Seeing the Invisible God

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I invite you to take out your copy of God's Word and turn to Romans chapter one.
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Bring this down just a little, it's a little loud.
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And I'm gonna get louder, so for the sake of you and for the sake of your ears, I'll ask them to bring it down just a hair.
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Last week, we began a short series on the subject of apologetics.
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Apologetics is the practice of defending the faith that we hold.
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It isn't about winning arguments, it's about having confidence in the face of those who would reject or even persecute in regard to our faith.
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It's about being able to stand firm on a sure foundation.
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I'm calling this series Foxhole Apologetics, that's how I have it listed in my note file.
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And the reason why I'm calling it Foxhole Apologetics is because I'm trying to genuinely deal with real world, embattled, tough questions the things that people really ask.
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So much of apologetics is questions that nobody asks or that questions that no one is arguing or talking about.
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And so because I'm making this a short series and the reason why it's short is on Sunday mornings, I dedicate the vast majority of our preaching time to verse by verse exposition and I just finished a series, I did 41 weeks in Colossians and I'm going to start second Corinthians in just a few weeks and so in between I like to just rest my mind and so I'm doing this series and it's only gonna be a few weeks but the focus is going to be on three parts.
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It's going to be focusing on the existence and the nature of God, that's going to be today.
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It's going to be on the person and the work of Christ, that'll be next week.
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And then the final week will be on the nature and reliability of the Bible.
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Because I contend, having studied apologetics now for over two decades, I contend that these three subject areas are the areas where the real questions lie.
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These are the questions where the real battles are fought.
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And so my hope is that throughout the series, even though it be short, it remain a value to us all.
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And I said last week, I said that atheists are actually quite rare.
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I mentioned an old statistic, I said 3%, it's actually gone up, I looked it up again this week.
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I was quoting a statistic from maybe 10 years ago and I looked it up and atheism has risen and the problem with finding the actual statistic is that if you look it up, there's a difference between an atheist and agnostic and what's known as a nun.
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A nun is a person who is simply religiously unaffiliated and often they put those together and you end up with a skewed statistic trying to figure out how many people are actually atheists.
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But the reason why I'm pointing out that it's the minority, even if it's risen a few percentage points, it's still the minority, is that honestly, we don't tend to run into atheists as much as we expect.
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And this is why I say apologetics tends to deal with things that aren't real questions.
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Because we tend to more likely run into people who have a wrong view of God in the sense of who God is and what God is versus the fact that they just deny him outright.
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But I don't want to say that we would never run into atheists because the reality is we do run into people who would deny that God exists.
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And the very core of our faith is based on the idea that God does exist, he truly is.
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He's not a figment of the imagination, he is not something that was thought up or dreamt up by men, but he is in fact, the true and living God.
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And there will always be those who deny his existence simply because they cannot see him.
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So I've entitled today's message, Seeing the Invisible God.
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And I got this title from the text that we're going to read.
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This phrase is almost explicitly taken from the text.
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Paul is going to tell us that God's invisible attributes are actually perceivable in creation and therefore the atheist and all of us has no excuse.
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In fact, one could argue there are no real atheists in the world because while people intellectually deny God exists, according to scripture, they know instinctively that he does.
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So we're going to examine how the Bible presents God's existence as axiomatic.
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Axiomatic simply means that it is something that is assumed and other arguments are based upon it.
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It's a presupposition.
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The Bible says in the beginning, God.
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It doesn't seek to explain, it simply assumes that he exists.
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And we're going to see why that is in this text.
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So let's stand together and read.
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We're going to read Romans one beginning at verse 18 and we're going to read down to verse 23.
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And it says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
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For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
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So they are without excuse.
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For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile and their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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Claiming to be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God with images resembling mortal men and birds and animals and creeping things.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray even now that as I seek to preach your word that you would keep me from error.
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For God, I am a fallible man and I'm capable of preaching error and for the sake of your name, for the sake of my conscience and for the sake of those who will hear me preach, I pray that you keep me from error and I pray, God, that the Holy Spirit would be the teacher today.
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I pray that he would go out and take the word and mix it with faith, Lord, and implant it in the hearts of everyone here, Lord, that the believers would be encouraged, edified, even rebuked and, Lord, that they would be taught, trained, as your word tells us.
