How Do We Get Ready?

Which brings a mind, actually, rather than do another song, I think I might transition into the sermon, because one of the things that seemed important is, we're inviting guests to come and join us, and that's an important thing for us.

We want to be prepared for the fact that people who don't know much about what we teach or why might have questions for us. And hopefully we've all dealt with that kind of thing before, but we do want to keep in mind, you know, it's good to review now and then, how ready are we to deal with the questions that come up?

So, after I take a brief sip of water, I want to begin the sermon by asking you to imagine a couple of different scenarios. Okay. Each of these were someone asked you a question about your religious beliefs. Now, imagine the first one. Let's say it's a woman that you know from work or in the neighborhood where they often have some type of Christmas party, and she's noticed that you don't, you know, over the years you've never come to the party.

So she asks you, why aren't you coming to this party? Don't you celebrate Christmas? Well, you explain that Christmas traditions are not biblical, and instead you keep certain Holy Days that are commanded in the Bible. She's very interested in this. And so she listens for a long time as you eloquently explain all of the Holy Days in Leviticus 23, and you show how they fit into the plan of God.

And she is just so amazed by this. She says, well, would it be okay for me to start coming to your church? And then she says, I've read somewhere in the Bible that we're supposed to tithe. Could I start paying my tithes to your church? Because it's obvious from your explanation that this must be the true church doing the work of God. Moreover, she asks you to be her personal mentor, helping her to grow in her understanding and knowledge as she continues to learn about God's way of life. That's what we hope our experiences will be like.

Now, let's consider another alternative. Let's say you're at a family reunion. Most of your family is not in the church. And one of your nephews, who's a little obnoxious anyways, corners you just after you've taken a huge bite of potato salad. And he says, hey, you're the one who's part of a cult, aren't you?

And you say, oh, you try to answer. He says, you know, how would you believe that you have to obey all of the Old Testament law in order to go to heaven? Haven't you ever read Galatians 3.10? Jesus nailed the law of the cross. You're still trying to answer. He says, what does Colossians 2.14 say? You struggle to swallow, and you say, no, I don't believe that we're saved by obeying the law. But before you can even finish the sentence, he interrupts by saying, when I go to church on Saturday, don't you?

Just like the Jews. You try to get into a word in edgewise, but before you can, he calls to a couple of your cousins and says, hey, Joe, you don't believe in Jesus. Can you believe that? You try to say, no, I do believe in Jesus.

But he says, well, then you know we're free from the law. And don't you know that? Now, I said, I hope you've never been through an encounter like this. But I suspect that's closer to what we've been through than the first one in many cases. A lot of people don't necessarily understand or give you an opportunity to answer. Well, 1 Peter 3.15, and let's go ahead and turn there, tells us that we need to be ready to give an answer.

I'm going to go ahead and turn there because I think a lot of you have read this before, but I plan to spend some time with this one. So let's go ahead and read it first of all. 1 Peter 3, verse 15. It says, But sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and in fear.

Now, I'm guessing some of you have the Old King James where it says, be ready to give an answer. And that's the one I'm kind of used to seeing how that goes. Now, besides having different types of questions from different people, you know, we might have different encounters, and we feel differently about them, you know, once they've occurred.

Even if you're trying to give a good answer, living up to this. And as I was preparing for this, it brought to mind an old joke that I've heard about church services, and I think it could apply to sometimes how we give an answer if someone asks. The joke goes, you know, there was this rural preacher, you know, and most of the people in the congregation were farmers. So come one January day, there was a big, heavy snowfall, and the preacher digs himself out, and he goes to the church, you know, Sunday morning.

And as he gets there, he's amazed to find that there's only one farmer sitting there, and his best Sunday go to meet and overalls. The pastor says, well, do you think we should go ahead with the church service? The farmer says, well, I'm no preacher, but, you know, when I go out to feed my cows in the morning, if only one of them shows up, I still feed that one. Preacher was encouraged, so he decided, okay, he goes ahead and launches into a sermon, and things are going so well, he gives a whole two and a half hour sermon.

Afterwards, he's sitting there having a cup of coffee with the farmer, and, you know, conversing, and he says, well, what did you think of the sermon? The farmer says, well, you know, if I went out to feed my cows and only one of them showed up, I would feed that one, but I wouldn't feed all the hay to that one. So that's, you know, something we want to consider. You know, if a co-worker asks, how come you never show up on Saturdays?

You don't necessarily need to go through all of Leviticus 23 and the end-time prophecies and the plan of God all at that one time. But on the other hand, if you talk about the Bible teaches the Seventh-day Sabbath, if they ask you, well, where do you get that? Does the Bible say something like that? You want to know enough that you could actually show them a scripture or two, or at least, you know, talk about the creation week in Genesis 1 and how God rested on the Seventh-day and sanctified it.

You know, if you don't say, you know, you can say too much, and that can be off-putting, but you know yourself, and maybe you've been through this. I know I have, where you're caught off guard, and later you think, I don't think I gave a very good answer. And you feel like, well, I'm not very well representing God's Church and His truth.

So that comes down to the fact that we want to be ready to give an answer, like it says in 1 Peter 3, 15. Be ready to give an answer.

But that brings up the question then. How do you get ready? Do we all have to be Bible scholars and study Greek and Hebrew? Do we need to memorize the Bible?

