Personal
Evangelism Handbook
CHAPTER XI
The Atheist and Agnostic
Often a person is an atheist or
skeptic because he has observed the many inconsistencies
in the various Christian denominations.
Things like the dark ages, the
"holy" wars of the Crusades, the superstition
and anti-intellectual climate that have surrounded much
of Christendom, the critical attitudes of pseudo-pious
people who consider themselves Christians, have all
played a part in abetting skepticism and unbelief.
Therefore, when you witness to
a skeptical person, you will often find that you can
agree with many things he is unhappy about in the
organized religions he is rejecting.
It is important to be kind,
courteous, and in every way maintain high standards as
you deal with skeptics, because naturally they will be
looking for any reason they can find to uphold their
disregard for Christianity. Let them see that a person
who has really accepted Christ as his Saviour is NOT a
hypocrite but is a person who is sincerely trying to
live a life that is honest before God and man . . . not,
of course, to be saved, but because he is saved.
GOD
"The fool said in his
heart, there is no God" (Psalm 14:1). More people
will fit into the category of an agnostic than that of
an atheist. While the atheist has convinced himself that
there is no God, the agnostic doesn't know if there is a
God and doesn't know if anyone can really know there is
a God. Many college students today wonder about the
existence and reality of a personal God.
These people need to see that
we don't believe in God just because our parents do, our
church does, or because it is "nice" to
believe in God, but because we are convinced God is
real, alive, and vitally interested in us.
Below are reasons we believe
in God:
1. Creation requires a Creator.
The owner of a wrist watch knows there was a creator of
that wrist watch. Intelligence, thought, and effort were
required to make the watch.
Our magnificent bodies, our
complex world, our immense, orderly universe, are all
evidences of a Creator. It took intelligence, thought,
and effort to make us and the world we find ourselves
in.
There are LAWS governing our
universe-laws of gravity, motion, seasons, tides, wind
circuits, etc. These laws presuppose a LawGIVER. Our
universe has design and had to have a Designer.
2. The Bible had to be written
by God. Further in this chapter we shall mention reasons
why we know the Bible is the Word of God. It is
impossible for the Bible to have been written by man
alone. The very fact that the Bible is written as it is
proves that there had to have been a higher intelligence
guiding the writers. Because we know there is a God, we
can see the logic and reasonableness of God's writing
the Bible. But conversely, because we know the Bible, we
can prove there is a God who wrote it.
3. A person who doesn't believe
in God will have to face the problem of trying to
substantiate a negative. This particular negative would
be impossible to prove. Here is why.
How can a person prove there is
no God? Has this person been everywhere within and
without the universe? If there is somewhere he has not
been, God might be there. Does this person know
everything? If there is something he does not know, that
something might be God.
4. Thousands of Christians
testify that they know God, that they talk to God, and
He hears their prayers and proves it by ANSWERING their
prayers.
Usually the person who is
atheistic or agnostic also tends to feel that he is
scientific. To such a person you might point out that no
true scientist would reject the testimony of thousands
of people that a certain Person exists, has the highest
form of intelligence and personality, and loves people
tremendously. Certainly, such marvelous claims compel
the HONEST skeptic to make a thorough investigation into
the matter and not to come to any hasty conclusion that
there is no God.
It has been said that when it
comes to God and the Bible, an honest skeptic will not
be a skeptic very long because after investigation into
the matter he will no longer be a skeptic.
To those who don't believe in
God or who think God is dead, let me say, "My God
is alive! Sorry about yours!"
THE BIBLE
If a person says he doesn't
believe the Bible, tell him the gospel before proving
the Bible is God's Word. Maybe he doesn't believe the
Bible because he doesn't understand the plan of
salvation and thinks he will be sent to hell because of
his bad life. If this is the case, you probably could
lead him to the Lord without ever having to go into why
you know the Bible is the Word of God.
