WHY GOD?
Why do many people believe in the existence of God, as a supernatural, all-powerful being, that was responsible for creating all that exists? When did this belief first originate and why? Could this be something that man himself thought of and just started to believe without any physical evidence to point to the existence of a real God? These, and many more questions, are on the minds of millions of people every day, and have been for thousands of years. Then there are those who do not believe in the existence of God, instead they believe that man has evolved from some simple type of organism over the past millions of years, into what he is today. They also do not believe in an after- life, as do the believers in God, but think that their life on this earth is all there is and when a person dies, it’s all over.
So then what is the real truth? The only hope for something beyond this life is the existence of a God, but if man can be satisfied with believing that at the end of his physical life, there is nothing, then, there is no need to agonize over the question of the existence of God. But if a person is not satisfied with the belief that when this life is ended, that’s all there is, then they should seek out the knowledge that will give them hope for something, after this life is over. But this shouldn’t be just an exercise in conditioning or psychology; it should be based on some real evidence or reliable historical facts, if any can be found.
A minister that I once knew in order to support the existence of God said: “If the deep calls to the deep, there must be a deep to call to.” With this statement, I am sure that he meant, if there is something inside of a person that causes them to want to worship God, then there must be a God. I’m sure that he based this saying on the scripture in Psalms 42:7, where it speaks of the “deep calling to the deep.” So this might be a good place to start. If a man has something in him that causes him to have the desire to believe in God, could this be proof that God really does exist?
Let us go back to the beginning, when man first appeared on the earth and see if there could be some reason for the development of this desire to worship God.
In the beginning when man first appeared, I believe that he was completely without knowledge of anything around him and reacted only on instinct. If not, then where did he get his knowledge? The knowledge that a person has is learned; you are not born with it. So, if the first person that appeared on the earth had any knowledge, it must have been learned, and I believe that it was. It was learned by experiencing the things around him. If this was not true, and the first person had knowledge in the first place, where did he get that knowledge?
If, as I believe, everything we know and believe is learned, then how did man first learn of, or begin to believe in, the existence of God? Man did not just dream up the idea that there was a God, for the mind of man is no more than a place of storage for those things that he learns. And how could he have learned of the existence of God, if God did not really exist in the beginning? Well, the Bible has the answer for us. For, it said in the beginning, God created a man on the earth and spoke to him face to face. This must be how man learned of the existence of God. This knowledge then, having been learned by the first man on the earth, was passed down from one person to another for thousands of years.
Do you now understand what I am saying? The knowledge of the existence of God is not something original, that man just happened to think of, but was something that was learned by man as he experienced things happening around him. How can you believe that anything exists that you have never heard of before? You can not, unless you personally see it, or observe the results of its existence. Which came first, the word “apple” or, the fruit that was first called an apple? Which came first, an airplane or the word “airplane”? In order for a name of something to be developed, the something has to first exist. In order for us to call something or someone God, then first, God has to exist. Well, I could go on and on with this, but I believe that the point has been made.
If a person chooses not to believe that God exists, then they should resolve themselves to enjoy this life and get everything out of it they can, for there is nothing more for them to look forward to. As the Bible is quoted many times saying, in paraphrase: (Luke 12:19-20) “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you will die.” But, if a person has the desire to believe in the existence of God, then they should learn about what God expects of them in this life.
WHAT GOD EXPECTS
If we are convinced that God does exist, and there is a life after this one on earth, what must we do to insure that we are going to take part in this new life? Many different things are taught in the thousands of churches existing today—some saying that we must conform to those things they have established as doctrines in their church, if we are to be what God expects of us. The churches have pretty much taken a legalistic stand on what their members should do, saying that if one does not conform to their teaching, they are not obeying God’s commandments. But we should be thankful that God is more merciful than the leaders of those churches, and requires much less of us than what our churches teach.
But God does require certain things of us. As the scriptures give us guidance and teach us what God expects, without some man lending his interpretation to them, we should take heed and believe that those scriptures are the words of God speaking to us. One thing that must be kept in mind though, as we study the scriptures, is that they represent two different covenants. The first covenant was given to the Nation of Israel and is represented as the Mosaic Law, which is covered by the writings of the Old Testament books. The second covenant was introduced by Jesus Christ and is covered by the books of the New Testament. Unlike the Old covenant, which was legalistic in nature, the new covenant brought by Jesus, was with grace and mercy toward mankind. This covenant, which was brought to us by Jesus, is an agreement that God has made with mankind. It basically states that if we will obey God’s commandment, we will inherit eternal life. Jesus brought us this covenant, explaining just exactly what it consisted of, and then sealed it with His blood on the cross.
