Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
Honest Christian Conversations
Don't Apologize For Your Faith
Do you know why you believe what you believe? Don't worry; I didn't either for a long time. Recently, I have jumped into the deep end of apologetics, and it's been fun but confusing. David Libby returns to the podcast, bringing his practical wisdom on apologetics. A logger by trade and a passionate philosophy student, David embodies the truth that you don't need advanced degrees to understand and articulate your faith profoundly.
LISTEN TO DAVID'S PAST EPISODES: https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/faith-and-resilience-in-the-face-of-chronic-illness/
https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/what-if-you-werent-miraculously-healed/
https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/why-do-christians-defend-yoga/
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Welcome back to Honest Christian Conversations, friends. I'm Anna Murby. Thank you for tuning in today. This guest is a returning guest, david Libby. He's been on the podcast a total of four times, counting today, so that shows you how much I appreciate his impact on this podcast and his input in life.
Speaker 1:He loves apologetics. He is a layman, as he calls it. He doesn't have a PhD in it, he did not go to school for this, he's just been studying it for a long time and he has such a love and a desire to know about it, so much so that he wrote a book about apologetics. And it's easy to understand for those of us who want to know why we believe what we believe, but we don't feel like going and learning it in a school environment. So you are definitely going to want to tune into this if this is something you enjoy geeking out about, because we should all know why we believe what we believe in, but some of us really want to know more than others, and this episode is going to help you with that.
Speaker 1:So, without further ado, let's get to it Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. David, welcome back to the show. I am so excited to have you on for a fourth time, which means you are the winner. You are the first guest I have had on the podcast four times, so congratulations. Sorry there is no prize for you, but I'm honored to have you back.
Speaker 2:Being on your podcast, Anna, is the only prize that I need.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:And I've been on a number of podcasts, and you're the first one that I've been on four times, so you get a prize too.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, we are on again, because you have a new and wonderful book out that I am still working through because it is chocked full of so much information that it's not quote unquote an easy read. It's very in-depth, so I'm enjoying it, but I've got to slow slice it and probably read it over so I can completely digest everything. But the book right here is called Apologize Without Apologizing. I love the title, by the way.
Speaker 1:that's very clever and perfect because when I told my husband what the book was about, he's like apologizing. You have to apologize for being a Christian. I said, no, that's not what it means and I don't understand why we call it that. But I like your title. It's very catchy. And go ahead and tell us a little bit about who you are, for those who aren't familiar with you because they have not tuned into your last three episodes which they should once this episode is done. But give us an overview of who you are and then you can tell us about your book.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you. Yeah, I live in central Maine. I've been active in the church all my life, raised in a Christian home. I had my time of testing. I tend to be a skeptic by nature. I tend to test things. So I had my kind of wayward years and have come to a place where I know with certainty that the biblical worldview is correct and that that of course leads to the next logical step and that is to have a devoted love for the Lord and desire to serve him. And I know you do too, anna. I appreciate what you do in this podcast.
Speaker 2:I don't ever want to present myself as something other than what I am. So you know, I've been criticized on other podcasts for talking about things like philosophy and apologetics, and I don't have a master's degree in any of that or anything. So you know, I'm a layman, I'm a logger by trade, but I love the Lord and I've studied these things quite deeply. And the new book gives a philosophical defense of a biblical worldview. There are a lot of ways to defend the biblical worldview. You know we have a lot of very convincing, powerful evidences, I believe, for the existence of God, for the divine origin of the Bible, but we also have strong philosophical arguments, and that's what I get into in this book. I am hired by a great Christian philosopher named Cornelius Van Til, died the year that I graduated from high school, in 1988, and then a lot of thoughts of my own as well, but we can dive into that as we go if you like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I feel like we should not say, oh, you don't have room to speak to this because you don't have this. If you have a passion for something, you're going to do what it takes to know what you're talking about. You're not just going to talk about it and even still, so what? Look at all the people in the world who have degrees in certain things and where they went wrong. I'm not going to even go into COVID, but I'm just saying that out there and everyone is probably laughing now because they get it.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, that's actually pretty annoying that people would do that, and I'm not surprised, as they throw that out all the time. What is a woman? Oh, I'm sorry you can't say that You're a dude. It's like I think a guy can tell what a woman is. But anyway, we won't go there.
