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Alright, we're here in Psalm chapter 14, and the name of the sermon is Atheist Excuses Exposed and Debunked. Atheist Excuses Exposed and Debunked. So we're taking a short break from the Protestant Reformation series, because there's a lot of history in it, so I don't want to get too bogged down in that. We'll probably start that up again next week. So we're going to do a sermon here today on basically the excuses of atheists. Why is it that people do not believe in God? Because you can walk outside, look up at the sky, and know God's real. Is that not right? I mean, it's obvious. It's built into you. Every single child, when they're born, believes in God. Every single one. I remember I was soul winning one time, and I was talking to this man who was older, and then his son, who's about five years old, comes up when I'm talking to him, and he says he does not believe in God. And his son just runs up and he says, Dad, there's a God. I know there's a God. And his father's arguing with me, and his son is like, no, I know there's a God. You say, why is that? Because everybody is born with inside of their conscience. They know God is real. So the question is, why is it that atheism is the third biggest religion in the world above Hinduism, only behind Islam and Christianity? Now, when we say Christian, that includes not what I would say, but the world would say Catholicism, all these crazy cults, Protestants, Orthodox, Baptists, whatever. They consider that all Christian, okay? But in terms of what they consider religions, it's Christianity, Islam, and then atheism, even above Hinduism, okay? And so look, this is a major religion worldwide. And when you look at the countries in Europe, you look at China, many people do not believe in God. Now, that's crazy to me, because I've always believed in God. I've never even questioned whether there was a God. And here in the Philippines, isn't it pretty rare to meet someone who says they don't believe in God? I mean, what, 99% of people here in the Philippines believe in God. But in other countries, many people have rejected God. So the question is, why have they rejected God? Well, notice what it says in Psalm 14, verse 1, Psalm 14, verse 1. It says, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. So what's the definition of an atheist? Someone who does not believe in God or someone that's a fool, okay? The Bible says someone who does not believe in God, they are a fool, which means they're bobo. They're dumb. They're stupid. The Bible says they are a fool. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good. And the Bible describes someone who does not believe in God as a fool, okay? And I realize there are a lot of quote, unquote, smart people that are fools. There are people that would do really well on a calculus test. There are people that know molecular biology and, you know, whatever. And you know, they could be a geophysicist, whatever it is. But they're stupid, okay? Just because they have books smart doesn't mean they have any common sense, okay? And many, many smart people by the world's standards are actually fools according to the Bible, okay? Look, I believe Richard Dawkins is probably a pretty smart person in terms of being book smart. I believe Stephen Hawking, before he died and went to hell, was a pretty smart person by the world's standards. That doesn't mean that you're smart according to God's standards because you're a fool if you walk outside and say there is no God. Turn to Genesis 4, Genesis chapter 4, Genesis chapter 4. So what we're going to do is look at 10 reasons today why people do not believe in God. I actually watched a video on YouTube and it went from 10 down to number one of the most common reasons why people do not believe in God. And so oftentimes, you know, a lot of my work I do for Verity is kind of a copy and paste thing where I can watch stuff in the background or listen to stuff and I thought the video was pretty good. So I wrote down all the reasons and we're going to go through all of the reasons why people do not believe in God. Why? Because there are people that do not believe in God. There are people that say they don't believe in God, but when they're drowning in the ocean, it's like, Dear God, please save me, okay? We know people like that exist, okay, that they're lying about not believing in God. But there are people that do not believe in God. And Psalm 14 showed us that there are people that say there is no God. Why is that? Well, number 10, the number 10 reason given the 10th most common reason is because some people say there's all these religions in the world. If God is real, then everyone's going to believe the same thing. There's just millions of different religions, so there must not be a God. They think that's the most logical thing. Well, let me say this. There are really not millions of religions in this world. There are millions of different so-called religions. But let me just say from two different standpoints, when it comes to the religions of the world, most of these religions can be broken down just off a few different types of trees. When you look at Christianity, yeah, there's Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestant. It's still under the same tree that goes by the same book, so you could just read this book to know which of the Christian religions is true. So you can look at all the 5,000 different Christian religions and say, well, here's going to be your answer to that, okay? Islam has a lot of denominations, but it's under the same tree, and they believe in the Quran and the Hadith. They believe Muhammad was the fifth and final great prophet. And so, look, you could look at that tree if you believe that, okay? Those are only two different religions, and then you look over at India, and then India produces millions of weird religions. They got Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Hare Krishna. They all come from the same tree, though. Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, they're pretty much all in the same timeframe, and they went different directions. They all believe in reincarnation, though. They're not really that much different from one another. So there's really not that many trees that you have to look at. And then there's a lot of religions that have popped up in the last 100 years or 150 years, and they say, well, let's just bring all the religions together. You've got Cao Dai in Vietnam. You've got Sikhism in India, and you've got all these religions that say, let's just all join together. God's manifesting himself in different ways, in different places. Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, because we all believe in the same God, okay? So there's not really that many different religions, but biblically speaking, how many religions are there? Two. Only two religions. Genesis chapter four. Notice what it says in Genesis four, verse three. And in process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Now Cain was what the Bible says, a tiller of the ground. So he was a Maghbubukid. He was a farmer, okay? He was basically a farmer, and his brother Abel, though, he took care of the animals, okay? So Cain brings an offering of the fruit of the ground. Now the fruit of the ground is not just saying prutas. It would include gulai or anything that's coming from the ground. But basically he took care of the ground, and he gave an offering to God, okay? Notice what it says in verse four. And Abel, he also brought of the first things of his flock and of the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect, and Cain was very wroth in his countenance felt. Cain becomes a wicked person. He murders his brother. He becomes a child of the devil, a wicked reprobate. And why is it? Because he's mad that God does not accept his offering. I mean, aren't there a lot of people that say, hey, however you want to worship God, God's going to accept it? Well, not according to the Bible. Because in Genesis chapter four, God says, you know what, I don't accept Cain's offering. You say, why? Well, look, throughout the Bible, even before the Lord Jesus Christ died, he demanded a sacrifice, okay, a blood sacrifice. Now Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He died 2,000 years ago. But throughout the Old Testament, they're offering animals. Why don't we kill lambs today? Why don't we kill lambs in terms of for an offering? Nothing wrong with killing an animal and eating it. I'm not a vegan or anything. But why is it we don't give God a lamb sacrifice today or why you should not do that? Okay, well, the reason why is because Jesus died 2,000 years ago. But during the Old Testament, there was pictures of who Jesus was all the way back to the book of Genesis, where Cain says, hey, here's my Brutus. Here's my Gulai. God, are you happy with Ampeliah? And God says, no, he's not happy with it. That's not good enough. Okay. So here's a picture of someone who's trying to work their way to heaven or find their own way to get to heaven. And they say, God, here's