October 6, 2024

Is God Real?

Person looking out at the vast star filled night sky

Worship Service on Sunday, October 6, 2024

Is God real? We as Christians get that question, all the time. It may make us doubt. People don’t think Christianity is true. Is God real? Because if God is real, then everything is different. Because we have a purpose. There is an eternity, of course, if God is real. If God isn’t real, then none of this ultimately matters anyway. So, is God real?

Lee Strobel’s Journey from Atheism to Christianity

Lee Strobel is an atheist turned Christian. I don’t know if any of you know of him or not. He is an award-winning author of more than 20 books. His book, The Case for Christ, details his conversion to Christianity. Lee Strobel became a Christian in November of 1981. The great thing about Lee Strobel is that he makes his books understandable to everyone. Understandable to everyone. But now in his book, Is God Real? Is it different? 

The Answer to Searches

Lee said that this was the only book I’ve ever done where the publisher came to me and said we have noticed an interesting phenomenon. They said our tech people have noticed that 200 times 200 times a second around the clock, someone on planet earth is typing into a computer search engine. Basically the question “Is God real?” 200 times a second. Lee says, wow, so if there’s that much curiosity, if there’s that much interest, my goodness, there’s a whole generation out there seeking answers. He sees his contribution to the kingdom as a kind of conduit. He said, I’m not a scholar, so I go to these brilliant people who write these books that nobody understands because they’re so brilliant and who wrestle with these big issues. He said I’m trained as a journalist and so it’s natural for me to ask the tough questions I had when I was an atheist. And then another question that other people are asking and that other and then other questions that people are asking. I don’t have to be brilliant. I just have to find brilliant people and interview them.

The Debate Between Atheism and Christianity

People often ask, if God is real, why is there suffering? If God is real, why does he seem so hidden? A friend of Lee’s, who’s a famous atheist in America and was a national spokesman for American Atheists Incorporated, said, you know, you Christians are all alike. You present the case for Christ, but you’ll never give the case against God and let people make up their own minds. So, in the early 90s, Lee scheduled a debate between William Lane Craig and Frank Zinnler, atheist versus Christianity with the smartest atheist in the world and the smartest Christian in the world according to Lee. The media went nuts in Chicago over this. When they opened the doors on the night of the debate, they had 7,734 people show up. People ran down the aisles. When was the last time you saw someone run into church? Well, not at our age. No. They had to create an overflow. They had 117 radio stations, literally coast to coast broadcasting it live. Lee stated that ,“it was so powerful. If I were still an atheist today and all I had to go on was this argument for the existence of God, I would have been convinced that God exists. Not one person came out of that debate and said, ‘I’m still an atheist’. Everyone that talked to anybody said they converted to Christianity”. Interesting. 

The Argument for God’s Existence

Lee stated, “now it’s just my personal evaluation, but the argument is very simple. Whatever begins to exist has a cause, this is going to get tricky to hear, virtually every scientist in the world now concedes that the universe at some point in the past began to exist, therefore the universe must have a cause behind it. But what cause can bring a universe into existence. These are scientists. These are not, we’re not talking about pastors. He goes on to say, well, first it must be transcended because it was separate from creation. Must be spirit or immaterial because it existed before the physical world, must be eternal timeless bits of existence before physical time came into being, must be powerful given the immensity of the creation event, must be smart given the precision of the creation event must be personal because he had to make the decision to create. Must be creative, because my goodness, just look at the cosmos. Must be loving or caring, because he crafted so carefully and wonderfully an environment for us to flourish in. And then the scientific principle tells us there would be just one creed. So what do we have? Transcendent, spirit, eternal, powerful, smart, personal, creative, unique. This is the description of God in the Bible. 

