Be Ready to Give an Answer

But as I mentioned, we get the Kingdom of God seminars coming up, and we're hoping to have a lot of people come visit us, and that could put us in the situation of having people who only know a little bit of our beliefs start asking us questions. And I first started thinking along the lines of the sermon because I've talked to several of you who have had that type of thing come up. So I'd like to begin by imagining a couple of different sequences where someone might ask you about that. Let's say in the first case that, say, you're at work and there's a woman you work with, and she notices that every year you never attend the annual Christmas party. So she asks you, why don't you come to the party? Don't you celebrate Christmas? Well, you explain then that modern Christmas traditions are not biblical, and instead you keep Holy Days commanded in the Bible. She's very interested. She listens silently for a long time as you eloquently explain the entire plan of God. At that point she says, would it be okay for me to come and attend your church? She adds that she read in the Bible somewhere that people should tithe, so she thinks she would like to begin tithing to your church, since you've explained so well and it's obvious that this must be the true church. Moreover, she wants you to be her personal mentor as she continues to learn about God's way of life. Now that's what we all dream of. More often it goes something like this. Say you're at a family reunion and one of your nephews, one of the more annoying nephews, corners you just after you've taken a huge bite of potato salad.

He says, hey, you're the one who's part of a cult, aren't you? And you answer, yeah, I heard you believe you have to obey all the Old Testament law in order to go to heaven. Haven't you read Galatians 3.10? Jesus nailed the law of the cross. What does Colossians 2.14 say? You struggle to swallow if they give... I don't know what Colossians 2.14 says. And you say, no, we don't believe we're saved by obeying the law, but before you can finish this sentence, he interrupts, saying, but you go to church on Saturdays, don't you just like the Jews?

You try to get a word in, but he shouts to a couple of his cousins, hey, Joe over here doesn't believe in Jesus. Can you believe that? You try to explain that you do believe in Jesus. He says, well, then you know we're freed from the law. Don't you know that? We're free from the law. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Now, I hope you've never been through an encounter quite like that, but I get the feeling more of you have been through experiences closer to that than the first one.

Now, we wish we could have those type of experiences, but more often it's not that way. But we do need to be ready to give some type of answer. Let's go to 1 Peter 3.15. I hope some of you were already thinking of this Scripture. It's one we cite often, and I'm going to spend some time here, so let's read it first. 1 Peter 3.15 says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense.

Or some of you might be reading the Old King James, where it says, always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So we want to be ready to give an answer, to give an explanation. But He doesn't tell us how. You know? He doesn't tell us how do you do that, how do you get ready.

He also doesn't mention the fact that there are a lot of different ways people might ask, different people in different situations. Besides telling you, you know, meekness and fear, the question could come up. You know, how am I going to do this?

And keep in mind that with all those different ways questions might come up, of course, you could come away from an experience where you tried to give a good, thorough answer, but you don't always feel the same about it.

You know, how much do you answer? And as I was preparing, it reminded me of an old joke, and I've heard several ministers say this, but I just couldn't, or tell this one, I couldn't help think of it. It's the one about, say, a rural pastor, you know, out in, say, Iowa somewhere. And it's this time of year, and they get a boatload of snow. It just snows everyone in, but he's loyal and dedicated, so Sunday morning he digs his way out, and he makes his way to the little white church, and he finds there in the front pew one farmer, there in his best Sunday go to meet and overalls.

The farmer's a little, he was wondering, well, he said, do you want to go on with services? The farmer says, well, you know, if I went out to feed my cows in the morning, and only one cow showed up, I'd still feed that one cow. The pastor's encouraged, so he launches in and gives him a full two hours and fifteen minutes of the sermon.

Later on, they're sharing a cup of coffee, and the pastor says, well, what did you think of the sermon? The farmer says, if I went out to feed my cows in the morning, and only one of them showed up, I would feed that one, but I wouldn't give all of the hay to that one. And there's where I think, you know, that first scenario I painted, you know, despite how wonderful that sounds, if a coworker asks you why you don't show up on Saturdays, you're probably not going to go through all of Leviticus 23 and explain God's plan of salvation and then continue on with all the end-time prophecies.

But at the same time, if someone does ask you, you know, about it, and you say, well, the Bible teaches that the seventh day is the Sabbath, well, they might ask you, where does it say that? Or is that really in the Bible? You do want to have enough scripture to be able to say, I didn't just make it up out of my head.

Perhaps you could describe a little bit of the creation story, where God remade the earth, of course, and rested on the seventh day and sanctified it. You know, if you don't say enough, as opposed to giving all the hay to one cow, if you don't give anything to someone, then you might walk away feeling bad and they might think, well, does this guy really know anything about his Bible? So we need to be ready to give an answer.

But that still comes back to the question, how do we get ready? Do you have to make yourself a scholar of Greek and Hebrew? Do you have to memorize the Bible? Now, what do you do? Well, let's get into this a little bit.

Let's look back at Hebrews, 1 Peter 3.15. Let's look at what it says one more time. And before I read that, though, I'll remind us that, of course, we know Jesus gave the church the commission of preaching the gospel. And as a church together, we strive to do that. We put a television show on the air and broadcast it through the Internet.

We have two, yeah, now two magazines, keep track, you know, various websites, and we support that. We pray for its success. We send in tithes. But, of course, as the old saying goes, we want to do more than pray and pay. And there's where we look, you know, we look for various things we can do, including the seminars coming up next week. But 1 Peter 3.15 gives us one of the best examples.

How do we help preach the gospel? Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. That can be your opportunity to personally preach the gospel in a little way to one or two people directly. It's not praying for someone else's success. Boy, that should go in the back of the spokesman's club manual. So what does it say here? There's a lot. Let's start with sanctifying God in your heart. You know, until I was working on this sermon, I never really picked up on that. I always think of the be ready to give an answer.

