What Difference Does It Make Whether God Exists?
Eccl. 12:13-14.

A. Today we can no longer take for granted that the average person believes in God. Doubt, and even denial that God exists, is widespread in America and the world in general.
The questioning of long-held fundamental beliefs is healthy. Provided both believer and unbeliever are willing to clarify the issue honestly and assess the grounds of their convictions.
a. An unprejudiced, sincere search for truth is always good and right. But mere
prejudiced, iconoclasm, the arbitrary, mean spirited destruction of traditional beliefs, Is
never healthy.
(A) Convictions have consequences, and thus one must be careful to define a basic
issue and ask: “What is at stake here?”
Having examined the alternatives, with their theoretical and practical conse-
quences, we need to decide the issue and accept wholeheartedly, in thought
and action, the results of our decisions. Then we must always be prepared to
go wherever the truth leads us.
The quest for knowledge ought to be a quest for correct action. Faith with out works is dead, Jas. 2: Wisdom without courage is useless. Knowledge without truth is foolishness....The height of folly.
When you define God as the personal and transcendent Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of the universe, you are forced to one of only two options. Either God exists, or He does not exist. You have to chose to believe one or the other.
What is the result of choosing either of these beliefs?
ATHEISM says, “God does not exist.”
Did you ever think of the Theoretical implications. If God did not exist, neither would we - Jno. 1:3, Acts 17:28, Col. 1:16-17,
The closest we can come to imagining a world without God is to imagine a world where God is not acknowledged. The world is bad enough where many acknowledge God and try in some way to honor Him.
Atheist say, The universe and human life are without purpose. He is a person who believes himself to be an accident. “There is Nothing unique that distinguishes man from other forms of animal life.”
They believe they must listen to their own heart instead of God’s Word
God’s Word in, Eccl. 12:13-14, asks, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole
matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all. For God
will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or
evil.”
But, If man is merely a complex biological machine, his existence is finite, temporary. If Man is autonomous, subordinate to no higher authority and if man has no objective, no absolute standard by which to calibrate his conduct Sin and guilt are insignificant terms. C.S. Lewis, in his “Fish Tank” analogy, points out that if God is not, then “The idea of ethics and morality are subjective, relative. And any thought of Religion is a delusion. If we have evolved a basic need for a God who does not exist, man is doomed to extinction.”
If there is no God then Paul was right when he says in 1 Cor. 15:19, “If there is no hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”
(2) Ever think of the practical consequences of abandoning God all together?

(1) What are those consequences? Creature-worship, worship of self, egocentrism, arrogant, selfish pride that leads to humanism (Worship of self).
(1) Paul describes it in Rom. 1:18-32. Complete Amoral conduct, characterized by hedonism, sexual promiscuity, deceit, greed, anarchy, violence, fear, repudiation of the Bible, eradication of religion, when rendered down to its purist element results in atheistic fascism and or communism.......and either way....you loose.
(2) Or you can choose to believe in God. That’s the only other alternative you have in this life. It is dichromatic, It’s cut and dried, There are no shades of grey, There is s no “In-Between.” The prophet Elijah made that abundantly clear way back in 1 Kgs. 18:21, “How long will you falter (Hesitate) between two opinions? (Choices) If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." Those are the only two choices we have, the choice between false gods and the one true God.
(2) Jehovah our God is real. He created the world and all things. That means man, the creature, is subordinate to the authority of God, the Creator. Any violation of the Creator’s law constitutes actual sin, involves real guilt, and is punishable by the Creator - Gen. 2:16-17; Isa. 59:1-2; Jno. 8:24: Cf. Rom. 1:32; 6:23.
(1) That means ethics and morality are objectively grounded in God and His Word, Rom. 12:1-2.
(2) Obtaining and maintaining a correct relationship with the Creator is the most important consideration in life. Eccl. 12:13-14. Therefore, any revelation of God’s will concerning man’s purpose in life, his conduct and the conditions of fellowship is vitally significant. Heb. 1:1-3; 2:1-4.
(3) Therefore, consideration of God’s existence is no mere armchair intellectual game — monumental practical consequences are involved. Honest and sincere decision are called called for.
(1) That is the alternative God gave Israel and their choice was critical “...
choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...” Josh. 24:15.
(2) What will you choose? Will Durant, in his 10 volume “History of Man” makes the following observation: “The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, nor Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.”
(3) What are your convictions? Have you wholeheartedly embraced the
consequences of your convictions?
(4) Acts 20:32.

Spur - 03/17/2002 pm