#STRask - Is It Wrong to Feel Satisfaction at the Thought of Some Atheists Being Humbled Before Christ?

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Questions about whether it’s wrong to feel a sense of satisfaction at the thought of some atheists being humbled before Christ when their time comes, and practical methods of engagement that can be used when conversing with conspiracy theorists.   Is it wrong that I sometimes feel a sense of satisfaction at the thought of some atheists being humbled before Christ when their time comes? What are some practical methods of engagement that can be used when conversing with conspiracy theorists?

You're listening to Stand to Reason's hashtag SDR Ask podcast. Welcome. Greg, are you ready for your first question? Sure. We're going to continue on people coming from other perspectives and responding to their challenges. This first one comes from Mike. Is it wrong that I sometimes feel a sense of satisfaction at the thought of some atheist being humbled before Christ when their time comes? Well, the simple answer is no.

And the reason I say that, there's a couple of reasons. One of them is you actually see in the Psalms, the psalmist posturing the same way. Not just in the, what do they call them, deprecatory Psalms, where they're, you know, smash the baby against the rocks kind of thing, but there's, and this is something I realized by reading the Psalms through on a regular basis. So at night, by reading the Psalms through on a regular basis. So at night, I have a Bible next to my bed, a small one. It's New Testament Psalms and Proverbs. And so I read through all the Psalms, and then I read through all the Proverbs, then I read through all the Psalms, the Proverbs. It's just every night I read a Psalm. And by doing them back to back every night, I realize how much of this kind of stuff is in there.

Now you got the first 20 Psalms or so, or maybe the first 30, where for me there's a lot in there that I can emotionally connect with. I like what's being said, and I can pray some of this stuff as prayers myself. But then as I get further on, and like 60, 70, 80, 90, there are so many Psalms that have to do with all these awful people fighting God, how the psalmist, probably David in many cases, is appealing to God to destroy them and fight back, and you're the rock of my salvation, and blah, blah, blah. And sometimes he's talking about the Jews being the bad guys,

and he's including himself with it, and God, look at what you've done to us you know but you will redeem us you so there seems to be quite a bit of that kind of posturing regarding the pagan nations who are ungodly that they are going to get their comeuppance now look Mike you can just read through the Psalms yourself and start like around 30 or 40, you know? And I just think you're going to see lots and lots and lots and lots. I was amazed.

And I thought, this is what Israel's singing, you know? Their Psalms and they're just calling down fire from heaven on the bad guys and rejoicing when God justifies his holiness through judgment. Now, that's even more extreme than what Mike is describing here, but I have another passage in the Gospels that I think speaks to the circumstances. In Matthew chapter 10 and verse 26, now this is a section where Jesus is warning the disciples as he's sending them out on their first kind of temporary or short-term missionary journey that there's trouble ahead. And he's not just speaking of that journey, but he's also in a large sense the trouble ahead for

them as Christians and on down through history because of the way he's describing these or characterizing these challenges. And in this verse, and there are three places, by the way, in this pericope, this kind of larger paragraph, verse 26, verse 28, and verse 31, where Jesus says, don't fear them. Do not fear them, do not fear them, do not fear them. Now in each case, he gives a different rationale not to fear. But what's interesting for our question here is what he says in verse 26. Therefore do not fear them,

for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Now, I think this is, my take on this, I could be wrong and I won't be hearing other things, but I think the way Jesus is encouraging his disciples is he's telling them that there is going to be a day of reckoning. And in that day of reckoning, everything will be exposed for what it really is, and you will be vindicated.

And that means the bad guys who are giving you a hard time and persecuting you, and that's what he says in the sections before that, I send you out of sheep in the midst of wolves, et cetera, et cetera. He says, you're gonna get that, it's gonna be hard, but one day everyone will see things the way they really are, and your faith in me, he's saying essentially, will be vindicated. Well, that means the atheists or the non-believers of Christ in general go out and offer a rescue

from that recompense, a rescue from that judgment, a free offer of forgiveness, okay, and then they get grief from these guys, okay, now they're going to get what they have coming to them, and they will all see in that day what reality is actually like. Do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. I remember a politician, a black politician, conservative Christian guy, many years ago, and I can't remember who it was. Maybe he wasn't a politician, maybe he was a political thinker, but he offered this thought, and the thought was, there is a justice, and one day they will feel it. I love that line. There is a justice and one day they will feel it.

I wish I could find the source. But I think that's kind of what Jesus is saying here to encourage them. Yes, you're getting the short end of the stick right now, but there is a justice and one day they will feel it. You will be vindicated. So I think that falls in the same category of Mike's question. And 1 Peter is focused a lot on that idea too. You suffer now, you experience the glory later. They have the glory of man now, they will suffer later. He focuses on that.

