Speaker 1: Ranger. How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, sir.
Speaker 1: How are you just swell? Where are you you Nashville?
Speaker 2: You text them in Texas outside of Austin.
Speaker 1: Oh all right, we were just in Austin. When we
Speaker 1: were in Austin, like November, we're doing an event there
Speaker 1: at Hill Country Bible Church.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, I know. Well, well next time we we
Speaker 2: should get together that happens again.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, So how do you like doing the
Speaker 1: the podcast and ministry thing? You know?
Speaker 2: I love it. I told I told a man this morning,
Speaker 2: I said, I am I am giddy this morning. I've
Speaker 2: got Frank Turt coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wish our kids thought that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, in that aspect, you know, I love it.
Speaker 2: I've done the podcast for a long time, but we
Speaker 2: just opened it up to guests really recently last few months.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're you're at the top of that list.
Speaker 1: Oh great, happy to be on. Thanks rolling it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, Frank, thank you so much for It's such
Speaker 2: an honor that you're you would willing, you're willing to
Speaker 2: give up some time and be on the podcast today.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Granger, thanks for having me, and glad you're
Speaker 1: having guests on now. Otherwise this wouldn't happen.
Speaker 2: That's that's right, you know. I want to tell you though,
Speaker 2: before we get started. I think we have a we
Speaker 2: have a fundamental difference, and and I think for fairness
Speaker 2: of the conversation that we'll have, we should we should
Speaker 2: get it out of the way. That way we kind
Speaker 2: of know where we stand as we as we discuss things.
Speaker 2: I am a Dallas Cowboys fan, grew up in Dallas.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're from Dallas, yanda be a Cowboys fan,
Speaker 1: you should be, I know, from New Jersey, I should
Speaker 1: be a Giant fan. And both of our teams stink.
Speaker 2: It's very unfortunate. And now is that a theological difference
Speaker 2: we have here?
Speaker 1: Well, I do say that whenever the Cowboys win, it's
Speaker 1: living proof that Satan is alive and will Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do say that as matter a fact.
Speaker 2: I think I've heard you say that before.
Speaker 1: Although although Jerry Jones does give the Salvation Army, so
Speaker 1: I have to give him that, Okay, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think it's enough for me. I wish we could
Speaker 2: do away with Jerry Jones and keep the Salvation Army.
Speaker 2: I think we could do that Yeah, well.
Speaker 1: He just likes to be too involved. I think in
Speaker 1: day to day optsbody, who was I what was I reading? Recently?
Speaker 1: Some former cowboy said that so much of being a
Speaker 1: Cowboy is the extracurricular stuff you need to do, like
Speaker 1: the photos and the meet and greets and all that
Speaker 1: it wasn't as focused on football as it needed to be.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think that explains a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah, growing up in Dallas, it's unfortunate that
Speaker 2: I'm a Cowboys fan. But I won't hold the Giants
Speaker 2: thing against you because because you're from there as well.
Speaker 2: You didn't you didn't You didn't choose the Giants. The
Speaker 2: Giants chose you.
Speaker 1: That's right. I was there. It was my dad's team,
Speaker 1: So what was I going to do? You know?
Speaker 2: That's right. Well, we've been apologizing for our football teams,
Speaker 2: which which brings me to a point, because it's funny.
Speaker 2: I had someone recently say somehow something about Christian apologist
Speaker 2: came up, and somebody commented and said, it is so
Speaker 2: sad that Christians need to designate people to apologize for
Speaker 2: what they have done to the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty silly, isn't it. It goes to show
Speaker 1: that's really our fault that we don't even explain what
Speaker 1: it is, you know, and people think that we're apologizing,
Speaker 1: when in fact, it comes from a Greek word which
Speaker 1: means to defend. It comes from First Peter three fifteen.
Speaker 1: It's ready to give an answer, give a reason for
Speaker 1: the hope that you have. Yeah, so it's not we're
Speaker 1: not apologizing. We're actually saying, here's the evidence we have.
Speaker 1: And you know, if a person was astute, they would
Speaker 1: recognize the word apologists because it's used politically all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a Trump apologist, or he's a Harris apologist, somebody
Speaker 1: like that. You know, actually there weren't very many Harris apologists.
Speaker 1: I have to correct myself, but you get the idea.
Speaker 1: The idea, I mean, there are people who are, you know,
Speaker 1: saying that I'm advocating for this politician or this political position.
Speaker 1: So it's the same thing in Christianity. We're trying to
Speaker 1: give evidence that what we think about Christianity is indeed true,
Speaker 1: that in Christianity is indeed true. That's that's what apologetics means.
Speaker 2: When did you first start calling yourself an apologist?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't tell you. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would call myself one. I came to faith
Speaker 1: through apologetics. So I was brought up in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and I was Catholic, because it's the law. You're either Catholic, Jewish,
Speaker 1: or you don't care if you're from New Jersey. I
Speaker 1: went to Catholic high school, and I always believed in
Speaker 1: God because I knew there had to be a first cause.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know who Jesus was. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I went into the Navy and was down in
Speaker 1: flight school in Pensacola, Florida, that I met the son
Speaker 1: of a Methodist minister who also happened to be a
Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboy fan bokay and Yeah. He turned out later
Speaker 1: to be a pastor, and I kept asking him questions
Speaker 1: and he finally said, look, you just need to get
Speaker 1: Josh mcdal books, Evidence, de mans a Verdict and more
Speaker 1: than a Carpenter. So I read those books. Those books
Speaker 1: were written like in the seventies, and they've been updated
Speaker 1: since then. In fact, I was involved in one of
Speaker 1: the updates ironically, But in any event, I read those
Speaker 1: books and said, Wow, Christianity is true and then when
Speaker 1: I got out of the Navy, I happened providentially to
Speaker 1: meet Norman Geisler, who was the Michael Jordan of Apologetics
Speaker 1: at the time, and he was starting a seminary here
Speaker 1: in Charlotte, North Carolina. So in nineteen ninety three, my
Speaker 1: wife and three kids and I moved to Charlotte to
Speaker 1: go to seminary. Because there was no internet, you couldn't
Speaker 1: take seminary online. And so that's how I got involved
Speaker 1: in Apologetics, and he and I wrote a couple of books.
Speaker 1: One of them is called I Don't Have Enough Faith
Speaker 1: to be an Atheist? Yeah, and so, and then I
Speaker 1: started a ministry called Cross Examined dot org, where we
Speaker 1: go to colleges, high schools, and churches and present the evidence,
Speaker 1: largely from that book, that Christianity is indeed true.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's fascinating because you are the Lord is the
Speaker 2: Lord has gifted you in this way for sure. I
Speaker 2: mean everyone should be an apologist, you know, we're we're
Speaker 2: all called the Church should all we should all be apologist,
Speaker 2: but I think we could admit that some are better
Speaker 2: than others, and the Lord has gifted you certainly in
Speaker 2: that I believe I would call it intellectual worship?
Speaker 1: Is them say that and they say that, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think when I see you on stage and I see
Speaker 2: you traveling in your all these these college campuses, and
Speaker 2: you're you're defending the faith and you're you're doing it,
Speaker 2: and you might not think in a patient way, but
Speaker 2: I believe you are. You're extremely patient and and to me,
Speaker 2: that is worship.
Speaker 1: That is a form of Oh oh, I thought you're
Speaker 1: using it like like some people will say that apologists
Speaker 1: are worshiping their intellect.
Speaker 2: I do not mean. I do mean tho.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, all right, yeah, some will say that
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Well, yeah, we're supposed to
Speaker 1: love the Lord. You go with all your heart, soul, strength,
Speaker 1: and mind, mind right, and nothing goes, nothing gets to
Speaker 1: the heart without first going through the head.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: So we're if we bypass the head on the way
Speaker 1: to the heart. That can be problematic because if you
Speaker 1: follow your emotions to your impulses, you're going to wind
Speaker 1: up in a very dark place. Of course, the Bible
Speaker 1: says guard your heart. Doesn't say follow your heart, say
Speaker 1: guard your heart because everything you do flows from it.
Speaker 1: That's Proverbs four twenty three, which I think is the
Speaker 1: second most important verse in the Bible for today's culture
Speaker 1: other than the Gospel, because you know, our culture thinks, oh,
Speaker 1: follow your heart. No no, no, no, no, guard it, guard it,
Speaker 1: because if you follow it without reason or without moral restraint,
Speaker 1: you're going to You're going to wind up addicted, broken, alone,
Speaker 1: and probably prematurely dead if you follow your heart without
Speaker 1: moral restraint. Yet that's what our culture tells us to do.
