“Honestly Wrestling” With the Problem of God’s Existence?

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It’s time that we begin to realize that were the sinners not God and that we’re the ones facing judgment, not Him.

Beloved, the Bible never views unbelief as something excusable.  You ever noticed that?  I get so tired of hearing this thing of, “Honestly wrestling with the problem.”  You know the the idea is that something happens, somebody gets in an accident, or in a car wreck and that causes you to doubt God and so you have to, “honestly wrestle with the problem” of whether or not God exists at all!  Honestly wrestle with the problem.  That’s not the way the Bible presents it.

What does Jesus say here? (Luke 13:1-5)  He says, “Unless you repent.”  Every time you see that car accident or that tower fall, what it ought to do, if you have not repented, it ought to strike terror in your heart, “I need to repent!”  You see the Bible doesn’t view these negative things that happen as things that casts question marks on God’s existence.  It’s the other way around, Romans Chapter 1, brother Ryan Fullerton talked about it last night, “They know the judgment of God that those who commit such things are worthy of death, and they not only do the same but they take hearty approval and pleasure in the other people that do it.”  So in other words when a man is walking along the street and he sees someone dead here in the ditch, if he didn’t suppress it what it would say to him, “Is look, you’re gonna be there if you don’t repent! You deserve to die! He died, you deserve to die!”  You see what God is saying?  Every fact testifies authoritatively to man that God is and that man needs to repent.  It’s not like there’s all these facts out here that, “Oh they just cause so much questions, and that it so problematic whether or not I can believe in God or not.”  That’s not the Bible view!

I remember time when I and another guy, we came upon a neighbor’s picnic table down in the woods, that he had built out of logs.  And I wasn’t going through a hard time.  I wasn’t an abused child.  I had no excuse for anything, but just out of delight we destroyed that table, laughing.  What is it!?  It is in the heart of man, wickedness, inconceivable wickedness is in the heart of man.  And the only reason that it doesn’t manifest itself like it did in the case of Hitler, or Eichmann or those men (who killed millions of Jews).  Is that God in His restraining grace prevents you from being who you are as you come into this world.

Listen to the radical extreme teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ!  They say, “How can God do this?”  “How can God do that?”  And He says it’s totally backwards, your blind!  The question is: Why hasn’t God destroyed you already?  Why doesn’t He destroy your while you’re arguing with Him right now?  There’s nothing but sheer mercy and grace, that’s holding the whole human race out of the pit of hell.

People right here tonight, if you don’t repent, what’s gonna happen is your gonna say, “It really is true what Jesus said, there it is!”  And you let it soak in for a little while and by that time you start to run there’s no hope whatsoever of escaping it.  There’s no escape and then it’s final.  There’s no second chance.  We saw in these parables of the Lord Jesus, “And the door was shut.”  And He got up, “and the door was shut.”  And there’s never any hint anywhere in the Bible that the door reopens.  It’s shut.  They stand outside, their knocking, it’s too late.  The door is shut.

Beloved this is reality and it’s not spoken by me, it’s spoken by the Lord of Glory Himself.  It’s a serious thing beyond anything you could ever imagine if you’re not right with God tonight.

Well, finally, what if you’re a Christian?  What is the application if you’re a Christian?  Well, it should be obvious, shouldn’t it?  Every time we hear of some atrocity and calamity we ought to thank God that our sins are forgiven, they’re gone, they’re washed away.  We ought to thank God for the grace that has made us Christians and kept us from becoming a Eichmann or a Hitler.


This video was created from multiple excerpts from the full sermon, “Towers & Terrorists” by Charles Leiter from Lake Road Chapel in Kirksville, Missouri.