The Ask Anything Tour with Albert Mohler at UCLA

go ahead and grab your seats we're gonna go ahead and get started here it's good to see you all my name is Chris and I'm the Bible study leader of grace on campus and I want to welcome you to ask anything we're excited for tonight and I'm excited to hear the kinds of questions that you have it wasn't too long ago that I was a student here I was in your shoes and how I too tried to be healthy and eat up be plate and every time I walk through those doors immediately regretted it I too was very skeptical of the tofu cranberry bar but then once I tasted it I was surprised at just how disgusting it is how many guys actually like the tofu cranberry bar me honest okay three of you which is more than I was expecting when I was a student we didn't have any event like this we didn't have and ask anything you know as college students that you can hear lectures whenever you want as students that's that's all you do every day hear lectures and so there's plenty of opportunities to hear someone talk at you but it's pretty rare to have an event where you get to come up to the microphone and ask your question to get the information that you're looking for that's most helpful to you and that's what's exciting about tonight in many ways you guys are gonna drive the direction that we go I do wish that I had this during my time in college because when I was a student I had a lot of questions I wanted to know whether God really existed or not I wanted to know what it meant to have faith I wanted to know if I was just wasting my time by going to church every Sunday morning or if that was the real thing and so I'm excited for you tonight that you get to hear this during your college years college is such an important time many of you are off on your own for the first time thinking critically about life and and really trying to figure out okay what do I really believe what do I value what am i all about and what am I gonna be all about for the rest of my life and at the risk of sounding cheesy I do think that it's in college that you discover who you are and that's very much why we're having an event like this so that you can ask your questions to get the information that you need to help you figure out what exactly it is you believe and who you are so with that I'm gonna turn it over to Barry Cooper who is our host for tonight let's welcome him to the stage thank you very very much thank you for the lovely warm welcome it's wonderful to see so many of you out here tonight my name is Barry Cooper I'm not from around here I I come all the way from London that's why I've lived most of my life and can I say what an enormous relief it was to finally come across to the west coast to California where the Sun always shines is it's been an absolute delight thank you for making me feel at home it's been great so listen not to repeat what Chris has said but tonight is very much your night what's going to happen tonight let me just give you the helicopter ride over the evening the plan is that dr. Mohler will come on he'll talk for about ten minutes or so just introductory remarks and then it's over to you guys to set the agenda there are a couple of microphones here I'm going to explain how that works a bit later but any questions you have about religion or the Bible or Christianity or faith ethics morality culture if the question is important to you then it's important to us and we hope that you'll feel able to be completely honest and open tonight let me talk a little bit about dr. Mohler dr. al mohler is the president of southern Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville you may well have seen him on TV he's always on TV he's been on NBC's Today he's been on CNN's Larry King Live he's been on ABC's Good Morning America and all sorts of other programs he's often quoted in newspapers and journals such as the The Washington Post The New York Times USA Today all of those amazing August journals he's also a prolific author he writes books quicker than I can read them and he presents a couple of podcasts one is called thinking in public and the other is called the briefing so it's a tremendous pleasure to introduce him tonight would you give him a very warm welcome ladies and gentlemen dr. al Mohler well good evening and thank you so very much I am so glad proud to be here on the campus of UCLA I'm so glad to be here with you for an event the title of event is exactly what we are about ask anything and we mean that within reason what we do mean most sincerely is we want to talk about the biggest questions of life we want to talk about the questions that are very much on your mind and perhaps on your heart as well and you'll set the agenda for what we do tonight what I hope to do is is to be able to respond to those questions with answers that reveal the pattern of Christian thinking the answers that would come from a thinking Christian and we'll try to think out loud together it would be incredibly arrogant to hold an event like this and say ask anything as if I would pretend to be able to answer any question but what we're trying to do here tonight is rather than to just immediately give an answer to every question is to instead engage in an act of faithfulness first of all to Christ and to scripture where we will try to address these questions and try to think about how Christians should think about them and that by the way raises a huge issue but part of what we're trying to do tonight is to demonstrate what it means to be a thinking Christian and for a Christian to think as a Christian so let me just state who I am you heard some description of what I do I want to tell you who I am I am a Christian I came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at age 9 and was converted knew myself to be a sinner in need of a savior and that decisive event in my life happened when I was a child I then grew in the faith instructed by the scriptures but during the time I was in high school and in college I was really struggling with some of the biggest questions of life and and desperately looking for help in dealing with the biggest questions of life and thankfully that help came and are you hearing me okay that help came and and I had to immediately understand the fact that I had to think as a Christian and I've really spent most of my life trying to understand what it means to be a thinking Christian and to think faithfully as a disciple of Lord Jesus Christ we as Christians are called to a discipleship of the mind as well as to a discipleship and obedience to Christ in all things so I am thrilled to be here with you tonight looking forward to turning to your questions looking forward to finding out what so it's very much on your mind and seeking to think through these big questions together I I did my very best to find a bowtie that would represent UCLA it turns out that in California that's not as easy to do as it is in universities on the west coast and the East Coast I get that but you really do need a boat I just take it from a guest you need to bow tie but in lieu of a bow tie had to do the next best thing and so I've got a belt and yeah right there so tonight the University of California Los Angeles is holding up my pants and for that I'm very grateful but I'm especially grateful to be here with you tonight so let's turn to the questions that that you want to pose the issues about which you want to discuss and I'm looking forward to seeing who's first and what question comes first we've got a couple of mics here do be aware with we're filming this evening so that means if you do come up and ask a question you will be on camera so if for any strange reason you do not want to be famous don't come up to the microphone just just a heads up for you guys again ask any questions you like but just as you're thinking about what those questions might be and joining a joining a queue on either side sorry a line a line not a queue let me just kick off dr. mala maybe my asking you a question were there any particular intellectual barriers for you in terms of becoming a follower of Jesus were there particular intellectual things that you had to resolve before you did that there were some huge intellectual issues I had to resolve in order to be a faithful Christian I when I was in what we now call middle school and in high school I was confronted with rival worldviews to Christianity I had people who came into my life who were decided atheists and making very strong atheist arguments and so the two biggest questions that I believe frame my entire understanding of where to begin and how to proceed as a Christian are the questions does God exist and does he speak because those two questions have to go together if God existed but he didn't speak and we couldn't know him we would be no better off than not knowing that God existed so the crucial question is does God exists followed by the next essential question does he speak and a book that had tremendous impact on my life by a Christian thinkers name is for Schaffer was entitled he is there and he is not silent and and that really became as a as an affirmation the beginning place of all confidence in the gospel and and of of everything I know about the Christian faith is that I believe that God does exist that he's the self existent self-revealing God he exists and he speaks he speaks to us in nature the Bible is very clear about that he speaks to us in Scripture definitively he speaks to us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ savingly and if I didn't have that assurance I wouldn't dare stand up in front of an audience of one to talk about how we can ask and answer the biggest questions of life but if indeed we have the confidence that he is there and he is not silent the God exists and that he speaks and we know where he's spoken and he speaks to us in a word that's not just an historic document but a Living Word in Scripture we know where to begin so if we're gonna begin we got to begin with a question let's see who's first yes hello hi good evening thanks for coming good evening thank you for having me and for I think that's supposed to happen adds a little drum it's all good to lead that from the video [Laughter] my question is sorry to get a little too deep too fast but my question is about the problem of evil yeah now I've been doing a little bit of research and this came up and just evangelizing to a philosophy major who I didn't know how to answer this question my friendship with him but he basically asks the traditional answer to why there is the problem of evil why God allowed evil to be created since he's all-powerful all-knowing and he's a source of all creation was that God wanted to demonstrate his love his holiness and his grace against the backdrop of our sin and his wrath so my question would be did God really need to pour out his wrath and send millions and billions of people to hell so that he could demonstrate his love that is holiness to a few there's a really well asked question and you you ask the question acknowledging the traditional answer that a Christian would give to this and it's basically what we would call the greater glory of God that God's glory is more magnificently even infinitely demonstrated in the atonement of Jesus Christ and in the fulfillment of all of God's purposes in Christ then had sin and evil never happened and and then you proceeded to say but did it have to be that way and this is one of the hardest questions in Christian theology and and it sometimes phrase the question of necessity just the way you ask it did it have to happen this way and the bottom line is this there is no place from which we can scrutinize the ways of God morally that that gives us an independent ground on which even to try to answer the question so the bottom line for a Christian is understanding that what God says in Scripture is that this is what reflects his glory and demonstrates his glory more than anything else we might conceive and not only that it's not only the possibility of which this is the greatest it's the fact that he has actually in Christ redeemed and and revealed his power to save you you know that this question of of sin and how God decreed in a loud ordained that sin would would would happen and be allowed to happen the human beings will be given the reality of moral choice and would misuse that choice the question is could there been a more efficient way for God to have revealed his purposes could there been a morally superior