On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted to publish a letter I have written today to another high profile figure that Dr. Rogers has mentioned several times in his sermons. By the way at this link you can see a sermon of Rogers on Evolution that I sent to over 250 ATHEIST SCIENTISTS FROM 1992 TO 2015! I have posted on Adrian Rogers’ messages on Evolution before but here is a complete message on it.
Adrian Rogers pictured below
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In the 1970’s and 1980’s I was a member of Bellevue Baptist in Memphis where Adrian Rogers was pastor and was a student at ECS from the 5th grade to the 12th grade where I was introduced to the books and films of Francis Schaeffer. During this time I was amazed at how many prominent figures in the world found their way into the works of both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and I wondered what it would be like if these individuals were exposed to the Bible and the gospel. Therefore, over 20 years ago I began sending the messages of Adrian Rogers and portions of the works of Francis Schaeffer to many of the secular figures that they mentioned in their works. Let me give you some examples and tell you about some lessons that I have learned.
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I have learned several things about atheists in the last 20 years while I have been corresponding with them. First, they know in their hearts that God exists and they can’t live as if God doesn’t exist, but they will still search in some way in their life for a greater meaning. Second, many atheists will take time out of their busy lives to examine the evidence that I present to them. Third, there is hope that they will change their views.
Let’s go over again a few points I made at the first of this post. My first point is backed up by Romans 1:18-19 (Amplified Bible) ” For God’s wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness REPRESS and HINDER the truth and make it inoperative. For that which is KNOWN about God is EVIDENT to them and MADE PLAIN IN THEIR INNER CONSCIOUSNESS, because God has SHOWN IT TO THEM,”(emphasis mine). I have discussed this many times on my blog and even have interacted with many atheists from CSICOP in the past. (I first heard this from my pastor Adrian Rogers back in the 1980’s.)
My second point is that many atheists will take the time to consider the evidence that I have presented to them and will respond. The late Adrian Rogers was my pastor at Bellevue Baptist when I grew up and I sent his sermon on evolution and another on the accuracy of the Bible to many atheists to listen to and many of them did. I also sent many of the arguments from Francis Schaeffer also.
The ironic thing is back in 2008 I visited the Bellevue Baptist Book Store and bought the book There Is A God – How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew, and it is in this same store that I bought the message by Adrian Rogers in 1994 that I sent to Antony Flew. Although Antony Flew did not make a public profession of faith he did admit that the evidence for God’s existence was overwhelming to him in the last decade of his life. His experience has been used in a powerful way to tell others about Christ. Let me point out that while on airplane when I was reading this book a gentleman asked me about the book. I was glad to tell him the whole story about Adrian Rogers’ two messages that I sent to Dr. Flew and I gave him CD’s of the messages which I carry with me always. Then at McDonald’s at the Airport, a worker at McDonald’s asked me about the book and I gave him the same two messages from Adrian Rogers too.
Antony Flew – World’s Most Famous Atheist Accepts Existence of God
Uploaded on Nov 28, 2008
Has Science Discovered God?
A half-century ago, in 1955, Professor Antony Flew set the agenda for modern atheism with his Theology and Falsification, a paper presented in a debate with C.S. Lewis. This work became the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the last 50 years. Over the decades, he published more than 30 books attacking belief in God and debated a wide range of religious believers.
Then, in a 2004 Summit at New York University, Professor Flew announced that the discoveries of modern science have led him to the conclusion that the universe is indeed the creation of infinite Intelligence.
For More Info Visit:
http://ScienceFindsGod.com
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Evolution: Fact of Fiction? By Adrian Rogers
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The high profile person that Dr. Rogers used to mention from time to time in his sermons is Hugh Hefner and yesterday I wrote him a letter which I will mail today.
