Notes:

How many people call themselves Christians or Atheists or Evolutionists only because that’s how they were raised? How many people have actually thought their worldview through? Sadly, I would argue not many as most world views/beliefs crumble under the scrutiny of light and truth.

If you’re Christian, you are commanded in the bible to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us. (1 Pet – 3:15) – to sanctify Christ in your heart, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence”

Can you?  

Why is this so important? Because every decision you make in your life will be influenced by what you believe OR don’t believe in God. It shapes what we believe and how we live.

We’re going to look at the major worldviews and politely and respectfully investigate them.
The point of this study is to answer others that have different world views with kindness and respect. We don’t want to study the truth to beat someone down and we certainly don’t want to use it to judge someone else’s beliefs… we want to use it to show them love and give them truth with kindness and respect.

The kind and gracious Ravi Zacharias says, “There’s no point in handing someone a rose after you’ve cut their nose off.”

The point of warfare is to kill your enemy, the point of Christianity is to WIN your enemy.
God desires all man to be saved and to come to the knowledge of Truth. 1 Tim 2:4

Winston Churchill said – “The truth is the most powerful weapon in the world. So powerful, it’s often protected by a body-guard of lies.”

No matter what someone’s worldview/belief system is, there are 4 questions everyone has to answer:
Origin, meaning, morality and destiny.
Where do we come from, what is the meaning of life, what is right and wrong and where do I go when I die?

Francis Chan said that people think he is fanatical. He says I’m preparing to meet God and be in His presence for millions of years… you’re killing  yourself to prepare for 20-30 years of retirement… who is really fanatical!?!?

Let’s start with do you believe in Evolution or do you believe in Creationism/God. How did life begin and who or what made the universe?

Socrates – we must follow the evidence wherever it leads. What do the facts/evidence say?
No matter what you believe, you believe in miracles
(3 options for the universe’s existence)

Option #3, it always existed  - up until the beginning of the 20th century, this is what some scientist believed. Some held to the Solid State Theory, which said the university eternally existed… how many other things has science changed its opinion about???

In the 1929 Ed Hubble discovered evidence that the universe was expanding … which disproved the solid state theory and science was able to prove that the universe had a beginning… less than 100 years ago… but the bible told us over 3,000 years ago the universe had a beginning… eventually, science catches up with the bible.
So option #3 doesn’t work…

Option 2:
If option #2 is true and that’s how life began, The big bang is the second step… the explosion… it doesn’t answer origin… where did the primordial soup that exploded first come from?

We can never replicate the Big Bang theory because something outside of time and space created time and space… Big bang is non-repeatable event… could never happen again according to science….

I’d like to give a quote from a non-Christian, Dr. Robert Jastro book, “God and the Astronomers” but first, listen to his credentials. PHD in theoretical physics from Columbia. First chairman of NASA’s lunar exploration. Chief of theoretical division of NASA 1958 – 61. Founding director of NASA Goddard Institute of Space. Professor of Geophysics in Columbia. Professor of Earth Science at Dartmouth 81-82. Worked with Verner Von Brown (one of most decorated scientist in American history)

Dr. Jastro said  - “Science cannot answer who or what put the matter or energy into the universe. The Universe had a beginning in which the known laws of physics are invalid.” He also went on to say that he sees no disagreement with Genesis account of the beginning of the universe and what science tells us today. Again, Dr. Jastro was a skeptic… he was not a Christian.

Evolution can’t even answer the first question of Origin, but some argue that we came to being by Time+ Matter+Chance… really?

Would anyone ever look at a dictionary and think it’s the result of a printing press explosion? And that dictionary doesn’t have complex systems like circulatory or digestive systems? It’s dramatically less complex than the simplest life form… but still it needs intelligence to come into being…

How much more complex is just one system in the human body?

As James Perloff writes in his book, “Tornado in a Junkyard”, would you ever think a tornado could go through a junkyard and assemble a perfect 747 jet??? And if it did, would you fly in it??

Last century scientist cracked open the human DNA and found that one strand of human DNA has 3.1 billion bits of information… and there are 10 trillion strands of DNA in each of us.