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Your word is able to do those things.
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And Lord, for the unbeliever, I pray that they would see today Christ as glorious, that they would see that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And I pray, Lord, as we seek to understand your word, that you would be glorified.
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We pray this, Lord, in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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I mentioned last week that I've taught on apologetics many times, I've taught in camps and conferences and I've taught here in different specific instances, but I've never preached on it on Sunday morning.
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However, I have preached Romans 1 on Sunday morning because Romans 1 is one of those passages that is so relevant to our day.
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I preached this sermon years ago, but I preached the text in light of the downgrade of our society.
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I called it the Roman's road of national depravity.
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And as I was going back through my notes and looking at the times I preached on the text, I pulled that out and looked at it and I said, yeah, okay, there's definitely a way to look at this text where we can see that God has made himself known and yet people reject the knowledge of God and because of the rejection of the knowledge of God, God brings his judgment upon those people and the result of judgment as we go through the text, down through the text, down past verse 23, down into verses 24 and 25 and all the way down to 31, we see the examples of God's judgment being made known.
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Men committing shameless acts with men, women leaving the men and committing shameless acts with one another and the people reviling one another and hating their parents and using evil words and hating God and we see all of these things are the result of God's lifting up his hand of restraint.
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When God lifts his hand of restraint, that's judgment.
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People say, oh, we have to be careful, America may one day come under God's judgment.
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We are there because the restraining hand of God has been removed and we see God's judgment all around us as men and women simply do what their hearts desire unrestrainedly so.
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God's judgment is here, we pray now for his mercy because judgment has come and we see it all around us.
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So having said that, I have a tendency in Romans 1 to go a different direction but today I want to look at this text from the perspective of apologetics because Romans 1 not only points to the issue of God's restraining hand being lifted and the results and judgment that come as a result of that but Romans 1 also provides for us one of the most important apologetics passages in all of the Bible because when it comes to apologetics, it tells us something about our objector.
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What do I mean by that? If we go out and we proclaim the gospel, we will run into objectors, amen? We'll run into those who make objections and the simplest objection is simply God is not real.
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There is no God.
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God is the figment of your imagination.
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He's made up by men.
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He's created in the minds of men.
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God is simply a myth.
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He's a fairy tale in the sky.
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I tell this story a lot but I can't help but to remind you.
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My favorite book outside of the Bible and many of you know this is a book called Animal Farm.
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It was written by George Orwell and it gives a satirical allegory about totalitarian power and it's done so with the animals on a farm, each animal representing a different aspect of the workforce.
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You have the pigs who are the totalitarian leaders and you have the horse who's the worker and you have all the different animals that do different things.
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Well, there's one animal that always gets my attention every time I read through the book and it is the raven.
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The raven flies around and he tells the people, or not the people, the animals who represent people of course, but he tells the animals about Sugarcandy Mountain.
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Sugarcandy Mountain is supposed to be this place that only the raven can see because only he can fly high enough to see Sugarcandy Mountain and he flies up and he comes down and he tells them if you work hard and you're diligent and you do what you're supposed to do, then when you die, you will go to Sugarcandy Mountain where there's nothing but joy and candy and places for you, salt licks and stuff.
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There's all these great things for the horses and all the animals.
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And here's what's interesting about Orwell's writing is that it's very clear that he's portraying the raven as a liar.
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The raven has never seen Sugarcandy Mountain.
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The raven has never been there and he's telling the people this, the animals this, to keep them diligently working but he knows it's not true.
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And the animals doubt whether or not it's true but just in case it is true, they keep working hard because they wanna make sure that if it's true, they'll make it to Sugarcandy Mountain.
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So there's this whole thing that Orwell is trying to do.
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He's trying to paint a picture of those who would proclaim a promise of eternal life, a promise of heaven as liars.
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And what's interesting about the book, if you read, the raven's name is Moses.
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So it's a little on the nose.
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The allegory is not very hidden.
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He's saying that the story of the clergy, the story of the message of eternal life, the story of heaven is just pie in the sky and everyone knows it.
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Yeah, he believes it now.
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But the reality of it is and the reason why I point this out is that is the objection that we will sometimes face when we go out into the world is that God is simply not there, that we have just as much reason to believe in God as we do to believe in a flying spaghetti monster which was the argument of Richard Dawkins, one of the most famous biologists in the world.
