Speaker 1: You know, we really live in a world that's full
Speaker 1: of competing beliefs and values and choices, and what you
Speaker 1: believe shapes how you live and ultimately who you become.
Speaker 1: But the good news is God hasn't left us to
Speaker 1: figure it all out alone.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: In fact, today, on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, we're going
Speaker 1: to continue our series Reframing Your Worldview, where Rick Warren
Speaker 1: unpacks powerful truths from God's Word to help you see
Speaker 1: life clearly and live it with confidence and purpose. Okay,
Speaker 1: and now Rick with part three of a message called
Speaker 1: how do I Know What's True?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Postmodernism says can we really know truth? I mean, there
Speaker 2: may be some truth after but how can anybody really
Speaker 2: know it? Is it possible to know truth? Is it knowable?
Speaker 2: The answer is absolutely, I can give you on a
Speaker 2: full guarantee with a resounding yes. Absolutely. Truth can be knowable.
Speaker 2: You can know the truth. In fact, Jesus that you
Speaker 2: know the truth and it'll set you free, and you
Speaker 2: can know what's false. Truth can be discovered. How do
Speaker 2: we discover it? Five ways?
Speaker 3: Number one, we.
Speaker 2: Know what's true through creation, simply by looking around at
Speaker 2: the world. We know what's true through creation. We learn
Speaker 2: a lot about God, a lot about truth just by
Speaker 2: looking at nature. This is why science is so important.
Speaker 2: It helps us understand how things work, It helps us
Speaker 2: understand truth, It helps us understand God and his universe.
Speaker 2: That's why we value science. Romans one twenty says this
Speaker 2: from the Bible. Since the creation of the world, God's
Speaker 2: invisible qualities, his eternal power, his divine nature have been
Speaker 2: clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, in
Speaker 2: other words, through creation. So men are without excuse, in
Speaker 2: other words, forget the Bible. I learn a lot about
Speaker 2: God just by taking a walk this afternoon. When I
Speaker 2: go out and I start walking around in creation, I
Speaker 2: can learn a lot about God. First thing I can
Speaker 2: figure out real quickly is God likes variety.
Speaker 3: Have you noticed that. Have you looked down your row lately?
Speaker 3: There's not anybody like you in the world, all of.
Speaker 2: The different variety. God doesn't want it all alike. God
Speaker 2: gets bored with sameness. God loves diversity. God loves variety.
Speaker 2: Told some of you before. When God created beatles, he
Speaker 2: created over sixty thousand different varieties of beetles. Think about that,
Speaker 2: sixty thousand different kinds of beetles in the world. Now,
Speaker 2: you would have thought four or five hundred varieties would
Speaker 2: be enough. No, God wanted sixty thousand different varieties of beatles, John, Paul, Ringo, George,
Speaker 2: and who knows the names are the other ones, But
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's got them all.
Speaker 3: Named because God likes variety. God loves you. Know.
Speaker 2: Another thing, I look, just in nature, I go out
Speaker 2: looking around. I didn't figure out pretty quick this guy's powerful.
Speaker 2: Ever seen a volcano, ever seen an earthquake, tidal wave,
Speaker 2: wave tides, winds. I mean, it's very obvious. If God
Speaker 2: made all this, he's pretty powerful. So I know God
Speaker 2: is creative. I know God likes diversity. I know God
Speaker 2: is powerful. Just by looking at nature.
Speaker 3: I know God is organized organized.
Speaker 2: In fact, the more we know about nature, the more
Speaker 2: we realize how much he is.
Speaker 3: That the whole earth is an.
Speaker 2: Ecosystem, and it's all delicately balanced, and it can get
Speaker 2: out of balance, and things that we didn't even know
Speaker 2: related to each other we now know are highly organized,
Speaker 2: and that there is an ecosystem balanced in situations that
Speaker 2: we don't.
Speaker 3: Even know all.
Speaker 2: That plant was particularly needed by this particular animal, and
Speaker 2: that animal was needed for this particular animal, and on
Speaker 2: and on and on and on, and you get it
Speaker 2: out of balance.
Speaker 3: It's highly organized.