what I got for you. And God says, you know what? That's not what I asked for. I asked for an animal sacrifice. And people try to come up with a way to impress God. Hey, maybe God will be happy. I've worked so hard. I mean, this fruit is so, you know, so delicious and so great. God's going to love it. No, that's not what God asked for. And Cain is trying to impress God with his works, with his offering. But look, your offering is not going to be acceptable to God. What Abel gives, that is acceptable. And see what you need to understand when you look at the religions of the world, there are only two religions. There's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. And there's work your way to heaven. There's no difference between Islam and Hinduism. It's work your way to get to heaven. Or in Hinduism, work your way so you break the cycle of rebirth, like all the Indian religions of Buddhism, just you want to reach moksha or nirvana, so you break the cycle of rebirth. That's still working your way to attain salvation. Work your way to attain salvation or just believe Jesus died on the cross. And so here's the thing, Catholicism is the same religion as Buddhism, right? Catholicism is the same religion as Islam. They're both teaching work your way to heaven. It's the same religion. You look at all these so-called Christian religions and the vast majority of them, they teach the same thing as Islam. Live a good life and you'll get to heaven. That's not what the Bible teaches. So yeah, technically there's millions of religions, but in reality, there's not really millions of religions because what we believe that the gift of God is eternal life is so much different than any other religion. They all teach the same thing, but what we teach is believe alone. Turn to Proverbs 22, Proverbs 22. Right in the middle of your Bible Psalms, the book after Psalms is Proverbs. I mean the Bible says Satan is the God of this world. God, the real God, the true God, he didn't create all these false religions and all of these religions, they confuse people because people are sincere. I mean I understand why they reject believing God because they say, you know what, I'm confused. I want to believe. I want to follow what's right, but there's millions of religion. How do I know if this religion is right? How do I know if Catholicism is right? How do I know if Buddhism is right or Islam is right? I just don't know what the right religion is and look, the devil has created these religions to confuse people. It would be a lot easier just to have a couple religions so people didn't really have to choose between much. But people are confused because there's a lot of different religions. But in reality there's really only two religions. So number one, or number ten I should say, the tenth reason why people reject the belief of God is they say there's too many different religions and they end up coming to different conclusions on things so ergo there is no God. Now here's the thing, people will say, well all you Christians believe different things in the Bible. And you know what, it's true that so-called Christian churches believe different things. But the reality is people teach false things because they don't read the Bible. I mean God's rules are pretty simple and obvious, okay? It says call no man father upon the earth and then people call their priest holy father. It's like it's not questionable is this okay or not. God specifically says don't call them father. So what do the Catholics do? Holy father. It's like you're doing exactly what the Bible said not to. The Bible says don't use vain repetitions like the heathen do. And what do all these so-called Christian religions do? It's like, you know, hail Mary, full of grace, you know, blah blah blah, I don't know. I didn't grow up Catholic. I grew up Protestant which is sort of Catholic, okay? But they use all these vain repetitions or even what I grew up in Protestant, it's like you know the Lord's Prayer, it's just like you repeat it every single week. And look, the Bible says don't use vain repetitions. Pray to God every day but don't just have some memorized list where it's just like I vainly repeat it without thinking about it. And you know what, they're doing exactly what the Bible says not to. So the reason why all these churches teach different things, they don't really read the Bible. They just kind of go off what they think and you could ask most pastors or pastors or ministers or reverends or whatever they want to call them here in the Philippines and most of them have never read the Bible cover to cover. That's the truth. Most people have never read the Bible cover to cover. So how are they going to tell you what the Bible says if they've never read it? They read commentaries about the Bible and guess what the people that wrote those commentaries did? They read commentaries about the Bible. They never actually read the Bible either. And it's like, you know, of course there's all these weird teachings because people don't even read the Bible. The Bible says read therein all the days of thy life. And it's like every single day you should wake up and read the Bible and you got pastors that don't even read it for 15 minutes a day. So who are they to teach the Bible when they haven't even read it? Wouldn't you think if you're going to preach sermons that one of the most important things would be to actually study and read so you know what it's saying? But most churches, the pastors don't read the Bible. Most Christians don't read the Bible. And I'm not asking for a raise of hands here, but look, I'm sure there's a lot of people in this room. You've never read the Bible cover to cover. The Bible says read therein all the days of thy life and you need to set aside your Facebook and your text messaging and read it for 30 minutes a day because we're not trying to put you in the dark ages like the Catholic Church did. I want you to read the Bible so you know whether what I'm saying is true or not and you decide for yourself based on what you read. There's really only two religions in this world though. Number nine, another reason why people do not believe in God is they grow up without religion. They grow up, they don't go to church. They grow up and just go every once in a while or something like that. And the result is that when they don't go to church when they're a kid, they're going to grow up and church is not important and they can just not believe in God. What does it say in Proverbs 22 verse six? Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. There's a promise from God's word that if you train your children correctly, they will live for God. If you train them the way they should go, they're going to go that direction. That doesn't mean my son is going to be a pastor one day, but it means my son is going to be saved and love God. I believe that if we teach him at a young age to read the Bible and we teach him about salvation, he will grow up and he'll love God. Now I will say this though. I've seen a lot of people that kind of have an attitude, oh, I'm bringing my kid to a great church. So automatically since he's at a great church, he's going to grow up and love God. It doesn't work that way. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says you train up your children. It means you teach your children the word of God. It means you read the Bible with your children. It means you teach your kids the importance of church. Just bringing them to a church that preaches the truth does not mean they're going to grow up and love God. You know, you need to actually teach your children, and the Bible promises if you train them in the right way, they're going to go the right direction. By the way, if you train them in the wrong way, guess what direction they're probably going? The wrong direction. Look, I did not grow up as an independent fundamental Baptist, but my parents trained me in the right way. I have never heard my dad or my mom say a cuss word their entire lives, not even a small one. I've never seen my parents smoke a cigarette ever, which is why I've never smoked a cigarette. You know, it's like when your parents train you in the right way, you're going to go the right way. And even though I did not grow up as an independent fundamental Baptist, the reason why I went down the path I did is because that's the way my parents taught me. That's the way they trained me. But look, if kids grow up without religion in their lives, or it's kind of something where it's like, hey, we go to church on Sunday as long as we don't have a basketball game on Sunday. We go to church on Sunday as long as we don't have a soccer game. See, I grew up and my religion was soccer. I know I've said it was United Methodist Church. No, my religion was soccer. I watched soccer. I played soccer. I love soccer. I thought about soccer. That's all I wanted to do with my life was become a professional soccer player. And you know what? Here's the problem with that, especially my perspective now that pretty much every Sunday, you know what I was doing? I was playing in a soccer tournament in some distant state. We travel from state to state because I really wanted to be a pro player. So I was in these big tournaments and things like that. That was my goal in life. And I remember when I first got saved in the back of my head, I was like, man, I want my son to be like the greatest athlete ever, because that's what I grew up loving to do playing sports. That's not my goal for my son anymore. My goal for my son has become a great soul winner that knows his Bible, that reads his Bible, that has character that loves God. That is my goal now. And if you put in the time to train your children that way, they're going to go down that path. Okay. Turn in your Bible to Nehemiah chapter eight, Nehemiah chapter eight. Now let me say this. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing basketball, doing sports, having fun. I plan when my son gets a little bit older to teach him how to do all the sports, you know, that I grew up playing and you do it for fun. But here's the thing. You don't forsake church for sports. That is where the difference is. You don't forsake church or serving God for sports. Hey, I think it's great for a father to go out with his son and just shoot some hoops. Kids love that. I still remember the times, you know, growing up where my dad would take me out. We play sports. I plan to do the exact same thing with my son. But what I do not plan to do is say, son, dear Zeph, you know what, I know we got soul winning, but you know what? I'm going to skip soul winning today. We're going to shoot some hoops because it's more important to me. I don't plan to do that. OK, now you can serve God and have fun and do both those things. But unfortunately, most people forsake God to do other things. And you do that, your kids are going to grow up and they're not going to love God. That's the way it's going to work, because you've taught them something's more important than God. And it's not. Now, I understand that if you teach them and they get saved, they're never going to become an atheist. But I am saying this, that, you know what, if you teach your kid, if you don't teach your kids the ways of God, they will grow up and not really care about church, even if they do believe in God. The number eight reason why people do not believe in God, the number eight reason why they give is this, because they're never taught the why of religious teaching. Basically they're taught, this is what we believe, but we're not telling you why we believe this. The answer to this math problem is 14. Like why? It doesn't matter, son. The answer is 14. Just believe it. It's like, and sadly, this is true. People grow up in church, they're not taught why they believe certain things. It's like, you know, dad, why is it that we go door to door soul winning? Son, it doesn't matter. Don't question me. Just go. It's like, and that's the way it is in church. They don't teach why. And churches, they don't teach why. Well, notice what it says in Nehemiah eight. And this is a large reason why we have the kids in here for the services. They need to do something other than sing somewhere in outer space, God has reserved a place. They need to sing the hymns, old fashioned hymns, just like we sing. They need the preaching of God's word and they need to learn, church is not a game. We have fun serving God, but church is not just play time and just have fun. No, church is you learn, it's the pillar and ground of truth. And most churches, kids grow up and they think church is just fun and games and candy. It's like, I love church because I get candy. Hey, that's great, but when they grow up, they're not going to love God. That's why we believe kids should be here for the services. This is what the Bible teaches. Nehemiah chapter eight, verse one, Nehemiah chapter eight, verse one. And some of the people, is that what it says? And all the people and all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the Watergate and they spake onto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. Now it says all the people, and guess what? Children are people. Guess what? Babies are people, all of the people. Verse two, and Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding. Hey, babies have ears, they can hear, okay? All that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month, and he read their end before the street that was before the Watergate from the morning until midday. So from morning until lunch, from morning until 12, and what you're going to see is they read and then they teach, they preach. See Brother Stuckey, man, one o'clock lunch, it's so hard, 10 to one. Hey, this is more than three hours here in the Bible where they're basically just reading the word of God and teaching what it's about from morning until midday. You know, did you realize that your spiritual food's more important than your physical food, according to the Bible? Do you realize that's more important? And it says from morning until midday, before the men and the women and those that could understand in the ears of all the people were attentive onto the book of law. Notice how all of the people were attentive, which means they paid attention. Did you know we can teach our children to pay attention to the preaching of the word of God? Did you know that we can teach young babies? Now it's not easy. I'm sure a lot of these moms were holding their kids and it was hot and they were sweating and it was difficult, but you know what? We need to teach our kids to be attentive and pay attention to the word of God. Now this is not something that happens just like that. It takes effort. It's not easy being a parent. We've got a lot of people in this room that are set to be parents here in the next year and praise the Lord for that. That's great. You're going to find out it's not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Brother Stuckey, man, it's like my life is just so much more complicated than it used to be. I thought it was going to be so easy. Hey, there's a reason why we prepare you. We preach the truth that you know what? It's difficult. It's a new stage of life and you know what? It's going to be a lot harder. You're going to realize that you don't need eight hours of sleep a night. You thought you had to get eight hours of sleep or you would die. I just must get eight hours. Hey, divide that by two. It's like you're going to realize that you know what? Here's the choice you get to make. You can either just basically not train your kids, not spend time with them, not teach them and just say it's a lot easier to shove them in front of a TV all day and never pay any attention to them and then they're going to grow up and they're not going to love God. Or you can say, you know what? I'm okay with being tired often and realizing that God did not intend life to be easy. See, a lot of people think God intended life to be just really easy and just always fun. That's not the way God made it. God made it difficult. I mean, it says that the whole earth, life, and I'm misquoting from Romans, but basically we're all under that where the ground's been cursed from the book of Genesis due to their sin from Genesis chapter three. And look, it's going to be hard to produce. It's not going to be like Adam and Eve where basically all the fruits there, all the vegetables. No, you're going to have to work by the sweat of your brow, the Bible says. So it's not meant to be easy, but here's the reality. At most churches, kids are growing up, they're not getting saved. They said a little prayer at the altar one time and they never were taught why they believed anything and their parents wonder why those kids grow up and they don't believe in God or they don't care about God because they're never taught the why of religious teaching. They're right about this. I'm not disagreeing with them. A lot of them are atheists because they grew up in church and it was all fun and games and they never learned why they believed anything. They never learned anything about the Bible and you wonder why they grow up and they don't believe in God. Turn to first Corinthians one, first Corinthians one, you say, brother suck, you seem angry today. I'm in a great mood today. I just, I just love preaching the word of God, but look, this is true. Kids grow up in church, they never learn why they believe stuff and then they end up rejecting it. Okay. And you can teach your kids when they're old enough to read, to start reading the Bible, just they need to read the Bible 15 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day. And I'll tell you this, we live our lives based on faith, but it's not a blind faith that doesn't make sense. You know, a lot of religions have this blind faith because what they believe doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever. Everything we believe makes logical sense. Everything stands up to scrutiny. I'm not worried about anything. I mean, if your kids read the Bible, they're not going to walk away and say, I believe Muhammad was the savior, not Jesus. No, if they read the Bible, they're going to