1. Introduction
a. This week we start an adventure
b. 8 Weeks on the really big questions people are asking today -
i. Questions about God and life and how the two are related
ii. Can I trust the Bible?
iii. Is there an afterlife? Do all roads lead to heaven?
iv. Does God exist? How can I know?
v. Why do bad things happen to good people?
vi. What happens when I die?
vii. The Bible says that God is a loving being. What kind of an individual would miraculously keep people alive for eternity so that he could fry them in a never ending lake of fire?
viii. What about Bible prophecy? Does it have anything to say that is more specific than Nostradamas’s prophecies, about what is going on today?
ix. Why am I here? If there is a God, does he have a plan for my life? How can I know what that plan is?
c. Before we get there, have to ask a more basic question. Is it okay to question God?
i. Feel kind of uncertain asking that question.
(1) Lightning
(2) Voice thundering through universe - “How dare you question me?”
d. Therein lies a paradox.
i. God is interested in faith.
(1) It is important that we question God because - and this is a real paradox
(a) You can’t have satisfaction without curiosity
(b) You can’t have answers without questions
(c) You can’t have faith without doubts
(d) You can’t have certainty without uncertainty
e. So we are going to be asking the tough questions and looking for answers.
i. Midweek
ii. Sabbath School
iii. Church services
f. Don’t promise to have all of the answers, but I would like to share with you some of the answers I have found on my journey and I look forward to hearing your questions and answers as we seek the truth together.
2. God encourages us to think about the Big Questions and tough issues.
a. One thing that may surprise you about God is that he encourages us to ask questions.
b. ➤ Isaiah 1:18 - "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
i. The word that is used is what would happen in a courtroom where evidence is presented and a judge or jury weighs that evidence and makes a decision.
ii. In this case, you are the judge/jury and God is the one presenting the evidence.
c. We have all seen those situations where the verdict in a trial is decided before the trial begins.
i. Whatever you think about the outcome of the OJ Simpson trial, the verdict was a foregone conclusion.
ii. One black juror - “No black juror in the world could go back to their neighborhood having voted to convict OJ Simpson.”
d. God invites us to use logic and reason and to carefully consider the claims of the Bible.
e. Hebrews 11:1 - What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet seen.
f. God never asks people to have blind faith.
g. Often in science today there is no opportunity to examine both sides of an important issue.
h. Whichever side you are on in the whole Creation/Evolution debate, it is important to consider both sides carefully and thoughtfully with an open mind.
i. May have seen the recent movie - Ben Stein (Ferris Bueler’s day off) - “Expelled” in which he documents the scientists who have been blackballed for even trying to examine both sides of the issue.
3. Bible never envisions blind faith based on opinion, but rather careful, open-minded examination of the issues.
4. Why? Because God, according to the Bible is interested in a relationship with us, and good relationships are only based on intelligent, informed choice.
5. God created us, according to the Bible, to think and ask good questions.
a. The greatest proof that God wants us to question and consider is in the human brain
i. If I was making people, I would never make them so that they could disagree with me.
ii. They would always do what I told them to do, when I wanted it to occur, and how I wanted it done.
iii. Their attitudes and actions would be a reflection of my will, my desires, my wishes.
iv. God, on the other hand, created us for freedom, thought and free will.
(1) “Every human being, created in the image of God, is endowed with a power akin to that of the Creator-- individuality, power to think and to do. The men in whom this power is developed are the men who bear responsibilities, who are leaders in enterprise, and who influence character. It is the work of true education to develop this power, to train the youth to be thinkers, and not mere reflectors of other men’s thought. Instead of confining their study to that which men have said or written, let students be directed to the sources of truth, to the vast fields opened for research in nature and revelation.”
v. Modern science has never been able to figure out where reason and emotion came from.
b. God created us to think and choose and feel and he gave us the freedom, the free will, to do so.
c. Why?
i. Bible says that God wanted us to be like him and he is a thinking, feeling being.
ii. Wanted to have relationship with us
(1) Good relationships are built on choice not on coercion or force.