Speaker 2: And when I look at, for instance, things like the
Speaker 2: angle of the Earth's axis as it is tilted, that
Speaker 2: it's just the right angle to support human life or
Speaker 2: life on this planet, and that if the axis was
Speaker 2: too much this way, we would burn up, or if
Speaker 2: it were too much that way, we'd freeze up. And
Speaker 2: of course we all know that's an accident. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: And so the more we understand the planet and God's universe,
Speaker 2: the more we have to thank God for. Like I
Speaker 2: said earlier, I said, you know, we didn't know about genomes,
Speaker 2: we didn't know about DNA, we didn't know about all
Speaker 2: these things. But the more we understand, the more we go,
Speaker 2: WHOA what a God? How intricately he designed even our
Speaker 2: own bodies?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: You know, I've pretty much become aware of this since
Speaker 2: I became a grandparent. You know, the grandkids are much
Speaker 2: cooler than my kids. You know, I'm just I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, I think kids are wasted on us because
Speaker 2: we have when we're young, we don't realize how cool
Speaker 2: they are. And just about the time you get to
Speaker 2: appreciate them and understand them.
Speaker 3: They leave.
Speaker 2: But I'm looking at these little fingernails of the babies
Speaker 2: and looking how this came out of a woman's womb
Speaker 2: and it came out and it works, and you know,
Speaker 2: I just I don't you know, It's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2: When you look biologists and physicists and things, you look
Speaker 2: at the way God wired the world.
Speaker 3: In creation, we learn.
Speaker 2: About God, We learn a lot about value and about truth.
Speaker 2: There is no contradiction between the gooveries of science and faith,
Speaker 2: none at all. There are contradictions between unproven scientific.
Speaker 3: Theories and faith, but there is.
Speaker 2: No contradiction between discoveries and faith because all truth is
Speaker 2: God's truth. God thought it up before the scientist did.
Speaker 2: God designed the laws of physics before anybody professor physics
Speaker 2: even knew about it.
Speaker 3: For instance, watch this, I just learned this. Watch this
Speaker 3: watch was that cool.
Speaker 2: Watch I'll do it again, Wutch. You know what it happens.
Speaker 2: Every time.
Speaker 3: When I let it go, it doesn't go up. It
Speaker 3: always goes down.
Speaker 2: Now that is true, And no matter how much you
Speaker 2: don't want it to be true, the law of gravity
Speaker 2: is always going that way. Now, we didn't know that
Speaker 2: for a long time. I mean like thousands of years ago,
Speaker 2: Indians were going, you know, and I go, but they
Speaker 2: didn't know why. We now know the law of gravity.
Speaker 2: We understand it and we're discovering truth.
Speaker 3: But it's always true.
Speaker 2: And you could do this one gazillion times, that it's
Speaker 2: always going to fall down.
Speaker 3: Some things are always true.
Speaker 2: Now the Bible says this on the back of your
Speaker 2: outlying Romans one nineteen. The basic reality of God is
Speaker 2: plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just all around you. And that's why throughout history
Speaker 2: up until about the last hundred years, almost all of
Speaker 2: the great scientists were also believers. In fact, many were theologians.
Speaker 2: Why because it was their love of God that drove
Speaker 2: them to discover why do we do what we do.
Speaker 3: I'm reading a book right now called.
Speaker 2: God Seen through the Eye of the Greatest Minds. It's
Speaker 2: a fascinating book on what scientists have said about God
Speaker 2: throughout history and what they've learned about history. I was
Speaker 2: invited to speak at TED, the TED conference up in
Speaker 2: Carmel or Monterey. That's Technology, Entertainment and Design Summit, and
Speaker 2: it's all these scientists and technology people and very very
Speaker 2: smart people. And they put me in an afternoon session
Speaker 2: between probably the two most prominent atheists in America. Now
Speaker 2: that's what's called an ambush. So I ambushed them, okay,
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm going, you're gonna give me a
Speaker 2: setup this great, Thank you.
Speaker 3: God, there is a god in the universe. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And you know, I won't let anybody be an enemy.
Speaker 2: I just love them into the kingdom. And by the
Speaker 2: time we were over, well the three of us going
Speaker 2: maybe we ought to write a book together. And one
Speaker 2: of the things that I said is, you know what,
Speaker 2: I just don't have enough.
Speaker 3: Faith to be an atheist.
Speaker 2: It takes far more faith to be an atheist than
Speaker 2: it does to believe that there's a creator. I mean,
Speaker 2: when I look at these instruments over here, and I
Speaker 2: look at these things, I going, somebody had to make that.
