For a long time in open-air preaching
I used a lot of apologetics
in order to build a crowd and keep a crowd
where I'd answer question on things like
proof of the Bible,
creation, evolution.
Now, I did start with what's called
a presuppositional approach,
believing that each person really knows
God is true,
and I was just really playing with them
so to speak to build a crowd
and to keep a crowd
and maybe answer some genuine questions,
but I've since found
that those things are not profitable.
I actually heard a sermon
by Curt Daniel on defending the faith,
and in there he pointed out
that the biblical approach to apologetics
is simply saying, like Jesus did,
"have you never read?"
"Have you never read?"
Basically saying, "the Bible says this..."
"The Bible says this..."
And what you find is when you simply
declare what Jesus said
and what the Bible says,
then people will eventually stop asking
such stupid questions on many occasions.
You see, many will send you up,
or try to send you up
all these rabbit trails
talking about creation, evolution,
manuscripts.
When you think about it,
you know, the Bible is
the sword of the Spirit.
But so often, someone will say,
"Oh, it's no good quoting the Bible to me.
I don't believe the Bible."
So the Christian will then put the sword
of the Word of God back in its sheath
and then try to prove the Bible for the next hour.
And that's ridiculous.
I mean, we serve the King of the universe.
Could you imagine in a much lesser court,
the judge - an earthly court -
and someone coming before the judge
and the judge saying,
"how do you plead?"
And then the person saying,
"Well, I don't believe in judges.
I don't believe in law."
Could you imagine there the judge saying,
"Oh, hang on a minute,
we best stop the proceedings
and prove that law and order and judges exist
before we go any further."
No, of course, that is ridiculous.
But that is like the Christian approach
of trying to prove the Bible
before we witness to someone.
You know, it's the foolishness of preaching that God uses.
The Gospel is the power of God to salvation,
not our clever arguments.
And I'll tell you this,
for a long time open-air preaching,
we preached to large crowds,
and we never saw any real converts.
In fact, from the first day we went out
and used what I call
the zero apologetics approach,
although it's really a more biblical apologetics approach
where we don't do this man-centered fashion,
we just simply declare what the Bible says.
This is what God says.
I'm here to declare what God says.
We started to see people converted.
You know, one after another,
not merely in the open air,
but they'd come to the church from it
and then they'd be converted.
We started to see these conversions
when we simply declared the Word of God.
And the other thing is though
the crowds are just as big.
It still draws as many people.
You see, the name of Christ
is the central point.
That should be the focus of our preaching.
And people will still come to debate and listen
about the person of Jesus Christ anyway.
But if your ground there,
if your footing is on Scripture,
then it's much better,
because you're declaring
as God as the authority,
rather than our silly little arguments.
And there's always a temptation,
because having a background in apologetics,
I know some good answers to people
when they bring in questions
about creation, evolution,
or Bible manuscripts and things like that,
proof of the existence of God.
But you see, for me to answer those things
is a false assumption that that person
is really listening and really
does not have a depraved mind.
You see, the unbeliever present
doesn't normally bother that his view
contradicts himself left, right, and center.
He's not really bothered.
He's just looking for something to argue against
and to get into the way of the Gospel,
so every time someone asks me a question,
I will simply tell them what the Bible says,
even if it sounds foolish.
You see, I'm not here to declare
my own opinions.
I'm here to declare the Word of God,
what He says.
And people can see this
because it's like,
rather than speaking to a man,
they're speaking to this big, infinite God
and I think this really does
hold a weight on people
when you do this.