If I had 3.1 billion golf balls numbered sequentially, and you blindfolded me and I pulled out the #1, you might think I got incredibly lucky… but then what if I pulled out #2… if I pulled out #3 next you think it was fixed… how about if I did that for all 3.1 billion golf balls in perfect order while I was blindfolded… it’s what science calls “irreducible complexity” and it’s mathematically impossible- 1x1050  

Famous Atheist Anthony Flew converted to Christianity upon the discovery of DNA because of the mathematical impossibility of life starting on its own from primordial soup…

And then you look at the second question, Morality… evolution doesn’t give us morality… on the contrary… evolution is blood red with tooth and claw. Its foundational principles are “might makes right”, “survival of the fittest” and natural selection. If I am stronger than you, I should kill you so that I can perpetuate the human race. How is that moral?

People cry “unfair” all the time. We see it over and over again. The male comes in, kills the incumbent male, slaughters the children and then does whatever it wants to the female… something must be done about this, right?

So what are we doing about the lions of the Angora crater? Or the cats of the Serengeti plain? The polar bears of the arctic?

No one complains about the killings of animals in their own species, as a matter of fact, National Geographic has made countless millions of dollars filming it and we watch it. No one objects. There is no moral cause in the animal kingdom because evolution doesn’t give us Morality.

Morality is a detriment to evolution…

So if evolution is true, why do we get upset when man kills another man… or there is a school shooting, or when there is a tragedy? We ought not to care if evolution is true!!! So why do we care?

When we hear about a school shooting, we don’t ask:
- What were the children’s religion or nationality?
- We don’t ask "What have they contributed to society…"
- We are simply saddened at the event without knowing anything about the children… Why? Evolution says we ought not to care…

Science doesn’t tell us right or wrong it just makes observations. Science tells us what is happening and reports it. Newton’s law of physics NEVER started a billiard ball rolling, but it does tell us what’s happening after it starts moving (after an outside force acts on it to make it move).

Science can tell us we have killed a 12 month old baby… science can tell us we are eating a 12 month old baby but science does not say if it’s right or wrong… so where does morality come from?

Bertrand Russell a brilliant atheist was asked a question on morality and where it comes from, his response was, “I don’t know what the solution is, but I have to live as if morality is real.“

Canadian atheist Kai Nielson – “Pure Practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.” These are brilliant atheists saying this!!  

Evolution does NOT give us morality so where does it come from???

If evolution is true, then humanity is constantly evolving and should be getting better…. REALLY?!?!? Can anyone look at this world and say it’s getting better??!?!!?

Humans killed more people in the 20th century that the previous 19 combined!! Just in China and Russia there were 120 million of their own people killed by their government… that’s not even counting Hitler!

Science doesn’t disprove God… if anything, the more we learn about science, the more we realize that there is no way possible life “just happened by accident.”

The universe is fine-tuned, balanced on a razor’s edge… there’s so much evidence for design from human DNA to Fibonacci’s sequence which some call the “fingerprint of God”…

Einstein said, “the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is so comprehensible!”

Romans 1 tells us there is not a lack of evidence, but a suppression of it.

Many brilliant minds at the highest levels of physics and biology have abandoned evolution and are now thinking in terms of intelligent design… they have abandoned evolution and now believe in the panspermia option… that we were seeded here from a more intelligent life force…

Richard Dawkins, atheist teacher at Oxford when asked a questions if human life was planted here answered and said it was possible that alien life planted us here…. He is not against intelligent design, he is only against Diving Design… of course as Socrates said, we must follow wherever the evidence leads us… if we were planted here by alien life form, he has to answer the question, where did the aliens come from? He still has no answers, just biased antagonism towards God.

Dawkins has said many times that science cannot disprove God… so if God can’t be disproved, He is still an option… but not for Dawkins… He is scientifically and intellectual dishonest in his conclusions.
Atheism is a dead end street with no answers and it never ends well for those that follow it.

Nietzsche who coined the phrase God is dead, and professed a life of atheism, spent the last 13 years of his life insane and died in his mid-50s. His own system of thinking betrayed him because it’s untenable.

Sam Harris said, “Human Free will is an illusion if there is no God.”

