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Episode 335: Navigating the Deserts of Doubt with Dr. Gary Habermas - Part One
00:52:19
Passing through a desert wilderness is a common theme throughout Scripture. Many of God's choices...
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Dr. Gary Habermas
You're listening to Apologetics Profile.
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Host from Watchman Fellowship
In a relatively unknown but enjoyably readable 1901 book called the Desert, author John C. Van Dyke writes that deserts are not worthless wastes. You cannot crop all creation with wheat and alfalfa. Some sections must lie fallow that other sections may produce. Who shall say that the preternatural productiveness of California is not due to the warm air of its surrounding deserts? They furnish health to the human. The deserts should never be reclaimed. They are the breathing spaces of the west and should be preserved forever. Sometimes our Christian lives can feel as though they are passing through the arid wilderness of a desert. Doubt feels prickly, hard and dry, like rough sandstone, or the briars and barbs of cacti. Venomous serpents and scorpions threaten our very existence. Hiding among the creosote bushes or in and among the rocks or the gravelly washes. In the Mojave Desert, for example, one of the most poisonous snakes in the entire world, the green Mojave rattlesnake, slithers through the sun baked sands, looking to sink its fangs into an unsuspecting victor. But like desert's contribution to fertile farmlands, so too do deserts of doubt seem to be a common, even necessary factor in the lives of many a follower of Christ. Deserts of doubt are not worthless wastes, but they are also not our final destination, but a temporal landscape of sanctification through which every soul dear to Christ will eventually pass. You'll recall that John the Baptist went out into the arid wilderness of Judea to proclaim Christ and to baptize in his name. Yet when John was imprisoned by Herod, he felt the venomous threshing sting of the serpent and struggled with doubt. While in prison, he asked two of Jesus disciples to ask Jesus on his behalf, are you the expected one, or do we look for someone else? That comes from Luke, chapter 7, verse 19. Or what about Peter? He denied Jesus three times, even after swearing allegiance to Jesus that he would never deny him. But we also know that Peter was sifted by Satan himself. Or what about some of Jesus own disciples who thought the women's testimony of Jesus being alive again was simply foolishness. Or how about two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, sadly walking away from their beloved teacher. They did not even recognize Jesus when he came to them. And then there is Jesus, very human cry from the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In a short 1894 sermon titled the Minister's Fainting Fits, the renowned pastor and evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon recounts the debilitating but seemingly necessary role that fits of depression play in the lives of many of God's elect. Spurgeon writes, quote, fits of depression come over most of us. Usually, cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy. There may be here and there men of iron, to whom wear and tear work no perceptible detriment, but surely the rust frets even these. And as for ordinary men, the Lord knows and makes them known that they are but dust. Dust it is from dust we have been taken, and it will be to dust that our mortal frames will one day return. In various and diverse ways, God allows us to pass through the howling wilderness of doubt, depression and unbelief to remind us that we are but dust. God knows we are but dust, but we, as dust enveloped children of God, often forget and need constant reminders of our frailty, vulnerability and dependence on Christ alone to accomplish the good works he has prepared for us in advance. As Psalm 103 tells us, just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he Himself knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
End Quote.
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Host from Watchman Fellowship
Reverend William Bridge, in his 1845 book titled A Lifting up for the Downcast, exhorted his flock to remember that the Lord will make your troubles and discouragements the very door of your hope. The valley of your discouragements shall be the door and an inlet unto all your rest and comfort. Christ's cross was an inlet of glory. His suffering time was the valley of Achor to his disciples, and was it not a door of hope unto them? And to all the saints? This is God's way. Discouragements bring encouragements, and the more discouragements the saints have, the more encouragements they shall have. Yea, their discouragements shall contribute to their encouragements and be a door of hope to them. We here at Watchman Fellowship have seen firsthand how the Lord brings people through a desert of doubt to himself. In 2019, someone wrestling with doubts about Christianity happened to discover our ministry's Atheist and Christian Book Club and decided to come to the meeting. The man's name was Devin Squarey, a no nonsense New Yorker and lapsed Catholic. The book being discussed that evening at the book club was co written and co edited by myself and philosopher Paul Gould called the Story of the how the Heavens Declare the Glory of God. One of the co contributors of the book, Alan Hainlein, was speaking that night at the club. Devin and Alan connected and built a friendship and Devin has since become a Christian and has written a book about his journey out of doubt to Jesus. Here's Devin.
