"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. -- For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" (Acts 17:24, 28 NIV)
We are all very familiar with the recent attempts by an American citizen to remove God from every vestige of our society. Giving him credit for persistence, this individual continues to file legal briefs to challenge our right to publicly proclaim our faith and trust in God. But, we are not afraid that any human can be successful in removing God from his own creation.
We humans all came into existence by the desire and will of God. It is impossible for us to do anything without God's approval. God will allow us to exercise our free will and even behave as a disobedient child, but God is always in control.
Now many atheists and agnostics - who are going through a stage of rebellion against our Father in Heaven, work to remove any reference about God from our classrooms. They desire to twist our children's thinking so that they distrust what they learn in Sunday school about how everything came into existence. Are we as a people willing to continue teaching our children at home about the creation story, only to send them off to school where teachers will use their wits and adult authority to ridicule our children's tender faith? People of faith must stand up as one against all attempts to dishonor our loving Father.
Without any apology, we trust the Bible to be the true Word of God. We accept it as an accurate revelation from God to man. What we read in the Bible about the origins of all matter and life itself, are completely true and we teach this to our children with great confidence. We can go to our grave with a sense of satisfaction when we know that our children and grandchildren are committed to upholding this same faith in God and God's Word. The Bible contains the answers to life's greatest questions. Where did I come from? How did I get here? Where am I going? How do I get there?
Even if we do not have a copy of the written message from God, there is ample evidence to convince us that we have a creator, and that everything we see is not merely an accident. You may even rely upon human philosophy if you prefer. John Locke was a noted British philosopher who contributed a great deal toward thinking with reason. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) he ably demonstrated that everything man knows, he has learned by reason or experience. Has this ever been refuted? I do not think so. Following this philosophical reasoning, we conclude that there is nothing in man's observation or experience that suggests the idea of an eternal Jehovah. If God does not exist, how would my observation or experience lead me to believe that he did exist? We can go a step further, and conclude that the very word God would have no place in our vocabulary if God had not put it there in the first place.
We can also look to the phenomenon of human speech for proof that there is a God. Consider this question: How did we learn to speak? We know that we learn to speak by listening to others – our mother and father, grandparents, siblings, caregivers, friends of the family, Sunday school teachers and others. A child who is born deaf does not learn to speak properly even though his vocal chords may be stronger than Mario Caruso's. We must be taught in order to communicate our thoughts to others intelligibly. Now, this leads us to another question; where did our parents and others who taught us learn to speak? We of course know that the answer is the same. They learned from their parents or some other caring person all the way back to the first humans Adam and Eve. God taught our human ancestors to speak and they taught the rest of us. Our first ancestors learned everything about human communication by listening to the voice of God. Do you have a better answer for how humans learned to speak?
We can also conclude philosophically that God exist merely on the basis that no atheist has ever argued successfully that God does not exist. In order for a person to say with sincerity that "there is no God," he or she must have made a thorough exploration of time, space and all eternity before being absolutely certain. I am so thankful that there are great teachers in our public schools and universities who strongly believe in God and that faith in God is essential to our welfare as a nation.
All human reasoning aside, let us now consider how the Bible begins and ends: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 NIV) I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of the book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen. (Revelation 22:18-21 NIV) You are invited to all services at the Cedar Key Church of Christ. | 