Scientific Consensus on the Universe’s Beginning

Therefore, it rules out, and Ilearned these things this time, polytheists religion, where people believe in many gods. If there’s just one god, it rules out pantheist religions, because the creator must be separate from creation. With the pantheist belief, they believe that everything is God. It also rules out the universe being cyclicall. Yeah, thank you. Sorry, haven’t been drinking yet. As some people believe, which is the idea that the universe was static and always existed. How many people have you heard say that? That’s always been here or Big Bang. Lee states, we now know it began to exist at some point in the past. So this one argument, which actually has its roots in medieval Islamic theology and physiology, I think in and of itself is that’s all I have to go on. I would say, you know what that’s enough to convince me that there is a God. This is Lee talking. By the way, the description of that God matches the description of our God in the Bible, doesn’t it? He says evidence that the universe had a beginning is evidence of philosophy from philosophy that says an infinite regress would be Impossible. We also have mainly this series of scientific discoveries just over the last 50 or 80 years that tell us that the universe has been expanding since its inception. So if you run the clock backwards it goes back to the beginning point. In fact, one of the most famous cosmologists, not cosmetologists, Alexander Valsion of Tufts University, he and two other cosmologists have come up with a theorem that says that any universe that is expanding on average through its history like ours must have had a beginning and that even applies if we have a multiverse which means a multi-universe. In other words, if our universe ends up being just a tiny part of any of the even bigger multiverses, the multiverse has to have a beginning. These are scientists saying there had to be a beginning. Lee goes on to say, “I think the evidence for the beginning of the universe has convinced virtually every scientist in the world”. Alexander Blinken said all scientists actually now concur that the universe had a beginning at some point. The fact is that this could not have happened by accident or by coincidence. The universe is so finely tuned on a razor’s edge that it defines the explanation that could have happened by chance. That it defines the explanation that could have happened by chance. 

God Wants Us to Know He Exists

God wants us to know that he exists, but that’s not his goal. Even the demons know he exists and they shudder. God’s goal is that we would not only know that he exists, but that we would yield our life to him, that we would surrender our life to him, that we would follow him, that we would receive his free gift, forgiveness, and eternal life, and be adopted into his family forever. That’s the goal. So Wouldn’t you think a God who is omnipotent, who knows everything, would know the exact right amount that he should make his existence obvious to people? In other words, God walks a fine line. He has to make the awareness of himself obvious enough to people who want to find him, yet hidden enough to those who don’t want to find him. God does this so that we really have free will. He’s not going to overwhelm our free will and we can make a free choice. Look at the times in history when God made his existence painfully obvious so that nobody could possibly deny it. For instance, he guided the Israelites out of Egypt and when he parted the Red Sea, How could anybody deny that God exists seeing that actually take place? 

Proof of the Resurrection

Lee talks about the proof for resurrection. Many people question that. He says resurrection was real. Number one, that Jesus was truly dead after being crucified. Lee states that even the Journal of the American Medical Association affirms that clearly he was dead after being crucified, even before the wound in his side was inflicted. Number two, we have early reports of his resurrection, including named witnesses and groups of eyewitnesses, which have been dated back by scholars to within months of his death, much too early to be a legend that developed over time. We have an empty tomb that even the opponents of Jesus admitted was empty. Then finally, we have the eyewitnesses again. There are nine ancient sources inside and outside the New Testament confirming and collaborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus. So we’re not talking just the Bible. This is an avalanche of historical data. After all that, people are going to say, But you’re using the Bible to prove the Bible. But Lee is quoting sources outside the Bible. 

The Journal of the American Medical Association has nothing to do with the Bible. He says, ‘I’m not taking the Bible at face value. I’m giving evidence that the historical evidence in the Bible stands up to scrutiny”. He says when we have multiple sources that confirm the essential elements of Jesus’ life, teachings, miracles, death, and especially his resurrection. Lee states, “so it is not fair to say when scholars look at the documents, which we now consider to be the New Testament, they’re not looking at them as some sort of inspired text. They just want to see if these documents appear to be telling a general historical truth. 

The Bible as Historical Truth

So how did they discover that it really is the general historic truth? What are some tests that they used? They used the same tests that you would to test any ancient writings. You can take these same historical tests and apply them to the text of the New Testament. Lee was at Yale Law School. One of his heroes was the greatest lawyer who’s ever lived, Sir Lionel Ginsburg. Ginsburg holds the world record for winning the most cases of defense. He was knighted twice

by Queen Elizabeth, and he was a skeptic about the resurrection, just like Lee was at the time. And Lee was an atheist, and so was Ginsburg. Yet Ginsburg investigated the evidence. And this is a man who knows what evidence is and who can take an airtight case against his client, point out and point out all his flaws. He spent years investigating the resurrection. Ginsburg wrote one sentence to summarize his conclusion. He says, “I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves to absolutely no room for doubt” Here is an atheist saying that. Now this from the most successful lawyer who ever lived. So you see, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that God is real. There is also our unshakable faith and conviction that we know God is real. We know Jesus is real and that he walked the earth. In Jesus’ amazing life, he kept the entire Old Testament law perfectly and fulfilled the prophecies concerning the Messiah. Matthew 5:17, “do not think that I came to abolish the law of the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 

Evidence of God’s existence surrounds us from the sense of sight we take for granted to the laws of our astonishing world. We have a unity with each other and the universe that can only come from an omnipotent creator. Observing God’s bountiful creation is all it takes to find Him. Amen.

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