Reasons for Believing the
Bible
1. The men who wrote the Bible
testify that God gave them the words to write. "The
word that came to Jeremiah FROM THE LORD, saying, Thus
speaketh THE LORD GOD of Israel, WRITE thee all the
words that I HAVE SPOKEN UNTO THEE IN A BOOK.... And
these are the words that the Lord spake . . ." (Jer.
30:1, 2, 4).
"The WORD OF THE LORD came
expressly unto Ezekiel the priest . . ." (Ezekiel
1:3).
If the men who wrote the Bible
hadn't been inspired of God, they certainly would have
recanted under the great persecution they received. Men
are not willing to die for something which they know to
be untrue.
2. John Wesley, the founder of
the Methodist denomination, said something like this:
The Bible was written either by-
(a) good men,
(b) bad men, or
(c) God.
(a) If good men wrote the Bible
and then claimed it was written by the inspiration of
God, they would be liars, and liars are not good men.
They would be deceivers, and good men don't purposely
deceive people.
(b) If bad men wrote the Bible,
they would be condemning themselves because the Bible
condemns sin. Bad men tend to justify themselves, but
the Bible never justifies sin. Bad men couldn't have
written the Bible because the Bible is a good book.
(c) Since neither good men nor
bad men wrote the Bible, the only person left is God.
God wrote the Bible, and it is a MASTERPIECE OF HIS
HANDIWORK!
3. The Bible contains true
prophecy . . . history written before it happens! . . .
and so much of it that this is one of the biggest proofs
that the Bible was written by God, who knows the future
(and not by man, who doesn't know the future). Below are
verses telling us how to tell the difference between
false and true prophecy.
Deut. 18:21, 22, "And if
thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word
which the Lord hath NOT spoken? When a prophet speaketh
in the Name of the Lord, if the thing FOLLOW NOT, NOR
COME TO PASS, that is the thing which the Lord hath NOT
spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously:
thou shalt not be afraid of him."
Ezek. 12:25, "For I am the
Lord: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak
SHALL COME TO PASS"
Jer. 23:25-32, "I have
heard what the prophets said, that prophesy LIES in my
name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long
shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy
lies? Yea, they are prophets of the DECEIT OF THEIR OWN
HEART, which think to cause My people to forget My Name
by their dreams which they tell every man to his
neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten My Name for
Baal.
"The prophet that hath a
dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath My Word,
let him speak My Word faithfully. What is the chaff to
the wheat? saith the Lord. Is not My Word like as a
fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh
the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the
prophets saith the Lord, that steal My Words everyone
from his neighbor. "Behold, I am against the
prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and
say, HE saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy
false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and
cause My people to err by their lies, and by their
lightness; yet I SENT THEM NOT, nor commanded them:
therefore, they shall not profit this people at all,
saith the Lord."
Isaiah 46:9, 10, "Remember
the former things of old: for I am God, and there is
none else; I am God, and there is none like Me,
declaring the END from the BEGINNING, and from ancient
times the things that are NOT YET DONE, saying, My
counsel SHALL STAND, and I WILL DO all My
pleasure."
John 14:29, "And now I
have told you BEFORE it come to pass, that WHEN IT IS
COME TO PASS, ye might believe."
Isaiah 48: 3-5, "I have
declared the former things from the beginning; and they
went forth out of my mouth, and I SHEWED THEM: I DID
THEM suddenly, and THEY CAME TO PASS. Because I knew
that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew,
and thy brow brass, I have even FROM THE BEGINNING
declared it to thee; BEFORE IT CAME TO PASS, I shewed it
thee; lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them,
and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded
them."
Isaiah 41: 22, 23 , "Let
them bring forth, and shew us what SHALL HAPPEN: let
them shew the former things, what they be, that we may
consider them, and know the latter end of them; or
declare us things FOR TO COME. Shew the things that are
TO COME HEREAFTER, that we may know that ye are gods:
yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and
behold it together."
EVERYTHING that the Bible said
would happen up to this point HAS HAPPENED! History
itself has already proven the Bible to be the Word of
God.
