As we go through this series on the attributes of God, let me remind you the purpose of these messages. The purpose of hearing more about God is so that we might know God more and know more about God. So that we might believe God more and obey Him and love Him and worship Him. These are not mere lectures to inform us. And that means you are not to sit there just nonchalantly saying this is nice. No, this is a message from God. We are here to hear from God through his word, through the preacher. In fact, just try to ignore me and concentrate on the content of the message. Listen to God. God speaks through his word and. There is a dynamic involved in which the spirit that inspired the word uses that word as it's preached through the preacher to lead us to God. So there is a an encounter with God as we hear his word. And this is unlike other gatherings that we attend. You know, we come to church on Sunday and sit there and listen to a preacher and then we do some singing. And you almost get the feeling, well, this is maybe like other meetings where you gather with people at a movie. No, nor is it like going to a concert or to a football game or a school or other meetings where there's a lot of people present. You sit there and you look up at the stage. Something gets lost in many churches where they gather and they sing and then they look and they listen. What gets lost is a true sense of the reality of God. And so, when they lose that, they make up for it with other things that they think, this is the presence of God. For example, some churches get into sacramentalism, with lots of elaborate liturgy, and then they have incense and stained glass windows. Who's been to churches like this? And it has an illusion of spirituality, the illusion of holiness and reverence, but not God. And then other churches go to the other extreme and it's filled with entertainment and boy, they can have flashing lights and exciting music. They can stir the emotions because music can really touch people's emotions. And so in these churches, emotionalism Gets mistaken for true spirituality and people go home and they say, man, we've been with God. No, because the message was not faithfully preached. The Bible was only used. And so they substitute something else. But brethren, when God speaks through his word, something happens. God himself draws near. And we are confronted with God Himself. We don't need the frills. We've got God. We experience the reality of God. Today we're going to look at that subject, the reality of God. And the summary is this. God is the ultimate reality and we would do well to realize it and to truly believe in Him. Word reality means actuality, things that are in fact, not fantasy. Reality, not imagination. And the point is, God is real. He is the ultimate reality. And He is the eternal fact of the universe. That means God really does exist. We're not just imagining it. We're not just pretending it. God really is there. The Bible calls Him the living God as opposed to the phony gods of the pagans. They all have their statues and their little rituals, but there's nothing there. But God is there, and He promises to be with His people and to speak through His Word. And God really is exactly what He says He is. And people don't believe that because they're living in an imaginary world. But brethren, the Bible is, as it were, the door that unlocks God to us. It's in the Bible that we are confronted by the real God who is there. He is exactly what he says he is. God is not a hypocrite, like we tend to be. God doesn't live in a world of fantasy, but reality, God is the ultimate reality. But why do not more people realize it and show it in their lives? Well, some people say, well, it's because of a lack of evidence. They don't see God, touch Him, hear Him, and so forth. The late atheist, who later became an agnostic, Merchant Russell, was once asked, well, why don't you believe in God? He says, well, there's not enough evidence. No, there is enough evidence. He just didn't want to accept it. A few years ago, I read a scholarly theological article entitled, Why Doesn't God Make His Existence More Evident? Well, there's some truth in the question. We don't see God directly. We don't feel Him, touch Him, smell Him, and so forth with our senses. Not directly. But Romans 1 says that through the world He is made, we know that He is there. So God has already made His existence evident enough to us. So why is it that people don't own up to that, to the reality of God? It's not because of God or his revelation. The problem is in us. We are sinners. We don't like the revelation that God gives us. And so we distort it or we try to ignore it. In other words, we have a distorted view of reality. The things around us tell us about God. We don't want that. So we twist it. We live in a twisted view of reality. Things that are temporary, we consider to be permanent. Things that are fantasy, we look on as fact. And on the other hand, things that are really real, We dismiss them as dreams or