6. If we want good answers to our questions, we need to ask good questions.
a. Often the quality of the answers we get is directly related to the quality of the questions we ask.
i. Am I honestly and with an open mind looking for answers or excuses.
ii. If we want good answers to tough questions we have to ask ourselves, first, what is my purpose in asking the question?
(1) Am I asking to discover an answer or to confirm my opinion?
iii. If I want good answers, I have to honestly ask my reason for asking.
(1) We can come to the Bible or nature looking for excuses not to believe, or we can come with an open mind and honestly consider the evidence.
(2) If we are not open to any answer we get, then there is really no reason to ask the questions.
(3) G. K. Chesterton - “Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the madhouse on all of the mystics of history. You cannot take the region called the unknown and calmly say that though you know nothing about it, you know that all gates are locked.”
7. If we want good answers to our questions, it is important for us to look for answers in intelligent places.
a. ➤ Luke 6:39 - He also told them a parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?
i. Jesus a very effective public speaker and often examples from his hearers everyday lives to illustrate his point.
ii. Drew a humorous word picture that wouldn’t be very politically correct today, but described what he was trying to say perfectly.
iii. (Paint the picture)
b. There are three primary ways God has suggested that we can find out what he is really like.
i. Nature
(1) My creations say something about me
(a) Wood - “ugly wood” - I like taking wood with major flaws and making something of beauty from it.
(2) ➤ Matthew 6:28 - Consider the lilies of the field . . .
(3) ➤ Romans 1:20 - From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.
ii. Bible
(1) We can learn a lot about people from their correspondence
(a) Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Adams, George Washington
(2) The Bible claims to be God’s correspondence between himself and the human race.
(a) ➤ John 17:17 - Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth.
(b) The Bible is God’s written explanation about himself, about humans and how we got here and how we got ourselves into the mess we are in and what the future holds.
(c) One of the reasons I believe the Bible’s evidence is Bible prophecy - unlike Nostradamus - predicts future events in amazing detail and they came true.
(d) If you don’t have a Bible, I would encourage you to get an easy to read version and to just read it like you would any other book.
(i) Start in the New Testament and read through to the end.
1) A number of very good versions.
(3) Jesus
(a) ➤ Matthew 1:23 - "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us ).
(b) ➤ John 14:8-9 - Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father ; how can you say, ’Show us the Father’?
8. God wants us to ask questions, to think, but don’t be surprised if he has strong opinions when he gives us answers.
a. Auto instruction manual - best way to take care of our car.
i. Computer installation
b. God made us, according to the Bible, and he has some pretty clear ideas of what is good for us and what will harm us.
c. Whether or not you like or don’t like his actions or disagree with his position, know that the Bible’s claim is that everything he does on this earth is because he knows what will harm or cause us unhappiness and he is trying to protect us from the pain or rescue us from the results..
9. Conclusion
a. Story is told of a man who had been wandering around in a forest for several days trying to find a way out. Finally he saw a man coming towards him in the distance and was so excited he could hardly contain himself. Finally, he thought, someone who can lead me out of this mess. So when he got close, he called, Can you please tell me the way out of here. I have been wandering around lost for several days and I have no idea where I am or how to get out.
Don’t feel bad, the other guy said. I’m in the same boat. I have lost for several days too and I don’t have any idea how to get out of here. But I do know this much, don’t go the way I just came because it is definitely not the way out. Let’s look together.
b. I don’t promise to have all of the answers to the questions we will be looking at the next several weeks. That is one reason we will be offering you a chance to talk about the questions both in Sabbath School Class and in a mid-week meeting in the fellowship hall.
c. What I will promise you, though, is that I will share with you the answers I have found so far and some of the dead ends and detours I have struggled through. And I believe as we look at life and what the Bible has to say about our questions and think about the evidence, that we will come to some very good answers.