Speaker 1:We're not talking about that kind of stuff. We are talking about the philosophies of the Bible, which I think a lot of people need to know, these things. But it can seem pretty daunting because a lot of the words that are in the book I've heard, because I've been hearing on different podcasts, but do I know what they mean? Not necessarily. Let me see if I can remember some of them, just like eschatology. What does that mean for those of us who don't know?
Speaker 2:Eschatology is the study of last things is what the word literally means.
Speaker 1:So yeah, essentially Okay. Yeah, see that that's something that a lot of people are really looking to talk about now, and they're they've got their theories. Some people think that Trump is ushering in the Antichrist age, some don't. There's just so much of that. What do you go into when you talk about that in your book? What do you talk about specifically?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't get into eschatology a whole lot in the book, but it's more of a philosophical defense. I think I did mention in chapter six I was talking about a concept called final authorities. What is the justification that you give? You know, the final end-of-the-line justification that you give for whatever you believe to be true.
Speaker 2:You know, the book argues that if that end-of-the-line justification isn't a God who meets certain preconditions which are found only in the God of the Bible, then you end up with a final authority who can't justify truth and knowledge and so forth. But in that section I talk about faith and how every worldview has faith in its foundation somewhere, and of course that includes us. And I mentioned eschatology, as Hebrews puts it, the belief in the unseen. So we believe in the eschatological promises of God because we know that they're promised to us by a sovereign God who will not mislead us, and so I think that's about the only mention of eschatology in the book. But I don't get a whole lot of end time stuff, stuff that should be talked about right now in the church, I believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know some people are talking about it. Some are afraid to broach the situation because of how divisive it can be. But yeah, I mean, there are certain things that we should be talking about as a church and we aren't, and we should just take the Bible at its word, at its face value, and study that. If you want to discuss the situation, we don't have to bring in our own stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right. And just because something's divisive doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. And sometimes people, I think they tend to be a little bit too polarizing. You know, a lot of times eschatology is one of those topics that tends to do that I'm a preterist, I'm a pre-male or whatever, and I think that the best way to be a good watchman is to dismount your eschatological hobby horses. And you know, maybe kind of keep an open mind about how things could play out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, I agree. So another word that you use in the book is Luciferianism. I believe I said that right. Go ahead and share what that is and how often it's discussed in the book, because I'm pretty sure if you've been in church for a while you kind of know where it's stemming from. But there might be people listening who have no idea what that means and you know they're going to want to read your book. They're going to need to know what that is. So, what exactly is that?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, yeah, that's a very good question, anna. And again, that's not the main thing the book is about, but it is mentioned and I think that the best way to put it would be Luciferianism would be any worldview that venerates Lucifer as Lord rather than Jesus Christ, and it might shock us as Christians to hear that anybody does that, but you need to understand that their worldview is twisted and they see Lucifer as the light bearer, the good guy, god's the evil tyrant. I don't get into this at all in the book, but one of the big linchpins that defines Luciferianism would be the idea that you get to be God, you get to ascend, you get to. We find this in all sorts of diverse worldviews out there New Ageism and Mormonism and any others where basically the lie is repeated that was given to Adam and Eve in the Garden, in all sorts of diverse worldviews out there New Ageism and Mormonism and any others where basically the lie is repeated that was given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that if you follow me not me, david Libby, but me Lucifer the light bearer then you can be gods in your own right, you can be like God.
Speaker 2:I'm reminded of a radio interview that I saw probably 25 years ago now. There was a local radio show where I lived in southern Maine where the host liked to get you know kind of sketchy pushing the envelope sort of guests on the show and he had a young couple who were Satanists on his show and I thought, boy, I got to listen to this and I wasn't expecting to hear stuff about blood and you know, sacrificing goats and so forth, but it wasn't that at all. It was all about how Satan's really the good guy and the history books are written by the one who has the upper hand at the end of the battle.
