THE REALITY OF GOD

From existence to Reality

By William R. Cunningham
For Sermon October 5, 2003

INTRODUCTION

We are going to discuss the reality of God in this lesson. What I mean by the reality of God is the effectiveness of your knowledge of and relationship with God. In other words, the reality of God has real meaning to you and to such an extent that God and His ways influence your life.

I am going to divide this topic into three sections, which are listed below.

1. The existence of God
2. The Identity of God: Who is God?
3. The reality of God

The purpose of this lesson is primarily for training in ministry. The great commission of the church is to make disciples of all people (Matthew 28:19). Therefore, we endeavor to preach the Gospel to the people that we meet according to the principles of effective evangelism. We build relationships and we share our faith in our normal day-to-day activities. However, there are those who do not receive Christ because of problems that they have with the existence of God or the identity of God. We should therefore be ready to share our faith and knowledge to help people over the hindrances as they move towards Christ.

Faith in Jesus Christ requires a reality of God. Why is this so? Well Jesus said that He and the Father are one (John 12:44-50, 10:30). Jesus also said that the Father sent Him. Therefore, in order to believe in Jesus Christ, we must believe in God. However, not all people have to see evidence of the existence of God. Some people hear the Gospel and believe in Jesus Christ without a discussion on the existence of God.

We see that it is very important that we begin with the Gospel of Jesus Christ when we share our faith with others. This is primarily due to the fact that a mere acceptance of the existence of God does not bring us to Christ. I admit that it is in the right direction, but it is not necessarily the path to Christ, as we will see later in this study. It is important to always begin with the Gospel and deal with issues as they arise if they indeed do. Some people will hear the Gospel but have issues with God or his existence. It all depends on the person and it therefore is a great idea to be as prepared as possible with real answers.

So it is not necessary that a person be convinced that there is a God before they can come to Christ. The Bible assumes a God and in no way attempts to prove his existence. Consider the following Scriptures.

• Psalm 14:1, 53:1
• Isaiah 43:10-13
• Isaiah 44:6, 45:5-7
• Hosea 13:4
• Genesis 1:1

The Bible doesn't purpose to give us evidence to the existence of God though many clues are within it. The Bible gives us much in the way of knowing who God is and what He is like. Again, the Bible assumes there is a God and doesn't prove or show that one does exist in the first place.

Sometimes there are things that hinder some people from accepting the Gospel of Christ. This could include any of the following and more.

1. People believe that God simply does not exist (Atheism)
2. People believe that we can never know if God really exists or if we could know him if he did exist
3. People don't believe in the God of the Bible because of the Problem of Evil or the Problem of Pain. For those and similar reasons they believe that a God cannot exist; at least not as he is revealed by the Bible. It would be good for the reader here to consider looking up Deism.

In general, a god issue hinders some people than they are of the actual Gospel. Our task is to help these people get over the hump so that they would receive Christ as their Lord and Savior.

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

First let us deal with the God issue. We said previously that some people have problems pertaining to the existence of God and God's relationship with His creation. We will discuss the former point now and leave the latter for the next section.

Does God exist? That is the basic question of many people. Some believe that God does not exist and others believe that we cannot know God even if he does exist. Some even believe that we can never know for sure that God really exists. I of course believe that God does exist and by belief is based on more than blind faith. I believe that there is evidence in science and humanity that point to God the creator. Again I should stress that providing evidence of the existence of God and convincing someone that God really exists will not necessarily lead that person to Christ. Therefore, we should always be sure to present the Gospel of Christ to those that we help with their god issue.

Let me share with you the evidence that I believe points to the creator, namely God.

1. Nature
2. Science: 1^st and 2^nd laws of thermodynamics
3. Theory of Relativity and the expanding universe
4. Astronomical observations

Let me briefly present these sources of evidence to you now.

Nature

All of nature points to a creator. How could the things that exist now come into being? What caused the first grass blade to manifest? What caused the first animal to appear? Nature indeed points to a creator. There are various philosophies and theories that attempt to explain the creation apart from God but all efforts have been futile. One major theory is called the Theory of evolution. This theory suggests that all living things evolved from lower class organisms until we get back to the single cell ameba.