way for God to have revealed his purposes but the fact is that we begin with the understanding that the God who is is the God who was infinitely perfect in everything that he does and this is what he has done now I want to admit the difficulty of the question and it comes down to this God made us in His image as moral creatures so we can't help asking moral questions and the moral questions we ask can sometimes even tempt us to think we can step outside of the universe we can step outside of the cosmos and judge whether or not there could have been a better world there could have been a better way and that we might even advise God as to how he would better conduct his affairs we might had think that we could step back in the ages before the cosmos were created step back before Adam and Eve and step back and say look it'd be better if you if you never allowed sin to happen and all the consequences of sin and I'll admit I've had that thought it's a very tempting thought the problem is that whatever we then know about the God whom we think we are advising it doesn't fit the god of Scripture who we believe is the God who exists the only God who exists and the God who does exist and speaks and has told us that this is not only what he has done but what he has done in order to demonstrate his love and His mercy and His grace in Jesus Christ so I want to acknowledge the question and and you spoke of it in the context of an evangelistic conversation god bless you as you're as you're talking to someone about the gospel and I think we we need to acknowledge we're in a different terrain than many Christians were say just a generation or two ago I think in many ways the most pressing questions that come to us are the moral questions there are big philosophical questions related to being and necessity although still come but it's the moral questions that come to us with often the greater urgency so let me just acknowledge to you where I am on this as I try to think carefully and honestly and to think as a Christian would think about this I am not in any position to advise God about how he should be or to conduct himself is it is the sheer mercy of God that I'm even here and you're here to be able to have this conversation there is an urgency that incumbent in this yes it's it's God's conversation with job just as you said and and by the way reading the book of Job it's really tempting to think as you look at the arguments of job's friends they have a really really good point until God speaks and says I will define myself they will not define me I will define my ways they will not define me and then of course asked Joe where were you when I set the earth on its foundations and so it's a deeply humbling realization and I think we're the best things we can do evangelistically is dignify the question and say that that's a really important question and I want to say how a Christian would answer that question and and here's the thing if the Christian truth claim about God and his character and about the gospel of Christ and the reality of God's love and mercy is not true then we are doomed I would I would have to listen carefully to any any argument coming from any source that would appear to be more powerful and more true and more persuasive than what I find in Scripture I have never found that and the only hope I know is the hope that is Christ I believe that's the only hope of the world and questions like this help us to see that and and and to focus honestly on what's at stake thank you so much for for the question yes hi dr. Mohler my questions about transgenderism yeah and how do you think biblically about transgenderism in our culture today and also if God created people male and female how do you think about people who are intersex or have very ambiguous I guess gender yeah so appreciate the question again this is one of the questions very much pressed upon us in this moment and and I often think about the fact that as a theologian as a Christian theologian I'm coming in the first generation have to talk about these things talk about him write about them and you know theologians in the twentieth century didn't didn't have talked about this pastors didn't have to talk about this Christians didn't have to think about this but but now we're in a world in which obviously we've got to think about this and we want to thank biblically we want to thing as as Christians so let me start at the end of your question about intersects or an ambiguous gender identity that's a reality it's a reality that's it's it's very few and-and-and you look at the percentage of human beings but but it's real and one of the things we have learned is that sometimes for matters that appeared to be immediately convenient things were done that that the individual to whom they were done often as infants are very young felt we're not right and here I believe that the the the careful biblically minded Christian should give to parents and doctors and most importantly to the individual who is is marked by this kind of genetic ambiguity in terms of the binary of male and female we should give them all of our love and support and an encouragement as they seek to be faithful to Christ and that that's a matter of genes we need to make very clear every decision we make has the strong dimension of morality to it there's a there's a morality to to everything we do everything everything we eat everywhere we go but that does not mean that there's a right and a wrong in a situation where if that same kind of or another form of a genetic pattern showed up we would not say this is first and foremost a moral issue care for the individual will be the moral issue and how this will be determined we'd understand especially when it's a child or a young person with parents and physicians what the young person understood to have the full support of Christ people in trying to think this through and to be faithful the previous question the transgender question is in the main not about that but rather about someone who was born with unambiguous genitalia secondary characteristics that would develop and and even genetic structure xx and XY as you well know and and and the suggestion is the argument is that gender itself and this is increasingly becoming not just a sociological or moral or political argument but also in essence to some degree a medical and bio argument the the argument is that that gender identity is a social construct and that there are persons who are born with XY who actually identify as as being female and then xx and you know as male and you start to look at all this and you recognize this is this is not now an uncommon conversation is it's still a small percentage of the population but it's not an uncommon conversation and furthermore the idea that gender is merely a social construct has led to the suggestion that there really isn't a binary at all that it's oppressive and and and wrong to speak of a binary of men and women male and female boys and girls it's created a massive confusion for for millennia of human experience we've had a vocabulary of boy girl male female man woman husband wife brother sister and uncle you son daughter you go down the list and we're being told now that that's not a fixed identity now here's the bottom line I believe it is a fixed identity and I believe it's not fixed by me certainly it's not fixed by the individual it's it's fixed by creator there's fixed by the God who created us in His image and what the scripture says immediately in Genesis chapter 1 is male and female created he them in the image of God created he them and then in Genesis chapter 2 there's even a greater elaboration of what that means now let me also state that what albert Mohler thinks about this should be of virtually no consequence what God thinks about this and would reveal about this and has revealed is of ultimate consequence so anything I say about anything and especially something like this you should test by Scripture and because that that's the only way I think we can possibly know what the creators is has instructed us about ourselves you know you you read stories in which first graders are now being asked their preferred personal pronoun and again the the binary being rejected and and and the fixity of the sex assigned at birth with the sexual identity one would claim now that being denied I'll simply say I think that's just a horrifying question to thrust upon a six-year-old in it there's a security I believe that should come to every one of us and knowing that we're not just biological accidents and and by the way here's the difference between the Christian way of thinking and and a materialistic or naturalistic secular way of thinking we begin with God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning and everything else follows and and thus his purpose in creation reveals his purpose for us and what will lead to our health and happiness and also scripture makes clear anything that denies this or subvert this it can't possibly lead to human flourishing and human happiness Christians also believe that there's incredible brokenness in the world and here's where we got to be really careful because here's our temptation our temptation is look at someone who's struggling with gender identity and maybe far along in that in that struggle even even following what they believe is right it's very easy to look at someone struggling with same-sex attraction or any number of things and say those people really are struggling with their sex lives those people really are struggling with their identity here's what we need to confess openly and publicly every single one of us every certain single one of us north of puberty certainly is struggling with issues of sexuality struggling with obedience to Christ and sexuality struggling with the with our minds and thoughts and in terms of being faithful to Christ in the fullness of what that would mean and and every one of us has serious identity issues when we are talking about a question like this oh yeah be careful who don't talk about those people who are struggling with big identity issues you're looking at someone who's continually struggling a big identity issues because to be human is to struggle with those questions the question is how do we possibly resolve them and this is where Christians say look I'm not nobody smarter than the rest of you I simply believe on the basis of God's love for us that he has revealed himself in his word that this is what he's told us is the truth about ourselves and that happiness and wholeness can only be found in that truth and and this means the Christian Church needs to be the place where someone isn't horrified or ostracized or thought less of for saying to to the to the Christian Church look I'm struggling with this for too long Christians have acted like okay if you're struggling with that then you don't belong here this is made up of people who aren't struggling with anything like that when the reality is in every single congregation and in virtually every single Christian family you're gonna find someone who's struggling with very specific issues and everyone is struggling with big questions I I need to get to one other point here and I talk about it pretty often and it's something that may be one of the greatest dividing lines between the Christian Way of thinking and and every alternative right now such certainly secular alternatives it comes down to a theological expression that ontology Trump's autonomy and what that means is that being really is more important than then our claim of autonomy ontology simply means being being trumps autonomy so in our autonomy we can say anything about ourselves we can even believe anything about ourselves but we can't actually make it true we're so not autonomous we didn't decide that we would be we didn't decide when we would be we didn't decide who we would be now we're living out the their identity as to who we are but in the biggest questions we're not and when it comes to the transgender issues with sensitivity but with faithfulness to Scripture we need to say look you know the reality is that that genetic structure XY or XX isn't going to change that's ontology it's it is simply being skeletal structure is not going to change you can declare this and by the way I think the societies rushing headlong into a massive delusion on this thinking that it will help people and that we it will affirm people and that it will lead to human flourishing when I believe based on