Page 117 - Advanced Apologetics and World Views Revised

What are the consequences of living life rationally?

The answer to this question is simple: You may miss out on God’s best and His perfect will for your life.
You will lose the rewards God has planned to give you for faithfulness. Don’t trust in your own mind or
logic, because sometimes God will ask you to do what is irrational.

Our identity with Christ means God may ask us to do something that seems crazy. Perhaps a person has
a job where he is living quite comfortably. He has a nice house, a wonderful wife, and 2 and ½ children.
His family attends a great church. He seems to have a bountiful life that God has promised. But then,
God calls him to go to the mission field in Africa. He would have to sell all his stuff, uproot his family,
and go to a people he does not know and live in very difficult conditions – all to obey God. People
would look at him and say, “He must have put his brains in his back pocket to make that move!”

Thousands of missionaries over the 2000 years since Christ left have obeyed the Great Commission and
have done that very thing. Many have died on the mission field to bring the good news of the Gospel to
them. These missionaries didn’t seem to make rational decisions.

William Carey was a missionary to India. Shortly after arriving in India, his son died and his wife became
so distraught, that she had to be tied up in their home. He spent 7 years sharing the Gospel before his
first convert was baptized. He spent 41 years in India without a furlough. lxxx

His mission could count only some 700 converts in a nation of millions, but he had laid an impressive
foundation of Bible translations, education, and social reform.

His greatest legacy was in the worldwide missionary movement of the nineteenth century that he
inspired. Missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone, among thousands of
others, were impressed not only by Carey's example, but by his words "Expect great things; attempt
great things." The history of nineteenth-century Protestant missions is in many ways an extended
commentary on the phrase.

Carey did not make a rational decision for follow Christ. He made an obedient decision regardless of the
cost. The consequences…we will see in heaven as William Carey stands before his Creator to receive his
multitude of crowns.

For more information on logic, watch these videos:
The Laws of Logic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivnqB9DCqJ4
Three Laws of Logic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGoXXPvzP8M

Let’s Practice …

1. Define what knowledge is.

2. Explain how human knowledge is limited.

3-5. What are the three ways a person can glean knowledge?

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