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All right, good evening, everyone.
Welcome to our service tonight. Good to see you all here. Trust
the Lord. We'll bless our time together.
As we open our time in prayer, just a couple of quick reminders.
Wednesday evening, we do have a business meeting. and the agenda
items center on our general church budget and then our missions
budget. So those will be the two big
items we'll talk about. There'll be a couple of other
things as well. One of which is a roof on the gym. So I'll
just kind of plant that thought in your mind because it's that
time where we need to replace another roof. It's the last roof
that we have to replace until Brother Rick and I are no longer
on the scene. And then you younger folks can
deal with it. But we'll talk about that Wednesday
night. And then next Sunday is our Independence Day service. 11 o'clock is our start time.
That's an aberration from norm. But again, that's so you can
invite folks to come out. It's late in the morning. They
can't use the excuse, I like to sleep in on Sunday. And it
is outdoors, under the tent. So pray for good weather. The
purpose of it is as we are expressing our gratitude for God's grace
and allowing us to live with the freedoms and liberties that
we have here in America, that we eventually get to the cross
and the real liberty that all men need. So they will hear the
gospel. Anyone you bring will have an opportunity to hear the
gospel. So I hope you have been. I hope you will invite someone
if you haven't. And we'll pray the Lord will
give us an opportunity to build some bridges with folks next
Sunday as well. Let's ask the Lord's blessing on our time together
tonight. Father, we thank you for the opportunity we have to
gather together in your house on this Sunday evening. Trust,
Lord, your blessing to be upon us. Lord, thanking you for your
care and provision that we enjoy every day, individually, as families,
and as a church. Lord, you have been very gracious
and very good to us, and we truly want to express our gratitude
to you. Father, we do pray that you would direct us tonight in
this service, that you would be with us Wednesday evening
for our normal Wednesday evening fair, but also, Lord, that you
would bless our time in our business meeting, that we would do things
decently and in order and honor you as we conduct your business.
And Father, we pray that you would be with our service next
Sunday. Help us, Lord, to have a good day weather-wise, but
we pray that we will have visitors. We pray, Lord, that we might
have an opportunity to use that as an outreach and that, Lord,
you would bring those to us whom you would have to come and that
we would be able to share the gospel. And, Lord, how wonderful
it would be if we had the opportunity to rejoice with those who rejoice
in the presence of the angels in heaven because of one sinner
that repents. Lord, we would look forward to
that. We will rejoice in how you use that service. So thank
you. Bless our time here this evening. We'll give you the glory
as we pray in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen. All right,
you may be seated. I'm going to do something a little
bit different tonight. And for some of you who have
good memories, you may say, wow, this sounds familiar. And I would
say, good. You remember. Do you remember
now what the points are? because that's why I'm repeating
it. Now you're saying, okay, what
are you going to repeat? It's all repetitive. There's
nothing new under the sun anyway, right? I want to talk to you
tonight about five reasons that atheists cannot know that God
does not exist. Now, does that sound familiar?
Well, I see nobody saying, I remember that. So maybe it's not as familiar
as I thought it might be. It's been a little while since
we talked about this. And it's not new to me. It's
not something that I had the brainpower to put together myself.
So I'm borrowing what others have said. But I think it's good
from the standpoint of the world in which you and I live. those
who claim to be atheists in the world around us. I think it's
good for us to have an apologetic kind of message, and really that's
what this would be, more of an apologetic defense of our faith,
but it's doing so by attacking the atheists. So I hope in our
sharing this with you it might give you some ammunition. You
may have a family member, a co-worker, maybe a friend even, who claims
to be an atheist, who claims that they do not believe in God,
and I hope that this will be helpful for you. So five reasons
that atheists cannot know that God does not exist. So we'll
see how long this takes, right? Number one, They don't know what
is in their neighbor's garage without looking inside. Now does
it sound familiar? Dr. Brea is saying, yeah, kind
of. If I'm not mistaken, in my mind,
it was like three years ago we did this. But according to my
notes, it was 2017. So you kind of got an excuse there. Seven
years ago, I guess maybe, I'm expecting a lot. But that first
point is one that I hoped would kind of touch a little bit. Let
me share it with you again. They don't know what is in their
neighbor's garage without looking inside. That's the first point
about why an atheist cannot know that God does not exist. What
do we mean by that? Well, we're talking about human
limitations. Atheists have human limitations. That's not a surprise, right?
