Bible Lesson 188

“GOD” THERE IS ONE GOD AND HE IS GLORIOUS!
Romans 1:20

“The trouble with our modern thinking is that we have a conception that God is a haphazard God with no set rules of life and salvation. Ask the astronomer if God is a haphazard God. He will tell you that every star moves with precision in its celestial path. Ask the scientist if God is a haphazard God. He will tell you that His formulas and equations are fixed, and that to ignore the laws of science would be a fool’s folly. If the laws in the material realm are so fixed and exact, is it reasonable that God could afford to be haphazard in the spiritual realm when eternal destinies of souls are at stake? Just as God has equations and rules in the material realm, God has equations and rules in the spiritual. Billy Graham

“Seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life!” Alexander MacLaren

At some point every person who is obedient to The Creator, has been asked by someone who, for whatever reason, cannot fathom the love of God for sinful and evil creatures’. ‘Prove to me that there is a God.’ If you are saying in your mind right now, well, I have never been asked that question: and if so you it has to be that you are not really demonstrating the life of one of God’s creatures or you are not obeying the great commission which commands us everyone to, ‘Go and witness!’ I can remember a neighbor of mine who was sick, and would die within months, who when I witnessed God’s love and the gospel to him, made the statement, Bob you cannot prove that God exists.

I responded that if he was that big of a fool, I was not going to try to prove the existence of God. Now let me take time right here to explain to you sensitive souls who think that God is nothing more than love and compassion, that I was telling him what God has told him, in His Word the Bible.(Psalms 14:1). I didn’t leave it at that of course, so I went on to ask him to close his eyes for a moment and then to open his eyes, which he did. I then asked him to tell me what he saw, and he related that he saw the Lake we live on, the grass, trees, our houses and the sky.

I then asked him if he had done all that he saw, and he say of course not. I then told him that I did not do it and did not know anyone who could have done it, so that proved that God exists (Romans 1:20). He died shortly thereafter and He had told his wife that he wanted me to preach his funeral. Was he saved’ Is He in heaven today’

I hope so but I could not and did not preach that he was in heaven, just as I never preach anyone in heaven or hell, in preaching a funeral. Judgment is the business of God and woe to a preacher that makes that judgment. Now, I have said all of that to bring us to the point of this Lesson, and that is that God has been left out of so much teaching and preaching, that most today have a less than sufficient view of our Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent God who spoke our universes into being. Not only that but His creation has stood for millennia, and today the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the Seasons continue as always, and rain, heat, cold and life goes on, right according to His decrees. God is mindful of all that is going on at all times and you can be sure that when you contradict, change or misuse His Word, that God takes note.

God is not worried about what the President or the Pope, or the Supreme court will do, He knows what they will do before they do. God has an eternal plan for his creatures and His creation, and he uses what everyone of us does, in fulfilling that plan. That does not mean that you are not responsible for your own sin, you know better and just will not do any better. Remember, all of us know the difference between good and evil, and we inherited that knowledge from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when they ate of the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By the same token, those who stand and say that there is no God or that you cannot prove there is, are simply in denial; because they refuse to allow themselves to say that there is. I always remember that ‘there are no atheist in a foxhole’.

That said, let’s look to several things that prove the existence of God. Not ‘that great architect in the sky’ or ‘the man upstairs’ or any such, but God. We can prove that God is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). And the methods we will use are a). God’s Will, b) God’s Word, God’s Walk, and God’s World. First let’s look at God’s Will, His desire, His plan, His intentions toward mankind (His Creature) and the World (His Creation). If we read the book of Genesis, in the first chapters we begin to see the Will of God for His creatures and His creation. Notice in the first Two chapters of Genesis, how God demonstrates His purpose for the creature. God did not create Adam and Eve before He created light because He made them creatures of light, He created and ordered all that man would need to live a happy and productive life, and then created Adam. God teaches man that his need for His personal fulfillment, is not to be united with an animal, but to that creature that God gave man to be a helpmate, Eve, the woman.