In 1984 Adrian Rogers said in sermon, “Playboy’s Payday,” these words:
(The text for this sermon was the whole chapter of Proverbs 5)
I’m telling you the Word of God here today. You’re going to blow it, and when you come to the end of it, you’re going to miss the best of life. Do you know what Hugh Heffner said on another occasion? He was reminiscing. Here is this guy who has all of these girls around him, all of this booze, all of these casinos and presumably can have any sensual pleasure he wants. He said, You know, in the next ten years I would rather meet a girl and fall in love and have her fall in love with me than to make another one hundred million dollars. But I fear the man doesn’t know what love is. I feel that he’s missed it. What he’s saying is, I’ve got it all, but I don’t have satisfaction! There’s something that’s worth more than a hundred million dollars to me, and I don’t have it!
Marilyn Monroe, the sex goddess who took her own life, said, “I hate sex.” Everybody says, “Oh, look at the pleasure that she’s having.” In Sweden, Sweden’s a liberated country, they have open pornography, open prostitution, free love in Sweden. It’s all accepted. That’s supposed to be the liberated country in the Western world. The Swedes! Do you know what nation has the highest divorce rate of any nation? Sweden. . “God is not mocked.” I’m telling you there is a disappointment in sin. The cup of sin is sweet, but the dregs are bitter indeed.
They did an in-depth study at Stanford University. These are not a bunch of preachers, and their conclusion of the in-depth study was this: that the more promiscuous people were before marriage, the less chance for happiness after marriage. The try-it-before-you-marry-it idea may sound cute, but it’s not in the Word of God, dear friend. This idea of living together to see if you’re compatible, the more promiscuous people were before marriage, the less chance of opportunity for satisfaction after marriage. Young people, many of them right now are on the beaches of Fort Lauderdale, many of them have gone down there attempting to make it with some girl, to make it with some boy, to jump in bed with somebody. They think that’s the way. And our young people are being told that so much that they think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it!
Dangers of Pornography Adrian Rogers
ADRIAN ROGERS PICTURED AT WHITE HOUSE AFTER BEING ELECTED PRESIDENT OF SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
November 15, 2015
Dear Mr. Hefner,
I have chosen to write you on the 10th anniversary of the passing of one of the most influential people in my life. My hometown pastor at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis, Adrian Rogers, was my pastor from 1975 to 1983 when I was 14 to 21 years old and he influenced me in this crucial time of my life.
I attended his funeral and I was touched by speakers such as my youth choir director James Whitmire, my College Director Ken Whitten, our family friend Bob Sorrell and current Bellevue pastor Steve Gaines.
Two other notable people who spoke were James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and by video the Evangelist Billy Graham. Graham noted, “We need for ministers of the Gospel to defend the Bible as the infallible Word of God…I believe in my heart that Adrian Rogers was such a man. I knew him personally. I had walked with him and prayed with him…I know God’s hand was upon Adrian Rogers as he proclaimed the Bread of Life from his church and through radio and television…I praise God for his ministry.”
Later in this letter I will return to this subject of the historical accuracy of the Bible. Adrian Rogers actually was remembered among other things for his contribution in this area in Southern Baptist life. In fact, one of my favorite sermons by him is called, HOW YOU CAN BE CERTAIN THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD and you can watch this message on You Tube.
Adrian Rogers once noted:
When people think of Hell, they picture the devil as a comical character wearing a red suit with horns, a tail and a pitchfork, making people shovel coal. Satan loves that image because we laugh at it.
Satan promotes laughter about Hell because if people don’t understand the teaching of Hell, they’ll not prepare to go to Heaven, to give their hearts to Christ.
It makes no difference if all the scholars, preachers, scientists, statesmen, politicians and liberal theologians put together say there is no Hell, it wouldn’t change one letter of what the Word of God says.
Often the minister who preaches on Hell is accused of being unloving. With a sneer the world loves to call him a “hell-fire and damnation preacher.” The late, great Dr. Robert G. Lee said,
I know some people call the preacher who stands squarely upon the teaching of Christ and His apostles narrow, harsh, and cruel. As to being narrow, I have no desire to any broader than was Jesus. As to being cruel, is it cruel to tell a man the truth? Is a man to be called cruel who declares the whole counsel of God and points out to men their danger? Is it cruel to arouse sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire? Is it cruel to jerk a blind man away from the rattlesnake in the coil? Is it cruel to declare to people the deadliness of disease and tell them which medicine to take? I had rather be called cruel for being kind, than to be called kind for being cruel.
