Amen. Well, today we're starting a new series for the new year in theology proper. We're going to do some systematic theology. And we're going to begin with the existence and knowability of God. I don't know about you, but maybe you have an atheist friend. I had a couple, one growing up. He's no longer an atheist, but he would make that argument, you know, why does God allow so much evil in this world? God can't exist. If God existed, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened, right? I also have a supervisor of mine that's an atheist, and he's a strong atheist. He's not agnostic. He's saying, no, God doesn't exist, and I know it. And you could see him getting mad and upset about it when we talk about him, like, you really hate something that doesn't exist, huh? Anyway, so he's very nice to me, and we're really good friends. I've known him for seven years now, and we always have good discussions. Or maybe it's those atheists on YouTube, right? You go on YouTube and everyone's commenting on a video. We want to debate between, does God exist or not? And of course God doesn't exist. Anyway, so that's going to be our discussion for today. But just curious, does anyone have any friends that are atheists? Or maybe you know someone that you've had a conversation with? Yeah, Mike, tell me about one. It's like, very kind, like, in between, like, on the board, Okay. And how's your conversations with him? Alright. That's good. At least you know a little bit about what he believes, and maybe he knows a little bit about what you believe. Barbara, did you have someone you said? Oh, family members. Yes, it gets interesting once they're your family, and they know you're a believer. Okay, so I'm sure Thanksgiving could be interesting, having those conversations. Oh, okay. But they celebrate Christmas, right? Oh, okay. Interesting, interesting. Alright, so our overview, what we're going to look at is four main things, and I'm mainly using Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. We don't agree with everything with Wayne Grudem here, but he has a lot of great insights on different topics. So, how do we know God exists? That's our first question we want to tackle. There's four ways. that we can argue this. Humanity's inner sense of God, believing the evidence in scripture and nature, traditional proofs for the existence of God, and we know ultimately though, we're going to see that only God can overcome our sin and enable us to be persuaded of his existence. Because we live in a world that promotes this irrationality and really it's God who has to knock it into our senses. Alright, so let's begin with the first one here. Humanity's inner sense of God. So growing up, you probably had this inner sense that God existed, right? There was more than just you and your family. Creation cries out for a creator. But what happens? What happens as you age? You become wiser, right? You get a little cool, right? God isn't so popular. And so you start to go with the motions and what do you do? Romans 1. We exchange the truth of God for a lie, right? We create this false image of God in our minds. Some people with false religions, they create a God they like, and they create a God that acts like them. That's more of like a man who's not truly God. If you have your Bibles, you can open up to Romans 1. We're mainly going to be there today. And systematic theology is not really like an exegesis of a scripture, so it's not going to be like James, where we went verse by verse. It's going to be all over the place. But it's good, because the Bible is that amazing that we have so many scriptures that back up different doctrines and truths. And this one's the most simple one, which is God exists, right? And so we're going to look at Romans. Look at Romans 1, verses 19, 21, and 25 here. So I'll be all around, but for the main part, just stick in Romans. That way you don't lose your spot. Romans 1, I'm arguing that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Look at Romans 1, 19. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them." Right? This belief that God exists, it's evident, it's obvious. You can ask a little kid, you know. But what happens, like I said, as you continue in Romans 1, you're going to see that they exchange the truth for a lie. Romans 121. For even though they knew God. Okay, interesting here. They knew God. It's not that they had this personal relationship. We'll see that in a second. But they knew that God existed. They knew there was a creator. But what happens? They did not honor him as God or give thanks. They became futile in their speculations, and then their foolish heart was darkened. One more, and here's the big one. Verse 25. Romans 1. For they exchanged the truth of God for what? For a lie. And they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. So we see that the atheist really is a fool. In Psalms 14.1 and Psalm 53.1, it says that The fool says in his heart that God, there is no God, right? And so this is, throughout scripture, throughout centuries, years, history, people have claimed that God doesn't exist. But what are they doing? We're gonna continue Romans 1. Sinners are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Again, verse 19, at the end of it, it says that God made it evident to them, and then it continues, Right here in verse 18. Verse 