Starting with the Lordship of Christ

One thing I’ve noticed in all my years of sharing the Gospel is that when someone who loves their sin is first exposed to the Gospel and first feels the sting of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, they will often respond by attacking the veracity of the Word of God. It’s like trying to wake someone up and they keep pulling the covers back over their head in order to hide in the darkness.

I found myself listening to an apologist on a Christian radio station recently when a man called in questioning the reliability of the Word of God. The host did an admirable job defending the Word of God and trying to prove its reliability, but no matter how hard he tried the caller wouldn’t listen to reason.

It seems that we frequently forget that mans problem with God is not a simply a matter of evidence and proof, but rather it is a moral problem; man loves sin and hates God. Unless the Holy Spirit is at work no amount of evidence or proof is going to shake the unbeliever from his unbelief.

I’ve frequently suggested that we do not need to prove the existence of God; all men know deep in their hearts that God exists and we shouldn’t indulge the in their sinful desire to sit in judgment upon God, but what about the Word of God? Shouldn’t we prove that the Word of God is really the word of God before we should expect people to trust it?

Again, there’s a place for proofs and evidence, but in many cases they are not what’s really needed. If mankind recognizes the fingerprints of their Creator in the general revelation of creation, how much more so will they recognize the voice of their Creator in the special revelation of Scripture? While we must certainly defend the faith, we must do it in a biblical manner; we do not start with man as the judge and Gods Word as the defendant. Such a practice turns things entirely on their head! We have to start with the Lordship of Christ and the Word of God as the Judge; that is the way it ought to be.

Perhaps we could make a little more headway by exposing peoples questioning of the Word of God as the moral rejection of the truth that it is rather than letting them hide behind the mask of needing evidence in order to believe.