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Devin Squarey
I never would have believed in a little guidance, but I met Alan probably about a month in to my, you know, my crisis of faith after I had already gone to multiple local churches and really couldn't get any help. And I was trying everything I could think of and I was kind of at the end of my rope and I met someone from a reasonable faith chapter who, who didn't do much in the sciences. But he said by the way, this Friday. So I was like, this was on a Wednesday, I believe this Friday they have this atheist Christian book club out by, you know, it's like over by Fort Worth. So it's about an hour drive for me where the atheists get together and every month they, they pick a book and then they, they discuss it. So it's a neat concept and all that. And amazingly enough this week was going to be the fine tuning argument. So right down the physics alley and Alan was, was speaking at it.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
So
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Devin Squarey
say what you will, you know, I mean talk about perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect timing of exactly what I needed to see, I needed to hear, I needed to talk to someone who was intelligent in the sciences, you know, that, that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a bunch of backwards rubes that believed in Christianity. No, it's not. It's been great scholars, some of the most intelligent and greatest minds that have ever lived have, have been theists and Christians. And the turning point for me was when I realized that atheism can't possibly be true. You know, it's funny that we always hold Christianity or the, or the existence of God up in the light and it needs to prove that existence and prove its truth. Well, you know what, that's fair, absolutely. I 100% agree with that. But you need to have the same set of standards and the same questions and the same rigor on holding up if the atheism worldview is true. What I'd say is for someone who is experiencing the doubts, believe me, I've been in your shoes and it's hard but try to marshal this courage to face the questions you have. I will guarantee you that you are going to find that there is a wealth of great legitimate information out there and you're going to find answers that I, this part I can't guarantee but man, I really believe it. You are going to be satisfied. You are really going to be satisfied. And it's not wishful thinking. It is. You know, I was coming from a place where I was convinced I was an atheist and I was asking the hard, hard questions. And believe me, I'm from New York and I am pretty blunt. I was straight out asking stuff. Sometimes I wonder if Alan was going to hang up on me because I sounded like a heretic. I was asking the hard questions straight up. And you know, if something's true, you can always shine the light of day on it. It'll be fine, believe me. Try it quiet. It'll be fine. And also, don't walk through it alone. There's no need to like, I isolated myself. It's a self imposed. You, you become a self imposed pariah to everyone around you. They don't even know do what to going on. I didn't want to talk to my wife because I didn't want, I'm supposed to be the spiritual leader of my family and I didn't want to look weak to my wife because what's she going to think? What, you know, what kind of father would I be? You know, I didn't want to tell any, anybody, any of my friends that, you know, I, I did go to, to like Alan mentioned, went to some of my churches and they didn't really have good information for me like,
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Dr. Gary Habermas
you
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Devin Squarey
know, but you need somebody to walk down this road with you.
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Host from Watchman Fellowship
Doubt is not an easy season through which to pass. The wandering through the arid wilderness can seem at times endless and incredibly lonely, if not at times hopeless. But as Devin mentioned, it is important to reach out to someone in whom you can confide and discuss your struggles here on Apologetics Profile. This week and next we do just that. We reached out to Dr. Gary Habermas, who is largely known for his scholarly work on the resurrection of Jesus. But Gary has also written extensively on the topic of doubt and has been a personal encouragement to me when facing my own doubts as an adult convert to Christianity. When we doubt, oftentimes we think God is silent. He's not answering our prayers. Where is God? We wonder. As Mr. Van Dyke says of the desert, you hear no clash or crash or snarl. The desert is overwhelmingly silent. There is not a sound to be heard and not a thing moves save the wind and the sands. But you look up at the worn peaks and the jagged barrancas. You look down at the washouts and piled boulders. You look out about at the wind tossed, half starved Bushes. And for all the silence, you know that there is a struggle for life, a war for peace, going on day by day. Doubt is like that, a very real struggle for life, a war for peace, a fight for joy and hope, a difficult journey toward truth. Jesus himself spent 40 days in the Judean wilderness, tempted by Satan. He knows the often difficult way we take through it because he has been there himself. We can trust him. As we begin part one of our broadcast, Gary shares how he sees the scholarly work he does as ministry, helping people navigate the wilderness of this world with the truth of the gospel. Gary's counsel to those passing through seasons of doubt is eminently practical and pastoral. We hope this conversation with Gary will be helpful and encouraging to you or someone you know who is passing through a season in the formidable sun scorched desert wilderness of doubt. Here is scholar, author and friend of Watchman Fellowship, Dr. Gary Heppermas.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
To me, it's ministry. And I tell my PhD students, I'll say, you folks are feeding your brains and I understand that you're doing it and many of your professors without it and the rest of you are getting your calling card and finish your PhD. But I said, just remember, learning is fine, but remember, it's all about ministry. What are you going to use it for? How much ministry is done? And I don't know a subject, I don't even know a subject that would be closer to ministering to people than helping those people who are really torn up, if they're really torn up. It's about emotional doubt. In particular the factual doubters. I'll get to it when I get the facts done, you know, but the emotional. Because I told the class today, I said, the problem is, how would you be told? How would you handle a comment? Someone said, well, you know, Solomon had a dream and God asked him, what do you, you know, this, this big thing. What would you most wish for if. If for emotional doubters, it's like you've taken the number one thing away from them. You're saying you can have everything. God speaking, you can have everything, but you can't have me. What do you want next? $1 million? You want to travel? When? Nicest car in town. Nicest house. I can't have you? No, you can't have me. What else you want then? I'm not happy. In fact, suicide is now an option. You know, it's that kind of stuff because they're in love with God. And if you take the number one thing away, that's the reason for their doubt. Yeah, because they think, they question whether they are going to see God and be with him. So it's hurtful. It's hurtful.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
And we, as you know, Gary, we here at Watchman, we work with a lot of non Christian religions and cults and a lot of these organizations and isms and people that start movements, feed on people's doubts. It gives them some kind of certainty, or at least the pretense is that if you join us, you will have certainty, settle your doubts, come and work off your doubt, you know, through works, righteousness or something like that. But in talking about doubts tonight, Gary, we're going to talk about there's. You've classified three different kinds.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Correct.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
And I would imagine that we'll get into it, but I imagine there's some overlap. I mean, I talked to Bobby Conway, an apologist. You know Bobby?