everything God's revealed in nature and in Scripture that is not at all the case so these are new questions they're huge questions but one of the most fundamental things we as Christians can understand is that we don't get to define ourselves and furthermore there's great liberation and realizing we don't have to define ourselves it's a great gift that our Creator defines us and again it's not because Christians are are smarter than the rest of the world that we figured this out but by God's grace we have we've heard God speak in his word and even in the world around us that that this binary is real and by the way human reproduction depends on it and and and and yes ontology Trump's autonomy this is just one of those cases in which we've got to think out loud we've got to think kindly and we've got to think biblically and sometimes we got to think in a hurry thank you so much for the question yes I'm gonna try to go back and forth here do you think that the theistic evolution theory contradicts the Bible okay a theistic evolution does it contradict the Bible well it kind of all depends on what kind of theistic evolution you're talking about and so there would be some persons who would say I believe that God used means even evolutionary means macro and micro evolutionary means to to accomplish his purpose exactly as is found in Scripture and and they would seek to affirm for instance the the God's design his his purpose in the cosmos that the cosmos is as he wanted it to be as creator and made it to be he had a purpose from the beginning that is that is realized in the world as it is and most specifically they might affirm the special creation of humanity not not not just some kind of evolutionary process but the special decision of God is a special creative act to create human beings as the only creature made in His image and so that might be possible and and I mean we need to remember the evolution as a formalized idea with a mechanism there were people even in the ancient world ancient Greeks who thought thoughts that you might say we're somewhat evolutionary someone like Heraclitus in ancient Greece but it really took Darwin to get to the mainstreaming of the idea of evolution and the suggestion of a mechanism of natural selection so when Christians and that included many many biblical Christians seek seeking be faithful to Scripture when when they heard of evolution they thought well there must be in a rational world a way to make that consistent with the revelation of God in Scripture and so they developed some sort of theistic evolution and so you'll find some faithful Christians trying to be faithful to scripture and affirm everything scripture teaches who especially early on and the encounter between Christianity and Darwinism tried to say there must be a way to put the two together that has become decreasingly plausible and and it's because the dominant model of evolution and I put it that way because there are different theories of evolution there they're different schools of evolution one University Press book not too long ago talked about the debate at Darwin's high table you know using the Oxford high table model where you have a debate yeah their debate amongst evolutionists but the dominant model of evolution that is embraced today is one that denies any kind of external influence on the evolutionary process and it denies any kind of act of special creation of humanity it denies the reality of and the historicity of the fall as in Genesis chapter 3 and at that point I simply have to say manure gonna say theistic evolution and by that you mean anything close to the dominant theory of evolution today it's it's not theistic in any way that could be squared with Scripture because the scriptural beginning point again in the beginning God gray the heavens in the earth makes very clear in fact the the entirety of Scripture is about the fact that there was a supernatural influence and design and creation that resulted in the creation that we know and and gods verdict on it that it is good and and and and and by the way I don't want to argue that the world doesn't look old and by that I mean very very very very old I want to say that the biblical of the viewpoint of understanding these questions begins with the fact that the world's bearing testimony not only to the fact that God created it but also to the fact that he created it ready for humanity and he created it in such a way that it now shows the effects of sin and so I'm not gonna argue about how old the world looks I'm simply going to say on the basis of Scripture what I know is that the the cosmos not just planet Earth but the cosmos itself is is what God created by his design and that the human beings are who God created is the only being made in His image exactly as he says in Scripture and reveals to us and the story of humanity from our creation to the fall to our redemption in Christ to God's eventual purpose for us in in the age to come that that is exactly why God great that mean the most audacious claim in scripture about creation isn't the how it's the who and the fact that the entirety of the cosmos actually according to scripture exists that on this planet there's this one little pale blue dot populated by Homo sapiens God's saving purpose in Christ would be realized that is the most audacious truth claim I can imagine and and and by the way I'll simply say just to be fair you will meet people who say I'm a theistic evolutionists I understand that but you need to talk to them I look forward to talking to them and I regularly do in order that they really understand what evolution means in the dominant evolutionary model if you make up your own theory of evolution then you can make it whatever you want it to be but the theory of evolution the dominant understanding of evolution is incompatible with theism if if the God reflected in that theism is anything like the God of the Bible thank you so much great question yes all right thank you so much for coming as a student at UCLA I found a kind of see firsthand a lot of the various political issues that have been on campus and like one of the things that concerns me specifically is the way in which we approach government and the way in which people in power ought to be held accountable to the people like as an American I would think that if the government does something wrong we immediately do whatever you can to keep them in check obviously but as a Christian I look to verses like Romans 13 which says that everyone should submit himself to governing authorities and he who rebels against this Authority has essentially taken on judgment from the Lord and I look at that and I kind of think well if I'm not supposed to do that then what is my role as not only a Christian but also as an American citizen another great question this one's fun and I used to do a program a national radio program every day and on Wednesday of every week I had what's called ask anything Wednesday when it's kind of like this I just said you know call whatever question you ask and you do that for a number of years you detect some patterns let me tell you one of the patterns I discovered every September or so on ask anything Wednesday I started getting a question and it always came from a thirteen-year-old it always came from an eighth grader then the question was what's a Christian argument for the American Revolution okay eventually I just thought okay I'm gonna ask a question so I asked the thirteen-year-old had called why am I getting this call every September from 13 year olds and he said well it's a homeschool curricula so then I discovered okay I got it now I am what's otherwise known as homework and and I get it and so it turns out that in this very popular homeschool curriculum the question was how do you defend the American Revolution romans 13 would look like it's illegitimate and in Romans chapter 13 by the way is is the classic text in Scripture to which we turn about the goodness of God's gift of government the Bible makes clear look at the Old Testament and the rebellion of Korah look where the Old Testament says every person did what was right and his or her own sites disaster anarchie is a curse and and government is a gift in terms of maintaining order by the way Paul doesn't just say it's a gift he goes on and says that the proper role of government is to reward the one who does right and to punish the one who does wrong so it's not like government is a good insofar as any government does only good things that's not what Paul says remember Paul's dealing with Caesar so he's very aware of how dangerous government can be he's simply saying look it's very much like what Jesus said when they came to him and tried to test him saying you know do we pay taxes sue we pay taxes to Caesar and Jesus is give me a coin and they gave him a coin and he picked out the coin he said whose pictures on it and they said Caesar and he said well basically if he likes it so much he puts his picture on it give it to him but what that what people often miss is the way Jesus is saying is look is Caesars image on the coin I guess that means it's his but it's God's image on you and that means you belong to God so render unto Caesar that which is Caesars and then to God that which is God's so what about the 13 year-old okay so if Romans 13 says that we are to honor government how could you ever have any kind of change in that government listen to say revolution how could you have any people lead change in that government what are we merely passive well in the Roman Empire there really wasn't much of an opportunity but we're in a very different context the Scriptures equally applicable to us but that means that our responsibility is actually greater than a Christian in the first century the Christian the first century had very little political power very little political stewardship we actually have it let me get back to the 13 year old there is no argument that would for instance support the American Revolution if it were the rejection of government for no government but actually the argument and and the founding fathers and the mothers of the United States there were actually quite keen on this because so many of them even some of them were believing Christians some of them weren't some of them were more deistic and and some of them were just you know children of the Enlightenment but they were operating with the understanding of the Christian worldview creating a moral reality all around them and they knew they had to argue in a way that would be recognized as consistent with Scripture so when you read for example the raishin of Independence what you have is a statement that those who are declaring their independence from the king were not trying to subvert government they were just saying that by his betrayal of the American colonies he was no he was not the rightful government and instead they would seek to establish the rightful government now that's a dangerous argument but it's an argument that that marks the modern age and we come to understand we now live with the consequences of having political power then that means a political stewardship and so in honor to God's Word in Romans chapter 13 we seek to be good citizens you know Peter when you write to his letters he will say to Christians insofar as it's possible live at peace with all persons and live in a in a world in which your ultimate citizenship is in heaven you still have a citizenship on earth and fulfill that citizenship in such a way that that you bring glory to God and and and you do good and so the Christian worldview has affirmed as Christians have reasoned from Scripture that we should exercise the political stewardship given to us to the greatest opportunity given to us and and and that out of love of God and love of neighbor we love God so we're faithful to him and to the good things he's given us including government and we should be faithful in so far as we have power and we do have power that means we have a stewardship to make government as good a government as it can be that will lead to human flourishing and honor him and dignity and and and so Christians have a warrant for being involved in government Christian's do not have permission to think the government can bring in the kingdom because in a fallen world even in Romans chapter 13 government has limited Authority and limited responsibilities it is to to uphold that which is right to punish that which is wrong and over time government has