Speaker 2:You know, the victor writes the history books, that's it was that God had thus far, in this great, you know, cosmic dualistic struggle, had had the upper hand over Satan. And so he wrote the history books. But he gave us a distortion of real history. He presented himself as the good guy. And Satan's really the good guy. God's the evil, tyrant. Satanism's all about love and light and so forth. If you dig into Luciferianism, you dig into the darker, secret corners of it, then you find rituals and things that are absolutely disgusting, and you can see that well, no, actually Satan's the bad guy, just like the Bible says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. I mean I listen to Candace Owens and she loves to do deep dives in certain things and a lot of the stuff she's deep diving into now definitely stems from Luciferianism, so I'm very familiar with all that stuff. I'm always trying to learn new things, so I'm listening to different podcasts about different things. I'm learning new things. Do I retain it all 100%? Not really, but you?
Speaker 1:know, sometimes I got to re-listen to things or I hear it on a different podcast and it clicks. Like I said, your book is amazing. It's very detailed, it's very straightforward and it talks about a lot of things that are difficult to understand if you read it the first time and you're not really intellectually minded or this is just not a thing that you're used to thinking about. But it is worth a second read too, and a third and fourth, however many times you need, so that you can understand, because these are biblical truths, the basis, the foundation of why we believe what we believe. And yeah, I'm definitely going to be reading it more than once and probably even highlighting things and looking things up, because there's more words that I have heard before but I don't know what they mean and soteriology. I think I said that right.
Speaker 2:You did say, it right yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, those are just words that whenever someone's talking about these things, they'll bring them up and a lot of people probably glaze over because it's just too big of a word. I can't possibly know that. I'm not. I don't have a PhD, I don't know these things. I can't know these things. It would be like me with math If someone were to ask me a math question. Whatever I tune out, I don't. I don't speak your language. Sorry, I don't care and I don't want people to be that way. With the Bible and you have to know what you believe and why you believe it, and if you come across someone who wants to challenge you on it, you kind of got to know these things.
Speaker 1:Go ahead and explain to us soteriology and epistemology. I think, yeah, you got it.
Speaker 2:I'm always making sure.
Speaker 1:I do it right. I think, yeah, you got it. I'm always making sure I do it right, you did great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm happy to, I guess. A quick word about the use of big words and things. First, I don't like it when people act like intellectual bullies and use big words just for the sake of using big words and try to sound intelligent, try to sound more intelligent than they are. But sometimes we need to use big words because that's the only word that really works and you can either use epistemology or a whole paragraph in its place. So really, the way to overcome that hurdle, which everybody has, you know, nobody's born knowing the big word, so everybody you know has to. Anyone who knows them has to learn them at some point. The way to overcome that hurdle is to learn the vocabulary. So epistemology is simply oh and, by the way, a lot of times these big words aren't nearly as fancy as they sound.
Speaker 2:Epistemology is simply the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge how do we know what we know? Only philosophers even ask questions like that. We go through life assuming that we know certain things and then if we dig more deeply and ask well, how do I really know that, and what makes me think I'm right about that? Or who says that's true or untrue, or whatever, and if you start digging deeper, then you find that sometimes what you think is knowledge is actually built on a whole lot of assumptions that you're making. And so, anyway, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that digs into all of that. Soteriology simply means doctrine of salvation. So soteriology is how do you know you're saved, how do you know you're in right standing with a just and holy God?
Speaker 1:It's the gospel? Essentially, yeah, and that is definitely something that we who call ourselves Christians should know. So yeah, ladies and gentlemen, look into soteriology, because this is important things. Just because the word sounds big and scary doesn't mean you should be afraid of it. How long did it take you to study and write this book? Because, I mean, I wouldn't say it's, you know, it's a decent size. I wouldn't say it's like a big encyclopedias size, but it's also not super small. It's full of so much information and I know that this took you some time. It has to have taken you a lot of time to get all that in there and to make sure that what you're saying is truth and facts, and you've got sources, which means you had to read other stuff. How long did it take you to write?
Speaker 2:well, that's a good question. I would say it took me about a year from the time I first made my outline. The way the way I write is, I come up with an outline so I know what each chapter is going to be, usually before I begin, and sometimes the outline changes as I go. But so from the time I first put an outline down with an old-fashioned pen and a notebook, from the time it was completed, it's was probably about a year, but it actually took many, many years to actually put this together, because this is stuff that I've been studying for, you know, 20 plus years.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I've taught Sunday school classes about this at church a couple different churches and I've written articles and essays and things. So in fact, the last two chapters are essays I wrote for another forum and included them, and I mentioned that in the book, that these were essays taken from somewhere else and I included them as case studies to show how this philosophy can be applied practically. So I guess, if you compile all the time I've spent studying and thinking and all the Sunday school notes and every time I taught I always wrote my own curriculum and it's probably I don't know, it's probably 20 plus years in the making Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't let up. Nice.