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He says there's no reason to believe in God than there's a reason to believe in a flying spaghetti monster.
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And so he presents God as simply something that is a myth.
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But here's what Romans 1 tells us.
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Romans 1 tells us that people who deny God's existence, that people who verbally say there is no God, people who deny the existence of God are actually in denial of something they know is true.
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And they are suppressing that truth in unrighteousness.
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Look again at the text with me.
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It says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness do what? Do what? Suppress the truth.
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But then he goes on to say, for what can be known about God is plain to them.
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Who is the them? Well, it's all men.
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It's everyone because everyone has seen this revelation of God and everyone knows this revelation of God.
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Everyone knows he's there.
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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
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You say, well, how? How has God shown himself to the world? Well, that's what happens when we get to verse 20.
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It says in verse 20, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
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So before we even get to the last sentence of that verse, notice what he is saying.
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He's saying that when men look at the world around them, there is ample evidence to see that this world is not something that came about without a creator, but that this world has the handprints, the fingerprints of a creator on it.
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And therefore, even though we can't see the creator because he is invisible, we can see his actions in what has been made.
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The invisible becomes visible by the actions of he who is invisible.
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Ray Comfort has a great way of explaining this when he's out evangelizing.
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And if you're unfamiliar with Ray Comfort, I would encourage you to look him up.
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He is one of the most prolific evangelists in the world, spends his life going about preaching the gospel.
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And even though I would disagree possibly with a little bit of his theology, I would never disagree with his passion.
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He has a heart for the Lord and he preaches the gospel to the lost, and I'm thankful for that.
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Here's something about Ray that he will say when talking to people.
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He will say, look at this building.
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And they look at whatever building is nearby.
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And he will say, how do you know that that building had a builder? Have you ever seen the builder? And they say, no.
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Have you ever met the architect? No.
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Have you ever talked to anyone who did anything who built in that building, a carpenter, a painter, a construction worker? Have you ever talked to anyone who built that building? And they would say, no.
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And he'd say, yeah, but you instinctively know that there was a builder because the building is evidence for the builder.
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See how that works? Just like if you see a painting.
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One of, out in the Narthex, we have a painting.
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I can see it through the doorway.
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It's a very powerful painting.
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It has a picture of the cross on it and a picture of those who deny the cross and they're falling into hell.
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It's a very vivid image.
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Sometimes guests come to the church and they look at it.
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It's very vivid.
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But I've never seen the painter.
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However, I know the painter exists because the painting is evidence of the painter.
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It isn't as if thousands of years ago a soup of colors came together and formed a cloud and rained down upon a canvas and that canvas, by the nature of simple erosion in time, formed a painting that can be seen and examined.
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No, that painting had a painter because it shows the evidence of intelligence.
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So we look at the painting and we know there's a painter.
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We look at the building and we know there's a builder.
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We look at creation and we say, oh, this all happened by mistake.
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You see how unintelligent that is, how foolish it is to look at the universe, a universe which has within it the evidence of what we call telos.
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Telos is the Greek word for purpose and we have what's known as the teleological argument for God and that is simply looking at the universe and seeing the world around us and seeing the things that simply look as if they were designed for a purpose and come to the conclusion that they were.
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The world was made not only for man to inhabit but the world was made for man to enjoy.
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There is a world around us that is not only habitable but it's hospitable.
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If you came upon a cave somewhere and you say, this might be a place where I could stay and maybe stay out of the weather and stay warm but if you came upon a house with an air-conditioned refrigerator, you'd say, hey, somebody put this here.
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And we look at the world around us and we see the evidence of God's hand.
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We see things that were put there by God for a reason.
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We are sometimes referred to as the Goldilocks planet.
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You know what the Goldilocks planet means? It means that we are just right.
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If we were closer to the sun, it would be way too hot and it seems like we're getting there.
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It's been real hot this summer.
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But if we were closer to the sun, it would be too hot.
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If we were further away, it would be too cold.
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But like Goldilocks, it's just right.
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If our atmosphere had more pressure, it would crush us and if it had less pressure, we would fall apart and yet it's just right.
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We have all of the things necessary for liquid, gas and solid for the states of H2O and all of those things are necessary for life.
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They're just right.