Speaker 2: Amen, right, yeah, Mark Mark twelve thirty is where Jesus
Speaker 2: adds mind to our commandment to love our Lord, our God.
Speaker 2: Jesus adds mind. It's fascinating that he does that, and
Speaker 2: it makes perfect sense. And that's where I'm saying this
Speaker 2: intellectual worship. I'm actually that's a compliment. I'm saying in
Speaker 2: a good way. I believe that we a form of worship,
Speaker 2: should be exercising the gift of the mind that has
Speaker 2: been given to us so that we could examine the evidence.
Speaker 2: Not in a way really not in a way for
Speaker 2: us to be reborn and to receive new hearts, but
Speaker 2: really it's an overflow of the new heart that has
Speaker 2: been given to us in the new birth that we
Speaker 2: then go to the world and say look, look and
Speaker 2: see the evidence. It's clear, it's all around you. This
Speaker 2: is what Paul does in Romans.
Speaker 1: Want that's right. And I think there's a difference as
Speaker 1: well that might be helpful to people. The difference is
Speaker 1: the difference between belief that and belief in. Belief that
Speaker 1: is getting evidence that God exists, that Jesus rose from
Speaker 1: the dead, that the Bibles telling the truth. But all
Speaker 1: the belief that in the world won't get your moral
Speaker 1: transgressions forgiven. For that you got to go from belief
Speaker 1: that to belief in. There's a difference. Even James, the
Speaker 1: half brother of Jesus, who wrote that little book in
Speaker 1: the New Testament called James, Oh good, You're good. You're
Speaker 1: with me all right? Even he said, he said, even
Speaker 1: the demons believe that God exists, but they tremble. You know,
Speaker 1: demons know that God exists better than we do because
Speaker 1: they're in the spiritual realm, but they don't trust in him.
Speaker 1: There's a difference because there's a difference between belief that
Speaker 1: and belief in. In fact, we know this in relationships.
Speaker 1: When I first met my wife forty years ago, I
Speaker 1: got evidence that she would be a good wife. But
Speaker 1: all the evidence in the world didn't make her my wife.
Speaker 1: I had to take a step of trust in her
Speaker 1: to ask her to be my wife, and in a
Speaker 1: momentary lapse of judgment, she said yes. See, that's the
Speaker 1: difference between belief that and belief in. One is of
Speaker 1: the head belief that, but belief in is not only
Speaker 1: a the head, it's of the heart. After you know
Speaker 1: that Jesus is the Savior, trust in him. And by
Speaker 1: the way, John puts belief that and belief in into
Speaker 1: one verse. It's the last verse of chapter twenty I'm paraphrase,
Speaker 1: and he says in the Gospel, he says, these things
Speaker 1: were written down so that you may believe that Jesus
Speaker 1: is the Savior, and that by believing in him, you
Speaker 1: may have life in his name. You see, he's putting
Speaker 1: belief that, belief in into one verse. In other words,
Speaker 1: he's saying, look, I wrote the Gospel and all these
Speaker 1: miracles in it and what Jesus said and did, so
Speaker 1: you could know that he's the Savior. But then you
Speaker 1: can go from belief that to belief in. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can know that something's true and still not assent
Speaker 1: to it right. We do that all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: we know things are true, and we don't want it. It's inconvenient.
Speaker 1: We want to avoid it. We suppress the truth, as
Speaker 1: Paul said in Romans Chapter one. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of belief that out there that we suppress. But if
Speaker 1: we're open to belief that, it's easy to move on
Speaker 1: to belief in and belief that is in intellectual. Belief
Speaker 1: in is not just intellectual, it's also emotional. By the way,
Speaker 1: you said something earlier too, I want to mention you know,
Speaker 1: you said everyone ought to be an apologist because we're
Speaker 1: commanded to be an apologist. And people say, I'm not
Speaker 1: an apologist. No, everybody is. You just might not be
Speaker 1: a good one. It's like when people say I'm not
Speaker 1: a theologian. No, you are a theologian. You just might
Speaker 1: not be a good one. Right. Everybody has some sort
Speaker 1: of belief about God. You know how people always caveat that,
Speaker 1: They say, well, I'm not a theologian. Well, okay, you
Speaker 1: actually are. You just might be. You might not be
Speaker 1: an accomplished one, right, you might not know enough. Everybody
Speaker 1: has some sort of belief of who God is and
Speaker 1: what he does and why we're here. Everyone has some
Speaker 1: sort of belief about that. They may have evidence for it,
Speaker 1: they might not. They might have thought about it, they
Speaker 1: might not. But everybody's a theologian of some kind, even
Speaker 1: atheist or theology.
Speaker 2: To ask who Jesus is, and instantly they're given you
Speaker 2: theology when they answer that question.
Speaker 1: That's right, everybody's given you theology. An atheist is there's
Speaker 1: no God. That's a theological conclusion that there is no God.
Speaker 1: They're af the theological conclusion.
Speaker 2: I heard you say something interesting one time about when
Speaker 2: when you're talking about someone being an apologist and someone
Speaker 2: says I'm not I'm not apology, I'm not an apologist,
Speaker 2: or I'm not a good one, and you said, well,
Speaker 2: what happens when honestly, I don't remember the exact illustration
Speaker 2: you used, but say, say what happens when your son
Speaker 2: gets diagnosed with some kind of disease and suddenly you
Speaker 2: begin to research and study and you learn everything you
Speaker 2: can about that disease, And similarly, that happens in apologetics.
Speaker 2: I remember specifically when this happened to me. It was
Speaker 2: several years ago. I saw a comment on social media
Speaker 2: by a guy and his name was Costy. Unfortunately, his
Speaker 2: full name was Constantine. He's an atheist with the unfortunate
Speaker 2: name of Constantine. But he comments on here and someone
Speaker 2: was talking about a worship service and he said, I
Speaker 2: think the big overdrive traumatized performance based worship services. I
Speaker 2: think they're actually manipulating people. And and I commented, and
Speaker 2: I say, and I knew he's an atheist. And I
Speaker 2: commented and I said, you know, I agree with you
Speaker 2: on this at some level, I do. And then we
Speaker 2: started dming each other. That turned into we're talking to
Speaker 2: each other on signal app and we're talking about the faith.
Speaker 2: He's he is an atheist, which I I don't know
Speaker 2: if I've ever met a true atheist that can stay
Speaker 2: consistent in their beliefs, because in my mind, a true
Speaker 2: atheist would say, we're all upon scum. You have, you
Speaker 2: could do whatever you want. It's all an illusion, and
Speaker 2: I don't really care. You know, we have one life
Speaker 2: and nothing matters. And and but no one stays consistent
Speaker 2: to that because they want to.
Speaker 1: Nobody can live that. No one can live that.
Speaker 2: So this guy cost He, ultimately what he's doing is
Speaker 2: everyone every true atheist wants to advocate for to keep
Speaker 2: something they're doing costy. In his case, he wanted to
Speaker 2: keep sleep with his girlfriend and he didn't want his mother,
Speaker 2: who was a Christian in Germany, telling him he couldn't
Speaker 2: sleep with his girlfriend anymore. He didn't want to hear that,
Speaker 2: So he builds a the odyssey for atheism. So we're
Speaker 2: talking with this lasted Frank for over a year and
Speaker 2: a half, back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes he
Speaker 2: would get angry and he wants to argue about slavery
Speaker 2: in the Bible, and I'd say, I'm happy to discuss
Speaker 2: this with you. He wants to talk about all these
Speaker 2: all these issues, the wars that you know, Christians have caused,
Speaker 2: the slaughter that that Christianity has caused, and I'm happy
Speaker 2: to discuss all of this with him. And we go
Speaker 2: back and forth. A year and a half goes by,
Speaker 2: and and finally I said, what would it what would
Speaker 2: it take to convince you? You know, what would it take
Speaker 2: for you to believe? Because he kept he keeps saying
Speaker 2: things like, if God wants to me to believe, He'll
Speaker 2: give me something to make me believe. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: what would that be Just hypothetically, because God's given you
Speaker 2: a lot. What would that be and he goesys, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I said, what if you saw a video
Speaker 2: of the resurrection. He goes, they would be tampered with.