taken on other responsibilities and we as citizens need to be very very vigilant and an active but active in the sense that we understand that we're not trying to bring in Christ's Kingdom by the government Christ will do that but we out of love of neighbor do you want a government that has the right laws not the wrong loss has a righteous leaders not unrighteous leaders reflects kindness rather than hatred and that that's a pretty tall order and by the way that means that Christians will always agree we should always agree on the end and the goal we should always agree on on what we're seeking human flourishing and and and love of neighbor demonstrate we might disagree on matters of economics might disagree on some political questions we might be members of different political parties but where Christians come together we should be together under the understand we want to encourage one another toward the rightful stewardship of whatever political authority we have and we'll pray for those who have no such options living in places in the world where their political stewardship is virtually non-existent in contrast to a great deal which is entrusted to us thank you another great question thank you sir yes yeah so um there are 3,000 calls in the world I don't believe in 3,000 you don't leave in two thousand 999 yeah you're almost as atheist as I am but none of none of us can provide proof for sure so if you don't consider me agnostic then sure but that does not give credibility to the writings of an ancient pastoral society the importance of the Bible and shaping moral values of Western civilization does not make it true so why is every other religion beside yours wrong fair question and and and now the first time I've heard this I don't know exactly how many claimed gods are in the world but I'm gonna guess it's at least three thousand and and maybe more and I've had people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins you know shoot right back and say you're almost as atheist as I am because you stated it you know I don't believe in any of them but one and and I want to acknowledge the fact that that's incredibly audacious it's uh it's it's incredibly important to recognize what I'm saying I'm not saying it casually I am saying this I believe on the basis of what God has revealed in nature I believe that creation itself testifies there was a creator and not only that it testifies of what he intended for us and how he made us I think on the basis of that I I've already made an incredible distinction amongst the however many thousands of God's there might be out there actually in all the belief systems of the world there are relatively few that even start with the premise that the world has created is intelligible and reveals to us the purpose of the god do who exists but it's on the basis of the fact that yes and and you put it this way because you spoke of the Bible and I appreciate the way you put it so we really do believe as Christians that God's revelation in the Bible is unique and distinctive and completely trustworthy now if if we have a starting point that suggests that somehow we have a completely independent position from which we start thinking we might try to start thinking about how we would think having no no authority but I don't believe that's true of any single human being I believe we all decide in terms of privilege inserting kinds of patterns of thinking and so I'm going to privilege what I believe to be rational and reasonable believing that human intelligence is not just an accident it's not just an evolutionary trait it's it's God's gift and I believe that the revelation that God has given us in Scripture that means in the Bible is is both intelligible and based upon that rational way of thinking just looking at the revelation of God in Scripture and how it comports with the world and how it matches the diagnosis of what it means to be human and what's wrong with humanity and the the fact that it points to events in space time in history and does so in a way that is trustworthy and not only that gives us an understanding of past present and future in a way that is again trustworthy and and and and true and the more I look at scripture the longer I study Scripture the more I look at the other religious writings of the world I don't see how similar they are I see how dissimilar they are just in being honest and having an honest straightforward conversation the the so-called other scriptures of the world do not make the same kind of claims this scripture makes I believe their proofs of the of the truthfulness and inspiration of Scripture in just in fulfilled prophecy in Scripture and in the the accuracy of the description of again me in Scripture but I also want to work the other way and so I'm sorry I don't know you would look forward to that if that were a possibility but but if if we were engaged in a long conversation and had that privilege I would simply say what alternative worldview to that found in Scripture actually makes more sense in the world and I don't believe that there is any worldview that comes close to making the sense that the Christian worldview revealed in Scripture makes and so one of the one of the things I simply point out is that the alternative especially if it's a if it's an alternative that leaves us as agnosticism or any form of atheism leaves us in a world that is essentially purposeless then we're doomed I don't believe we are doomed thanks be to God I don't think we're doomed I'm glad we have this conversation I believe we're only having this conversation because you are a man an individual that God made in His image as he made me in His image he's given this the capacity to communicate with one another a capacity that's rational but beyond rational there's a dignity that we reflect and recognize in one another that no naturalistic worldview can explain and I really wish we had longer to talk and thankfully though a lot of Christians in this room that I know would be eager to be engaged in a conversation and that conversation to be intellectually honest but needs to peel back the layers and see what are we left with if agnosticism is all we've got what are we left with if atheism is true I believe with all my mind and with all my being that the God who is has spoken to us in Scripture and I recognize how audacious that sounds but let's just face it I wouldn't speak to Christians in the room you need to recognize how audacious that is but it just points to how how much grace and mercy is demonstrated to us by the God who is in his love for us and that he speaks so thank you very much for the question I don't believe in the premise you began but I understand it and it's a great place to begin a conversation so thank you thank you yes do you agree with the Apostle Paul and the rest of the stop right there the answer is gonna have to be yes but but but excuse me going okay do you agree with the Apostle Paul on the rest of the scriptures when it describes same-sex homosexual attraction as degrading passions unnatural affections abominable perverse detestable indecent and depraved if you don't agree would you please tell us why you think God used those words to describe homosexuality interesting question why that language is bracing isn't it and how horrible it must be that there are that there are a relatively few people on earth to whom those words are addressed except for one thing those words and the equivalent words are addressed in Scripture to every single son and daughter of Adam those words are not uniquely addressed in the entirety of Scripture to those who may either struggle with same-sex attraction or be engaged to natural same-sex behavior but it's really interesting in Romans chapter 1 and I've written it into our book on this I can't summarize it here but in Romans chapter 1 Paul actually uses same-sex desires not just same-sex behaviors he actually uses same-sex desires using a phrase against nature demonstrating the fact that in order to get the rationalization of that particular sexual sin Paul said you've got to not only overcome Scripture you've got to overcome nature I mean he uses the phrase against nature no but we need to put Romans 1 in context by the time you get to the end of the chapter every single human being is openly indicted Paul gets to the end and he lists sins such that not one of us escapes so is homosexuality a different form of sin yes in this it reveals human sinfulness in a way that being against nature better get our attention but it does not reveal persons who are any more in need of the grace and mercy of God in answer to their sin then I am or anyone else in this room so all those words we need to we need to understand that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write those words and thus those words are to get our attention and they do but as much as we have no right to step back from that language and say I wish Paul would put it differently the Bible is extremely clear but at the same time that long list of those who do things that are detestable and do those things that violate the law of God those things that fall short of the glory of God those things that make us absolutely declared to be the enemies of God that's true for every single one of us the struggle and the pattern of sin may be different but the need of Christ is the same and the call of obedience is the same such that we bring everything we are in submission to Christ and and live according to the law of God which is abundantly clear then God's purpose which is abundantly clear and then we remember the language that is used in Scripture and what it means when it says that we are God's enemies the strongest words we could imagine of sinful humanity rebelling against God and then we remember what scripture tells us that when while we were yet God's enemies he sent his son and that that's the essence of the goth that's the only hope we have it's the only hope regardless of sexual orientation it's the only hope regardless of the pattern of sexual temptation whatever you want to call it it's the only hope regardless of the pattern of sin it's the only hope for every single human being for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God good question thank you for it hi dr. Mohler how are you I'm well thank you glad you're here my name is Patrick my question has to do with mental health and mental illness yeah I I personally have a neurological condition that causes me to suffer from chronic depression mm-hmm and I was wondering something I struggle with is should I take medication for it should I see psychiatrists or psychologists for it and if a Christian friend comes to me with their own struggle with mental health and depression should I tell them to take their medication see a psychiatrist is that biblical yeah great question so let me back up for a moment and say a couple of things right up front you already know I'm not a medical doctor and but for moral reasons I need to be very clear I'm not a medical doctor I don't pose as speaking with medical authority I have lots of good friends who are and I'm very thankful for them and and by the way I'm not only thankful for Christians who are physicians I'm thankful for anyone who's a physician and I've needed all kinds of physicians and the course of my life and and but I want to step back and say not being a doctor I am a theologian my Christian preacher pastor so let me deal with it at that level and let me also share with you that I've had to think hard about these questions this question in particular with pastoral urgency in other words it's one thing to think you're going to talk about something like this in a classroom it's very different when you end up having to deal with with this in your own church in your own family it becomes different now the Christian worldview does not say that we're Souls the Christian worldview the biblical worldview says that we are the technical biblical theological term is psychosomatic which means we are a body soul and the mind is encompassed within that together God made us that way a part of what it means for God to have made us in His image for his glory the way he wanted us to be is there a psychosomatic unity which means that my body does affect my thinking at times so we can't always make a clear distinction now I believe in the most important form of counseling being biblical counsel which is direct counsel from the Word of God and I believe that there are many forms of