believe this book because this book makes sense. We don't have to fear kids learning and say, Oh, they're going to walk away from God. No, they're not. They're not going to walk away from God if they read the Bible and you teach them these things because everything we believe makes perfect sense. The world doesn't make sense. What we teach and believe it makes perfect sense. If you teach your kids to read the Bible, they won't reject it, and they're going to learn the why of religious teaching. The number seven reason why atheists give, they say, well, we don't believe in God because you Christians have weak arguments or you Muslims or whatever. You have bad arguments and it doesn't make sense to us. We don't believe it because you have a weak argument for why you believe what you believe. Now let me just decode that for you. What they're literally saying is you've got to prove to me that the earth is 6000 years by a massive math problem and science problem and then I'll believe. See what they consider weak arguments is actually what the Bible says is a strong argument. Let me show you this in first Corinthians chapter one verse 18 for the preaching of the cross. First Corinthians one verse 18 for the preaching of the cross is them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved is the power of God. See people that perish and go to hell, they think what I'm saying right now is foolishness. They think the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, they think that's foolishness. They would mock this. I mean atheists could catch a hold of this sermon and they're going to put clips online. Look at how stupid this guy is. That's such a weak argument. It doesn't make sense. They think it's foolishness and you must realize the world will always consider us dumb when you believe what the Bible says. The world will consider you dumb and it's ridiculous because you know so many Christians, so many people at our church are very educated, intelligent people and the world will still consider you dumb because you disagree with them. They think we're stupid. Hey, that's okay with me because they're fools. Atheists are dumb. So they think we're dumb because I believe the earth is young. Yeah, I believe the earth's young and I believe it's scientifically and mathematically accurate and provable. They think we're stupid. Okay. They think what we're saying is foolishness, but the Bible says it's the power of God. Verse 19, I mean, ask Stephen Hawking how foolish he thinks it is now since he's burning in hell. Mr. Hardcore Atheist that everybody loved, ask Stephen Hawking how foolish it is to believe in God now that he's actually burning in hell. The Bible says, verse 19, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where's the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Not God made foolish the wisdom of this world. Notice verse 21 for after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that belief. Notice what the Bible says in verse 21. God's method to get people saved is preaching. Does it say it's a creation evolution debate? Is that what that says? Is that what gets people saved? Is it a creation evolution debate? Not according to God's word. Look, when I was in college, I got a math degree. I started in engineering. And you're in college and the topic of evolution is all over the place. You're thinking about it. I studied it. I watched Ken Hovind seminar like 55 times or whatever. And I memorized all the arguments because I was around people that were being taught evolution. And so you know what I was would try to debate them. I remember one time I knocked on this door of someone who was a master student in biology. And I just argued with him about evolution for an hour. And you know, he walked away or I walked away at the end. He said, you know what? He's like, I got to think about some things. He's like, because I disproved him. Because what evolutionists believe is stupid. But here's what you need to understand. That guy did not get saved. You don't get saved by disproving a stupid theory. You don't get people saved by disproving evolution in the big bang theory. Now it's not hard to disprove it. I mean, there's a million ways. I'm sure some sermon will go through some of the reasons. But that's not what gets them saved. Okay. The Bible says here in verse 21, it's the foolishness of preaching. And you know what? Yeah, there's a lot of atheists that say our arguments are weak. But notice what it says in verse 22, for the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. So the Jews said, I want a sign that Jesus is the Messiah. The Greeks say, you know what? We're these intellectuals. We're these scientific guys. You need to prove to me with wise arguments. You give me wisdom, and I'll believe in your God. But what does it say in verse 23? But we preach Christ crucified onto the Jews' stumbling block and onto the Greeks' foolishness. You see, if I knock on the door of an atheist, I'll ask him, hey, would you like me to show you what the Bible says it takes to get to heaven? If they don't want to listen, I'm not going to argue with them about evolution for an hour. Why? It's a waste of time. But what it says here in verse 23, even though they're going to reject, you know what? The Bible says we preach Christ crucified. Why? Because the Bible says I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. That's what the Bible says. Here's what you need to understand. Apologetics is basically a waste of time. These apologetics ministries where you try to argue and prove stuff, and you got like this three-hour lecture from Rabbi Zacharias or whatever to prove, you know, that God is real or whatever. Look, that's a waste of time. It doesn't get people saved. But you say this atheist told me they would believe. Look, didn't they say they would believe if one rose from the dead? Isn't that what the rich man said in Luke 16? And didn't one rise from the dead like seven chapters later? Did everybody believe when Jesus rose from the dead? Nope. Because they're seeking a sign. And you know what? Sometimes they say, well, that's not a good enough sign. I need a better sign than somebody rising again from the dead. And look, they can claim, you know what, if you give me a sign, you give me wisdom, I'm going to believe. No, they're not. The people that are going to get saved, they're going to get saved when you open up the word of God and you show what the Bible says. Now turn to Genesis six, Genesis six, Genesis chapter six. Now I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying to be ignorant of everything, you know, with creation evolution. Look, I know a lot about it. I've studied it and read stuff. I think as Christians, we ought to be intelligent people, educated people. I don't believe in this philosophy from some Christians where it's like, I don't know much, but I know Jesus. It's like, well, you ought to learn something then. It's like the Bible does not say be Bobo. The Bible says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Yeah. Why don't you learn some basic math and science and history and geography? Learn those things. Okay. Now realize the world is not going to give you perfect information. There's a lot of lies out there. You need to know the Bible better than that. But at the same time, I don't want my son growing up. It's like, man, four times five and he's using a calculator. What's four times five? And it's like, look, I used to be a math teacher and literally high school students. It's like six times seven and it's like they got their cell phone. I'm just like, what? It's like, you don't know six times seven. It's just like you should have memorized that as a kid. It's like, I'm going to teach my son at a young age, and it's just like people in today's world, they're not getting more intelligent. There's all this knowledge out there and people are becoming more Bobo every single year. Okay. But look, we as Christians, we ought to be intelligent, but realize that's not what wins people to the Lord. Okay. There's a lot of bizarre religions out there, and you can disprove them left, right, and down the center. You can show how they predicted the end of the world 20 times and been wrong about it, and they still will believe what they believe, because the Gospel is the power of God and salvation according to the Bible. Number six. Why is it that atheists don't believe in God? Well, the reason they give number six is this emotional conflict or unanswered prayer. So questions like, why does God allow suffering? Why doesn't God answer my prayers? It's all put into one category. Okay. Well, notice what it says in Genesis six, verse five, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. We know that in the book of Genesis, God sent the flood to destroy the world, except for Noah and that family of eight people. Everybody was destroyed. Okay. You say, why? Because the world got so sinful and wicked that God destroyed it. See, people don't believe in God today. They say, well, there's all these pedophiles out there and things such as that, and