But sanctify means set apart for a holy purpose. Sanctify God in your heart. Well, God is already holy. There's nothing we can do to make Him more holy. But is He set apart in your heart? That is, is He set apart in your mind? The reason I stress this is we know that God and His way of life are important to us. But is it different from everything else in your life? Just think, for many of you, you have a job and that's important. You have family, and that's even more important. You have hobbies, you have friends, lots of things in your life. But when it says sanctify God in your heart, that's a way of saying He's not just another thing.

He is THE thing, the most important thing. The reason I stress this, and maybe the reason Peter put it at the beginning of this verse, is that if we know that God is set apart as the most important thing, it'll keep our priorities straight. And as we go into giving an answer, it might help us have everything in the best perspective possible. Are you more worried about sanctifying God or coming across things smooth and suave as you give that answer? Hopefully, you're not thinking about being smooth and suave, you might be thinking about the answer. So let's go on to the next part.

Be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks a reason. I'm wondering, that's the New King James Version. I ask this question all the time, I should just memorize who's carrying the Old King James. Because I'm used to that. The Old King James says, be ready to give an answer. Am I correct? I'm curious, I don't know if anybody has a different translation that says something even different than that.

But both of those are good. Either way, whether they translate it, defend or answer, or some other word, it comes from the Greek word apologia. Apologia. Now, this is the root word for our English word apology. But it doesn't mean apology in the way that we usually use it. It doesn't mean saying you're sorry, and in no way expressing regret. It really fits an older definition of apology that we don't use in English much anymore. Which means giving a reasoned explanation, and even defense of your position or thought.

And that's what Peter is saying we need to be ready to do. Give a reasonable explanation. That means saying more than, well, it's because I said so. Now, in not every case, well, it'd be a lot more. We'll go into that later. But the word defense fits with me. I was comfortable with that because anybody who earns a graduate degree, in most fields, has to write a thesis or a dissertation. And then you give the defense of that. In my case, when I was at Texas A&M, I wrote my 300-some-page dissertation on the development of propaganda techniques in the Boston newspapers at the beginning of the French and Indian War.

And if any of you are just dying to read that, let me know. But after I wrote this tome of all these quotes and explanations, I had to sit before a panel of PhD scholars and let them ask me questions about my research. Why did you choose this source? What about this conclusion? And I had to answer how I did my research and why. I even had one professor who thought I hadn't used enough sources in a particular area, so I had to explain to him which sources I used and why I thought they were adequate.

And most of you will never have to do that. You don't have to discuss 18th-century warfare or, better yet, 18th-century newspapers, although they're fascinating. But you do need to be ready to give a defense of the hope that is in you.

Now, the reason explanation, I hope you can see, that there's... that's just thinking through and giving that answer. But I wanted to put a stress on the hope that is in you. Be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. Now, he said to everyone, I want to come back to that point in a moment.

There we go. But why does he say the hope that is within you? He doesn't say you have to give a defense of the entire Scripture. We hope we know it, but I think it's important to focus on that word hope. To think about how we want to put our information together. Now, when we use the word hope in modern English, we often use it saying something like, well, I hope it doesn't rain today. Or, let's hope for the best. We use it in the same way we would use the term wish.

You know, I wish it wouldn't rain today. But that's not what Peter really means here. Peter's using the Greek word, l-peace. And I didn't mean to make this a Greek lesson, but we would spell it e-l-p-i-s, although he spelled it with Greek letters. But it doesn't mean a wish, it means a confident expectation. It's what you know is going to happen. That's what's out there. And it's your hope, it's your goal that you fully expect to attain. And the concept is very closely related to faith. And that's why faith, hope, and charity are all bound up together. It's important for us to remember our hope. What is the hope that's within you? Our hope is eternal life and God's kingdom.

That's the hope that's within you. We believe in it. We know what's going to happen, and we strive for it to happen to us. So let's consider two separate factors in this. First, our hope of being born into God's kingdom is a fundamental belief.

That means other things that we believe and do are based on that, not the other way around. What I mean by that is our hope is not that we don't eat pork. Now, I hope you don't eat pork. You see how I'm using that word in the other way? But that's not our fundamental belief. We don't eat pork, and we keep the seven-day Sabbath.

Our hope isn't the seven-day Sabbath, but we obey God's law in those ways because we're striving to worship God and we have that expectation of being born into his family. Now, I'm making this distinction because a lot of times people will notice and ask you about things that aren't fundamental.

They are important to do, but they're based on other beliefs. So if you know when people ask that, try not to spend all your time talking about why you do or don't eat pork. If you can steer the conversation to the most important things, you'll be giving an answer of the hope that is in you and not of something that's, you know, not unimportant, but that's based on something else.

Now, the second point I wanted to make on this is, notice he said, be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks a reason of the hope that is in you. Now, I'm not emphasizing this to say it's in you and the Spirit is moving you, but you need to be ready to explain why you believe. Why are you convinced of whatever it is they're asking?

Now, I say that not to put you on the spot, but because you don't have to be prepared to give the fullest theological explanation that anyone could ever have. You don't have to do some deep, scriptural exegesis.

I only said that so I could throw in the word exegesis. But you can give an answer that you're comfortable with. Why do you believe this? You don't have to convince them, but, you know, the level of proof that you need might not be the same as the Doctorateal Committee for the Council of Elders meeting in Cincinnati. They've got to cover all of it. You've only got to say, well, this is why I believe it.

Let me give you an example. In my previous employment, it would be common every November for people to come in with those stickers saying, I voted, and I don't know how many times they say, well, did you vote yet? No, I didn't vote yet. Well, are you going to go vote after work? No, I'm not going to vote. I don't vote. Well, why don't you vote? Now, I could have gone into an explanation of, you know, our kingdom is not of this world, my citizenship is in heaven. Jesus told the pilot that if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. But one of the things I settled in that I found satisfied me and often satisfied them, as I would say, I'm a conscientious objector.