Let me read for you in Job chapter 38. Job chapter 38. I'm going to begin reading in
verse 2. I'm going to read down through verse 4. Of course, we're
familiar with this passage, but I think it speaks to this particular
point. So, the Scripture reads, Who
is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird
up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer
thou me." Here's what the Lord is saying. Job, answer this question. Where was thou when I laid the
foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. So here, God is asking Job a
question. Job, were you there when I created
the world? Now what's Job's answer going
to be? No. So the Lord is, in essence, giving
a rhetorical question here. Obviously it's going to be no,
the answer. But the point of the question
is, Job, you do not know what you do not know. Or to use this
point, Job, you do not know what is in your neighbor's garage
unless you go and look into the garage. You cannot make a definitive
statement about what is in your neighbor's garage if you've never
looked into the garage. You might make some guesses.
And you may be right. You may not be right. Some people
use their garages to park their cars. Some people use their garages
to store stuff. Some people's stuff is organized.
Some people's stuff is just sort of scattered. What is in there? Some people don't even know themselves
what is in their garage. So how could a neighbor know
unless the neighbor actually looks into the garage and maybe
has to begin taking notes and doing an inventory of what is
in that garage? Now, the right answer then to
the Lord's question here is humble silence. One must have knowledge
and experience of ultimate realities to speak with authority about
ultimate realities. Does that make sense? An honest
atheist would have to claim to be an agnostic. Because an agnostic
at least is honest enough to say, I don't know. But an atheist
is making a definitive statement about an ultimate reality without
the ability to know ultimate reality. There is no God. How can they say that? How can
they make that statement? For instance, what atheist has
ever been beyond this universe? The dimensions of the life in
which you and I live. We are well equipped because
God has given us senses We are well-equipped to use these senses
to experience the universe in which you and I live. We are
woefully ill-equipped to know anything beyond. So we would
ask the question, what happens after a person dies? Can anyone know? Can we experience
that? Well, we all will likely experience
it, but then we're not going to be able to come back and report.
Now, someone did, and someone did come back and report, and
that was the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, was buried,
and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, and
is our high priest ever living to make intercession for us today.
So, an atheist can claim knowledge without revelation, without divine
revelation, and in reality what he is doing is being fanciful. What atheist has ever been on
the other side of the universe? Have you ever read what these
scientists say? I have read recently that the
experts... What makes you an expert in an
infinite reality? if you are not able to know infinite
reality. But the experts I've read where
some say that if we could transfer ourselves back to that point,
that singularity, that grand event called the Big Bang, that
from that point forward, time is flowing the way you and I
are familiar with it. But on the other side of the
Big Bang, time flows backwards. Not sure quite how that works.
Does that mean you're old and then you get young? I'm not sure. But, how do they know? How can
an expert make that kind of statement? I'm sure you have heard that
there are an infinite number of universes. The multiverse. And that they found evidence
Something else I've read recently. They found evidence of other
universes. And what were those evidences? Fanciful, made-up stuff. Because
there is no evidence of something they can't prove, because it's
all fantasy. It's science fiction. But they're
the experts. And so when they make these statements,
people grab hold of it and they say, well, they're scientists.
They're so much smarter than we are. Are they? When they make statements about
infinite realities that they cannot test, they cannot prove,
their expertise is simply made up in the fact that they have
a good imagination. and therefore they can make statements
and who can question them. With all of our advances in scientific
knowledge, we still can't measure the universe. We still don't
know what is beyond. Let me ask you a question. Is
it possible for us to go to the edge of the universe? And if we got to the edge of
the universe, what would we find? I mean, if you believe in the
Big Bang, you have to believe there was nothing. What is nothing? And then everything exploded
out of that. And now it's been expanding through
all of these billions of years. Expanding into what? If there
was nothing, then we're expanding into nothing. They cannot answer
these questions because they can't go to the other side of
the universe and find it. Even the question I read recently,
where is the center of the universe? And when you read through it,
and granted, they're a lot smarter than I am, my takeaway from it
was, well, we really don't know because there probably isn't
a center of the universe because everything just sort of like
ping pong balls just sort of exploded and bounced into each
other. So what you're saying is you don't know. They don't
know infinite reality because it is impossible. So how can
anyone know that God does not exist beyond the universe as
we know it? How can they know that? How can
they make that definitive dogmatic statement? In fact, atheists
would need knowledge of everything in the universe and beyond to
legitimately know that God does not exist. They would have to
be able to see everything and know everything to be able to
make that definitive statement that God does not exist. They
can't do that. But they can't acknowledge that. One thing that we have to understand
about the science that is practiced today, where do scientists get their
money? I mean, do they do what they do gratis? I mean, are they
just so enamored with doing science that they do it and they starve?