Well, let's go back to 1 Peter 3, 15 and let's analyze it a little. Let's draw out as much as we can from here.

And partly, I want to mention this because we look at this. We know the Church has the commission of preaching the Gospel to the world. Before Christ returned to the Father in Heaven, He told His disciples, preach the Gospel in all the world. Make disciples. And we all want to participate in that. And we know, well, as a group, the United Church of God puts a television show on the air. We print magazines. We have several websites. But we as individuals, what do we do? We pray for that success. We pay tithes.

But the old saying goes, you want to do more than just pay and pray.

1 Peter 3, 15 reminds us that we do have an opportunity to do more than that. We can be on the front lines, in some cases, of preaching the Gospel.

Let's look at it. It says, sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts and be ready to give an answer or a defense.

To everyone that asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

As I started getting into this, I realized there's a lot in this one Scripture.

Starting with something that I didn't realize until I was working on it. It starts off with sanctifying God in your heart.

What does sanctify mean? Well, it means setting something aside for a holy purpose, which God typically does.

I shouldn't say typically, but God is the one who does that. He's able to sanctify something and we can honor that sanctification.

God is already holy. He doesn't need us to make him that way. But is he set apart in your mind and in your heart?

One reason I want to stress this is just to remind us when we think in terms of giving an answer to others that God and His way of life makes us different from everything else.

We might have a job or something that occupies most of our time, and that's important. You have a family, and that's even more important.

You might have hobbies, friends, lots of things in your life, but we have to make sure that God and worshiping Him is not just another thing in that busy life.

It's not just another thing. He's THE thing. He is what's most important.

The reason I wanted to make a big deal of this, I thought, if we keep that in mind, that perspective, that going to church isn't just one of those things, but it's THE thing, then we'll have everything in a proper perspective.

It'll be easier to answer those questions because we'll have first things first.

Of course, then we move on. Right after He says, Sanctify the Lord in your hearts, He says, Be ready to give a defense.

I'm just curious because I've gotten so used to using the King James, but I've memorized this in the Old.

I'm used to using the New King James, but I knew it from the Old. How many of you have the Old?

Where it says, Be ready to give an answer. Does anybody have a different one that says a different word, just out of curiosity?

Okay, well, the same Greek word in both cases. The Greek word there is Apologia. Be ready to give an Apologia.

Now, it doesn't mean an Apology as in to say you're sorry or to express regret, but it means a thorough explanation.

Or, you could say, a defense of one's beliefs. So that's what Peter's saying we need to be ready to do.

Give a reasonable explanation that's more than just because I said so.

And I don't know, I think most of you here have been through parenthood.

Eric's probably like me thinking of this. You've got some experiences up ahead. I don't remember when I was a kid.

One of the things I hated most of all is when I would ask my mom a question and she'd say, Because I said so.

I'd say, Well, why did you say so?

Well, we want to be able to do more than that.

And when I see the word defense, it brings back to mind when I was in graduate school.

Because in most graduate programs, to get an advanced degree, a master's or a doctorate, you have to write a thesis or dissertation on some part of your research.

So you write this long-involved paper that could be dozens of pages or even hundreds of pages long, and you submit it.

And then you have to go through a process that's called a defense.

I went through this at Texas A&M. I wrote my dissertation on the use of propaganda techniques in the Boston newspapers at the start of the French and Indian War.

And, yeah, most people aren't dying to line up to read that.

But when I was done, then I had to sit before a panel of scholars and let them ask me questions about my research, about what sources I used and why I came to certain conclusions. And one of them even thought that for one part of it I hadn't used enough sources, so I had to explain to him why I thought that I had.

And then, of course, you know, they did confer the degree on me. But that's the process of giving a defense.

Now, it won't always be sitting before a panel, and hopefully you won't have to talk about 18th century warfare or newspapers, although those things can be very interesting in some settings.

But you need to be ready to give that explanation of what?

Another thing I want to move on to next, after being ready to give an explanation, is be ready to give a defense to everyone that asks a reason for the hope that is in you.

Now, I'm going to come back to the point about how to put together the defense or answer.

Now, it does have to be something unique for you. And we'll talk about the fact that it says everyone in a moment. I'm not jumping around, but I want to come back to the fact that it says, be ready to give an explanation of the hope that is in you.

Now, that word hope is not talking about a hope the way we often use it in the English language today, where you say, well, I hope it doesn't rain today. Or, you know, let's hope for the best.

Now, here, once again, the Greek word is lps. And I'm not sure it would be spelled E-L-P-I-S in English.

This means a confident expectation, not just a wish. Like in English, when we say, I hope it doesn't rain, we're saying the equivalent of, I wish that there wouldn't be rain.

But what Peter means is a confident thing that you expect to happen is very closely tied with the concept of faith. Be ready to give an explanation of the faith, what you really believed in.

And the reason I point this out is because our hope is eternal life in God's kingdom. That's the hope that is in us. We believe in it. We know it will happen.

And we're striving to make sure that it happens to us. God has made us that offer. And so that's the hope that drives us.

So let's consider the two separate factors here. First, our hope of being born into God's kingdom. It's a fundamental belief.

That means that a lot of other things we do or believe are built on top of that, but it's sort of the bedrock.