4. The Bible gives a
pre-written history of the Jewish nation. "Their
Egyptian bondage, their conquest of Canaan, the outcome
of all their wars, the division of the kingdom after the
reign of Solomon, the Babylonian captivity, the partial
restoration of Palestine with the rebuilding of the
Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the world-wide
dispersion, all are predicted. (See Gen. 15 :13-16;
Exodus, chapters 1-12; I Kings 11:30-33; Jer. 25:1-14;
Daniel 9:24 27, etc.)" (57 Reasons Why We Know the
Bible Is the Word of God, by Meldau, Twelfth Printing,
page nine).
5. What God has left out of the
Bible-the false theories and superstitions of the day-is
just as much an indication of the inspiration of the
Bible as what God has included in it.
For instance, Job 26:7 says,
"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place,
and hangeth the earth upon nothing." We know today
that "gravity," a law of nature, keeps the
earth suspended in space. But the people in 1500 B.C.,
when this statement was made, certainly didn't
understand anything about gravity, and they had MANY
THEORIES of what kept the earth in space. Poor Job must
have had a struggle within himself, knowing that to put
down a statement that says the earth was "hung upon
nothing" would certainly make him the object of
ridicule by his friends.
The Hindus said the earth was
on the back of an elephant, which in turn was standing
on a turtle . . . and that the turtle was swimming in a
"cosmic sea"!
The Egyptians postulated that
the earth was resting on top of five posts. They also
thought the earth was flat (while the Bible says it is
round, Isa. 40:22).
The Greeks' story was that a
man named "Atlas" carried the earth on his
back . . . all by himself!
What kept these myths and
theories (so prevalent at the time Job wrote that the
earth was hung upon nothing) out of the Bible? It was
the fact that Job was writing under the inspiration of
God that kept these erroneous theories out. God gave Job
the courage to write as God led him. Job was faithful to
the Lord even in the time of trouble (Job 1: 20-22), and
God used Job in a great way.
We pray you will be faithful to
the Lord and have the courage to GIVE OUT from the Bible
the same, clear message God has PUT INTO it! If you ever
want to be used of God in a great way, you must be
faithful in giving out His message.
6. After studying (1) the plan
of salvation,
( 2 ) its necessity,
(3) its results in one's life
now, and
(4) its results in one's life
in the hereafter, it surely seems to be more the way God
would do things, than the way MAN would do things. The
whole concept of redemption is foreign to the thinking
of natural man (ICor. 1:18).
"For My thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the
Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are My ways HIGHER than your ways, and My thoughts than
your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8, 9).
7. Consider with me the fact
that the Bible is a compilation of 66 separate books,
written over a period of 16 centuries, with 40 different
men doing the writing, many of whom (obviously) were not
contemporary and had no way of comparing what they were
writing with the others. And yet these writings, so
uniquely penned, fit together to form ONE BIBLE, which
has ONE CENTRAL THEME, and in which ALL STATEMENTS agree
perfectly without contradiction. This certainly is
evidence that ONE MIND was the "logos," the
Planner, the Thinker, the Designer, and the Author of
these Holy pages.
Suppose you were in a
journalism class of 40 students and your instructor had
each person in the class write an essay which would
include one or more of each of the following categories:
poetry
science
history
romance philosophy theology
angels prayer discipline law
morals man God death heaven
hell prophecy, etc.
Do you think if you took the
finished papers and put them together, you would have
one, unified, uncontradictory story, with a central
purpose developed throughout . . . not to say anything
of its being a literary MASTERPIECE and able to satisfy
the needs and longings of the human hearts of every
century and of every class and culture of people?
8. The Bible tells of God's
Holy Spirit, and how man can receive His Holy Spirit to
live within him. The Holy Spirit empowers believers to
live the right kind of life. This is a miracle of God,
and it really works. Christians DO have God's power in
their lives. Millions of lives have been miraculously
changed, and people give testimony that it was through
God's Holy Spirit that the change was effected.