depression that that actually are spiritual Christians have known this the scripture is clear about this but we would never argue that every dimension of either depression or any number of other struggles that may come to many of us a few of us or all of us that that's independent of that somatic that body that physical reality as well so the limitations of me answering this question faithfully are massive and let me tell you what I see the dangers of the danger is that I say something that would that would be from a position that says well you can't trust the scripture to do these questions you've got to trust the latest understanding of psychiatry I'm not gonna say that can't say that but I also don't want to say the scripture tells us that this is always merely and and essentially a solely a spiritual problem and that they're not physical aspects you've spoken of a pattern that you described yourself so I would suggest that the one thing we know is that this pushes us back on the necessity of being a part of a faithful local congregation of believers who are regularly under the preaching of God's Word together and are seeking to be faithful to Christ and to live biblical Christianity out together and that's where there would be teachers and elders in that church who can come to know you as a brother in Christ and and be able to speak to you in ways that do respect that psychosomatic unit the fact that there is a dimension that is unquestionably addressed in Scripture with scriptural counsel and the gospel as and as the application of how to think about even that kind of struggle but I think we're learning that we also need to respect that somatic reality the reality of the body and we should be thankful for those who are able to to address that and and that need as a Christian my concern is is that in a therapeutic age we want to make everything merely a psychiatric issue but it would be too simplistic to say everything's merely an issue of needing to trust Christ more and study the Bible more and so I'm incompetent to know how to counsel anyone abstractly and it'll be so dangerous not only I'm not a medical doctor I'm not your pastor but I sure hope you have a good one and I hope you're a part of a faithful gospel loving Church that is based upon the scripture and and that you you are regularly hearing the preaching and teaching of the word of God and you're a part of the of the body of Christ and a local congregation and I would trust how they would counsel you far better than anything for someone from a platform would say but I appreciate the ask the question because there may be any number of persons in this room who may be struggling with the same question there and everyone in this room knows someone struggling with these questions and faithfulness to Christ and by the way I'm speaking to you as a Christian it premise the way you began the question we don't have a whole lot of wisdom to give to people who aren't Christians about this because the scripture speaking to this tells us that there's no hope and we should expect to find no wholeness we should expect to find no solace or security outside of Christ but once we come to know Christ and experience the miracle of regeneration we know that there's a walk so long as we're in this world in which we seek to be more holy we demonstrate sanctification day by day year by year decade by decade is gone let's us live and it's in the context of a local church where we really need to struggle with these questions and it's a gift to us that you asked the question just the way you did tonight and I thank you for it thank you appreciate it yes given that the Bible holds that human life begins at conception what are the ethics of conducting research with established human human embryonic stem cell lines and these are cells that are many generations yes from the initial destruction of the embryo and following that who bears culpability in such research another really really good question my goodness I was I was a part of the conversation in in the year 2001 on this the Bush administration was then struggling with this question the administration was trying to come up with a an appropriate policy and president this is President George W Bush he appointed a a panel of bioethicists pretty representative panel I was actually in a live studio on the Larry King program the night the policy came down and we were all hooked up on IFB on camera before we knew what the policy was that's how fresh it was and was announced we had to respond to it immediately and and without going into that political context the issue is all the sudden technology had developed a question that no one in previous generations has had to think about embryonic stem cells people didn't even know this stem cells existed a generation passed and and and the key word there is human embryonic stem cells because again what's the audacity the plain reality of the Christian truth claim it's that every single human being at every point of development is made in God's image and thus possesses dignity and has to be recognized as as being sacred sanctity and is to be preserved so I believe that it is immoral it is a violation of human rights and human dignity to to destroy a human embryo for medical research you ask the question in a very very relevant way because some of you at least weren't alive when or at least just conceivable how's that for an interesting ironic pun yeah most of you were not staying tuned that night to find out what the Bush administration was a hand-down is the policy so we're already years down that you know 17 years down the road nearly from that and that medical experimentation has continued the limitations the Bush administration put on it it basically didn't discontinued so it's rather routine now and and not only is it rather routine it it has become involved in any number of other forms of biomedical research and other forms of biomedical technology in which people including many Christians may have no knowledge of the fact that some of the therapeutic mechanisms that are being used on them or their loved ones may have a basis in human embryonic stem cell research or may not know that some of the the tissue background - even some serums and and medications would also have that so you ask I think the last word you're you were used with culpability what a good question that that's that's such a good biblical word so who's culpable all of us I'm not that's not a cop-out I'm not gonna in there but but we're all culpable and and here's one of the most horrible realizations of the biblical worldview we cannot extricate ourselves even from the sin of others in a social environment it there are there are and by the way this is this is one of the reasons why racism and so so you just take the the reality of slavery in the United States and you say well let's let's just agree we're going to extricate ourselves from that morally well here's the problem and and and by the way this doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility to do that what it means is my goodness there there is no part of the United States of America that is uncontaminated by the horrible reality of slave and in the same way you you you can't really go into a medical facility these days and even if you say I'm completely committed to the sanctity of human life I would never do anything that will lead to the destruction of the human embryo you can never guarantee that you haven't already received products that came from aborted fetuses or even from from some forms of stem cell technology so culpability I would say that a Christian must never be directly involved and must speak honestly about what's at stake but down the line it would actually be delusion for Christians to say we can be absolutely free of the sin we can be absolutely free of all this research and we can be absolutely untainted and unconnected to such technologies this is really really really difficult I can think of one analogy most quickly years ago when IVF was a new technology in vitro fertilization I was asked to write as a theologian the response to it and I did I raised the big ethical issues in in vitro fertilization and they are massive one of the one of the massive ethical complexities is the fact that we've met now hundreds of thousands of so-called spare human embryos which we believe according to Scripture are human beings made in God's image not one human being a spare even those that are microscopic and frozen and many of them are being destroyed but here's the thing and here's the one parallel I'd ask you to think about I think that in many cases that IVF technology has been wrongly used has been unethically used in a way that is destructive of human dignity by creating embryos that are never going to be transferred into the womb or you can follow that logic but we do know this every single baby is God's gift so the baby is good the baby is a human being a gift to us the mechanism behind it is when we can never totally separate because that's incredibly significant morally significant but the child itself himself/herself is as undiluted good in a fallen world we've got to be the people who say we really do know that that child is just as invaluable and just as precious as any other child the mechanism of conception doesn't change that a bit but the mechanism of conceptions not morally insignificant so we live in a world in which we've got to say both things at once and try to be faithful and I really appreciate the depth of the concern behind your question and here again I would say this is where a Christian Scientist a Christian doctor a Christian patient needs be in conversation with the Christian community with the local congregation and with people trusted beyond the local congregation to think through some of these things thank you so much hi dr. Mohler I first said I appreciate your work and the blessings been to the church not a deep question a really soft question for you today as a student I have to do a lot of reading and then as a Christian I do a lot of reading theologically there was a being came out a while back this had different theologians and how much they read Oh Don Carson was on there reading and it pictured you the last one was you reading about 10 10 books a week and I want to know is how do you do it how can you do it effectively as a student and retain information yes my question yeah III I'm intrigued by the question I'd like to hear myself answer it I I was him to tell you that not every week happens that way I'm traveling this week speaking meeting constantly but I have in the hotel suite where I am I've got a large array of books I'm reading many of them at the same time I don't mean page by page at the same time but I'm making progress and all of them and and look when I was very very young I discovered I could really really read and and and there were things I really really couldn't do I had a congenital eye problem so I was no good with a ball you know I never saw it coming and that turns out to be a liability and and yet my eyesight did not keep me from reading and and I read and I read in our Aetna read reading is a marathon it's not a sprint so you know it's it's a lifetime of reading a couple of mechanisms I use is that I think that again that psychosomatic unity the mind and the body I I think our body is more important in reading that people think so I'm an active reader both of my hands are busy when I read with markers and and pen and and I I read a book and and no one else will ever want to read the copy the book I just read I might write no and big and put exclamation points I am constantly marking in the text I'm circling things that you know dates figures people whose names I want to be able to find I have a memory that somehow it just works I can find things on a page 20 years after I read them and I think part of that's because I'm marking in books and by the way I'm old enough now I can say a lot more than 20 years but nonetheless I don't retain everything I read I just retain a lot and and and and you do too otherwise you wouldn't be a student at UCLA you're already a reader I'm quite confident that and a good one and so just just find again I really do believe that in having a you know with reading as an active verb not just what the eyes and the brain but also and I I just find that very very helpful I I find that I read faster actually when I'm making marks in the text and when I do not retain a lot more and and and then just just