it's like, look, God destroyed the world before, and he's going to do it again, but God gives us free will. We are not robots. We have our free will, and the reality is people have rejected God and become wicked bad people, and then you have the sin and evilness that's out there. And look, I get it that you've got these Catholic priests that say they believe the Bible and they're a bunch of pedophiles. They don't believe the Bible. They're Catholic priests due to one thing, money. That's the reason why. They get a lot of money when they do an infant baptism. They get a lot of money when they do their first Holy Communion. They get a lot of money when they do these things, and yet they're wicked devils. Do you really think they believe the Bible when they're molesting kids? Do you really think they care about God's word? No, they're evil, wicked people, but it confuses people because people that are not Christians, they look at that and say, man, they say they're a holy man of God and they're molesting children, and yeah, it causes people not to believe. Look, though, God gave us free will. Verse 7, and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast in the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now turn to Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10. Now look, you could go to each of these points and preach a whole sermon on it. I'm just giving you a quick summary, but one of the things they gave under this category was why does God not answer my prayers? Okay, now let me say this. You might not realize this, but God can answer prayers of an unsafe person and not just the prayer of salvation. I've heard a lot of people say, wow, you know, the only prayer God answers for an unsafe person is a prayer of salvation. That's not true. It's not biblical. God can answer the prayers of an unsafe person, and we prove everything from the Bible. Acts chapter 10 verse number one, Acts 10 verse number one, there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius. Acts chapter 10 verse one, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God all way. Here's a man who the Bible says fears God. He gives alms to the people, which is not your tithes. It's when you give money to people that are in need, you give them money. And so it's like benevolence. And so basically he gives them alms and it says, pray to God always. So he's always praying to God. Okay, now you don't have to turn there, but in Acts 11 verse 14, as this story is repeated, it says, who shall tell the words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. Okay, Peter gave the gospel to Cornelius according to Acts chapter 11, and he got saved from the words of Peter. He was not saved in Acts chapter 10 according to the Bible. Peter according to Acts chapter 11 verse 14, he told him words whereby he got saved. Okay, so Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 verses one and two, Cornelius is not saved. He's not a child of God. He is not, does not have the Holy Spirit inside of him, but he fears God. That proves you can be an unsaved person that fears God. What does that mean? It means you're trying to live a good life. It means you realize I shouldn't lie and you don't lie. You realize I shouldn't steal and you don't steal. You realize you shouldn't lust and you try your best not to do that. Okay, he was an unsaved man that feared God, but he was unsaved and he prayed. Well notice what it says in verse three, he saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. You know what that's saying? God's saying, you know what? I heard your prayers and I saw the alms you were giving and I saw that you were someone that feared God. You know why a lot of atheists don't get their prayers answered? Because God's not going to answer a prayer, hey, you know what? I wish I had a really nice car. Hey, I wish I had a really nice house. Yeah, if you ask things according to your own will, maybe he won't answer that prayer. Yeah, if you're a wicked person that doesn't fear God, he's not going to answer your prayer. By the way, as a saved person, if you don't fear God, God won't answer your prayer either. Look, if you're going out and committing adultery, don't expect God to answer your prayers. Look, when you have a child, if my son is being rebellious and a bad child, I'm not going to give him ice cream. He gets ice cream when he's good, okay, and it's the same way with God. God is not Santa Claus, my friend. You don't just say, well, this is what I want, Santa, this year, just give me this and this. I want a nice house. I want a nice car. I want this and all these blessings, just the windows of heaven are open, just pouring down on me. That's not the way God operates. Cornelius got his prayers answered because he feared God, but look, if you're going out there and committing wicked sins, don't expect God to answer your prayers. So here's the thing, atheists are saying my prayers are not being answered. You know what? Oftentimes they're not being answered because they're not good people. Now I'm not saying all atheists are bad people, but let me tell you something. You're not going to get your prayers answered unless you fear God. Cornelius, as an unsaved man, feared God and his prayers were answered. I believe that you could be an atheist that fears God and is trying to do what's right, but you just don't believe and you're trying to obey and you know what? Your prayers are going to be answered when you ask good prayers. If you ask a stupid prayer, like give me a million dollars, yeah, it's not going to be answered. Guess what? It's not answered for any of us. We'd all be rich if that were the case, right? It's like, yeah, yes, stupid prayers are not going to be answered, okay? But look, if there is someone who feared God, like he wanted to do what was right, he wasn't trying to commit any sins, he didn't know the truth, but he prayed. It's like, God, if you're out there, please reveal yourself to me. But they honestly meant it in their heart. They're not just saying vain words, but they actually mean it. You know what? Then we'll answer that prayer. God answers the prayer of Cornelius and look what happens with Cornelius. God sends a soul winner specifically to Cornelius to preach him the gospel. So why is it that atheists don't get their prayers answered? Well they probably pray for a lot of stupid stuff. I understand there's a lot of atheists that say, hey, God, just reveal yourself to me and I'll believe. But in reality, they're not going to even if God rose again from the dead. And so yeah, you know what? God's probably not going to answer that prayer. Turn to first Peter three, first Peter three. Number five is university experiences like college experiences. We've already talked about evolution and some of those things. We're going to skip number five. It kind of ties into what I've already said. Number four is intellectual conflict, and that's pretty similar to basically weak arguments, but I will give you a verse on this because basically they say, you know what? We want intelligent answers to your questions. And as I said, the way to get an unsafe person, any unsafe person save is through the gospel in the word of God, but we should be ready to answer questions that people have. Okay. First Peter three verse 15, first Peter three verse 15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. The Bible says we should be ready always to give an answer. Okay. So look, if an atheist asks you, why don't you believe in evolution? You know, you should have a good answer to that. You should be able to say, well, this is why I don't believe it. You should be able to prove what you believe. I'm not saying just study just hours and hours and hours to answer every single foolish argument, but look, you should be able to answer questions they have. They ask you, why are you a Christian and not a Muslim? What's better about Christianity? You ought to have an answer to that. You ought to have an answer to the questions that, how do you know the Bible is the word of God? You need to have an answer to that. And some of you in this room, you're like, I don't have an answer to that. Well, here's the thing. Read the Bible, come to church, you'll learn these things and you know what? You'll be able to answer that. That's why we all need to be constantly learning and growing because look, when I first got saved, let me give you an example of something that's, that's, you know, a foolish thing I said a long time ago. Okay. When I first got saved, what I learned was salvation is forever and you can never learn, lose it. I knew that right when I got saved, you can never lose your salvation. But I didn't know how to answer every single argument against eternal security. So I remember somebody asked me about Judas Iscariot and I'll be honest, I had gotten saved just a day prior. I didn't know the answer to that. And I said, I don't know if Judas was saved or not, but if he was saved, then he was still saved when he died. And you're like, hey, that's true, except he clearly was not saved and he never believed