Where do they get paid? They get grants. They get grants
from corporations and from the government, and that's how they
get paid. And what is the purpose of a
grant? Well, I would like to do a study about X. And here's
why I want to do that study, and here's what I think I'm going
to be able to prove in this study. What's going to happen if they
keep having studies and disproving what they think? They're not
going to get any more grants. Human nature being what it is,
You can fudge statistics, right? I mean, I've shared with you
78% of all statistics are made up. How do I know that? Because I just made that up.
Because that's the character of statistics. You can pull statistics
to prove whatever you want to prove. And that's what they have
to do. I'm not saying all scientists
are liars, so don't mistake what I'm saying. But I'm saying that
human nature being what it is, there is a definite pressure
on them to live up to whatever the prevailing thought is at
the moment. Because they've learned, if you
go against the prevailing thought, you're not going to get the grants.
You're not going to get the money. You're not going to be able to
do the science. So that's a reality. They don't know what they don't
know. They don't know what is in their neighbor's garage unless
they go and look. And they don't have the ability
to look, if you will, in God's garage. Number two. There are
five of these. This is number two. God is infinite
spirit. 1 Timothy. In the book of 1 Timothy 1, verse
17, Paul writes now, unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible,
the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. So he tells us he is the king
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. And then chapter
6, verse 16, Paul continues and writes, who only hath immortality,
dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no
man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. He is immortal. He is everlasting. He is the
light that no man can approach. To deny God's existence because
we haven't seen Him says nothing about the actual existence of
God. Is that true? I have never seen Abraham Lincoln.
I have seen his statue in D.C., but I've not seen him, so how
do I know he exists? Well, he's in the history books.
So is Jesus Christ, but you'll read a lot of authors who say,
well, he didn't really exist. And what you read about him,
well, those were written by people who wanted to purvey the myth
that he existed, and so they wrote history that really isn't
history. But we can't really say he existed. But Abraham Lincoln did, because
he's in the history books. You see the reasoning? And by the way, there are famous
Greek writings that we only have one copy of, but because we have
that one copy, That is reality. We have one copy from 600 B.C. But that's true. That wasn't
made up. Because we have one copy. But if you have a Bible,
the Old Testament, that was written a thousand years before that,
Well, that's been made up through the years. That wasn't written
until after the captives came back. That's all make-believe. There was no David. There was
no Solomon. Don't you guys know that? Even
though we can look in history and find proof. Dr. Brea has
been doing a job of that over the last year and a half or so
in his Sunday school class, demonstrating the archaeology and all of that
that prove these things. The point is simple. People believe
what they want to believe. They haven't seen God, therefore
God must not exist. There was a famous historical event. This was back in the 60s. A Soviet
cosmonaut, this was back in the old Soviet Union, looked out
the window of a space capsule and he declared that he did not
see God And since he didn't see God,
there is no God. I'm looking, I don't see God out here anywhere.
Now, is that the scientific method to test the existence of God?
Just because you look out a window and say, well, I don't see God
anywhere, orbiting around the earth. Someone noted, by the
way, if he had opened the window of his capsule, he would have
seen God. Maybe not the way he would have
expected. The fact that the universe is
designed and ordered with uniform and universal physical laws allowed
him to be in space in the first place, contrary to random chance. Without God, there would be no
space capsule. There would have been no cosmonaut.