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As we walk through the world, we see not only dozens but hundreds and even could say thousands of reasons to say this world is not a world of accidental evaluation but rather it is a world of intentional creation.
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That's the world that we live in.
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So Paul says, he says very clearly, he says when men look at the world around them and they see God's hand in creation, they are unapologetus.
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The Greek word there, it's the root of that is the word apologetics.
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The word apologetics, if you remember last week, means to make a defense.
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But to put the alpha privative on the beginning, the alpha privative means you put the A at the beginning and it makes the adverse.
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For instance, in the word atheist, it's the opposite of a theist.
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Unapologetus puts the alpha privative in front of the word apologetics.
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So where we have a defense for the hope that is within us, those who deny the existence of God have no defense.
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That's what Paul's saying.
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They have no excuse.
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There is no excuse for denying that God exists.
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And when they've, I've heard atheists say this, I've heard it out of their own mouths.
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I've listened to lectures, I've sat in lectures, and I've heard men say, well, if I die and I find out God exists, I'm gonna tell him he did not give me enough evidence for his existence.
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Paul says that's not true.
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No.
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Paul, in fact, tells us the opposite.
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Paul tells us that they do not lack evidence because evidence for God is everywhere.
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And what they're doing is they're choosing to ignore the evidence.
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They are choosing to suppress the evidence in unrighteousness according to this passage.
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And that is why I want you to understand one of the most important facts about apologetics is this fact right here.
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There is no neutral man.
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There is no neutral man.
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You'll hear people say sometimes, they will say, well, I'm just neutral.
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And if I find evidence for God, then I will believe.
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But right now, there's no evidence, and so therefore, I don't believe.
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That, my friends, has a Greek word, and you know what it is, baloney.
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It's absolute baloney, that's the Greek word for that.
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Because Paul says, there is no neutral man.
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Paul says that every person has the evidence for God in front of them, and that they either recognize the God who exists, or they suppress that truth in unrighteousness.
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And that's why my approach to the subject of apologetics is very different than what you may have heard from other people, because oftentimes, what you will find in the approach to apologetics is an immediate appeal to evidence.
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Here's the evidence for God.
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Here's the evidence for God.
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Here's the evidence for God.
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And the problem with starting with that approach is what you are doing is you are saying they don't have enough evidence, so I have to give them more.
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No, they have enough evidence.
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That's the point of this type of apologetics, because when we come to the person, we need to understand we are not dealing with a person who simply needs more evidence.
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We are dealing with a person who has made the choice to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and thereby, are willfully denying the evidence that they have.
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Amen.
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We're not dealing with a neutral man.
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We're dealing with a rebel against God.
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That's who we're dealing with, and therefore, it changes how we approach the subject.
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Because no matter how much evidence you lay in front of an atheist, if their heart remains unconverted, they will not believe.
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Here's the proof.
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The Reason Rally.
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The Reason Rally happens in Washington, D.C., a group of atheists gather.
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I don't know, I don't think it's annual.
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I think it's every few years they gather for this thing called the Reason Rally.
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A few years ago, a friend of mine was there, and he was doing videos, and he asked this question.
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If it could be proved to you, beyond shadow of a doubt, that God exists, would you worship him? Every single one said no.
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Every single one said no.
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It's not about evidence.
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It's about the heart.
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Now, I'm not telling you that I will never offer up evidence, even pointing at a building and say, look at the building, you know the building's there.
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That's an argument of pointing to evidence, but my point is the evidence is already there, and so my approach is going to be different when I come at this subject.
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The Bible tells us that the world around us proves God's existence.
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What does Psalm 19 say? The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
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Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
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It tells us that day and night, God's glory is perceived from heaven.
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In 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope began to give us never before seen images from the farthest reaches of space.
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It is able to view objects too old, too distant, or too faint for the Hubble Telescope, which itself was an amazing wonder when it was put into space.
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And with every image that the James Webb Telescope sends back to Earth, with every image it produces, it's screaming one thing.
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God is glorious.
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That's what the heavens do.
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The heavens declare the glory of God.
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In fact, if you think about it, if the created universe is so vast and so magnificent, what does that say about the one who created it? Even more.
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Often, you'll hear people say, well, does science disprove God? That's a big argument you'll hear.
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I don't believe in God.
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I believe in science.
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But what is science? Science is a method for studying the world.
