I'm Pastor Bob Mix and I'm on a journey to discover what God is really like. I'll be using the Bible where God reveals Himself so that anybody can know the truth about Him. Why does He want us to know the truth about Him? Because He loves us and wants us to make an informed decision to love Him in return. So friend, you're invited to join me on this journey of discovering God together. On today's podcast, we'll be wrestling with the God question.   Does God exist?  Can we know for sure? What are some of the evidences that can help settle the issue of God's existence beyond any doubt? Or is He just a figment of some people's imagination? What has convinced you of God's existence? Or are you still not sure? On today's podcast, we'll investigate together some aspects of daily life that you and I encounter every day that I think will help us settle this issue.  We'll look at what I consider to be the most compelling evidence of all that has convinced millions of people. 

Let's pray together before we wrestle with this big question. Father, we thank You for the privilege of thinking together, of encouraging one another and wrestling with these deeper questions that You're challenging us with? Do You exist? Are You real? And what are You really like? Bless us as we work together in Jesus name, Amen. 

Does God exist? That's a big question. We need to wrestle with this. Do you believe in God? Why or why not? What evidence are you using to form your conclusions? Now I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm just asking you to think with me. Because my desire is to stir your thinking, not necessarily to try to convince you to agree with me. 

Let me share with you some of my starting assumptions, so that I can make myself perfectly clear, and you know where I'm coming from. I am a Christian. I believe that the Bible reveals the real truth about God.  I believe that Jesus is the clearest portrayal of what God is really like. Now, I've wrestled with a lot of questions in my journey. But today I come from the position of faith, not doubt. I've been stuck in the arena of doubt. And I have chosen to stay in the arena of faith, because for me, the evidence is so clear. So I'm asking you to think with me, you don't have to agree. But let's think together. If God really exists, we need to know. If God does not really exist, we need to know. 

Let me share with you Hebrews 11, verse three, it says, “By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible”.  And in verse six, it says, “Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”. So why doesn't God just show Himself and end any debate? Why does it require faith to believe in God? The Bible says that God is love. Love can't compel anyone to love back. If God wants us to love Him, He can't just command it. Nor can He force Himself onto us. He must wait until we want a relationship with Him before He can come close. And we'll focus on that in later broadcasts. That's why God says in Psalm 46, verse 10, “Be still and know that I am God”. Also, in Romans 1 verse 19, and 20, it says “what may be known of God has been made plain to them, for God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” God has made his reality plain. How?  Is it plain to you? If it is so plain, then why do so many people still not believe in God? 

Let's look at some of the evidence for the existence of God. Now I've divided this evidence into two categories. We'll look at six pieces of evidence found in the natural world that is all around us. And secondly, we'll look at six pieces of evidence found in the social dynamics, how people interact with each other.  Twelve  pieces of evidence that I believe will help you settle the question of God's existence. 

A few years ago, my wife and I were traveling in the mountains in Northern California. We were away from any city lights, and we just looked up through our windshield into the starry heavens. And wow, what a beautiful sight. I ended up pulling over when there was a little spot and we just got out of our car and looked up at the stars. I was reminded of Psalm 8 where it says, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that you're mindful of Him”. And in Psalm 19, it says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day into day utter speech and night into night reveals knowledge. There is no speech or knowledge where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their word to the ends of the world.” So it sounds like according to the Psalmist that the heavens are pretty noisy about God. Have you ever looked up at the night sky and been amazed and blessed? What we were looking at in that night sky was just this galaxy, the Milky Way. It is absolutely beautiful, breathtaking. It reminded me of how big the universe really is. And that's our first piece of evidence,  the gigantic universe that we live in. With the help from the Hubble telescope, and now the James Webb telescope, we know things about deep space that we never knew before. There are trillions of galaxies and our Milky Way galaxy is simply an average sized galaxy.  The size of the Milky Way - well, light travels at an amazing speed of 186,000 miles every second, or 5.88 trillion miles in one year. So when I snap my finger, light has traveled around this world about seven and a half times, it's fast. Yet it takes light 100,000 years, yes 100,000 years to travel just across our galaxy. And there are trillions of galaxies.  The size of the universe is incomprehensible. 

Now let's go from the humongous to the tiniest, tiniest, the tiny world of the atom. That's the second area of evidence, almost infinitely tiny, so small, we can't see it without help from big tools like electron microscopes and other amazing instruments to know what it's really like in the subatomic world. But look at the atom, it kind of looks like our solar system, the sun being the proton, the neutron, and then the electrons going around like the planets. And we now know that the atom is made up of all kinds of things. In fact, there are quarks and all kinds of tinier and my hunch is, if we had the ability to do it, and we could really zoom in on an atom, we would probably see tinier and tinier and tinier parts of it. I don't know, we can't see that tiny. But that's my hunch. 