Richard Dawkins said, “Nature and evolution is blind, pitiless and indifferent.”

And if you believe in evolution you don’t believe in evil. It’s nothing more than you dancing to your own DNA based on the proteins that make up your body… there is no Free Thought… you believe what you believe because of your DNA…

By the way, if you don’t believe that, you believe there is basically no difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa…. REALLY??!!?

I’ll close this portion of the talk with a quote from David Berlinski – a staunch skeptic by the way. He is a scientist with better credentials than Richard Dawkins. Berlinski wrote a book, “The Devil’s Delusion”. – inside his book cover flap it reads: “Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence, not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here, not even close. Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be finely tuned to allow for the existence of life, not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything as long as it is not religious thought, close enough. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion in the sciences, close enough. Does anything in the sciences or in the philosophies justify the claim that religious belief is irrational, not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt, dead on.”

This is from a skeptic, not a Christian! But he is an honest one at least tired of the non-factual biased  opinions of atheists trying to push their own agenda and religion.

So evolution doesn’t answer our questions, it only leaves us with more questions and no hope… So Creationism has to be right… God Created the Heavens and the Earth.

So if God is real, which God is the correct one?

We’ll look at the major religions of the world, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christian/Judeo faiths.
Some might ask, can we just get along? I have a tolerance bumper sticker and I think that’s what the world needs, tolerance.

It’s funny that we hear tolerance promoted so much by the media, that we can’t even share ideas or express our own beliefs. If we believe something to be true, we are told it’s even judgmental to share those thoughts?  Really?

If you were about to drive off a cliff, is it wrong to tell you to stop?

I love what Dr. Michael Ramsden, a brilliant speaker at RZIM, said in one of his speeches. He said, “Tolerance isn’t’ really a good word. If I went out to dinner with you and someone asked me how it was and I said it was tolerable. That I tolerated you, would you be happy hearing that? No, it’s insulting. We don’t need tolerance, we need love and truth undergirded with respect and kindness.

There is truth in the world and truth is exclusive. The law of non-contradiction is alive and well. It states that two statements of contradicting views cannot both be true at the same time without a qualifier. i.e. if I say I have brown eyes, then I’m also saying I don’t have green or blue eyes.

If 2 + 2 is 4, then it’s not 3, 5 or any other number…

GK Chesterton said  - “there is only 1 angle you can stand perfectly upright and a many angles in which you can fall.”

All the major religions of the world claim exclusivity. They can’t all be right. Islam claims that Christ never died. Judaism claims that Christ died but wasn’t resurrected. Both Hinduism and Buddhism claim Jesus was a good prophet, but not God. Christianity claims that Jesus is God in the flesh, who became man, died on the Cross and was resurrected. In Buddhism, you must deny yourself, in Hinduism, you must affirm the divinity in yourself… So which one is it? Clearly, they can’t all be right. So which one is right?

Some people say,  “All roads lead to Rome.”… some religions don’t even believe in Heaven!!! So how can that be??!?

All the major religions in the world, except one, tell you how good people get to heaven or to their desired end result. They all tell you how you can be good enough or strong enough to get to Heaven or the desired “release”.

Only the Christian/Judeo viewpoint tells you how bad people get to Heaven, which is great news for me as I’m a bad person.

Islam tells you that if your good works outweigh your bad works you have a shot, however it is still up to Allah to allow you into heaven, a place by the way where Allah is not.

Hinduism tells you that you exist because of your past life (karma) and if your good works outweigh your bad works, then you can get to heaven… but they don’t tell you how many works are good enough? They also can’t answer the questions or origin, for when you ask them “If this life explains my past life, how do you explain my first life?”, there is no answer

Buddha was born a Hindu and rejected it. He didn’t believe in Karma/the immobile caste society or the authority of the Veda’s (priests). He condemned Hinduism.

Buddhism believes that all life is pain. Pain comes from desires. Eliminating desires is the key to life.
To Desire nothing…

Really, to care for nothing and no one is the key to life? If a man or woman has a child together, they should care nothing for it? That is the key to life??

Like the ostrich in proverbs, are we to stick our head in the sand and care for no one? Where is the meaning of life? Is total apathy really the answer? Where is the place for love?