recognize you're not going to retain a whole lot just like you I crammed for exams there are entire courses that were flushed from my system almost as soon as I took them I thought I thought but you know decades later I can tell you it wasn't actually just that way I actually retained more than I thought and so let me give you hope you're retaining I bet more than you think and so just keep reading the other thing is and and you mentioned other theologians are in there I talk with people about what you read that also really really implants for retention just even in having a conversation and you know you might have a conversation with them there's not particularly interested in that book but they're interested in you and you can talk you know just about even just one or two points and in the book that made it meaningful just even engaging in a conversation which is one of the reasons why group study is actually a real thing it is it is a real thing why because again God made a psychosomatic unities it's amazing in conversation what gets retained that just through the eyes might not be so I'll just finish with this Peter Drucker famous management expert influenced me a lot when I was especially a young man he he said that by time of person's in the early 20s every individual knows whether their eye people are ear people do you process information best by sight by reading or by hearing auditory and the reality is every one of us is probably better at one than the other and my dear sweet long-suffering wife will tell you I'm definitely an eye person not an ear person and that's just the way it is you know you can tell me something and I look at you and I'll completely understand it walk out the room and it's gone in a way that reading doesn't work that way but we are all both I people and ear people in the sense that if we read and then we have a conversation and again making that active it does make a difference so you said it was easy I hope that was helpful just read on god bless you yes yeah my question is actually similar to that so I know you're the president of southern Theological Seminary so when would you recommend somebody actually going to seminary and then from there how do you hope you'll think through whether to go into pastoral ministry or not oh my goodness thank you it's and I am president of the southern the only left one word out it's the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and so I I just need to make that clear which by the way is important because every Theological Seminary is going to be formed in conviction and I'm glad to be in the presence of so many Bible believing Christians many of whom aren't Baptists but this is where we just show up and say we need to show up in full conviction as to who we are and because we're all committed to Scripture were the last people on earth who can have an honest disagreement even an honest argument about things but the choice of theological education is really important but the prior question is a call to ministry and so this is where we understand there is an objective and a subjective dimension to the call to ministry in 1st Timothy 3 Titus 1 and really throughout the scripture God gives us very specific guidelines for someone who would take on the Ministry of the word be called to the ministry the word we do believe it's a calling and and so there's an objective reality as Paul says right in 1st Timothy 3 there you know their moral requirements and there are their actual functional requirements you know someone comes at me and says you know I'm scared to death to speak in front of people I don't ever want to do that I think God's called me to preach that's just nonsensical I'm not saying the God doesn't overcome that but the fact is he's overcoming that in the call making someone want to do what they had never wanted to do before and that objective reality is really really strong charles spurgeon one of the greatest pastors of christian history pastor in the 19th century in london when a young man would come to him and say I think I'm called to preach Spurgeon would say well we'll know pretty quickly let's just look to scripture you know do you meet the qualifications but that's though essential not sufficient there's also that subjective call and and so I experienced that when I was about 18 years of age and it's a desire to teach and preach the Word of God and and and here's one of the safest things I can say demons do not tempt anyone to preach the Word of God so there's a desire to preach the Word of God guess what that's a good desire the Apostle Paul says in Scripture it's a good desire it's a good thing to desire the Ministry of the word but so that again I come back to the congregation the congregation is going to be able to recognize and celebrate and affirm that call and I was able to tell you the church right now desperately needs preachers desperately needs pastors and in this generation I just can't encourage enough to a young man that called to preach when it comes to theological education I've been president of a Seminary for 25 years and I think I'm in a pretty strong position by observation to tell you what I think I think going to seminary immediately after the undergraduate experience is the best stewardship it's not the only stewardship and there there are persons who come later but I do believe it's the best stewardship for two reasons number one everything you do in ministry that theological education is is is for that that's why it exists and so delaying it I'm not saying that you can't learn anything in medicine and even be helpful somehow in medicine without going to medical school but the logic is pretty clear going to medical school is very very important for me as a patient it's it's actually mandatory but then with with seminary the other thing is it just it's like leaves medical school again so let's say there's someone who's uh who's 50 and feels called to medicine they may gain interest to a medical school but that medical school education is going to be functional in them for a short amount of time there's someone who goes to medical school at 22 or 23 and so it's a stewardship question and I and I think there another reason is there are patterns of study kind of the distant line or the previous question you've got a certain momentum as a student and the undergraduate that gets transferred immediately to the Graduate and I can tell you if I were a law school dean or a medical school Dean I would tell you there is there's a loss I say you can't make it up there's just it's just kind of like someone who's been in you know a marathon runner it's not to say they can't having paused it become a marathon runner again just to say there's a certain greater challenge just kind of restarting all of that and finally I got finally by the way how's that for a conditional word finally this is a promise finally things tend to happen in a god-honoring way about this time of life graduating with college and all the rest and I can simply tell you that being in the company of other God called ministers in a seminary experience right after undergraduate experience tends to make all of those things happen in a really wonderful healthy way and and I get to see it and 25 years later and now in the position of having the children of those who graduated since I've been president coming to the seminary and that's something I didn't know to look forward to but it does give me some experience to answer that question god bless you attend a good bible-believing gospel believing seminary thank you I do know of one but I'm glad to say it's not the only one and I'm thankful for that yes thank you for coming we appreciate you answering all our questions so my question is so you've been talking tonight about the clarity of scriptures and how some things are are very clear in the Bible and I do agree that some things are very clear in the Bible but they're dudes as you mentioned in the previous question you yes you get a lot of disagreements with your other with other theologians and that's why we have all these debates and this conversations about what's correct in the Bible what's correct in the scriptures and it leads us to lead some people to disagree with little things and then obviously forming or leading to other denominations of Christian faith and my question is and also I believe it's really important because when you do see this division all these the menominee shion's are Christian churches it doesn't seem that some people are turned away from Christianity because they do see the division even though it may be over very small things so my question is should there be many all these denominations and and do you think there is a correct one oh yes but what what a great way to ask the question there's a there's a historian in the United States he's long been dead his name was Sydney Mead you don't need to know that except I just want to give him credit he he said that there's a simple formula to keep in mind which is theological conviction plus religious liberty equals denominations and that's actually very helpful so doctrinal conviction plus religious liberty equals denominations what does that mean it means that if we were in a situation where had an imposed state church you could say we have unity but it would be the expense of conviction and and so if you have strong doctrinal conviction and you enjoy religious liberty then you can order a church depending on how you believe scripture to reveal the church be ordered you can preach the gospel as you believe the scrip would have us to preach the gospel so then what do we do with John chapter 17 the high priestly prayer of Jesus when Jesus prayed that his his children would be one as he said to the Father as you and I are are one and he prayed for unity well see here's the thing if we are looking for institutional unity across all believers then we've got to bring that about by either some kind of force or by some kind of compromise of convictions kind of kind of the idea of having just a bare Christian identity in order to get all the Christians in the room and say we're united but I think even as you're looking at John chapter 17 where Jesus is speaking of the union of believers in the unity of the church it's a spiritual unity so let me just tell you I'm a Baptist I'm not a Presbyterian but I'm very thankful that there will be neither Baptist nor Presbyterians in heaven and there will be a lot of Baptist and a lot of Presbyterians in heaven I don't believe this is an issue that separates us on the gospel that's the very premise of why I'm here and-and-and-and so that that's really good news there's a spiritual unity right there the other thing we have to note is that ever since the 19th century there's a problem with the denominational labels which is this theological liberalism began to infect just about every denomination so that right now as a gospel believing Southern Baptist as a Baptist who believes in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Word of God and and and and believes and the the consensus of the faith the the the the great doctrines of the Christian faith as revealed in Scripture I have far more in common with a Presbyterian or a Lutheran or an Episcopalian an Anglican who believes in all those things then with a Baptist who doesn't and J Gresham machen one of the greatest thinkers the Christian Church had in the 20th century who was a presbyterian he said look there's a dividing line now through the denominations and in which there is a unity of all a spiritual unity a theological unity of all who who confess Christ and that means the Christ of Scripture and the Christ of the Creed's the Christ who is very god of very God and and very man a very man and and and the Trinity as the essential theological DNA of the Christian faith and the scripture as the ultimate authority totally true and totally trustworthy there's a unity right there and there's a unity that's revealed even in this room there's a unity of gospel believing Bible believing Christians who by the grace and mercy of God really do know that spiritual unity now we're divided into some different churches on Sunday morning but that's not all even because of theological differences and and their different levels of theological differences you look on the web you'll find an article I wrote on theological triage first level issues if you don't believe these you're not a christian the Bible is very clear about that second order issues