Well, thank you. I'm glad three or four of you
are here. We do miss the ladies who are at the
retreat, but our men in the choir did a good
job today. Thanks, guys, for doing that by yourselves
today. And we certainly pray God's blessing upon
Sword and Suzanne Laurenti, the director, Steve
Jones, our music pastor who's along with them
on this trip, and ask God to use them today in
Arnold. I'm going to ask you to open your Bibles
to Hebrews chapter 11. I want to acknowledge
my family here today. I have a number of my family.
Family, would you stand wherever you are? I can't
see out there very well. All right, some in the
back, some in the front. Lori and Kelly, Mike
and Julie, and Emily, Luke. And my wife, Jeanette.
What's the occasion? Well, I have a birthday
this weekend. And I've got to share with you
what happened Thursday night. I had no idea all
these people were coming to our house. So Thursday
night, I was working out in the yard a little
bit, came in, took my shower. I was sitting there
dressed for bed, basically. And the doorbell
rang. And Jeanette said, well, I'll get it. And
I was happy for her to do that because I wasn't
prepared to go to the door. And I heard her say,
no, we don't want any this time. And I thought,
what child is at the door selling something this
time of night? And then about two seconds later,
a little person came walking into the room where
I was, my granddaughter, Natalie, and she stuck
her head around the corner and she said, happy
birthday, Papa. Wow. Wow, what are you doing
here? It was a great evening. I'll tell you,
it's been a wonderful weekend to have them all
here to share this glum day with me. Well, today
we're going to begin a series on facts or faith.
Faith or facts. Is it reasonable to believe?
In Hebrews chapter 11, we have a definition of
sorts about faith. It says, now faith is being
sure of what we hope for and certain of what
we do not see. In other words, faith deals with
the future beyond our experience and the invisible
that is beyond our senses. It goes on to say,
this is what the ancients, were commended for.
And then those next four words tie together for
this series. By faith, we understand. By faith,
we reason out. We come to an understanding. We
use our minds. And we see that the universe was
formed at God's command so that what is seen
was not made out of what was visible. Faith and
reason are often portrayed and perceived as enemies,
as combatants in a war. This has been especially
true in the West since the Enlightenment and
the Renaissance period. with its exaltation of
humanism and a belief that the material world
is all there is to reality. Over the centuries
since that time, a gulf has been created between
religion, faith, and science or reason. The former,
religion, is often depicted as repressive, whereas
the latter, science or reason, are depicted as
progressive. There are many in our world today
who would agree with these comments from a gentleman
by the name of Don Byerly, who has a Ph .D. in
life sciences. He says, During my undergraduate
and early graduate studies in the natural sciences,
I was cynical about faith and religious people.
I viewed faith as anti -intellectual, an excuse
for a lack of hard knowledge. Science, on the
other hand, dealt with objective truth in the
real world. Religious faith was not truth. It
was personal preference and opinion. The strongest
faith was that which a believer held on to without
any real evidence, indeed in spite of evidence
to the contrary. He goes on to say, furthermore,
I caricatured faith as an emotion. It was a kind
of security blanket for the less informed and
insecure. These people used religion to generate
a false confidence, but I suspected that it was
an illusion. In reality, I thought there was
little substance there. It was my third caricature
that revealed the most about me. I felt that
religious faith was a crutch for weak people.
Have you ever heard people say things like that?
Very common in the day in which we live. We are
now engaged in a great cultural war, in fact,
in our nation. It is often framed as a war between
those who adhere to faith and those who adhere
to reason. The struggle is very visible from
the Terri Schiavo tragedy to the battle over
gay marriage to the fight over the filibuster
rule in the Senate. Senator Frist is being attacked
from liberal quarters because today he is choosing,
as the majority leader of the United States Senate,
to speak to people of faith. And we often hear
that phrase, don't we? People of faith. As though
that is a subcategory of the whole population.
The implication of that phrase, the people of
faith, is this, that there are some people, a
fanatic minority, who are religious in their
worldview and who are to be regarded with fear,
suspicion, and even contempt. They have an agenda,
we are told. They want to impose their beliefs
and their values on the rest of us. Have you
ever heard anything like that? And, of course,
the us refer to those who have laid aside religious
superstition, who are intelligent, who believe
in reason and in science. I hope you are smart
enough to know that that whole framing of the
issue is a fallacy. But it's the common dogma
of the secularists who control the media in our
nation. Greg Kokel is a wonderful Christian and
has a radio broadcast down in the L .A. area.