The cruelest thing we could do would be to fail to warn people about Hell and what the Bible has to say about it. To ridicule a preacher who warns of Hell is like ridiculing a doctor who warns of cancer. Hell is not a pleasant subject, but it is a reality.
HUGH DON’T YOU WANT TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT BECOMING A CHRISTIAN SO YOU CAN GO TO HEAVEN AND AVOID PUNISHMENT. IT IS NOT TOO LATE.
“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
In the article “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Billy Graham & Me (EXCERPT)” on March 19, 2013 I read these words by a political hero of yours, Bill Clinton:
When I was governor, Billy came to Little Rock for another crusade, and we traveled together to visit my pastor, W.O. Vaught, who was dying of cancer. I’ll never forget their conversation – about faith and fears, life and death. It was my first real glimpse of Billy the private man. He went to the home of my pastor and offered him comfort, saying that he too had lived a long life, and would see him again soon “just inside the Eastern Gate.” He lived his faith when no one was looking.
From the book MY LIFE by Bill Clinton.
With Dr. Billy Graham and my pastor, Dr. W.O. Vaught, fall 1989
In 1974 in an interview with R. Couri Hay YOU NOTED:
Beyond a certain point a person would be a fool to suggest that he really knows the answers and I don’t. In other words, I have no idea what we are doing here, but we are here and that wasn’t just man’s invention. I mean there is something beyond all of this and whether it has a purpose or a point, grander plan. I don’t know. No one knows and those who pretend to know strike me as being rather pompous.
THREE POINTS YOU ARE MAKING.
- YOU DON’T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. 2. THERE IS SOMETHING BEYOND ALL OF THIS BUT YOU DON’T KNOW IF THERE IS A PURPOSE OR NOT. 3. THOSE WHO PRETEND TO KNOW ARE POMPOUS.
Number one, thank you for admitting that you don’t have all the answers.
Number two, the scientist Blaise Pascal in his book Pensées gave the reason for your second observation:
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11a Amplified Bible (AMP)
11 He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]
The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Number three, those Christians like me who claim that God has spoken truth in the Bible do have evidence to back up that view and below is some of that evidence.
The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
The following is an excerpt from TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94):
So the story goes on. We have stopped at only a few incidents in the sweep back to the year 1000 B.C. What we hope has emerged from this is a sense of the historical reliability of the Bible’s text. When the Bible refers to historical incidents, it is speaking about the same sort of “history” that historians examine elsewhere in other cultures and periods. This borne out by the fact that some of the incidents, some of the individuals, and some of the places have been confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the past hundred years has swept away the possibility of a naive skepticism about the Bible’s history. And what is particularly striking is that the tide has built up concerning the time before the year 1000 B.C. Our knowledge about the years 2500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. has vastly increased through discoveries sometimes of whole libraries and even of hitherto unknown people and languages.
There was a time, for example, when the Hittite people, referred to in the early parts of the Bible, were treated as fictitious by critical scholars. Then came the discoveries after 1906 at Boghaz Koi (Boghaz-koy) which not only gave us the certainty of their existence but stacks of details from their own archives!
Here is an excerpt from the article, “Archaeology and the Old Testament,” which is on the website of Probe Ministries:
The Discovery of the Hittites
The Hittites played a prominent role in Old Testament history. They interacted with biblical figures as early as Abraham and as late as Solomon. They are mentioned in Genesis 15:20 as people who inhabited the land of Canaan. 1 Kings 10:29 records that they purchased chariots and horses from King Solomon. The most prominent Hittite is Uriah the husband of Bathsheba. The Hittites were a powerful force in the Middle East from 1750 B.C. until 1200 B.C. Prior to the late 19th century, nothing was known of the Hittites outside the Bible, and many critics alleged that they were an invention of the biblical authors.