The theory of evolution exists in three forms according to the "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics." These forms are cosmic evolution, chemical evolution, and biological evolution. These in turn deal with the three respective areas of evolution: the origin of the universe, the origin of first life, and the origin of new life forms. Again, this attempts to explain things apart from God.

Nature also includes the attributes of humans. For example, where did we get the concept of fairness or justice? Why are some things considered universally wrong? Why is it considered a bad thing to hurt someone without a cause? Why does it seem intrinsic to want to return a favor? Where do our sense of morality or good morals come from?

When we look at the trees we are left to wonder about its origin. We wonder how did all of creation come to be. We wonder if things could have simply evolved from simpler and simpler forms of matter and even life. However, we are still left to wonder the origins of those even simple forms. Where did they come from? We are left to contemplate on the possibility of a great creator that created all that exists today. Is there any other evidence for the existence of God that is more objective?

The Laws of Thermodynamics

Yes I believe there is more objective evidence of the existence of God. Let's turn our attention to science. That's right! I said science. Many people consider science and theology to be opposed to each other. However, true science is a methodology of seeking. We seek to understand our universe. We use theology to help us understand the creator. So they are indeed compliments of each other and not opponents.

There are two things in science that stand out in our quest for the existence of God. They are the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Now I love physics, but I will spare you the details about these two laws, though I don't claim to be well versed in these, as I am not a physicist. Let me summarize them below.

1. The first law of thermodynamics is the statement of scientific observations and experiments that energy is neither destroyed nor created in a closed system. Energy in a closed system is therefore conserved. The only way to get more energy into a closed system is to transfer energy to it from an external source, which would make the system no longer closed.
2. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the entropy of any system increases. The following is an excerpt from www.2ndlaw.com/entropy.html, which gives a good summary of this second law.
   
   Rocks and balls fall if you drop them, tires blow out if there's a hole in them, hot pans cool down in cool rooms, iron rusts spontaneously in air, paper and wood in air will burn and make carbon dioxide and water (if you give them a little boost over their activation energy barrier www.secondlaw.com/three.html) You think these are all completely different? Sure, they are. BUT they're all due to the same cause -- some kind of energy in them spreads out! Whether it's rocks or balls falling that you raised in the air (potential energy changing to kinetic energy to "heat"), or hot pans cooling (thermal energy, "heat"), or iron with oxygen changing to iron oxide (bond energy, enthalpy), or wood burning in oxygen (bond energy, enthalpy), each change involves energy dispersing to the surroundings. (In cases like a gas expanding into a vacuum, it's the gas's original energy being spread out more in the new larger volume. Likewise, for ideal fluids that mix spontaneously -- the original energy of each is more spread out in the bigger volume of the mixture.)
   
   The second law just summarizes our experience with those spontaneous happenings and millions of others: All kinds of energy spontaneously spread out from where they are concentrated to where they are more dispersed, if they're not hindered from doing that. The opposite just doesn't occur spontaneously -- you don't see rocks concentrating energy from all around them and jumping up in the air, while the ground where they were cools down a little. Same way, you'll never see pans in a cupboard getting red hot by taking energy from the cupboard.
   
   The 2^nd law of thermodynamics basically tells us that things tend to disperse energy or move towards more randomness as opposed to order. Science says that the things in creation tend towards more randomness or dispersion than towards more order. So what does this have to do with the existence of God? Just a moment. I'm getting to that.

The importance of these laws on the existence of God is phenomenal. The first law of thermodynamics suggests that the universe could not have created itself. It also suggests that the energy in the universe is finite and therefore the universe cannot be generating more energy than what it started with. Also, it points to a definite source for the energy within the universe that is apart from the universe itself. In other words, the first law of thermodynamics seems to suggest that a creator must have created the universe and was the source of energy for all that is in the universe.

The second law of thermodynamics suggests that the universe has a definite beginning. This coupled with other scientific observations suggests that the entropy of the universe is also increasing. This suggests that the universe had a definite beginning and one of order. Since the universe is becoming more random or dispersed, i.e., disordered, then there must have been a creator and this creator is capable of astonishing order and energy.