merely opinions. You ever had that happen? You share the gospel with someone, you're telling about the reality of God, and they just say, well, that's just your opinion. You say, no, it's not opinion. It's fact. It's reality. And they get it distorted. Let me give you an illustration. The philosopher Plato told a little story, and let me kind of stretch it a little bit and make it a Christian story. He said that once upon a time, There was this family or tribe of people living in a cave somewhere, and they never went out of the cave. They were born in the cave. They lived their whole life in this big cave. It was an underground spring. They had water, and they were able to grow food somehow there, and they had little graves in the tunnels. And they thought that was their entire world. Nothing is outside of the cave. And you can see what Plato's getting at. But there was a mouth to the cave, and nobody ever went out into the sunlight. But people would walk in front of the cave and cast their shadows on a wall. And the people that lived in the cave would see these shadows moving back and forth, and they never fully understood that. But they never dared go outside the cave, because they said, nothing is outside the cave. And if we go outside the cave, we cease to exist. One day someone came into the cave from outside the cave. He was curious. He came in and he saw all these people and they came up to him and he said, what are you doing here? Well, we live in the cave. Why don't you leave the cave? Well, that's dangerous. Nothing is out there. There's a whole world out there. It's in the light and you're living here in the shadows. And they said, no, no, no. This is the real world. Nothing is out there. And he said, well, how do you explain me? They said, oh, well, you belong because we've just never met you. He says, no, no, I came from outside the cave. And after a while, they said, no, you must be a crazy man. Nothing is outside there. And he said, I'm not the crazy man. You're the people living in this dream world of the shadows. Well, after a while, they tried to control the man. And he says, I'm getting out of here. They couldn't live with this man, they thought he was a dangerous madman, so they killed the man from outside the cave. Now you see the end of the point of the parable. We are like the people in that cave and we think this is all there is, the shadows of what we can see and feel and touch and say, this is reality. But we know that there is a world beyond that according to the Bible. What we're living in is the realm of dreams and shadows and God comes into it and says there's more outside that. We live in the world of pasts and shadows and we think this is all there is. We live in a distorted view of reality. Now some people have an extremely distorted view of reality. Doctors will call them psychotics. Maybe you've heard the little joke that says, neurotics build castles in the sky, psychotics live in those castles, and psychiatrists collect their rent. Well, it's a funny little joke, but there are people that live in an extremely distorted view of reality, and that even everybody else in the cave says, that guy is just weird. He lives in a world of his own. And unfortunately, there are people like this in mental hospitals that have a completely distorted view of reality. There'll be people that'll walk around saying, I'm Napoleon, and they always walk around with their hand in their coat. Or they say they're George Washington or someone like that. It's sad. In a previous church I served, a woman came to me and she said, I need your advice. I said, OK. So we set up an appointment. And I said, now, what's the problem? And she said, well, there are these two men that both love me and they're fighting over me and they're best friends. And I'm afraid they're going to, you know, come to blows and one of them is going to kill the other one. They're both madly in love with me. They phone me night and day and send me letters. And I said, well, that is a problem. Do I know these men? She says, oh, yes, of course you know them. And she said, it's Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Now, don't laugh. She was serious. She was serious. And I said, what? She says, these famous movie stars, they phone me and write me letters and now they're going to kill each other. And I said, you've got, you have proof of this? He says, oh, yes. I said, can I see some of these letters? Oh, no, they're too personal. I can't share them. Well, I said, look, I don't believe you. You've made all this up for some reason or another. Oh, no, I know it's true and you can't prove it. Well, it was sad. She was living in a distorted world of her dreams and sad reality. Now, make-believe is okay for little children, I guess. We go through those stages. Little boys dress up as cowboys. Girls pretend they're princesses. But that's kind of kid stuff, because at a certain age, children can't tell the difference between the make-believe world of the comic books and television and the real