That means our hope is not that we don't eat pork. Now we don't eat pork, but it's because of other things.

Even our hope is not that the seventh day is the Sabbath. We know the seventh day is Sabbath. But we obey God's law largely because it's our way of worshipping Him, and we want to be in His family and be like Him.

Now, people are more likely to notice things like, oh, you don't eat pork, or you don't eat pepperoni on your pizza, and they might ask about that.

It's not wrong to answer the question, but we want to keep in mind what that's built on. It's always better for us to talk more about the fundamental things and less about the things that aren't as fundamental.

I almost said trivial, and that's not at all what I mean. It's not trivial to not eat unclean meats. It's certainly not trivial to keep the correct day for the Sabbath.

And as I said, people might ask about things that are built on others and not ask the fundamental questions.

It's great if you get into a real discussion to try to steer into those most important things.

Second, the Scripture says to explain the hope that is in you.

Be ready to give a defense of the hope that is in you.

In other words, be ready to explain why you believe a certain thing, why you do a certain thing or don't do something else.

Part of the reason I wanted to mention that is you might be comfortable with an explanation that's not as thorough as the level of explanation that the doctrinal committee of the Council of Elders gives. Of course, they spend years studying and put a lot of detail into explaining all the full truth of everything. Now, it's good for us to know that. It's very important to know these things. But still, the hope that is in you, your reason might stop short of that because you didn't need all the more.

Let me give you an example.

I've been asked a number of times, especially in my former employment, why I don't vote.

Now, we can go into long detail of why we believe our citizenship is in heaven. Jesus said, you know, if my kingdom is not of this world, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight.

I believe all that, and I could explain it. But I still have an answer that I like to give because it was more personal to me. And what I would tell them is, well, I'm a conscientious objector.

I don't believe in taking up arms for my country. I support my country. I love it. But I don't want to bear arms. Therefore, I don't take the privilege of voting.

Now, that's not one of the main reasons why we...it's not the primary reason in our doctrinal statement.

But that's one of my reasons, and people rarely ask me beyond that.

So you might have several other things could come up like that.

If someone asks you why you don't eat pork, you could explain Leviticus 11 and then go to Acts chapter 10 and explain about Cornelius and the sheep. It's certainly adequate to do that. But you might be confident to say something to the effect of, I believe God made some animals for food and some animals not for food.

And by the way, have you ever been to a pigsty? Ooh, yuck! I'm not going to eat a pig.

And that could be enough reason for you without having to explore all the Scripture.

Now, I have a note to myself. I want to make sure that I'm clear that I'm not saying that your personal feelings basically are not good.

Based on what could be trivial, foundations are more important than an understanding of Scripture. That's certainly not the case.

Knowing the Scriptures is very important to us. It's just that, as I said, the reason that your primary motivator might not be as thorough and elaborate as the full doctrinal understanding.

Brings the mind of bumper sticker. I've seen this on cars. We don't see bumper stickers a lot. But this one's stuck in my memory.

It said simply this. God said it. I believe it. And that settles it.

And that's a good way to answer questions in some cases. Well, God said it, and I believe it.

You know, there's lots of reasons for believing that we do not have an immortal soul, because they're all in the Bible.

But my simple one is I like to go to Romans 6, verse 23, and it says, The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

Someone asked you something that pertains to heaven or hell or an immortal soul.

To me, that's the only Scripture I'd have to use. It says the result of sin is death.

We only have eternal life if God gives it to us. So I don't have to debate the meaning of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, and I don't have to go through all those others. Now, people might want to do that.

But, yeah, I have a note here. Remember, Peter said, Be ready to give an answer of the hope that is in you.

He didn't say that you have to be ready to convince everyone else out there to agree with you.

Now, it'll be wonderful if they did. In my first scenario, where someone asks you a question, and they just listen intently and say, This is it.

Teach me more. I want to live exactly like you do. But you all know that's not likely to happen in most cases.

John 6.44 reminds us, Jesus said, None can come to me except the Father draw him.

So, we are required to give an answer to explain the reason of the hope that's in us.

We're not required to recruit everyone that asked Him to the church, because we know that's not our job.

We have to take our responsibility seriously of being ready to give that answer and a proper answer.

We don't have to take God the Father's responsibility of drawing someone into the church.

Now, that leads to another question, though. Do we answer everyone the same way?

Let's turn to Proverbs chapter 26 and see one very obvious explanation that we don't.

Proverbs chapter 26.

Yes, Proverbs comes after Psalms. I'm looking for it before, and that's not going to work.

Two scriptures, one after another. Proverbs 26 will begin in verse 4.

I'm sure this is going to look familiar to you. He says, Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.

You could say, in a sense, do not go down to a fool's level and get down in the mud with him, so to speak.

Don't answer a fool according to his folly, or you'll be like him.

But in verse 5 it says, Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

Now, you might think these scriptures are arguing against each other, but we know the Bible doesn't contradict.

So, what does this mean? Well, we would say it means sometimes you need to answer someone. You need to answer a fool so that the wrong idea doesn't perpetuate.

But sometimes you need to just keep quiet and not answer the fool because it's not going to accomplish anything.

But notice, in both cases, we're talking about a fool.

You know, sometimes a foolish person might ask a foolish question, and you need to answer, sometimes you don't. Let's keep in mind that if someone asks you sincerely about your beliefs, that's a different case.