20, And so this brings up an interesting point how there are obviously unbelievers all over the world, but they are without excuse. A question that a lot of people like to bring up is, well, Those people that are in those tribes where no one's going to get to them, are they going to hell? Well, the scripture says they are without excuse. If you sin against a holy God, you are accountable for your actions. But when we have some question time, we'll get into some of that stuff more. What happens? Verse 22. Again, like I mentioned, professing to be wise, they became fools. April Fool's Day, what is that, Atheist Day? And exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals. So what happened? They profess to be wise. They claim to know it all, right? But who knows it all? God knows it all. And what they're doing is they're trying to put God in their box, and they're trying to exalt themselves. And they're trying to say, well, we're really the true God here. Verse 25, again, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and they worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator. Ultimately, that's what they're doing, they're worshipping themselves, they're not worshipping God. Verse 28, so what ends up happening? Romans 1. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to those things which were not proper. Right? And so we see that to them, God didn't fit in their worldview. Because ultimately, they want their sin. And God is going to hold them accountable, so what do they have to do? Well, God doesn't exist. That way I can continue in my sin. Verse 32, last one here in Romans 1. And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give a hearty approval to those who practice them. So they applaud when people are in sin, in disobedience, because they're really rebelling against God. They don't want anything to do with God. And beloved, you were there too, before you became a Christian. And so that is very important when we're interacting with atheists and, you know, Mike brought up he knew someone, and I'm sure you probably know someone, or maybe you used to have someone that you knew. We need to be very humble when we interact with them, because ultimately we know we were heading astray just like them, but God, by his grace, got us out of that pit. Alrighty, so we're talking about how sinners suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They have this human inner sense of God, they know God exists, and so when atheists come and say, I don't believe God exists, You know, obviously you gotta be nice, you gotta be gentle, but ultimately we know they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and so there's a way to go about it. And like I said in the discussion questions, we'll talk a little bit more. But there's another inner sense of God that Christians have, right? Christians, they grow in this inner sense of God's existence, alright? And this is the difference. The atheists are denying and the Christians are growing in this existence of God. They understand that God exists and they're coming to know Him more and more. I'll just give you some scriptures, not too many. Romans 8.15, like I said, you don't have to go there. Remember, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we're children of God. Ephesians 3.17, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. We're rooted and grounded in love. I like in Philippians 3, I brought this up last Sunday, how Paul has this desire to serve Christ and he's saying, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as dung. Right? As poop, as rubbish, for me to gain Christ. For him, everything is to know him in the power of his resurrection, in the fellowship of his sufferings. And so, as a believer, that's what you start to do. You start to grow in this inner awareness. God exists, and I want to serve him and obey him, even if it means suffering. Colossians 1, 27. To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of his glory, of his mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And one more here. 1 Peter 1.8, and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, right? We can't say, well, I've seen God. No, we can't say that, but we can say, I do love God. And though we do not see Him, we believe in Him, and you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible, right? We have this joy because we know God. And so, as believers, we are gonna grow in this inner sense of God. Alright, moving right along here, we see there's evidence in scripture and nature. Just to think about scripture for a second, you don't see Moses or the author Genesis Alright, let me explain to you why God exists before I start to talk about God. No, he starts Genesis 1-1 with what? In the beginning, God, right? And so, he presupposes the existence of God. Again, he's aware of this inner sense, you know, the conscience that God has given us, the law he's written in our hearts. He understands that yes, God exists, and so he presupposes that. However, we also see that God exists through nature, right? We can see creation and say there's a creator, Romans 1.20, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen. And so, how do we know God exists? Look around, right? Some examples, human beings. There are some human beings that are very skillful. I don't know about you, but I can't dunk, right? There