Speaker 2:By the way, my own personal approach to study has always been to do a whole lot more thinking and praying than I actually do reading. I do quite a lot of reading, but I do a lot. God has blessed me for 30 years with mindless work. It doesn't require a whole lot of thought, so I'm able to ponder other things, and I actually oftentimes brought a notebook with me to work and I'll stop what I'm doing, I'll scribble something down and then keep working. So a lot of thought has gone into it as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good to know because I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people out there who want to go deeper in the Bible. They want to understand more, but they're saying I don't have the time to read, I don't have the time to do this, I don't have the time to do that. You know, you can always just write down a question you have. So you can always just write down a question you have. Right, you know, if you're doing your work, like you said, you have a job, a logger, where you don't have to sit there thinking, focusing. It's not like you're typing at a computer and then all of a sudden a thought pops in your head and you're typing that out on accident because you didn't mean to.
Speaker 1:Your work allows you that space to mentally process, think about things. Maybe you read something a while ago and you're just thinking well, why was it written that way? Why that word, why this book? And you can think about that. Some other people don't have that job. Maybe they drive for a living and they can't exactly do that. Write down your question when you get a chance. Talk it out in your head, talk it out out loud. I mean, maybe people driving around will think you're, you know, on a phone or something. Maybe they won't think you're so weird anymore, because everyone drives hands-free. Now, that's true, not drive.
Speaker 2:Well, some people drive hands-free if they have one of those cars.
Speaker 1:I mean they drive and they talk on the phone hands-free.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But you know there's so many different ways and I love that you said that that you don't do so much of reading all the time. You can just process the thoughts that you have, the things about what you've read before. There's different ways of meditating on the scripture. There's different ways of spending time with God. You don't have to actually just be sitting in front of your Bible, listen to it when you're driving and then ask yourself questions about it, think about it, write down something later that you want to go deeper on.
Speaker 1:There's so many different ways that we can connect with God and I think we get so bogged down from what we've heard is that you have to be in the word. You have to be in the word. You have to be in the word. There's nothing better than an actual physical Bible, which is true, that is true, but sometimes that is not something you have at your fingertips. Think of all the people in different countries who don't actually have a physical Bible. How are they making it? How are they successful while they're in prison and they don't have an actual Bible to study? They've memorized, they've studied, they have it in their hearts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, good, that's great, Anna, thank you. Yeah, we never want to neglect God's Word. Of course, I know you agree with that, but we also need to nurture the subjective side of our relationship with the Lord. So, yeah, very well said. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:He wouldn't have given us such brilliant minds that are capable of so much more than we actually know they can do. He wouldn't have done all that if he didn't want us to use it. He wants us to innovate. He wants us to think. He wants us to be brilliant, not in the way that the world thinks of brilliance, but how he actually created us. We are created to give him glory. So if you are using your brain in a way that gives him glory, then do it.
Speaker 1:If you're driving your truck and you can't actually read your Bible because you're driving a lot, then listen to the Bible and chew over it, think about it, mull over it. If you're a mom and you can't read the Bible without a kid coming and tugging on you every five seconds and you keep reading the same line over and over, then just keep reading that same line over and over. Maybe you'll have it memorized. I mean, there's so many different ways that we can focus on God and that we can go deeper in our relationship. And I think we get scared when we hear big words. But, like you said, big words sometimes are easier to say than a paragraph explaining what those big words mean.
Speaker 1:Look up what the big word means and it's probably not as scary as it sounds, and yeah, and just keep studying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and once you learn, once your vocabulary expands and you learn more and more of the big words, then it becomes easier and easier as you go. So yeah, yeah, well said.
Speaker 1:Hey friends, have you joined the Honest Christian Conversations online group yet? If you haven't, you're missing out on a perfect opportunity to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship. You can do Bible studies together, ask the questions you have biblically and get the answers that you might need or maybe you're somebody who has answers to somebody else's questions. You can leave your prayer requests. You can leave your praise reports.
