It’s God’s Word So, Think Clearly, Stand Firmly

It’s God’s Word So, Think Clearly, Stand Firmly

Feb. 20, 2025

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Bryan Osborne

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 2/20/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand In the Gap Today, and it’s also our monthly focus on creation, truth and apologetics. Today my guest is Bryan Osborne. He’s an author, conference speaker and Christian apologists for answers, answers and genesis. They have a website answersingenesis.org. Lots of information there. I’ll give that again throughout the program. But if you’re a regular listener to stand in the gap today, you know that we emphasize here a biblical worldview and along with that of necessity is the authority of scripture as the foundation for life and living in every program regardless of the host and the guest. Every program is structured to address current issues, be they headline news or cultural views, and to bring to them biblical principles of analysis. We say the newspaper in one hand or a digital news source. Now, perhaps in one hand, and the word of God in the other.

The reason that we have from the beginning of this program and stand in the gap almost 12 years ago, is that we believe that the word of God is sufficient. That means completely satisfying. It’s not just barely enough sufficient for all people, all circumstances, all times, and that God has given to us all. We need to live godly in this present age, meaning from creation to the new heaven and the new Earth. So as long as there’s humans on this earth, what God has given us is all we need. Now, how we take this knowledge of scripture and the truth of God’s word and respond to the challenges of our day and those in the past, in their day, particularly the skeptics and the doubters and the deniers of God’s truth, it can often be a challenge. Sometimes it’s actually kind of scary. I don’t want to get in that situation. Well today, Bryan Osborne and I are going to engage this question using a recent example of an atheist skeptic’s approach to raising questions directed to, I’m going to say self-identifying Christians and see what we can learn from some of this person’s interactions. The title I’ve chosen for today’s program is this. It’s God’s word. So think clearly, stand firmly. And with that, Bryan Osborne. Bryan, thanks for carving out time from your busy schedule to be with us and our audience today.

Bryan Osborne:

Sam, it is always a privilege. Thanks for having me back.

Sam Rohrer:

It’s a pleasure to have you always, Bryan and some of your colleagues that vary because you’re not with us every month, but someone generally from interest in Genesis with us. But let me get right into it. There’s a young atheist by the name of Alex O’Connor and he’s not the focus of today’s discussion, but it’s jumping off point. But he’s developed some awareness in digital media with his posing questions to self-identified Christian Young people primarily. Recently you took one of his interactive sessions and provided a response commenting both positively and critiquing both his questions as well as the numerous responses and questions by the self-professing Christians. Most all of them younger people who interacted with him. And I found your commentary to be helpful and people can find your commentary on the answers and gens website or even searching, which I did. People can go onto YouTube and just put in your name, Bryan Osborne and it will come up.

Now that being the case, being prepared, Bryan, for how to answer the skeptics questions is important of course. But I’d like to spend a few minutes with you in this segment and possibly into the next if need be to answer the more fundamental question or aspect of questions themselves, asking questions and answering questions specifically. For instance, I just think of these things as laid out in foundation in the beginning of Genesis, the serpent, ask Eve a question. Alright, in Proverbs that addresses both questions and answering questions. Proverbs 26 5 says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. But in the verse right before it, it says answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like him. So there’s a principle involved there. Jesus I think was the very master of asking questions of the skeptics in an answering.

Sometimes he answered directly. Other times he answered with another question. At other times he opened not his mouth. Then there’s the well-known advice from the Lord Jesus himself and the sermon on the Mount Matthew seven, six where he says, give not that which is holy unto the dogs neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and render you. So these are principles, Bryan, let me get right into it. As a tool of discourse and discussion, how should a person view the purpose for the asking of questions? In other words, when are questions a good thing and when are they a danger to avoid?

