Whew!
It was a great week at Living Word- 5 great services in 8 days. A lot of eternal impact.

By the way, when you gear up for a big season in your life, guard yourself at the back end. Take some time to reflect- otherwise you just move on to the next task. Pretty soon your God-given opportunities for praise become drudgery. Satan loves to pounce on you after a victory.

I have a theory about those who come to Easter services: They are, at the least, not hardened skeptics. There was a day when a skeptic would hang out at a church on Christmas or Easter, but I think that day is largely gone. Our skepticism has been granted boldness, and with it a desire to be consistent. "If this is a fairy tale, I'm not playing." And, unfortunately, many followers of Christ have treated the precious truth of the Gospel like a fairy tale: "Once upon a time, Jesus rose from the dead."

So I don't spend much time on Sunday morning diving into a defense of the faith. But I wanted to give you something to go with as you address skepticism- either yours or that of others.

Resurrection takes a life, a death and an empty tomb. If you lack any of these, the resurrection, well, dies:
Life- No one seriously doubts Jesus' life. It is attested to by the best historical, first-person documentary evidence the world has ever seen (the New Testament). Further, numerous extra-Biblical sources reveal the life of Christ. His crucifixion is a matter of public record. You should not be intimidated when someone spouts off about Christ not even being alive. Ask them why. They won't have a reason, because there aren't any.
Death- The death of Christ was secured by two governments, carried out by the world's finest executioners, and observed by an angry mob of non-sympathetic witnesses.The necessity of a coverup (no resurrection= no story) in Matthew 28:14 demonstrates Christ's death, too. When someone says that Jesus just "swooned," ask them why. They will say it's because dead men don't rise from the dead. And that, my friend, is precisely the point.
Empty Tomb- We don't know in what tomb Christ was buried. We have a couple good candidates. We don't need to know, either. What we need to find is a body: "He is not here!" Isn't it odd that, when all it would take is production of a body to smash the budding sect called "The Way," no one could find one?

I have given you enough to bolster your own confidence and talk to most skeptics. But it's not enough. It's never enough. The evidence demands a verdict (click here for more of it). But for a committed skeptic, no evidence is enough. Instead of "more evidence you won't believe," a questioning approach is more helpful.

You see, a skeptic has problems. It's not what they know, but what they say they don't know that rescues them. So a consistent skeptic has to give away a lot- actually, everything, to continue in his skepticism. I'll illustrate:

• "You can't trust the Bible. It's too old." But the Bible is the best set of ancient documents we have. If you can't trust the Bible, you can't trust ANY ancient document.
• "If God existed we wouldn't have pain and suffering." Getting rid of God still leaves you with pain and suffering- but not an answer for it.
• "I depend on logic and reason, not religion." Yes, but why does logic and reason work? Saying "They just do" is a cop out, not an explanation.
• "When you die, you die. There is no eternity." How does one know this? And, especially in the absence of such "proof," it's not all that attractive as a philosophy.

And you also have to give away:

• How matter came into being
• Where intelligence comes from
• Where life came from...

As a skeptic you end up giving away a lot more than you initially thought. So when talking to one- even if it's yourself- ask the skeptic what they DO know. A follower of Christ doesn't know everything, but she has a foundation to know more than most others- and every skeptic.

Go serve your Risen King,
PW