according to the Bible. But it's just like I said, no matter what you do, you'll still be saved. But look, we need to have good answers for things. When a Catholic person asks you, why don't you lose your salvation when you commit suicide? You ought to be able to answer that question. Need to know what the answers for what you believe. You need to be able to explain, hey, you know what? Suicide kills the body, not the soul. You have spiritual, not Buhay, not Walang Hangan, not physical. You need to be able to answer these questions that an atheist would have or anybody would have according to the Bible. Okay. Turn your Bible to Leviticus 18, Leviticus 18, and look, I'm not saying you should just always answer people because the Bible says answer not a fool according to his folly. There is a time not to answer someone if they ask a stupid, foolish question. Can God create a rock so big that he can't pick it up? Yeah. There's some stupid questions. It's like, all right, just be a fool then. Okay. Obviously you don't want to believe in God. No matter what I say, you're not going to believe in God. I understand there's some really dumb questions out there, but look, you know, if somebody has honest, sincere questions, you need to be able to answer those questions, which means you need to be constantly learning and growing in your faith because someone might say something you don't know the answer to. You need to be able to answer those questions. The number three reason what they listed on the video as the number three reason was sexual reasons. Okay. Now I'm going to divide this into two categories because these are completely different points because the first one they mentioned is this sexual abuse. Okay. So that's one of the reasons why people do not believe in God. And here's the truth. Many people grow up in this country, they get abused by their Catholic priests. And you know what? They end up growing up and they end up hating God. I knew somebody in college who grew up in a really messed up home with a lot of reprobates and they were molested by a lot of family members, really disgusting, perverted stuff. And they ended up going to a Baptist church. They were invited by a friend and they went to like a revival for a week and they basically heard the gospel. And this is someone who saved. This is someone who's saved a child of God today. But when they heard the gospel, at first they didn't want to believe it because they were mad at God is what they said. And they're basically kind of in between being mad at God and believing what they heard. And they ended up getting saved that week. If they hadn't, they probably would have gone down the other path to become a child of the devil because they said they were mad at God because of what happened. And what happens in these churches is kids are getting molested and they end up hating God and rejecting God and blaming God for what happened. Brother Stuckey, why do we keep the children here with their parents? Because we don't want these kids getting molested. It's not just the Catholic church this happens in. This happens in all kinds of churches. Because look, if you have a separate room where you say, this is the children's ministry, we have a ministry here where you have one person watching these kids, no cameras, nobody knows what's happening. Guess what happens in those places? A lot of kids get molested and they grow up and they hate God. It's not just the Catholic churches. Now we know the Catholic church is the number one culprit. It's not just the Catholic churches though. That happens in a lot of churches. And that's why not just what we do, but biblically, children are to be with their parents, as we saw in Nehemiah 8, to hear the same preaching. Is it easy when you have kids? No it's not. It's difficult. Sometimes it requires to spank them. And look, that's not easy. You don't want to spank your kids in front of public, you go to the restroom or whatever. I mean, it's not easy to do that. But look, we don't have a nursery here because if we had that, we would be inviting pedophiles to come in. That's what would take place. When churches open up children's ministries, you know what? A pedophile is like, man, this is a good place to be. That's the reality. But realize this, we protect you, as we've said, from the violent psychopaths. Because if they happen to visit here, they'd say, man, I don't have any access to children. All the parents are with their children. I'm going to go to the Catholic church down the street. I'm going to go to the Baptist church down the street where they got a children's ministry. I'll act real nice so I can be the person that helps work with them. And look, that's the truth. That's reality. That is what happens to a lot of kids. So look, they have an honest reason for why they become atheists. Because when kids are molested, oftentimes they end up rejecting God and hating God. That's the reality. The other reason, though, has nothing to do with that under sexual reasons. The other reason is negative teaching about the LGBT. Now explain to me what negative teaching about the LGBT and being molested. What do those have in common? These are completely different points they're making. Now biblically, the LGBT are the ones that are doing the molesting. That's what it says in Genesis 19 and Judges 19. But I don't know why they put those things in the same category. So it's like, you know, people are becoming atheists because they're getting molested or because they don't like preaching against the LGBT. Those aren't the same thing at all. Now Leviticus chapter 18, you're there. Let me just say this. You say, Brother Stuckey, I don't like this church because you guys preach against the LGBT. Tough luck. It ain't changing. It's not changing with the way the world is. I mean, this is what the Bible says. Everything we say, I don't give my opinion. I show you what the Bible says. We show what the Bible says. That's what we're going to do now. We show what the Bible says, and it's up to you whether you're going to believe what the Bible says or just believe the world that's brainwashing you every single day. I mean, do you really believe the media is telling you the truth? I mean, you watch the news stations. Do you really believe they're telling you the truth? Do you know what they're doing? They're trying to be entertaining, so you'll watch them. If they don't have any news, they'll just make something up. I remember this because I had a friend of mine who died in college. I was with him when he died, and he tragically drowned, and we were going camping in West Virginia, and we brought our Bibles, we were reading the Bible, just kind of a getaway for a couple days to have fun, relax, and hang out, and it rained really hard that day, and my friend didn't end up drowning. I almost died, but my friend did end up dying. There's four of us, and he ended up dying. He was 20 years old, and I remember that on the news stations the next couple days, the original reports on all the local news stations were a bunch of college kids get drunk and one of them drowns. I was so angry. I called those news stations. I was so angry. You know what they did? They tried to sell a story. That took place at the funeral. The people that were basically the rescue crew, they actually came to the funeral specifically, to the viewing, and they said, you know what, we came, and they're like, we never do, but every single time this happens, there's always alcohol, and people drown because they're acting stupid, and they die because they're drunk or whatever. They said, when we actually went there and we saw there were Bibles, we're like, this was a good kid, and we wanted to pay homage to him, basically pay honor to him because he had died. You know, the news stations, they just wrote, kids get drunk and somebody drowns. You know why they do that? Because they're trying to be entertaining. They're trying to get you to watch, and look, you know what, that's more entertaining than, hey, a good kid tragically drowns. It sounds more entertaining to people, wow, kids are getting trashed and one ends up drowning. Do you really believe the news stations are telling you the truth? All the experience I have with them is they're not telling the truth, and my sister has an experience too when she was a kid, she was on the news for something, and then they just were dishonest. She was interviewed because she was a homeschooling kid that won math competitions, and they just changed everything she said. It was like the NIV. We'll keep 90% of the words, we'll change the other 10%, and then it's completely different. That's what they did. Why? They're lying to you. So look, do you really believe that this world, do you really believe when Satan is the god of this world and God allows him to deceive people, do you really believe that you're being told the truth from the news stations and the media? Look, the only accurate 100% truth we have is found in the word of God. This is the perfect word of God. You can trust every single word in this book. So if you