you may be a Christian but we're gonna have to be in different churches and just take baptism is an issue and and by the way that means there are no heresies on the second level there are heretics on baptism they're just the the Baptist's of these I saw I got our name Baptists have a conviction about baptism and others have a different conviction about baptism and so long as we preach the gospel and believe in the again the the faith once for all delivered to the Saints we recognize one another as brothers and sisters even if on Sunday morning we're part of different churches because if we were forced into one church then somebody's gonna have to forfeit conviction no in the age to come this is the promise of Christ in the age to come when his kingdom comes in fullness then we're not gonna be separated in two different churches we're not to be separated in two different congregations we're all gonna be a part of the body of Christ together and and guess what we're no longer than you see through a glass darkly we're gonna see face to face and and then and we'll know things perfectly until then we need to encourage one another to faithfulness I preached in a big Presbyterian Church not too long ago and I got up and I said look I'm just so thrilled to be in the company of fellow believers and we again we may be the last people on earth who can have an honest theological disagreement but it's because they love Christ we love the scripture we preach the gospel we believe in the total truthfulness in Aaronson and fallibilities the word of god and that means that we're about the only people on earth who can even have some conversations because we believe that doctrine is important and we believe that the Bible is true now by the way just one final thing you talked about things in scripture that are clear and things that are unclear the Christian Church has had a great answer to that and and it comes down to this you interpret the unclear things by the clear things you don't interpret the clear things by the unclear things and so that that's just a good thing to remember there is you know everything needful for our salvation is abundantly clear in Scripture and we reason from the clear things to understand the the unclear things together and we struggle together and sometimes we we dialogue together sometimes we even argue together as long as we respectfully argue amongst believers as as to brothers and sisters in Christ thank you again great question yes dr. Mohler might prefer to sort of say well let's talk about that later or have a different conversation one thing I'd love to pick up on very briefly just to be clear on something you said earlier not tomorrow you seem to be suggesting that it was good that the Americans kicked out the British that seems to be what you were saying what I was actually saying is that the British showed the futility of their rule in the United States by refusing to treat the United States as citizens rather than as mere subjects but that's a great discussion you don't think it would have been better if we could have just tried to have got along because if you think about it you would have come out of it with a with a cooler accent and and I I would have better teeth so so in this and in other things I will simply let a Brit have the final word one of the greatest of all when Winston Churchill said when he spoke to a joint session of the United States Congress we are one people and so in the most important things like the fight for freedom in the 20th century we stood together and we still stand together Winston Churchill called it the the unity of the english-speaking world and just about your accent several people pointed out that we are one people divided by a common language we'll talk about that right okay so sorry to interrupt let's go for this the 60 seconds thing we'll do our best so take it away sir I mean I did have a big question but okay so my question is how can God be loving and create people for eternal punishment with no chance some people and I noticed you said earlier that like yes like people he said that who are we to question God yes but if his system is inherently unloving that happens maybe like 80% of the world to burn forever and be tortured forever then can we not even question that God even exists if his system itself is unloving well if we had an independent this connects us back to about the first question if we had an independent point of from which we can start thinking and really convince ourselves that we were truly independent we had a view from which we can look at these things and make our own independent moral judgments according to some objective morality then we could continue that conversation but the bottom line is 60 seconds my goodness but the the the the bottom line in this is that the scripture makes clear that the responsibility of those who bear eternal punishment is is their own for their own sin and so that doesn't like got off the hook because he's to create or maybe Warfield again or the great theologians of the 19th century he kind of originated in my mind the Pottery Barn rule of of creation when it is a little book the plan of salvation he said if God's the creator then he owns all of creation but this is where I need to refer to you that's the real question I want to give you an answer bigger than the one I can answer here at 60 seconds in the question and answer last year's Ligonier National Conference doctor RC sprawl answered that question making a distinction between the benevolence of God and and and the redemptive love of God that's really really helpful it take me more than 60 seconds so that's all online at Ligonier org and and you can find that there last year's national conference the Q&A session on that question all right dr. Mohler yes so my wife and i are seeing many of our friends Christian and non-christian four going marriage and even if they do marry oftentimes we forego children and we get a fur babies instead and so what do you think about this is there anything wrong with it how would you argue from the Bible that there's anything wrong with it and do you think there will be consequences in society to come yes yes and yes so yes there will be consequences yes I believe the Bible speaks to it and the Bible speaks to it in the very first chapter in Genesis 1 verse 27 we have the mandate to the man and the woman and we find out in chapter 7 chapter 2 united in marriage we find out that the mandate is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth which is god's purpose and so it turns out that god's purpose is for a man and a woman to come together in the sanctity and in the covenant of marriage and then to receive all the good things that God gives in the Covenant of marriage and in the one flesh relationship and it amazing how candid the Bible is I mean there it is Genesis chapter 2 right there one flesh relationship and and and and in the in the fruit of this comes children and yes with children comes here's the other thing with marriage first and with children second what you have is an amazing process of maturing an entire civilization first of all those who are you I tell you once those of you in this you said you're married as you know you instantly mature once you are married it just it's just it's one of the requirements of marriage and and even to get married you have to work towards some maturity in order for that to happen and then when children come it's amazing how responsible people become when they have to take care of children and then and then when children call out the best I am a so much better man for having been and now being a father and now you may have hurt a grandfather and I mean it just pulls out the best in us and in a civilization where we are tempted towards just being so self concerned anyway the lack of marriage and the lack of children and minimizing both as God good God's good gifts to us comes with massive consequences and a society that honors marriage and a society that honors children is in every way a healthier saner Society and the consequences of abandoning God's goods get God's good gifts they're pretty clear and and I think people know it by the way I think people actually know the answer to your question yeah they just don't want to take responsibility for having to answer it with what they know thank you yes how is it that you can assert the divinity of the Bible given the historical precedence of fables like global floods or a messiah that is resurrected during Easter time that are preceded in the publication of the Bible okay first of all just to be real clear I don't believe in the divinity of the Bible I believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible so we don't worship the Bible but we believe that in the Bible Genesis to Revelation we believe that God has spoken uniquely authoritative Lee even inerrant lean and fallible so how do I deal with the ancient Near Eastern literature and all the rest well for one thing I noticed that I would expect I would expect that just as the Bible tells us that for instance Paul in in Acts chapter 17 when he's with the Philosopher's at Athens talks about all people's groping toward God I would expect there will be yearnings that there would be ideas that there would be vestigial patterns that would be very clear even in in ancient religions before the emergence of Israel and and before they giving a scripture and certainly before the church but the other thing is the closer you look at those you don't see them as more similar I believe you'll see them as more dissimilar and and furthermore you have a different kind of claim for example in most of those incidents of ancient near-eastern literature wherever they're found there's no claim to historicity there's no claim that these events took place in space and time in history but from Genesis 1 all the way through the entirety of Scripture the Christian scriptures are making space time history truth claims in other words we're not just saying there's a story about Jesus we're saying Jesus was a very real human being who was also the second person of the Trinity the very son of God but he we're not just telling you a story about him we're not just telling a story about his resurrection from the dead we believe there's ample historical evidence for the fact that he was indeed raised from the dead so I'm not I'm not troubled by the question or by the background I would expect just as Paul expected that where you find people made in God's image you're gonna find people groping towards him and even with ideas and patterns of thinking that that we could even say well I recognize something of what they're thinking there but this just points us to the great gift which is solely in Christ in our salvation and and the great gift which is in the scriptures so I think the biggest answer is you mentioned fables and all the rest they're pretty much presented as that and were understood as that the ancient Greek deities for example no one really believed in the accounts concerning them to have taken place in space time in history rather they saw them as being morally and socially meaningful hear me very clearly Christians believe that what scripture reveals happened in space and time in history and we welcome the historical investigation so what you should disrespect I would submit is a Christian who runs from the question or a Christian who runs from the evidence I want to run through the evidence and hopefully you can find some good thinking honest Christians who can can run towards the evidence with you thank you thank you for all your service to the church dr. malooley appreciate it in light of many conversations I've had in terms of evangelism with young men like myself what is a biblical response to this to the systemic racism of today especially in light of the history of Scripture being misused to validate American slavery thank you so much brother I will say the most important thing we can do is have an open-air conversation just as you initiated here and and just as all of us as Christians should take responsibility to initiate to make very clear that that the Bible straightforwardly from Genesis to Revelation makes clear the unity of the human race in and by the way this is one of the reasons why the biblical doctrine of creation is so important how do we know that every single human being is is is is the same and made in the image of God and and equally made in the image of God is because we have the same