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Science operates within the bounds of the natural world.
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And therefore, if we consider God to be supernatural, or what might be referred to as metaphysical, outside of the normal range of the physical, then God is not bound or measurable by what we call science, because science is a study of that which has been created, not the creator himself.
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So contrary to popular belief, science and faith are not opposites.
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You'll often hear that the church has long persecuted scientists, and science has always been at odds with the church.
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It's not true.
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In fact, let me put one myth to bed.
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One of the myths that's very popular is that Galileo, you know, Galileo argued for what's known as heliocentricity, because before that, it was believed what's known as geocentricity, or the earth is the center of the universe.
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Well, Galileo argued that the sun is the center of the heliocentricity.
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And the argument is, well, the church persecuted him.
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I wanna read a quote for you.
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This is from Mark Clark on the subject of Galileo.
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This is what he writes.
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He says, Galileo was a friend of the church for most of his life.
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He was a practicing Catholic, and in 1616, he came to Rome and met with the Pope multiple times.
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I'll forgive him for that.
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As time went on, he did become more critical of the church and its views, and the church did persecute Galileo for a time, demanding he recant some of his heliocentric views, but he was never charged with heresy.
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He was never placed in a dungeon.
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He was never tortured, as has become popular mythology today.
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He was sentenced to house arrest, and then released into the custody of the Archbishop of Siena, who's housed him for five months in his palace.
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That sounds awful terrible.
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And Galileo then returned to his villa in Florence, continuing his scientific work, and even published before dying of natural causes in 1642.
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He was not persecuted, he wasn't killed, he wasn't burned at the stake.
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The traditional picture of Galileo as a martyr of intellectual freedom is simply wrong.
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Any persecution he faced serves as an anomaly.
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Historian Thomas Lessel writes, a momentary break in the otherwise harmonious relationship that existed between Christianity and science.
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Indeed, there is no other example in history of the Catholic Church condemning a scientific theory.
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Now, I'm not pro-Catholic, you know that.
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I'm a reformed pastor.
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But this argument, these myths that arise, that somehow science and faith have been at odds, do you understand that science exists because people believe that God created a universe that was noble? The reason science exists is because people believe God created a world that was actually consistent with itself, that they believe that there was actually cosmos and not chaos.
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You see, if we had a world, a universe of chaos, that did not obey observable laws, science would be impossible.
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But because we do have a universe that obeys observable laws, we actually have an ability to do science.
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Science is the handmaiden of theology.
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It is not at odds with it.
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And the argument that science and theology or science and God go against each other is simply a myth perpetrated to try to point to the idea that the church is somehow ignorant and stupid and you're a fool for believing.
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So there is really no reason to argue that science is at odds with God.
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I love one quote, I forget who said it, but he was a scientist.
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He said, he said, as you begin to drink from the cup of the natural sciences, you begin to taste atheism.
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He said, but when you reach the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.
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But the reality is, what I tend to find, and this is somewhat subjective because it's my own experience, but I do think I share this experience with many other apologists and preachers and evangelists, is that when we're out doing foxhole apologetics, when we're out actually talking to people, when we're out doing evangelism, that most of the objections that we get are not objections from a scientific perspective.
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Every once in a while, somebody will throw out a evolutionary argument or something, but that's generally not what we run into.
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Most of the arguments that we run into are not scientific, they're moral.
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The most common objection people have against the existence of God, or at least the existence of the Christian God, is this very simple objection.
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If God is good, finish it.
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Why do bad things happen? You see, that's a whole other argument.
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That doesn't even come into the realm of the nature and being of, or rather the existence of God, but it comes into the nature and being of God.
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That's the argument that you will hear more than anything else.
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I remember sitting right outside, we had a fall festival many years ago.
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It was kind of an interesting story.
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We asked, please don't wear any devilish costumes, and in come two devils.
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Two young girls dressed as devils.
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So they came to the fall festival dressed as devils.
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I sat down with them, not to chastise them for their costume, they were from the neighborhood, we weren't gonna do that, but I did wanna ask them a few questions because I didn't know them.
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So I wanted to sit down and share the gospel with them.
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So I sat down with them and I began to talk to them about God and ask them their opinions, what their thoughts were.
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And I'll never forget this one young girl, there's two of them, but the one specifically, the one more vocal.