Bryan Osborne:

Yeah, it’s going to vary from conversation to conversation, but I think overall as Christians we’re engaging someone with questions, especially an nonbeliever. We want to give good questions that really can pull out the heart of the matter to really kind of get behind the facade. The unbeliever brings up with their own questions and get to their motivations, their rejection of God. We can use questions to unveil their source of authority and really share their faulty thinking show. They’re really trusting that authority other than God himself. And in a sense they’re putting themselves as their own authority. The questions are a great way to kind of pull back the veil, if you will, to get to someone’s true heart, true motives and really their true questions or true point of resistance against God and truth. And so they do a great job of that. Of course, Jesus was the master of this. When they are asking questions of certain groups or Pharisees, whoever came up to him, he would ask a question that would get by all of what they were trying to set him up for and get to the heart of the matter. And of course, anytime we can mimic Jesus as a fantastic thing to do.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, Bryan, so clearly there’s a principle, we need wisdom in this process and of know when to speak when not to speak. Let me go back to that very first question and if we don’t have time to finish this segment, we’ll carry it over. You often bring it up. I bring it up because it was the first question that I think we find in the scripture and it’s when the serpent went to Eve and asked her hath, God said. So when it comes to answering questions, are there any guiding principles you would offer to help people to know when to respond, not to respond, for instance, is there something about that question that the serpent posed to eve that perhaps well, she should have said, wait a minute, your question doesn’t even deserve a response.

Bryan Osborne:

Yeah, well, because the point of the serpent was to try to trick her, to get her to question God’s authority and to reject it and for her to be her own authority, for her to be her own God. And so anytime we are encountering any question, we should take it back to the authority of God’s word. And if it directly contradicts what God’s word says, so of course we can early reject it as we should. And then we can also ask a good question in response to point out to the person who’s asking it, Hey, your question doesn’t stand on biblical authority. It assumes your own authority and then appoint them to the right authority, which will be God himself in his word. And so yeah, if it’s directly contradicting scripture, then we can avoid it and also counter with a better question.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, and Bryan, when we come back, I’m going to ask you, not that we can go back and redo what Eve said, but based on our conversation today, the serpent was a skeptic. How would you respond to that serpent asking you that question today I want to find out what you’d say. Ladies and gentlemen, stay with us. We’ll be back in just a moment as we go further into it’s God’s word, so think clearly, stand firmly. All right, Bryan, I set it up in the last segment, but I’m going to go to you and say, all right, now we know about the encounter between the serpent and eve because we read it in scripture back at the beginning of Genesis, Eve did not know what we know, but on the other hand, I mean she didn’t have the word of God. She hadn’t encountered the devil likely probably before. On the other hand, she had a perfect relationship with God above. There was not yet any sin. Knowledge was perfect, perfect garden. Alright, so it’s not the same. We can’t put ourselves exactly in that position as Eve did. But suppose that an encounter like that would happen today and came to you and would say to you, Bryan, half God said, how would you answer that serpent today?

Bryan Osborne:

Well, it’s interesting, Sam, as you look at her interaction with the serpent, first he asked her the initial question about Ed from the tree and she said basically the right thing that we can eat from all the trees except this one tree in the middle and you can’t touch it unless you die. Now she added some stuff there, but then the ser said to her, you will not surely die. And it goes on. He says this, God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, you’ll be like God knowing good and evil. And right there what he did to us, he’s just lying. He is twisting everything. He’s making God out to be the bad guy. He’s saying God is hiding something from you. And so he’s lying and he’s actually attacking God, attacking the moral credibility of God, his character.

Is he really good God? He is the best intent for you. And right there, Isha said, no, are you kidding me? My creator, God who made me, who put me here, gave me all this stuff? No, he has the best intentions for me. I know I can trust him. You’re lying. I am running away from you. I’m trusting God, not your ideas. But instead of doing that, what the serpent said to her, it appealed to her and it says that she was tempted at that particular point, the food being good, pleasing to the eyes, desiring wisdom and so forth. And she gave in temptation. So at the point where there’s a direct contradiction of who God is and there’s an attack on God’s character, there’s a direct lying against God, that’s where she should have cut it off. In a similar way, I think it’s we’re engaging someone today who’s not a believer and they’re asking questions.