Speaker 1:This is a community. This is what church is supposed to be, and I am so glad that I finally took that step to make this group so that people's lives can flourish in Jesus name. Also, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on an opportunity there as well. I send out a weekly email chocked full of so much awesome content that I don't have time right now to share it all with you. But when you do sign up for that mailing list, you get my seven-day free devotional that I created just for those who sign up for the mailing list. If you haven't joined either of these, you can go to my website, honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, or you can use the links for it in the show notes which chapter was your favorite to write?
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a good question. I really enjoyed writing the latter chapters where I tried to put kind of heavy philosophical concepts in a practical use. But, yeah, I never really thought about them. My favorite to write, I guess. I think maybe my favorite to write would have been either chapter four or chapter five, because chapter four is what the previous three chapters pilots.
Speaker 1:Pilots rhetorical question.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then chapter five is the grass withers and the flowers fades.
Speaker 2:Yep, those are the two I had in mind. The philosophy kind of culminates there. The whole point of the book is to show that there cannot be any such thing as transcendent norms or standards or rules that govern right and wrong behavior that would be ethics, or right and wrong thought, that would be epistemology Unless there is a transcendent God who meets certain preconditions. It has to be a personal God, it has to be a sovereign God, an immutable, unchangeable God, and he has to reveal himself to us in various ways. So the culmination of the argument actually shows the logical impossibility of such a God not existing. It's not logically possible for God to not exist, because if there were no God we would not have these transcendent norms, transcendent laws or standards. So in other words, this would be a nihilistic world. Another big fancy word. Nihilism simply means nothingism. It would be a world where there are no absolutes if there is no absolute lawgiver. This would be a simple way to put it.
Speaker 2:A lot of atheists have argued that. Well, maybe this is a nihilistic world, then Just live with it. Well, the problem is you can't live with it because nihilism refutes itself. You can't argue for nihilism without refuting it. You can't argue against the existence of rationality, for example, without using absolute norms of rationality. You know your argument against them depends upon them. So if you really we're scratching the surface here, but if you really dig deeply, I think you can see that it actually becomes logically possible for there not to be this transcendent lawgiver. So I guess that was, I guess, my favorite parts of the book to write, because that's where the argument culminates. In chapter five I get into the defense of the Bible as divine revelation. We go through some evidences, but then we also tie in that claim that the Bible is of divine origin. With this philosophical argument, this transcendental argument it's called.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I really liked chapter four for sure, and I think I'm in the middle of chapter five, maybe it's chapter six, I can't remember which one, but I did like chapter four and how you made it more of a practical way for us to understand those of us who don't have PhDs or something.
Speaker 2:That's me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you made it easy for us to understand what the concepts are that you have been talking about, and I liked the example you used of the professor whose house got robbed and how the cops treated it. I thought that was very clever, very funny. I was actually laughing because it makes sense and these are arguments that people actually make and when you you know, you think of it as a joke while you're reading it, like that is hilarious. But then you take a step back and you realize some people live this way, some people have this mindset. That is crazy, and then it sobers you up and then you're no longer laughing, you feel sad. You feel sad for the people who live that way, who think that nothing matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, there's no absolutes of any kind. It's crazy to believe that. There are people out there who believe that, and I liked your practical examples because they made it real and put it on a level of yeah, I know somebody who's like that. That's crazy. I got to talk to them, I got to throw this book at them and say read it.
Speaker 2:I think surveys have shown that it's a very healthy majority among college students anyway. The late theologian Bible teacher, rc Sproul, used to say how you know, surveys have shown that, shown that 90-some percent of college students believe in this ethical and epistemological relativism. They said that's the bad news, but the good news is none of them actually believe it, because they enter the real world and they can't live consistent with their beliefs. I can tell you a cool story you might appreciate. Actually, these ethical and epistemological relativists can't stand it when you use their own guns against them. And here's an example of that. And you mentioned COVID earlier and that's another whole topic we maybe could talk about sometime. But there was a lot more to that than what the mainstream is telling us and that's something that you know we've dug into.