Because of religious beliefs, I won't fight for my country. Therefore, I'm not comfortable with taking the privilege of voting. Now, that doesn't mean I don't believe in the other things, but that was the reason that comes to the forefront for me on that particular issue. You might get a question, why don't you have pepperoni on your pizza? Now, when you want to get into discussion of pork, you could turn to Leviticus 11 and talk about cheweth the cud and parteth the hoof.

And you could go to Acts 10 and talk about Cornelius and the sheep. Or you could say, I don't believe God made some animals to be eaten, and have you ever seen a pig's die and smelled one? Ew! Most people will say, okay, I'm satisfied with that.

Now, please keep in mind, I'm not trying to trivialize the deeper scriptural explanation, but as far as giving an answer for the hope that's in you, you know, I fully believe God didn't make some pigs to be eaten. I don't think He made any pigs to be eaten. I got in the habit of hurrying this morning at Fort Pressensburg. I was trying to get done in time to rush up here. But as I was thinking of this, I thought of a bumper sticker. And ministers love to use bumper stickers, but I actually saw this one on the back of a car, and it said simply this. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. And I like that. God said it, I believe it. That settles it. That's one of the best ways to think about giving an explanation of the hope that lies in you. God said it. Now, you don't have to quote every single place God said it. Think of it. We could give lots of explanation for why we don't believe that we have an immortal soul. But I usually just cite Romans 6.23. The wages of sin is death. Not eternal life and hellfire, because we don't have an immortal soul that lives forever. But the gift of God is eternal life. We're only going to have more life if God gives it to us.

Sort of as I said. God said it, and I believe it. I don't have to get into a deep explanation of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Although sometimes that's fun. I think I might do that in four long. But that's not what I want to get into when someone asks me about heaven and hell. I could simply quote a couple of things. Notice Peter. This isn't my day. Peter said, give an explanation of the hope that's in you. He didn't say you have to convince the other person to accept and believe the hope that's in you. Just give your explanation. And if they want to argue further, that's a whole different matter. But you don't have to assume the job responsibility of God the Father. Remember, John 6.44 says, Jesus said, none can come to me except the Father draw him. We hope. You hope like that first scenario. Someone asked you, and they're like, wow, this is great. Tell me more. I want to come to church with you. I want to get baptized. That'd be wonderful to be the person that starts that off. And some of us have had that privilege. Some of us might in the future. But 1 Peter 3.15 says, be ready to give it an explanation. And God can decide whether or not he's calling someone. But let's consider, though, we're instructed to be ready to give that defense to everyone who asks you. Be ready to give explanation to everyone who asks. But do we answer everyone the same way? Well, part of the way to get an answer to that, let's turn to the book of Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26, and we'll begin in verse 4. Here are a pair of scriptures that might seem to contradict each other, but really, they show that how we respond to a person can differ according to the circumstances and the attitude of the person asking. Proverbs 26 and verse 4 says, do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Don't sink down to his level and get caught up in silly argument about stupid things. So don't answer a fool. But in verse 5 it says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Sometimes you need to ignore a fool, but sometimes you need to put him in his place. Notice, though, in both cases we're talking about dealing with a fool. Not everyone who asks you a question about your beliefs will be a fool. Some will be respectful, or at least genuinely curious in seeking understanding. You'll deal with them in an entirely different way. The fools you can cut some up, and by the way, I'm not meaning to put people down calling them a fool, just quoting from Solomon there, but someone who's not that serious, you might hopefully, you'll quickly discern that and decide how to deal with them.

Now, I don't have perfect guidelines to tell you how. I wish, you know, I could pull out of my pocket, this is how to answer these questions, but I've got some guidelines that I think you'll find useful. One of the first ones, and the one that I think I always try to consider first, when someone's asking the question, why are they asking? Now, you might say, well, obviously, they're asking this because they want an answer, but people could ask a question for a lot of different reasons. So many that I wrote up a list of them here. Let's say a person might be asking you, why don't you come to work on Saturdays?

And say it's a job where sometimes people come in on Saturdays or a certain time of year, it's real busy, I'm sure you're familiar with that, but how many different reasons might someone be asking? Think of this, it could be a co-worker who's considering inviting you to a party on Saturday, but doesn't want to offend you. So if you explain, well, we believe the Bible teaches the seventh day as a Sabbath, and we don't work, and we don't engage in recreational activities, then the light comes up, oh, don't bother inviting him to the party.

And they say, oh, never mind then, have a nice, what do you call it, Sabbath. A different co-worker might wonder if you have religious reasons for not coming into the office on Saturdays, or are you really a very devoted college football fan? You know, and he wants to talk about, you know, the bedding pool or something like that. Well, you give the answer, you know, once again, religious belief, we don't do this, it's always, oh, it's religion, never mind then. You know, you could have someone asking because they notice that you're never there on weekends, and they'd love to find out what your excuse is because they don't want to work on weekends.

When you hear, when you give them the explanation that includes, you know, we keep the Sabbath as holy time, we go to church services, and, oh, you got to go to church? No, no thanks, that's all I need to hear. You know, what is the reason it's coming from? Now, all those come fairly quickly. What if you've got an antagonistic family member who wants to start an argument about religion? Now, often you can pick up on that pretty quickly. Or maybe not just wanting to argue, but wanting to save your soul from burning in hell forever.

This person probably really wants you to start quoting Scripture so that he can yank out the three or four that he's memorized, and you can have a good old-fashioned knockdown drag out. Now, this is a case where you don't want to keep silent. Remember, sometimes you have to answer a fool according to his folly, lest he seem wise.

