The Motives in Deconstruction. Examining What You Believe. What Is Your Doubt About? - Highlight Episode 346

Deconstruction is described as a process that begins with placing the self as the final authority, which often leads to the rejection of biblical truth. Ray, E.Z., Mark, and Oscar caution that this mindset can result in abandoning essential doctrines rather than simply addressing church-related frustrations. The guys stress that Christianity promises righteousness, not comfort, and warn that altering the gospel to suit personal preferences creates false converts. While examining beliefs is healthy, the guys emphasize that such reflection must be grounded in Scripture and humility. Honest doubt seeks truth in God's Word, unlike deconstruction, which often isolates issues and leans on emotion. The guys highlight the dangers of modern influences like social media and the lack of true discipleship in the church. They encourage believers to be aware of daily habits, bring doubts to God, and remember that salvation rests not in the strength of one's faith, but in the strength of Christ.

Send us a text

Thanks for listening! If you’ve been helped by this podcast, we’d be grateful if you’d consider subscribing, sharing, and leaving us a comment and 5-star rating!

Visit the Living Waters website to learn more and to access helpful resources!
You can find helpful counseling resources at biblicalcounseling.com.
Check out The Evidence Study Bible and the Basic Training Course.

You can connect with us at [e-mail]. We're thankful for your input!
Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.
Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Deconstruction I found this online is a process
by which a person criticallydismantles the beliefs they once
held as part of the Christianfaith, often driven by personal
experience, cultural influenceor offense, typically leading to
a rejection or redefinition ofcore biblical doctrines such as
the authority of scripture, theexclusivity of Christ or the

(00:21):
nature of sin and salvation, andI like this note here.
This is distinct from healthyspiritual growth or theological
refinement, becausedeconstruction often begins with
the self as the authorityrather than scripture.
What do you think, oscar?
Does that kind of sum it up?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I like that phrase theological refinement.
I think there's somethinghealthy and beautiful when
someone begins to really diveinto the scriptures and
distinguish the difference fromwhat I call Hobby Lobby
Christianity and what thescriptures actually say
Christianity is.
And unfortunately, what happensa lot of the times is people

(00:58):
end up throwing the baby out ofthe bathwater.
And you're exactly right.
I've seen it happen over andover again.
It starts with frustrationabout a cultural issue and then
it turns to the inerrancy ofscripture and then it becomes
quickly about frustrations withscripture's view on sexuality.
And all of this.
You hit it perfectly.
All of this.
If we approach it from I am thesource of truth and authority.

(01:21):
I will determine for myselfwhat is true and what is false.
Then, ultimately, what you'vedone is made yourself your God
and you start from that premise.
And anytime you start withyourself as God, of course
you're going to reject the onetrue God, because you can only
have one God, and if you're Him,then you're going to end up

(01:43):
moving away from your creator.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
We've got this little story about two men on a plane.
If someone wants to deconstruct, the question to ask them is
why did you put the parachute on?
There you go.
It's as simple as that.
If they say, for the jump I'vegot to take, I've got to jump
out of this plane, nothing willget it off their back.
But if they've put it on forbetter flight, when the flight
gets bumpy they'll have someexcuse.

(02:07):
Someone's kicked the back of myseat and taken this off.
So it comes back to motive.
If you came to Christ fleeingfrom the wrath to come, you'll
continue to know there's wrathto come and you'll cling to him
because he's your life.
Richest prophet, not on the dayof wrath, but righteousness
delivers from death.
So you hold the righteousnessof Christ, which is your life.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
There's nothing wrong with examining what you believe
.
We should that, right, paulLittle.
He wrote a book called Knowwhat you Believe.
And then he wrote a book Knowwhy you Believe what you Believe
.
There's nothing wrong withsaying is's what I believe true
and accurate.
Remember when Jesus was talkingto the apostles?
He said the disciples, why doyou reason amongst yourselves?

(02:50):
And that's where they wentwrong.
They're reasoning amongstthemselves without a foundation
of truth, right?
And Isaiah says come, let usreason together.
So if you're going to reason,reason with a foundation of
truth.
That foundation of truth leadsyou to more truth.
And when you remove God fromthe equation, you're removing

(03:14):
truth from the equation, right?
So deconstruction is not thesame as honest doubt.
You can have doubt, but what isthat doubt about?
You say I don't know about this.
So you open up the Word of Godto find the answer.
That's what you do.
You don't go to the world'smethods and the world's

(03:36):
philosophies to try tounderstand something that is
transcendent.
You still have the samequestions that I have, but now
you don't have a foundation fortruth.
Somebody said you can't searchfor truth while you sit in
darkness and you're comfortableto be there, right?
So what do we do?
James 1.6,.
Let him ask in faith, with nodoubting.