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Dr. Gary Habermas
I know Bobby.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
He told me his story about how when he was going through doubts, he was just buying as many books as he can and trying to feed his head to just kind of foot in the trash can, just trying to shove all the doubts down, learn as much as he could. But it really. It really was finally something about recognizing the sufficiency of who God is, being able to rest in that. But. But Bobby's struggle, it was. Is not uncommon. And you've seen it in your professional career.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
In my own life.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
In your own life. Why don't we start with your own experiences and then we'll work toward how those other kinds of doubts manifest in the lives of believers and how we can address them.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Well, I've been saying that I've never thought about this way until just recently. And here's the way I bookend my doubt. My doubt, beginning and ended with the deaths of the two most important people in my life. When I was eight years old, my great grandmother died. People would say, I understand you loved her, but how could she be the number one love in your life? You asked my parents. They'd be sure, and they were happy because my grandmother was in her 80s and they loved her and they wanted her to be fulfilled. And they were just so pleased that she loved me and I loved her. Here's a funny little example. When we go over there for dinner, all the kids would sit a little table in part of the kitchen. The adults would be in the nook, and so they could talk adult things. My grandmother come in and take my plate and walk around the corner. There's one bedroom downstairs by the kitchen. And she'd take it in and put it like One of those navy chests on the ground, and we'd get down on her knees, even her at 80 something. And I'd eat in the living room with her while everybody else was in the kitchen. I was special her. And she died. And it was really, really hard on me. And several years later, I started wondering, is there an afterlife? Am I going to see granny again? Okay. Then later in my life, I'd say my doubts ended. I usually say 1990. And five years after my doubt ended, my wife and mother of my four children, I watched her at age 43 waste away. The last time I weighed her, she lost half her body weight. She was small anyway, and very slightly built. And she lost half her body weight. And she died of 43 of stomach cancer. And so I thought, death, doubts. Boy, I'm doing better now. Death. And I had to. Kept this little diary thing, which I'm not very good at, but I kept some notes and what's going to happen now that. That Deb has died? And I thought to myself, I said, this is going to. This is going to be the end of me maybe, because probably if my wife dies, it's going to start my doubts going again. And so I wrote that in this little book. And guess what? My doubts never started. They never came after my wife died.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
And this little book, you're talking about journalism.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Journalism, a little journal. But I later, before I got married, one year later to my present wife Eileen. I finished that book one month before we got married. And it was kind of a. Ending one chapter of my life and the marriage is morphing into a new one. But I. And I said in the book. I said that the book that I was kind of ending that. And I mean, what else could I do? She was buried and there's nothing else I could do about it, but. And I said probably the doubts are going to come back and they never. I said it in the book too, that I was afraid of that by God's grace, it never came back. So I really. I'm not saying I don't think about something overnight. Return to it in the morning, and then it's just nothing anymore.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Yeah.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
I'm saying I haven't struggled with doubt since 1990. So for me, that's a long time, but it's the longest time of my life I've. I've had free.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Yeah. I was in preparation for you coming over tonight. I was talking. I was reading through some Ch. Spur Spurgeon, and he was a particular sermon talking about how if he had met A Christian man who said he never doubted he would wonder about the genuineness of his profession because Spurgeon, the prince of preachers himself, was many of his writings and sermons and devotionals. Touch upon and you can tell a man whose heart and soul had been touched by long periods, prolonged periods on and off again of depression, of doubt and of wondering if.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Depression, huh? Yeah, I don't think I've heard that about.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Not. Well, you know, clinically, it's not what it is that we understand it to be today, but periods of doubt. We might. I might hesitate to call it depression in the modern sense of the clinical diagnosis of depression, but he passed through a lot of doubt. Martin Luther, C.S. lewis expressed some doubt throughout his life. A lot of saints of old, if you will, seem to have this pernicious struggle with doubting.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Augustine, going from cults to faith and having the, you know, some of the.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Some of the greatest. There's a great book here. I don't know if you've ever heard this one, but it was recommended to me by, you know who. The late John R.W. stott. You know John Stott?