world. And parents say, well, you'll learn more when you grow up. But unfortunately, Some people grow up and they continue the fantasy world that they're living in. They're still in the cave and they don't like the revelation of God, so they distort it. We make ourselves the center of our fantasy world, and if we don't like the revelation of God, we twist it to fit our fantasy. After the Beatles broke up, John Lennon wrote a very ungodly anti-Christian song and he said, I don't believe in Jesus. I don't believe in Buddha. I don't believe in the Beatles. I don't believe this, that and the other. And he finally ended the song with a kind of an arrogant whine. I just believe in me. And that's reality. The man that had boasted that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus died before he was 40. And the moment he died, he learned what true reality was. Now that's just an example of how people have distorted views of reality. Psychotics, people in the cave. Now what about Jesus Christ? Let's look at him at this juncture. Was he mistaken to believe he was The son of God. You see, if he wasn't really the son of God, he would be like a psychotic that says he's Napoleon or this woman that said that Robert Redford and Paul Newman were in love with her and she never even met them. Let's look at that closely. C.S. Lewis addressed this in one of his famous books and said, you know, there's no disputing that Jesus claimed to be God, but that leaves us only three options. He's either lying or maybe playing a bad joke on us. Well, he's a lunatic. If he really believed he's God and he's not God, he's a lunatic. He's a psychotic. He's living in a completely distorted view of reality. In fact, we ought to lock him up and give him drugs, treat him somehow. Or, Lewis said, he really is who he said he is. Lewis said he's either a liar, a lunatic, or he's Lord. And he said, now you can't come along and say, well, Jesus isn't who he claimed to be, but we should still believe in him and respect him and and believe the Bible says no. If he's not who he said he is, we shouldn't admire him. We should pity him. We shouldn't believe in him and worship him, we should ignore him as a deluded psychotic. But as Lewis went on to say, in reality, Jesus Christ really was and is who he said he is. He wasn't deluded. We're deluded if we don't believe in him. The real response is to believe in him and to follow him if, in fact, he is who he said he was. Now, one of his disciples had serious doubts after the resurrection. You remember doubting Thomas. He thought it's all over. I guess we were all mistaken. Jesus isn't who he said he is. We were deluded. And then when Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't want to believe it until Jesus confronted him with indisputable evidence. And Thomas had an encounter with Jesus and he woke up and said, Jesus is who he says he is. And he fell on his knees and says, you are my Lord and my God. That's the natural response. So was Jesus deluded? No, he really is, Lord. He was the one that came into the cave, as it were, and says, there's a whole universe out there. I've come into your world to bring you into that world. But many opponents of Christianity still do not believe. They want to stay holed up in the cave. So they think we're living in a fantasy world of make-believe. They say we're deluded. They say we're making up this God out there that we can't see or touch. You ever had a conversation with someone like that? And they say you're deluded. You're make-believe. You're dangerous. And some even will say we are mentally ill. There's a philosopher teaching at Oxford University that says Christianity is evidence of mental illness. And I personally know a man, I've known him for years, he says Christians are mentally ill. They should all be rounded up and put in mental hospitals and given drugs and perhaps even given lobotomies. That's what the Soviet Union did. They were officially atheistic and they said Christians are mentally ill. They should be rounded up and treated as such. Other non-Christians have a distorted view of reality in other ways. Here's where it gets bizarre and they say we're weird. Postmodernism. Postmodernism says not only do you make your own truth, you make your own ethics, they say you make your own reality. Reality is whatever you make it to be. That was borrowed from the New Age movement. You make it up as you go along, and that's what reality is. They say we're strange. That's like a person that says he's Napoleon. Others, like Buddhism, says that reality is all maya. What's maya? Illusion. They say there is no reality. Everything is simply a dream in your own mind. Well, again, from one of John Lennon's Beatles songs, nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. You remember that song? He was serious. There is no reality. Everything out there that you see and touch and taste is simply a figment of your imagination. So that's how some people have an extreme distorted reality. And it's very popular. Young