Last night I met Brian, a nihilist, and a student at Western Michigan University. I asked him if he is ever suicidal and he said "all the time." His worldview was this: everything we know is not really there, it's just our imagination. Nothing is real and nothing means anything.

I asked him, "If everything we know is not real, then you knowing that everything is not real is not real either, which means everything is actually real. Your worldview defeats itself before it even gets off the ground."

He completely agreed. I told him that if I lived up to his worldview, it's perfectly okay for me to go home and slit my kids throats, cheat on my wife, and shoot old ladies with BB guns, since after all, it's not real anyways. I can do anything I want.

He said, "For a while, I tried that, doing anything I want. And I paid for it dearly."

I asked, "Why did you pay for it, since it wasn't real anyways? Where does that uniform law of cause and effect come from?"

This naturally led into the gospel. He thanked me and the other believers with me and said he was very encouraged and concluded that we gave him something to think about.

Then we talked to his girlfriend, Alex. She said that hell is too harsh. I showed her that in her effort to defend the love of God she actually abates it, for if punishment for sin is just a slap on the wrist or a couple days of the flu, God forgiving us isn't all that merciful. He's not saving us from something really bad. I used the illustration of two people in trouble. One guy is on death row. He's about to be executed. But the judge forgives him and lets him go. The other guy has to pay a $10 fine. The judge forgives him too, and the fee is waived. Who's more thankful? 

"The guy who didn't get executed," said Alex.

"Right. If we are saved from something much less terrible than hell, then God is not as merciful as the Bible claims Him to be. But may I suggest that God is far more holy than you want to admit and way more merciful than you ever imagined?"Alex listened closely but was less receptive than her nihilistic boyfriend.

If you ask enough questions, every non-Christian worldivew eventually hangs itself. Then the ear of the unbeliever is open to hear the Christian worldivew, and that's where you get to proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light!"(1 Pet 2:9).