are some people that can jump really high. There are people that make some beautiful music and they play the piano and they hit every note and it's like, whoa, how do you do that? You know, that's some intelligence there in your mind. Some people are really good at knitting. One argument is, of course, God has created human beings, and we can get into the whole DNA stuff, but it's just amazing just to think about the human body and how it works, and how the heart's pumping blood right now, right? And you start to just see, wow, God is skillful in creating us, and we're skillful in working for God. Acts 14, 17 talks about just the reins, and how God provides with food. Have you ever thought about gardening? Have you ever thought about just how food is created? It's a beautiful process. It's just a little seed, right? And then boom, you've got a huge tree. And then that tree has fruit. Whoa. You can't tell me that it was all random chants. Psalms 19, verses 1 to 2. The heavens are telling of the glory of God. The expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Just look up. The sun, the moon, the stars. Try to count the stars. It's just beautiful to think about the snowflakes, maybe yesterday, right? They're not identical. Thunderstorms, you know how loud that is and just powerful. It shakes the ground sometimes. And honeybees and just that process. So all these different things in creation point to a creator. There's no denying that. But, of course, our philosophical atheist brothers, friends, they tend to say, give me some proofs, right? So throughout church history, we see some traditional proofs for the existence of God. And right off the start, you need to know that these truths are to help irrational people think rationally, right? There's different ways to approach an atheist. Like I said, there's the pre-submissional approach, where it's more like, Romans 1, we know that they deny God's existence. And then there's the more evidential approach where it's, give me proof, right? So, we'll give you four arguments. These are just the most common arguments that Christians use. The first one is the cosmological argument. Every known thing in the universe has a cause, right? The universe must also have a cause, and that cause of such a great universe is God, right? So what's the first uncaused clause? The atheists are going to argue it's the universe, big bang, it just happened, matter became life. And the believers are going to say, no, everything came from God. Everything came from God. He's always existed. And so there's a lot of more scientific proof for that, but That's one argument, cosmological argument. Number two, teleological argument. There's evidence, and I kind of brought this out a little bit, there's evidence of harmony, order, and design in the universe, and so the universe's design gives evidence of an intellectual purpose, and since that universe has a purpose, there must be a purposeful God who created it in that way, right? If you just ask unbelievers, what's your purpose in life, right? Well, my purpose, I can make my own purpose, right? They're not going to say, well, it's God who gave them a purpose because he's a purposeful God. But it is God. Another one, ontological argument. This one's a little more complex. It begins with the idea of God, who is defined as being greater than that which nothing can be imagined. And so the characteristic of existence must belong to such a being since it is greater to exist than not to exist, right? So they're arguing the necessity of God. He cannot exist. God has to exist, right? And lastly, and one of my favorite ones, is the moral argument. Man's sense of right and wrong and of the need of justice to be done. So you could say, someone just murdered someone, maybe your own son. terrible thing, and you tell the atheists, what gives us the right for the death penalty here? Or what gives us the right for that person to be punished? Couldn't the society just dictate that all murderers are free to go? Forgiveness? And so the atheists would have to say, yeah, we could end up deciding that because it's all about what we think. There's no moral standard, right? There's no Ten Commandments in their view. And so the argument for the moral would be there must be a God who is the source of morality and who will serve justice. Alright, any questions here about anything we spoke about with the proofs? Maybe you use the proofs, maybe you don't think they work, or maybe you think they're helpful. Any questions or comments? Pastor, do you mind getting me just a water? Yeah, thank you. Any questions or comments here? I know it's a lot, you know, you don't have to be an expert in these things, but it is good to know. I will say that it has helped me a little bit just start the conversations with atheists and agnostics. All right, let's keep it going then. So I really like this point here. Only God can overcome our sin and enable us to be persuaded of His existence. Why? We see in 2 Corinthians 4, the God of this age, Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers. And so this is really key for us to understand. Why aren't you believing? Why aren't you believing? You know, you get really agitated. Come on, just believe already. They're going through spiritual blindness right now. They're blinded by their sin. They're blinded by