Then you're not dealing with a fool, and you've got an entirely different situation.

Someone who is respectful, or at least genuinely seeking understanding, is different than someone who's looking for an argument, or wants to change your mind.

So, you know, we're going to keep that in mind as we think about how to answer.

It'd be wonderful if I could get up here and say, here's the perfect rules of how to answer someone when they ask you about your beliefs.

And by the way, if any of you have that, share with me afterwards. I'd like to have it.

I don't have that, but I do have some, I think, guidelines that can help us.

And one of the most important, the first one I want to talk about, comes a friend of mine mentioned this years ago, after I was discussing having one of these, you know, unpleasant discussions with someone.

He said, you know, before you answer someone, think about why they're asking the question.

People might ask you the same question, or you might get a lot of times that same question could come from different people for very different motivations.

So, let me give you some examples. What if someone was asking you, well, why don't you show up for work on Saturdays?

You know, there are a lot of offices and other jobs where you have to come in every other Saturday or a certain busy time of year.

But let's think of several different reasons someone might ask that.

It could be a co-worker who is thinking about inviting you to a party on a Saturday.

And, but, wants to ask you, well, how come you don't come to work? Because they don't want to offend you.

So, if you explain, well, I believe that the Bible teaches that the seventh day is holy and we don't work and we don't do various recreational activities.

Well, she might say, oh, well, never mind then. You know, have a nice, whatever you call it, Sabbath. You know, she's not wanting to ask you, she just wanted to know whether or not she should invite you to the party.

Well, a different co-worker might ask you, well, how come you never come to work? Because he's thinking, are you a really big college football fan and you're just always home watching the game?

Well, then you give an answer, maybe the same answer, and he says, oh, it's religion. No, okay, now I know. I won't bother to want to talk to you about football.

An antagonistic family member might want to start an argument about religion. So he can, or he might be trying to save you from going to hell.

Well, then your answer could be a little bit different. He probably really wants you to quote some scripture so that then he can corner you with the several that he's got memorized.

That's why in my first scenario I threw in some scriptures, because don't you hate it when someone says, well, don't you know what such and such says?

You're thinking, I don't know what such and such says. I haven't memorized them all. I've been through that.

Here's where you don't want to keep silent if someone wants to pick a fight, because you don't want to not answer a fool and let him remain in his folly.

But you also don't want to argue. And remember, you're probably not going to convince him.

So it might be enough to just cite a couple of biblical references. You can mention in Genesis, where God created the seventh day, He rested on it and made it holy.

And in Matthew 5, 17, Jesus said, I didn't come to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it.

Now, without turning to any scriptures, you can say that the way you've read and understood the Bible, Jesus' disciples continue to keep the seventh day Sabbath after He was gone, and that the Bible seems to instruct us to do it.

That's what you're convinced of.

Now, there is where He can cite all the scriptures He wants. You don't have to get down in the mud and argue through every single scripture. You can say, yes, I've read all those. I'm convinced that the Bible teaches the seventh day.

And there you've given an answer of the explanation of the hope that's in you without getting down and arguing every little point. Let's turn to Proverbs 20. Well, we're still here in Proverbs. I think this is a good principle to keep in mind. Proverbs 20, verse 3, when we think about that person that wants to argue with you about it, says, It's honorable for a man to stop striving since any fool can start a quarrel. That's why I love the New King James in that. It's honorable to stop the fight. Any fool can start one.

So we want to be the one that ends a quarrel. Somebody might come and ask you a question. If you sense they're just wanting to argue, try to get away from that.

Let's go also to Proverbs 9. Proverbs 9, we'll begin in verse 8.

Again, trying to discern why someone is asking and what their attitude is makes a huge difference. Proverbs 9, verse 8, Do not correct a scoffer lest he hates you. Someone is just wanting to scoff and argue, don't bother. All it's going to do is cause trouble. But the second half of this, rebuke a wise man and he'll love you. Someone who's genuinely wanting to know will be interested in hearing and learning from it. Someone might ask you just out of idle curiosity, as they said, how come you go to church on... what do you do on Saturdays?

You give an explanation that you believe it's a holy time, you attend worship services. So, you go to church on Saturdays. Well, that's okay. Now, there might be another person who has noticed the type of person you are.

So, this person seems to have it together. Whatever they're doing in life seems to work. I'd like to know a little bit more. And they might ask you about that and say, oh, I see. Well, can you tell me more? There, you want to be ready to continue and give some answer. Let's go to the next verse. Proverbs 9, verse 9. Give instruction to a wise man and he'll be wiser still. Now, we know wisdom comes initially from God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

So, if there's somebody that's of a teachable spirit, they're ready to start looking to God, be ready to tell them more. Teach a just man and he'll increase in learning. So, with that, we've been dabbling a little bit into the what and how to answer people. Let's consider these questions a little more specifically. Now, as we've been noticing, before sharing the information about what you believe and why, it's good to determine, you know, what the person is really trying to learn. So, think about that again carefully. Let's go to Proverbs chapter 18.

Proverbs 18 and verse 13. This is overlapping with my earlier point, but I find, as I said, these things happen so quickly. There's a lot that goes on at once. Proverbs 18 and verse 13. He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.