I think our response needs to be complex because I think God is complex in all the different things that he's doing in this world. So I think our response can be complex here. One thing I think we need to keep in mind is that justice is good. It is not wrong. As you've pointed out, in all the Psalms and the cries for justice and the demands for justice, that is a good thing and that's something that God promises as an encouragement and as part of His glory. So there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is only because of that grounds of justice that we are able to be free to show grace now. Just as it's only the grounds of justice on the cross that God gives us grace, He does not shortchange justice.

He loves justice because He is just. So because of the cross, now He shows us grace. Now, Because of the cross, now he shows us grace. Now this is where Romans 12, at the end of Romans 12, this is exactly what Paul says. Leave room for the justice of God. And so, because vengeance is mine, says the Lord, because we know there will be perfect justice, we are free now to show grace. So we can have this satisfaction knowing that no justice will be left undone, and we can really rest in that. And because we can leave that with God, now we can show grace to those who hate God, and we can give your enemy food and drink and all that, like the verse says.

And that's a complex way to think about it, I think, because you're doing both. You're resting in one and you're doing the other. So right now, I think the kind of satisfaction I feel is more of a sober satisfaction, like with my hand over my mouth, looking at them thinking, God will vindicate himself, but that is bad news for you. There's kind of a fearfulness in that, like a reverence in that, a soberness, knowing what is coming for them, but also being satisfied that God will vindicate His name. So I think one other thing we can do as we're thinking about this is to look at why we're

satisfied and go to the end of that, and that is God's glory. The reason why it's upsetting to us is because they're maligning God, and that hurts, that is distressing to us because we love Him and we see Him as He is. They don't see Him as He is. They see Him as ugly and evil. We see Him as He is, so when they paint Him as ugly and evil, that's a horrible thing. It's an injustice. So if you can try and focus on the fact that what you are longing for, more than the fact that they get theirs, is for God's glory to be vindicated. And then you can focus on His beauty and the fact that He will vindicate Himself and us

in the end. And that will help you, I think, to also show grace and not take it out on them. Again, we are freed to show grace. We don't have to bring about that justice. So again, I think this is a very complex response that we should have as Christians who are saved by grace. Well, this idea about focusing on God's glory, I think you are much further along that route than I am right now. I'm more like Mike, you know, but I think that's the higher calling. But I feel it. I absolutely feel it, especially with atheists who are so rude and angry and just mocking God. It's very hard to hear.

Yeah, we have some people who call again with that. But we answer them graciously as best we're able and let them deal with the responses. So we just have to find a way to rest in the beauty of justice while still finding ways to show grace because they still have a chance. They still have a chance for forgiveness and as long as they're alive. Okay, Greg, let's go to a question from C. Thomas. What are some practical methods of engagement that can be used when conversing with conspiracy theorists? Well, excuse me, I don't know if I have much to offer here, and the reason I don't have

much to offer is because a conspiracy theorist person is not just, as I understand the use of the language, is not just a person who believes that in some things there is a conspiracy. And sometimes whenever you suggest a conspiracy, it's just dismissed by others who don't want to believe that as conspiracy theory, and it's just some goofy thing. Well, there are conspiracies. There's laws against illegal conspiracies, and people get, they get tried under those laws. So there are people do conspire together to do bad things. Now some of the so-called conspiracies that are well known are pretty outlandish and it's hard to imagine how they could be true.

But the people who believe in them, and this is where the problem comes with this kind of circumstance, there is no possible way to disabuse them of their view. It is non-falsifiable in their mind. Whatever evidence that you come up with to speak against or to maybe refute their theory, they somehow want to twist it into evidence for their theory. It's kind of like a Kafka trap or something like that. And it's almost like, well, there's, you say, well, there's no evidence for that view. That's exactly what happens when you have all these people conspiring together so effectively.

They're keeping it all quiet. Of course there's no evidence for it. That's proof of the conspiracy. See, and when that happens you're thinking, you know, Jack, please, you know, you're out of here. There's nothing you can say. And I think that's the case here. I actually, I don't know if it was Frank Beckwith or Frank Turek or one of my buddies who sent this to me as a little cartoon. I have it on my, on my, what do you call it, on my computer. And it's a cartoon where two women are talking together and the advice is whenever you talk to somebody who's a conspiracy theorist, always come up, respond with a more ridiculous

theory. And so then the two women are talking and one woman is saying man I Think it's gonna. I don't think anybody ever landed on the moon and the other woman says you believe in the moon So there's there's a strategy for you, but the point but the point there I it is a good one I think it's kind of funny But it's also a good point that these are not the kind of people that you can reason with when they're really into this stuff. And the person who's into this kind of stuff, on one thing, a lot of times they're into