We should try to answer their questions, especially with their overall good faith. There are good questions to ask for the nonbeliever about the Bible and the biblical world and biblical events of Jesus himself. If they’re asking good questions and they seem to be sincerely wanting answers because they seem to be genuinely curious and we can answer the questions within a biblical worldview. But as soon as we can tell, and you can usually tell Sam what it is when someone is simply asking questions to attack God, to attack the Bible, to just to have a platform to berate God and to hold their self up as their own authority, as their own God, as soon as we see they’re not really seeking truth, but they’re seeking a way to belittle God at that point we can definitely shift gears in either detach from a conversation or actually ask that person questions, attack their worldview in a loving way, but ask them how do they know what they know? What is their source of authority? Make them go onto defense, make them give the offense for their faith because they’re putting their faith in man’s ideas and challenging them on their foundational assumptions. And so it’s really a weighing out of are they asking sincere questions or are they simply using these questions as a way to attack God belittle God or to just to sound good in their own minds.

Sam Rohrer:

Bryan, that’s excellent. And I’m thinking let’s stay here just a little bit more if you don’t mind, because we know from scripture as now we hold in our hand that as Eve did, she doubted God, she sinned. So we’re all now in this bucket, a cursed creation where our hearts are depraved by birth, we’re dead in our trespasses and sins. The only thing that can make it alive is the faith in Jesus Christ, God’s plan of redemption. Alright, that’s the big picture. But here’s a question for you. I’ve thought much about this. When serpent ask Eve the question, speak to this. I mean, can we not somewhat be forewarned perhaps when questions may come our way that make us doubt because it either appeals to our pride, the world, the flesh or the devil, which we know in scripture are what we end up doing when we sin. It’s because of the flesh, the world and the devil. Didn’t the serpent actually kind of appeal to all of those things when he fooled Eve?

Bryan Osborne:

He did. And Sam, I’ll take the one step further. I think as we just live life in this broken sin crystal world, all the messaging around us, whether it’s through commercials, billboards, social media, scrolling on your phone, the ads that come up there watching commercials, they are pitching a message to you and they are trying to appeal oftentimes to sinful ideas and sinful temptations and sinful tendencies in humanity. And it is a reminder that we need to be girded up and ready to give it offense within our own minds, but also day by day, be walking in the strength of the Lord to have the sermon clarity and be casting our vision on him and seeing him more clearly and walking with him more diligently. It’s a day by day thing because we’re attacked with these anti-biblical ideas every day, either directly or indirectly. So you may not have an atheist like Alex O’Connor talking to you face to face, but you have these atheistic ideas and messaging coming to you from the world around you. And so it’s a reminder that really that old adage within the church thinking you need to do your Kauai times, get in God’s word, be diligent to read his word, to pray to God, to meditate on his word, holds fast to it. That way your thinking can be rooted in God’s word. We walk into the power of the spirit to really deal with the temptations and the questions we get hit with every day from multiple angles

Sam Rohrer:

To all of that. Let’s go and just deal with some of the questions. Some of them were evidenced within that interaction of this Alex O’Connor fellow and when you came back, and people can find that on YouTube that by putting your name, but one of the tactics that skeptics often like to use is that they will choose passages from scripture which makes them sound like, oh wow, they got to be a good person. They use a passage from scripture to prove their point, but they misapply or distort the verse. Alright, can you speak to the frequent use of this tactic? And it can be very effective, but how do we note this and avoid getting caught in that trap?

Bryan Osborne:

Yeah. Well same reminds me of what Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. What did the devil attempt Jesus with? Typically? He quoted the Bible, right? He just misquoted it. He pulled it out of context and he twisted it. But he was trying to quote the Bible to Jesus to make his point, make his case. But what did Jesus do in response? Well, Jesus quoted the Bible, but he quoted it in context and quoted it correctly because he is the living word of God. And so he knows it perfectly, but he didn’t abandon scripture to try to counter the devil’s arguments with some philosophical ideology that sound really smart. Now he used God’s word but used it rightly in its right interpretative context. He used good hermeneutics, he applied it rightly. And in a similar way, Sam, well people try to quote scripture to us, but in such a way they’re trying to undermine biblical authority and really speak to undermine Christianity.