But you also don't want to think that you've been brainwashed and don't know anything. But it'll also be pointless to try to convince him of what you believe. Remember John 644? So you need to cite the Bible enough. You might give a couple of references. You might cite, as I said, Genesis 1 and 2, the Creation Week. And of course, Matthew 5, 17, where you could say, Christ said he didn't come to destroy the law.

But without turning to very many Scriptures, you can also say, when he cites a lot of Scriptures, yeah, I've read all those. I do know, and I've read the whole Bible, I'm convinced that we should keep the Sabbath. I see where Jesus' disciples continued keeping it after he was crucified, and from my reading, it seems that we should continue.

Now, you don't have to convince this person, but you do need to explain that you're convinced, and because it's based on the Bible. He might cite several other Scriptures that have been misunderstood. Don't feel bad if you don't have the whole Bible memorized. That's why, in my opening scenario, I threw out those Scriptures.

How many times have you... I've had that lots of times. Don't you know what such and such says? Well, to be honest, I have no idea what such and such says.

I'm sure I've read it, because I've read them all, but I don't... even as a pastor, I don't have them all memorized. Boy, that'd be handy. So I expect a lot of you won't, but you could say, yeah, I've read it. I know, I've put it all together, nothing slipped by me. And one more possible reason someone could be asking, you could have a neighbor who notices you go to church on Saturdays, and he wants to label you as Jewish, and then criticize you for it.

A good reply might be, after you explain once again the Scriptures and why Jesus' disciples continued keeping it, if he wants to be racist and call you Jewish, you could point out that you're not Jewish, but Jesus was. And so were all of his twelve apostles. At that point, he'll probably just say, hmm, and stomp off.

Let's go back... well, we're in Proverbs. Let's go to chapter 20. Proverbs 20 and verse 3. Once again, we've been analyzing, as I said, it's important to think about why are they asking what's their attitude before you answer.

But then, keep this in mind when you do start to answer. Proverbs 20 and verse 3. It is honorable for a man to stop striving, since any fool can start a quarrel. Isn't that true? Any fool can try to start an argument, and they usually like to keep him going. It's honorable to try to squelch the argument. Don't keep it going. Let's go to Proverbs chapter 9 also. Proverbs 9 and verse 8.

Notice these are about how to answer. They're not saying what to say.

Proverbs 9 and verse 8. Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you. Someone who just wants to pick that argument, who wants to argue. Don't bother with that. Don't get drawn down. Let him know that you're confident with your beliefs and where they come from. But don't get into that.

But rebuke a wise man, and he'll love you. Someone who is looking for understanding will be happy to have you show the correct teaching from the Bible. And if we go on a little further in verse 9, give instruction to a wise man, and he'll be still wiser. Teach a just man, and he'll increase in learning. I've been pointing out a lot of the negative opportunities, but let's not forget there could be somebody who's watched your way of life and said, This person's got something going on.

Look, their family is happy. They seem to be being blessed. I'd like to know about that. So be ready to discern if someone is genuinely interested in what is it that makes your life happy. Or even they might just say, Boy, this person's going through trials and tests, but they still seem to have some kind of hope. They're looking forward to something. They're not gloom and doom. If someone wants to know, then you can really give instruction to someone who's coming from a right attitude.

Now, as I said, I've been discussing more of how to answer attitude. But let's think a little bit more about what, because you can't give any type of explanation unless you have some information. Now, we've been noting before that which information you give will be based largely on the attitude of the person who asks.

So before you launch into information, let's turn to Proverbs 18. Proverbs 18, verse 13. I was debating whether to put the Scripture in the point. I was just finishing or start of this one, but I figured they're right beside each other. If your notes are disorganized like mine, it'll come out the same. Think of this as you're about to open your mouth to answer this question.

He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him. Listen to the question and perceive what it's based on, and then you can start giving an answer. Sometimes the answer might be, well, this is my religious belief. Or I believe the Bible teaches that pigs aren't meant for food. What gets more complicated is when they say, well, why is this your religious belief? Or where in the Bible does it teach something like that?

Well, that's when suddenly you might be stymied. Well, okay, I know it's in the Bible somewhere, but where is it? You know, in the ideal world, we know all these doctrines very thoroughly, and we have a lot of scriptures memorized, and we could eloquently explain the particulars of every single doctrine in any random order, right? I must have said this, so I gave a lot of chuckles when I said that in Preston's Burg. They were knowing. And I thought, really, who can do that? My random access memory is pitiful.

And I'm not talking about my hard drive on my computer, I'm talking about this one. I'm really good if I start at the beginning of a story, I can take you all the way through, but if someone asks me a point from two-thirds in, I'm like, oh, wait a minute, I've got to go back near the beginning of the story and then get to that fact. So if you're like me, it's hard to just pull them all out from just anywhere. So one of the things I like to focus on is some of the fundamental things. Remember, I said we want to talk about the hope that's in us.

If we've got a firm understanding of our most fundamental beliefs, it's easier to say, okay, those other things are based on this. So I picked out the first, what I consider my first five. And I'm specifically saying my first five because there's not a list in the Bible, and our literature stresses some sometimes and some another. But what are, for you, your most fundamental beliefs? My first one is that we believe in a Creator God. We believe in a Creator God. He made everything and He's acted.