So, don't answer before you listen. Know what the question is. What are they asking? Are they asking because, you know, not sure if they should ask you to a party? Are they asking because they're not sure what to order to put on the pizza?

Are they asking because they want to argue? They want to change your mind? Or do they really want to know because, as I said, they might see that your life is pretty good and they want to be like you? You know, your answer, once you have some idea, you might say something like, well, this is my religious belief. Or you might say, I believe the Bible teaches such and such. What gets complicated is when people start saying, well, why does your church teach that?

Or where is that in the Bible? You know, where would you get such a crazy idea? What do you mean there's no heaven? Or we're not going to heaven? Now, ideally, in an ideal world, we know the Bible thoroughly. And we've memorized a complete explanation of every doctrine, right? And we can do so in random order, backwards or forwards. You know, I see some of the looks of disbelief.

Yeah, I wrote in my notes, really, who can do that? You know, I'd like to say that in the ministry, we've got it together, but I think you know better than that, too. How many of you have come up to a minister after church and said, oh, I've got this question, and they look at you and go, oh, I hadn't thought of that before. You know, one thing they say, don't be ashamed to say, I don't know, but I'll look into it. I'll try to find out. But I think it's good for us to remember some of our fundamental beliefs. Now, we probably know our fundamental beliefs, but it's a good exercise to line them up and say, what comes first?

As I said, smaller practices sometimes are built on the more basic ones. So, I'll just enumerate some of the fundamentals the way I organize them in my head, because that's where we want to steer a conversation with someone who sincerely wants to know. First of all, we believe in a Creator God. You might say, well, of course, but it's important to get that as a foundation. We believe in God and that He created everything, and He's active. Because just think, if someone wants to argue with you about whether or not you should have a Christmas tree, if you realize that while He's an agnostic, He's not sure if God exists anyways, your discussion with Him could be quite a bit different than if you know He does believe in a God.

Or, you know, an atheist, they might just like to argue with you about these trivial matters. Well, and that might be a case of don't answer a fool according to his folly, because he doesn't believe in God anyways. Second, we believe that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. That means our beliefs are based on what's in here. Now, one... and that makes sense to me. I put those two first, because you have to consider those...

you have to look outside the Bible to establish them in your mind, because the Bible tells you, there is a God, you might say, well, how do I know the Bible is true? You've got to establish that, and there are various ways to do that and establish it in your head. And then you've got to believe that what the Bible says is right. And then after that, all of our beliefs will be based on what's in there.

Now, I should also make it the point that we as a church believe in what they call in Latin, sola scriptura. And I'm not sure why we have to use the Latin. Maybe it sounds more cool than saying, only the Bible. But sola scriptura means we believe in the authority of the Bible and only the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the fathers and the leaders have equal authority with the Bible.

That's important if you're discussing the Sabbath. They say, well, sure, the Bible teaches the Seventh-day Sabbath, but we changed it. Well, there's where you have to know, well, we don't acknowledge your authority to change that. Muslims believe somewhat in the Bible, but they believe that the Qur'an supersedes the Bible and that some parts of the Bible are incorrect. Well, we don't believe some parts of the Bible are incorrect, and we don't believe that the Qur'an added to it.

I believe the Mormons believe a similar thing with the Book of Mormon. The official name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's why we call them Mormons. It's much easier to say. But they also believe that there's an addition. We don't believe that. So when you say, this is it, this is what we base our beliefs on, and nothing else, that is saying a lot. And if someone doesn't want to argue within those parameters, or I should say, discuss an answer, arguing is something we want to avoid.

I like to use the term argue as in a formal debate. Well, if we get outside those parameters, there's not much point. If they're not willing to base what they want to discuss on the Bible, then you could just say, well, I believe this is it, and you believe something different, we'll have to disagree. Now, that's my first two. The third one, we believe man was made in God's image, that we have a spirit in us, but not an immortal soul. That's very important. We believe that we have a spirit that makes us different than the animals.

But we don't have life inherent in us. And it's on that fundamental belief that we base our teachings on heaven and hell, and the general resurrection, and how we preach the gospel. Keeping this in mind can save you a lot of headaches when it comes to discussing a lot of misunderstandings people have about scriptures that they think teach the doctrine of heaven and hell. And you don't have to memorize a whole raft of scriptures to discuss this. Ezekiel 18, verse 4 is very simple. The soul that sins shall die, not the soul that sins shall burn forever in eternal hell fire. And, of course, as I mentioned already, Romans 6, verse 23 says, the wages of sin is death.

Once again, the wages of sin is not torture forever, but the gift of God is eternal life.

Those two scriptures alone, to me, are enough to say, okay, we believe man's in God's image, but we don't have eternal life, but we can be given eternal life if God wants to give us more.

That brings my fourth doctrine, and as I said, I just put this together while I was writing, and the way I organized it in my head is that we believe that God is going to bring everyone back to life. There is going to be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, and God will then give each person an opportunity to accept his way of life, have their sins forgiven, and be part of his family. We believe everyone's going to have that opportunity. Keeping that in mind can save us a lot of headaches if we do get into a deep discussion that's debating back and forth. But it's good to keep in back and remind, I don't have to convince this person.