These two laws suggest that the universe is not infinite and that it had a beginning. They suggest that the universe started with order and began to move towards disorder. They suggest that the universe could not have created itself and is scientifically directly opposed to the evolution theory since that theory suggests that the universe tends to more order. These point to a creator, namely a god.

Now remember that though these point to a creator, they say nothing about that creator or his plans for humanity. These tell us nothing of salvation or God's love for us. They only suggest that a god must exist because the universe must have begun at some point.

Einstein's Theory of Relativity

Many of us have heard the formula E =mC². This is the relationship between energy and mass of matter at rest. The full equation (relationship) is more complex. In any case, many of us do not know that the results of this theory led Einstein to conclude that there must be a god and he wanted to know how God created the universe ("Show Me God: What the Message from Space is Telling Us About God" by Fred Heeren).

The main point about the theory of relativity is that Einstein's equations suggested that the universe was expanding or contracting and not static and eternal as was the common belief of that time. The interesting thing is that Einstein originally introduced a fudge factor into his equation to make his equations agree with the beliefs of that time. The beliefs at that time were that the universe was static and infinite (unchanging). Later another mathematician (Russian, Alexander Friedmann in 1922) discovered an error in Einstein's algebra. He corrected Einstein's equations and threw out the fudge factor and found that the equations show an expanding (or contracting) universe. Einstein's equations suggested either an expanding or contracting universe.

Other scientists also critiqued Einstein's equations and found that the universe was indeed expanding from a mathematical perspective, even if the fudge factor was left in the equations. Einstein admitted later that his fudge factor (called the cosmological constant) was one of the biggest blunders of his life. He then became vehement about pursuing how God created the universe. This is not to say that Einstein accepted or believed in the God of our Bible. However, he did at least believe that a god existed and he wanted to know how he created everything.

Now in general, the theory of relativity is very complex. There are actually two of them: the general and special theory of relativity. But for our purposes they suggest that the universe is expanding, which implies a beginning of the universe, as it could not have been expanding forever. OK. We have proof from Einstein that a creator exists. Well, not exactly but it is interesting that great minds of science came to the conclusion that a creator must have created our universe. The theory of evolution is not based on scientific evidence. That is important to realize.

Astronomical Evidence

Humans have always looked up into the heavens and wondered. There were times when people thought that the earth was at the center of the universe and that the sun along with the planets rotated around the earth. Well we are long past those days. I do wonder sometimes how silly our conclusions about our universe will seem thousands of years from now. Actually the aforementioned beliefs about our universe existed only hundreds of years ago.

One of the things that has been discovered about our universe through astronomical observations is that the universe is indeed expanding. This is consistent with Einstein's equations for the theory of relativity. Astronomers have discovered that the heavenly bodies are moving away from each other at astonishing speeds. They have also discovered that the further the body is away from us then the faster it is moving away. Another interesting observation by scientists is that the objects in the universe are decelerating. This leads to the idea that the universe is exploding, which further leads to the idea of a big bang. That is well beyond the scope of this lesson though it is very much related.

Basically the astronomical evidence points to a beginning of the universe. We also know that the laws of science that we have discovered imply that the universe is not eternal and it is not static. We know that the universe could not have created itself or formed from nothing by some sort of natural processes. Everything that we have investigated thus far points to a creator of our universe. They all point to God!

Summary

Long before modern science, when men thought that the universe was unchanging and eternal, the Bible writers wrote of the truth about the finiteness of the universe and the creator. Consider the following scriptures.

• Psalm 102:25,26
• Isaiah 34:4, 51:6

Ancient cultures served gods that were within the universe. They believed that the gods they served actually resided within this universe (the universe was thought to be eternal). However, the Hebrews believed that God transcended the universe and even created it. They believed that God was outside of the universe. We know now that God specifically revealed himself to the Hebrew people of old and that is why they knew more about the one true God than anyone else.