people say this is very profound. They're profoundly wrong. They are running from reality because they are running from the reality of God, who is the ultimate reality. It's an escape running from reality. Now, what happens when they hear about God, such as when we speak to them, it doesn't seem real to them, it doesn't fit into their category of reality. Let me give you an example. Long time ago, turn with me to the book of Genesis. Now, this was. Several thousand years ago. And it happened over there in the area of Sodom and Gomorrah, the land of Canaan. These wicked men living in Sodom and Gomorrah, the wicked homosexuals, they had human sacrifices and degenerate worship of pagan gods. And God came to Lot and said, You get your whole family out of that town, because I'm going to rain fire and brimstone on that city and all the cities around it. Everybody in those cities is going to die. So the angels went and they said, Lot, you get your family and get out of this city before God judges it all. Now, Lot believed God. He believed the angels. He had the sense of reality. He knew that there was a God. And God said, Lot, Sin is wrong. Get them out and repent. So Lot said, let me get my daughters, let me get my wife. And the daughters were married to these young men. And so Lot approached them and said, the one living God is going to punish everybody here. Let's get out while we can before we all are roasted alive. Now, look at the text, Genesis 19, verse 14. Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had mirrored his daughters, and said, get up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city. Look at this line. But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking. It didn't fit in with their reality. A God out there? We've got our own gods, Baal, Ashtoreth. We've placated them. They're not going to punish us. The sons-in-law laughed at him. He says, oh, come on now, Lot. Fire and brimstone. Ha, ha, ha. And they laughed at him. And the old man said, I'm not joking. Please, get out while you can. And the more he pleaded with them, the more they laughed. And they said, tell us another one, Lot. Just like the people laughed at Noah when he said, judgment is coming. They laughed. And they're still laughing. But we are not joking. Have you had that happen when you talk to some non-Christian and maybe they listen to you for a while and you say, now, God loves you and there's a heaven, but there's a hell because of sin. And they begin to laugh at you. And they said, hell, fire and brimstone. Boy, that went out with the horseless carriage and they laugh at you. And the more you play with them seriously, the more they laugh, like in the text. They think you're joking with them. And you say, I am not joking. This is real. And they laugh. Brethren, we are not joking. There really is a God. He really is. That's the reality. God is angry with sinners. Hell really is real. Do not laugh at this. Do not dismiss God's warning and say, this is just another joke. No, that reaction shows you're living in the world of fantasy. And you laugh at this like you're looking at some joke on television. We are not stand-up comedians when we tell you God is angry and we are facing His wrath. But back to the story. These two young men did not leave the city. And they faced the wrath of God and then they knew Lot was not joking. Lost sinners need to be woken up from their dream world of sinful fantasy. They need to be confronted by the reality of God. They need to be convinced that God is real after all, and His threats are real. And that we will face them one day. Well, all sinners need to be convinced that they're in need of salvation. That's reality. But they laugh at that. And they say, I'm not that bad. Or if I am, God's not that angry. They have a rude awakening facing them. They need to be awakened. Now, I underscore the word awakened. In church history, there have been various awakenings. We call them revival, great awakenings during the time of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and others, where God came into people's midst and he woke people up and they heard the preaching of the gospel. And they said, it's true. After all, we were just dreaming before. And they wake up and they by the droves and they sought God and they came to churches and they say, please tell us about God. We don't want to go to hell. It's real after all. They were woken up from their silly dream world. Brethren, there's no conversion without being awakened from your sleep of sin. And yet some people. They are awakened. They see that this is true, but they don't act on it properly. Maybe they've heard some old fashioned preacher. Maybe they've read the Bible. Maybe they heard at the Sunday school and they say it is true. But they don't act upon it any more than these young men left Sodom and Gomorrah. They stay in their sins, so they do various things. They don't repent. Some of them live in terror and bad dreams. Others, it's prolonged indecision. They say, I know this is