It would not have been possible. It is because of God that we
can do science, that we can have math. that we can do engineering. If it were not for the immutable
laws of science, if it were not for the design in creation, then
we couldn't have a building like this and you could not be sitting
on those comfortable pews. It is precisely because there
is a God who created everything not by mere chance. He created
it by fiat, by the word of His mouth, and He created it, He
designed it, so that you and I could benefit from it, and
so that we could have dominion over it because of the brains,
the minds that He gave to us. So we owe it all to Him. Number
three. Human opinion cannot serve as the ultimate standard of what
God can be or what God can do. Let me say that again. Human
opinion cannot serve as the ultimate standard of what God can be or
what God can do. So they ask questions. How can
a good God exist with so much suffering in the world? You've
heard that question, right? How can God make the sun stand
still in the sky? How can a man live in a fish
for three days? How can a man be born of a virgin?
There are many other questions, right, that they want to throw
out there to confront the believer. The majority of which disappear
in the face of a God whose infinite power cannot be limited by the
properties of the universe that He created and that He sustains. Now beyond that obvious answer,
Many difficult theological mysteries face our finite fallen understanding,
right? How could God cause the sun to
stand still? Because He is God. Yes, but if
He did that, look at all the other catastrophes. He created
the sun, He created the earth. Does He have the power to cause
the sun to stand still and the earth to not have to stop rotating
and fly off into nothingness. God can do what he chooses to
do. If we could understand everything
about an infinite God in his universe, you know what that
would make us? We would have to be God. Because
the only way we could understand everything about an infinite
God is if we were infinite ourselves. So when we say, well, God does
not exist because I can't see Him. I can't prove He exists. I saw a cartoon recently. Maybe
you saw this too. It was a bunch of fleas. And they were having a meeting.
And clearly, when you look, you thought there were trees around
them. It wasn't trees. It was the hair
of a dog. And in their meeting, they were
making the statement If we can't prove there's a dog, a dog doesn't
exist. You get the point? They're living
on the back of the dog, but they couldn't prove the dog exists.
Well, we live in a universe that God created, and yet man wants
to question whether he exists because they're looking for proof
that he exists. to deny truths taught by Scripture
about God and His work because we do not understand them, or
because they go beyond what we know, is to say in effect, what
I cannot understand cannot be true. What I don't understand
cannot be true. You know, I dare say that there
are some students in our high school who would love to make
that argument. If I don't understand calculus
or trigonometry, that can't be true. If I don't understand chemistry,
it can't be true. And what would we say to them?
Is their lack of understanding proof positive that there is
no chemistry or higher mathematics? We would say no. The problem
isn't in whether those exist. They exist. The problem is in
the student, right? Well, I would submit that the
fact that I may not understand how God could speak and create
everything doesn't mean that God cannot speak and create everything.
It simply means I do not have the capacity in my finiteness
to understand the infinite God of heaven. We cannot make the
finite and fallen the ultimate standard of who God is and what
God can do. That's what an atheist wants
to do. He wants to somehow take the infinite God and judge Him
by their own finiteness. In my finiteness, I can't prove
God exists, therefore He does not exist. People who do not
know the contents of their neighbor's garage or have never been beyond
the universe and its existence cannot legitimately make their
personal opinion the standard of truth concerning ultimate
realities. You know, Satan is so good at
what he does. I'm not trying to say Satan is
good. He is evil. But he is, in his evilness, pretty
intelligent. Lucifer, son of the morning.