The Hebrew Scriptures declare the truth of God's existence. They knew the truth about our universe and its creator long before science, theology, or any other discipline began to examine the universe for clues. God revealed himself to us so that we are able to know of Him. Yes God exists and He has indeed made himself known to us through the special revelation of the Bible and general revelation of His great creation.

WHO IS GOD?

The scientific evidence that we have investigated thus far suggests that a creator created the universe. The evidence points to God. However, none of the scientific evidence tells us anything about God. The evidence only tells us that there must have been a god and not who he is. Now that we have evidence for the existence of God, we need to know who he is in the plethora of "gods" that exist. Who is God?

Again we can obtain knowledge of God through two primary sources: general and special revelation. General revelation is the revelation of God that we receive from nature. Consider the following scripture.

Romans 1:19-21 (NKJV) because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Also consider the following.

Psalm 19:1 through Psalm 19:4 (NKJV) The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,

So we can learn much about God through nature. However, these are insufficient in telling us about the person of God. What is God like? For that we need special revelation. Special revelation is the direct revelation of God to humans. For that we need Jesus Christ. For that we need the Bible. Now consider what the Bible says about who God is.

God Is Called 'I AM WHO I AM' - LORD

Let's look at a passage of scripture. The Bible says,

"Moses said to God, 'Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, "The God of your fathers has sent me to you," and they ask me, "What is his name?" Then what shall I tell them.'" God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites, "The LORD, the God of your fathers-the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- appeared to me to you." This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.'" - Exodus 3:13:-15 (NIV)

"If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name-the LORD your God. . . . " - Deuteronomy 28:58 (NIV)

"I AM WHO I AM" is a revelation of the nature of God. God is not bound by a name or description so to speak. He simply "IS." He is infinite and boundless and we cannot comprehend this because we are finite.

Throughout history the proper pronunciation of the Hebrew word YHWH, the most intimate and personal name of God in the Old Testament, has been lost. 'Jehovah' is a spelling that developed from combining the consonants of the name with the vowels of a word for 'LORD' (Adonai). 'Yahweh' is probably the original pronunciation. Who is God? God is LORD. The word Lord basically means ruler, controller.

God Is Holy

The bible says

"Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy."- Psalms 99:9 (NIV)

This verse tells us that God is holy. The word holy means sacred, regarded with or deserving of worship or veneration, revered, deserving or regarded with special reverence or respect.

God is Omnipresent

God's presence is everywhere at all times. There is not a place that you can go in heaven or earth where God's presence does not exist. The bible says

Psalm 139:7-12 "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

Jeremiah 23:24 "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD"

God's presence is everywhere. There is no place in all of creation that you can go to and say to yourself "The LORD God is not here." God is omnipresent - he is everywhere all of the time. God is not limited by time and space. He sees things in a dimension that we couldn't even comprehend with our limited minds. This is why it is so important to just trust God because he sees everything. We can only respond based on the information that we see before us. However, God sees a lot more than what we physically see or experience.

God Is Omniscient

God knows all things. There is nothing in the entire universe that can be known that God doesn't know. God has all knowledge and all wisdom about all things. The bible says

"Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite." - Psalm 147:5

If I need to know something or how to do something then all I need do is go to God. He knows everything. He understands everything and knows how everything functions. After all, he created everything.

God Is Omnipotent

God has all power. There is no power in heaven or earth that is greater than God. The bible says

Revelations 19:6 "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

Revelations 1:8 "'I am the Alpha and the Omega', says the Lord God, 'who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.'"

See also Revelation 4:8, and Genesis 17:1; 25:11

The word almighty means having absolute power, omnipotent. When you see the word almighty in the bible it is usually referring to the omnipotent God. Our heavenly father has all (absolute, complete) power over all of creation.

God Is Good

What does the word good mean? The word good means of moral excellence: upright, benevolent: kind. God is kind and he looks out for his people. He desires the best for us and he wants us for himself. God is indeed good. The bible says

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. - 1 Chronicles 16:34 (NIV)

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. - Psalm 34:8 (NIV)

All that is good derives from God (remember that God is the source of all). That is why Jesus said that there is only one who is good (Matthew 19:17).