Then what we do is we go back to scripture. We don’t run from scripture. Now we run to and say, okay, here’s what the Bible says in context. Now what you said here is pull this verse out of context. Or maybe it’s not the fullest understanding, we’ve got a little bit and what they understand is right, but there’s a broader context that illuminates the true meaning and the true point of what we’re trying to get at here. So we go back to scripture, understand it rightly in context, and then as we do that, Sam, we’ve got answers. We can defend our faith that people go back and watch the video that you mentioned. It’s an interesting context where you got this atheist debating 25 professing believers, and most of those Christians aren’t starting with scripture, therefore they can’t give a good answer to Alex. It’s so sad if they’ve just started with the Bible, read the Bible in context, they could give a good answer.

Sam Rohrer:

Well that makes it very clear. I mean as we talk about here, it’s God’s word standing firmly on it. We can’t stand firmly on God’s word if we don’t know God’s word. And that is one of the problems of Christianity in our day, isn’t it Bryan?

Bryan Osborne:

It really is. We were talking before the shall, a different poll is showing there’s literally a percentage of single digits in America. Professor have a biblical worldview. And as a ministry of interest and Genesis, we talk often about the progressive decline of church attendance in the United States getting down to single digits, generation by generation. People know the Bible lesson less. And as a result, even professing believers don’t have a good foundation for which to build a worldview, to have answers to depend their faith. And that’s why they fall prey to what actually in some cases are fairly simple questions. But since they don’t know their Bibles, they try to be really hard and undermine their thinking.

Sam Rohrer:

And I’m not going to impose another question to you right now. We’ll save it and we’ll go through it number in the next segment. But Bryan, knowing the word of God, which then allows us to stand firmly on the word of God, is not only our best offense in answering questions with the skeptic, but it’s also the only way that we can really be kept from being deceived in this age of deception where we just talked about it’s coming from all sides. We don’t have to sit down and engage in Alex O’Connor in some kind of a physical back and forth. We’re getting it from all sides, which is what Jesus said, don’t be deceived. So dependence on God’s word is really, I mean we just can’t live without it

Bryan Osborne:

Really can’t. And honestly, Sam, it shows where do we put our trust in our faith? Are we putting our trust in our faith, in our own thinking, in our ability to reason or to philosophize or to give an argument? Or are we putting our trust in our faith, in the word of the living God that is alive and active and powerful and sharper than any two edges sword that cuts down to the bone, the joint, the marrow that we trust in God’s word as the authority because the Bible tells us God’s word is powerful. Sam, you know this, my words aren’t powerful, our words aren’t powerful, but God’s words are supernaturally powerful and can change hearts and minds. We put our faith there, we can see a real effect coming from that

Sam Rohrer:

We can indeed. So ladies and gentlemen, as we say here, this is our program called Stand in the Gap today, stand in the gap. Weekends the program stand in the Gap minutes, the program. Why do we do that? Well, because it is possible to stand in the gap and not be moved, but that is required that we stand on God’s word, which is unmoving truth. So everything comes back again. Who’s our authority? Did we fear God? We keep his commandments. It all comes back to that. Now we come back, Bryan Osborne, my guest today and I are going to go further into some of these more common questions that skeptics often will bring up that we’re not prepared can fool us, but if we are prepared, they’re frankly quite easy to address. We’ll be back in just a moment. Alright, if you’re just joining us today, we’re midway in the program.