If God isn't calling them now, that's okay. God is going to call them later. And I found it's also very useful for them to hear that. I've had discussions with people that were of different religions or weren't sure if there was a God, and I was amazed how much they liked me telling them that this isn't their only chance. That sometime in the future, they'll have a chance to accept God's way.

And if I'm wrong, then that will never happen. But if I'm right, you're not under judgment right now. People who aren't sure are like the fact that I'm not putting them on the spot that you have to decide right now to agree with me. It puts them at ease. They're like, oh, we don't have to come to an explanation. Me convince him or him convince me I can put it off and everything will be happy.

I'm not going to do that because I had a case back when I was in graduate school. I shared an office with a young man who, you know, a little religious, not. And we got into a discussion. He was very liberal socially. And when I explained the idea of the general resurrection, how everybody who's ever lived, including all the Muslims and Buddhists and pagans, eventually they'll be resurrected.

Then they'll have a chance to know God's plan, and they could accept God's way or not. And he just looked at me and said, I find that very comforting. He was quite happy to hear that, and we didn't discuss religion anymore. He didn't want to come to church with me or learn my way, but he also didn't feel like I was condemning him.

Okay, now the fourth, or, no, that was fourth. The fifth, and I only came up with five, is we believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that He did pay for our sins through His sacrifice. Now, and I would add to that, by doing so, He did not end our obligation to obey God, though. He kept the law, He didn't keep the law for us. He kept the law and wants us to follow His example. But He did pay the penalty for our sins.

Now, one of the reasons I thought it was very important for us to keep this in mind when we're, as someone asked us about our beliefs, because you would be surprised how many people out there think that we're not Christian. They say, well, you believe you have to keep the law, you must not believe in Jesus.

I said, no, we are Christian. We believe that Jesus Christ paid for our sins. We worship Jesus Christ. We pray to the Father in His name. It's just that we don't believe that all the law was done away. We believe that His sacrifice was symbolized by the animal sacrifices, and we don't do that anymore. But be prepared. It's caught me off guard where people say, oh, you think you consider yourselves Christian. Now, the same thing can come up sometimes about the Trinity. As I said, these are only what I would call my five basics, and many other things are built on them.

Matter of fact, the United Church of God has a print-up of 20 of our fundamental beliefs with very fairly thorough scholarly explanations of those. It's a lot to keep all those in your head and memorize them. It is important to realize, though, that a lot of the things people might have questions about are based on more fundamental beliefs, and it's good to steer the question to those more fundamental beliefs.

Now, another important thing to think about when we talk about how to answer is how you present the information. Remember, 1 Peter 3, 15, the last thing he said was, with meekness and fear. Instead of turning there, though, while we're in Proverbs, let's go back to Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15 and verse 1. I guess because I don't like to argue this has been one of my favorite Scriptures for many years.

Proverbs... some reason I'm having trouble saying Proverbs. Maybe I'm too dry. Proverbs 15.1 says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger. Well, it's never should be our goal to stir up anger, so a soft answer can turn away wrath. Even though we have the advantage of being right, we don't have to thunder down at people. We have the luxury of being able to be patient and gentle. God didn't call us to criticize, belittle, or insult people. So there's never a time when we have to say, hey dummy, no smart person would believe in the never-burning hell.

What's wrong with you? Now, I've been tempted to say things like that before, or whatever. You know, no. How stupid is it to pop a Christmas tree? Well, that's not a soft answer turning away wrath. Now, one of my favorite examples is how God dealt with the prophet Elijah. Let's go to 1 Kings chapter 19. Just briefly, and while you're turning there, I'll remind you of the story. We know, of course, Elijah is famous for confronting the prophets of Baal.

And he said, okay, let's go all meet up on Mount Carmel, and you pray to your God, and I'll pray to mine. And they put out the sacrifices, and you know the story. They went on all day and made a lot of noise, and no one answered because Baal wasn't really God. Elijah said a very brief prayer, and fire came down and burned up the altar. Then he directed the people, get out of those false prophets and put them to death.

And he prayed to God to send rain, ending a three-year drought. I mean, Elijah was on top of the world. And then, after all this, he had an emotional letdown. Queen Jezebel says, I'm going to kill you. And he hiked up his skirts and ran to the desert to hide. And he got discouraged.

I guess, you know, it can easily be that way. You know, we go up and down as part of our human nature. But let's go in 1 Kings 19. Pick it up in verse 9. Here's Elijah. He went into a cave, and he spent the night in that place. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? Oh, God didn't thunder down and say, you stupid idiot, you shouldn't be here.

He came to him and said, what are you doing here? And then he listened. Elijah said, well, I've been very zealous for the eternal God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant. They've torn down your authors and killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. That's part of why he was so down. He thought he was the only one, and now they were trying to kill him, and he just was having a little bit of a pity party.

In verse 11, he said, then he said, God said to him, Go out and stand on the mountain before the eternal, and behold, the eternal passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountain, and it broke the rocks in pieces. What a powerful storm! But the eternal was not in the wind, and an earthquake came, and it shook everything, but the eternal was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake, fire.

Now, Elijah had seen fire come down from heaven. I wonder if this was even more impressive. But the eternal was not in the fire, and after the fire, then, a still, small voice, a calm, relaxing voice. And it said, or when I heard it, Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle, and he went out and stood in the entrance, and the voice, that still, small voice came to him and said, Elijah, what are you doing here?