Speaker 2:But it was during that time, during the time of the strictest you know so-called mandates and so forth, I had to go into a you know so-called mandates and so forth. I had to go into a you know a park store to get a hydraulic hose for one of my pieces of logging equipment. Hydraulic hose had blown and I went in with no mask on my face and the manager happened to be present. It was a woman, and you know. She offered me a mask and I said no, thank you, ma'am, I'm already wearing one. And she said oh no, you're not, I'm not wearing a mask. And I said well, here I am. I said aren't you aware that in our culture, objective truth is defined purely subjectively? And she said huh. And I said in other words, you can have your truth and I can have my truth, and we're both right. Neither one has the right to tell the other.
Speaker 1:One example if I tell you that I identify as a woman, then that's what I am, according to my truth, right, and she agreed. She said yes, that's correct. I said well, according to my truth, I'm wearing a mask. What did?
Speaker 2:she do. I was, I promise you, I was very, very polite, very polite towards her. I was never unkind. She was not. She, you know, kind of cussed me out, told me to get out of her store.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, they don't like it when you bring it out.
Speaker 2:She had nothing to say, nothing intelligent to say, in response. So I very politely told her I'd be glad to leave the store when I'm done doing business. But anyway, the point is they don't like it when you turn their own guns against them. But you know, that is their philosophy. Their philosophy is if I say I'm wearing a mask, I'm wearing a mask. You don't have to tell me otherwise. My truth is my truth. Your truth is your truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But of course it's absurd.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. There's only one truth and everyone needs to come to that eventually, whether it's willingly or unwillingly.
Speaker 2:Right, right right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what part of the book was hard for you to write? Maybe because it required the most studying, or it was something that you just didn't want to write about because you knew it was going to rub people wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good question. I guess maybe the chapter that would fall into that category would be the last two, which were actually written as essays that were published on a public forum up here in Maine called the Corner North, where people publish philosophy and theology and all kinds of stuff. And I wrote a series of four essays in response to an invitation by somebody in a freedom group up here in Maine who was kind of enamored that. You know there are a lot of New Agers in these groups, a lot of pantheistic, Hinduistic sort of people, and actually we've mentioned Luciferians earlier. Right, I know for sure these groups are infiltrated by people who are self-conscious Luciferian. Anyway, we were invited to critique a concept called natural law by a fellow named Mark Passio and there was a correct biblical concept of natural law, God's moral law, stamped on our hearts in Natural Revelation, Romans 2.15. But that's not what this guy meant. What this guy meant was there is such a thing as objective ethics and how he came upon this knowledge was through access to secret knowledge in his time, working in the dark occult, which of course is satanic. So I kind of picked that apart philosophically and showed how it was philosophically unsound, how he doesn't give sound justification for objective ethics. And I included the first essay in that series of four. And again, the reason I included these was and I say up front in the book that these are essays that were written for somewhere else the reason I included them was to give case studies to show how you can use these principles practically our work as ambassadors for Christ.
Speaker 2:The first of the series of four I included, then the last. I also included the middle two. I didn't because they were very, very similar to the content of other chapters, chapters three and four of the book. But I think those might have been the hardest to write because I wrote them as essays knowing that they were going to be posted publicly for an audience that was not going to like them very much, but I felt obligated to be faithful to my Lord. The last one clearly presents the gospel and the need to be reconciled with just and holy God, and that one got some negative response. I guess you know this may be a confession of sin, I don't know. I find it hard to do things that I know are going to make me a target.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think we're all that way. I get that it's hard, especially, I think that's one of the reasons why people don't want to read anything like this kind of book, where they know the information. Then they have not necessarily the obligation, but they have the knowledge and if someone comes up to them and starts talking about something and they can share that with them, they might be afraid to share that with them for whatever backlash they might get. Yeah, I completely understand that it would be hard for you to want to include certain things that you already know. We're going to rub people the wrong way. I mean, you and I did an episode on yoga that rubbed some people the wrong way and I got some comments on YouTube about it. But you got to do what you got to do. If you know that God is telling you to do something, you got to be obedient to him, because that is who we are here for, not for the praise and adoration of man. So I'm glad that you still wrote it and that you included it in your book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, and I appreciate that about you, anna. And you're exactly right. It was the Pharisees who were deeply concerned about the praise of man. We're not supposed to be that way. Our Lord told us they hated me, they're going to hate you too, and so you know. We have to expect that right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Yep, absolutely Well, David, before we go, please tell everybody where they can get Apologize Without Apologizing your amazing book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, it's on Amazon right now. We mentioned Luciferianism earlier. I don't know if I should say this publicly. I don't think Amazon is a tool of the devil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on nowadays behind the scenes, with everything it's yeah, yeah, for sure. It's everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the way I look at it, I don't mind using his tools against him. So it's available on Amazon. If you just look up my name, david Libby, and the name of the book, yeah, you can probably find both books that you have.