Our theme today is it’s God’s word. So think clearly, stand firmly. And my guest today is Bryan Osborne. Been with me many times. He’s an author, conference speaker, and a Christian apologist with answers in Genesis. And let’s go back here to another tactic. Bryan, I’d like you to respond to it. One of the tactics that was actually used in that O’Connor interaction that you were there and you responded to on YouTube, people can find it on your website interest in genesis.org. But a frequent tactic is to question the Bible and to bring doubt on it. So one, there’s a doubt of God and his authority. That’s what the devil did in the garden with Eve. We talked about that briefly. But there is a doubt of the word of God and one way they do it, they will make a definitive statement. Like for instance, well the Bible is clearly not a scientific manual or a health manual. It’s not an economic manual, not even an historic manual into which a person would say, well that’s true to a point therein. But then they’ll go and then it’ll assume a position that well, because that’s the case, the Bible is therefore what’s not accurate because you will talk about principles, they’ll tell the Christian person Anyways, that kind of an idea. So how should a wise person identify this tactic and respond to it?

Bryan Osborne:

Yeah, I often say this in my presentations that the Bible is not a science textbook. And that’s good because science textbooks change every year. And my follow-up point is this, that yeah. And so God’s word doesn’t change. And now that the Bible is not a science textbook, here’s what the Bible does for Sam, it gives us the big picture of history to rightly understand things like biology and geology and health and paleontology and all those issues. It gives the big picture worldview framework to rightly understand those issues. And so when it touches on those things, we can trust it. So yes, the bible is not a math book, it’s not a science book, it’s not a health code book, but it gives us the bigger overarching worldview to understand those things rightly. And so as Christians, we still stay within the biblical framework, stay within the biblical worldview, standing on biblical authority and use a biblical lens, a biblical worldview to understand any and every single issue from science to gender, sexuality, climate issues, all the things. Look at it from a biblical perspective. We don’t abandon biblical authority on any issue. We stand on it and then give a defense.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, I think you’ve probably heard it. Yeah, the Bible is not a textbook for science or math or whatever, but when it speaks about math or speaks about science or speaks about health, it is true. And that is a hard thing for a skeptic to understand. How is that possible? Well, it’s, it’s God’s word. Now here’s another tactic Bryan, I’d like to get your response on. And this comes up very often now it comes back to many cases, questioning the character and the nature of God. For instance, in people have heard this before, people say, was God really good? Oh, well if he is, then how can he allow bad things to happen, particularly to good people, which they probably think themselves good people. But how would you respond to this question?

Bryan Osborne:

There are a couple of different ways you can respond to this. There’s one’s a bit more sharp, but it’s fact. If it’s a hardened skeptic who’s not really wanting answers, but just trying to tighten the Christian faith, you can always deal with their presupposition. You can int attack that foundational starting point because they’re making the argument as you said, that God isn’t good and they’re assuming there is no God the same. If there is no God, there are no moral absolutes. Morality is just utterly relative. And so they can’t claim anything is wrong, including if they want to say God committed genocide, they can’t say that is wrong because there’s no more absolutes. And so why are they arguing against it? And you see they’re borrowing the idea of a moral absolute which only comes from God to try to argue against God without God.

There are no more absolutes. So they have no foundation for their argument. They’re kind of caught in a vicious catch 22 in that particular scenario. And then as far as why would God allow good or bad happen to good people in a genuine response to that, well, I heard someone put it like this, that only happened once and he, Jesus volunteered. You see, there are no good people. We’re all broken by sin knowing a person that’s been Jesus. And that’s the only time something bad happened to a good person is when Jesus lived, died in the rose from the grave. And so all of us we’re broken by sin. We are not good people and we live with consequences of sin in our lives in multiple different ways. And so there’s a short answer to that, but it’s a powerful one.

Sam Rohrer:

It is in fact a really good one. And that is like you’re saying, when they use that phrase good people, when you say that’s a perfect opportunity to go back and say you are exactly right because there are no good people and then you present as you’re talking about. So again, here’s another one, not just the goodness of God is something that skeptics like to do. They like to question the justice of God. For instance, how can God be just when he, for instance killed the whole world except for Noah and his family in the flood or when God ordered the destruction, they love to go to this, to the inhabitants of the promised land. When the Israelites went into that land, God said, yes, you must clear out all the inhabitants including the women and the children. Therefore, God is not just their conclusion, of course, is that God is not just, God is not good, therefore God cannot be trusted, therefore ignore God, ine effectively do your own thing, interpret justice the way you want. So alright, that’s the bigger issue. I think our listeners get it. How would you, a wise person, Bryan, respond to this type of question?