read something and you say, man, everything I've heard out there says the opposite, but the Bible clear as day says this. You know what you believe? You believe the word of God. Leviticus 18 verse 21, Leviticus 18 verse 21. In your homework assignment today, if this is new to you, is to read Genesis 19 and Judges 19 in your free time. You can write that down if you're not familiar with it. Read Genesis 19, read Judges 19, and then explain to me why I'm wrong about what I'm preaching right now. Because according to the word of God, I'm right about everything I'm saying. Leviticus 18 verse 21, and thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God. I am the Lord. Now the Bible talks about passing your children, your seed through the fire to Molech. What it's talking about is burning your children to death as an offering to a false god. There are religions that have done that throughout history. They burn people to death as an offering to the God they believe in. Now that's not the God we believe in. Jesus Christ, God himself came and he was the offering, but all these false religions, they have their kids pass through the fire to Molech. Now would you agree that's pretty wicked? Can you imagine something more wicked than just burning a three year old to death or burning a five year old, just burning them to death as an offering for God? Isn't that pretty wicked? It doesn't really get much worse than that. In Mexico, the Aztecs used to be a big religion there. Let me just read this to you from, I think this was Wikipedia. Human sacrifice rituals were performed at the appropriate times each month with the appropriate number of living bodies and other goods. These individuals were previously chosen to be sacrificed as was the case for people embodying the gods themselves or members of an enemy party which had been captured and prepared to be sacrificed. Even enemies of the Aztecs understood their roles as sacrifices to the gods since many also practiced the same type of religion. So many religions were just burning people to death. I mean this is a historical fact, okay? It's not just, it's in the Bible, but it's also a historical fact that religions have done this. For many rights, the victims were expected to bless children, greet and cheer pastors by, hear people's petitions to the gods, visit people in their homes, give discourses and lead sacred songs, processions and dances. So they're burning people to death. Everybody's watching and they're singing praise to God while they're doing this. And they said the person who's being burned, they're supposed to be in a good mood, okay? They're supposed to be cheering people on for, I mean, this is ridiculous. And it's said that even enemies that are captured, they understand their roles to be a sacrifice. So according to this article, everyone who got sacrificed says, yes, I get to be burned to death. Do you really believe that? I mean, come on, anybody who's being burned to death is not going to be happy, my friends. But they did this and they would force people to be burned to death. I mean, it doesn't really get much more wicked than that. Leviticus 18 speaks about that when people are offering children to Molech. This is obviously very wicked. Look at verse 23. Verse 23. So verse 21 is pretty wicked, right? I mean, can you really think of many things much worse than burning people to death, especially children? Verse 23, neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith, neither shall any woman stand before beast to lie down thereto. It is confusion. So in verse 23, what's it talking about? It's talking about bestiality, humans sleeping with animals. I mean, is that pretty sick? That's pretty disgusting. Now, let me say this just on a side point, because I've been watching some documentaries recently. Hinduism is guilty of both these things. You look at a lot of the Hindu temples, they've got sculptures with animals. You go into worship God and there's sculptures on the walls of animals sleeping with humans. It's a fact in Hindu temples in India. Not only that, up until 100 years ago, they practiced what was called the Sati practice, S-A-T-I, which was one of their female gods, where basically if a husband dies at a young age, the wife is burned to death, and it was all throughout India. Alexander the Great wrote about it. Alexander the Great was over in India, and he wrote about this taking place, and look, it existed up until 100 years ago. I mean in Nepal, which is the other primarily Hindu country, I think it was less than 100 years ago. I think it was 1920, 100 years ago when they got rid of it, and India was the late 1800s, the 1890s, because nowadays, with the internet and people being able to record everything, you can't really get away with burning people to death, but the wives would always be burned to death if the husbands died at a young age as an offering for the entire family. People tell you, oh, no culture's better than another culture. They're just different. Well, I think most women would be glad. They don't grow up in India where they can get burned to death, and so look, these practices are around the world. The Bible doesn't just have random verses that don't exist. No, this actually takes place in parts of the world. So verse 21's wicked, right? Burning children to death. Verse 23, I mean, isn't it pretty wicked for animals and humans, humans to molest an animal? I mean, isn't that pretty disgusting? What does verse 22 say? Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination. Verse 22's talking about homosexuality. So verse 21 is really wicked. Verse 23 is really wicked. Verse 22, oh, no big deal. Nothing wrong with verse 22, right? I mean, it's just the way it is, right? I mean, it's just common in society. No big deal. Mark it down. One day in this world, and they're already doing it, they're going to tell you pedophilia's not weird. Say, how are you saying that? Because in the Roman culture and the Greek culture, they molested little boys, and whenever you read stuff about that, they'll say, well, that's just how the culture was. All these artists that sculpt these naked guys that they have over in Europe, it's like all of them had little boys. All those artists back in the Renaissance era had all these little boys as sex slaves, and people say, well, that's just how it was. I mean, the Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Socrates and Plato, hey, that's just how it was. You know, that's just how it was back then. They would just have little boys. Look, that's never going to be normal, no matter how common it is. Turn to Luke Chapter 12, Luke 12. So negative teaching about the LGBT, well, I mean, at our church, we're not changing it. And let me tell you something. When people say, I don't want religion because look, the Bible speaks against sodomy, the homosexuals. When people say, I'm not going to believe in God because this is what you teach, what you're saying is, you know what? I don't like the God of the Bible. I reject God because I don't like the God of the Bible. That doesn't change whether or not God's real or not. Just because you don't like the God of the Bible, that doesn't mean he doesn't exist. And let me tell you, there's a lot of people, they read things in this Bible and they don't like the God of the Bible. That doesn't mean he's not the God. Just because you don't like what the Bible says, you know what? You're wrong and God's right. That's what the Bible says. In Luke chapter 12, number two on the list is this, wanting unity. So some people say, I don't believe in God because you know what? We want everybody to be united and to be friends. And you know what? All these religions are just causing problems. They're not getting along. So we don't believe in God because there's so much division, okay? Well notice what it says in Luke 12 verse 51, suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth. I tell you nay, but rather division. See the Bible says, Jesus said, I didn't come to give peace. I came to bring division. Look, Jesus is not trying to just gather everybody together as one and have world peace. That's not what the Bible teaches. He says, I came to give division. Why? Because some people believe this book and some don't. Now look, if every single person in the world believe this book, great. We can have unity, right? You're never going to have a time period where everybody believes this book. I'm for peace, but when I speak, they're for war, right? It's like as much as is possible, live peaceably with all men. But look, when people say I don't believe the Bible and they hate God's words and they crucify Jesus Christ, look, there's people today that are the same way and they hate God's words. You're not going to have peace and unity. Verse 52, for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three. The Bible speaks about in your house there can be division due to the word of God. And let me tell you something, most people, that's reality for them. Most of you, you know what? You probably believe different things than your parents and your