Speaker 2: I know the video would be tampered And I said,
Speaker 2: of course, of course you would say that. So then
Speaker 2: so then I pulled at doctor Frank Turk and I said, Costy,
Speaker 2: if Christianity was true, would you believe it? And he goes,
Speaker 2: what does true mean? I said it. I said, outside
Speaker 2: of your understanding, outside of time and space, it is true.
Speaker 2: It is Christ died on the cross and was resurrected
Speaker 2: and walked among the people, and said, turn from yourself
Speaker 2: and look to me and be saved. If that happened,
Speaker 2: would you believe it? And he goes no, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: believe that. And I said, then, brother, our conversation is finished.
Speaker 2: We could go no further. After a year and a half,
Speaker 2: I tell you, if it's true, and you say no,
Speaker 2: then what are we talking about? And then I think
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 1: He was, as you say, just looking for a way
Speaker 1: to validate the lifestyle he wanted to live. Now, to
Speaker 1: be honest, Christians can do that too. Right. Christians might
Speaker 1: have not have good evidence for what they believe, but
Speaker 1: they want to convince themselves it's right. So we have
Speaker 1: to all be aware that we might be self deluding ourselves. However,
Speaker 1: I think, first of all, when people stay there's no
Speaker 1: evidence for reviews, stimpally asked that, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: why is there evidence for anything, not just for Christianity?
Speaker 1: Why is this a world that's orderly where we can
Speaker 1: discover cause and effect relationships? And why do we have
Speaker 1: in mind that allows us to do that? I mean,
Speaker 1: what explains that? I've noticed that atheists will say if
Speaker 1: you ask them where did your brain come from? They'll say, well,
Speaker 1: it came from a blind forces coming together and putting
Speaker 1: it together. And to quote my friend John Lennox, John
Speaker 1: Lennox when he asked people that question, you know, where
Speaker 1: did your mind? Did your brain come from? They say,
Speaker 1: it's a mindless process, And he says, and you trust it?
Speaker 1: Why would you trust something that? Why would you trust
Speaker 1: something that came from a mindless process? Right? Like suppose
Speaker 1: a computer got put together by a tornado ranging through
Speaker 1: a junk yard. Would you trust anything it told you?
Speaker 1: Of course you wouldn't. Right, first, of all, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: happen that way. But even if it did, it's not designed.
Speaker 1: Why do you use Why do you say that you
Speaker 1: are not designed? And the apparatus you're using to say
Speaker 1: is not designed isn't designed either, So why would you
Speaker 1: think what you're saying is true? Look, is it more
Speaker 1: likely that your mind is the result of an undesigned
Speaker 1: process your brain which produces your mind, or is it
Speaker 1: more likely that your mind was made in the image
Speaker 1: of the Great Mind so you could know truths outside
Speaker 1: of your skull, including the Great Mind himself. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: more likely.
Speaker 2: And they say to that, they say, this is God
Speaker 2: of gaps theory. Frank, you're a god?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well, first of all, I would say it's
Speaker 1: not a God of the gaps theory. It's not. It's
Speaker 1: not that we just haven't found a natural explanation for
Speaker 1: the brain or the mind. It's that the brain and
Speaker 1: the mind are positive evidences for an intelligent being. Just
Speaker 1: like if you're walking along the beach and you see
Speaker 1: John loves Mary in the sand, you don't just lack
Speaker 1: a natural explanation for that. You do lack a natural explanation,
Speaker 1: But John loves Mary in the sand is also positive
Speaker 1: evidence for an intelligent being, and a mind is evidence
Speaker 1: for an intelligent being. It doesn't. You don't just lack
Speaker 1: in that. You do. But it's not just that it's
Speaker 1: positive evidence for So it's not a god of the
Speaker 1: gaps argument. We're not arguing from what we don't know.
Speaker 1: We're arguing from what we do know. We do know
Speaker 1: that messages come from minds, and in every cell in
Speaker 1: our body there's a message three point two billion letters long. Okay,
Speaker 1: where do messages go?
Speaker 2: They don't.
Speaker 1: They don't happen by natural forces. They don't originate from
Speaker 1: natural forces. They may be reproduced through natural forces, Yes,
Speaker 1: that happens. You know, life gives fourth life, But life itself,
Speaker 1: where does that come from? It's not from the wind,
Speaker 1: the rain. It's not from the four fundamental forces gravity,
Speaker 1: strong and weak, nuclear forces, and electromagnetism. There's something else
Speaker 1: going on here. And by the way, even if you
Speaker 1: were to say that everything came from those four forces,
Speaker 1: where did those four forces come from?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And why are they so persistent and consistent? Natural laws
Speaker 1: come from lawgivers, just like every law comes from a lawgiver.
Speaker 1: And so the very apparatus. Even if you were to
Speaker 1: make a case I saw you did a podcast, I
Speaker 1: just saw the title for it on evolution. Even if
Speaker 1: one could make the case that macro revolution is true
Speaker 1: from the good to you via the zoo, right, there's
Speaker 1: no intelligence behind it. Even if you could make that case,
Speaker 1: the natural laws that drive evolution are evidence of a mind,
Speaker 1: not just a mind that created the laws, but a
Speaker 1: mind that sustains these laws right now. This is the
Speaker 1: Aristotle Aquinas argument that says, the world as it operates
Speaker 1: right now needs a present cause. Why is everything so orderly?
Speaker 1: Why does it do the same thing over and over again?
Speaker 1: Why can we ascertain truth about the real world and
Speaker 1: cause and effect relationships outside of our skull? Because this
Speaker 1: universe was created and is sustained by a mind. That's
Speaker 1: how we can do science, by the way, that's that's
Speaker 1: how we find cause and effect. We find cause and
Speaker 1: effect because this world is orderly, a world of orderly
Speaker 1: cause and effect, and our minds are oriented to discover that.
Speaker 2: You've read a lot of C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity.
Speaker 1: Oh. C. S Lewis is, Yeah, he's one of my favorites. C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis and John Lennox has written on this. Ed Fays,
Speaker 1: who's a Catholic apologist, has written on this. I wrote
Speaker 1: it on a book called Stealing from God, Why atheists
Speaker 1: need God to make their case. I think actually the
Speaker 1: best arguments for God are not even most of the
Speaker 1: arguments I use. I think the best arguments for God
Speaker 1: are the metaphysical arguments that take a while to explain
Speaker 1: and you need some sort of philosophical background to understand them.
Speaker 1: They're not the kind of argument you can give in
Speaker 1: a one hour lecture, yeah.
Speaker 2: Or much less having someone at a college campus with
Speaker 2: a microphone ask you a thirty second question and you
Speaker 2: under a time constraint, I have to give them an
Speaker 2: answer in two minutes. It's so difficult to do. But now,
Speaker 2: do you think you keep getting the same questions? I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe there's eight or nine questions you could possibly get
Speaker 2: and you must.
Speaker 1: They fall into categories. And on our cross Examined app
Speaker 1: two words in the app store cross Examined, we have
Speaker 1: a quick answer section and we point out that there
Speaker 1: are four questions you need to answer to show the
Speaker 1: Christianity is true, and there are four objections you're going
Speaker 1: to get or four categor or of objections. The four
Speaker 1: questions you need to answer are does truth exist? Does
Speaker 1: God exist? Are miracles possible? And it's the New Testament
Speaker 1: telling us the truth about the resurrection. Because if truth exists,
Speaker 1: if God exists, if miracles are possible, and Jesus rose
Speaker 1: from the dead, mark it down. Christianity is true. Right,
Speaker 1: It's easy to show the Christianity is true if those
Speaker 1: four questions are answered. Yes. Now, the four objections you're
Speaker 1: going to get to saying Christianity is true are what
Speaker 1: I call the four ease. You're going to get questions
Speaker 1: on ethics. You're going to get questions on eternity, you're
Speaker 1: going to get questions on evolution, and you're going to
Speaker 1: get questions on evil. So and some of these are related,
Speaker 1: like most of the questions that I get now are
Speaker 1: related somehow to morality and evil. In other words, I
Speaker 1: say that the top three objections to Christianity are moral,
Speaker 1: the morality and morality kind of like what your friend
Speaker 1: had that Constantine guy, Right, it's a moral issue.