Bryan Osborne:

Well, first and foremost, and again say by what standard are you saying God is unjust? Because if you reject God, there are no more or left to lose. That’s just your own preference. And why should I care about your preference? Why shouldn’t you care about my preferences being the ultimate authority? It’s just utterly arbitrary. You can point that out. But then also we can point out, as we just mentioned, Sam, that biblically understood no one is innocent because atheists often pos the question in such a way, well, why would God kill all those innocent people? Well number one, no one’s innocent, all have sinned, all falls short of the glory of God. And we know biblically, what is the consequence for sin? It’s death. We all rightly die because of our sin. And so we all deserve death because of our sin. And God as the perfect judge determines when and how that death occurs.

And also, please note Sam God is God. He is the creator. He has the right to judge his creation as he sees fit by his perfect standard. A simple analogy would be this. If I were a painter and I painted a painting and I looked at the painting and I did not like the painting, I could take it and tear it up and throw it away. And that’s my right as the painter of the painting. But if I painted a painting and then you snuck into my house and you stole my painting and you destroyed it, well that would be a crime. I could throw you in jail for that, right? Because it’s not your painting to do with what you want with in a real sense. God is the creator. This is his creation. He has the right as creator to do with it what He will now, he’s the perfect judge.

He is the perfect authority and he judges sin rightly, but he has the right as God. And also please note, and all these acts where God sends judgment, there were warnings. People knew judgment was coming. They knew God’s righteous standard. Roman always warns this. No one has an excuse. We all know intuitively. And there was a way of salvation. They could have obeyed God, they could have, maybe somebody could have gone to the Canaanites during the time of the come with the global flood that canines could have repented, put their faith in God. There’s this trend of scripture when a people repent, God relents, you see that in Nineveh. And so the people did not do that. They chose to stay in their sin and rather than save themselves and even their kids from the consequences of their sin, they chose in their pride to stay in it and they got the consequences from that. And so God is perfectly just and right? No one is innocent. And Jim, honestly, if you look at what the people were doing when God sent the judgment on the Canaanite and on the pre-flood world, if we could take a camera back in time and see the atrocities taking place by these people, we’d probably scream for someone to intervene and stop this cancerous evil from spreading.

And so God in its grace is preventing that from happening. And so God is the perfect judge. He is the creator, he has the right to do all things. We’ve all sinned. And so within the biblical framework then we’ve got answers to all of this. And what was so sad though, in the video you’ve referenced that I give a response to, and it’s all, like you said, it’s on YouTube, look up answers from Genesis, you’ll find it. These Christians were trying to answer Alex’s question about this. And because they weren’t starting with scripture, they could not give a good answer. And they looked foolish if they simply would’ve started with God’s word and God has the authority, they would’ve answers, they could defend their faith and give a great presentation of the gospel in the process.

Sam Rohrer:

Absolutely. Now, we don’t have much time, but I’ll start this question. We need to carry it over. We will. Here’s another one which ties into what you’re saying. Many times in a conversation with a skeptic, they’ll pose a question which at that moment may catch us off guard. We don’t have an answer immediately at that point. And oftentimes the skeptic will say, aha, you don’t have an answer, therefore it proves my point that you and therefore they think they have won. And the Christian May walk away feeling that they have lost because they didn’t have all the information at that moment in time. How should a person respond when a question is posed for which they don’t have the whole answer and able to answer completely at that moment?