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She said, I can't believe God exists because I was abused.
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And if God exists, he wouldn't have let me be abused.
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See, that's not an argument from science.
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You could argue it's an emotional argument, but actually it's not even an emotional argument, it's an argument from morality.
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She's saying if there truly is a good God, he wouldn't have let that terrible thing happen to me.
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Am I right to say we've all heard someone say that? We've all heard someone argue against the existence of God with a simple statement.
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If God were good, he wouldn't allow evil.
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There's a more complex version of that question.
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I deal with this in the academy.
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If you're unfamiliar, we have a two year Bible ministry training program here at our church and the class on apologetics, I actually deal with this question.
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And the question's a little more specific and it's this question.
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It's if God is all powerful, he must not be all good.
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This is more of a statement, not a question.
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If God is all powerful, he must not be all good.
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And if he is all good, he must not be all powerful.
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See, this is a philosophical statement about the nature of God.
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If God were all good, then he certainly couldn't allow evil, but because evil exists, he must not be powerful enough to do anything about it.
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Or if he is powerful enough to do something about it and he's not doing something about it, he must not be good.
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Maybe you haven't heard this, but this actually is based on a technical theological term called theodicy.
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Theodicy comes from the word theos, which means God, and dike, which refers to justice.
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And it is arguing that God is unjust.
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Because if he has the power to thwart all evil and he doesn't, then he must be unjust.
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Years ago, there was a book that came out.
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It was called Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.
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The writer of that book, if I remember correctly, and I'm open to correction on this, but I believe the writer was a Jewish man, and he was writing, Having Lost His Son.
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And he came to the conclusion in that book that God doesn't have the power to stop the evil things that happen, and therefore, that was his answer.
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That was what satisfied him.
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God simply can't stop the bad, and therefore, I can be comforted by a God who simply is like me in that bad things happen and there's nothing we can do about it.
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The problem with that perspective is that is not the way that God presents himself in scripture.
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God does not present himself in scripture as a God who is unable in any circumstance.
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I hope we would agree.
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I mean, I know there's a lot of visitors this morning, and God bless you all, but in case you didn't know when you came in, we're reformed.
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That means we hold to more of a Calvinistic view of how we understand God.
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And one of the things we understand about God is he's sovereign, that God actually has the power to do as he wills in heaven and on earth at any time.
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In fact, just real quickly, just if you would, open your Bibles again, if you have them open, just flip over to Daniel chapter four.
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If you remember in Daniel, there was a king named Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar looked at his kingdom, and he was very proud of his kingdom, and all that he had accomplished.
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And in his pride, he spoke of his greatness, and God chose to humble Nebuchadnezzar.
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Do you remember how he did it? Now remember, Nebuchadnezzar's the most powerful king in the world at that time, at least the known world.
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Nebuchadnezzar was struck by God with insanity, drove out into the field where it says he ate grass like an ox, and his fingernails grew like the talons of a bird, and his hair was like feathers.
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He went insane because God lifted the restraint and gave him over to his insanity.
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God struck him with insanity, and then once it was over, and once it was over, this is verse 34 if you're in Daniel four.
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Once it was over, Nebuchadnezzar was given his sanity back, he was giving his mind back, and this is what he says.
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Now this is a quote from an evil king.
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Now some may say they believe he got saved after this, we could have that conversation another time, but the point is, at least we know for a season of his life, he was one of the most vicious kings, taking whole nations.
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This is what he says after God restores his sanity.
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He says, at the end of the days, meaning the days of his being driven out, at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the most high.
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This is why some people think maybe he got saved at this, because he actually blesses God, he blesses the most high.
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He says, he blessed the most high, and praised and honored him who lives forever.
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Now here's the part that's good.
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It's all good, but this is the best part.
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For his dominion is an everlasting dominion.
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His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
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All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can say to him, what have you done? You understand what Nebuchadnezzar's saying about God right there? He's saying that God is absolutely sovereign, that God does as he chooses in heaven and on earth.
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And someone says, well, if God can do as he chooses, why does he choose that the earth have so much evil? Here's where we have to be very honest.
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We live in a world that is under a curse.
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When God created the world, what was the one descriptive word that he used every day that he created? Good.
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He created, he separated the light from the dark, it was good.
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He created, he separated the sky above from the waters below, he said it was good.