Now, that might seem simple, but think of this. If someone wants to argue with you about keeping Christmas and whether or not to put up a tree, but you find out that He's an atheist, how much do you really want to argue about the tree, or do you just want to say, hey, I believe in God and I believe the Bible teaches me this. You don't believe in that, so we don't have a basis for a good discussion. That leads on to the second point. We can easily say, we believe in a God. I say, easily. Maybe I should stop there and consider it. It's good to back up and say, how easy is it? All of us have come to that point, and if you haven't, you need to back up and come to that point. Why do you believe there's a God? We have some booklets to help us with that, but you don't believe there's a God just because the Bible says so, because you have to believe that the God put it in the Bible. So we could go through things like, you know, there can't be creation without a Creator. And for me, one of the personal things is, God has answered my prayers. He must be there because He's worked in my life. But whatever it is for you, you have to believe. So I don't want to pass it off saying, oh, it's so easy, everybody does it. It's something you have to have settled, and once you do have it settled, you can move on. And then that second point for me is, we believe that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. We believe this is God's Word, and we're going to base our other beliefs on it. That's why I put those two beliefs, one and two. You have to believe there's a God, and you have to believe there's a Bible, and you have to go from outside of the Bible and use the Bible to prove to yourself that it is His Word. And then after that, we'll prove all of our beliefs from it. But you've got to believe this is it. Go through and study and affirm it in your mind that this is His Word. Because once again, if you're arguing with someone who doesn't believe that, well, you know, it's easy to get off track. For an example, well, and I'll add to it, we believe in what is described in Latin as sola scriptura. I'm not sure why we have to bring the Latin in, but sola scriptura means only Scripture or only the Bible. We believe it has soul authority. Now you might both say, well, who doesn't believe that? Surprisingly, quite a few people, including everyone who's a Roman Catholic, they believe that the Bible has authority, but that the Church and the Church Fathers have equal authority. So if you get into a discussion of the Seventh-Day Sabbath with a Catholic, he might say, well, yeah, the Bible says that, but we changed it. And they believe that their Church had the authority to change it. Now you could say, we don't believe that, and there's your explanation. Now, as long as you're convinced of that. Muslims believe that there's some validity in the Bible, but that it became corrupted and the Qur'an superseded it. So they would take some of this, but say the Qur'an is more important. And I wanted to double-check. I know those in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that the Bible has validity, but that the Book of Mormon adds to it and interprets it. And Mormon is a lot easier to say than Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's why we all say Mormon.

Anyways.

So for you to say that you believe that the Word of God is authoritative is saying a lot. If you've got that as your fundamental belief and you're comfortable with it, it's much easier to discuss things like what day you go to church, whether or not to have a Christmas tree, whether or not to eat pepperoni. Moving on, a third fundamental doctrine in my list is that we believe man was made in God's image.

And that man has a spirit in him, but not an immortal soul.

Now that's saying a lot. You could say that's three or four fundamental beliefs, but I think the fact that God made us different than the animals, but that we do not have an immortal soul is fundamental. It's at the heart of our belief regarding heaven and hell, a general resurrection. It's even at the heart of how we preach the gospel.

And that's partly, I wondered whether I should include this next one in, but let's, matter of fact, before I move on to my fourth fundamental belief, I'll just keep in mind that people might debate you on this. You don't have to memorize a whole raft of scriptures. There's two that stick in my mind. I think of Ezekiel 18 verse 4. It says simply, The soul that sins shall die. Well, that seems to go against this whole immortal soul thing. The soul that sins will die. Not burn ever more in hell or anything like that. In Romans 6.23, once again, that's one of the reasons it's one of the first scriptures we memorize, if we memorize any. Romans 6.23 says, The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. That makes the point that we don't live forever in any form unless God gives us more life.

So, if you stop, if you make that point, things about souls watching in heaven, metaphysical experiences, all of that, you know, you've already answered. You don't have to go further.

Although this moves on to my fourth belief, we believe that God will bring back to life everyone who has ever lived, and at that time, teach them His ways and give them an opportunity to accept His way of life. And that's an important thing. Keeping that in the back of your mind can save you the headache of getting in the discussion with someone who feels like they have to convince you, and they might feel like you feel you have to convince them. Isn't it wonderful when you get in those discussions to think, it doesn't matter if this person believes me or not. They're not being called yet.

I don't have to win their soul over. Now, keep in mind, sometimes they believe they have to win your soul over, and that's why they're so vehement that they've got to convince you to get out of that cult.

There's where you don't want to get drawn into that argument. You know better. You know that their opportunity could be later. It might be now. Maybe God is using this as a doorway to calling them into the church. And that's the frustrating part. You don't want to close off the discussion too soon, because you might be the one God's using to open their mind. But you don't have to convince them.

And of course, keeping this in mind. God's going to raise everyone later and give them an opportunity. Makes it easy to... What about all those Buddhists? What about the Hindus in India who don't know Jesus? That's right. They don't know Jesus. Jesus knows them, and He knows when He's going to work with them.

I find a lot of agnostics and people who are uncomfortable with religion like this fundamental belief. They like it because they realize that you're not set on trying to change them now, and that they also... they think, if you're right, I don't have to make a decision now. It reminds me of a time when I was in graduate school down in Texas. I shared an office with two other people. And it's funny, it was an office about as big as this lectern. That's what graduate school was like. But he and I were in there once doing some work at our desk, and we got into a religious discussion. And he was a very socially liberal person. You know, who wasn't even sure if he believed in a God. And he sure didn't believe in the God that I believed in, I think. So we got on to this, and when I explained, you don't have to believe what I believe now. God is going to resurrect everyone later on. They'll have a chance to learn the truth and accept it or not. And that includes all of your family members, all these people that are deceived. And he just looked at me and said, I find that very comforting. He didn't want to argue with me anymore, and he didn't feel that I was putting him on the spot. And we got along very happily for the rest of the year. He didn't discuss religion with me anymore, but... And I'll mention, you also don't have to memorize a lot of Scriptures here. If you return to Revelation 20, it covers this whole concept. You know, I saw the dead, small and great stand before the throne of God, and the books were open. Those books being the Bible, you know, are going to be open to people's understanding. You can very easily know there's a place in the Bible where you can summarize this fundamental belief.