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Yeah.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
I was a young Christian about five years, been a believer for about five years. And my pastor said, you need to come hear this man preach. And John Stott was in Tennessee. And so we drove down to Knoxville where John Stott was, and just. And listened to one of the most fiery orations on the Book of Acts and Cities that I've ever heard. I mean, just how do you take such a passage and blow it up like he did? It was just amazing. And he stood, and there was probably about 3, 400 people there. And he stood there all night after the thing and shook anybody's hand that wanted to. And after that, I wrote to John Stott, just handwritten letter, because I struggle with doubt as an adult convert. He wrote back to me in a handwritten note and recommended a book called Genius and Grace by a guy named Gaius Davies, who outlines small biographical outlines of people who. Christians who have struggled with doubt. So this is a. I say this all to say it's been an encouragement to me to find out that people, Christians of all kinds, in all places, of all callings, struggle with doubt. That was a very assuring. Gave me some solid footing. I felt like I was on my own until I started realizing there's a
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Host from Watchman Fellowship
whole body of corporate, a whole body of John the Baptist.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Are you the one, you know, or
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Dr. Gary Habermas
should we look for another? It's not bad enough to say I'm doubting Right. It's I'm doubting, or should I the forerunner. Start looking for this guy named Buddha down the street, right?
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Or Moses standing before whatever God looked like to Moses arguing with God about, I. I'm slow of speech. I stammer, you know, and Moses is doubting, or Peter doubted, or the Bible
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Dr. Gary Habermas
is filled with David, David, Jeremiah, who in clinical terms, probably was depressed.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Lamentations is a book of depression.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
There you go. There's some tough language there.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Maybe chapter three is the only redeeming chapter. Is it Lamentations or the book of Jeremiah was chapter three, where there is some hope, where he sings a song to God. But most of the time, that's the weeping prophet. He's got tears coming out of his eyes.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Left. I mean, how would you like to live down the bottom of a well, people?
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Well, depression feels like that, doesn't it? Sometimes doubt. Now, can we distinguish between clinical, psychological depression and doubt? Or are they two of the same sides of a coin?
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Dr. Gary Habermas
No, I don't think they have to be two sides at all. Clinical, I think, could be. It's way worse. But you think. But I think they could be different things. Okay, I. I think. I think. Well, I'll tell you this. I don't want to start a fight here on your. No, no, no. Not with you, but, like, with your guests. Okay, people, I just told the class today that factual doubt is. I've had thousands of conversations, mostly a male thing. Emotional doubt is chiefly female. Most females. Oh, wow. However, a couple of caveats. A lot of guys say they have factual doubts. That's because they don't want to be a wimp and say they have emotional doubt. But when you start talking to them, you could say, okay, let me ask you a question. Is your doubt painful? Yeah, it's painful. It's the most painful thing. And I already. When they say, yeah, it is, I go, you're emotional. I'm saying it to myself.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
You've said it to me. We've had conversations. I'll just go ahead and admit it. It's not just factual. I mean, sometimes I think the facts don't bother me. It's the emotional, does God love me? Does God love me?
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Dr. Gary Habermas
And it's what you tell yourself. And if you tell yourself, man, I don't know. I thought he loved me until last night, whatever last night was, until this happened. Until I had this thought and, oh, man, someone asked me a question today, and now I wonder, what would God say about that? You know, these kind of things. And the men Struggle with them too. But I like my wife's response. She said, I said, most of most emotional daughters are women. She goes, you're right. At least we know we're emotional. I thought that was a great comment.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
So you're saying, Gary, that your mechanic, your construction friend, your home, home repair guy, all the, the plumber, all the guy things, they're having emotion. They have emotional doubts. Men have emotional doubts, we just don't like to admit. Not just about God, but, but maybe about ourselves. Men generally tend to be. Are taught, you know, not to be insecure or emotionally. Or appear emotionally vulnerable.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Self sufficient.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Self sufficient, you know, got to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders or whatever. God purged me of that a long time ago. And I've been able to maybe, maybe too much confide in people and say, you know, I'm really struggling with this. But when I do that, I find there's a world of people that are like, oh, I'm glad you said something, you know, because that helped me.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Because guys don't talk about it.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Right, right.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
And women talk a lot about it.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
They do. So there's. You're talking about factual doubt, emotional doubt. What's the third kind?
