Doubting God's Existence

Kenneth

Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

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The inability to decide whether or not God exists. It is characterised by indecision and compromise when faced with the challenge to wholehearted commitment, and is condemned as sinful, inexcusable and unnecessary in the light of God’s clear self-revelation.

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Doubting God’s Existence is inexcusable in the light of God’s self-revelation

In the creation

Romans 1:18–25 The Message

18 But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. 19 But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! 20 By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. 21 What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. 22 They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. 23 They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. 24 So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. 25 And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!

Romans 1:19–20 The Message

But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.

Have you ever thought about if you really trust God?

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In the person of Jesus Christ

John 14:9 KJV 1900

9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

John 1:18 KJV 1900

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Doubting God’s Existence is sinful

Because God calls for wholehearted commitment

Joshua 24:14–15 KJV 1900

Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Because God’s call demands total obedience

Matthew 9:9 KJV 1900

And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

Doubting God’s Existence results in compromise

In worship

1 Kings 18:21 KJV 1900

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

1 Corinthians 10:21 The Message

And you can’t have it both ways, banqueting with the Master one day and slumming with demons the next.

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In commitment

Matthew 6:24 The Message

“You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.

Ephesians 4:14 KJV 1900

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

in service; in relationships with unbelievers

STOP

Doubting God’s Existence as a result of ignorance

Ignorance through being uninformed

Acts 17:23–30 KJV 1900

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Foolish ignorance of God’s existence

Psalm 14:1 KJV 1900

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, There is none that doeth good.

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Ignorance of God’s presence

Psalm 115:2 KJV 1900

Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?

Ignorance as a result of rejecting God’s truth

Psalm 10:4 KJV 1900

The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

Ignorance as a result of sin

Ephesians 4:17–19 KJV 1900

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

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Ignorance is no defence against God’s judgment

Romans 1:18 KJV 1900

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;