And then, once again, my fifth fundamental belief, and as I said, these are solely my creation of the order I put them in. But we believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that He did die to pay for the sins of mankind. But, as part of that, we also believe that that did not remove our requirement to obey God's law.

And it's important to keep these connected, though, because a lot of people think that because we obey the law, we don't believe in Jesus Christ. I've been surprised over the years how many people I've talked to at some point come to the point where they say, Oh, I didn't think you were a Christian. Yeah, we are Christians! We believe in Jesus Christ! We believe He was God, and we believe in His sacrifice to pay for our sins. But some people don't put that together and think, well, if you're obeying the law, you must not believe in Jesus or His sacrifice.

But we do. So it's important. When people ask me what religion I am, I think I discussed this in an earlier sermon. I like to say, Christian-sabotarians. Because, to point out that we are Christian, but the most noticeable thing we do is keep the Seventh-day Sabbath. And I could say, what did I say? I think I wrote it out in the sermon. We're Christian-sabotarian, pre-millennial... pre-millennialist something else. See, it's hard to memorize all that stuff. Christians work. We're Christians. Now, we could carry on for the rest of the day. When I was ordained, they gave me a notebook that has the 20 fundamental beliefs of the United Church of God and very complete scholarly discussions of all of those.

And they're good reading, good studying. But do you see how mastering a few of your fundamental beliefs makes it easier for you to deal with the other ones that are based on those? And if someone radically disagrees with you on any of these points, you don't have to debate all the rest of the day on something that is based on those. Just realize you're not going to convince them, but they're not going to convince you. But it's important that you do know the reason for the hope that lies in you. You know when you can give an explanation.

Am I... not... Slow down, Frank. It might not be an explanation that convinces them, but again, Peter didn't say be ready to give a convincing argument to everyone that asks you a reason, but be ready to give your defense. Now with that in mind, let's think about further as we're answering how do we present the information. I've gone over a lot of information. Peter doesn't say a lot other than with meekness and fear. Let's add something significant from Proverbs, Chapter 15. Proverbs 15 and verse 1 fits in very well with what Peter said. He said be ready to give it a defense in meekness and fear. Proverbs 15, 1 says, A soft answer turns away wrath. Harsh words stir up anger.

So why do you want to stir up anger? Use a soft answer. Turn away wrath. Remember, any fool can start a quarrel. We don't want to do that. So even though we have the advantage of being right, we don't have to thunder down at people. In fact, we have the luxury of being gentle because we know we're right and we know that they're going to get it eventually.

God didn't call us to criticize, belittle, or insult people. So there's no point where you have to say, Hey, dummy, no smart person could ever believe in a never-burning hell. What's the matter with you? I was going to write that in big letters to wake anybody up, but nobody's sleeping. No, we don't have to do that.

We can be calm and cool, and we should be. God gave us a great example. If you want to turn to 1 Kings 19, this is one of my favorite stories. I noticed we've got some people I worked with at summer camp this year, and they might remember I brought this up at a dorm meeting, but I think it's worth visiting again. This is in the story of Elijah the prophet. Remember, of course, Elijah brought a drought, and then when he was ready to end the drought, he went to King Ahab, and he said, Okay, let's settle once and for all.

Who's God? You bring all those priests of Baal up to Mount Carmel, and I'll go up there representing God. You build an altar, I'll build an altar. You call on your God to send fire, and they called and called and called all day, and no fire came. Elijah poured water all over his, said a few seconds' prayer. God sent the fire. Burn up the sacrifice, the altar, left a hole in the ground, smoking.

Boy, Elijah's on top of the world. And then he prays, God, now it's time to end the drought, and big storms come in. Boy, is Elijah great! He directs putting the execution of all those prophets.

But then the other side comes. He's emotionally spent, and he gets a message from Queen Jezebel that says, You're toast. That's in the vernacular. It said something like, I'm going to kill you. And Elijah, after all that he'd done, he starts thinking, I'm the only one, and they want to kill me. And he takes off and runs to the desert and goes and hides. He lays down to Salk and says, I wish I could just die. And God has been watching him the whole time.

Now, how does God react? Let's look in 1 Kings 19. We'll start in verse 9. Oh, no wonder. I'm in 2 Kings. But I'll get there quickly. Okay. There he went into a cave, and he spent the night in the place. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsook in your covenant, and torn down your altars and killed your prophets.

And I'm the only one left, and they want to kill me. I don't know if he said it quite like that, but, you know, he's feeling a little sorry for his own. I'm the only one left. Now they're trying to kill me. And then he heard the word, Go out and stand, and behold. Go out and stand before the mountain of the Lord. And behold, the eternal passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains, and it broke the rocks and pieces before the Lord.

But the eternal was not in the wind. And after that there was an earthquake shaking and probably rocks falling, but the eternal was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. And it doesn't even describe the fire, but it must have been quite a fire. And the eternal was not in the fire, but after that came a still, small voice. I learned to put that comma in there. I used to think it meant that it was continuing to be a small voice.

But no, it means a still, a calm, relaxing voice. Not power and thunder, not, hey, dummy, stop that. But God said to him, you know, God was in that small voice, and Elijah heard it. He wrapped his face, and he went out, stood at the entrance, and his voice said, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he gives the same answer, maybe not as quavering in voice, but he says, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant.

They've torn down your altars, killed your prophets by the sword, and I alone am left, and they want to kill me too. And the Lord said to him, go, return on your way. And I'm not going to read all this, but he said, go back, I've got work for you to do. It's okay, Elijah. That's still a small voice. Not an argument, not a chastisement, but it's okay, Elijah. What are you doing here? It's all right.

You've got to get back to work. And down in verse 18, he says, I've still got 7,000 men in Israel who have an obeyed veil. You're not the only one. And I just like to remember that. God didn't yell at Elijah. He said, it's okay. And we have the option... well, no, we don't have the option of shaking the earth. So why should we try? But we can choose to talk to people in a calm voice rather than yelling.