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Dr. Gary Habermas
I call volitional doubt. Now today, I mean, these days, I feel like maybe another name might be appropriate. And I told the class today, lecturing a doubt, I said, maybe today we call the third category deconstructing. Oh, the word for those who are. They're either. To make that category work, I would say they could be close to Grand Canyon or they've already gone off, but they're struggling. And you know, we're human beings. We're almost never all of something and nothing of something else. I think a factual doubter can. It can morph into emotional doubt. Yeah, I think that a lot of hopefully this is the case. If your son or daughter, their deconstructive doubt could have some emotional elements in them. They got some. They haven't slipped down entirely. I do that order, by the way, because factual doubt, untreated, morphs into emotional quite frequently. And if emotional is not taken care of, it's like, you know, it's sort of like saying, I've given the Lord 10 or 12 years and if that's not enough for him to speak to me and answer me, why am I following him? And it. And when I work with the clinical psychologist, he took some of my ideas and started to check them out with psychological tests and he gave them to a bunch of adults. And we, we predicted Ahead of time that emotional doubt would load on anxiety. And that volitional doubt which is willful. All doubt is willful. But this is really, I don't want to do it anymore. It's like obstinate. And we predict it would load on anger and exactly did when we got the test back. Anxiety for emotional. Not much. Not much psychological stuff necessarily in factual doubt but just asking good questions but anxiety winning. And when it's not cared for, it's like God must not care about me. And now you get mad at him.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
So the deconstruction doubt we might say because we've, we've done a profile on that. We. I've interviewed several people on that. I've seen been through that whole movement that is kind of a burgeoning didn't happen overnight. But deconstruction empty the pews, whatever it is where people are proactively.
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Host from Watchman Fellowship
This isn't new atheism.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
This is almost like my emotional doubt has turned into activist doubt. Now I'm angry and I'm acting on my anger and I'm going to break this apart until it's ground to pieces.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
Yeah. And like any kind of anger, it could be full throated anger, but it can also be I'm just gonna sit here by myself and be alone. I don't care. God's already left me alone as well be more alone. I'm just gonna, I'm not gonna be active anything. I'm just gonna sit here and how
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
much doubt that you've, people you've talked to Gary over the years have somewhere in the center in the world vortex of their doubting. Is God seemingly being silent for a prolonged period of time about something in their life?
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Dr. Gary Habermas
I'd say if the second category is emotional doubt, silence presently in the last few years is probably the most common sub form of emotional doubt.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
God's silence. God's not talking to me. I can't hear him. I don't know what he's doing.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
You know the old my prayers don't go past the ceiling. And I have three books on doubt by the way. Two of my books are on my website and they're free. They can be downloaded by anybody dealing with doubt and then the Thomas Factor. But it's subtitled. That's what the resurrection subtitled. Using your doubts to grow closer to God. I did a third one on silence and this one's already. I thought the press did a really good job with the Tyndale. They have a guy walking down the middle of the street and it Looks like he's in Arizona or New Mexico because it looks in the desert and he's carrying a gas can and you think he's trying to get to a gas station. I wonder how. What's he going to walk 40 miles? I mean, what is it out here in the middle of the desert? And the subtitle of the book is on silence. The subtitle is what to do when you think God has given you the silent treatment.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Wow.
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Host from Watchman Fellowship
Wow.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
And so I deal with a bunch of. I mean, there's a lot of myths. I mean, just to tell you one, I get this question a lot from people. It's often an emotional question, but it's, you know, can morph into the. What we're calling deconstruction. But the question is, they'll say, hey, look, you read the New Testament, and every time believers need something, God comes to the rescue all the time. And so we're given the view that our prayers would be answered the same way. And there's a lot of teachings that say that. But I don't know, people that get all their prayers answered like that, are we, like, not believers? And so God doesn't care about us and we're guilty of heresy of some kind? Or is there some other reason? And I'll say, I'll tell you there's some other reason. You're filling your mind with a bunch of falsehoods. They go, like what? I say, look, check the New Testament out for yourself. Let's just take two examples. Let's say life of Jesus. I've counted eight circumstances where it'd be very convenient for God to remove Jesus, his son, whom he loves unconditionally. He could take him out of the situation with no problem. He doesn't take Jesus out of one of them. And you could say, well, how about when Joseph took the child to Egypt? I could say, okay, he got out of that one a half time. Why? What's the other half? How would you like to be one of the mothers who lost the babies back in Bethlehem?
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Yeah, the Herod persecution.
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Dr. Gary Habermas
So. And you wouldn't want it to be that he took a son out but let the other babies die? You know, you wouldn't want it to be that. And then the other cases, he does nothing. How do we explain sweat, drops of blood, by the way, it's only in Luke, and it's a variant, so it doesn't have to have been in the original.
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Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
The blood, the blood, sweating the blood.
- [33:33]
Dr. Gary Habermas
It's only in Luke, you know, doing. Being a Medical doctor. It is a medical condition, but since it's only in there and it's a variant reading, you know, it's hard to be, but it seems like it's a good source. Sweat, drops of blood. How about let this cup pass from me? Jesus knew he came here. You know, we sing songs, what's that name of that decade or two ago was such a big hit? Born to die. Jesus was born to die. He knew he was born to die. And when the time comes, he says, please, let's find some other way. Okay, don't tell me he wasn't suffering. But God didn't say, you got it? Let's go a different path. We'll get you out right now. So you got take this cup from me. And you know, a lot of Christians trying to be like a little over pious sometimes. Yes. But Jesus said, not my will, but thine be done. Yes, he did, but that doesn't explain his emotional anguish.