Speaker 2: He wants to talk about slavery when he can't he
Speaker 2: doesn't have a moral ground to stand on.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, he doesn't have the moral standard by
Speaker 1: which to say that slavery is even wrong, but he
Speaker 1: thinks it's wrong, and he has no moral ground if
Speaker 1: there is no God to say that sleeping with your
Speaker 1: girlfriend is right or wrong, because it's not right or wrong,
Speaker 1: because nothing's right or wrong if there's no God. Everything's
Speaker 1: a matter of opinion. So on one hand, he wants
Speaker 1: to say, since there is no God, I get to
Speaker 1: do what I want, but I don't like the Christian God,
Speaker 1: and I think he's immoral for telling me I can't
Speaker 1: do X, Y or Z. Wait. Wait, look, if the
Speaker 1: only out these people have, the only possible out they have,
Speaker 1: Granger is to say, Okay, I'm not an atheist anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm a theist. I believe in God. I just think
Speaker 1: the God of the Bible is not the true God.
Speaker 1: That's a fair position to take, because now you have
Speaker 1: a moral standard and you can say, well, the God
Speaker 1: of the Bible has done this evil or that evil.
Speaker 1: The problem with that approach is is that it doesn't
Speaker 1: fit with the evidence, because the evidence shows that the
Speaker 1: Christian God is the true God. And if Jesus did
Speaker 1: rise from the dead to prove he was God, and
Speaker 1: he taught the Old Testament was the word of God,
Speaker 1: and he promised the New Testament. Then then the Bible
Speaker 1: is true.
Speaker 2: I love the way you'll bring up the Canaanites and
Speaker 2: this kind of idea because people will go there. God's
Speaker 2: not moral. He murdered. God breaks his own law by murdering.
Speaker 2: What do you say to that person?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I asked them, by what moral
Speaker 1: standard are you saying that's wrong? And then I asked them,
Speaker 1: when God kills somebody, does he murder them? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's wrong for us to take innocent life because we're
Speaker 1: not the creator and sustainer of life. We can't resurrect life.
Speaker 1: But it's not wrong for the creator of life to
Speaker 1: take life. He can resurrect it. He owes it right
Speaker 1: and we don't have that capacity. God does. So just
Speaker 1: because it's wrong for us doesn't mean it's wrong for God.
Speaker 1: And also point out that whenever God judges somebody in
Speaker 1: the Bible, that's what it is. It's judgment. It's not genocide,
Speaker 1: as they try and say, it's more sinocide. People have
Speaker 1: done evil and they're judged for it. And how do
Speaker 1: I know, Well, God did the same thing to Israelites
Speaker 1: he wiped out three thousand Israelites or worshiping the Golden
Speaker 1: Calf right. So it's not an ethnic issue. It's a
Speaker 1: sin issue. And I also point out that some of
Speaker 1: those commands might be hyperbolic, because that's how ancient Near
Speaker 1: Eastern people talk and spoke and wrote. For example, in
Speaker 1: Deuteronomy seven, he basically says, wipe everybody out, and then
Speaker 1: right after that he says, and then don't intermarry with them.
Speaker 1: And you're going, wait a minute, if you wiped everybody out,
Speaker 1: how could you intermarry with them? Right? And you see
Speaker 1: over and over again that God says, wipe these people out,
Speaker 1: and then they pop up a few chapters later again
Speaker 1: and you go, wait, I thought they were white. They're
Speaker 1: not right, right. It could be exaggerated language. But my
Speaker 1: point is even if it's not exaggerated, even if it's literal,
Speaker 1: God has the right to take us out anytime he wants.
Speaker 1: And in a world of free creatures, it's gonna be messy, right,
Speaker 1: because God can't force free creatures to do what he
Speaker 1: does it wants him to do. If he does, they're
Speaker 1: not free. So there may be instances where God judges
Speaker 1: people very swiftly, and.
Speaker 2: And that's what a people want, right. The people say,
Speaker 2: if there's a good God out there, why wouldn't he
Speaker 2: stop evil from happening.
Speaker 1: Well, whenever people say that, I say, well, if he did,
Speaker 1: he might start with you. Yeah right, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if God were to end evil at midnight tonight, would
Speaker 1: any of us be alive at twelve oh one? You
Speaker 1: know I wouldn't be. No, I wouldn't be alive at
Speaker 1: twelve oh one if he stopped all evil at midnight,
Speaker 1: I mean, if he just took away our free will
Speaker 1: or decided to to judge us.
Speaker 2: And then when he does in the Bible, when he
Speaker 2: does judge us, people go, look look at the monster
Speaker 2: he is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. Well. I had this situation a couple
Speaker 1: times on college campuses. One lady at Oklahoma Central University,
Speaker 1: she was up at the microphone and she was just said,
Speaker 1: I can't believe in a god who would kill people
Speaker 1: in the Old Testament. And I had a long conversation
Speaker 1: with her. It's on our YouTube channel. But I then
Speaker 1: asked her, I said, well, were you on the abortion issue?
Speaker 1: She said, oh, I'm pro choice. I said, can I
Speaker 1: ask you a question. Why is it that when God
Speaker 1: plays God in the Old Testament and decides who lives
Speaker 1: and dies, he's in moral But when you play God
Speaker 1: right here in terms of abortion, that's your moral right.
Speaker 1: You can decide who lives and dies. But that's a
Speaker 1: moral right for you. Why is it not a moral
Speaker 1: right for the creator of life, but you have a
Speaker 1: moral right to do it. That's not your life, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean what you say, well, there's really not much say.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's you know, she's a college kid, right,
Speaker 1: she tried to skate around it.
Speaker 2: But you know, Shopify he has been a faithful advertiser
Speaker 2: for this podcast, allowing you to get this content every
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Speaker 2: slash Granger. As a reminder, you could always get a
Speaker 2: hold of on cameo dot com slash granger Smith. It's
Speaker 2: a great way to get a message, a video message
Speaker 2: from me from anywhere in the world to whoever you
Speaker 2: want to send it to. You go to cameo dot
Speaker 2: com slash granger Smith and you fill out whatever you
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Speaker 2: I got to tell you all about this. Have you
Speaker 2: heard about Yegfest. It's happening this year May ninth and
Speaker 2: tenth in Georgetown, Texas at the EEE Farm, So you
Speaker 2: can come hang out with us. Me, my brothers, my
Speaker 2: family will all be there. We've got a track show happening.
Speaker 2: We've got a mud Bog competition, kind of like we
Speaker 2: did last year, but the new edition this year is
Speaker 2: a concert by me and my band and my old crew.
Speaker 2: This is not a tour, This is not me getting
Speaker 2: back into music. This is one time every year we
Speaker 2: hope to do a concert for my friends and family,
Speaker 2: especially Maverick who's never seen me play live before. So
Speaker 2: come out have a meal with me and my family
Speaker 2: on Friday night. I'm gonna give a little devotional from
Speaker 2: the Bible, maybe play an acoustic song or two. This
Speaker 2: is really a once in a lifetime experience, and if
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Speaker 1: It's it's people people give themselves moral rights. While they
Speaker 1: they complain that God is doing something. He's taking life
Speaker 1: what they think innocent life, and they think he's wrong,
Speaker 1: but they think they have the right to do so, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the very same thing they're complaining that God has done
Speaker 1: now and when God does it, he's judging people when
Speaker 1: they do it. This is an innocent life that hasn't
Speaker 1: done anything, and it's just inconvenient. You know.
Speaker 2: Has anybody at one of these these q and as
Speaker 2: these conferences have you have you surely you have seen
Speaker 2: someone come up afterward and say, I think I was
Speaker 2: wrong about this. I want to know more. I think
Speaker 2: is there anything I could read about this?
Speaker 1: Oh? Sure, yeah, that happens. In fact, we have some
Speaker 1: people on camera saying that, oh I think that's a
Speaker 1: good point. Thanks. I hadn't thought of that, you know,
Speaker 1: most most people, though. I won't say that out loud,
Speaker 1: you know though, But I don't want to try and
Speaker 1: own them, so to speak. I don't want to try
Speaker 1: and make them feel badly about I just want them
Speaker 1: to think. So I'm not I try and be very
Speaker 1: kind to people and just say, hey, okay, I see
Speaker 1: your point, but what about this? And see what they say, right.
Speaker 2: I don't want to have it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to have a heated argument with them.