That's supposed to be effective at some times, but... As we noted earlier, all kinds of people and all sorts of motivations might lead to asking about your religion. Some may be irritating. You know, there's some people that get under your skin and, boy, you'd like to bring fire down from heaven. But a soft answer turns away wrath. Okay, there's another important point. I didn't think I had a smooth transition there, but... Another important thing to think about when you start to give the answer is the order in which you give information. How are you going to present this?

Because think of it. You know, some people are natural storytellers. You might be one of them. Some people are naturally good teachers. Now, sometimes those fit together, and those are the people you love to talk to. But sometimes one doesn't always fit with the other.

And what I'm thinking of a case, what if someone has recently lost a relative and they say, Do you think my uncle is burning in hell? Now, the way to answer that is not to say, well, you know, 15 years ago I was dialing the radio dial, and I heard a program on the air, and it intrigued me. I listened and I was learning, and I sent away for this magazine called The Plain Truth, and I started getting issues, and as I learned, I started going to church, and I sent away for a Bible correspondence course, and you leave them through, you know, 12 years of your life until you got that lesson of the correspondence course that dealt with the immortal soul and whether there's a heaven or hell.

But by this time, they've left to go talk to someone else, because, you know, they didn't want a 15- or 20-minute explanation. They wanted you to give an answer right then. What I advise you is, and a lot of times, now this isn't writing, but there's a style of writing that's called the pyramid, or sometimes triangle writing. Anybody here had a journalism class where they've covered that?

I'm the only one? Oh, okay. See, you just didn't want to admit it. Yeah. This is because in news writing, there's no guarantee that anybody's going to read past the first line. There's not a guarantee of the first line, but there's a chance they'll glance at the headline and maybe read the first line. Because of that, you want to start with your conclusion. Say the most important things first.

End with the- or start with the climax of the story. Then you give supporting information to help. Because sometimes when you get the climax, people are interested. Oh, yeah, how do you get to that? We relate this to journalism because it became popular during the American Civil War. During the American Civil War, most reporters were out at the scene of the battle, and then they would use the telegraph to send back their story. The telegraph lines back then were very unreliable. No cell phone service, so it's going over a literal wire, and at any time the wire might get knocked down or cut or something like that.

So they learned to write their story so that no matter where it got cut off, the newspaper could use what it had received so far, because it's building, and if you cut off any point of the triangle down there, it's still a triangle at the top, right? So imagine a reporter who was at the Battle of Bull Run. He's sending a news report back to Washington. The first thing he writes is, Union Army defeated at Bull Run. Okay, that's the peak of the pyramid.

Then he would say, the Army is retreating to Washington, disorganized, but not destroyed. Reserves need to prepare to defend against southern attack. After all that, he might get around to saying the battle had gone on for much of the day, and he might describe a little bit of the tactics. You know, he might mention that even though it had been fairly even, late in the afternoon, Confederate troops had arrived by railroad and turned the tide of the battle against the Union.

You know, that's coming way down in the story. And if there's lots and lots of time, he can discuss the tactics that General McDowell planned to use, which, if you're a Civil War buff, you know, turned out to be the same exact tactics that General Beauregard wanted to use, and so they were, like, doing a dance around each other. You guys aren't as interested in that. It's much better if I had a diagram, and I could show you up on the blackboard.

But think of it this way. It's likewise that someone asks you, how can you be a Christian and not keep Easter? You don't want to begin with the discussion of how pagan religions developed the practice of worshipping Ash-Tarte and then proceed to discuss legends of Semiramis and Tamus and how rabbits became fertility symbols with the intent that you're going to cover 4,000 years of human history, leading up to the point that the Easter Bunny is not real.

Yes, on the other page. No, you probably want to fairly quickly get to the point that you believe common Easter celebration is not found in the Bible. You obey Christ's teaching and example by keeping passable. Now, that might intrigue them and say, oh, tell me more. You might get to talk about Ash-Tarte and Semiramis and other things. Maybe even Jonah being three days and three nights and the whale, not a whale, of great fish's belly.

You can go on from there, but start early on or start at the peak of the pyramid. Because just like that Civil War reporter, you might get cut off at any point in your story where they say, oh, and I've got to go. So make sure you've said that most important thing first. Now, not absolutely always, but it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Now, there's another important thing about this is, once again, knowing the information in which to give an answer. Let's go to 2 Timothy 2.

2 Timothy 2, and we'll read verse 15.

This is part of that ongoing preparation and how you prepare to give that answer when someone asks. Because here again, I've been saying you have to have that information. Where did you get it?

2 Timothy 2.15 says, Remember in Isaiah it says, The doctrine is here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept. You don't have time to take them line upon line or precept upon precept, so you've got to use the time you do have to get into this book and put them together in advance so that you know the conclusion.

Now, Paul was giving instruction, of course, to Timothy, who was a young pastor. It was his job to put this together. But isn't it going to be all of our jobs? You know, it's my job now, but we're looking forward to the world tomorrow. All of you are going to be teachers of God's way. So let's start preparing for that now. Now, that means regular daily Bible study should be in your routine. There's different ways to study your Bible.

I advise spend some time just plain reading. That's one of my favorite ways, because it's very mentally intense to do a word study or something like that. Now, those are good. Get out your concordance, or nowadays we do it electronically. But what does the Bible say about a certain thing, you might ask? Plug that in and look at all the Scriptures that discuss it.

But the thing I do the most is, I'm a coffee drinker. I love to get up first thing in the morning, pour myself a cup of coffee, and open the Bible, and pick up where I last left off in one of the books and carry on reading. Now, I've been spending a lot of time in Jeremiah lately, as you might guess. So lately I said, I'm going to go back to the Gospels. I need to review that. And I try to get through several chapters before Connor starts crying, and I have to make him oatmeal.