A person is not good because they do good things just as a person is not righteous because they do righteous things. A person is good because the goodness of God (God himself) dwells in his heart. A good person does good things out of the goodness of his heart. God is good all of the time.

Transcendent

God transcends all that exists. God even transcends time. It is difficult for humans to think of an existence without thinking of time. However, time is defined relative to a cause and effect happening. God is outside of everything that exists.

Jehovah

Let's take a moment and talk about "Jehovah." God is called Jehovah on many occasions. Is that his name? Did God call himself Jehovah? The name Jehovah is the English rendering of the Hebrew tetragram (word of four letters) YHWH, one of the names of God (See Exodus 17:15). The original pronunciation of the tetragram is unknown. The Jews took seriously the third commandment, which states, "Thou shalt not take the name of LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." (Exodus 20:7). Therefore, to keep from speaking the name of God carelessly (in vain), they decided not to pronounce it at all. Whenever they came across the name of God while reading, they would speak the word Adonai, which means, "Lord." Later the vowel points were added to the Hebrew consonantal text, the Massoretes (Jewish scribes) inserted into the Hebrew consonantal text the vowels for Adonai. Therefore, the modern reconstructions of the name of God are Yahweh and Jehovah.

What God is Called

The Bible contains ten combinations of the word Jehovah or the name of God. I want to look at five of them, which directly identifies God and his activity in our lives.

Jehovah -ropheka

This means "Jehovah that heals you." God is the healer. He is our healer. He is my healer. He is your healer. Let's look at what the bible says

Exodus 15:26 (NKJV) ²⁶and said, "If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you."

Exodus 23:25 (NKJV) So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water, And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.

Psalm 106:2-3 (NKJV) "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, . . . ."

Isaiah 53:5 "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed."

1 Peter 2:24 (NKJV) "who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed."

Jehovah-meqaddeshkem

This means "Jehovah who sanctifies you" The bible says

Exodus 31:13(NKJV) "Speak also to the children of Israel, saying; Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you."

The word sanctify means to make holy, to make free from sin, to purify, to set apart as holy, to consecrate, to make sacred. The main point I want to show here is that it is God that sanctifies us. He sanctified the people of Israel so that they could partake in God's holy day: The Sabbath. The Sabbath wasn't holy because they observed it. They were able to observe it because God made them holy to do so. God sanctified them. Actions, activities, and works do not sanctify us. We are simply sanctified by God.

Therefore, realize that your sanctification came from God, if you are a member of the family of Christ (born again). You are righteous and not by your acts or works but by faith in Jesus Christ. God made you righteous. God has already sanctified you and set you apart from the world as a holy vessel. This is why God can tell us not to fellowship with the world. We have been set apart from the world as Holy and righteous before God.

This means "Jehovah, my shepherd". What is a shepherd? A shepherd is one who guides (leads) and protects. Note what David says in the Psalms.

Psalm 23:1-4 "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Yea , though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me . . . ."

Note the reference to leading and protection. The shepherd used the rod to protect and the staff to lead or guide the sheep.

It is God who leads and guides you. God is your leader. The bible says,

"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. . . ." - John 16:13 (NKJV)

All of these give us insight into who God is. There are other such things that we could list. I will list more here now without going into detail.

1. God is a loving God (1 John 4:8, 4:16)
2. God is our heavenly father (Matthew 6:9)
3. God is just (Psalm 7:11)
4. God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5, 34:14; Deuteronomy 4:24, 5:9)
5. God is patient (Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Psalms 86:15)

The list could go on and on. God has revealed so much to us in the Holy Scriptures.

Jesus Christ

God has revealed himself through His son, Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 1:1-3 (NKJV) 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,

Also consider the following scriptures.

• John 14:7, 9
• John 12:45
• John 10:30

Jesus Christ said that He is the way, the truth, and the life. He said that no one gets to the father except through him. Jesus Christ is our way to the Father. Jesus Christ is our revelation of God himself. If we want to know who God is then we need only look at Jesus Christ and there we will find God.