He says this, I don't like the word faith, not
because faith isn't valuable, but because it's
often deeply misunderstood. Faith in this twisted
sense is what you use when all reason is against
you. It's religious wishful thinking in which
one squeezes out spiritual hope by intense acts
of sheer will. People of faith believe the impossible.
People of faith believe that which is contrary
to fact. People of faith... believe that which
is contrary to evidence. People of faith ignore
reality. Isn't that so often how it's depicted
in our world? Faith indeed is often misunderstood.
Facts are that faith is not the possession of
a few. As we'll see in a moment, faith is universal
among all human beings. Nor is faith feelings
or emotion or sentiment. Faith is not the opposite
or the antithesis of facts. Then what is faith?
What does it mean to believe in a biblical sense?
Well, it's more than merely intellectually accepting
something, as Hebrews 11 makes clear. Faith really
involves three elements. First, it involves knowledge.
Knowledge. It involves the intellect. It involves
knowing something. Secondly, it involves assent
or the acceptance of what you have learned as
fact. And third, it involves a submission or
a dependence upon what you have learned and accepted
as fact. So it's knowledge, it is assent, and
then it is an act of will that chooses to depend
upon those facts. Faith is not the opposite of
facts. It rests upon facts. Faith that is composed
of these three elements leads to tangible, visible,
observable life change. Actions in the life.
It cannot be separated from the deeds of the
life. It produces change. It works itself out.
And so Abel believed. And therefore he offered
a proper sacrifice to God. Enoch believed, and
so he walked with God. And Noah believed, and
so he built a boat, an ark. And Abraham believed,
and so he left Ur, the Chaldees, and he went
off to the land that God promised him. He lived
in tents. He believed God, and he fathered Isaac
in his old age. And then after that, he offered
up Isaac as a sacrifice because he believed.
You see, real faith always leads to action in
the life. I want to talk about faith and facts.
And today, to think about this question, is it
a reasonable thing to believe? I have some statements
I want to make. The first one is this, and I've
alluded to it already, that everybody believes
in something. Everybody has some fundamental
idea or assumption or hypothesis that they live
out in their lives. Even an atheist. lives with
a certain presupposition, and that is that there
is no God. And my friend, that is a statement
of faith. That is a statement of faith because
it cannot be demonstrated that there is no God.
When an atheist says, I do not accept the notion
of a God, that is faith at work in his life.
Everybody believes something. Faith is a God
-given peculiarity of all human beings. It is
as human to believe and to have faith as it is
to think and to reason. Now, does that mean that
all faith is equally valid? No, of course it
does not. You see, the validity of what a person
believes depends upon the object of his faith.
You say, well, he's sincere about it. It doesn't
make any difference. A person may sincerely believe
that he can fly. I mean, he can have the deepest
faith possible in that notion that he can fly,
but if he tries it, he's going to find that his
faith is not valid. A person can believe that
he or she is healthy and truly believe that and
the next day find that that faith is not valid
because they may be dying of something. A person
may believe the Book of Mormon is the supernatural
translation of tablets with Egyptian hieroglyphics.
and that this writing was revealed by Moroni,
an angel, to Joseph Smith. You can honestly,
deeply, sincerely believe that. But is that faith
valid? Do the facts back up that faith? A person
may believe that humans originated out of primordial
slime and really honestly believe that. and that
he is the result of the selection of the fittest
over eons of time. You can honestly, sincerely
believe that, but do the facts back it up? A
person may believe that he will be like God if
he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. And Eve believed that. Did the facts
back it up? No. My point today in this first
part of my message is that all people are people
of faith. This whole notion that people of faith
are the weird minority in our nation is absolutely
fallacious because all people are people of faith.