You might have different times of day and different ways you study, but make sure you're spending some time studying. And don't overlook the value of our church's literature. The booklets are very useful ways to study a topic, and of course the correspondence course. I want to mention one other thing, because this is useful especially if you expect people to be asking questions that you need to give an answer. This came up from when I was... when we all faced the questions in the mid-90s.

Suddenly leaders in the church were telling us that the doctrines we had believed were wrong, and now we need to believe new ones. Well, I'm not so sure about that, but do I know that I know what I believe? So what I did was I wrote a series of term papers.

Now, you remember high school or college writing term papers? Not all of you have been through that, but that's where you're given the subject. You have to do research, and you have to write, you know? You have to write about that, and you have to cite your sources. And, you know, boy, that's a lot of work, but boy, do you learn that material.

That's a lot of what our church literature is. As I was writing this, I dug out in the closet. I found several of my old ones. In 95, I wrote a series of term papers. This one I titled, Church Equals Christians. Because I thought, if I'm going to stop going to the worldwide church of God, but I want to be in God's church, I want to prove for myself, what is the church?

And the title for me was, The Church is the Body of People. Now, I hope... that's not news to any of you guys, but it's good to prove it for yourself. God equals... what? God equals law which equals love, was one of them I wrote.

I wanted to analyze the law on how it relates to God. What the Bible says about Christians and man-made law. I'm not suggesting that you write on any of these particular things, but I wanted to show you. I went through this. What laws for Christians? And then this one, I changed the title. Now it's called, How to Be Born Again. I wanted to share the original title. I called it, I'm Not Born Again and Neither Are You. And I thought, okay, that doesn't really fit with that soft answer turns away wrath business.

But you'd be surprised when you prepare something like that. Now, you might go through that elaborate of a process. Or you might just say, let me organize and see, could I answer and use the Bible? Once you've gone through something like that, it's so much easier when someone says, well, why do you obey Old Testament law? Well, I believe such and such, you don't necessarily have to go to all the Scriptures, but you've done the research. You know it's there. And I've noticed, it's funny, I didn't know this before, I'll mention this because I've had some members of the church sometimes say, I wrote up this paper, do you want to take a look at it?

And now I can relate to that because when I actually wrote these papers, I was down in Texas going to grad school still, and we visited another congregation and Dr. Don Ward was there. And I've always had a high esteem for him. He was one of my favorite professors in college. So, I said, hey, I wrote these papers. And he opened his briefcases and said, here, put them in there. And he didn't even touch them. He closed his case. I suppose that hopefully he read them eventually because he didn't get back to me and say, don't go your way off.

Now, that's what I was looking for. But sometimes you just want to share it. Does this...am I on track? I'm guessing I was on track in this case. But in all of our preparation, let's remember another thing we need to know. Go to Matthew 10. Matthew 10 will begin in verse 18. Do the preparation. Get these things fixed in your head. But if you're worried, will I be able to say it when I need to say it?

We've got an answer here. Part of Jesus is teaching to his disciples of what they could expect, and I think this is prophetic for us as well. This is going to happen to someone sometime in our future. Matthew 10.18 says, you'll be brought before governors and kings, for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. Gentiles could be translated nations. How'd you like to be brought up before a congressional committee with microphones there and CNN broadcasting it to the world?

But he says, when they deliver you up, don't worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak. For it's not you who speak, it's the spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now, I wanted to wait till towards the end to bring this up because it would be, it's really easy to say, well, I don't have to do any preparation. God's going to speak through me. Well, when it matters the most, as I said, if you're on CNN, I believe God is going to do that. He's going to make sure his word gets out, and there is a testimony to the nations.

But I'm sure God would rather bring out what you've already put into your head instead of being like with Balaam's ass where the words are coming out but the donkey didn't really know what was going on. He could use you like he did the donkey, but wouldn't he rather use you as an informed tool? Let's also look at Proverbs 16.

I was debating whether you use this scripture or the one in Matthew, and I said, well, let's do both.

Proverbs 16 and verse 1, the preparations of the heart belong to man. You've got to have that preparation.

Be ready to give an answer. That means get ready. But the answer of the tongue is from the eternal. Be ready and then trust in God. It's that old saying that says, work like everything depends on you, and then pray and trust God like everything depends on him. Don't do one or the other. Do both. And knowing that God will give you the answer when it matters, that should give us a lot of comfort.

But we do need to study. We need to be ready to give an answer. And then, of course, keep this in mind. If you want people to listen to that answer, there's an old saying that says, what you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. People are watching what you do, and they're going to think about what you do maybe before they listen to any words you say. If people notice that you're living a way of love and a way of give rather than get, then they'll give you credit that you must know something important. That might be why they come and ask you this question. As I said, they might look at you and say, this person has got something together in his or her life I want to know. But if your lifestyle is selfish and mean, it won't matter what you say or how eloquent it is. So give them a reason to trust what you're going to say. Make sure that they see your actions first, then hear your words. But still, with all that, we have to give an answer. It's our responsibility to be ready. We can and we should prepare. But we should also have faith that God will provide the help when it matters the most.

Along the way, we'll sometimes have to answer a fool according to his folly. And sometimes we may need to not answer the fool according to his folly. And thankfully, they won't all be fools. Sooner or later, we'll be talking to people who really want to learn and people who are ready. And that's exciting to think about. We're preparing to be teachers in the world tomorrow. I think of that. There's a song that we sing that says, Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and there he will teach us his ways. Now, of course, that's talking about Jesus Christ, but I think he's going to have assistant teachers. He's going to have us helping to teach his ways. And it'll help us to do that if we start preparing now, if we all get ready and we're prepared to give an answer of the hope that lies within us.