UI – Part 453 – Knowing the Biblical God

Credit for the content in this blog goes to Gregory Koukl, his book, The Story of Reality:  How the World Began, How it Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between.  I recommend you add it to your reading list.  Available as a Kindle eBook.

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Liberties are being taken as I write. I will make every attempt to put Greg’s words in quotes. But the logic used is all to his credit.

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Believing in God

You either believe in God or you do not. God created the world, our universe and everything in it.

Pantheism

God is not in everything or everything, as in pantheism, as then your dog or cat would be God, and you or me would be God. We know that is not the case. So much for the Hindus.

Materialism

Now if all that matters is matter, no matter what, what about God? Was there anything before everything else? If it is just “matter” then who made matter, and who oversees matter? Does matter have a “mind?” If our universe or cosmos is, was and will be, then there is in this statement no God. With matter mattering only ,”there is nothing more. No God. No souls. No heaven or hell. No miracles. No transcendent morality. Just molecules in motion following the patterns of natural law.”   Humans are then also just matter and how can matter be responsible for what matters.

If matter is all that matters what is missing? Can anything have meaning when “at the end of the day the world is nothing but mindless matter in motion.” If humans are but matter, have they a mind? Leave it all to nature and we are condemned to “eat or be eaten.” Forget salvation.

Now consider “evil.” To do so, to be “wrong” there must be “right,” yet matter is indifferent. What is the Purpose of matter?  When it is just matter that matters (materialism), “there is no mind, no cosmic force, no plan, no Purpose.”   If there is a purpose it is limited to “self” as there would be no grand higher purpose. With just self-interests “the door is open to limitless variety” as to purposes, none better than another.  All purposes would matter and there would be chaos as there would be no order. As such “in the final analysis life is ultimately empty, meaningless, purposeless, cold and void.”

God as Sovereign

“If God is God, then we are not completely free to do as we wish with our bodies.” That certainly places a limitation on self alone.

Now did some “thing” or some “one” actually cause the universe or was it nothing? If from nothing then the universe has always existed. But think of it this way, every competition needs a starter. Every story needs a writer; the writer has a beginning and an end. Consider this – would there ever be a story if the pattern was not formed in the creation story, which has a beginning (In the Beginning) or “creation,” followed by a problem or “something going terribly wrong” (the “Fall”), which leads to corrective measures, “a rescue plan”, or “redemption,” and the end experiences , ”a satisfying end”, “restoration” to make all well anew.

Without such an outline there would be no Marvel comic heroes.

Many today express concerns over world conditions where wars continue, hate filled rhetoric is spewed, and bias goes to extremes. What is wrong with the world? For those without God how can there be evil is the question that would prevail as what compares to evil (but good) and why? “Given a godless, physical universe, the idea things are not as they should be makes little sense. How can something go wrong (evil) when there was no right way (good) for it to be in the first place?” 

Reality

Reality becomes the objective.  Is there a religion that reflects reality? If you agree, “the world is not the way it ought to be,” then how should it be and why? Is the “why” because there is a purpose to the world, a purpose that in the end is satisfying and good? And if there is a purpose, if all recognized and worked to that end there would be no chaos. Those that are safe are those that are good as it is God and the example that is God.

There is such a religion.  So many today, in this politically correct liberal, at times mind-numbing intellectually sensitive, appeasement oriented, overly concerned about personal sensitivities and feelings of persecution, like the idea of “coexist” as a wordplay on any religion with a god.  They make the giant leap that where there is a supernatural to guide a flock all then look to the heavens having the same god.  But, unfortunately there is a “but,” not all religions are the same, and the god to which they point is not all the truth, the God of Reality. There is just one religion where faith alone is sufficient.  It is faith in God with whom a relationship has been made possible, where it is not what a person needs to ‘do’ every day to be good in god’s eyes, and what is needed to be right with God, to be saved and assured of Salvation, has been “done.”  Those that follow Christ have been given freedom. They have been provided clarity too. Admission that we sin awakens our souls to the evil we bare, which Christ took the punishment we deserve, and as God, forgave sins past, present and future. Christ followers are reborn in this knowledge, thankful for God’s grace, living to serve him, purposed to glorify God in all they do. Reconciled.

Know the Biblical God. Others will not provide what you need.  Until you know you need it the joy and hope of this life will remain in the darkness.

If it is Salvation you seek, there is but one way. It is through Jesus. Thanks be to God. There is not life without God.

What You Believe – As a Muslim

What I have expressed is what I believe.  I have provided a reason for what I believe.  You may see the world quite differently.  I ask you to consider the religion or ideology you accept.  Feel free to study the Bible, challenge the Bible, make comparisons to what you have embraced.  As a Muslim challenge your Scripture as you would challenge the Bible.  Compare the Quran and the Bible.  Do not shrink in the fear of Apostasy to avoid the truth and not see the light. Discover where a meaningful study leads you.  Nabeel Qureschi was a scholar of Islam and challenged the Bible, only to become a convicted Christian. He was able to Trust the Word of God.  Read his books, his testimony and find out why.

See if important questions in your life are answered by God, his Word providing comfort and advice.  See if what you need to ‘do’ to find paradise provides you an assured salvation, an assured eternal life with God, as Jesus did for you and me. Place yourself in the picture and bathe in the light of the One who loves you unconditionally. God’s passion for humans, his love, his anger and his personal commitment is stated most clearly by Gregory Koukl, “The passionate intensity of God’s anger at us for our sin collides with the passionate intensity of God’s love for us, causing the passionate intensity of the agony of the cross to be shouldered by God himself in human form.”  This is not the doing of Allah.  It is not the doing of Muhammad.  It is the doing of God, God-incarnate and the Holy Spirit.

Grace and Peace