Apparently He did not create Adam to be fulfilled or completed by another male, because God made Adam the male and then He made Eve from one of his ribs, and gave her to Adam to procreate, (Genesis 2:22). We know that God made Adam to commune with Him, on this earth, therefore God created a special heaven or paradise for Adam and Eve where God would walk with them in the cool of the day. God created Adam and Eve in innocence (not knowing good from evil) and gave them a free-will, which God then tested, by commanding them not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which was in the Garden of Eden. If Adam and Eve had used that free-will of God which He given them, to obey God, they would still be alive today; however they fell from God’s Grace and out of His Will and lived outside the Garden, in a world cursed for their sakes, under the sentence of death (both spiritual and physical).

They then began to procreate and passed their nature of disobedience unto everyone born in the world to the flesh. You may ask, well, why did God do all of that and then allow them to fall by disobedience’ All I can say, God is God, and He created mankind to commune with, and enjoy Him forever, because they loved Him and desired Him. You can celebrate because we know that the Will of God is to save sinners; and you may be one that he wills to save, so pay close attention to the rest of this lesson. We cannot know the perfect will of God, because God has not had it all written down for us, but there is enough of the revealed will of God written down for us to satisfy all that we can handle. That leads us to the next way that anyone (including you), can know that there really is a God, and all we have to do is to wake up and realize that it is not us! God revealed Himself to us in His Word, the Bible. It is my prayer that you are not in that Legion of fools that insists that the Bible is not God’s Word to man, or that it was written down by men and so is not trustworthy, and all the other devious schemes that Satan has used people to lead other people, to hell. None of us has to believe and submit to the Word of God, you can go to hell if you want to. You don’t have to do one single thing to go to hell because you were a candidate for hell the moment you drew your first breath.

That’s the reason that God warns us in His Word, the Bible, that we are born, broken, undone, not acceptable to God, dead in trespass and sin (Ephesians 2:1-3). God is talking to people who have realized their evil natures, and repented and turned to God and were born from above (created ‘In Christ’) a new creature. Before that happened to them they were dead in trespass and sin, under the wrath of God. Has God shined His light into your heart and mind, and shown you your depravity’ That is what it takes for any man, woman or child, to be so shocked about their state before our Great and Glorious God, that they will get serious about God and His judgment about their life and lifestyle. Remember, When Jesus Christ began His ministry on the earth, He began by preaching ‘Repent’, which means that we must turn from our sin and turn to God through the God-man, Jesus Christ. You may ask, what is so special about the Word of God, the Bible, and how do we go about learning about it’

What you have to do is to open your eyes and ears and begin to seek the truths that will set you free from sin. God tells us in His Word, that the Word is very near to us. In Deuteronomy Chapter 30, God spoke through His servant Moses and Moses passed it on those who would enter the Promised Land, and to you and I today’. “If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, for this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring to us, that we may hear it and do it” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it’

The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. Moses said all of that to these people who had been told by him, that in essence, if they want to prosper in the Promised land they must obey the Lord’.otherwise they would be cursed. Deuteronomy 30:1-15. Now, that may sound like something that you cannot agree to, and If that is your attitude I ask you, in love, to rethink your position. You are not the Creator, you are the creature, and you do not have any standing at all, unless and until you have a proper relationship with God who created you, has sustained you, and will save you, ‘if’ you come to Him tired of your sinful life, willing to submit to His leading, and with a contrite heart about your past and present life. P.S. you will not be able to do that until God, by His Spirit draws you to see yourself as lost and blind and undone without any hope or help unless God will grant you Grace. Unless someone tells you the truth and you accept it as truth, or you begin to read the Word of God for yourself and accept it as fact, and become interested in that new birth, that God has for those who receive His Grace, you will remain under the wrath of God (Romans 2:2-11).