The third area of evidence that I want us to think about together is the habitable Earth, the finely tuned planet for life. We look out at the other planets and anywhere we see and it looks pretty stale. But Earth is just the right distance from the Sun. It is protected from the harmful solar radiation by its magnetic field. It is kept warm by an insulating atmosphere. And it has just the right chemical ingredients for life, including water and carbon. And there's so much more to the fine tuning of this earth. So it's not just habitable, it's bubbling with life. It is a miracle that we exist. And life on this planet is so abundant. And add to that, we think and reason and exist. We can think about our existence. Is this just a happy accident? I don't think so. 

The fourth area of evidence I want to consider is the human body. This is the one that really helped me because I can see the body but I can't see inside of it. But a few years ago my wife broke her, I think it was her foot. I can't remember.  So we've been to this bone doctor, and he had a picture of a hand. Well, it wasn't a real hand, but it was made up to look like the bones of a hand and then the bones of a foot. And there are hundreds of bones in these places. But the human body with systems within systems, a skeleton, the muscles, the nervous system, the circulatory system, the skin, the heart, the digestive system, bones, brain, eyes, ears, taste, smell, I can go on.  You understand that it is a wonderful system of systems. And ordinarily, they all work together. I know, I know, the older we get, the less they work together. But the organization and the complexity of the human system, a multitude of systems within a system, it just blows me away. Something as simple as the way your digestive tract is laid inside your tummy. A few years ago, one of my friends had a procedure done and they poked through his intestines with this little microscopic camera. And that caused all kinds of problems for Him. But eventually, they decided to go inside and straighten out his intestines, and they never quite got it right. And it caused Him a lot of pain and agony. And to think that your body came from one egg and one sperm. It's just hard to believe that you came from that. 

Another area of evidence, I believe, is the world of the cell. Whether we're looking at the plant cell, which is very complex, or at living organisms, their cells, it's just plain complicated. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. The more we study, the more we see what is going on within the cell. And I remember taking biology in college. In fact, I took it in high school too, and I didn't get enough out of it. So I took several more classes in college, it just intrigued me these living organisms. But I remember one of my teachers saying he didn't know how people could be so stupid as to believe in creation. And several of us who knew we were Christians looked at each other with a smile on our face. We didn't really tell Him where we were coming from. But what I took in high school wasn't nearly as complicated as what I took in college. And if I took a biology class, now I think we would see even more things in the human cell.  It's almost an unlimited amount of information within the DNA, which gives the cell a very complicated, intricate and interconnected organization. It doesn't just look designed, it is designed, and you have billions of cells in your body. Some are much more complicated than others, the average human being has approximately 37.2 trillion cells, and with 330 billion cells that are replaced every day. That's right, in spite of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that everything is always falling apart, God has given living things the ability to replenish itself.  An amazing gift. There are 100 billion neurons or brain cells in your brain. And they're so connected together that they allow the human brain to accomplish unimaginable things, including dreaming, creating, and love. Again, I believe this points to a divine designer. 

The last piece of evidence that I want to share with you is human birth. Now we could talk about the birth of anything, that's just utterly amazing. A series of billions of miracles. Several years ago, my wife and I went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry OMSI. And there were several exhibits there that we were interested in. But one was intriguing. I think they just keep it there all the time. It takes the egg and the sperm and shows the development of the human baby from conception all the way to birth. And it is just absolutely phenomenal. And that process has billions of miracles in it. It's a wonder that any of us come out of our mother's womb normal. From one egg and one sperm come blood cells, bone cells, brain cells, lung cells, arms, legs, eyes, ears, billions of cells that all work together and reveal life. And this is more than just an accident I believe. Everything around us cries out for an intelligent designer, from the universe, to the atom to life on this planet to the human body and the human cell and the miracle of birth. How long do you think it would take to get all this put together through chance? It seems to me that it takes much more faith than the simple belief in a Creator God. 

Now we've taken a few moments and just looked at six pieces of evidence from the natural world. Now let's look at six pieces of evidence from the area of social dynamics. how people interact with each other, in these areas of social dynamics, I believe, also reveal God's reality. But let's look at six pieces of evidence in the social dynamic area where people are interacting with people. 