Speaker 2: I don't think that just showed up. I don't somebody
Speaker 2: had to design all those keys. That's I mean, I
Speaker 2: could stand here for one hundred million years and I
Speaker 2: don't think it would just form on its own. Somebody
Speaker 2: had to design that. When I look at this watch,
Speaker 2: I'm going, okay, there had to be some kind of
Speaker 2: designer behind us. It takes far more belief for me
Speaker 2: to think, oh, that's an accident and one day or
Speaker 2: over one hundred million years, that just became a watch. Well,
Speaker 2: you know that sounds silly. But to say that the
Speaker 2: whole world happened that way without any intentional design, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I don't have enough faith to believe that.
Speaker 2: It takes far more faith to say this all just
Speaker 2: is a random chance. These lights right here, they just
Speaker 2: showed up there. Okay, they just showed up because over
Speaker 2: a long period of time, lights show up.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got a number of friends who are atheists,
Speaker 2: and I say, okay.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this question. Just follow me on this.
Speaker 2: What percentage of the knowledge of the universe do you
Speaker 2: think you have? Ten percent? Of course, not one percent,
Speaker 2: of course, not one billion zillionth of a percent of
Speaker 2: the worlds or the universe's knowledge you might possess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe one billion zillionth Okay.
Speaker 2: So what that's saying is you and I we don't
Speaker 2: know ninety nine point nine.
Speaker 3: Percent of the knowledge that's out there right right.
Speaker 2: Are you telling me there's no possibility that a god
Speaker 2: might exist?
Speaker 3: In the ninety nine point No, no, that you don't
Speaker 3: know about.
Speaker 2: You are just automatically wiping him off as an impossibility. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's not called being open minded. That's called arrogance. And
Speaker 2: let's just get down to the real issue here. It's
Speaker 2: not what you don't believe, it's why you don't believe it.
Speaker 2: The truth is you don't want to believe in God
Speaker 2: because you'd have to change your ways if there was. Now,
Speaker 2: let's just admit it. It's not that you can't believe in God.
Speaker 2: It's that you won't believe in God because if there was,
Speaker 2: you'd have to change some things you do. And you
Speaker 2: want to be your own God.
Speaker 3: Let's just admit it. It's a pride issue. I want
Speaker 3: to run my own life.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, how could I deny the possibility of something in
Speaker 2: the ninety nine point.
Speaker 3: Whatever that I don't even know about.
Speaker 2: That is what I would call an extremely closed mind.
Speaker 2: We know what's true through creation number two, we know
Speaker 2: what's true through conscience.
Speaker 3: Through conscience, there's.
Speaker 2: Some things that are hardwired in us by God that
Speaker 2: we know are always right and always wrong, no matter
Speaker 2: what anybody else says. Our conscience tells us this The
Speaker 2: Bible says this in Romans too. Some people naturally obey
Speaker 2: God's commands even though they don't have the law. In
Speaker 2: other words, there are people all around the world do
Speaker 2: the right thing. They don't have a Bible. Some people
Speaker 2: naturally obey God's commands even though they don't have the law.
Speaker 2: This proves that the conscience is like a law written
Speaker 2: in the human heart, and it will show whether we
Speaker 2: are forgiven or condemned. Let me say we take a
Speaker 2: random sample of one billion people from around the planet,
Speaker 2: or just a million, and we put them out on
Speaker 2: a corner in New York City in Times Square, and
Speaker 2: we're going to ask him a moral question, and say,
Speaker 2: here's a.
Speaker 3: Little old lady.
Speaker 2: She's ninety two, she's blind, and she's walking with a walker,
Speaker 2: and she needs to cross a busy intersection in New
Speaker 2: York City. Now tell me which of these three options
Speaker 2: is morally right.
Speaker 3: Okay. Number one, you can ignore her and just let
Speaker 3: her go off and her on.
Speaker 2: Number two, you can help the blind lady across the street.
Speaker 2: Number three, you can push her into oncoming traffic.
Speaker 3: Why are you laughing?
Speaker 2: Because we instinctively know there's a right thing to do.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be a quote Christian or Jew,
Speaker 2: or a Muslim or even a spiritual person. Inside you
Speaker 2: know that's the right thing to do. That's the way
Speaker 2: God wired our conscience. The Bible says this. I love
Speaker 2: this in the message paraphrase. Look up here on the screen.