All people. But not all faith is equally valid
or correct. The second statement I want to make
is this. Everyone is capable of reason. Everybody
can believe and does believe something. And secondly,
everyone is capable of reason. That is God's
gift. Some well -intentioned Christians have
said that Christians should avoid reason and
avoid developing the intellect. That is absolutely
wrong. You see, we have that capacity given to
us by God. It's a part of the image of God in
us, in every healthy human being. He provides
us with the capacity to think and to analyze
and to come to conclusions. For example, David
says in Psalm 8, when I consider the heavens,
the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars
which you've set in place. You see what David
is saying there? I'm thinking about this. I look
around in nature, and I am thinking, I am reasoning
out, and my conclusion is, God, what is man that
you're mindful of him in light of all this glory
that I see? God said through Isaiah the prophet,
I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia,
the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in
the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know, may consider
and understand that the hand of the Lord has
done this. God wants us to think and to consider.
Jesus said to a crowd one day, consider the ravens.
Think about them. He says, put your mind into
motion. They do not sow or reap. They have no
storeroom or barn, yet God feeds them. How much
more valuable are you than birds? He says, think
about that. Civilization and human progress have
been built upon man's ability to be logical.
to consider, to reject what is obviously false
and to accept what is deemed to be true. That
ability is God's gift to man so that man can
fulfill his stewardship and rule in God's creation.
Everyone is capable of reason. Some people think
that to become a Christian you have to turn off
your brain. But nothing is further from the truth
than that. Indeed, we dare not turn off our brains.
God has given us brains to work with, not to
play with. A Christian must be committed above
everyone to the development of his intellect,
to true science. to the exploration of nature
and of ideas. No Christian needs to fear or to
be intimidated by honest human reasoning in the
sciences. There's nothing to fear there. British
clergyman and author John Stott writes, Don't
neglect your critical faculties. Remember that
God is a rational God who has made us in His
own image. God invites and expects us to explore
His double revelation in nature and Scripture
with the minds He has given us and to go on in
the development of a Christian mind to apply
His marvelous revealed truth to every aspect
of the modern and postmodern world. If you are
in school, I want to encourage you, go as far
as you can. And develop that mind that God has
given to you. By faith, understand. By faith,
understand. In our day, it's more common for
us to be involved in amusement than it is to
be involved in education. Have you ever thought
about the word amusement? What does it mean to
muse? To think, exactly. You put an A in front
of it, and what does that do? That negates it.
It's the opposite of thinking. And what's the
opposite of thinking? It's video games. It's
the opposite of thinking. Parents, you need to
limit the time your children play on video games.
Oh, there's a place to have fun, and all of us
need recreation, even for the mind. But let us
not get caught up into this silly amusement.
Amusement that is so characteristic of our age.
That's the opposite of what God wants us to do.
He's given us the ability to reason and He wants
us to use our minds. Now the third statement
is this, that reason has its limits. Human intellect
is great, but it's finite. It has restrictions.
So human reasoning cannot arrive at all of the
answers on its own. There are some things that
cannot be known or discovered, even by the most
brilliant scholars, researchers, theoreticians,
scientists, theologians. You see, rational thought
is based upon what we know, what we experience,
what we've observed. And there is a fundamental
truth that we all run into. Nobody knows everything.
Not even your mother. Nobody knows everything.
There are some things that we do not know and
we cannot know because they are infinite. They
are divine. It is in this whole realm. That we
depend upon God to show us those mysterious things
that He reserves for His realm. But then He reveals
them to us through His Word. Just because something
cannot be fully known, however, does not mean
it's unreasonable to believe things about it.
For example, I do not know everything that is
in the ocean. I don't. I know there's water there.
That's a good place to start. I know there are
fish, and there are shell creatures, and there's
seaweed. I could go down a list here today and
talk about the things that are in the ocean,
but I don't know everything in the ocean. Yet
it's still reasonable, isn't it, for me to believe
that no humans can naturally live there? I can
come to that conclusion, I think. I don't know
everything about the ocean, but there are things
I can believe about it. Let's talk to our friend,
an atheist, who says, well, I have no rational
basis for believing that there is a God. Well,
friend atheist, let me ask you a question. Do
you know everything there is to know? And if
he's honest, he'll have to say, no, I don't.
And so my reply to him is, well, if you don't
know everything, then how can you reasonably
argue that there is no God out there and all
of that stuff you don't know? That's why in Proverbs,
excuse me, Psalm 14, 1, it says, the fool says
in his heart, there is no God. You can't reasonably
say that. Human reasoning is a marvelous gift,
but it is not infallible and it is not infinite.
