Does God Exist?
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Illustration Opening
In the book Gaily The Troubadour, published in 1936, Arthur Guiterman wrote the following poem. Reading his observations, you wouldn't guess it was written 60+ years ago.
First dentistry was painless;
Then bicycles were chainless
And carriages were horseless
And many laws, enforceless.
Next, cookery was fireless,
Telegraphy was wireless,
Cigars were nicotineless
And coffee, caffeinless.
Soon oranges were seedless,
The putting green was weedless,
The college boy hatless,
The proper diet, fatless,
Now motor roads are dustless,
The latest steel is rustless,
Our tennis courts are sodless,
Our new religions,,,, are godless.
In the book “Taking The Guesswork Out of Applying The Bible”, the Author wrote this story. While studying in the Holy Lands, a seminary professor of mine met a man who claimed to have memorized the Old Testament-in Hebrew! Needless to say, the astonished professor asked for a demonstration. A few days late they sat together in the man's home. "Where shall we begin"? asked the man. "Psalm 1,? replied my professor, who was an avid student of the psalms.
Beginning with Psalm 1:1, the man began to recite from memory, while my professor followed along in his Hebrew Bible. For two hours the man continued word for word without a mistake as the professor sat in stunned silence. When the demonstration was over, my professor discovered something even more astonishing about the man-he was an atheist! Here was someone who knew the Scriptures better than most Christians ever will, and yet he didn't even believe in God.
Taking The Guesswork Out of Applying The Bible, Jack Kuhatschek, IVP, 1991, p. 16
Finally, Back in the 1800s, there was a famous intellectual and agnostic named T.H. Huxley. One weekend, when Huxley was with a group of men at a weekend house party, on that Sunday morning most of them were preparing to go to church - Huxley approached a man he knew was a sincere Christian and said, ''Suppose you stay at home and tell my why you are a Christian.'' The Christian didn't want to. He knew how skilled an arguer Huxley... and he hesitated. But Huxley smiled and assured him, ''I don't want to argue with you. I just want you to tell me simply what this Christ means to you.'' So the man did... and when he finished, Huxley had tears in his eyes. ''I would give my right hand if only I could believe that!''
Our title for today is more of a question — “Does God Exist?
Our scripture is taken from Jeremiah 9:23-24
23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
24 But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
Let me ask you a question? What is the greatest thing in the entire world to you? The answers will vary among people. How can you tell what really is the greatest thing to a person? The truth be told, you can answer this question by listening to a person’s boasting. People boast about what is important. Their job, their home, their car(s), their retirement account. All things, personal possessions.
But, What is the greatest thing in the entire world? According to Jeremiah 9:23-24, it is knowing God.
For me, its Knowing God, having a one on one relationship with our HIM.
In this passage, three powerful truths emerge for us to ponder today.
Truth #1: God is real.
Truth # 2: God is revealed.
Truth # 3: God is relational.
So, let’s begin our journey with truth number one … God is real
Truth #1: God is real.
How can you know and understand Someone you do not believe is real? For many, the existence of God is where the journey of knowing and understanding God begins.
So, What do I mean when I say God is real?
I mean two things: (1) God exists, and (2) He is absolutely supreme.
God exists. There is a view of God that thrives in our world today called atheism. Atheism says there is no God. When we think of atheism, we automatically think of Communist China, North Korea, or Cuba, but folks, but it also exists and thrives in our society.
In our world, we call it naturalism. At the heart of naturalism is atheism—there is no God. In response to those who deny the existence of God, either practically or philosophically, God says in verse 24, “I am.” There are tremendous evidences for the reality of God that we can give to those who declare there is no God. Lets talk about four of them.
1. Scripture declares that He exists (Gen. 1:1).
Now, some would look down on this evidence because they don’t believe the Bible to be true. When we deal with those who do not believe the Bible is true, we have to go back to the evidence for the truth of Scripture. When a person comes to acknowledge the truthfulness of Scripture, and if he is intellectually honest, then he
will have to acknowledge that there is a God.
2. Nature declares that He exists (Rom. 1:20).
As we look out at the universe, there is a great awareness that there is a God who has created all that we know. A look at the universe confirms this in our hearts.
One of the world’s most loved comic strips is BC. In one strip we find a caveman kneeling in prayer. “It’s not easy to believe in you, God. We never see you. How come you never show yourself? How do we know you even exist?”
What follows is a flower springing to life beside him; a volcano erupting in the distance; an eclipse of the
sun, turning the sky black; a star shooting across the stratosphere; a tidal wave rushing over him; lightning flashing; a bush beginning to burn; and a stone rolling away from the entrance to a tomb.
The caveman pulls himself from the mud, dripping wet, surrounded by darkness. “OK, OK. I give up! Every time I bring up this subject, all we get are interruptions.”
Many are like the caveman. The evidences are everywhere around them, but they can see God in it. Their minds have been trained to see nature through the lens of naturalism.
3. Man’s heart declares that He exists (Rom. 1:21).
A small boy was flying a kite high in the sky one April afternoon when a low drifting cloud encircled the kite and hid it from view. A passerby asked the little boy what he was doing with that string in his hand. “I’m flying my kite,” the child responded. The man, looking up and seeing only the cloud in an otherwise clear sky, said, “I don’t see a kite up there anywhere.” “Mister,” the little boy replied, “I don’t see it either, but I know it’s up there because every once in a while there’s a tug on my string.”