- [34:24]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
I think that was one of the first passages carried that one that convinced me of the humanity, the full, the true humanity of Christ. Because in every way tempted as we are, the great high priest, Hebrews 4. Well, what does that mean? Well, he, he didn't want to do stuff either. And where is that most clearly emphasized? Right here. Let this cup pass from me, but not my will. So there is the human Jesus.
- [34:49]
Dr. Gary Habermas
It's like, I'd sure like it if you could take this cup from me.
- [34:52]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
That would be great.
- [34:53]
Dr. Gary Habermas
And you know, Hebrews 5, if I'm not mistaken, Hebrews 5 says Jesus learned obedience by the things that he suffered. And you're going, what the son of God? And people stop. But I say these things that go, well what throws me first of all is did Jesus learn anything? Yes, he learned he was, he was fully human. If he's going to be 100% man, he's got to learn like everybody else. When he says to the woman in the crowd who touched me, he really
- [35:21]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
doesn't know the human Jesus.
- [35:22]
Dr. Gary Habermas
He seems like he doesn't know who touched. Now he might just wanted her to say it was me, but it seems like he doesn't know. He specifically tells us in Mark 13 that I don't know the time of my return. Yeah. So he doesn't know things, everything. And Hebrews says, how could he be, how could he be a full man and know everything from the get go? It's kind of like slanted that kind of view where he wouldn't really have any temptation. But Hebrews says he learned by his suffering that's Hebrews 5, Hebrews 2, 10 says he was completed by his sufferings. So when I lecture on this topic, I'll say, before some of you think God's out to get you, and before you say, why me, ask yourself this question. Why Jesus? If Jesus had to undergo his whole life knowing the cross was coming in the garden, a cup passed from me. Sweat, drops of blood, he's on the cross. And the worst of all, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He felt forsaken. And God says, well, the writer of Hebrews, he says he suffered by. He learned from his suffering. So back to the original question. Eight things in Jesus's life, God never took them from any of them. Unless you say a half of one. But then there's the mothers who lost the kids back in Bethlehem, the babies to an under. And it's another question. Someone could say, well, why could he learn from a suffering? It was going to be over in two hours. There's not much time to learn right there. And I'll give Jim Warner Wallace, I'll give him a. I'll punt to him on this. I heard him say in a message one time, I believe this for years, but I've not heard anybody else say it. And he said, who says sanctification ends at death? And I thought it was a wake up call. I thought it was like, whoa. I've always thought that. I thought, we're going to grow in heaven. Because the way I argue that is in Ephesians 2, 7, it says, throughout the ages to come, we're going to continue to show the things that God's revealed in Christ. Well, if it's throughout the ages to come, things are going to be revealed, then you better believe if God's revealing things, we're learning. God's not going to learn. I knew it. I knew it. I already knew that. Already knew that. No, you're growing, so why can't we grow in heaven? Yeah, but here's the other side of this thing. Not Jesus wasn't fully delivered. If you count the kids in Bethlehem, he wasn't fully delivered from any of them. But what about the rest? And somebody else could say, what about the rest of Testament? Yeah, please. Thanks for walking into that one. How many times do you say where Christians are delivered from their suffering? Well, I said that one time and a woman raised her hand and she goes, hey, what about Acts 16 where Peter and Silas were preaching? They were put in jail, put in stocks, but they were whipped. She didn't Even say that. She just said they were put in jail. He gets to come out and lead the flipping jail of the Lord and the whole family. Baptize the whole family. What a blessing. How about that? That was someone getting away, right? And I said never. I'm not saying it never happens, I'm just saying it's not often. But I said in that case. Was your point about Paul was in jail and he got out scot free. Was that before or after they were whipped? And she goes, oh yeah, I withdraw my question. Now in Acts 13, Peter got out and the guy was still standing in front of a locked cell and Peter got out. So it happens once in a while, but you almost can't find any cases. God did not, not certainly did not always. He seldom took Christians out of the circumstances.
- [39:00]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Gary, you think you know one of my favorite verses and something that's helped me when I have difficulties and I think God is not listening or God doesn't hear me is creation. The stars, specifically Psalm 19. The heavens are telling of the glory of God. The skies proclaim his handiwork. Day unto day pours forth speech, night unto night reveals knowledge. Gary, there's no words. So you have speech and knowledge wrapped in silence. And so what does God tell his people in Jeremiah? That the new covenant, his chesed, his loving kindness would depart from him if the laws of the universe departed from him. In other words, the fixed regularity of the universe, your emotions, your physical emotive state doesn't change with the motion of the planets and the stars. You can't affect the moon's phases or the stars or the seasons. In the sky by your moods, the sky is as constant no matter how you're feeling and how much more so the God who created that. So I gave a talk one time last year at a church. We're talking about where is God? Why is God silent? And I gently afforded the suggestion that maybe we need to be better interpreters of silence because there is things to be learned when we are quiet and we can listen and there doesn't have to be words. So I don't know. That's just something I thought of. Have you thought about.