And one of the things in our generations that he has done
so well is to confuse the minds of men. You know this. It is
possible, according to our world and our culture, for my truth
and your truth to be contradictory. I mean, you have your truth and
I have my truth, And what's true for you is true for you, and
what's true for me is true for me, and what is true for each
of us may not mesh together, but that's okay because you're
entitled to your truth and I'm entitled to my truth. Is that
reality? Because if that's reality, then
what we are actually saying is there is no truth. Right? I mean, if we can have opposing
truths that are both true, then we're saying there's a lot of
truth out there, but there is no ultimate truth. And if there
is no ultimate truth, what is science? Because isn't science based upon
the reality that we can, in a lab, duplicate certain things and
prove them? I mean, the laws of nature, as
we've said in the past. Is gravity a reality? Well, that's
true for you. It doesn't have to be true for
me. So I'm going to jump out that
window, and I'm just going to float out to Union Road and then
float my way home. What's going to happen when I
dive out that window? Whether I accept the reality
and the truth of gravity or not, The reality of gravity is going
to grab me, and I'm going to suffer the consequences. There
is absolute truth. Jesus himself said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. He is the Word made flesh. He embodies truth. And He has
given us that truth in His revelation so that you and I can study it
and know what it is. It is sad to live in a world
where Satan has blinded the minds of them who believe not, that
they are so illogical as to make the claim, my truth and your
truth may not be compatible and may be in opposition to each
other, but they're both legitimate. Satan simply says, I got these
dumb people right where I want them. Because it is a choice
to not accept the reality of truth. Number four, the universe
is not built or operating according to random chance. What is the
whole point of evolution? I mean, how did we get here? Random chance. And what do you
need with that viewpoint. Time. Deep time. What I really wanted to do tonight
was to show a video. You remember we used to do that
on Sunday nights? And we saw a lot of good videos, didn't
we? COVID kind of messed that up a little bit. We might get
back to doing some of that this fall, because I think there's
great value in that, when we have folks who are scientists,
who are Christian scientists, who are able to share with us,
from a scientific viewpoint, realities that maybe you and
I would not be aware of. And this whole idea that it takes
all of these billions and billions of years for sheer chance to
somehow have everything fall in place so that through evolution
we can be here today. I read this recently. That there
is a growing opinion that that viewpoint is really not as strong
as it should be. And so there are now some experts
who were saying that evolution must have design. Now just think about that for
a moment. They want to assign to an impersonal process some
idea of design built in, because after all, how can you get through
chaos from nothing to us? So there's got to be some design
in there. But they can't bring themselves to say there has to
be a designer. So it has to be evolution and
something in the process of evolution also has design. Okay, you're almost there. They need to take the next step
and say, well, if there is design, there must be a designer. And we would say, yes. And that
designer is Almighty God. who designed and created everything. So, random chance will not answer
the question. To deny God's existence, the
atheist leaves time and chance as the principle behind the universe.
Yet all material and energy in the universe operate according
to fixed universal laws. There could be no language, no
truth, no knowledge, no science. If there was no... If it was
all by random chance, none of that could exist. for the sake
of argument. If you and I could live in a
place that was totally governed by chance, what would that be
like? Wouldn't that be a difficult
place to live? If there were not hard and fast
rules baked in, and it was all by chance, See, that's their
dilemma. They can't really explain these
things. Nothing could be known or said to be true of anything
because nothing could have fixed characteristics. We know the
meaning of a dog and a tree because dogs and trees don't change.
They're the same today as they were 2,000 years ago. The terms
would be meaningless if everything randomly changed. Nothing could
be said about anything. How can you do science when the
scientists and the lab and everything else are constantly changing?
Our universe isn't like that. We know that. We have knowledge.
We have language. We do science. We build things
because the elements we discover And manipulate will have the
same properties tomorrow as they do today. No one lives their
life according to a universe built and operating according
to random chance. Everyone lives assuming an ordered
reality that operates according to fixed and universal laws.
Let me just try to give an illustration. Have you ever thought about how
you can drive down the road in Union Road? 45 miles an hour
is the speed limit. That is the speed limit. You're limited to 45. Technically,
you can go faster, but that's as fast as you're supposed to
go. But that means if you're going south on Union and somebody
else is going north on Union, they're doing 45 and you're doing
45. Boy, what happens if you run into each other? Aren't you
glad there are some rules baked into Union Road? One of which
is, if you're going south, you need to be on this side. And
if you're going north, you need to be on this side. We have some
lights. Red means stop. My wife would say, that's right,
it means stop. That doesn't mean hit the accelerator. Yellow means
you hit the accelerator. Red means stop. But the reality
is we can drive on highways because we have rules, and those rules
are to be followed. What happens when we ignore those
rules? What would happen if suddenly
the government that is federal or state or local were to say,
we are suspending all highway laws. It now simply boils down to whatever
you are comfortable doing. How long would it take until
most of the cars would no longer be operating? Now, you might
try to do the right thing, but how could you control somebody
else? What I'm simply trying to describe is, if there were
no laws in creation, we would live in that kind of chaos. It
wouldn't work. It wouldn't last. Atheists do
not live as if their worldview is actually true. I think that's
the bottom line. And then finally, life is required
to produce life. And the impersonal cannot produce
the personal. Life makes life after its kind.