Satan. They need the work of God. They need the grace of God. And remember, that's what happened with you. You didn't just say, oh, I'm blind. I need to see. No. God had to open your eyes, shine the light in your eyes, and say, wow. I need God, right? And so again, humble approach. First Corinthians 121 talks about how it's not by the wisdom of the world. And so this is really important that we know that we're not saying you just got to be wiser than the other person. I mean, clearly I know God exists. You don't. You know, I'm just a little smarter than you. No. you both start in that position of being blinded. And it's not going to be by the wisdom of the world. It's going to be by the foolishness of the gospel that you get converted. And then lastly, of course, number three, we need the power of God to save souls. If you read in 1 Corinthians 2, 5, Let me just read that for you here. 1 Corinthians 2, 5. So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God. And why do you believe? It's because of the power of God. It's because of what he's doing in your life. Again, his grace. All right. Just some application questions here to think about. This is important. When is your inner sense of God's existence strongest, weakest? Let's keep it real. As believers, sometimes we can act like an atheist. Sometimes we wake up and we don't even acknowledge God. We don't even say, thank you God for waking me up. I gotta get to work. Here we go. You know, very busy. We need to step back and realize Wow, God is working in my life. He's doing something throughout the morning and throughout the day. And so for me, I would argue during the trials, you know, I really feel God's presence, His existence there. The weakest is usually when you're just thinking about yourself, and you're weak, and you're a day, and it's all about you. We're not really putting God first. That's usually when you're not really acknowledging God's existence. And the second one, why do some people deny the existence of God? Anyone know? I mentioned it. Why? Why is it that they deny the existence of God? Exactly. Exactly. They are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Good. All right. Just one discussion for sake of time here, just so you can think about it a little bit. What would you tell someone who said everything was created from nothing, life came from non-life? Kind of similar question, but how would you approach an atheist, someone who denies the existence of God, given what we learned? What would you say, hey, I don't believe That God created everything. I believe life came from non-life. What would you tell that person? Yes, Ray Comfort's great. And yes, cosmological argument. The origin of life argument is a big deal. Because even Darwin, he started with life. So there's a professor at Rice University, James Torr, and he's a renowned chemist. And he's going after these guys because they really oversold how far they've come in proving that nature can just bring life and it's galaxies away. And he knows that field, because a lot of people just take in these scientists at face value. And he's really brilliant. But the scientific community, I think, is taking note of what's going on there. Good. Good point. I would say somebody like that is making a claim. So I would say, OK. Joe has a question here, or statement. Yeah, I'm presuppositionalist, but I don't mind using the evidential approach when I think would be good to continue the conversation. But I'm not, yeah, I'm not going to say you can't be an evidentialist. You know, I'm just saying that I believe the presuppositional approach is more biblical because of Romans 1, which we kind of discussed. But good. All right, we don't have too much time here, so we're shifting gears to our next question. And we're talking about the knowability of God. Can we really know God? Right? We talked about can we know God exists, but now we're talking about can you really know God? How much of God can we know? We see three main topics here. The necessity for God to reveal himself to us. Second point, we can never fully understand God. Keyword there is fully. And then number three, yet we can know God truly. Okay? So the necessity for God to reveal himself, I mentioned this a little bit already, God has to reveal himself to us. Romans 1.19, we spoke about that, how he has made it evident to them. I think the key here, it all goes back to Jesus here, in Matthew 11.27, look what he says here. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and here it is, and anyone to whom the Son wills or chooses to reveal Him. And so this is really key for us to understand here, that it is by the will of the Son that we will get to know God personally. Alright? Now, here's an interesting point. Sinful people misinterpret the revelation about God in nature. Just think about all the false religions that have been created, right? They see the sun and what do they do? They're gonna worship the sun god, Ra, right? You know, they make different, they see the creation of man, like cows, and you know, you have different religions that worship the cow, and so we see that God has created many things, but what happens? There's a dilemma. Sinful hearts, right? Calvin says you are gonna create idols with your sinful heart. It's a factory, and so we are gonna just keep making false images of God, So what do we need? Does anyone know? We need the word. We need scripture. Ultimately we need God to reveal himself. And he does through the Bible. And so we can never fully understand God. Now this is a very important point. you know, the argument that God is incomprehensible, it's not that we can never understand God, it's that we will never be able to fully understand God, right? So we can know God, we can know Him in a personal way, but not to the point of fully know Him. Why? Because God is infinite and we are finite. Just listen to a couple verses here. Psalm 145, His greatness is unsearchable. His understanding is infinite. Psalm 139. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high. I cannot attain it. Romans 11.33. After so much theology, what does Paul say? Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. And so God is infinite, we are finite, and so yes, we won't fully understand God, but at the end, I'll explain, I think it's a beautiful thing that we won't ever fully understand God. The second point here is God's amazing, right? And so we ought to praise Him in humble adoration. Just think of Isaiah 55, for us, the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Psalm 139, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I could count them, they would outnumber the sand! Alright? And so, God is that amazing, and we need to think about that more. We need to understand that, wow, alright, God is infinite, He's eternal, He's all-knowing, omniscient, all those big words, and just say, whoa! I'm not those things. God is worthy of my praise and I need to bow before my creator. I think of Abraham that I was reading about and what does he do? He falls face down before God when they have a conversation. Alright, moving right along here. Yet we can know God truly, right? We can know God truly. We know that God is love, He is light, He is spirit, just, because we have the scripture, right? We read that in 1 John 4, 8 and 1 John 1, 5. Not only that, we can know God personally, right? Jeremiah 9, 23 to 24, we don't boast about anything but what? That we know Him, right? That's what we boast about, that we know God. John 17, 3, what is eternal life? It is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. And then if you read in 1 John 2, he knows that they know them, right? He says, I am writing to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. And then at the end he says, I'm writing to you children because you know the father. John is aware that they have a relationship with God as well, just like him. And so we can know God personally. All right, any questions or comments about this topic here? Yeah, Vanessa. Oh yeah, I would say that sin is a main reason why it hinders our deeper knowledge of God in the sense of knowing Him more intimately. But that's not to say, you know, we can't know Him in a great personal way right now. It's just saying that yeah, when sin is gone, that's going to be huge. So let me ask you this, and this is a good question kind of to what Vanessa was saying. Do you want to go on knowing God more and more deeply for all eternity? We want to, right? Colossians 1.10 says, That's one of the most beautiful things that I'm looking forward to for eternity, is that we're never gonna exhaust God's love and knowledge and who He is, because He is that amazing, and so we're gonna continue for years, decades, centuries, eternity, of knowing God. And yeah, it's, and so I always like that question, I'm gonna be bored in heaven. I don't want to be bored in heaven. I'd rather just stay on earth. No, you're not gonna be bored in heaven. It's gonna be way better than the Sunday school and other things that we have here. It's, this is just a taste of what's to come and it's gonna be great. Last question here just to think about would you call your present relationship to God a personal relationship? Let's be honest, a lot of unbelievers have this quote-unquote present relationship where, yeah, I know God exists, yeah, I know he died for me, yeah. It's more superficial, right? But you need to... ask yourself, do I have a personal relationship with God? Do I know Him? Do we communicate, you know, obviously Him through His Word and you through prayer and seeking His face? If you'd look throughout the scriptures, right, God says, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, right? He has this personal relationship with them. And they also have a personal relationship with God. And so very important there to know if At the end of the day, if he's gonna say, I never knew you, or well done, good and faithful servant, right? Really important. All right, so just in summary here, just five quick things to think about. God exists, okay? Preach it, God exists. Number two, we can know God. That's a beautiful thing. Number three, God must reveal himself to us, right? That's humbling. It's only by God's grace, and if you cry out to him, he'll reveal himself to you, so that's good. And then, may we thank him for revealing himself, right? We need to be in that humble adoration, which should motivate us to tell others about God, and he will use us to tell others about him and his truth to reveal himself. Next week we're going to look at the incommunicable attributes of God. How is God different than us? And then the following week after that, communicable attributes.