That’s not what the Bible says. The Bible says we are relational and The One True God wants to have a relationship with us. And the amazing thing is, we CAN have a relationship with Him and spend all of eternity with Him through His work on the Cross. He also showed us how to live, and gave us rules for our benefit… just as a marriage has rules of fidelity, so God has given us guidelines… not to be a cruel taskmaster, but because He knows what is best.

Do you expect your spouse to be faithful? Do you expect them to be honest with you? Why? Because these are the basic rules/foundational principles for a good relationship… just like the rules God gives us for a good life…

Dr. Abdu Murray, another brilliant speaker at RZIM made a beautiful point in one of his speeches. One of his friends said he didn’t believe in Christianity because it was so arrogant. That we think that we have the only way to get to Heaven, through Jesus… which by the way, every religion claims they have the only way but that’s never seemed to be brought up… anyway, Abdu goes on to say thanks for your honesty, let’s talk about it… I believe what the Bible says… that I’m a sinner, that there is no soundness in me, from the top of my head to the soul of my feet there is no soundness in me. That I am saved only by the grace of God and it’s my 100% dependence on Him and His finished work on the cross that saves me. That I cannot do it on my own. YOU believe that your good works get you to heaven. That if you’re good enough, you can manufacture your own salvation and that you become the author and perfector of life and become your own savoir…. Which way is really arrogant???  

His friend said he never thought of it like that… That’s the problem, most people don’t think it through, especially in America. We are too preoccupied trying to find pleasure or keep ourselves entertained with anything we can… TV, movies, phones, social media… We never stop to think about what we really believe… about what life is really about… about what is truly important and what is importantly true.

Blaise Pascal a brilliant thinker from the 1600’s who gave us many mathematical and scientific principles we still use today like how fluids react under certain pressure, etc. His most brilliant work was in probability, when he came up with Pascal’s wager. He said that everyone is entered into a wager when they are born. They have no choice or say in it. The moment they are born they are in this bet. And they need to decide if God exists or not. And the wager is your soul. He goes on to say, that if God doesn’t exist, and you live like he does exist, you haven’t really lost much. You might lose some time or money helping others, but in the end, you die and that’s it. HOWEVER, if you live as if God does NOT exist, and He does, no matter how much you think you have gained in this life, when you die, you suffer the most unimaginable loss ever… So what are you betting your soul on? And if this is of such importance, why don’t we spend more time searching out the truth? Is God who He says He is? Is there evidence of Him?

I remember when I was a teenager, I had a friend say he didn’t believe in the Bible because it was just a bunch of stories past down… like the game telephone, the stories were more and more corrupted and less based on facts…. I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t have an answer at the time.

After looking into his statement (which he stated as fact even though it wasn’t) I know that that is just ANOTHER lie told by this world … the fact is, the Jewish people were amazing at keeping records. There are over 5,800 original manuscripts, in whole or in part, preserved today for us… and if you count the Latin vulgate, there are over 24,000 original manuscripts.

Let’s put that in perspective. Shakespeare who lived in the 1600’s, AFTER the printing press was made (1492). Just 400 years ago… how many original works do we have from him? Keep in mind this is AFTER the printing press was invented….. ZERO. NOT ONE.

But yet we again see God’s word come true, “The heavens and the earth will pass away but not a jot or tittle of my word will pass away.”

There is more historical evidence and facts about the person of Jesus Christ, His life and His burial than any other person in ancient history by far. Not stories passed down through word, rather history and facts written down preserved to this very day.

And we can see these facts and see the prophecies that have come true and are coming true.
Although there are hundreds, look at one written in the book of Revelation, about 2,000 years ago. That in the end times, no one would be able to buy or sell anything without a number… throughout all of history, that has not been possible… perhaps when this was written people couldn’t even understand it… but now we see many business that don’t take cash… less than 3% of the transactions last year in America were cash… that has never been possible in history until this generation… another prophesy validating the word of God.