Bryan Osborne:

I would say a couple of different ways, Sam. Number one, you can say, you know what? I don’t know the answer to that. I’m a finite human being. I should know. I don’t know right now. I will get back to you. God knows and I’ll go to his word and find the answer for you because God is infinite and perfect in knowledge. And I’ll go to his word and get you the answer. And so we admit, Hey, we are finite human beings. Our brains can’t know everything. We weren’t made to know everything. And so we can honestly admit that and be sincere with a person, but say, I know there’s an answer, I’ll get back to you. And then also Sam, we can challenge that person on their assumptions, whatever point they’re bringing up, you can ask them, how do you know that to be true? Who says? And you can really try to dig down to what is their authority, what are they trusting? And then ultimately saying they’re trusting God. They’re trusting man’s ideas which are utterly arbitrary. So we can point to their faulty foundation at the same time and also say, I’ll get back to you with a good answer. Rooted in God’s word.

Sam Rohrer:

Alright, that’s excellent. You can get a lot in a short little bit. Bryan, thank you so much for that. And ladies and gentlemen, stay with us. We have one more segment to go and this will be more of a solution type thing. Alright? We know that the questions and the skeptics are there. We know that the devil is in the business of deceit and lies. We know that we are surrounded by efforts all around us to move us away from trust in God. Alright? How do we get our feet firmly grounded on God’s word? And what can we do to make sure that we stay there? Well, if you’re still with us and you’re listening, thanks for being on board today. I know that there was much information in this program, the types of questions, and there are a myriad more questions that skeptics ask that we as believers who fear God run into.

And the intent of the program was not to cover all of them, but it was to say that questions continually arise like the devil with Eve in the garden, there was a question that questioned the authority of God. What was his purpose? Well, he was trying to switch her in Adam, and he ultimately did their submission to God and their worship ultimately, which what it was all about to himself. And they fell what’s deception all about? When Jesus says to his disciples, Matthew 24, don’t be deceived, deceived about what? Well, it’s about the truth so that it will not embrace the counterfeit, the replacement antichrist about to come on the scene at that point. So you understand it’s all about truth. God is truth, but he has given us written truth then a person, Jesus Christ, who is the truth. So we have God above, we have Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life, and we have the written authoritative word of God that is there for us today.

And the devil is all about trying to supplant our dependency upon God and what he says into what we think or what the devil as that the great deceiver promises. That’s what it’s all about. Now, Bryan, let’s go back. As we conclude here a little bit today, and we’ve talked about a couple things, questions in the appropriate use of questions, answering, sometimes answer, sometimes don’t. We’ve addressed the concept of questions as they’re a tool for dialogue. They are really wonderful in teaching as Jesus so taught. We’ve touched on the concept that there are times that we should answer a skeptic. And there are times that we should not answer a skeptic as told to us in Proverbs. But here’s a more concluding question for you. Oftentimes we envision these interactions with the skeptics, and far too often we come into them as almost like a contest where there’s a winner and there’s a loser and we’re afraid to lose. So we don’t engage perhaps or however that may be. But here’s my question to you. When there are engagements with skeptics of truth, for those of us who know the truth, is there a higher object and goal that we should have entering into a setting like that that is perhaps higher than actually winning the argument?

Bryan Osborne:

Such a great question. It was a great direction to take this in. And absolutely Sam, there is often, as I do presentations on different issues, I will tell people the point of giving answers is to get to the answer. Jesus Christ. That’s where we’re going. If we could convince someone who’s not a believer that the Bible’s true about origins and the age of the earth and dinosaurs and gender and sexuality and all the different things, if we could argue with them and they found it persuasive that the Bible’s right about those things. So we never get to the gospel. That person never bows the need of King Jesus. That person, if they’re not a believer, is still lost in their sins and damned to hell. And so our end goal, our end game is not to win a debate about any given issue. We want to give an answer because God has told us to, he’s told us we’ve already given an answer for our faith.

