Rev. David Holwick Big Questions sermon series
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey [very well received]
November 10, 1996
Psalm 14
CAN YOU PROVE GOD?
I. Does God really exist?
A. The ultimate question. [joke has weak punch line - no one got it]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A favorite story among computer scientists involves a
future President of the United States.
He assembles his scientific brain trust and asks them to
build the biggest and smartest computer the world has
ever known.
"When it's finished," he said, "I want to ask it the most
important question ever asked."
When the giant electronic brain was completed, the president
came before it and asked, "Is there a God?"
Lights flashed, wheels whirled, chemicals bubbled, and then
came the answer:
"There is now."
#3993
B. Christian radio caller - "My faith wavers. Sometimes I
wonder if it's just something we make up in our minds."
1) Have you ever felt this way?
a) Most of you take belief for granted.
b) You were brought up to believe, and always accepted it.
2) This was not always true for me.
a) I had to choose to believe.
C. The foundational issue for Christians. Heb 11:6
1) The ultimate questions focus on God:
a) Is there a reason and a purpose for our existence?
b) Is there absolute truth to base law on?
c) Is there anything beyond this, often unfair, life?
2) I think it's important for Christians to consider our
basic beliefs, so we can answer outsiders.
II. Who needs him, anyway? The view of skeptics.
A. We don't need a god to explain things.
1) Reality can be explained best by science, which is provable.
2) Miracles are coward's way out.
3) "Letter to Editor" in Daily Record - rely on yourselves,
period.
B. Other faiths cancel each other out.
1) Most religions make absolute claims.
a) They cannot all be true.
b) Most likely none of them are true.
2) Religious people are no better than non-believers.
3) Religion itself tends to lead to divisions and hatred,
not universal peace.
C. Why do so many believe in God, then?
1) Social and family pressure.
2) Humans are wired to believe.
a) We insist on seeing order and meaning in universe.
b) We sort through coincidences to find "hits."
c) We put too much confidence in anecdotes and things
we want to believe, rather than what is true.
III. Existence of God cannot be proven scientifically.
A. Science can only prove repeatable things.
1) History cannot be repeated.
a) But this does not mean these things aren't true.
2) Science only measures things.
a) You can't measure 3 feet of love, but it exists.
B. Consider the alternative: existence without God.
1) No consistent basis of ethics, morals.
a) Slippery slide of relativism.
b) Many are atheist because they want to do their own thing.
2) No purpose to life, except what we manufacture in our
minds.
3) Societies that reject God have trampled on human spirit.
C. Skeptics cannot be compelled to believe.
1) God gives everyone the right to believe or not believe.
2) They are safe until the Judgment Day.
3) Although no proof, we do have evidence for God's existence.
IV. Reasons to believe He really is there.
A. Human history.
1) Belief in a supreme being go back thousands of years.
2) Among most remote tribes, there is a universal belief in God.
a) Earliest concept is of ONE God, multiple gods are later.
b) Monotheism is original, it didn't evolve.
3) The vast majority of all people have believed in God.
a) Not proof, but important.
B. Philosophical arguments.
1) Every effect must have a cause.
2) The universe must have come from somewhere.
a) Big Bang?
b) Even this must have an origin.
3) God must be the initial cause.
C. Order and design of universe.
1) The Bible speaks of the testimony of nature. Rom 1:19-20
a) Could our complex universe happen by chance?
1> My digital watch could not come into being
without an intelligent designer.
b) Life is even more complicated.
1> Even evolutionists have trouble explaining creation
of reproducing, intelligent life from raw
chemicals, by mere chance.
2> More likely for a dust-devil in a junkyard to
assemble a 747.
2) Example of human body.
a) Brain and memories.
b) Eye.
c) Stomach and acids.
D. Truth of Bible.
1) Fulfilled prophecies.
2) (Testimony of Christian scientist / astronomer Hugh Ross,
who was converted after calculating odds of prediction.)
E. Personal experience.
1) Near Death Experiences.
2) Testimony of people delivered by Higher Power.
3) Conversion of atheists.
Jacob de Shazer was sent as one of Jimmy Doolittle's raiders
on the famous bombing attack on Japan in April 1942.
He was an atheist, believing in no God.
During the air attack his plan was hit by enemy anti-aircraft
fire and he was forced to bail out.
He was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese and thought
certainly his life was approaching the end.
He saw two of his companions shot by a firing squad and saw
another die of slow starvation.
During the long months of imprisonment de Shazer pondered
the question of why the Japanese hated him, and why he
hated them.
He began to recall some of the things he had heard about
Christianity.
Boldly, he asked his jailers if they could get him a Bible.
At first they laughed at him like it was a joke and warned
him to stop making a nuisance of himself.
But he kept asking.
A year and a half later, a guard finally brought him a Bible,
flung it at him, and said, "Three weeks you have.
Three weeks, and then I take away."
True to his word, in three weeks the guard took the Bible
away and de Shazer never saw it again.
However, in those three weeks of intensive searching,
meditating, and delving into the meaning of life and
humanity's ultimate destiny, a change came about.
Later he was released from Japanese captivity and returned
to the States.
In 1948, de Shazer, his wife, and infant son were on their
way back to Japan as missionaries.
It was all because the atheist asked for a Bible and a
Japanese guard gave him one for three weeks.
#3992
V. What kind of God do you believe in?
A. Nature can give evidence of God's existence, but it cannot
show what God is like.
1) There are many ideas about what God is like.
a) Scientists - uninvolved watchmaker.
b) Pantheists and New Age - indistinguishable from nature.
c) Stern law-giver and kill-joy.
d) Sentimental grandfather.
2) Many atheists have a warped image.
George Buttrick was formerly the chaplain at Harvard
University.
He recalls that students would come into his office, plop
down on a chair and declare, "I don't believe in God."
Buttrick would give this disarming reply:
"Tell me what kind of God you don't believe in.
I probably don't believe in that God either."
#3810
B. Proof has limits.
Michael Buckley wrote an interesting book called "At the Origins
of Modern Atheism."
In it he argues that the early Jesuits, in their attempt to
use scholarship and intelligence to convert the elite,
created a huge problem.
In trying to convince them of God's existence, they invented a
god whom the modern world found quite easy to dismiss.
The Jesuits argued that God is fair, or orderly, or compassionate
-- in the way in which we define these things.
When people encountered life that was not orderly or fair, they
concluded that God must not exist.
The Jesuits spent too much time arguing, "Does God exist?"
devising all sorts of "objective" arguments and proofs for
God's existence.
They should have focused upon the far more interesting and,
indeed, biblical question, "What kind of God exists?"
The Bible knows that idolatry is always a bigger problem for us
than atheism.
[Psalm 14 is about the only allusion to atheism.]
Most people know instinctively there is a god.
Their real problem is having a genuine relationship with him.
#3904
1) Believing is not enough.
a) Even Satan believes in God's existence.
2) We must encounter God as he has revealed himself.
a) The fullest revelation is in person of Jesus Christ.
1> In terms we can understand, God has lived among us.
b) He requires us to make Jesus our Lord and Savior.
