Key Life Network

Narrator: Some truths can't be measured by a mathematical formula.

Steve Brown: Let's talk on Key Life.

Guest (Male): This is Key Life, with our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown. He's nobody's guru. He's just one beggar telling other beggars where he found bread. If you're hungry for God, the real God behind all the lies, you've come to the right place.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew.

You were listening yesterday, we were talking about how we get into this conundrum of truth. We think, and some philosophers have said, if you can't understand truth with a logical syllogism or a formula, a mathematical formula, it's simply not true. That's a lie. That's not true.

When Shakespeare's Hamlet told Horatio that there were more things in heaven and earth than Horatio dreamed, Shakespeare was saying exactly what the Bible teaches. Truth isn't measured by a formula or a logical syllogism.

Truth goes down deep into the heart and we know it's true just because we know it's true. Something happens when the truth of the Christian faith is spoken or taught or preached or read. And we often say that can't be true, but by God, it is.

Now, nothing that I'm saying here should cause you to believe that the Christian faith and its truths and verities are rational only to silly people who ignore facts. It's just the opposite.

The Christian worldview, and that's called by sociologists a meta-narrative, is the most cogent, clear, and verifiable position in the universe. The discipline of apologetics isn't the discipline of apologizing. It's a formal name for the task of defining, defending, and confirming Christian faith.

Now, when I wrote this book, it wasn't a book of apologetics. There are plenty of those around. If you're already a believer, those books are a good place to start checking out the veracity of the Christian worldview. Just start. It's a self-justifying journey.

Now, let's take a moment and look at the nature of truth that you know from your heart and not your head. Maybe we've forgotten. A good way to do that is compare what they say to what God says. There are lots of lies we could pursue here, but four areas are sufficient to make this point.

God's nature, actions, promise, and revelation. It is logical to believe that God exists. He must be big, and he must be scary. And smart people do everything they can to avoid that God.

If smart people are religious, they try to confine God to a worship service once a week. The professed atheist convictions are really wish fulfillment. I hope they think there isn't a God, because if there is, I can't be God, and I'm in trouble, and I want to be God.

Historical and anthropological studies reveal that the theme of fear has been a part of the human psyche throughout all of recorded human history. Because this view is so much a part of our DNA, preachers and politicians and a good many con artists have become quite skilled at creating guilt and manipulating people who listen to them.

Jonathan Edwards, whom I love and study, is unfairly represented by his famous sermon. In my day, we studied this sermon in high school. It was titled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

And if you pay attention to the political rhetoric of our time, you know how often political opponents are accused of violating God, country, and apple pie. One famous preacher said that if God didn't judge America, he would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, the people God destroyed.

Now, that may be true, but it's not even close to the whole truth. For those who no longer believe in God, there is a secular religion consisting of so much virtue signaling and self-righteousness that it's plain insufferable.

Now we're going to talk more about that later on. But for now, guilt and shame are often manipulated feelings, and fear and regret are often manufactured so that those who manipulate and manufacture those lies can get money, or sex, or power, or whatever.

The lies have become the norm in our culture. I don't know anyone who is unaffected to one degree or another by the manipulative lies we hear every day of our lives.

Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation of God into time and space, is important for a lot of reasons. But one is the actions of God to bring truth to the lies believed by most people, and even Christians, about the nature of God himself.

John 1:17 says, "For the law was given through Moses, and grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." If you were God, and that's a big supposition, but if you were God, how would you tell people that they had gotten you all wrong?

If you were God, how would you communicate what John says is grace and truth? How do you say it? How do you say it in a way that people would understand? You could use lightning and thunder. The noise would force people to hear.

Maybe you could use threats, "If you don't get this right, you'll be sorry." If you were God, you could write it in the sky, like a kind of celestial skywriter. You could even send legions of angels to inform and amaze the masses.

When we consider how God revealed himself, listen, it should be no surprise. It's brilliant. It's breathtaking. Listen, "Unto us a child is born." Isaiah 9:6. Not just a child, but a baby. And "You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save people from their sins." Matthew 1:21.

What is God like? Think of a baby. Think of kindness and mercy. Think of the cross. God so loved the world that he gave his son. Not only that, when the angels came, they sang to the shepherds with bigger hearts than mines. All of that is an appeal. Listen, to your heart with the truth of God's nature.

God didn't send a book of theology. He sent a baby. If that doesn't make you want to laugh and dance, there's something wrong with you. As a seminary professor, I often told students that when they became the pastor of their first church, they should spend the first year making sure the steamroller was moving in the right direction.

I told them if it's moving in the wrong direction, it's almost impossible to reverse it. The question of God's nature is answered improperly because of lies, manipulative lies. The steamroller has for a long time, and for many reasons, almost always been rolling in the wrong direction.

If you're a real Christian, you'll be obedient after all that Jesus has done for you. If you really love Jesus, this is what you would do, and I'm going to give you a list. A list, "If you if you really loved Christ, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do this. You wouldn't do the things that real Christians don't do." And it goes on and on and on.

It's sad. It's scary and it's not true. Not only that, if you listen to what I've taught you on this broadcast, it took a baby to reverse it. You think about that. Amen.

Guest (Male): Truth isn't measured by a formula. Thank you, Steve, for that reminder. Steve has been guiding us through the biblical principles that informed his newest book called "God's Not Mad at You."

Tomorrow, our journey will take us through Isaiah and Romans to learn about a suffering servant. Hope you'll join us again for that. Well, he's an acclaimed best-selling author, but he's never written a book like this. Recently on Steve Brown, etcetera, we hung out with Pat Morley discussing evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that God is who he says he is.

The book is called "What If Christianity Is True?" We put that entire conversation on a CD, and we would love to drop it to you in the mail today for free. So, call us right now at 1-800 Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at Keylife.org to order that CD, or go to Keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for the CD featuring Pat Morley.

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