Speaker 1: I just I just want them to start thinking about
Speaker 1: certain assumptions they have with their questions because most of
Speaker 1: the time there's always an assumption that you can ask
Speaker 1: them about, Like when they say, well, God is evil,
Speaker 1: what do you mean by evil? Or killing the Canaanites
Speaker 1: is wrong? What do you mean by wrong? You know?
Speaker 1: Why do you think that's wrong? Who said? Because they're
Speaker 1: stealing from God while they're arguing against him, right, they're
Speaker 1: still in a standard from God. In order to say
Speaker 1: God is wrong, they're still in a standard and they're
Speaker 1: misapplying the standards. They exempt themselves from that standard, but
Speaker 1: they think God ought to be held to it. So
Speaker 1: that's what the book Stealing from God is about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you've you've you've built this idea over time
Speaker 2: that you will claim to them, I don't have enough
Speaker 2: faith to be an atheist. Now they don't. They don't
Speaker 2: like it when you say that. That's like pouring salt
Speaker 2: on a on a snail. You know, they don't like
Speaker 2: that because they'll say, I don't have a faith at all,
Speaker 2: and then they'll say being an atheist is a lack
Speaker 2: of belief at all. But then that, of course that
Speaker 2: goes back into them defending why they want to be
Speaker 2: an atheist and why you're wrong, which truly, if they
Speaker 2: were held consistent, they wouldn't care what you think, Frank,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it usually come down to why do they
Speaker 1: do what they do if there is no God? Why
Speaker 1: do you spend all your time fighting him? Like they
Speaker 1: don't believe in lepre cons and unicorns, but nobody writes
Speaker 1: the leprechaun delusion, right, because there's something about God that
Speaker 1: they think the God believers are somehow going to take
Speaker 1: their rights away politically, then normally that's really really the
Speaker 1: road that gets them all riled up. Well, you God believers,
Speaker 1: you want to impose your view on the rest of us,
Speaker 1: and that's wrong. So I'm going to come out and
Speaker 1: hammer you for believing in God, just like your friend
Speaker 1: you know, I want to sleep with his girlfriend. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. Why don't you just tell me that
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago could have saved us
Speaker 1: a lot of time? Right, let's just go. And that's
Speaker 1: why I usually start with the question, after a short discussion,
Speaker 1: if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? Or
Speaker 1: you could say, if Jesus really rose from the dead
Speaker 1: to prove me he was God, would you follow him,
Speaker 1: you know, and see what they say. Most people are
Speaker 1: looking for God like a criminal's looking for a cop. Right.
Speaker 1: They're running. They're on the run. They don't want God
Speaker 1: to exist. In fact, maybe we could do a little
Speaker 1: thought experiment with your audience. For those watching right now,
Speaker 1: I want you to think of someone you know who's
Speaker 1: not a Christian whom you'd like to be a Christian,
Speaker 1: A friend, relative, somebody like that. All right, think of them,
Speaker 1: got that person? Okay, good? Now here's my question. Is
Speaker 1: the person you're thinking of on a relentless pursuit of truth.
Speaker 1: They want to know if Christianity is true or are
Speaker 1: they apathetic or maybe even hostile to Christianity. Now, ninety
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten is my friend from Mississippi
Speaker 1: says it's their their apathetic or hostile. It's it's really
Speaker 1: it's it's it's either one hundred zero or it's ninety
Speaker 1: nine to one. Very few people when I do that
Speaker 1: survey raise their hand and say, oh yeah, they're on
Speaker 1: a relentless pursuit of truth. Most people are apathetic or hostile.
Speaker 1: They don't want it to be true.
Speaker 2: So true, that's exactly right. You meet an atheist and
Speaker 2: there you want to tell them, you know, you strike
Speaker 2: me as someone that would be a little bit more
Speaker 2: open minded, and they say, I am. I am wildly
Speaker 2: open minded than you're agnostic. Well maybe maybe I'm agnostic.
Speaker 2: Are you constantly seeking truth? Then no, no, I'm stuck
Speaker 2: in my agnosticism. Well that doesn't seem like you either.
Speaker 2: You seem like you would be a more open minded agnostic.
Speaker 2: Well maybe maybe I am. Then would you like to
Speaker 2: hear more about the evidence of Christianity? No, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But this is the layer they're not. They're not open
Speaker 1: minded at all, which is why Milton Burrow, the old comedian,
Speaker 1: used to say, we found out this one guy in
Speaker 1: our neighborhood was an agnostic, so we burned a question
Speaker 1: mark on.
Speaker 2: So what do you say to someone that that that
Speaker 2: they listen to this and they think I'm not doctor
Speaker 2: Frank Turk, I'm not that smart. I can't defend the
Speaker 2: faith because I think the the number one hindrance of
Speaker 2: being an apologist is fear. Really, I don't want to
Speaker 2: sound stupid. I don't want to end up in a
Speaker 2: conversation where I don't know what to say. I'm sure,
Speaker 2: you've talked about this with people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, you don't have to know what to say.
Speaker 1: You just have to know how to ask questions. Asking
Speaker 1: questions is easy, Answering them is hard. That's why my
Speaker 1: friend Greg Coco wrote the book Tactics.
Speaker 2: Great book.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, how to ask questions? You know, what
Speaker 1: do you mean by that? How'd you come to that conclusion?
Speaker 1: Why do you think that's true? What evidence do you
Speaker 1: have for that position? You know, questions like that. So
Speaker 1: once again, because when somebody says something, it's not your
Speaker 1: job to refute what they say. It's their job to
Speaker 1: support what they say. So start asking questions. Why do
Speaker 1: you think atheism is true? Why do you think there's
Speaker 1: no evidence for God? Or why do you think that
Speaker 1: there's not enough evidence for God? Like the question you
Speaker 1: were asking the guy, like what evidence would you need
Speaker 1: to see? Right? Why do you think there's evidence for anything?
Speaker 1: Why can your mind ascertain truth about the real world
Speaker 1: outside of your skull? Why does that even happen, not
Speaker 1: just about God but about anything. Why do you know
Speaker 1: if you put two parts hydrogen one part oxygen, you
Speaker 1: get together, you'll get water. Why do you know that? Right?
Speaker 1: Why if you drop a ball off a building, It's
Speaker 1: going to go to the ground. Why do you know that?
Speaker 1: Why do you know anything? Yeah, So you just start
Speaker 1: asking questions like that and see what they say. Do
Speaker 1: you believe every effect has a cause? If they say no,
Speaker 1: they're not being very scientific, because that's the basis of science,
Speaker 1: that every effect has a cause. The next question is
Speaker 1: after they say, yeah, I believe very effect has a cost. Well,
Speaker 1: the universe is an effect. Where did it come from?
Speaker 1: What caused it? Right? Why is it so fine tuned?
Speaker 1: Why is it so designed? Why do you have a
Speaker 1: law pressing on you that says you ought not murder people,
Speaker 1: you ought to love them? Where does that come from?
Speaker 1: Is that objective or is it just someone's opinion? Right?
Speaker 2: That's a deep rabbit hole and a good one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, if there's no God,
Speaker 1: there's nothing ultimately right or wrong. So just ask a
Speaker 1: lot of questions. And you know, when people ask me
Speaker 1: how do I know that God exists? I just say
Speaker 1: I know God by his effects. Right. If there's a creation,
Speaker 1: that's the effect I'm reasoning back to a cause a creator.
Speaker 1: If there's design, that's the effect, I'm reasoning back to
Speaker 1: a cause, a designer. There's a moral law written on
Speaker 1: the heart, that's the effect. I'm reasoning back to a cause,
Speaker 1: a moral lawgiver. If there is evidence a man predicted
Speaker 1: and accomplished his own resurrection from the dead, that's the effect.
Speaker 1: I'm reasoning back to a cause. Who could have caused
Speaker 1: the man to predict and accomplish his own resurrection from
Speaker 1: the dead, The creator of life, someone like God. In fact,
Speaker 1: we do that when we even if we think we
Speaker 1: have some sort of personal relationship with God. You know,
Speaker 1: if we think that God has told us something, or
Speaker 1: that God has answered prayer, we're doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: We're taking the effect, say the answered prayer, and we're
Speaker 1: reasoning back to a cause. We're saying the cause of
Speaker 1: that prayer answered prayer was God. You're always reasoning from
Speaker 1: effect to cause. And with atheists, their main problem is
Speaker 1: they have no cause. Right, there's no cause for any
Speaker 1: of this. There's no cause for the for the four
Speaker 1: natural forces that govern the universe. There's no cause for
Speaker 1: the universe. There's no cause for the design of the universe.