How about Crucifixion… Psalm 22, written around 1,000 BC tells us the Messiah would have His hands and feet pierced…  Human history tells us that the first recorded crucifixion was by King Darius in 519 BC… 400 years later!!!! Psalm 22 was written 400 years before Crucifixion was invented?!?!!!!!
The Bible is true. And since it is true, there is nothing in all of human history that rivals its importance.
It is truth. It is life.

TLJC didn’t say He knows truth, He says He IS TRUTH. He is the way to eternal life and no one gets to Heaven apart from Him.

CS Lewis in Mere Christianity says that some people say TLJC was a good man… that is NOT who He said He was. He claimed over and over to be God… so He either was who He said He was, or He was a lunatic or much, much worse. He did not leave this up for interpretation, He did not intend to.
Isa 9:6 – A son is born who is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace… Jesus Christ was born, God the Father wasn’t.

John 1:1 – “In the beginning The Word was with God and the Word was God…”
John 1:14 – The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us - The Word is God… The Word Became Flesh… Jesus Christ has flesh, God the Father doesn’t.
John 10:30 – “The Father and I are one.”
Mat 26:65 The high priest said we have no need of further witness, He makes Himself out to be God.
Act 20:28 “God purchased the church with His Blood.” - Jesus Christ has blood, God the Father doesn’t…
Zec 12:10,  Psalm 22:16, Isaiah 53:5 - God has pierced hands/is pierced
Acts 9:5 –Saul asks God who are you? And He replies “Jesus”.

TLJC didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people live.
And this is truth, that whoever believes in Him, has eternal life.
The Bible is crystal clear on describing our problems. From the top of our head to the bottom of our feet there is no soundness in us. – Jer 17:9 Mat 15:19

We are born with a heart of stone and only God can replace it with a heart of Flesh (Eze 11:19 & 36:26).
TLJC didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear, He told us the truth!

Malcolm Mugrich says the depravity of man is the most empirically verifiable fact, and at the same time, the most intellectually resisted.

Look at the Law… who has kept it??? Who here has never lied???

The Bible is clear, we are born depraved, separated from God and we need a savior. Nothing we can do of ourselves is good enough to get us to Heaven. We cannot manufacture our own salvation no matter how hard we try.

God is Holy and we are not…

We can reject it, but much the same way we can reject gravity, it’s a losing proposition.

Some people say, ‘I make my own reality.”  Ok, jump off a building and tell me about your reality.
Luckily for us, God has done all the work because He is faithful in spite of us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

We love because He first loved us.

IF the value of something is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it, look at the cross and realize how valuable you are to God!!!

5,000 years ago Father Abraham took his son Isaac up on a mountain to sacrifice him to God. But as he was about to kill him, God stopped him and said, “Stop, I myself will provide for myself.”
2,000 years ago God kept his promise by bringing His only son up the mountain of Calvary and offered Him in our place, once and for all.

If you were the only one who needed a savior, God would have done it all just for you… because of love… God is Love!

People say but there is so much pain in the world…
4 options for the world
- No creation  
- Only evil -   a-moral
- Only good – deterministic
- Or the world as we know it….

This current world is the only possibility for love to exist… and God does not stand aloof and say good luck… He threw Himself into this world of suffering and pain… for you!!!

God has done all the work. He has made it known in our hearts that He is real. He has given us the desire and ability to know Him. What we do with our free will is our choice and everyone will answer to Him one day.

Salvation is by faith through grace, not of ourselves, it is the gift of God that no man may boast – Eph 2:8-9

We must repent of sinfulness and accept TLJC as our God and Savoir.

TLJC said to follow me. I am the way, the truth and the light. It is our privilege to do so, and in doing so, we should always be ready to give an answer for the hope, this unbelievable love story in which God left Heaven, became a man and voluntarily died on the cross for you and for me so that we can spend all eternity in His presence.

Meaning of Life – To Glorify God and spend all eternity in His presence.

It’s the greatest love story ever told. And it’s true. Why wouldn’t we want to share that truth with everyone, especially if they are lost and in the dark.

It’s a story of hope, of truth, of meaning. Of love. It’s the meaning of life and gives us answer to all the important questions, Origin, Meaning, Morality and Destiny.

God is truth. God is love and love always wins. Let us share the greatest love story of all time. In doing so, we share truth and life and hope with the world.