And he told him again, I've been zealous for the Lord God of hosts because of the children of Israel forsaken your covenant and torn down your altars and killed your prophets with a sword, and on your arm left. I wonder if he had that whine in his voice, and God had spoke to him with a still, small voice, and he gives him...it's funny, he doesn't even address that.

He basically says, I've got a job for you to do. Go anoint this fellow, anoint that fellow, and a little further down in...

Oh yeah, in verse 18, he says, I still have 7,000 people in Israel who aren't worshipping Baal.

So, God shot the power he had, but instead of yelling at Elijah, he spoke in that calm voice, just like we can do when people maybe want to pick a fight or want to belittle us for our beliefs, we want to remember that a soft answer turns away wrath, and God set us a great example. Cool, calm voice. Now, I'll add to that, it's also important to think about the order in which you present information.

Some of us are natural storytellers. Some of us are good teachers. Now, when you get those in combination, that's great. But sometimes they're not in combination. I believe in that because... well, I don't know, I'll say it this afternoon, then maybe I'll get in trouble. I'll just say, Sue's not here, and she's a good storyteller. The problem is, she wants to begin at the beginning of the story and go through to the end. I'll give you an example. If someone asks you, do you think my uncle who just died is burning in hell?

You don't want to start off with saying, well, you know, years and years ago, I heard a program on the radio named The World Tomorrow. And I was really intrigued by the speaker, and I wanted to learn more. So I wrote away and I started getting this magazine called The Plain Truth.

And I learned from that. And eventually I enrolled in the correspondence course. And eventually you lead up to eventually one of those lessons dealt with the subject of the immortal soul and whether or not there's a heaven or hell, but you've taken 30 minutes to get around to answering their question. By that time, they might have totally lost interest, and they don't want to hear your opinion anymore. What I recommend is using what news writers often call the pyramid writing style. Now, this isn't some kind of weird, you know, new age thing when I say pyramid. Or you could think of it as a triangle. In news writing, there's no guarantee that anyone's going to read more than the headline and maybe a line or two.

So this style of writing says, put the most important information first. Start with your conclusion. Now, I mention in news writing because it actually started or became common during the U.S. Civil War. During the Civil War, reporters would be out there and they'd send their stories back to Washington by telegraph.

But the telegraph wires were often getting cut or knocked down. So you never knew if you'd get part of your story through or all of it or, you know, maybe a line or two. So a reporter had to write the story in such a way that the most important stuff went through first, and that whatever the newspaper got, they could just print that.

So let's say after the first battle of the war. He might write, Union Army defeated at Bull Run. Then the next line might say, the Army's retreating to Washington. Disorganized but not destroyed. Reserves need to prepare to defend against a southern attack. Okay, you've got the most important things, and after that, he might say, the battle raged most of the day and it could have gone back or forth. But Union reinforcements arrived by railroad and turned the tide near the end of the day.

You see how you're starting to get the fuller picture. But if you only had that first line, you had the thing that you needed to know most of all. It's only towards the end that you'd say, well, General McDowell had this plan where he was going to overload it. He was going to faint left and then turn right to try to envelop the other side's rear.

But P.G.T. Porgregard on the other side had almost the same tactic, and they ended up moving around each other. And I could go on like this for a while, but... Do you see how that's the way... The reporter would not start off the story saying, well, it was a clear morning, and the Union troops had their breakfast of biscuits, and then they moved out on the road and formed into a column, and then they'd lined up into a form of battle.

You'd have to get all the way near the end of the story to get to the fact that they were defeated. Okay, you're all... You looked a little blank. I got sidetracked talking about the Civil War. But just think, likewise, if someone asked you, how can you be a Christian and not keep Easter, you probably don't want to begin with a discussion of how pagan religions developed the practice of worshiping Ash-Tarte, and then proceed to discuss legends of Semiramis and Tamus, and how rabbits were fertility symbols in ancient cultures with the intention of covering about 4,000 years of human history, you know, before you finally get to answering your question.

No, you probably want to get to the point fairly quickly that you believe Easter is a celebration that's not found in the Bible, and you follow Christ's teaching and example by keeping Passover. Now, if the person is intrigued, then you might get to start talking about Ash-Tarte, and you might bring in and talk about Jonah and the symbol of three days and three nights in the heart of the well, as opposed to in the heart of the earth.

This is what happens when I start talking too fast. But no matter when you're giving that answer, to me it helps keep in mind the Civil War reporter and the telegraph lines. Just like those telegraph lines, your answer could get caught off at any point. So make your first answer the most important. Cover the important stuff first, and then fill in details if the line of communication is still open. Okay, another important part of preparing to give an answer is that we have to know the information that we're going to give.

Now, I save this to last because this is what we often think of first. I've got to study so much, I've got to have all this wealth of information. I hope I've shown that we can know we can be living God's way without being a human encyclopedia. Now, that's not to say we don't want to study all the time, but let's go to 2 Timothy 2 to get a very simple instruction here. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15. Here, the Apostle Paul was writing a letter of instruction to Timothy, who was a young pastor.

I think of myself as a young pastor, but Timothy was probably about half my age at this time. In the New King James it says, be diligent to present yourself approved to God. I think the old says, study to present yourself approved. A worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So, study, prepare yourself, rightly dividing the word of truth, which is the Bible. Make sure you know God's word. So, regular daily Bible study is part of our preparation to give an answer.