Is this a fair statement? Babies come from a man and a
woman who were once babies. who came from a man and a woman
who were once babies. Right? Every one of us who is
a grandparent here tonight, we were once babies. And their parents
were once babies. What am I trying to say? Well,
chickens come from eggs laid by chickens who were once eggs. Is that true? You say, well,
what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, I think the
chicken came first because God created the chicken as an adult
chicken, but from that original creation, just like Adam and
Eve were created fully formed adults, but they had children
who had children who had children, and so on. We can say that plants
come from seeds that came from plants that were once seeds.
So okay, we get it. The point is, there's a closed
loop of life that can only exist because God first created life. The personal cannot come from
the impersonal. Energy and non-living stuff simply
cannot create a soul or a conscience. Something else that I read recently.
You know, one of the problems of science has been, how do you
explain conscience? Because if all we are is a machine
basically that came about because of random chance mixed with deep
time, then why is it that we have a consciousness that we
are? I mean, I am. I think, therefore I am. It was that Descartes that said
that, I think. One of those guys. Why is it
that we have a knowledge that we exist? Here's something I
read recently, because they can't really explain where the conscience
comes from. So I've read two things about
conscience. Experts. The first is, you know, it may
very well be that the universe has a conscience. And we're just sort of like,
you know, random synapses in our brains. You know, oh, that
was Dana that just, you know, that little synapse was Dana.
You're a different synapse. But they were in the larger consciousness
of the universe. Where did these experts get that?
Well, they're trying to explain conscience. And it's much easier
to believe that the universe has a conscience than there is
to believe there's a God who created the universe. So here's another explanation
of the conscience. It really doesn't exist. You really don't have a consciousness
of yourself. You just think that you do. How
does that work again? So I have a consciousness that
I have a consciousness that I exist because I really... Do you see
the illogic? But that's another way they want
to explain it. They can't accept it because if you accept that
there's something that is immaterial about us, then what does that
say about an immaterial God who created us? So we have to do
away with the whole sense that there's something immaterial.
So I can't really have a conscience. I can't really have a consciousness
that I exist. Because that means there's a
part of me that is not material. You know, I'm glad that I don't
have to believe what these experts believe. They can parade themselves
around and they can get all this money from the government and
they can have all the accolades and they can pat themselves on
the back and give themselves all these awards But at the end
of the day, the Bible says something about them. Professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools. That's the reality. The simple
cell is more sophisticated than anything that the genius of man
has ever produced. A simple cell. Trillions of atoms
organized to form a cell. Trillions of cells cooperating
and communicating to make and reproduce a person, including
consciousness of life. A simple cell that just came
into being in some primordial pool of some, you know, chemicals
that somehow coalesced in a certain place, and somehow the building
blocks of life began to build, and somehow they became living
cells that could reproduce themselves, and somehow they got together
and said, hey, you know, if we join together, we can really
become something, and here we are. How did all that happen? The eye, according to the experts,
the eye, which is one of the most sophisticated parts of our
anatomy, the ability for us to see the world around us, you
realize, according to the experts, independently, the eye has evolved,
it's either three or four times. Independently. as sophisticated
as it is, with parts that only exist because other parts exist,
so which part came first? Remember, we saw that some years
ago when we had one of our films. So, it's so silly that they want
to claim that they know what they cannot know. Atheists are
certainly entitled to their opinion, And one day they will learn the
truth, but opinions they are, and they're contrary to the nature
of reality. In the end, atheists are just
as limited as everybody else. They can claim that they are
the intelligent people and look down on the rest of us because
we're just not as intelligent as they are. We're just not able,
we're not sophisticated enough to look at the facts. Many years
ago, right after I got saved, I, as a young believer, 15 years old, not quite 15, this
was probably been a month or so of my becoming a Christian,
I had an uncle at the time who was a microbiologist. worked
on some major things in the country, worked for Abbott Labs. Some
of you know Abbott Labs. He was very successful. I talked
to him one day, and he was sad. I said, why do you look down? And he said, well, I just lost
$100,000 in the stock market on my AT&T stock. OK. I guess that would make me sad
too, but that wasn't all he had. I love my Uncle Paul. He's no
longer living. He came to know Christ later
in life. But as a young believer, and
I think he had designs that I was going to follow in his footsteps.