(03:57):
For the one who doubts is likea wave of the sea.
Right, you're tossed to and froright.
Biblical doubt says help mebelieve I believe.
Help my unbelief right.
It's who we are asking to andwe are expecting an answer.
You want knowledge Go to school.
You want wisdom you get on yourknees.
So we want a greaterunderstanding of God about the

(04:22):
purpose of man.
Why am I here?
How did I get here?
What's going to happen to meafter I die?
When you're left to yourself ina corner in the dark asking
these questions withoutincluding God in the equation,
well then, every man's going todo that which seems right in his
own eyes.
Biblical doubt says help mybelief.
Deconstruction says help meleave.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Who would really, in an objective or in a concrete
way, say oh, I'm God.
But that's the deception, rightWith Adam, or with Eve rather,
and by extension, adam, satan'stemptation was you will be like
God, knowing good from evil.
In other words, really you'llbe the arbiter of what's good
and evil.
You'll be the one to make thecall on what is good and what is

(05:05):
evil, and in essence, that'swhat's happening.
We're just removing God fromthe equation, we're removing the
authority of Scripture and nowwe're becoming the authority,
which means we're usurping God'sthrone and man.
That's destructive.
Ray, I want to ask you this youoften will pinpoint with
atheists what their truemotivation is, and that is you

(05:28):
just want to look at pornography, sleep with your girlfriend,
indulge in the pleasures of sin.
What role do you think thisplays in those who are
deconstructing versus atheists,where people say I'm a Christian
, but I don't hold to thisanymore?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
And that's why I love saying to someone who says I
doubt this, I doubt that, saylook, it's not God's existence
we're talking about.
You're having sex with yourgorgeous girlfriend, aren't you?
And up goes the mouth, thecorner mouth and the edges, and
I've had so many people sayyou're right.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Ray's become a body language expert, Seriously from
witnessing.
Oh, it's just wonderful.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
I mean, if someone goes, hmm, pulls in their lips,
they're going to get angry.
Any pulls in their lips,they're going to get angry any
minute.
I saw a lady do it the otherday.
I thought she's going to walkoff and she did.
Within two minutes she walkedoff and she was angry and those
lips showed me where she wasgoing.
But yeah, men love darknessrather than light, because their
deeds are evil and that'susually the problem.

(06:25):
How can anyone doubt theexistence of God?
To think that all we look athappened because of an explosion
of nothing caused by nothing?
It's just insane.
Just take one part of god'screation hummingbirds.
Just say the word hummingbirdto yourself and watch it flap
its wing what?
50 times a second, and look howfar.
I mean, when I see ahummingbird I get real excited,

(06:45):
but I can't watch them for morethan two seconds because they're
off, they go and they're goneand there's no helicopter that
can do anything like what thehummingbird does flies backwards
all over the place.
So we see the genius of God'screative hand in his creation
and so we can have doubts whenwe go through a Job experience
that's legitimate.
You know, where is God in this?

(07:05):
I can't see it.
You've got a friend that justlost his wife and a horrific
thing.
We pray for him and his familyevery day because he went
through such a terribleexperience and I can imagine
doubts coming to him, notdoubting God's existence or what
Jesus did on the cross, butjust why did this?
happen and that's understandableand people like we need to weep
with them.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, like so often, what happens is we're walking
around in our Christian faithand this moment of doubt comes
up.
We're like what about my friendwho just died of cancer?
You know what?
I'm not even going to thinkabout that right now.
I'm just going to put thatquestion away and come back to
it later.
Huh, I wonder what is up withthe authority of scripture.
You know what?
I'm going to put that one away.
Huh, I wonder what is up withthe relationship between slavery

(07:47):
and the Bible.
You know what?
I'm going to put that one awayand think about that one later.
And what ends up happening?
What ends up happening is thatwe walk away from the faith not
because we think too much, butbecause we think too little
about it.
So many of us have unansweredquestions about the faith that
we end up abandoning the faithto go find something new.
We end up abandoning the faithto go find something new, but

(08:09):
again, you're walking away, notbecause you thought too much,
but because you were thinkingtoo little about the faith.
Oh yeah amen.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights
from the Living Waters podcast.
Friends, we value your time, sowe've created a bite-sized
version of our podcast forlisteners who want to get
equipped.
Without the jokes andfellowship, be sure to check out
the full episode every Thursdaywhere we dive deeper into the
topic.
Until then, you can watch thefull podcast episode available

(08:41):
now on livingwaterstv.