Transcript:
Christians understand that when we share the gospel, we need to explain why we believe what we believe. We need to provide reasons for believing that God exists, Jesus is God and Lord, Jesus rose from the dead, and the only way to heaven is through Jesus.
One of the foundational lines of reasoning we use is often called intelligent design. The world around us is a finely-tuned, life-sustaining environment that had to have been created by an intelligent being because those environments do not happen by chance. Therefore, God has to exist. Once we convince someone there has to be an almighty Creator, then we can present the historical evidence that the Creator interacted with humanity, came to earth as a man named Jesus, and gave us a book called the Bible.
Non-believers counter that with the theory of evolution. They claim the world and everything in it evolved over a long period of time. Therefore, it is not necessary to believe in a Creator.
Christians often assume the best way to counter evolution is with facts and reasoning. No matter what skeptics say about Christianity, we try to come up with a logical argument that will persuade them. Sometimes that is true and will work. However, an accusation leveled at Jesus illustrates that sometimes people do not believe because they don’t want God to exist, not because they haven’t been confronted with sufficient evidence.
When Jesus began His ministry, he called disciples and taught them. Furthermore, He healed many people. His healings drew a large crowd from a broad geographical area.
The religious leaders began opposing Jesus. The scribes accused Him of blasphemy when He forgave sins, criticized Jesus for eating with sinners, and asked Jesus why His disciples were breaking the Sabbath. After Jesus healed a withered hand on the Sabbath, the Pharisees and Herodians began counseling together on ways to destroy Jesus.
The religious leaders were opposed to Jesus, but they could not deny that miracles and healings were taking place. There were too many eyewitnesses to simply pretend the miraculous events were not happening. Therefore, they had to come up with an alternative explanation for what the people were seeing.
Mark 3:22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”
The scribes began giving Beelzebul the credit for what Jesus was doing. They wanted people to believe Jesus was using Satan’s power, not God’s power.
Mark 3:23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?
Jesus pointed out the logical fallacy of what the scribes were saying. Jesus was acting against the unclean spirits. It was logically impossible for Jesus to use the power of the demons to overpower demons.
Mark 3:24 And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
Mark 3:25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
Mark 3:26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!
It made no sense for Satan to give Jesus the power to defeat demons.
Mark 3:27 But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.
Just as no one can plunder a strong man without first binding the strong man, so too Jesus could not cast out demons without first binding Satan. When Jesus cast out demons, He proved He was stronger than Satan.
The religious leaders were in denial. Jesus had proven He is God by performing miracles, but the leaders did not want to admit that Jesus is God, so they resorted to an unreasonable argument that allowed them to pretend Jesus was not actually doing what He was doing.
This happens today. When we observe the world around us, the logical, intelligent conclusion is there has to be a God. However, many people do not want God to exist because they do not want to have to obey God. Therefore, they have invented the irrational theory of evolution in order to explain away evidence that is contrary to the beliefs they want to hold.
Mark 3:28 ¶ “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter;
Mark 3:29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—
Mark 3:30 because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
The eternal sin was giving Satan the credit for what Jesus was doing by the power of the Holy Spirit. Since Jesus is not living on earth today performing miracles, it is not possible to commit the eternal sin today.
Mark 3:31 ¶ Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him, calling Him.
Mark 3:32 And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.”
Mark 3:33 And answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”
Mark 3:34 And looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers!
Mark 3:35 For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Over the past several decades, the trend in evangelicalism has been to use small groups to promote community. There is nothing wrong with small groups, but in many ways the community analogy is the wrong analogy. Jesus did not say Christians are neighbors in Christ. He said we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Family is the correct analogy for Christianity, not community.
Mark 4:1 ¶ And He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land.
Mark 4:2 And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching,
Mark 4:3 “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow;
Mark 4:4 and it happened that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up.
Mark 4:5 And other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil.
Mark 4:6 And after the sun rose, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
Mark 4:7 And other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.
Mark 4:8 And other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they were yielding a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”
Mark 4:9 And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Mark 4:10 ¶ And when He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables.
Mark 4:11 And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, everything comes in parables,
Mark 4:12 so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, LEST THEY RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”
Mark 4:13 ¶ And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?
Christians understand that when we share the gospel, we need to provide reasons for believing that God exists, Jesus is God and Lord, Jesus rose from the dead, and the only way to heaven is through Jesus.
One of the foundational lines of reasoning we use is often called intelligent design. The world around us is a finely-tuned, life-sustaining environment that had to have been created by an intelligent being because those environments do not happen by chance. Therefore, God has to exist.
Non-believers counter that with the theory of evolution. They claim the world and everything in it evolved over a long period of time. Therefore, it is not necessary to believe in a Creator.
Christians often assume the best way to counter evolution is with facts and reasoning. Sometimes that may be true. However, Jesus came to earth and performed miracles in front of large crowds to prove He is God. The religious leaders adamantly refused to believe in Jesus. The problem with the religious leaders was not that they did not have enough evidence, they simply did not want to believe. This reminds us that sometimes non-Christians hold to evolution, not because they haven’t been confronted with sufficient truth about Christianity, but because they simply do not want to believe. At some point we need to deal with that issue in order for them to become a Christian.
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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”
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