brothers and your sisters. And look, it would be great if your whole family just comes to this church and loves it. We love the word of God. We read the Bible, but the reality is a lot of people don't like the Bible. And you know, you're not going to have peace when there's just differences. And look, there is a man coming one day who's going to bring unity to just about everybody together. His name's the Antichrist. He's going to bring peace on this earth and bring everybody together. And you know what's going to happen when that takes place? We're going to be considered the most wicked people on the planet. Why? Because we're not going to bow down before the idol, right? And we're not going to worship the devil. And so look, people say, wow, I don't believe in God because I want unity. Well, that's not the God of the Bible. Go to John three, John three. In fact, the first chapter of the Bible, God divides the light from the darkness. And what he said is the light's good. He doesn't call the darkness good. And that's symbolism to tell you know what God is a God of light. And let me tell you something. God is still dividing the light from the darkness today. All the way back to Genesis chapter one, God divided the light from the darkness. The light was good. The darkness? No. And this ties into the last point here. So God is a God of division. God's a loving God. He's also a holy God. He's also a terrible God, according to the Bible. He's also a jealous God. Look, there's a lot of attributes to God. It's not just he's a loving God. Just bring everybody together. Just do whatever you want in your life. And God doesn't care if you're burning your children to Molech. You know, let's just be accepting of other religions. Let's just love everybody. That's not the God of the Bible. Now I watched this video, and I thought the first nine things they gave were really good. I wasn't planning to preach a sermon on it, though, until point number one. Because let me tell you something. This video just nailed it, because number one on their list for why people don't believe in God, and it shocks me that they're actually admitting this, because this is number one, is moral independence. Moral independence. Let me read this to you. Number one is moral independence. So there are a lot of individuals that just don't want to feel like they're morally subjected or obligated to a God, especially if your view of God is a negative view. They want to keep doing what they're doing without God interfering in their lives because they feel that, hey, they're doing just fine living their life, enjoying it without any interference or any interaction with God. Translation, a lot of people don't believe in God because they don't like to be told, don't drink. A lot of people don't believe in God because they don't like to be told, hey, you shouldn't listen to that type of music. A lot of people don't believe in God because they say, you know what, I don't want rules. I despise authority. Right? That is why a lot of people do not believe in God. That is number one. Most people are atheists. The primary reason is because they just don't like God's words, and they refuse to have an authority over them. They hate authority. The Bible says they despise dominion. They hate authority, and they do not like being told yes, no, this is wrong, this is right. Look, there are hundreds and hundreds of commandments in the Bible. God tells you how you're supposed to live your life, and the reality is most people they don't want to be told what's right and wrong. This is why our church, I mean, we've got a lot of people here today, and we don't even have our whole church family here, but we will never be a megachurch. We're never going to run as many people as CCF for victory. We're never going to run as much as some other churches. You say, why? Because we actually preach the truth. We preach that there's commandments that God wants you to follow, and when you preach the truth, most people don't like it. Now you say, Brother Stuckey, but I like it, though. I like to know what the Bible says. You're an exception. Most people aren't like that. Most people do not want to know what's right and what's wrong. They just want to feel spiritual. They don't want to be told, hey, this is right, this is wrong. They want to be able to do whatever they want without any interference, and that's what they list as number one. And you know what? John chapter three speaks about this. John three verse 19. John three verse 19. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Remember, God's the God of division. He divided the light from the darkness in Genesis chapter one. And here it says people love darkness instead of light. Why do they love darkness? Because their deeds are evil. See a lot of people, they don't want to know what the Bible says because they're wicked. They're bad people. They're doing wicked things, so they don't want to know what the Bible says. They don't want to believe in God. They want to hide from the light. And look, this is even true with I believe God gives you a lot of pictures just in nature that can help you understand things. I mean, think of the most disgusting creatures on this planet. All of them want to abide in darkness. Isn't that true? Turn on the light and you'll see the cockroaches fleeing into the darkness, right? All the little bugs want to hide from the light. And look, God's trying to give you a picture. That's the way. These people that are sodomized, these people that don't believe in God or whatever, they're just a little e-piece. They're a little cockroach that wants to hide from the light. They don't want to know what the Bible says. You say, why? Because their deeds are evil. Verse 20. And look, that is what verse 19 said. Because their deeds are evil, they hide from the light. So they'll say, you know what, I don't want to believe in God because then they don't have any moral authority. They can be independent with what they believe and what seems right to them. So if they think it's okay to steal, they'll steal. If they think it's okay to lie, they'll lie. They don't want rules telling them right and wrong. Verse 20. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. They don't want to be reproved. They don't want to be told no. But he that doeth truth, this is people like us, he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be manifested. They're rotten, God. Say, Brother Stuckey, why do I like this church? Because you want to do what's right. That's why you like this church, because you want to obey what the Bible says. And I tell you what the Bible says. And look, everything I'm preaching, there's not 20 different opinions to these verses. I'm just explaining what it says. The Bible speaks for itself. It's just black and white, exactly what the Bible says. You like this church because you just want to know what the truth is. And look, sometimes the truth steps on our toes, doesn't it? Do you really believe when I got saved in college at the age of 18 that I was just like I am today? Of course not. I remember I heard a sermon shortly after I got saved, and the name of the sermon was Many Skirts in Light of the Bible. It was a sermon I heard online and realized I was a college student where all the women are dressed with few clothes. And so I heard the sermon, Many Skirts in the Bible. I'm like, man, this preacher's crazy. He's insane. He's going all... And the reason why is because I was being brainwashed every day at college to think it was okay for women to just show off everything they got. And so look, when I heard the truth of God's word through preaching, oftentimes it did step on my toes, and I had to change. God's not going to change. We need to change. And the Bible says people want to hide from the light. Why? Because they're bad people, because their deeds are evil. That's what the Bible teaches. Now, you don't have to turn there because you might ask this question, Brother Stuckey, okay, there's all these atheists out there. How do we get these people to save them? All these atheists, they don't believe in God. You said it's not a creation evolution debate. Actually the second sermon is going to answer that question. Because look, there are people that don't believe in God, but they're not bad people. Now a lot of them are bad people. That's why the Bible mentions them in Romans 1. They go down that road of rejecting God. But look, a lot of people don't believe in God. They're not bad people. They've just been deceived by false religions or one of these reasons, and they say, you know what? It seems more logical to me that there is no God. It doesn't mean they're bad people, okay? In the second sermon, I'll show you exactly how we can get these people saved. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today, and we just ask you to help us apply this sermon to our lives, and also the second sermon as well. Help us to learn how to win these people to the Lord God. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I'll do it in the second sermon, so I know how to fix it.