Speaker 1: There's no cause for life. There's no cause for the
Speaker 1: design of new life. Forms, there's no cause for the
Speaker 1: laws of logic and the laws of mathematics and the
Speaker 1: laws of morality, and there's no cause.
Speaker 2: And to that they typically say, to that, they say,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying there is a cause or not a cause.
Speaker 2: I'm saying I don't know, and you can't know. That's
Speaker 2: typically what that's how they'll make that.
Speaker 1: Well, if they say you can't know, I'd say, why
Speaker 1: can't you know? Why do you say that? And how
Speaker 1: do you know that you can't know? How do you
Speaker 1: know that you can't know? Because you know that, right?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's it's a self defeating position
Speaker 1: to say I can't know anything because you you apparently
Speaker 1: know you can't know, right. That's incredible. Yeah, So it
Speaker 1: turns out to be a self defeating cul de sac
Speaker 1: that they back themselves into. And just about all of
Speaker 1: the natural philosophers that have come along trying to disprove God,
Speaker 1: whether it's Hume or Kant, who was a believer, by
Speaker 1: the way, but he said you can't know the real world.
Speaker 1: That's how you remember k can't know the real world.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, when he says that, you want to ask him, well,
Speaker 1: how do you know the real world is there. Then
Speaker 1: if you can't know it, right, you know, the world
Speaker 1: is there, So you can't know the real world. Now,
Speaker 1: you can't know the real world.
Speaker 2: You can, yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: You can't know the real world. So these are self
Speaker 1: defeating philosophical positions. And just by pointing that out, you
Speaker 1: can show that at the very foundation of their belief
Speaker 1: system there's a there's a fault, a fatal flaw.
Speaker 2: So you engaged many times with Christopher Hitchins a couple
Speaker 2: of times, couple of debates, couple couple of debates. What
Speaker 2: was the talk off camera between you two? Were you
Speaker 2: guys friends?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, I mean, you know, it was fine. We
Speaker 1: didn't socialize, but you know, you arrive at the debate
Speaker 1: and it was funny. Christopher was a funny guy. Actually,
Speaker 1: first time, the first debate we had was at university
Speaker 1: was at It was at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond
Speaker 1: back in eight and he was debating Christians around the country.
Speaker 1: He had written the book you Know God is not
Speaker 1: Great at Religion Poisons Everything. And I saw him on
Speaker 1: TV a lot because he was also a political commentator,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the politics he he talked about
Speaker 1: I agreed with. I mean, Christopher was very straightforward on
Speaker 1: the danger of Islam, and he didn't pull any punches there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I appreciated his candor there. And when I
Speaker 1: first met him, I said, hey, Christopher, you know, this
Speaker 1: is my first debate debating anyone other than my wife.
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't fear you, but you know,
Speaker 1: but I said, you know, I'm kind of a fan.
Speaker 1: I kind of I kind of you know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of the things you say. And he kind of
Speaker 1: peered over his glasses and he said, the night is young.
Speaker 1: And then before the second debate, we got talking about
Speaker 1: a couple of things, and I mean, just small talk,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing. But everyone liked Christopher. Whether you agree
Speaker 1: with him or not, you liked him. He was he
Speaker 1: was a he had a great way with words. He
Speaker 1: was a he was a journalist, you know, he was
Speaker 1: a literary guy. Loved poetry, that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: but I think he was just mad at God. That's
Speaker 1: why I ended both debates by saying, you know, Christopher
Speaker 1: Hitchins says there is no God, and I hate him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there is a God and he loves Christopher Hitchins.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, we had. If you watch a debate
Speaker 1: with Christopher Hitchins, you'll go, I like this guy, you know,
Speaker 1: but if you read the transcript, you're going to go,
Speaker 1: what is this guy talking about? He's not even in
Speaker 1: the ballpark of the of the topic. He's skating or
Speaker 1: all around it. In our first debate, I went first,
Speaker 1: and I got up and I talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: three arguments for the existence of God, the cosmological, teleological,
Speaker 1: and moral arguments. And Christopher got up and started talking
Speaker 1: about what a bad person Mother Teresa was, And I'm going,
Speaker 1: what does this have to do with whether or not
Speaker 1: God exists? Whether Mother Teresa was good or bad is
Speaker 1: irrelevant to this question, you know. But he was so
Speaker 1: good rhetorically that, you know, you just kind of get
Speaker 1: mesmerized by him. But he was not technically a good
Speaker 1: debater because he was not really dealing with the issues.
Speaker 2: No, he was never really listening to you. He was
Speaker 2: just kind of always assuming. It was like he was
Speaker 2: kind of blacking out, and then assuming that you said
Speaker 2: something and he would get up and he was, like
Speaker 2: you said, he was brilliant, and so he could just
Speaker 2: kind of talk his way around anything. But never really
Speaker 2: answering any of the propositions that you put forth. And
Speaker 2: if anyone wants to see those, those are very famous debates.
Speaker 2: You just look on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're on our YouTube channel, across on YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: They're on Cross Examine. Yeah, fascinating stuff. And he passed away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he passed away in twenty eleven. Yeah, a long
Speaker 1: time ago. Now it's almost what fourteen years ago, thirteen
Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah, and he had esophageo cancer. He was
Speaker 1: a big smoker and drinker.
Speaker 2: And why not if nothing else matters.
Speaker 1: There's no God, Yeah, there's no God. Yeah. It was tragic.
Speaker 1: He was such a sharp guy.
Speaker 2: So to the to the people that would question the
Speaker 2: problem of evil, I know, there's so many places I
Speaker 2: can go with this, Frank So I think problem the
Speaker 2: problem of evil is one of the main points that
Speaker 2: people want to go to. I also think proof of
Speaker 2: the Bible, which which I think in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: what an incredible time to be alive and to be
Speaker 2: a Christian. We have we have an advantage over all
Speaker 2: the brothers and sisters you know, before us for the
Speaker 2: last few millennia that didn't have the evidence, the archaeological
Speaker 2: evidence that didn't have the translation ability that we do now.
Speaker 2: And so I think those two things. You probably get
Speaker 2: those a lot in college campuses, like how could you
Speaker 2: possibly trust the Bible written by these men changed by
Speaker 2: Constantine for his game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd be surprised how how infrequently that comes up?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: Yeah, As I say, most of the objections have to
Speaker 1: do with morality. You know, they're not interested that much
Speaker 1: in the text anymore. They just want to do what
Speaker 1: they want to do.
Speaker 2: Maybe because the text is so obvious now maybe.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I don't know. The figure of Jesus is
Speaker 1: an enormously attractive character for obvious reasons. There's nobody been anyone,
Speaker 1: There's never been anyone like Jesus in history. And everybody
Speaker 1: noticed that. Everybody wants to have Jesus on their side,
Speaker 1: so much so that they'll take him out of context
Speaker 1: and ignore other things he said in order to get
Speaker 1: done what they want done, or to get him on
Speaker 1: their side to support a particular position. Even world religions
Speaker 1: will change around Jesus. Everyone wants to import Jesus into
Speaker 1: their world religion. You know the Muslims. Did you know
Speaker 1: the Muslim You read the Koran Jesus is sinless, Jesus
Speaker 1: is you know, a prophet, he's a miracle worker, all
Speaker 1: these things, but they don't think he's God, but they
Speaker 1: want to have him in their system. But most of
Speaker 1: the objections that come up have to do with, you know,
Speaker 1: the Canaanite issue, the four ease I mentioned earlier, evolution, ethics, evil,
Speaker 1: and eternity. And ethics and evil can be related because
Speaker 1: they deal with right and wrong. Eternity are questions and
Speaker 1: they that can even delve into the ethics too. Eternity
Speaker 1: you know what about those that have never heard that's
Speaker 1: actually an ethical or moral question. Yeah, saying that God
Speaker 1: is somehow immral if he doesn't get his gospel to
Speaker 1: everybody so everyone has a chance, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, Or why did God create people he knew
Speaker 1: would go to hell? Or why is Jesus the only
Speaker 1: way right? These are eternity questions. Evolution questions, that's obvious.