true. I've been woken up. I know heaven is real. I know hell is real. I know God is angry, but they keep putting it off. Prolonged indecision. And then other ones, they just simply live a lie. They pretend that they became a Christian. They now conduct another fantasy world of their own making where they pretend that they're Christians. They pretend that they've repented. And now they pretend that they know God. They were awakened, but not converted. There's a sentence in the Bible that tells us how God wakes up sinners to His reality. It might surprise you to know that this sentence is found dozens and dozens of times in the Bible. You find it especially in Exodus and Ezekiel. And the sentence is this. Then they shall know that I am the Lord, their God. Sometimes it's then they shall know, sometimes then you shall know. And it's found in a variety of settings. Let's just look at a few of them. Some of them are found in the Book of Exodus. You know the story. The Jews were slaves of the Egyptians and God sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may come into the wilderness and serve me. And Pharaoh kept saying, who is the Lord? I don't know this, Jehovah. God, get out of here, Moses. And Moses went back again on God's behalf and did various miracles, usually miracles of destruction where people died because the water turned to blood or there were frogs everywhere, there's darkness over the land or the cattle died. And each time, look it up in the Bible, God said, when I do this destruction, then they will know that the Lord is God. They were awoken, and then they went back to their dream world. God finally judged them and delivered the Jews out, and God said, when I deliver them through the Red Sea, then you will know that I am the Lord your God. Notice the recurring phrase. And then in the wilderness, where he provided for his people, God says, then you will know that I am the Lord your God. But it wasn't just to Israel and to the Egyptians. God said, I will do certain things so that all the nations, including Americans, will know that the Lord is God. First Kings 860, Solomon prayed that God would bless, protect and provide for his people that, quote, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other. Hundreds of years later, Hezekiah prayed like that. He prayed that God would deliver Israel from the Babylonians, quote, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone. That's Isaiah 37 20. In other words, God says, I'm going to do something so that they will be woken up from their fantasy world and then they will know the reality of God, that the Lord is God. God interrupted human history in these ways to get people's attention, and he still does. Now, a form of that phrase is found in Psalm 46, 10, where God says, be still and know that I am God. And that verse is sadly mistaken by a lot of people. They think, well, that means be still and kind of have this world of fuzzy feelings and flowers and sunsets. Just kind of be still and you feel God emanating and you feel nice and warm and peaceful. That's not at all what the verse means. The Hebrew word there, be still, means something like, hush, be quiet, be still, behave yourself and listen. And God says, be still and know that I am God. He's trying to get our attention. And he says, I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. In other words, God through that verse is confronting us and saying, be quiet and listen to me. It's like God comes out of the Bible and says, are you listening to me? Are you listening to God? Then there's dozens of times God says this in the book of Ezekiel. The Jews were in exile again, not in Egypt, but in Babylon. And God dozens of times tells them that then they will know He's the Lord God when He keeps His promises and His threats. And when that comes to pass, when will they know that the Lord is God? When God confronts them with disaster and punishment and tragedies, when? Then they will know that the Lord is God. As it were, God says, they're not listening to me in nature. They're not listening to my prophets. He says, Ezekiel, you go and tell them this, quote, I'm going to do this. Then they will know I'm the Lord, their God. God's going to be shaking them as it were. And that's what God does with individuals. He comes to them and they're trying to ignore God. They distort God. They're trying to run from the reality of God. And God chases them down and grabs them and says, listen to me. I am the Lord, your God. Then you will know I am God. Has God done that to you as he chased you down? Now, let me give you an example of this, so turn to the book of Ezekiel. For time's sake, we don't have time to go through the dozens of examples, but I've selected one or two. Ezekiel chapter 6. God had to do drastic things to get their attention. And remember, he wasn't just talking about the pagans, he was talking about the Jews that had the law and the prophets. This would apply to Christians that have their Bibles and go to church, but they get into this dream world where God's not part of it. He's outside the cave, their cave. Look at Ezekiel six, verse seven. The slain shall fall in your midst and you shall know that I am the Lord. Just like in Egypt, where hundreds and thousands of people died, and God says there'll be people slain and they're going to fall in your midst. And then you will know that I am the Lord. You see, God says he is the one that holds life and death in his hands. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. That is a frightful reminder from God of his reality. And we've experienced this in our lives when a friend or a relative passes away. Maybe you've been in the presence of someone that has died. And you feel like you're in a different world. You have a strong touch of reality. You say, life has just ended. There's more to this world than I realized. That's God shaking you. And sometimes you feel that when you're at a funeral, you feel there's more to life than just what I've been living every day. God interrupts our fantasies with a hard, cold dose of His reality. He reminds us He is there, and He shows us His right. There's another verse in Ezekiel where God says, I'm going to do this without mercy. And then in chapter 13, verse 9, God says, you will know that I am the Lord your God when He punishes the false prophets. Chapter 16, verse 62, God says, you will know that I am the Lord your God when I keep my covenant. Chapter 36, verse 11, God says, you will know that I am the Lord your God when I bless you more than I've ever blessed you before. And there's a variety of ways, but they're usually in the area, when I come in with disaster and tragedy, then you will know that I am the Lord your God. Look at another interesting one, chapter 37. An unusual one, God took Ezekiel out and gave him a vision of this valley of dry bones. He says, Ezekiel, can these bones live? No. God says, yes, they can. And so God sent for the spirit and the wind came and the bones began to move and join and then sinews and flesh came upon them and the blood began to flow and they were standing up alive. Ezekiel says, what's all this mean? He says, well, this is talking about Israel will live again one day. But we also know that this is talking about when dead sinners come to life, when they are regenerated, when they are raised up from the death of sin, they are alive. But notice three times in this chapter, verses 6, 13 and 14, God says, when these bones come alive, then you will know I am the Lord your God. What's this saying? To Ezekiel, that meant Israel will know God is alive when Israel comes alive and comes out of exile. But this also happens in the life of an individual. After he's heeded the warnings of God's judgment and he's repented, he's believed, when he is born again, he says, now I know the Lord really is God. I am alive. I am out of the realm of fantasy. I'll give you another example. Turn back to 2nd Kings chapter 5. Interesting story during the time of Elisha the prophet 2nd Kings 5. Just north of Israel was the land of Syria and the king, Naaman, contracted leprosy and he knew he would die then. People stayed away from him and it was painful. He just didn't like it. God sent a little servant girl into the palace that says, oh, there's a prophet that can heal that. So the king heard about it and said, let's all go down there, went down there, confronted Elisha and Elisha said, well, that's it, we'll go and wash in the creek seven times, you'll be healed of the leprosy. And the king says, that's silly. That guy's deluded. We've got better rivers back in Syria. And then the servant said, If you said to do some great thing, you wouldn't have done that? Yes. Well, then just why don't you do what the prophet said and go bathe in the dirty creek seven times and the king did it. And it says on the seventh time when he came up, according to the word of the Lord, the leprosy was gone. His skin was as smooth as a little baby. Now, look what the king said at that time. Look at verse 15. He returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and he came and stood before him and he said, indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Therefore, please take a gift from your servant. He had been following pagan gods, but when he got healed, he woke up and said, now I know that the Lord God is the true God. Now, the application is we live in a dream world of fantasy and sin, but when we get cleansed of our sins and that's something nobody and nothing else can do, then we smile and say, now I know there really is a God that loves me and can do miracles. Recently, I've been asking a number of people such as the prison inmates that write me. How did God first get your attention? I'd like to hear from everybody here how God first got your attention. I'm not saying when did you first come to believe in God? Because you may have already believed in God, but when did God get your undivided attention? My mind goes back to a time when a man told me this was, oh, I guess 30 years ago when I was in