The first one is belief in God is universal. Every culture in every country, in every land throughout history throughout recorded history, has some spiritual interest. Now, it's true that sometimes they don't always believe alike. That's not my point. My point is that they all have a belief in something beyond themselves, some kind of deity, some kind of gods, some, like some of your religions today, have millions of gods, others have one. But in the last couple of centuries, a couple of forces have tried to destroy that in humanity.  Communism and a century and a half ago or a couple centuries ago, Nazism. They've tried to stamp out God from the human conscience, but they were not successful. Why is there something inside of us that cries out for God? 

But the second area of evidence that I want to think about with you is the universal human conscience, the human conscience, every person has a moral compass, the ability to sense right from wrong, a sense of guilt when we cross that line. Now, if you and I are just brute animals, where did this come from? Our conscience can be trained for good or bad. And that is why it's important to learn to believe the truth, to be set free from false ideas, false guilt, false shame, false and foolish thinking. Every person is born with a developing moral compass, we call it conscience. 

Another piece of evidence in human dynamics is universal kindness.  Another proof of the existence of God is the unselfishness of people. If we came from an amoeba, and the supreme law of existence is survival of the fittest, we would not see kindness, compassion, or genuine self-giving love anywhere. In spite of what the news media most often reports, many people do acts of kindness every day. But they don't make the news, they don't get exposed, like evil acts do. But if you look for it, you will see kindness everywhere. And going a little deeper in that another evidence in the social dynamics is universal love. Every culture throughout history, has had love as part of its complex. It's everywhere. In every culture, every language, love is present. I see it every day. I see people unselfishly loving other people. God is working in their life, whether they realize it or not. 

Another piece of evidence in the social dynamics is universal communication. Everybody wants to be listened to and understood. So we learn to communicate with each other from little kids, they just want to communicate. Language is a wonderful tool. It is common to all human beings. In fact, some people believe that animals communicate with each other. And I think many of them do that some people think the plants communicate. But we need to communicate so we can have relationships with each other. It's the way we're wired. 

Possibly the most compelling evidence for belief in God is transformed lives. Down through history those who believe in the God of the Bible, have been transformed to their relationship with Him. Take the followers of Jesus, for example. Their lives were changed and they spent their lives witnessing about the reality that Jesus was indeed God in their midst. Most of them died a martyr's death because they truly believed God was more precious to them than life. They believed that He was their source of life and their hope of anything beyond death. 

Do you believe God really exists? Do you believe that He's really real? Is God making any difference in your life? Here's my bottom line. Do you want to believe God exists? And why has God left it up to each of us to make our own decision about Him. And He certainly has left us with plenty of evidence if we want to believe. If we want to look at the evidence. 

When I was in my early teens I struggled with why should I worship God? Who does He think He is that I should worship Him? Did you catch that sense of cockiness? That sense of self centeredness. But when I was reading in my Bible in Revelation chapter 4, it settled it for me. There it says, quoting all the creatures who live in heaven, whoever these beings are, and they are crying out, "you are worthy of worship, because you have created all things." God is worthy of worship, because He is my Creator. I had to stop and ponder that. But it's settled a lot of issues in my life. Our culture is trying to take us captive with its denial of God. It's almost as if they want to be their own God. And when you do that, you fall for the lie that Satan tempted Adam and Eve with in the garden that we'll look at when we get to chapter three in Genesis.  If God exists, and I believe He does, what is God really like? Can we know more about Him than that He created everything, that He's very powerful and incredibly intelligent. 

Well, God has revealed many truthful insights into his character in the Bible. That's why I'm excited about discovering God together. If He didn't intentionally reveal Himself, how could we really get to know Him? Now we've looked at the world we live in and the universe that surrounds us, and it's beyond wonderful. And it all cries out. I am designed to get to know the Designer. We've looked at some of the evidence that I believe demonstrates that God is real. He is the master designer behind the universe, behind this earth, behind the atom, the cell, the human body and the miracle of birth. We've looked at some human social dynamics, like love and kindness, kindness toward a divine Creator. And point us beyond naturalistic explanations for our existence. We are not just an accident, we are designed for a purpose. All this evidence points us to a very intelligent designer. The Bible calls God. 

What about you, my friend? What has convinced you of God's existence? Or are you still wondering, still sitting on the fence? Well, don't just listen to this information and walk away or turn the channel. Think about it. Ponder it, pray about it. Don't just sit on the fence and do nothing about it. Make an informed decision and follow the evidence. If God has been transforming you, then share your story with someone today. 

On our next podcast, we'll wrestle with why the Bible never tries to prove God. Have you ever wondered why? The Bible simply informs us that God has always existed, and that He created everything that exists out of nothing. We'll look at the most profound statement that has ever been made and put into print. Genesis1:1 “ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. On our next podcast. We'll look more closely at this God of all creation. Thanks for being with us today on Discovering God Together.