decisions we're going to make, well, then that negates free will, doesn't it?

Okay, you weren't kidding about doing all the tough dishes this morning. So, within the broad Christian tradition, there are a range of ways to make sense of this. Some traditions lean in more to God's sovereignty. These might be reformed Calvinist traditions. Some lead more into, like, human free will. This would be what's called Arminian, and then there's a middle position called middle knowledge.

You can look it up later if you're not aware of that term. But to directly answer this question, because God knows what we're going to do, doesn't mean that God has chosen for us to inevitably make those decisions. So, an imperfect example, if I go home and I tell my kids, hey, option for dinner, broccoli, pepperoni pizza. I'm about 99-plus percent sure my kids are going to pick the broccoli because we've raised...no, I'm kidding.

There's zero chance they're going to pick the broccoli. Now, I know what they're going to pick, but I'm not forcing them to do it. Now, the difference is, mine's just a really, really good guess. God isn't guessing. He knows because he knows the past and he knows the future. But it points out that we can know what somebody is freely going to choose without our knowledge causing them to do so. So, were we to choose differently, then God would know how we would freely act. And so, God's knowledge, you might say, is downstream of our choice, even though, chronologically, it's prior to it.

So, don't confuse God's awareness with God causing such a thing to happen. Yeah, good, great, Shawn, one more because I want to spend a few moments praying for our nation and it's about 10 o'clock, but here's a good... All right, so, Christians, I'm just reading this, Christians all the time answer questions about things like evolution or gay marriage with, because the Bible says so, why should I trust what the Bible says about anything? Isn't it just a religious book like the Quran?

It's almost like a circular argument. Why do you trust the Bible? Well, because the Bible says so. So, we build our doctrine, our theology, our worldview on the Bible, but you also have the Quran, Bhagavad Gita, you have other religious books. Why trust the Bible? One reason I'll trust the Bible is because Jesus trusted the scriptures. Jesus spoke, and of course, he was speaking of the Old Testament at that time, but he spoke of the Old Testament as being authoritative. Look at Matthew 19, he's asked about marriage, census came up, and he points back to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, says, have you not heard? Is it not written? Now, you say, wait a minute, you're assuming the words of Jesus.

Actually, I'm not just assuming they're true. If we look at, for example, the Gospels, through the same lens, we look at any other historical document. How early were these written?

How many copies do we have? Are there internal signs of eyewitness testimony and reliability? Is there archaeological evidence of these claims? Are there non-Christian sources that support these claims? Are there other early Christian claims that support this?

That's the way we ascertain the words of any ancient author. When we just look at the Gospels through that lens, it's incredible what confidence we have to believe that not only the Gospels are true, but we really have the words of Jesus. So, I would say, yeah, it strikes us as circular to say the Bible's true because it says it. You and I wouldn't accept that the way if a Muslim said, well, the Qur'an is true because Muhammad wrote and he's a prophet of God, or the Book of Mormon is true because Joseph Smith wrote and he's a prophet of God.

Okay, I would say then let's put these to the test. One reason I don't and can't believe in the Qur'an is Sira Ford denies that Jesus was crucified. Friends, if there is anything we know historically speaking, it's that Jesus was crucified. And if a document says that he wasn't, then that document is false.

We know Jesus was crucified. So, similarly, like we can put the Qur'an to the test, let's put the Book of Mormon to the test, let's put the Bible to the test. And the archaeological support, the extra biblical sources, the internal evidence that it's written by an eyewitness, for example, a friend of mine who was an atheist, he's a cold case detective, never lost a case in like 30 plus years of practice. He was trying to read the Bible line by line the Gospel of Mark to see if it had the kind of language that was reminiscent of a reliable eyewitness testimony. And some of you recognize the name J. Werner Wallace came to conclusion, this is reliable testimony. So, we don't have to begin with just assuming the Bible is the Word of God. We actually can look at it and examine it like we do any other religious text or any other ancient writings. And the evidence is compelling that is there that we can really trust the Gospels, we have the words of Jesus, and the things reported in the Bible actually happen.

Man, I lied to you, Sean, this is a great one to close out on. Have you seen, because we've had this, I've been a pastor here long enough, I've seen this happen. Have you seen cases of people recovering from the deconstruction of their faith?

And if so, is there a catalyst for that to happen? How does that happen? Somebody has deconstructed their faith but they've come back stronger. Have you seen them come back stronger?

And how does that happen? So, it depends on what you mean by deconstruction. Sometimes deconstruction is used to explain what I went through. I was questioning my faith, trying to shed away things that are not reliable and believe what is true, but I never really rejected it. Others will say deconstruction equals deconversion. I've seen people come back from both. I'm an example of the first, somebody who deconstructs and questions and explored things and need to know what is true and why. There's also many cases of people who literally deconvert, but when they deconvert and come back, number one, it often takes time, and I don't mean like two days or a week.