this on a bunch of other things too. There are all kinds of things that are going on behind the scenes, all these conspiracies. I remember when who's the director that Stone Oliver Stone came out with JFK and it was about the Kennedy assassination which I remember because I was 13 years old when it happened and and on this movie Dennis Prager the conservative talk show host said he watched it he said look it I don know, I don't know if the CIA did this, killed Kennedy, I don't know if the government killed Kennedy, I don't know if the Cubans killed Kennedy, I don't know if the mafia killed Kennedy, but

there's one thing I know, they didn't all do it. And so, and that was kind of the way it was coming across on this, you know, this JFK kind of thing. And so, and that was kind of the way it was coming across on this, you know, this JFK kind of thing. And so sometimes you just look at these are so wild and crazy, it's very, very difficult to take them seriously. Yet you have people that are taking them seriously, which means it's very, very difficult to take them seriously, because they just are not going to be disabused of these crazy ideas. They're sold out.

Yeah. Wasn't there also some kind of a documentary about people who believed in a flat earth? I think it was on Netflix and they tried all these different ways to kind of... You believe in the earth? Yeah, I didn't see that. But they, they, there are videos out there of people trying, you know, they, they, they do some sort of, of experiment where, that will prove it's a flat earth, but then it fails.

But it doesn't, it doesn't stop them from believing it. They'll just find another, another way to try and prove it. So maybe the answer here is you don't have to disabuse them of that conspiracy theory. What you need to do is move them onto a more, the topic they actually need, which is the gospel and God. So maybe one way you could bridge to that is just say, you know I disagree with you on this, but I just appreciate that you are open to ideas that people think are dumb. Oh, that's good, Amy. That you're willing to stand against the culture for what you believe in and you're open minded

about evidence for things that a lot of people don't believe. So let me, what do you think about this? What do you think about the resurrection of Jesus? Have you ever looked at the evidence for that? It's pretty cool. Yeah, and all the disciples conspired to lie. But one thing about, I wonder if part of the personality of someone like this is somebody who kind of enjoys being in the smaller group standing against the world and saying

for the truth, and you can use that for your own advantage and getting them to at least be open to it. I think once people are grounded in the actual truth about God and the gospel, they tend to move towards more, hopefully more rational ways of looking at evidence. So I would just try to move them off of their conspiracy. This is a good point and I can't remember if it's this show or the previous show we talked about the zodiac. A lot of times people have these goofy ideas and when they become Christians, these ideas

just disappear. They just disappear because now they have the truth and the other thing is just, it isn't like they've even been refuted. They just seem to disappear. I know before I became a Christian, I had a lot of beliefs that were inconsistent with Christianity and after I became a Christian, it took me a little while to get some of this stuff straight down, but it wasn't like I had these powerful apologetics regarding them that straightened me out. I mean, I could go through individual ones and talk about it, but the point was I had

a renewed mind now that allowed me to see these kinds of things in a different light. And like a lot of folks will see something and they say, well, that looks pretty goofy, but the people who believe the goofy things don't see it. Once you get a refreshed mind, then you see these things for what they are. I think it goes even farther than just having a refreshed mind. I think what people are looking for is they're looking for meaning, they're looking for a crusade of some kind, they're looking for something they can argue for, they're looking for a crusade of some kind. They're looking for something they can argue for. They're looking for a community of people that, you know, kind of a beleaguered community

where they all have to stand together. I think all of these are things that they're looking for and they find these conspiracy theories. But when you become a Christian and suddenly you have a fellowship and you have God and you have the Bible to learn and you have the Holy Spirit and you're experiencing the presence of God and you're learning about Him and you're part of this, you have something to live for, you have something to fight for, you have something to propagate and you have something to try and convince people of.

I think it's satisfying this need people have to have a purpose in life and meaning in life. So I think that could play a part of it too. But I definitely think it has something to do with your mind being renewed and just caring about truth. I don't really have these conversations very often, so I don't really have any more suggestions other than that, but I suspect that all those things. So maybe there's a way that you can kind of whet their appetite for those things in Christianity. So think about how you might, if there's something that they particularly seem to need, because

we were all made to experience this wonder and majesty of God and the glory of God, and you can try and get it in aliens or whatever, or you can get it where it really is true. So just try and point them towards the truth that will satisfy that need that they're trying to fulfill in these other conspiracies and these other beliefs. That's all I got, Greg. That's all I got, Amy. You done good, kid. Well, thank you.

Thank you, Mike and C. Thomas. We appreciate hearing from you. You can send us your question on X with the hashtag SCRask or go to our website at str.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kogel for Stand to Reason.