Now, there's different lifestyles and schedules, so we all have our Bible study in different ways. I know one thing that's a part of my life is being a coffee drinker. I like to have the coffee made first thing in the morning, and I sit and I read my Bible while I'm drinking my coffee, and hopefully the baby's asleep, and soon is still in bed.

Just plain reading might be fine. There's other times when you'll do a detailed study. You might get out to Concordance and say, I want to do a word study, or I want to study into a particular topic. There's different versions of how to study the word. And, of course, we don't want to overlook the value of the church's booklets and articles in Bible study, the correspondence course. Those things are very valuable, and they can help us look at a particular subject.

I also want to share with you something I did when my beliefs were tested a great deal in the mid-90s. Most of us were around then when suddenly a word was coming from the leadership of the church that all of our doctrines were wrong. And I was like, well, wait a minute. I don't believe that. So I did something that might be surprising to some of you, but if you're curious, it could be worth doing. I wrote a series of term papers. Now, if you remember back to high school and college, a term paper is where you're given a subject, and you have to do research and write an exposition about that topic and cite your sources.

I did this in the 90s, and I dug out of my closet. I found some term papers that I wrote back then.

I've got one here that says, What the Bible says about Christians and man-made law. You know, and it's... this one ran out. I was surprised when I got it out. It's like 11 pages, double spaced. This one I called God equals law equals love. And I wanted to see how does love and Jesus Christ sacrifice fit with keeping the law. This one says, Church equals Christians. I wasn't real clever in my titles. What lies for Christians? I changed the title. This one says, How to be born again. My original title was, I'm not born again and neither are you. But I thought, I'm after Nick, and that doesn't fit with the sappiness or turns away right. Now, what's interesting is, you know, I felt really good about these. I remember Dr. Don Ward. I saw him... I was living in Texas. I said, Let me show you some things I wrote. And as soon as he said, he opened his briefcase. Took it right in there. He looked like he didn't want to touch it. I just ran back from him, but he also didn't correct me on anything. You know, there's things like that where, okay, now that he's got printed in the worldwide news or the Plain Truth magazine. Well, the Plain Truth certainly wasn't going to print them by that time. But boy, did they cement in my head some things. I said, I've put it in words myself. I've dug into the Bible. I'm not going by anybody else's say-so. It's what I've proved. And I felt much more ready to give an answer. I thought about it later. It's like, Well, you know, a lot of our churches' booklets are just this in a different form, some of them better written. In our preparation, though, and all this, we need to remember also what is the most important thing and being prepared to give an answer, and that's pray. Ask God to give us wisdom and understanding. Let's turn to Matthew 10. Matthew 10, and we'll begin in verse 18. Of course, this is part of Jesus' instructions to His disciples, but I think this is appropriate for all of us. This is partly, well, not partly prophecy. It is prophecy, but it's also general learning of how to live your life.

It says, That's always been very encouraging to me. Now, I tend to think that it's likely God will help you bring out what you've already studied and put in your memory. But, you know, when He spoke through Balaam's ass, you know, He... I don't think the donkey had been studying and preparing, so God can give you words that you never had. But also, I think it's better if He draws out what you've already put in there. You know, we want to be ready, and we can take comfort in knowing that when it matters the most, God will supply the answer. But I think it's important to think that it doesn't... it's not always going to be that situation. You know, there are times when we need to be prepared to, you know, speak for ourselves. God will give it to us when it's absolutely necessary, but we need to be prepared when He's not going to miraculously intervene. And then, of course, we need to keep in mind this always. What we do will always speak more loudly than anything we ever say. Now, that's a maxim. We remind ourselves as staff at the summer camps when we're dealing with the teenagers. We say, yeah, you know, you're going to say a lot of words to these kids, but they're watching what you do. The same goes for your neighbors and your family members and others who might have questions about this nutty religion of yours. You know, if all you ever have are words, they'll say, yeah, yeah. But if they say, yeah, they live a certain way, that seems to matter. Matter of fact, I didn't have... wasn't thinking of this in my notes, but years and years ago, my brother-in-law, who's not in the church and never has been, my sister stopped attending when she was still 16. But he told me, he said, if I ever join a church, he said, I'll join yours. And the reason he gave is, you people actually do what you say. Uh-huh, that's interesting. He hasn't been listening to any of the things we say, but he's been watching what we do. And he says, you know, you seem to do what you say, and that matters a lot. So we want to be aware that we might be giving an answer in advance before anyone asks the question to some degree. But still, we have to be ready to give an answer. It is our responsibility, and we can and we should prepare. But at the same time, have faith that God will provide the help when it matters the most or when we need it the most. You know, along the way, sometimes we'll have to answer a fool according to his folly, or we may have to not answer according to his folly. But thankfully, they won't all be fools. Along the way, and this is when it's sometimes the most rewarding, you get a sincere question of people who really want to learn and who are ready to learn. And that might be the case in two weeks when we invite the public to join us. Those are the ones we sing about, you know, and that's him where it says, Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and he'll teach all nations of his way. Well, he's going to have help when that time comes, and that's going to be us. We want to prepare now to help teach all nations of God's way, and it'll help if we prepare and we're ready to give an answer.