Never think that you can come to God continuing in your determination to believe that the Bible is anything but the inspired, inerrant, Word of God to man (Romans 10:17; Isaiah 40:8; Proverbs 30:4; Luke 8:5-11; John 1:14; John 17:17; Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 4:12; 1st Peter 1:22-23; Psalm 119:89,105).The Word of God, that we call the Bible is the most amazing book in the world. It is a letter from God to man in which man is appraised that there is a God, and proven by the record of God’s unsearchable power and Grace. It contains sixty six books (39 in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New Testament); and every person who reads it with any spirit at all, will find that it is the key to his own heart. It reveals to the penitent sinner his low estate and encourages him to either move toward God or move away from God. It speaks of God’s great love for the creature as it documents the great price that God, gave of Himself, to redeem those who are not so carnal and worldly that they refuse His gift of eternal life in heaven. God is immovable, so we know that He did not move away from man, instead man moved away from God.

God did not become the enemy of man, man became the enemy of God. Now mankind finds itself in a conundrum, and that is that man is lost and blind and dumb and unheeding’running from God, not wanting to be saved because he thinks that he is good enough in himself, to save himself. He cannot find any help or hope outside of the person and work of Jesus Christ who left heaven, at the Fathers’ commission, came to this sin sick world and took on the form and flesh of man (just like you and I have), but without sin, and His mission was to live and teach and die on the cross, in the place where you and I deserved to hang, to pay our sin debt which we could never pay (Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23; John 3:16-21).

It has been said, that the Bible is either the Word of God or it isn’t, and it is either absolute or obsolete. It is either all true, or we can’t trust any of it. The preacher or teacher who finds that they have to change this verse or that, leave out this part or that part, apologize for this or make allowances for that, update or make some verses politically correct, becomes God’s enemy and it’s time we either got it straight or get out of town. The Bible is not what we worship but it points us to the God who is worthy of all of our worship. The Bible, if we read it to understand it, will do one of two things, it will either humble us or harden our heart. We are driven to a point by the message of the Bible, that we must take action to either deny our need, or accept the truth. Whenever we read the truth of the Bible, or when we hear it faithfully preached, it will do one of two thing, it will either convert us or condemn us (John 3:18). We must not read it as if it were a novel, or Shakespeare, it is the Word of the Creator God, who has a message that everyone of us needs to hear.

Now, I know that the modern mind has been polluted with so much error that was preached by some person with their Bible open, that it is hard to convince people in this day and time that it is important to read and study the Bible for ourselves. We are a people in a hurry, the problem is that most are hurrying to hell and eternal torment. We need the Spirit of God, and so we begin our journey by receiving the Spirit of the Word of God. Salvation certainly includes receiving the Word of God, as it is the Word of God, however it goes beyond that we must obey the Word of God, as it is written. We may profess that we know God and join the visible church, and make some churchy noise, but if we are not obeying then we are not saved (Matthew 7:21).

That brings us to our next point, that God is proven by the Christian Walk, and as we said, that is the way we walk or live in this world. The walk of the Christian, contributes to the proof that God exists. There is no other way, no other power that can change an enemy, into a child of God, no power that can snatch a depraved soul out of the fires of hell, no power that can take a drunk and make them a person of temperance, or a drug head and make them a soldier of the cross. The true Christian walk is a walk that demonstrates the love of Christ; and let me be quick to add that the love that Christ had for the world, understood the world and loved it, in spite of sin and depravity.

It was a ‘tough love’ that understood the fickleness of the sinful mind and always told them the truth. Christ did not define love as agreement with the sinful lives of men, it instead demanded a turning from sin and serving God. I always remember a bumper sticker that I saw on the bumper of a car several years ago; I think it sums up the mind- set of many people in our day, it said ‘How much can I sin and still go to heaven’. It was an affront to me when I saw it and it should be an affront to you and it certainly is an affront to our God. Christ went to the cross as an obedient Son to the Father, to pay our sin debt, and He came down from that cross unrecognizable as a human being (Isaiah 52:14). How can anyone know that, and not realize that if they receive that benefit from Christ, they would not continue in sin’ God planned our salvation in eternity past (Ephesians 1:1-4), Jesus Christ, the Second Person in the Trinity, left heaven and came to the earth with the specific purpose of demonstrating that changed life, and finally be nailed to a cross to bleed and die for those who would believe enough to obey (John 3:16-21;Hebrews 5:8-9), and the Holy Spirit, the Third Person in the Trinity, applies the benefits of God’s grace and Christ’s blood to our lives in true salvation. How can any sane person think that those works of God would not make a dramatic, even radical change in the saved person’s life’ That newness of life that is spoken of in Romans 6:1-6, is one of the proofs that God is. Sadly, the further we have come from the cross of Christ, the more relaxed we have become, and the more we have lost that fear of God that is commanded of His Children.