In 1876 a dramatic discovery changed this perception. A British scholar named A. H. Sayce found inscriptions carved on rocks in Turkey. He suspected that they might be evidence of the Hittite nation. Ten years later, more clay tablets were found in Turkey at a place called Boghaz-koy. German cuneiform expert Hugo Winckler investigated the tablets and began his own expedition at the site in 1906.
Winckler’s excavations uncovered five temples, a fortified citadel and several massive sculptures. In one storeroom he found over ten thousand clay tablets. One of the documents proved to be a record of a treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite king. Other tablets showed that Boghaz-koy was the capital of the Hittite kingdom. Its original name was Hattusha and the city covered an area of 300 acres. The Hittite nation had been discovered!
Less than a decade after Winckler’s find, Czech scholar Bedrich Hronzny proved the Hittite language is an early relative of the Indo-European languages of Greek, Latin, French, German, and English. The Hittite language now has a central place in the study of the history of the Indo-European languages.
The discovery also confirmed other biblical facts. Five temples were found containing many tablets with details of the rites and ceremonies that priests performed. These ceremonies described rites for purification from sin and purification of a new temple. The instructions proved to be very elaborate and lengthy. Critics once criticized the laws and instructions found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy as too complicated for the time it was written (1400 B.C.). The Boghaz-koy texts along with others from Egyptian sites and a site along the Euphrates called Emar have proven that the ceremonies described in the Jewish Pentateuch are consistent with the ceremonies of the cultures of this time period.
The Hittite Empire made treaties with civilizations they conquered. Two dozen of these have been translated and provide a better understanding of treaties in the Old Testament. The discovery of the Hittite Empire at Boghaz-koy has significantly advanced our understanding of the patriarchal period. Dr. Fred Wright summarizes the importance of this find in regard to biblical historicity:
Now the Bible picture of this people fits in perfectly with what we know of the Hittite nation from the monuments. As an empire they never conquered the land of Canaan itself, although the Hittite local tribes did settle there at an early date. Nothing discovered by the excavators has in any way discredited the Biblical account. Scripture accuracy has once more been proved by the archaeologist.4
The discovery of the Hittites has proven to be one of the great archaeological finds of all time. It has helped to confirm the biblical narrative and had a great impact on Middle East archaeological study. Because of it, we have come to a greater understanding of the history of our language, as well as the religious, social, and political practices of the ancient Middle East.
Hefner family below:
I read about your mother Grace being a Bible-believing Christian. Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Seminary noted, “Hefner’s Methodist mother wanted him to be a missionary. In a very real sense, she got her wish in reverse. Hefner became a missionary all right, but a missionary that preached a rejection of the Christian sexual ethic.”
It is not too late for anyone to seek forgiveness. II Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Growing up in church you probably memorized John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
In this letter I have attempted to demonstrate to you that the Biblical Christianity that your parents brought you up in is based on revealed truth and the Bible is historically accurate. In a previous letter I quoted you portions of the great sermon PAYDAY SOMEDAY by Robert G. Lee and in today’s letter I quoted both Billy Graham and Adrian Rogers on hell. But I wanted to end with just a portion of that quote by Lee that Adrian Rogers used:
Is a man to be called cruel who declares the whole counsel of God and points out to men their danger? Is it cruel to arouse sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire?
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221
Adrian Rogers: How Do We Know the Bible Is True? (Audio)
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Related posts:
My correspondence with George Wald and Antony Flew!!!
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Antony Flew in his book THERE IS A GOD talks about his “notoriety” as an atheist! ( also 7 News : Web Extra: Ricky Gervais on God)
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Piers Morgan Tonight : CNN Official Interview: Ricky Gervais says atheism shouldn’t offend Uploaded on Jan 20, 2011 Ricky Gervais tells CNN’s Piers Morgan why he’s an atheist, and why his jokes about God shouldn’t offend believers. The Bible and Science (Part 01) __________________________________ Antony Flew tells what the book THERE IS A GOD: “How the world’s most […]
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