Speaker 1: You know what about evolution? What does that does that
Speaker 1: contradict the Bible? Is it true? Not true? That kind
Speaker 1: of thing? Questions on evil. If there's a good God,
Speaker 1: what does he allow evil to occur? And then questions
Speaker 1: on ethics. You know, slavery in the Bible, that's some
Speaker 1: ethical question. What about LGBTQ issues that comes up, right, Canaanites.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that. So ninety percent of the objections, maybe
Speaker 1: more than ninety percent, are going to be in one
Speaker 1: of those four categories.
Speaker 2: And you're saying that people will typically pull Jesus out
Speaker 2: of this and say all he said is good. You know,
Speaker 2: take the red letters, which is why I don't actually
Speaker 2: agree with red letter Bible. But they'll say, take take
Speaker 2: this and look look what he said, Look what Jesus.
Speaker 2: I will listen to what Jesus said. And then I
Speaker 2: saw you make a brilliant argument for the Jesus's beautiful
Speaker 2: sermon on the road to Amaas, the seven mile journey
Speaker 2: to Amaeas, when he said all of this was about me,
Speaker 2: and you laid out this beautiful exposition of what do
Speaker 2: you think Jesus talked about on this seven mile journey
Speaker 2: to Amaeas after the resurrection? Because the whole Bible is
Speaker 2: pointing to him and he said talking about him fulfilling,
Speaker 2: He fulfilled what it says. And so you can't say
Speaker 2: I just listened to what Jesus said. I don't listen
Speaker 2: to this stuff of the Canaanite stuff and all the
Speaker 2: monster in the Old Testament. You can't say.
Speaker 1: That firm the entire Old Testament. By the way, Jesus
Speaker 1: talked more about Hell than anybody else. He talked more
Speaker 1: about Hell than Heaven. He famously said, Uh, don't fear
Speaker 1: the one who can kill the body, but can kill
Speaker 1: the body and the soul in Hell. Right, And what
Speaker 1: profit will it be for a man if he gains
Speaker 1: the whole world that loses his soul. You know, he
Speaker 1: talks about beating people with few blows or many blows.
Speaker 1: That's a reference to Hell and the punishment that they
Speaker 1: will experience. And he talks about those who haven't accepted
Speaker 1: the sun are condemned already, right, I mean, why why
Speaker 1: did Jesus come to save us from the wrath that
Speaker 1: we're due, the wrath of God that we're due. That's
Speaker 1: why he came. The son of Man did not come
Speaker 1: to be served, but to serve and to give his
Speaker 1: life as a ransom for many. That's why all of
Speaker 1: these commercials, I know, they're all well intended, but they
Speaker 1: missed the mark completely. All that he gets us commercials. Yep, yes,
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with Jesus's mission or very little.
Speaker 1: Jesus didn't come for social justice. Jesus came for eternal justice.
Speaker 1: An eternal justice says that we're all sinners, we all
Speaker 1: need a savior, and I'm the ransom. I came to
Speaker 1: put my life down so your life wouldn't be punished.
Speaker 1: I came to save you. I didn't come to give
Speaker 1: you a new ethic. I didn't come to give you
Speaker 1: a you know, a new series of laws that you're
Speaker 1: going to impose on the rest of people through some
Speaker 1: sort of political process. I mean, that might be part
Speaker 1: of Christianity, but that's not why I came, right, Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I came as the sacrifice. I came as the lamb.
Speaker 1: I came to take your sins from you and then
Speaker 1: give you my righteousness. That's incredible. That's the God's right. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what it's all about. It's not social justice. It's
Speaker 1: not take care of the poor. Yeah, Jesus said take
Speaker 1: care of the poor. But that's not the focus of
Speaker 1: his ministry. That's a result of why he came. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's not the that's not the the that's not the
Speaker 1: goal of his ministry. That might just be the result
Speaker 1: of people that have accepted Jesus. They go, you know,
Speaker 1: we ought to take care of the poor. You know,
Speaker 1: we ought to we ought to take care of the widow.
Speaker 1: This is what true religion is, right, we ought to
Speaker 1: take care of the downtrod and we ought to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do that because we're saved, not to get saved.
Speaker 2: That's so good. And you could add in their practice
Speaker 2: apologetics because we're saved.
Speaker 1: That's right, because how.
Speaker 2: Could we not how could we not tell everyone about this?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And yeah, we should be.
Speaker 2: To the point of, you know, the Costy conversation. I
Speaker 2: learned so much from that. He might not have. But
Speaker 2: that's kind of besides the point. I hope that there's
Speaker 2: a seed that's planted in that that German guy wherever
Speaker 2: he is today, maybe listening to this. But but my
Speaker 2: point is that people, all of us listening, as Christians,
Speaker 2: we should engage in these conversations. I think you laid
Speaker 2: out a great way to do it by just asking questions.
Speaker 2: You could ask questions and and it's okay also to
Speaker 2: say you know what, I don't know that, but give me,
Speaker 2: give me tonight and let's talk about this tomorrow, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna I'm gonna look at some stuff. And that's okay too.
Speaker 2: But the more we engage that, the more we want
Speaker 2: to practice apologetics naturally, the better we're going to get.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone's going to get as good as
Speaker 2: you though.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, there's uh, there's a lot of great
Speaker 1: people out there who are presenting the the evidence for Christianity.
Speaker 1: I think quite well. You probably saw Wes Huff on
Speaker 1: Rogan's thing. If you see that, he did great, Yeah
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, Yeah, Wes is young, he's good. His
Speaker 1: colleague Andy Steiger was with him on some recent shows.
Speaker 1: I just said Andy on the podcast too. You got
Speaker 1: Jay Warner, Wallace, Greg Kochel. Of course, John Lennox, nobody
Speaker 1: better than John Lennox. Of course John is an older
Speaker 1: man now, but you just watched. If everyone acted like
Speaker 1: John Lennox, the whole world would be Christianized because you
Speaker 1: can't not love John Lennox.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 1: There By the way, Lennox gives a great illustration about
Speaker 1: Christianity when he says, when I first met my wife Sally,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's this is hypothetical, this is not how
Speaker 1: it went. But he said, when I first met my wife, Sally,
Speaker 1: I gave her a cookbook, and I said, if you
Speaker 1: can cook well for the next forty years, i'll see
Speaker 1: about loving you. Right and and well, he said, well,
Speaker 1: if I had done that, she'd have rightfully thrown that
Speaker 1: cookbook in my face. Right. But why do we treat
Speaker 1: God this way? Why do we think that God has
Speaker 1: given us this cookbook called the Bible, and if we
Speaker 1: obey it well enough, at the end of our life,
Speaker 1: if we've done it well enough, he's going to love us. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not the way it works. God loves us already.
Speaker 1: God came into this space time continuum and took our
Speaker 1: sin upon himself, and he loves us already. We'll obey
Speaker 1: the cookbook that he gives us out of love for
Speaker 1: what he's done, not as a way of earning his
Speaker 1: lover his favor. He already does love us, and so
Speaker 1: he gives us wisdom through this series of books we
Speaker 1: now call the Bible to help us live a life
Speaker 1: and become more like Christ, than to bring other people
Speaker 1: into the kingdom. We're here to know God and to
Speaker 1: make him known. But it's not to earn anything with God.
Speaker 1: It is when we follow his commands. You know, he said,
Speaker 1: if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. When we
Speaker 1: follow his commands, it's a result of the fact that
Speaker 1: he loves us.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: It's not to get him to love us. He already
Speaker 1: does love us. That's why he came to earth.
Speaker 2: That's right. And then we hear Peter after that, who says,
Speaker 2: always be ready to make a defense, which is where
Speaker 2: we get that world apologia. That's where we get that
Speaker 2: root word, always be ready to make a defense for
Speaker 2: the hope that is in you. Yeah, do it with
Speaker 2: gentleness and respect, which I think you also.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to do because they're from New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Forget about it. You do.
Speaker 2: You have yelled a few times, and I think if
Speaker 2: your wife's there, she must be thinking he's in there
Speaker 2: doing a podcast because he's yelling again.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, I yell on podcasts. I don't know
Speaker 1: hell to other people.
Speaker 2: But let me ask you one more thing. You're in
Speaker 2: good shape, man. What are you eating? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm sixty three, but I don't look a day over
Speaker 1: sixty two. In fact, when I turned fifty, my wife said, honey,
Speaker 1: you're going to live to be one hundred. I said,
Speaker 1: how do you know? She said, because you look half
Speaker 1: dead already. Thanks.