I have heard many preacher as they attempt to become god for their congregation, and to gain some sort of agreement with sinners, preach things that cannot be found in the Bible. They preach that, all it takes for the individual to be save is, a formula, just walk the aisle, shake the preachers hand, and be acceptable to the congregation gathered for the ‘aisle walking’, and be baptized in their baptistery. Normally, what that formula produces is a confused sinner who then goes forth to lead others to hell, and the further down the road we go, we find that none of us really knows the Word of God, or the God of the Word as we should. I pray that that is not the way your salvation was experienced, but if it was, allow me to impress upon you that God will not hold that against you, God will save anyone who truly believes and proves that belief by hungering and thirsting after the truth, who becomes aggressively offended by his condition and desires nothing more than he desires a right standing before God. That condition is satisfied by God at what ever point in your salvation, that God is satisfied that you truly know the truth and are not going to be a ship-wreck in the sea of sin and depravity that characterizes the world we live in.

I cannot tell you what it takes outside what the Bible says and Christ preached a sermon that is recorded in Luke 14:26-33, where Jesus makes some astonishing statements. Christ says that we must come to Him, loving Him so much that our love for father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life’.cannot be His disciple. He did not stop there, Christ goes on there in John chapter 14, verse27, to say that there is a cost to being his disciple, and that involves bearing our cross and following after Him.

Then in verses 28-32, Christ explains the cost of discipleship and that is, we must first sit down and consider all that is involved in being saved and a follower of Christ. Christ puts it in terms that we can understand by referring us to a foundation upon which a building should be built. He says it not enough to build a foundation (make a profession), and then not be able to build on that. In verses 29 and 30, Jesus Christ the only Name under heaven given, among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12), tells us that profession without possession (being saved by anyone or anything other than saving-faith in Christ), calls the name of God into dispute. Those verses there in Luke chapter 14, advise anyone who is beginning that step toward God in salvation, that we would be wise to consider it deeply and make sure that we intend to honor God’s sacrifice of His one and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

That take an understanding of what we are doing, and the resolve that come what may, we will serve Him. Many times it seems to be hard for preachers to find a place to explain what happens to those who identify by the way the live and walk, that they are in Christ, that it is not something that will always be easy, in fact, we must be ready to do exactly what Jesus did, and that is, die under the hands of those who hate God and hate the fact that it took the death of His sinless Son Jesus Christ as the only way to make them worthy of heaven (John 15:1-14). If you are not certain of your salvation, undertake today to sit down and count the cost and if you are willing to put your life and soul in the care of Jesus Christ, ask God to lead you to salvation.

Now, in closing, let’s look at the last way we have chosen to prove that God exists, and that is the World. Not the world system that exists in this world that is so depraved that it should wobble in it’s course that God set for it in the Creation, but the World that God created and we can clearly see its beauty in so many places today. I won’t spend much time on this point because if you have eyes and you open them to see the extreme beauty of the sky, the lights of the world, the vast oceans and waters galore, the mountains and the plains and the ever-changing scope of God’s had in everything, you must know that it took a Sovereign God to speak them into being. If you cannot believe that God is the author of all the beauty that we see, then, there is not much hope for you. I would simply encourage you to take you eyes off of yourself and look around you, everything that exists was created by God, even you. He made it for you enjoyment and your benefit, lay down your arms and run to God through Christ on the Cross, there is a God and He is glorious!

Until next time,

may God bless and keep you

This is Bro. Bob