I still have microbiology books that he kind of helped share
with me. just never could get rid of them.
He did his best to explain to me why there is no God. There
can be no God. And he was a scientist, and so
he knew more than this 15-year-old boy. Well, I'm so, so thankful
that I could say to my uncle, I may not know much, But I know
this is truth. And I would not give an inch.
Now, I was probably stubborn. And he was probably stubborn.
And we had that conversation off and on for a number of years.
In fact, one day, when I was in college, and we were having
this discussion one summer, he looked at me and said, you know,
people who are really convinced about what they believe don't
find it necessary to argue about it. I've thought about that through
the years and never had the chance to ask him. Was he kind of giving
a little ground there, saying, you know, maybe he's starting
to learn some things I can't answer? I don't know. But I am
grateful that he made a profession of faith in Christ before he
died. That he was able to look beyond his expertise as a scientist. You have them in your family.
And I'm not just talking about scientists. I'm talking about
people who buy into that whole idea, God does not exist. You have them in your family.
You probably have neighbors who feel that way. I have a cousin who recently
made the statement on Facebook that we are all God. There is
no God, but collectively each one of us is our own God. Interesting. There are all kinds of viewpoints
in the world, but there's only one viewpoint that matters, and
that's this book. Because this book is the true
God of heaven, the creator of heaven and earth, who not only created everything
and sustains everything, but in his wise providence, He has
given us this book, which is an absolute true record of history. When this book touches on history,
it is absolutely correct. Sorry to keep saying I read recently.
I read something else recently. That they found evidence of the
Assyrian army in southern Israel. In the Negev desert. Wow! What is the point? Well, the Bible talks about the
Assyrian army encamping in the time of Hezekiah in that desert. Wow! The Bible has some facts
that are true. Yeah, all the facts are true. I'm glad that we have this book.
I'm glad that you and I do not have to bow to those experts
who say there is no God. We know there is a God. And we
know that everyone one day is going to stand before Him. You
need no other evidence than the human body. Because of the complexity
of these bodies and of our minds, there has to be a God. Chance
and time will not result in this. There is a God. I am grateful
that He loved me. I am grateful that He provided
salvation for me through Christ. And I am grateful that I can
rest upon His promises and one day I will be with Him in a new
heaven and a new earth and the curse will be gone. Wouldn't
that be wonderful? That day will come. Until that
day comes, don't be cowed by the experts. Don't let them steal
your joy. You can rejoice. They can claim
to be the intelligentsia if that makes them feel better about
themselves. But one day, they're going to stand before the God
of heaven. I'm glad my sin was judged at
the cross. And I'm glad that I can stand
on His promise. I hope you can rejoice in that as well. Let's
pray. Father, I thank you tonight that we could have what was really
an apologetic, just simply looking at this idea of atheism and what
atheists believe, and Lord, how they cannot really make the statements
they make and how they are really not as logical as they want to
claim to be. I'm grateful, Father, that you
are the creator and sustainer of all things. And I'm grateful
that you so loved us, that you gave your only begotten son,
that he gave his life willingly, sacrificially, substitutionarily
for us. I'm grateful, Father, that I
today can stand before you, not in my own righteousness, but
in the righteousness of Christ. Father, I thank you that I can
look forward to the day when I see you face to face. I believe
today I believe that you are. And I look forward to the day
when I see you with my own eyes. Until that day comes, may I be
faithful. May these believers and these
families and may our church be faithful. And may you be honored
in our midst. Well, thank you and give you
the glory as we pray this in Christ's name and for his sake.
Five Reasons Atheists Must Know God Exists
Pastor Cline covers five reasons that atheists actually know God exists: (1) They don't know what is in their neighbor's garage without looking, (2) God is infinite Spirit, and we are not, (3) Human opinion can't be the standard to judge God, (4) Chance Can't Explain the Worl as we have it, and (5) Only life can come from life and only persons can come from persons.
| Sermon ID | 623242339367047 |
| Duration | 51:20 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | 1 Timothy 1:17; Job 38:2-4 |
| Language | English |
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