Human reasoning can make mistakes. Logic can
fail you. You may follow this little bit of syllogism
that says, oak trees are strong. I am strong.
Therefore, I am an oak tree. Oops. There's some
logic that's wrong there. Reasoning is also not
infinite. It is limited. You see, reasoning can
only take you to a certain point of conclusion
beyond which you cannot go. Reason is bound by
the depraved and darkened mind of fallen man.
There were three old men who went to the doctor
for a memory test. The doctor said to the first
old man, What is 1 plus 1? 274, he replied. The
doctor said to the second man, it's your turn.
What is one plus one? Tuesday, he said. The doctor
said to the third man, okay, sir, it's your turn.
What is one plus one? Two, said the third man.
That's great, said the doctor. How did you get
that? Simple, said the third man. I subtracted
274 from Tuesday. Sometimes you can come to the
right conclusions, but your reasoning is wrong.
You see, reason has limits. It's fallible. It's
finite. The fourth statement I want to make is
that reason and faith work together. In fact,
reason and faith cannot be separated if it's
biblical faith. Faith and the ability to reason
are not enemies. They are allies. Pope John Paul
II wrote to the cardinals, or the bishops, rather,
of his church in 1998, and he said, Faith and
reason are like two wings on which the human
spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. Two
wings of a bird. Reason can serve faith in a
couple of different ways. In the first place,
it can provide a basis for faith. Look at the
creation around us. That's what David did in
Psalm 8. He says, I reason to myself when I look
at the heavens and this is my conclusion. He
says, God, you exist and what is man that you're
mindful of him? We are not you, God. We're small
compared to you. And then reason can also reveal
an invalid faith. For anyone who looks seriously
at the Book of Mormon has to come to the conclusion
that this book is so obviously flawed and full
of errors that I need to reconsider that I'm
basing my faith upon this. Reason can serve faith.
The final thing I want to say is this, that faith
surpasses reason. I said to you that reason can
take you so far on your journey and then it must
stop. Faith carries you forward when reason has
reached its limits. Abraham was told to offer
up his son Isaac, the son of promise. Does that
seem reasonable to you? God had said to Abraham,
it is through this boy's generations that I will
fulfill my promise to you. And now God says,
I want you to slay your son. That seems highly
unreasonable to me. Does it to you that God would
tell him to do that? And yet Abraham went beyond
his reason by faith. And he concluded, by faith,
God must be going to raise him from the dead.
That's the only thing I can see. Because I know
God, and God has given me a promise. And that
promise must be fulfilled in this son he wants
me to kill. And so, in a figure, he offered up
Isaac to God. His faith prompted him to act.
Noah was told to build a boat in the middle of
a plain. And by the way, the weather report had
never said storms tomorrow. It had never rained.
And yet God said, build a boat here in the middle
of this plain. Does that seem reasonable to you?
It didn't seem very reasonable to those neighbors
of Noah who came by and mocked him and jeered
at him and ridiculed him. What a stupid thing
to do, Noah, to waste your time building this
boat. You can't even drag it over here to the
river or to the sea. It's unreasonable, Noah.
But Noah believed God. God said, this is going
to happen and you'd better do this. And so Noah,
by faith, built the boat. The people of Israel
under Joshua marched around Jericho seven days,
and on the seventh day they marched around it
seven times. God, what is this? We're to march
around this city and blow trumpets? Does that
really seem like a reasonable battle plan to
you, God? God said, do what I tell you to do.
Go beyond what you can reason. And believe my
promise. And so they did it and the walls of
Jericho came down. Do you see my point? Faith
grasps what reason cannot grasp. Because faith
is based upon God's word, God's revelation. And
God's revelation always, always, always trumps
human reason. Always. Do you remember that game
you may have played as a child called scissors,
paper, rock? You beat up another person's arm
through that or had your arm black and blue because
of scissors, paper, rock. Paper covers what?
But scissors cut paper. You see, one or the other
always trumps. And I will tell you that God's
Word always trumps human reason. And secondly,
faith produces what reason cannot produce. Why?