THE REALITY OF GOD

OK. Now we know that God exists and we have a good idea of who he is. But what does all of that mean to you personally? Is God indeed real to you know or is he merely an entity in your mind, a subject to study, or the great guy in the sky? Is the reality of God such that He actually influences your life?

We tend to take things seriously if they are real to us. Let me give an example. A person may know that they should eat right and exercise. He knows that he should not eat a lot of fatty foods, high sodium foods, etc. However, he does anyway. Good health is real to him. The consequences of his diet are also real to him. However, it isn't to the extent where it affects his eating habits. Instead he continues to eat most of the wrong foods.

Then one day something goes terribly awry. He has a heart attack or something to that affect. The doctor tells him that the reason for the illness is his diet and if he doesn't straighten up that he will have another heart attack or the like and most likely die. However, if he changes his diet and exercise to strengthen his body then he should recover and live many more years. Now all of a sudden his diet and health are real to him. This time they are real to the extent that they affect his decisions.

In the same way we want the reality of God to affect our very lives. We shouldn't have to experience a calamity before we take God seriously. Yes he exists. Yes there is much we can learn about him from special revelation, namely our Bible. The reality of God in our lives should spark at least the following.

1. Obedience. How could you not obey one with such power as to have created the universe? If someone held a gun to your head then you would tend to do whatever he or she says. That is because they have power over you. However, God is greater than such a person and yet he is not real to us.
2. We should trust Him. How could we not trust the one that created all things and demonstrated his love for us through the death of His son, Jesus Christ?
3. We should love the Lord
4. We should walk in his ways
5. We should live according to his ethic
6. We should share our faith and devotion to Him to others
7. We should strive to know him more and more each day

Yet there are those who reject the truth. God has made himself plain to us and yet some still reject Him. People try to take God out of the universe and life itself. Even some scientists try to explain things in a manner that does not include God. I was watching television and a doctor came on discussing the cloning of humans. She said that within five years or so that they will clone a baby. She said that this would take the mystique out of life and show that life does not come from a God. What a shame.

We already discussed the evolutionists and how they try to explain the creation and life without God. There are also atheists and agnostics. Atheists simply do not believe that there is a god for whatever reason. There are various levels of atheism, which is beyond the scope of this study. Agnostics simply believe that we cannot know God or that we cannot know that there is a god or not. So even with all of the evidence, people still refuse to see the truth.

CONCLUSION

God exists. We have evidence for the existence of God through the Bible (Jesus Christ), science, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and astronomy. Science in general points us to a creator. The Bible, which is God's revelation to humans, tells us who God is. How can we not see that there is a God and how could we not know who He is? There is no excuse just as Paul said in Romans 1:20-21.

Once we are convinced that God exists and know some of who he is (we can never know all with our finite minds. We would have to be God to know all of God), then that knowledge should affect our life. For sure we should run head first into Jesus Christ especially since Christ is the way to God. The existence of God and knowledge of who He is will lead us to the redemptive act of Jesus Christ and the purposes of God.

The Bible says,

John 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

God desires to save you. He wants you delivered from the penalty and bondage of sin and death. He wants you to be with him for all eternity. Imagine that. Once we get to Christ then we get to life. Some of us don't need to have the plethora of evidence for the existence of God. Some don't even need to know all that the Bible says about Him (though I believe we eventually should know as much as we can about God). However, some people have issues about God that keep them from accepting Christ as Lord and savior. We prepare ourselves for those people so that we would be prepared to give an answer for what we know and why we believe.

Is God real to you? Does your life show the reality of God? Would you be able to explain to someone why you believe God exists? This lesson has given us much information on the evidence of the existence of God and insight on who He is. Be blessed and be free. Eat, drink, and digest the word of God and know God for yourself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I thought that I would list the resources that I used for the information in this lesson for your benefit.

Geisler, Norman L. "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" Baker Books, 1999

Heeren, Fred. "Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God" Searchlight Publications, 1995

Sears, Francis W.; Zemansky, Mark W.; Young, Hugh D., University Physics fifth edition, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1980

Tipler, Paul. Modern Physics, Worth Publishers, Inc., 1981