Speaker 2: This shows that God's law is not something alien imposed
Speaker 2: on us from without, but it's woven into the very
Speaker 2: fabric of our creation. There's something deep within us that
Speaker 2: echoes God's yes and no, right and wrong. Look at
Speaker 2: the next verse on your outline. The Bible says this,
Speaker 2: the Lord gave us mind and conscience. We cannot hide
Speaker 2: from ourselves. This week, I was watching and there was
Speaker 2: a criminal who'd been on the lamb and they caught
Speaker 2: him as a fugitive. And when he was caught, he
Speaker 2: actually looked relieved. And then he said, I'm really glad
Speaker 2: I got caught. He said, the guilt was killing me.
Speaker 2: The guilt was killing me. Where'd that comfort?
Speaker 3: It comes from inside inside?
Speaker 2: Now, the problem with conscience is this, one of all
Speaker 2: of the sources of finding truth is the least reliable.
Speaker 2: Because the Bible teaches us that our conscience can be weakened.
Speaker 2: It can be warped. It can be hardened. Our conscience
Speaker 2: can be perverted. In fact, it can be killed. I
Speaker 2: would say somebody like Hitler had a dead conscience.
Speaker 3: It was dead.
Speaker 2: And so the more I violate my conscience, the more
Speaker 2: out of whack it gets. As I said, it just
Speaker 2: gets easier and easier to do the wrong thing. So
Speaker 2: just because my conscience lets me get away with it,
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's right. But there are The point I'm
Speaker 2: making is there are some things that are hardwired in
Speaker 2: us around the world.
Speaker 3: It says, we know what is right and what's wrong.
Speaker 2: Number three, we know what's true through consideration. Through consideration,
Speaker 2: and say, what do you mean by that? We can
Speaker 2: we know it's noble, it's intellectual, that you can observe it.
Speaker 2: Truth is noble. You don't just get truth by faith.
Speaker 2: You can test it. You can experiment with it. You
Speaker 2: can you can prove it. Truth is intelligent, it it
Speaker 2: has it's it's rational, there's an you can observe it.
Speaker 2: And just like I did with the you know, dropping
Speaker 2: the pen, you can you can test it. Truth is testable,
Speaker 2: it is verifiable. You can examine the evidence. If I
Speaker 2: get a map, I tell you say I'm going to
Speaker 2: go to San Francisco.
Speaker 3: Give me a map.
Speaker 2: So you give me a map, and that map I
Speaker 2: follow it and it takes me to San Francisco.
Speaker 3: And then next week I gotta go to.
Speaker 2: San Francisco again, and I use the map again and
Speaker 2: it takes me there. And I use this over and
Speaker 2: over and over. Eventually I figure out this map is true.
Speaker 2: It's reliable that when I look at this map and
Speaker 2: it takes me to San franch this school, like it says,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't take me to Alabama, then this is
Speaker 2: a true map. For forty plus years I've been following
Speaker 2: this map called the Bible. I have found it to
Speaker 2: be true. It always takes me where it says it's
Speaker 2: gonna take me. I don't always feel comfortable there, I
Speaker 2: don't always like it there, but it always takes me
Speaker 2: to where it says it's gonna take me.
Speaker 3: It has never never taken me to some.
Speaker 2: Place I didn't expect because it said something different. And
Speaker 2: so we can through consideration, we can think it. You see,
Speaker 2: God gave you a brain and he expects you to
Speaker 2: use it. Why would people a lot of times say, well,
Speaker 2: I want God to just write it in the sky.
Speaker 2: You know, why would God do that? He gave your brain,
Speaker 2: that is his will. And so he says, use your intelligence.
Speaker 2: Use your intellect, and that's how you figure out God's
Speaker 2: not gonna write it in the sky. You're in a buffet,
Speaker 2: he says, you know, take broccoli, not Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 3: Happen that way. He says, use your mind, use the brain.
Speaker 2: But most people never slow down long enough for consideration.
Speaker 2: Most people just drift through life. They never even think
Speaker 2: about where am I headed, where am I going? What
Speaker 2: am I doing? Have you ever done that? The Bible
Speaker 2: tells us over and over, ponder the path of your feet.
Speaker 2: In other words, think through your life nowhere it's headed.
Speaker 2: Don't just kind of go out and drift through life.