seminary, a number of us would go to a certain park on a busy street and we'd share the gospel. We'd hand out leaflets, we'd get conversations going. If we had a large enough crowd, we'd take turns preaching to them and answering their questions. But usually there'd be hecklers there that say dirty things and ask us silly questions. I remember one day. There was a man there, I guess he was about 50, and he was as thin as a bean pole and he was bald before bald was cool. He shaved his head. He rode a bicycle everywhere and he came out to these meetings and he'd always laugh and say something obscene and say, oh, there's no God, you're making that up. Oh, that's just dreams. Then one week he showed up. This guy had a completely different demeanor. He was scared and he stood in the very front of the crowd and was listening with both ears. And I said, you look different. He said, man, something happened last week. What happened? I said, I got on my bicycle after the meeting was going home and a car hit me, knocked me off the bike, threw me about 50 feet, landed in the grass. Man, if I didn't land in the grass, the trucks would have rolled over me. I would have been dead. I was scared to death. And I said, Do you think God was getting your attention? He says, absolutely. God's got my undivided attention. And I don't know anything about churches, but I know you guys come out here and talk to me about Jesus. Tell me more about God. And I says, does God got your attention? Yes, sir. I know that there is a God. You see the point. God sometimes has to take drastic measures to get sinners attention. They live in a fantasy world. But hardcore reality wakes them up. Now, some people, they first get curious or lonely, and gradually they feel guilt and fear. But God has to get our attention to wake us up to His reality and get us out of our fantasy world of dreams and sin. What we need is a true encounter with the real God, not the myth God of many churches and non-Christian religions. An encounter with the true God is as different from those experiences as meeting a person is from just looking at his picture. A lot of churches, it's just a picture. It's not the reality. The faithful preaching of the Word of God, and this is where you meet God, that's where you will have a true encounter with the real God. A person-to-person encounter with God. And friends, it can be jolting. It can be as jolting as if you're playing with electricity and you get a jolt and it throws you to the ground. You say, whoa, wow, I didn't expect that. There are people that come to a church, never been to a church. And they're jolted by the reality of God, something. It's not the preacher, it's not the people, it's not even the music or the architecture or anything. They come there and they're jolted by God. They have an encounter with God himself. And they know that there is a God. I gave you an example in the Bible, Job. Let me give you one insight into what was happening in Job's life. He believed that there was a God. And then when he went through these difficult times, his friends came to him and tried to accuse him and he kept saying, but I still believe in God. For so many chapters, they're talking to him and he's replying back and forth, back and forth. And then toward the end of the book, God shows up. He walks into the scene and just kind of brushes these other people aside and says, Job, I'm here. You're going to have to deal with me now, Job. And Job, you've been asking me questions. I'm going to put you on the stand and ask you. God encountered the person and turned the table on Job. And now Job was the one that had his back up against the wall. He had a person to person encounter with God. And in those encounters, friends, God is the subject and we're the object, and we can't run from that. He's got us, as it were, up against the wall, and He's saying, now listen here, I want your attention now, and I want you to listen to me and know I am God. And that's what it means that we are encountered by God Himself. True conversion is the result of a life-changing encounter with the living God. A taste of hardcore reality, the reality of God. Now, false conversion is only make-believe. People go through these little exercises with the sacraments or repeating a prayer, all sorts of little gimmicks, and they've been sold a bill of goods. They think they've got the real thing. But it's religious hypocrisy. And what they need is a strong dose of the reality of God, where God comes and pulls the religious mask of hypocrisy right off their face and shows them what they are and shows them what He is. Face to face reality. And what happens when a person is truly converted? He wakes up from his dream and says, it really is true. Jesus really is the Savior. God really is God. I've really been born again. Now I know that the Lord really is God. It's like waking up from a dream or a nightmare. And then, friends, one day we'll all have to leave the cave. The Bible uses a phrase once, it says the shadows will flee away. This