Speaker 2: You tuck that shirt in every time you're at a
Speaker 2: college campus or doing you tuck that shirt in. It's
Speaker 2: like washboard abs.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm a runner. I've always been a runner. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't run as much anymore, just because I ran today.
Speaker 1: But I only run like once a week now because
Speaker 1: I got to kill these tendon itis. You know, you
Speaker 1: get old, everything breaks down.
Speaker 2: Is that the old naval aviator in you that still runs?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I before I was in the navy, I
Speaker 1: was a runner because I was just a skinny kid
Speaker 1: and that was the best thing I could do athletically
Speaker 1: was run. So and then I have something called tonal,
Speaker 1: which is a workout thing you put on your wall. Okay,
Speaker 1: I like, use what about you? You're in shape? What
Speaker 1: do you do?
Speaker 2: Uh? Try to eat right as good as I can.
Speaker 2: I try to do strength training. I'm actually not a runner,
Speaker 2: but I will do some kind of cardio in the
Speaker 2: gym and do strength training.
Speaker 1: And I think strength training like what do you do?
Speaker 2: I do isolated muscle groups each day, like Monday's chest day.
Speaker 2: Tuesday is back day.
Speaker 1: Like already in a gym, like a plan of fitness
Speaker 1: kind of thing or what I.
Speaker 2: Have for a lot of years. But I have a
Speaker 2: little something that my wife and I made out in
Speaker 2: the garage.
Speaker 1: No, that's good. So, yeah, that's what you want. I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to travel anywhere. Ours is in
Speaker 1: the house too. Yeah, it's a lot quicker. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when you have an event, speaking of being ready,
Speaker 2: I think that you know, being healthy and trying to
Speaker 2: eat right and like you said, running, I think that
Speaker 2: all affects the way that you you defend the faith.
Speaker 2: So whenever you have an event, say it's a debate
Speaker 2: or or you're doing a Q and A, are you
Speaker 2: thinking about are you drinking coffee before? Or you think
Speaker 2: are you trying to get rest? I mean, is there
Speaker 2: anything that goes through your mind? You do it so well?
Speaker 1: Well, I haven't. I didn't. I don't drink coffee. I
Speaker 1: didn't drink coffee before, you know, and since I've been saved,
Speaker 1: I didn't drink it before I was saved either, So
Speaker 1: it doesn't be in the same thing doesn't matter. I
Speaker 1: just want to sound more spiritual than you. That's all.
Speaker 1: Not a coffee guy, I do like iced tea, but unsweet.
Speaker 1: But no. I mean, look, when you're you know this
Speaker 1: probably better than I do. When you're doing some kind
Speaker 1: of gig, you're not tired. The adrenaline is going, right,
Speaker 1: You're not Yeah, you don't get up there and do
Speaker 1: a set and I don't really want to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of tired, right, I mean, you're you're you're
Speaker 1: probably feeding off the audience, aren't you.
Speaker 2: Sure? But have you thought have you been on there
Speaker 2: before and just thought I am not as sharp as
Speaker 2: I normally?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, that happens. Sure, that happens, especially during the
Speaker 1: Q and A because I've already been up like we
Speaker 1: just did one outside the University of Nebraska last week
Speaker 1: and it the presentation was an hour and forty minutes
Speaker 1: and then there was an hour forty minutes of questions.
Speaker 1: By the time that you know, it's three hours and
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, and I'm like, okay, I'm getting tired. Oh
Speaker 1: that happens. But thankfully, I've tried to stay in shape
Speaker 1: most you know, my life, and thankfully I haven't gotten
Speaker 1: any major injury in order to do that. And I
Speaker 1: think generally if you're carrying extra weight around that's going
Speaker 1: to that's just going to bog you down. It's just
Speaker 1: not You're not going to be able to be as
Speaker 1: sharp as you could be. Sure though, thankfully I haven't
Speaker 1: had the problem with that. I have a high metabolism,
Speaker 1: so I know maybe it may. Other people have a
Speaker 1: slower metabolism, it's harder for them to keep the weight off.
Speaker 1: I just haven't had that problem. But I do work out,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if that's going to change. Hopefully
Speaker 1: it won't. Hopefully I'll be able to maintain not getting heavy. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: America's head. Make America healthy again. RFK.
Speaker 2: We need, we need you. He's right, we need you, Frank,
Speaker 2: we need we need some more books from you. You know,
Speaker 2: we need you to keep cranking that out for us.
Speaker 1: Uh, I'm working. I'm working on a couple right now.
Speaker 2: What do you work what's the thing you're working on?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a book that, uh, colleague of mine, is
Speaker 1: what we're working on, called The War on Reality, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, all the crazy stuff that people try
Speaker 1: and say is true and right when it really isn't
Speaker 1: so very much needed right now, Yes, So we're working
Speaker 1: on that and we're working on an updates to some
Speaker 1: other stuff, so okay, but a lot of the time
Speaker 1: is spent traveling and you know, doing the video work
Speaker 1: on college campuses.
Speaker 2: So which for everybody it's cross examined on YouTube. Uh,
Speaker 2: excellent stuff. Brother, it's such an honor having you on here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Granger. It's an honor to be on.
Speaker 1: So thanks for having me. And uh, I appreciate the
Speaker 1: work you're doing now man. And and you know, you
Speaker 1: had a great career in the music world and now
Speaker 1: you're having a great career in ministry. So you're doing both.
Speaker 1: By the way, I think you can do both at
Speaker 1: the same time, right you can. You can be in
Speaker 1: ministry and in music.
Speaker 2: You certainly can, you seeah speaking you know, hypothetically certainly.
Speaker 2: As far as me personally, we'll see, we'll see. As
Speaker 2: if the Lord H gives me a way back into
Speaker 2: music somehow through worship or you know, that'd be amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, right now, I'm just trying to make more Him
Speaker 2: and less of me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. No, it's good whether
Speaker 1: you're in music or not, because look, there's we actually
Speaker 1: need more apologists maybe ought to become an apologist. We've
Speaker 1: got a lot of music artists out there. We don't
Speaker 1: have enough people going to college campus. As I can
Speaker 1: tell you that.
Speaker 2: You know, when I first started seminary, I first started
Speaker 2: going after an apologetic degree before I changed to m DIF.
Speaker 2: But but I agree, and I think everyone should at
Speaker 2: least study And you know, you could study apologetics by
Speaker 2: watching you. That is a way that anyone listening right now,
Speaker 2: how do I get into apologetics? Go watch Frank Turik.
Speaker 2: Go go to YouTube and watch how you interact and
Speaker 2: how you answered. I don't think there's a question that
Speaker 2: anyone has asked that that someone else watching wouldn't get
Speaker 2: the same question. It would be very common.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the questions today, they're they're all that, they're all
Speaker 1: around morality. Most of them are anyway. So yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: So it's not like you have to know a whole
Speaker 1: ton in order to answer them. And as you said earlier,
Speaker 1: the real challenge is not h are these questions hard?
Speaker 1: The hard thing is answering them in two minutes, which
Speaker 1: you can't do completely. All you can do is kind
Speaker 1: of cover one point briefly and say I recommend you
Speaker 1: go read this book or you. You know, you look
Speaker 1: at this or that or I'm just giving you a
Speaker 1: doorway to an answer, not a complete answer. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: that's the harder thing.
Speaker 2: You ever have any death threats?
Speaker 1: Uh, that's a good question. Probably on the internet. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take those seriously, you know, you know, not
Speaker 1: not not recently. I'm trying to think if back, if
Speaker 1: we have, I kind of just brush them off. If
Speaker 1: someone wants to kill you, they're not going to tell you, right.
Speaker 1: I remember one time backstage I was with I was
Speaker 1: with I was with Hitchens because he was coming out
Speaker 1: against the Muslims pretty strong, and I said, you ever
Speaker 1: get death threats? He goes, Look, if if someone wants
Speaker 1: to kill me, they're not going to tell me.
Speaker 2: It's something good we could learn from Christopher. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You just keep moving forward, you know. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, brother, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time. It means it means
Speaker 2: the world to me.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Granger. Thanks for the work you're doing.
Speaker 1: We'll do this again some point.
Speaker 2: I hope sounds great. I hope. So thanks for joining
Speaker 2: me on the Grangersmith podcast. Asked I appreciate all of
Speaker 2: you guys. You could help me out by rating this
Speaker 2: podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel,
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Speaker 2: you never miss anytime I upload a video.
Speaker 1: Yii