Speaker 2: Spend some time in consideration, in observation, going Am I
Speaker 2: on a true path? And check it out? When in doubt,
Speaker 2: check it out. Schedule time to do that. The Bible
Speaker 2: says in Proverbs fourteen, fools will believe anything, but the
Speaker 2: wise think about what they do. Think about that means consideration,
Speaker 2: and think about what they do. The next verse says this,
Speaker 2: anyone who examines this evidence will come to stake his
Speaker 2: life on this that God himself is the truth. It's
Speaker 2: okay to check things out. It's okay to be skeptical.
Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong without at all. In fact, that's kind
Speaker 2: of smart in my opinion. The dumb thing is to
Speaker 2: sit on the fence and do nothing about it. Tonot
Speaker 2: check it out. If you're not checking it out, that's
Speaker 2: the dumb thing to have something so important like does
Speaker 2: God exist or not?
Speaker 3: Is Jesus who he said he was or not?
Speaker 2: And then to go all through life and come to
Speaker 2: the end of your life and go, well, I never really.
Speaker 3: Took the time to check it out. That's the dumb thing. See.
Speaker 2: I always tell people take the time to make the
Speaker 2: right decision.
Speaker 3: You know. Here at Saddleback, I don't believe in.
Speaker 2: Fear of vangelism, in other words, trying to scare people
Speaker 2: out of hell or scare the hell out of them, okay,
Speaker 2: or scare.
Speaker 3: Him into heaven.
Speaker 2: Why because it only lasts about as long as the
Speaker 2: fear does. And I tell you need to accept Jesus
Speaker 2: Christ not because you're going.
Speaker 3: To die tonight.
Speaker 2: You might, but you probably won't. You need to accept
Speaker 2: Jesus not because you're going to die tonight, but because
Speaker 2: you go live tomorrow and you need to know His
Speaker 2: plan and purpose and not waste another single day.
Speaker 3: And so check it out and examine the evidence.
Speaker 2: After having talked to literally tens of thousands of people,
Speaker 2: I've found that when people take the time to check
Speaker 2: it out, they inevitably come down on the side of
Speaker 2: the evidence, and it is incontrovertible. I'm not talking about
Speaker 2: what people think Christianity is. I'm talking about what it
Speaker 2: really is.
Speaker 1: What a great message from Pastor Rick today. There's something
Speaker 1: I always take away from his message. Now here's Rick
Speaker 1: with today's offer.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been a pastor for over three decades,
Speaker 2: and I've been teaching the Word of God for over
Speaker 2: four decades, And in all of that time, the number
Speaker 2: one question I've been asked by people is this, how
Speaker 2: can I change or why can't I change? I've talked
Speaker 2: to literally thousands and thousands of peace people who want
Speaker 2: to change but are just stuck and they can't figure
Speaker 2: out how to get unstuck. You know, the truth is,
Speaker 2: you can't change on your own because will power alone
Speaker 2: isn't enough to make permanent changes. Sure, you can force
Speaker 2: yourself to change, for a month or two months, but
Speaker 2: pretty soon you're going to go back to your old ways.
Speaker 2: Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is not enough.
Speaker 2: Talking yourself into a change by positive thinking is not enough.
Speaker 2: The Bible says, true transformational change only comes through the
Speaker 2: power of God inside you. So let me ask your
Speaker 2: personal question, how do you want to be different at
Speaker 2: the end of this year? What changes would you like
Speaker 2: to make in your life? What goals would you like
Speaker 2: to see accomplished in your life? Well, it isn't going
Speaker 2: to happen on your own. You're going to need God's power,
Speaker 2: and I want you to understand how to plug into
Speaker 2: God's power. That's why I'm sending out God's Power to
Speaker 2: Change Your Life, a book that I've written. When you
Speaker 2: give a financial gift to support Daily Hope broadcast and ministries,
Speaker 2: you know Daily Hope is one hundred percent supported by listeners.
Speaker 2: We have no other outside source of income. It's supported
Speaker 2: by your gifts. And when you give to support this
Speaker 2: ministry this month, I want to give back to you
Speaker 2: this book, God's Power to Change Your Life. Thanks a
Speaker 2: lot for listening today and thanks for helping support Daily Hope.
Speaker 2: We love you. We thank God for you, and we
Speaker 2: hope you'll continue to listen to this broadcast as we
Speaker 2: look into God's Word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1: Go to pastorick dot com to get your copy of
Speaker 1: this great resource. That's pastorick dot com. Or you could
Speaker 1: just text the word hope to seven oh three to
Speaker 1: oh nine. That's the word hope to seven oh three
Speaker 1: to oh nine. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's
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