- [40:30]
Dr. Gary Habermas
I think of Jesus learned by suffering. Do we get off scot free? It seems like we would need more suffering because Jesus would need less because he's smarter and he. It kicked in sooner. But we need to be. We have slapped a few times before we shape up.
- [40:48]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Yeah.
- [40:48]
Dr. Gary Habermas
So I think there's a real argument for. So anyway, back to the thesis of why Doesn't God take us out of situations like he always did in New Testament? How about like he never, almost never did in the New Testament? What we see today, we have double Weinberg experiments, but published in secular medical journals. We have healing with MRI, CAT scan, CT scans. And we have information we see before and after broken bones. Craig Keener and others talk about seeing the evidence and seeing things healed. We see all these things. Maybe we can claim God's more active today than he was with most Christians in the first century. But that's not enough for us. We want every prayer answered. Every, every, every. And so I tell people in the crowd, until you suffer like Jesus, or until you're completed like Jesus had to be completed. Hebrews 2, don't complain. Because if it helped you get through it and he learned by going through it, unless of course, you think you're smarter than Jesus, learned faster than Jesus, or completed faster than Jesus, then I guess you can talk to you Jesus. But if you don't think you're in that category, don't be surprised because God teaches everybody by suffering.
- [42:11]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
I think something I think it was you that kind of helped me, at least indirectly see this in My dad didn't have a great relationship with my own father growing up. I wasn't a Christian growing up. My dad took his own life when I was in high school. But my dad was very vociferous when he was displeased with me. And when it comes to God, I've learned one thing at least God could make it very clear he's displeased with me.
- [42:36]
Host from Watchman Fellowship
Very clear.
- [42:38]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
But I have interpreted God's silence not necessarily so much as approval, but I need to stop telling myself in my head. You know, you talk about telling yourself the truth.
- [42:51]
Dr. Gary Habermas
Exactly.
- [42:52]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
And I have to stop if God is being silent. The last thing I need to do is tell myself in my head God is displeased with me because I'm not hearing from him. No, God can make his displeasure known immediately. So I think that for me, the truth I need to keep telling myself in my head when God seems silent, is not interpret the silence as though God is displeased with me. And oftentimes I think in our tit for tat, sort of earn God's favor kind of mentality that we have, oh, I didn't do enough. God must be angry with me or oops, I goofed. God must not like me as much as he did yesterday when I was doing all right. That slips in and causes us a lot of doubt, doesn't it? The works righteousness mentality that we know isn't true, but in practice we kind of live that out and think God's love toward us is contingent upon our obedience.
- [43:48]
Dr. Gary Habermas
Yeah, I think of Erwin Lutzer's book on it's made for 13 week studies like for a quarter adults or whatever. But you're richer than you think. And he tells us about all these blessings we have. You're. You can tell Satan to get lost. You can, you can shun sin. You can follow him. You can. And he gives all these things one per week. And the, and the kind the people who write on the sufficiency we have in Christ. That's a good thing to learn because if we, if we cater to that side of us, we'll be able to see less the what was me Now God's mad. Oh, he's happy today. He's mad. And God's not back and forth like that like that.
- [44:38]
Host from Watchman Fellowship
We are not. Not God.
- [44:40]
Dr. Gary Habermas
We are. And so our emotional state, like I said, anxiety loads on emotional doubt and anger loads on the last phase before people jump off the cliff. And so just remember those emotions are ours. There's ours. And it's our interpretation of the data which are wrong. I mean I just told a woman today who came asked me, she said how come unbelievers do it this way? And I said, well, think about it like this in philosophical terms. You have facts and then you have interpretations. Don't be surprised if unbelievers take facts and take the interpretations their way because everybody does that. I'm not always happy with the way believers take facts and twist them our way because they might say some silly things that I think are just theologically or inane or something. But we have to be careful. If we interpret wrongly, we can interpret correctly. We can interpret wrongly, but we have much promises in scripture. First John 5:13 says you can know you're saved. That's even my favorite verse when I was going through doubts. If you believe in Christ, you know that you have eternal life. That's a great verse. John 5:24 a related grievous and Romans 10:9 I always liked which by the way it's another topic I like to talk about. It's an early creedal source. So that thing is really. That verse may be in the 30s AD it may have come Bob.
- [46:16]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
I didn't know that just the 10, nine, 10, eight, nine, 10, eight, 9,
- [46:19]
Dr. Gary Habermas
10, nine and 10. And in that verse he said if you confess the mouth that Jesus Lord, and believe in your heart that God's great from the dead you'll be saved. Well, a big subject that's been coming up lately is called High Christology. It's called the High Christology movement.