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He created, he separated the waters from the land, he said that was good.
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Then he began to fill.
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He put the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky.
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He put the fish, and the birds, and the sea, and all those things, and he put man and beasts on the earth and he said it's very good.
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Man was given a good earth.
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Man was given a good world.
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And man was given one command.
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What was it? Do not eat of the tree.
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Or as Brother Mike would say, trust and obey.
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We talk about that phrase a lot.
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It'd be a good song for us to sing.
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We haven't sung that song in a while.
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But he's given the command, trust and obey.
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Don't do this thing.
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And yet Adam does that thing, and when he does that thing, he becomes the representative head of all of us in taking us all into this sinful act against God.
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And when he sins against God, he brings God's judgment upon the entire earth.
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The Bible says the wrath of God, we read it this morning, is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
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How is the wrath of God revealed every day? Men die every day.
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The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
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The byproduct of Adam's sin, the byproduct of all of our sins, is death.
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And death comes as a result of rebellion against God.
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And God is not unjust.
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When we talk about theodicy, which means the justice of God, God is not unjust to judge the wicked.
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God is just in punishing the wicked.
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And the world we live in, the world of hurricanes and floods, the world of earthquakes and tsunamis, the world of miscarriages and suicide, that world is not the good world God created, but it's the world that is under the curse of sin.
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And God, in the fullness of time, sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law and give them the adoption of sons.
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See, God didn't have to do that.
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God didn't have to save a rebellious world.
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God could have, with the heel of His boot, stomped us all into a mud hole, and we would have deserved it.
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But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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You see the difference? When someone says, God is not good.
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No, we're not good.
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We are the rebels.
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We deserve the punishment.
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God is good and merciful, and He gives us His mercy that we don't deserve.
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How dare we say to God, you're not good enough.
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R.C.
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Sproul was asked, this is a very famous quote of his, he was asked, why was the punishment on Adam so severe? And R.C.
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Sproul said, wait a minute.
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This creature from the dirt is given this beautiful world where he can eat from any tree he chooses save one.
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And he chooses to rebel against that God and spit in his face.
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And the punishment is too severe? What's wrong with you people? That's a direct quote.
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That's what he's asking.
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Why do we think this way? Because we think God owes us something.
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Because we refuse to see ourselves as subject to God's authority.
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We refuse to see ourselves as subject to He who does all things right.
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We are the rebels, not God.
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We are the ones who are weak, not God.
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And we are the ones who have done evil, not God.
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And therefore we must find in Him the blessing of knowing that if we will repent and turn, we will find Him to be a gracious and loving God.
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Imagine a king, imagine a king who goes off on a journey.
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And as he is away on a journey, his subjects overrun his palace.
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They mistreat his family.
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They murder his son.
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And they molest his bride.
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And the king returns.
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What should the king give to those people? Justice.
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And yet our God extends mercy.
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While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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While we were plundering His palace, He sent His Son to die.
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Certainly more can be said about this argument.
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But at the heart of it, we have to understand that the evil and the pain and the suffering in this world is all a result of sin.
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It's all a byproduct of rebellion.
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But God has loved the world and given a way to be saved.
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And some people get offended by that.
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They say, why has He only given one way? Remember this, beloved, He didn't have to give any way.
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And yet He gave the very best way.
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He didn't have to give us mercy.
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And yet He gave us grace through His Son.
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So if you're here this morning and you have issues, if you have issues with the existence of God, I'd love to talk to you.
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If you have objections to the existence of God, I would love to have a conversation with you.
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I will stay here for as long as you desire.
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But understand this, I will always point you back to the God who created you.
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Who you know that you are subject to.
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And remind you that the Bible says you don't have a lack of evidence, but you have a heart of rebellion.
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And the Bible says to turn from your sin and trust in Christ.
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So let's pray.
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Father, I thank you.
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I thank you for your word.
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And I thank you for your truth.
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And I pray, oh God, that your word has been preached properly and your people have been edified.
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And Lord, those who are not believers have been pointed to the reality that there is only one way of salvation and it is through the cross.
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Oh God, may you bless us now as we remember the cross and our time of holy communion.
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And Lord, may we be reminded that it is in this bread and in this cup that we find a picture of what Christ has done to save those who believe.
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And it's in His name we pray, amen.