Because it is based upon God's work. Reason deals
with the natural realm, but faith taps into the
supernatural realm. And so it always surpasses
reason. And my conclusion today for you is this,
that it is reasonable to believe. It is reasonable
to believe. If what you believe is demonstrably
true, absolutely that is the case. In fact, I
would say to you that it's unreasonable not to
believe what is true. That's insanity. That is
irrational. Now, should I believe that there
was a big bad wolf that was mean to three little
pigs one day? Should I believe that? Well, it's
in a book, but it's a fairy tale. Should I believe
that two plus two equals five? Or Wednesday or
Thursday? No. That's demonstrably not true. To
believe that is irrational. Should I believe
that the raising of temperature of water to 100
degrees centigrade of standard pressure will
produce ice crystals? Probably not. Just the
opposite. Should I believe that taxes will decrease?
Is that demonstrably true anywhere? Should I
believe that a leopard can change its spots or
a... that a camel can contort to go through the
eye of a needle. On the other hand, should I
believe that there is a God? Is that a reasonable
thing for me to believe? I think it is, and we're
going to talk about that next week. But you say,
what if something cannot be demonstrated with
evidence? Well, there are things like that. For
example, can it be demonstrated that God came
into the world of time and space himself? You
can't put that in a test tube. You can't demonstrate
it in that way, at least. Is it reasonable to
believe that a man rose from the dead to immortality?
Can you demonstrate that? No, you can't really
demonstrate it. That's why I want to say this.
It is still reasonable to believe if what you're
placing your faith on, what you believe, is a
trustworthy source. Even if something cannot
be demonstrated reasonably, it is still reasonable
to believe if what you believe comes from a source
that you can trust. And so you have to ask yourself,
is what I believe valid as fact? Is it trustworthy?
Is the source of my faith valid? If the source
of your faith is the Bible, I want to tell you
that it is absolutely trustworthy for your faith.
You may not be able to demonstrate to the satisfaction
of your reason or somebody else's reason that
something is true. But my friend, if God says
it, that settles it. We're going to talk about
that too in coming weeks. How do we know we can
trust the Bible? You say, well, you know what?
I do believe all of this, but I still struggle
with doubt. Let me say to you that that is normal.
That is normal, and it's especially normal as
part of the process of growing up. And owning
your own faith? All of our children went through
periods of doubt. As your children grow up, they
will doubt things that you have taught them or
that they've learned in church. That's healthy.
Because that's part of the process of them thinking
about it. And then coming to the place by God's
grace and through your prayers where they own
it for themselves. A person who never doubts
never thinks. Someone has said, faith is not
the absence of doubt, it is a decision based
on the evidence at hand. John Milton, the famous
English writer, said, a man may be a heretic
in the truth if he believes things only because
his pastor says so. or the assembly so determines,
without knowing other reason. Though his belief
be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes
his heresy. What is Milton saying? You have to
own it for yourself. The bottom line is that
you are either a person of faith, whoever you
are, you are rather a person of faith, whoever
you are, and the real question is, is your faith
valid? Is it valid? In Corinthians it says, examine
yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
Does your faith rest upon what is certain and
true? Is it reasonable? And if it can't be demonstrated
as reasonable, does it come to you from a source
that you can trust? If the answer is yes, then
your faith is a legitimate faith. You can know
the facts and you can accept them as true. and
you can base your life upon them as an act of
your will and go forward and live it out and
act it out for God in this world. God has given
enough reason in this world to make faith a most
reasonable thing, but he has left out enough
to make it impossible to live by reason alone.
Would you pray together with me, please? Father,
my prayer today is that you will enable us to
each own our faith and to not be afraid of thinking.
And when we face doubts as a healthy spiritual
process in our lives, to go through that process
of exploration and discovery and thinking. Until
we have settled the issue, I thank you for the
young men and women of this church who are growing
up in a difficult day. I pray for them that as
they encounter unbelief and people of faith of
other persuasions, that you will grant to them
by your grace to persevere. and to become fully
grown, mature men and women of the faith. And
help all of us who live in this world that is
so twisted in its understanding of what faith
really is and who lives by faith. Help all of
us to think correctly and to persevere and to
be your people and to not be confused or deceived
or led astray by the foolishness of man. but
like those people of Hebrews 11, to find approval
because we have indeed lived by faith. In Jesus'
name, amen.