Sermon Tone Analysis

7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD: Is There a God?

Acts 17:24-28

* *

          Let me tell you my presuppositions.

I believe that there is a God and that we can have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, who is revealed to us in the New Testament.

If you're an atheist or an agnostic, you may see that as a disadvantage in helping you realize or recognize that there is a God.

But let's just put all of our biases aside for a moment and try to answer this question together, "Is there a God?"

I think it's the most significant question that's ever penetrated the human mind.

According to the Bible if there wasn't a God, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Actually the whole Bible is about man's rebellion against God and God's grace and compassion, trying to pursue him and draw man back into a relationship--trying to reconnect.

I hope you know as well that the Bible also has a presupposition that there is a God.

Genesis 1:1, at the very beginning of the Bible, assumes that there is a God.

It says, "In the beginning, God" and that's where I'm going to start from today.

In the beginning, there's a God.

He doesn't need us to exist and He's also self-revealing.

He reveals Himself to us.

He's done that through His Word and through a number of ways that we'll talk about today, but let's try our best to answer the question, "Is there a God?"

On the left-hand side there's atheism.

Atheism says there is no God.

Atheism is absolutely opposed to God.

In the middle, there is agnosticism that says maybe there is a God, but we certainly can't know for sure.

Then on the right side, you could say theism, but I particularly want to point to Christian theism that says, yes, there is a God--there is only one true God.

Where you fall today is probably in one of those three categories.

Some of you may actually fall into the category of being a polytheist.

You believe that there's many gods, that's there not just one true God.

Or perhaps you're a deist and you believe that there is a God.

He created the world, but once He created the world, He split.

He's an impersonal God.

Thomas Jefferson was a deist.

Some of our founding fathers of this nation were deists.

They believed that there was a God, but that He had no connection with His creation.

There is only one true God, and I believe that He's personal and that He's connected to His creation in very real and relevant ways, particularly to human beings.

He's created a way for us to be connected to Him.

Atheism and agnosticism are fundamentally flawed.

For one thing, they're too simple.

If you're just going to say there is no God, your reasoning is actually what's called a “universal negative.”

It's logically indefensible to say there is no God.

If you were an atheist and you're sitting here today, you would have to be omniscient and omnipresent.

You would have to know everything that there is to know in the universe, and you have to be everywhere there is to be in the universe to say that there is no God.

The last time I checked, the only person that came close to being omnipresent and omniscient was my mother when I was like eight years old!

So an atheist has a logically indefensible argument because it's based on the universal negative.

No atheist knows everything and is capable of being everywhere in the universe all at once.

In fact, for an atheist to say there is no God, he would, in fact, have to be God in order to say there is no God, so that's a logically indefensible argument.

Agnosticism--we can't know for sure.

That also is very simple.

That's just a very simple way out.

We /can/ know for sure.

In fact, I think it is built into us to know for sure.

I think we know that there is something greater than us.

Even the Greek philosopher Plato knew that there was a first cause, that there was something that put this world into motion.

While he may not have recognized that as God revealed in the Old and New Testament, he did know and understand intuitively that there was a God, and yet he couldn't explain it.

When Plato realized that there was a God or a great cause behind this universe, Jesus Christ had not been revealed in the flesh, so I think he was at a disadvantage.

We are not at that same disadvantage.

Look at the proofs in your handout.

*/Scripture/* is a convincing proof that there is a God.

I already gave you Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God."  Scripture presupposes the self-existence of God, that God existed before Scripture was even penned, before the world even began.

He is the only self-existent one in the universe.

Most people would argue that you cannot go to Scripture as a convincing proof because Scripture is biased towards God because it's God revelation of Himself, right?

Well, if I was going to try to find out if Plato or Socrates, or whoever else, was an authentic person in history, where do I have to go?

I have to go to his writings and discover who he is.

I have to go to something that he's written or something that's been written about him to authenticate his existence.

All Scripture is the authentication of the existence of God.

So we go there because we believe that Scripture reveals to us something about the nature and character and existence of God.

The 2nd proof comes from */creation/*.

Psalm 19:1: /"The heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day, they [being the heavens and the skies] pour forth speech.

Night after night, they display knowledge."

/Knowledge about what?  Knowledge about God.

There is no speech and there is no language where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth; their words to the ends of the world.

What is it that they're saying?

They are saying there is a God.

But let's go to the New Testament and confirm it again—let's see what the apostle Paul has to say about it.

Remember the apostle Paul grew up as a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, a persecutor of the church.

He hated and despised Christians, but he had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ on the way to go take out some Christians.

In a moment, he was converted and he was given the gift of faith and he was saved.

All of a sudden, he now believed that there was a God and he could have a personal relationship with Him apart from the Law.

Romans 1:20,/ "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen.

Since the creation of the world, God has been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."/

Now, let's go back to a person who suffered a great deal during his lifetime and actually had everything restored to him.

Job 5:9-10: /"God performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.

/[some of them in verse 10]/ He bestows rain on the earth, He sends water upon the countryside."/

How does rain work?

Does anyone really know how rain works?

It is a mystery in some ways, but I am going to try to unpack it for you just a little bit.

Picture yourself as a farmer from the Near East, and you are far from any lake or stream.

A few wells on your ground keep the family and animals supplied with water, but if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come from another source on the fields.

But where does it come from?

Water will come out of the clear blue sky.

Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea over 700 miles, and then be poured out on the fields from the sky.

How much does water weigh?

Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water--if just one inch drops overnight on that farmer's field.

That's heavy.

So how does it get up to the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy?

We know the process as evaporation, and that's a nice word, but what does it mean?

It means that the water stops being water for awhile so it can go up and not down.

Then how does it get down?

Well, condensation happens.

And what's that?

That's the water starting to become water again by gathering around little dust particles between one 10,000th and one 1,000th centimeters wide.