first mother and the same first father and we are even genetically related by God's purpose his glory is revealed in the fact that in skin color and and the Bible says even in geographic location I you know even in the table of the nations you find in the book of Genesis God's glory is in the fact that that that we are different and by the way God's judgment is on the fact that we're different in language so you have you have the Tower of Babel which by the way I don't believe is just a story I believe it's a space-time event where God's judgment on those people was to to put human beings into different language groups and by the way that's that's a big problem that's a huge problem but and especially in a sinful world what we do is that will take difference and and try to make it a hierarchy and we'll try to make ourselves superior to everyone else white superiority is one of the greatest scandals to the to Christ and to Christ gospel in the history of Christendom and and and we will all try to find a way to say it's not just so even within that as you know within within white superiority there was a ranking of whites and a ranking of differences and so we in a fallen world we will try to make differences to our advantage at the expense of others but in the body of Christ we're instead animated by the fact that we are we are one that out of all Christ is creating one new humanity a redeemed humanity and we have in the Bible this incredible promise that what we have in difference in Genesis becomes the same for believers in Christ at the marriage supper of the lamb where men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation bought by the blood of Christ will be at the table together and by the way I think that means that all those differences please God tremendously so much so that for eternity he wants us in appearance even in language to reflect his glory in difference as a divine artist he created us all in diversity but to back to the first part of your question I was more than 60 seconds I'm lightening here this is lightning it might not look like lightning this is lightning I thank you for asking the question I thank you for raising the issue and this is where this generation of Christians has to confront this as a front line for front issue not something we'll get to one day and not something that by the way Christians can disagree on but the the the the any I wrote an article about this from Berlin just a few months ago you can find my website any ask any assertion of racial superiority is a repudiation of the gospel of Jesus Christ sir and we need to continue this conversation to get there all of us in the body of Christ and we need to show the world how we can show true unity and true love and the true refutation of every deadly ideology not because we're so smart or because they're so good but because Christ is infinitely good and shows his love to his church thank you brother thank you sir yes that's a lot of pressure I've gotta be good brother right my question comes in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas shooting and so many others yes many of us feel outraged that's so often what's offered by suppose identities a Christianity or at least conservatism is nothing more than thoughts and prayers yeah which is why so many atheists Christopher Hitchens toward the end of his life when he was diagnosed with cancer when asked about how he felt about Christians writing to him telling him that they were praying for him said thanks but no thanks that's paraphrasing when you look at that outrage my question is this and is assuming that you're not funded by the NRA and that you're not trying to societies ii cop-out so my question is this while the bracing simultaneously the sovereignty of god and also the free more will of humanity what good do the thoughts and prayers of christians offer okay you swerved there I was headed somewhere else and now I but I got you and last question I I wrote a piece for The Washington Post about this in the last horrible round after Las Vegas and and and and so all I wanted to do in that article was to say that there's something worse than public figures offering thoughts and prayers and that is them having nothing to say at all I mean that I can just tell you as a human being you get in situations in which you are faced with moral horror or you're faced with just the reality of suffering and tragedy and as a Christian I believe that the only thoughts and prayers that matter are ones that are are are directed towards the one true and living God and and so I know I don't believe that theologically that expression thoughts and prayers necessarily has much much meaning to in a secular context but I I understand why people say it so let me let me turn that around and say I can't really answer for that political context and by the way I think that that Christians of goodwill can have disagreements as to exactly how political challenges and that means the law any time you didn't with the law you're dealing with politics because it only by a political process no matter the form of government by the way may differ and exactly how to get to a goal but Christians must in this country at this time recognize we are facing a moral urgency to respond to this in a way that's gonna have to take a political form because again change if you have a social situation and change is going to take place eventually it will have some kind of political manifestation we have to run again honestly and deal with that but let me tell you what I believe as a Christian is the difference and thoughts and prayers that when a Christian says it when a believing Christian says thoughts and prayers what we that that should never mean forfeiting responsibility I mean it'd be ridiculous to pray for someone who's hungry when you can feed them and have the responsibility to feed them so in that sense saying thoughts and prayers if that's all we do and all we are would be Hollow and and horribly dishonouring to God but when we rightfully would speak of thoughts and prayers it doesn't mean an excuse for inaction it means rather as Jesus would tell us we're to be about action and and that means concrete demonstrations of love remember that the greatest commandment jesus said is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and and and then he said the seconds liken to it you must love her in your neighbor as yourself later Jesus was a to his disciples when they asked him who is my neighbor he makes very clear every single human beings our neighbor which means we are called to action but that doesn't mean that thoughts and prayers mean nothing for Christians that means I'm demonstrating love and the fact that I'm with you in thought when I can't be with you in tragedy and it means in prayers we really do believe that the God commands that Christians pray and that he honors our prayer and we really do believe that prayers will make a difference because of God's sovereign love and mercy demonstrated when when we cannot make a difference in many situations of our dire concern we know that God can so let me just tell you something you already know expect politicians to say stupid things expect human beings to expect all of us to say stupid things expect human beings to defer responsibility expect human being sometimes to be socially awkward I mean in the face of a tragedy let's just say it wasn't let's say it wasn't a moral evil as we would define it with an active-shooter let's say it was an earthquake we do actually want everyone to respond with thoughts and prayers we don't want that to be the end but that that's not the worst thing said it's just it's just God dishonouring if that's all that is done thank you thank you did you want to say anything by way of conclusion yes that's what lightning looks like but it has to do with the fact that we are dealing with big questions aren't we and and these are the questions that any intelligent human being is going to come up with in one way or another or at one moment in life or another it's been a privilege to be here with you tonight I want to thank you what a privilege to be here on the campus of UCLA and I've been able to be here Mary and I have been here with others for a few days we've been able to observe the campus and I just want to tell you that there's a hospitality even on this campus there's a there's a sense of being a school and and being about a common purpose here that but that's it's very good to see you are a very privileged group as you know to study in such an illustrious institution and and I just want to encourage you to honor God glorify Christ in all that you do while you're here and when you go out to to other challenges and other responsibilities I also really want to encourage you who are Christians during the time you were here to be really actively involved in a local church and and really actively involved in ministry on this campus I'm very thankful for grace on campus and for Cru even organizing this tonight and I just want to encourage you you'll be a stronger Christian you'd be a more faithful Christian for your involvement first of all in a local church bible-believing gospel preaching church and and also very involved at this strategic place of this strategic time on campus ministries such as grace on campus and and crew but I want to speak to some of you who I'm most privileged would be in attendance tonight and that some who may not yet be Christians you may not yet have have come to believe in Christ you may not yet have come to believe the gospel and I just want to tell you that all these questions are really summarized in one answer and that answer is Christ because that's really all I know all I know and most fundamentally about my own existence and the biggest questions of life is that God has revealed himself in his son the Lord Jesus Christ the most famous verse of Christianity really is the rightful summary for God's all over the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes on him would not perish but have everlasting life I don't know you most of you in this room I don't know you but I do because I know who you are I know you're a human being made in the image of God and I know that you're a sinner and and I know your need I dare to say I really do know your need because our sin is a problem that separates us from from our Creator in a way we can't resolve it's a problem we cannot rescue ourselves from but you know the Bible tells us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and we really do believe as Christians that the most important events in all of human history are when Jesus Christ died on the cross paying the full penalty for our sin and then was raised by the power of God resurrected on the third day so that all who believe on him and and and confess him and repent of their sins are given the gift of eternal life and and even more importantly our forgiving our sins and we are restored to a right relationship with the father you know we've talked about matters psychiatric psychological political sociological moral ethical you go down the list but the bottom line is we know only one remedy we know only one rescue and that's Christ and I am absolutely sure of this you can trust Christ to be faithful to his promises I am absolutely positively confident of this that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness I'm absolutely confident of the fact that if you will profess with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved now if tonight this sounds just interesting to you your intriguing to you or if if there's an deeper urgency I hope you won't leave this place tonight without talking to some Christians who are here and getting involved in a conversation will continue long after this evening is over so let me just tell you what a great privilege it has been to be here I want to think again Grace on campus Cru Ligonier ministries and we're proud to have been here we're thankful for your time the gift of a time when you had studies to do and books to read and other things to do but thank you for the gift to your time may it have been well invested tonight and may God use everything that has been thought and said and considered an imagined night to his glory we pray this in Christ's name god bless you all [Applause]

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

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Length: 110min 30sec (6630 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2018