We feel that tug in many ways. From the very beginning there is awareness in people’s mind of God, whether you are talking of a sophisticated Westerner or a person who comes out of the jungle for the first time. Where did that come from?
One of the arguments for God is called the moral argument. It points out man’s sense of right and wrong that spans time and culture, and the need for justice to be done. Where did the sense of right and wrong come from? The moral argument says that God is the source of right and wrong, and He will someday mete out justice to all people.
4. Reason declares that He exists (Ps. 14:1).
The atheist says that Christians have to leave reason at the door to believe there is a God. The truth is the opposite, according to Psalm 14:1 {{CLICK}} which reads (read slide).
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.
So the question is what is a fool? It is somebody who has lost his or her sense of reasoning or can’t reason properly. Folks, it is more unreasonable to deny the existence of God than it is to acknowledge the existence of God.
There are two great arguments that can be made from this reasoning.
a. The cosmological argument proves the reality of God from cause and effect, or shall I say true statement.
1) The universe had a beginning. — True
2) Anything that has a beginning must have been caused by something else. — True
3) Therefore, the universe was caused by something else, and this cause was God. — True
b. The tele-o-logical argument proves the reality of God based on evidence for intelligent design.
1) All designs imply a designer. — True
2) There is a great design in the universe. — True
3) Therefore, there must be a Great Designer of the universe. — True
God is absolutely supreme. The Lord is absolutely supreme. There is another worldview that has gained great popularity: polytheism.
Polytheism says there is a plurality of gods. Polytheism is at the heart of Hinduism, from which many New Age religions evolve; Buddhism, which is on the rise in the U.S.; and Mormonism. It is also at the heart of the statement, “It doesn’t matter which religion you adhere to, just as long as you sincerely believe.” It implies that there are many gods and all are equal.
God makes it clear in Jeremiah that He is absolutely
supreme; that is, there is no other God besides Him (Deut. 4:35; 6:4; 1 Tim. 2:5).
Our next truth in the answer to our question is that ..... God is revealed
Truth # 2: God is revealed.
There are many in our world today, even in our churches, who acknowledge the reality of God but would say that you cannot know this God.
In Jeremiah 9:24, God makes it clear that we can know Him. We don’t have to go out and create our ideas of God; we don’t have to hold panels to guess what God is like—we can know Him. Now, here is the key: we can know Him because He has chosen to reveal Himself.
I want to share the two primary ways God reveals Himself to us.
Walk with me though as few passages of scripture where we will see how God reveals Himself throught Jesus Christ ..
1. He reveals Himself through Jesus Christ (Matt. 11:27; John 14:5–14; Heb. 1:1–4).
In Matthew 11:27 we find these words written
All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
now continue to let your fingers do the walking as we turn to John 14, five thruogh 14 …
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
and one more turn to Hebrews 1 verses 1 to 4 which reads .....
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
As you just read in these three verses, God, the Father reveals Himself to us, his children through His Son Jesus Christ.
The second primary way that God reveals Himself to us is throught the scriptures
2. He reveals Himself through the Scriptures.
As we just read in the last set of passages on how God reveals Himself through His Son. He also directly to us as found in the
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
And God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the Lord.
We can know God. We can’t know everything about God, but we can know Him as He has revealed Himself. That leads to the most important question—why has the incomprehensible God chosen to reveal Himself? Let’s examine truth #3.
Truth number three is that .... God is relational ...
Truth # 3: God is relational.
God reveals Himself because He is relational and wants to have a relationship with us. There is another view of God that, while acknowledging that God truly exists, says that He is distant and removed from creation. He started creation, wound up the clock, and then left. He is sort of an absentee Father.
This is known as deism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Hebrew word translated “knows” in Jeremiah 9:24 means far more than intellectual knowledge.
It means an intimate and personal knowledge. What is God telling us here?
1. He wants us to know Him individually.
2. He wants us to know Him intimately.
3. He wants us to know Him increasingly.
Conclusion
“You have to show people that it takes faith to doubt Christianity. C. S. Lewis argued with God before his conversion that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But then he asked himself, ‘But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? . . . Atheism turns out to be too simple (Mere Christianity, Book 2, Part 1).’
Writer Tim Keller wrote that in the natural world the strong eat the weak, and there’s nothing wrong with violence. Where do you get the standard that says the human world shouldn’t work that way, that says the natural world is wrong? You can only judge suffering as wrong if you’re using a standard higher than this world, a supernatural standard. If there’s no God, you have no reason to be upset at the suffering in this world. It takes faith to get mad at this world.”
We all believe in someone or something. Faith is a powerful and influential force in the world, even if it’s not tangible.
Source: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-faith-to-doubt-christianity/
With all the information that we have review, as a member of a Christian jury, I must declare that … God is real, and He has chosen to reveal Himself to us because He is relational. Thing is that He chose to give us some thing that we call “Free Will” and with that we are allowed to chose whether we accept or reject Him.
Simply put, to say that God, Our Creator does not exist is crazy because that is the same as saying that we don’t exist because He is our creator. If God as our Creator doesn’t exist than how did He create us?
As we close today, after review all that facts that have been present, only you can answer the question in your mind, Does God Exist?