If the Bible were not the Word
of God, then just because the Bible says there is a
"Holy Spirit" and that He will in dwell
believers and give them power, would not make it so.
Infidels do not claim to have
power to live the right kind of life because they don't
believe the Bible is the Word of God. No other book,
system of theology, or philosophy can give its followers
the POWER to CHANGE THEIR LIVES!
9. The Bible is scientifically
accurate. While the Bible is not a book primarily
concerned with science, where it does deal with science,
it is completely accurate. Consider the following
statements which are NOW known, but which were certainly
not the opinion of such scientists as there might have
been at the time they were written.
Job 26:7-Empty place in the
North
Job 26:7-Earth hung upon
nothing
Isa. 40:22-The earth is round
Prov. 8:27-The waters are round
Jer. 10:12-Einstein's theory,
E=MC2
Joel 2:5-Describes airplanes
and jets
Ezek. 38:9 and Jer. 4:13-More
about airplanes
Zech. 14:12-Effects of atomic
radiation
Job 38:7-The stars
"sing," have a vocal quality
Isa. 50:3-The heavens are black
Job 28:25-Air has weight
Job 25:5-The moon doesn't have
its own light
Jer. 33 :22-The stars cannot be
numbered
Eccl. 1 :6-The wind travels in
circuits
Jer. 5:22-The ocean doesn't
overflow
Job 28:5-The earth has fire
inside
Jer. 6:22-The earth has sides
(not flat like a plate)
Job 38:31-Earth rotates around
the axle star
Lev. 17: 11-Life of the flesh
is in the blood
I Cor. 15:39-All flesh is not
the same flesh (Parke Davis pharmaceutical house
discovered the "antihuman precipitin" test
which establishes the identity of different kinds of
flesh- whether it be human, dog, cat, buzzard, etc.)
10. The Bible gives a detailed
picture of the promised Messiah in the Old Testament,
many of the prophecies given hundreds of years before
His birth. Thirty-three of these were fulfilled in one
day! (See Chapter 12 on "The Jew" for a
partial list of these prophecies.)
"Suppose," says Dr.
Olinthus Gregory, "that there were only 50
prophecies in the Old Testament (instead of 333)
concerning the first advent of Christ, giving details of
the coming Messiah and all meet in the person of Jesus .
. . the probability of chance fulfillment as calculated
by mathematicians according to the theory of
probabilities is less than one in 1,125,000,000,000,000.
Now add only two more elements to these 50 prophecies,
and fix the TIME and the PLACE at which they must happen
and the immense improbability that they will take place
by chance exceeds all the power of numbers to express .
. ." (Messiah in Both Testaments, by Meldau, page
eight).
11. The Dead Sea Scrolls-Some
critics, desperately seeking some loopholes in prophecy
(because they KNOW fulfilled prophecy is a DEFINITE
PROOF that the Bible could not have been written by man,
because of man's inability to constantly predict the
future with a consistent degree of accuracy), used to
say that books like Isaiah, Daniel, Micah, etc., were
not really written before the New Testament but were
merely recording history. Well, at least these infidels
credit Christ with having FULFILLED the prophecies,
anyway!
But the Dead Sea Scrolls, which
are a collection of manuscripts found in the Dead Sea
area, contain many of the writings of the ancient
Essenes, and among them are found every book in the Old
Testament except Esther, in whole or in part.
Authorities agree (and it is now known throughout the
literate world) that the books in the Old Testament were
truly written long before the time of Christ, and thus
they completely substantiate the prophecies as being
100% authentic. PRAISE THE LORD!
12. The Bible has stood the
acid test of ENDURANCE! For nineteen centuries infidels
have had their opportunities to demonstrate any error in
the Word of God. The believers of the Bible have
received constant ridicule and persecution, and yet the
Bible still stands TRIED AND TRUE, and its message is
still saving souls and giving strength and power to its
followers.