Speaker 1:Go ahead and tell everybody what the name of your first book is too, because that might be a title they want to know about. Just give us a little bit of what it's about too.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, yeah. The other book is called A Different World, the subtitle God's Sovereignty in the Face of Suffering, and it briefly tells the story of my family's very long and difficult battle with chronic illness. And then it gets into answering some of the really difficult questions. If there's a God who is sovereign and loving, then why is there suffering in this world to begin with, and that sort of thing? And so that book is A Different World, and then the new one is Apologize Without Apologizing. Oh, by the way, your husband is exactly right, we shouldn't apologize for being Christians. That's the without apologizing part of the book. Yeah, give a defense without saying you're sorry about it. But anyway, they're both available on Amazon. If you look up one, you'll find the other one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And if you guys want to hear him share about his first book. Go back to season three, the episode I did with David Libby. He shares his testimony and he shares more about why he wrote the book, so it's definitely worth listening to.
Speaker 2:And I might have a third one in the works. I haven't actually even started it yet, but we could give a little teaser on it if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Luciferianism earlier and I even have a really cool book title. I'd like to write a book called Lucifer's Enlightenment. Apologize for the apologizing. The very first chapter starts by showing the inadequacy of humanist philosophy. How humanist philosophy has been a failure in its attempt to justify knowledge. As I've dug into humanist philosophers, I've found a common thread and that is that they're not as humanist as they make themselves out to be. The atheist and naturalist. Naturalist meaning doesn't believe in a spiritual realm. Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, wrote late in life a little-known book about Zarathustra, his spirit guide. So he claims to not even believe in spirits and yet he has a spirit guide. Anybody who knows New Ages and that sort of thing, you know that spirit guides are demons. So Charles Darwin was, I think, a 33rd-degree Freemason, which means he was not an atheist. You can't be a 33rd degree Freemason, which means he was not an atheist. You can't be a 33 degree Freemason.
Speaker 1:Freemasonry is.
Speaker 2:Luciferianism. You know lower levels may not realize that, but by the time you get to 32, 33 degree you know that you're worshiping Lucifer. So all these philosophers, you know they were Freemasons, they shared their philosophies in the Freemason halls, and we could dig deeper, but there's a thread that runs throughout. I think that if you really dig into humorous philosophy you really recognize it as a satanic deception. So I'd love to write about that. And that shouldn't surprise Christians. You know we say this sort of thing and Christians' hackles go up. And I don't get that because it's so profoundly biblical. You know the Bible says that Satan is the prince of this world. It's so profoundly biblical.
Speaker 2:You know, the Bible says that Satan is the prince of this world.
Speaker 1:We're not saying anything new.
Speaker 2:It's been this way since Genesis 3. Atheism has been around since the fall.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I'd love to tie, I'd love to show the connection between the humanist philosophy and where I think it actually comes from.
Speaker 2:Well, that sounds like it'll be interesting as well, just like your other books have been Well, thank you, who knows if I'll live long enough to get it done, but anyway.
Speaker 1:Yep, if God wants it done, it'll happen.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Well, thank you so much, David, for coming on and talking to us and sharing about your book. I've enjoyed our conversation once again.
Speaker 2:Well, me too, Anna. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a review for the podcast wherever you are listening, or click the link in the show notes. If you have feedback for me, use the leave a message or voicemail links also in the show notes. You can check out my website honestchristianconversationscom to leave a review or feedback as well. Join the community and become part of something bigger than yourself. Lastly, sign up for the mailing list and get the free seven-day devotional as a thank you gift. Once again, thanks for listening. I look forward to our next conversation.