- [46:35]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Yeah.
- [46:36]
Dr. Gary Habermas
And one of the guys who wrote on this a lot has said that. Look at something. When Paul cites the verse, it's not his, it's a creed. But he puts the creeds in creed in there right after it. He cites the book of. I believe it's Joel. And Joel says, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That sounds like a New Testament verse, but it's an Old Testament verse. But when Joel says whoever calls upon the name Lord will be saved. The word for Lord is Jehovah. So in the creed, when it says, if you confess your mouth that Jesus is Lord, it seems clear that Paul is saying the Lord in Romans 10:9 is the Lord of Job. And therefore it's one of the many places that Jesus in the New Testament, in the creeds and elsewhere, Jesus is called Jehovah.
- [47:29]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Wow.
- [47:29]
Dr. Gary Habermas
It's called, it's called the New. That's the new High Christology. And wow. Yeah. I mean this, this fellow did his whole, his doctoral work, as I understand it, was on the subject of how many times does Paul use Jehovah to talk about Jesus?
- [47:52]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Yeah, it's Romans 10:13. Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And that's from Joel.
- [47:57]
Dr. Gary Habermas
And your version, is it all caps?
- [47:59]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
It is all caps.
- [48:00]
Dr. Gary Habermas
See? So he's talking about. Joel's talking about Jehovah. I think what Paul is saying is like when we call on God calling Jesus to be saved, that's like Joel calling on Jehovah. So he's saying Lord here. Richard Bauckham, the very well known New Testament scholar, says this one's a slam dunk. He said when Paul says right afterwards, cites Joel, where it's Yahweh, it's very clear what he's saying about Jesus. Just earlier.
- [48:28]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Well, Romans 10 ends with several different quotations from the old Testament. Romans 10:18, Paul's quoting Psalm 19, Their voice has gone out into all the earth. And their words to the end of the world. And then he quotes Moses, I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation. Then he quotes Isaiah, I was found by those who did not seek me. I became manifest to those who did not ask for me. It's a rich passage. And I.
- [48:56]
Dr. Gary Habermas
So
- [48:58]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
you're saying that it's Creedle 10, 8, 9 and 10. It fits in right there with 10.
- [49:03]
Dr. Gary Habermas
9, 10, 9. Even Rudolph Boltman, as far to the left as he was. It's believed that it's a baptismal creed, and I think that's significant. I don't know how they know it's a baptismal creed, but I was raised German Baptist, and Baptists have a tendency to let the pastor do all the talk, and people don't talk much, and they're kind of right. So whenever I've been in a Baptist church and they sometimes have baptisms, and you hear this, Molly, have you received Jesus Christ, your personal savior? And all Molly says is, I have. And the pastor's talking again. Upon the confess your faith, I baptize you. Buried with him in his death, raised. And I love that phrase. And it raised with him as resurrection.
- [49:43]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
That phrase was said over me when I got baptized.
- [49:45]
Dr. Gary Habermas
Yeah, that's wonderful. It is wonderful. But in the New Testament, John the Baptist, it says when the people came to John for baptism, they entered the water, which, by the way, talks about what kind of baptism. They're waiting in water. They entered the water, comma, confessing their sins. What I mean is the people are doing more talking.
- [50:11]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
The people are doing more talking.
- [50:12]
Dr. Gary Habermas
Yeah. So if he says, molly, have you trusted Christ, your personal savior? She said, I started doing this when I was a pastor. And they would say, yes. And I would say, tell me about it. Now. I told him ahead of time, the candidates, I would say, well, you've made this known to the elders or to the deacons or whatever. They already know about this. So keep it real short. We've got several of these, maybe 30 seconds, whatever you want to. But give a little word of your testimony. So you're encouraging the crowd through your testimony. Well, they think Romans 10:9 is a baptismal creed. And of all people, wow. Rudolph Boltmann, who's the left of Bart Ehrman, he called it a baptismal creed.
- [50:49]
Co-host or Interviewer from Watchman Fellowship
Wow.
- [50:50]
Dr. Gary Habermas
And creeds mean automatically early. It's hard to put a date on them. You can't. You can't date the creed. But there's a lot of belief. In fact, the Jesus seminar of the people who reject 91% of the red letter words of Jesus, they say in one of their volumes, as far to the left as they are, they say that the Creed in First Corinthians 15:3, and following the most famous creed in the Bible, they said either the creed or its component parts were already in existence before Paul left Jerusalem for Damascus, before he was saved. He already knew that creed or its component parts. That means that creed cannot be any more than because this is when Paul was converted two to three years after the cross Talk about the Gospel of John being +65. How about a creed from two to three years after the cross? Apologetics Profile is a production of Watchmen Fellowship, a non profit Christian apologetics ministry focused on interfaith evangelism and discernment. For more information, visit our website@watchman.org that's watchman.org.