Sometimes it's months and years. And second, often when that person comes back to the faith, the faith they come back to looks a little different than what they started with. Maybe they've shifted a little bit of political beliefs. Maybe they go to a different church. Maybe they interpret passages differently, which is important than when people are questioning things.

We don't die on secondary issues. Well, if you're going to come back to the faith, you absolutely have to believe it's about baptism. You're going to come back to the faith, you absolutely have to hold this view on the age of the earth. Okay, no. Who is Jesus?

What is the gospel? Let's start there, and then we can get to the other issues as they come. Love that, man. Dang, here's what I want us to do. Let's close out by praying for two things. Number one, I do want to pray for Sean.

I'm burdened, and I don't know if you keep up with this or I just keep up with it because it's my, quote, unquote, profession. I'm burdened by Christian leaders that I'm seeing week after week after week get attacked by the enemy and fall by the wayside. I think we need...look, Satan's a lot of things, but he ain't stupid.

He knows if he can attack prominent leaders, he can really do a lot of damage to the cause of Christ. Can we pray for Sean? We're going to do that first in his family. And then secondly, stand up with me. Can we pray for our nation?

Again, we're going to hit this more next week. I believe in praying scripture, and the scripture God gave me to pray this morning in light of what happened yesterday was 1 Peter 2.11 that says, this place is not your home. You don't belong here.

We're aliens, we are non-citizens, we're just here for a little while. But while we're here, let's live the kind of peaceful, godly, strong, confident lives that this lost and dying world that's losing their mind can look at us and say, I don't know what they've got, but I want it. And it's not an id, it's a hymn, and its name is Jesus. And so let's just pray right now.

Can we do that? So Father, first of all, I thank you for Dr. McDowell and his ministry. Father, it's a man of God right here, and we proclaim that a great calling, plus a great anointing, will always attract great opposition. And so Father, I pray that he walk close and clean to the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray that Jesus will ever be before him. I pray for his family, his marriage, his kids. I pray he'll walk with clean hands and a pure heart in this messed up generation, Lord God. We speak blessings over him, and we thank you for him.

Ephesians 4 says he is a blessing and a gift from you to the body of Christ. We thank you for him, Father. And Father, we pray for our nation right now.

The times are getting dark. Our nation is divided. Father, I pray that what we saw yesterday were not the opening shots of the new civil war. I pray, Father, that you'll come and move in this nation in the name of Jesus. And Father, I pray that we will keep our eyes on Jesus, that we will walk with boldness and confidence, that the peace that passes all understanding will guard the hearts and minds of your people as we go into this politically divided climate, O God. Father, without your touch on this nation, I don't see how we recover from this division. Father, we just cry out to you right now in the name of Jesus. God, help our nation right now. Father, heal our land in the name of Jesus. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. I'm going to say this again, that this isn't your home.

We're just here for a short time. We're going to spend all eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you not wait for us to get to heaven and see his face and bow before him and praise his name?

Hey, one day the kingdoms of this world are going to be the kingdoms of our God and of our Christ, and he's going to reign forever and ever. I don't know about you, I'm getting a little bit homesick, aren't you? I'm ready for this to be over.

I'm ready to go home. And so we pray that early Christian prayer, Maranatha, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, just come on back. Would you lift your hands and lift your voices? And let's just sing this to the Lord right now. Sing this to the Lord. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, another glimpse of glory, sing once more. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, forever, forever. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, another glimpse of glory, sing once more. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, forever, forever.

Sing it. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, another glimpse of glory, sing once more. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, forever, forever. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, another glimpse of glory, sing once more. Worthy, worthy, worthy, Lord, forever. We'll sing worthy to you, Jesus, Jesus, King of Kings. Oh, we cry out to you, Jesus, Jesus, Majesty, Jesus, Jesus, King of Kings.

Jesus, Majesty. I got three reminders for you. Number one, pray for our Royal Family Kids Camp, folks.

Number two, go by and see Sean McDowell. And number three, as I say over in Benson, don't be scared. Don't be afraid. Don't be worried. Jesus, everything is under control.

Y'all believe that? I speak this Hebrew blessing over you all the time, but I'm waiting for it to go from here to here. Let me try it again. Maybe we'll get it this week. Chazak be'amotz, alta erod ve'arachet. He imcha adonai ela hecha behold esha telach, which means, be bold, be strong. This week, y'all don't be afraid, you don't be terrified of anything.

Why? Because the Lord your God is going to be with you everywhere you go. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray, amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.