world is temporary. Besides, we leave it when we die. And what happens, we face God, the ultimate reality, at the judgment day. And the lost sinners will finally wake up then and they will say, now I know that the Lord is God, I see him. But it will be too late for them to repent. And in hell, they will spend eternity knowing that the Lord is God. And they will say, how could I have been so crazy and so foolish to live in that dream world, denying the reality of God? It'll be too late. They will spend eternity knowing the reality of God. But for Christians, they will spend eternity seeing God and knowing His reality more than ever before. They will be out of the cave in the light of God's glory and love forever. And that is reality. Let me give you four applications. Number one. Have you truly experienced the reality of God? Not just, well, I come to church, I read a Bible, I know these little stories. No, no, no, that's not what I'm asking you. Have you had a personal, life-changing encounter with the living God? Make sure. Don't settle for anything less or anything else. Don't settle for phony religion. Examine your experience and your beliefs in the light of the Bible. The Bible says, examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. And if you fail the test, you are still living in a fantasy world of sin and religiosity. You don't have the real thing. God comes to you and says, wake up! He is real. Make sure you have the real thing. Wake up and repent. For one day you will know that the Lord is God. And what do you do? I encourage you, I plead with you to find God where He is most likely to be found. In the Bible. Keep reading the Bible. Keep coming to church to hear the preaching of the Bible. This is, as it were, the way in which God comes to you. That's why I quoted the stories about how God spoke through the prophets that delivered the Word of God. Number two. Take seriously God's warnings. You remember, He keeps saying, I warn you about these things because on that day you will know that I am the Lord. It's as if God is saying on that day you will know that I meant business with my threats and warnings. God says He encounters people so that they will know He is God when He sends these adverse disasters, but If we truly believe in God and repent of our sins, if we truly come to God, we will know he's the real God without having to experience those tragedies and judgments. You see how it works. God says, I'm going to warn you, you will know then. But if you believe me now, those disasters will have a completely different flavor. When those disasters come upon the lost, it will be, as it were, a judgment to them. But for the believer, either they will be spared or those disasters are transformed into blessings. Take seriously God's warnings. Number three. Do not project your fantasy world onto the reality of God. Remember the story about the cave? Get out of the cave. Come to God and don't project your fantasy world on the true world. In other words, don't project your imagination of God onto the real God. Don't say, I like to think God is like this. No, don't say, well, I don't believe in that wrath of God stuff or the Trinity or this. I believe in a nice God or this, that and the other. No, that is projecting your fantasy onto reality that shows you're still in the darkness of the cave. Come and believe in God exactly as He is. You cannot improve upon Him. And when you try to improve upon Him, that's an insult, it's blasphemy, it's idolatry. Instead, believe in God exactly as He said He is. That's believing in the reality of God. Fourthly and lastly, dear brethren, live every part of your life in light of the reality of God. You see, when we come to church, maybe we're confronted with that. But when we go back into the world out there, as it were, we're back in the cave with the shadows and people there don't live in the light of God's reality. It's easy for us to go along with that. But brethren, do not do that. God is here, but God is there. God is everywhere. Wherever you go, experience the reality of God. At school, at work, when you shop, when you drive down the street, you always realize, this is my Father's world. I don't see Him, but I know He's right here. Experience and believe in the reality of God everywhere. Or as one person wrote a book on this theme, practice the presence of God everywhere. And brethren, thank God. That He encountered you. He woke you up. And He transformed your life with the reality of God. Let us pray. Lord, it is true. You are God. We know it. We know it because you say so and you have encountered us. Help us to live in the reality of your world, not our dream world. Help us to trust you and follow you all the days of this life until we leave this cave of shadows and see you face to face. We pray for our lost friends and relatives. We pray that you would encounter them and shake them up. Get their attention. Wake them up, O Lord. And save them. So that then they too will know the Lord is God. In Jesus' name, Amen.