First Peter three 15. We are to contend earnestly for the faith, Jude one, three. And we take every thought captive, make it obedient to Christ, and we do that to then proclaim the gospel effectively that people might be saved and that God is glorified through the proclamation of his word and the gospel of Jesus Christ and people coming into the kingdom of the kingdom growing. And so our heartbeat, our goal is we engage. Someone needs to be the good news of Jesus Christ. Now, sometimes depending on the person you’re talking to and the situation, the questions you ask and how you get there may vary, but that is our ultimate goal. And it depending on the person too, if you have an ongoing relationship with that person, if they’re a family member or a close friend, maybe it’s over multiple days or weeks or even months where you are working your way towards getting there, but you’re purposely getting to that point.

If with a stranger you want to meet them one time, then you got to make a more direct beeline to the gospel. But our goal nonetheless is always to get to that truth. And we are not trying to validate ourselves. And Sam, that’s a big pitfall, I think you’re kind of alluding to there oftentimes in these interactions, we want to validate ourselves. We want to show people that we’re not dumb, we’re smart too, and we can give an answer and actually our argument’s, right? And then no, actually you’re the dumb one here. And that’s not it at all. We are showing them that we have found truth not in ourselves, but in the author truth, who is God, he’s revealed to us in his word. He’s got answers about all things. And we use all that to point to the ultimate truth, that we all need heaven to the last add on Jesus Christ and put your faith in him.

So our goal is always to get to the good news of Jesus Christ. And some of the reasons I love this ministry, I work for so much answers and genesis, for those who have not yet been to the dark encounter, the creation museum. When you do come here in northern Kentucky, you’ll see not only answers, good answers, biblical answers rooted in God truth and how science confirms the Bible. You’ll see all those wonderful answers. But all throughout the attractions, the presentations, the videos, the virtual reality stuff, all the things, it’s the gospel. You’re hearing the gospel again and again. We’re using those answers to get to the good news of Jesus Christ. And that’s what should be doing in our personal lives as well, in our interactions with people.

Sam Rohrer:

And I didn’t know exactly what you were going to say, but I know you, Bryan, and I know you understand scripture and biblical worldview. So what you said, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you identified with it because isn’t it exactly the heart of what we are to do? Why are we here? It takes us back to fundamentally that to represent Christ as his representatives. And how can we do that unless we point people to the God of heaven through the Lord Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation, the plan of redemption. And where do we find out about that God’s word. So way scripture say, to hide the word of God in our heart, well, that we might not sin against him. Also, why do we know the scripture well so that we can more accurately and consistently explain and share with people around us the skeptics who God is and what he’s done.

Bryan, only about a minute just take this time, but oftentimes, I mean since we’re talking about ultimately a person’s heart condition with God, Jesus Christ, they have to either say yes to Jesus or they deny him. But many times in debates or back and forth discussions we’re tempted to think that logic and the way we set up the question, the way we conclude everything is more powerful than actual quoting of scripture. As an example, where is the real power when it comes down understanding a person’s condition before Christ? Is it my logic or is it the word of God? Obviously the answer is clear, but what is it?

Bryan Osborne:

Well, praise God. It’s the word of God. And with that being said, I’d also say this. Let me encourage the listeners to give it a sense for your faith. You don’t need a PhD in philosophy or anthropology or paleontology or sexuality studies. To get a sense of the faith, you need a biblical worldview. Know God’s word, trust God’s word. Build your thinking from that foundational authority. Build a biblical framework of understanding from a biblical foundation of knowing God’s word and applying it to your life. And then we can give answers to those of questions around us. And then within that biblical framework, we defend the faith and then use all that to point them to the ultimate biblical, eternal reality of their need of salvation in Jesus Christ. And so if you start from the foundation up on God’s word, you have answers, can defend your faith, the powers in God’s word. So that’s where the power is going to come from anyway, and then use that foundation to get to the good news of Jesus Christ.

Sam Rohrer:

There you go. Bryan, we’re out of time. We’re out of time. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being with us today. Bryan Osborne from Answers in Genesis with me today. You go to their website, Answers in genesis.org. Again, this question today, the theme was it’s God’s word, so think clearly, stand firmly, know God’s word. If we stand upon that, our feet will never be moved.