The foundation of God’s new covenant, or agreement with us, is that if we will believe with our hearts that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and was sent to us by God to pay the atonement price for our sins—we would be saved from death and receive eternal life. Jesus said that was why God sent Him and all who would believe, would receive eternal life. It’s that simple, and not complex, like some teach. Paul the Apostle, who wrote most of the books of the New Testament, taught that there was simplicity to the gospel. God made it simple in the beginning, and then man took the simplicity of the gospel and complicated it.
Throughout the land, you see churches advertise that they are “full gospel” churches, but just what does that mean? The gospel is nothing more than the fact that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, to save the people of the world, and all who would believe in Him would receive eternal life. After a person repents of their unbelief (sin) and is baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, as Peter stated in Acts 2:38, they receive the Holy Spirit and are then born again. That is the full gospel. Nothing more needs to be added to it. Jesus said that all we have to do is to repent of our unbelief, and believe the gospel. The last thing that Jesus did before He left this world was to command His Apostles to “go and preach the gospel,” saying that all those who will believe it and are baptized, will be saved. It is that simple. There is absolutely nothing we can do in this world to obtain eternal life, short of believing the gospel, the good news. God has provided a way for us, and all we have to do is to believe it with all our heart.
Nowhere in the Bible, under the New Covenant, does it say that man has to do anything other than believe the gospel and be baptized to be saved. If anyone teaches anything different than what God’s Word says, then they are adding conditions to salvation that the scriptures do not support. Paul the Apostle stated that there is only one gospel; there is only one truth. He said: (Gal 1:8-9) “If anyone comes preaching something other than what Jesus proclaimed, let him be accursed.”
SALVATION
Salvation is the reward a person will receive for believing the gospel. But what does salvation mean? What does it mean to be saved? Saved from what? What happens if we are not saved?
The Bible teaches us that when this life is over, we will go to one of two places. In simple terms it is Heaven or Hell. But if we are going to choose, we need to know a little about both of these places, so we can know what to expect.
First, let us look at the place called Hell. Hell is described in the Bible as the second death, but it is a place where a person never dies, but is tormented day and night forever by a fire that never goes out. It is a place of separation from God and everything that is good, kind, and pleasurable. Jesus told a story about a certain man that died and went to Hell. Being in Hell, he was so tormented by the fire that he begged for someone to bring him a little water, just to cool his tongue, but it could not be done. The Bible also suggests that those who are in Hell can see the ones who are in Heaven and how wonderful and pleasurable Heaven is, which would add to their torment.
On the other hand, Heaven is described as the place where God is and is a place of perfection—the place where those people go who believed God’s Word and received the salvation provided by Jesus Christ. Heaven is a place where there is no sorrow or sadness, no more tears, but only perfect love and peace. So once again, in simple terms, the Bible describes Heaven as a place of eternal life and happiness and Hell as a place of never-ending torment.
To be saved, or obtain salvation, means to be spared from going to Hell and having to endure everlasting torment The Bible tells us that God created Hell for the devil and his angels and had no plans for mankind to have to go there. He intended for mankind to believe His Word and live forever on the earth in surroundings that were like paradise. It was and still is God’s will that no person should perish in the depths of Hell, but that all would come to repentance and believe His Word.
REPENT FROM WHAT?
Every person is born into this world possessing something they inherited, down through the years, from the first man that God placed on this earth. What we are born with is sin in our hearts—the sin of unbelief brought upon mankind by the first man, Adam. The first people that God placed on the earth had no sin in their hearts or their lives and because they possessed no sin, they would have never died. Before the fall in the Garden of Eden, they knew no sin because there was no reason for them to disbelieve what God told them.
Without a doubt, God could have prevented Adam and Eve from committing that sin and bringing death upon all mankind. But being God, He did not want just a bunch of robots for children—someone to worship and trust Him because that was the way He made them. He wanted His creation to believe Him and worship Him because they wanted to—because it was their choice to do so. So to achieve this, God endowed them with the freedom of choice, to believe or disbelieve, to choose to worship Him or not, according to whatever they chose to do. He did this by planting in the Garden of Eden, a forbidden tree—a tree containing fruit they were not to eat. God told them if they ate the fruit of that tree, they would die. God fully expected them to believe His Word and as a reward, they would have lived forever. I fully believe had it not been for the deception of satan, they would have never touched that tree and they would still be alive today.
So because Adam and Eve chose to disbelieve what God told them, that sin of unbelief has been passed down through generations of mankind and we all have inherited that sin from them. But there is something we can do about it. We do not have to die because of that sin being in our hearts. We can choose to repent of that sin of unbelief that we inherited, and believe God’s Word to be the truth. That is what repentance means; to repent of the sin of unbelief; to change ones mind about whether God’s Word is true or not. That is what Jesus meant when He said: “Repent and believe the gospel,” (Mark ).
But we have the same problem today as Adam and Eve had. We have a deceiver in our midst called satan, and the devil, using every means at his disposal to get us to disbelieve God’s Word. Now satan is a spirit just as God is a Spirit. He does not approach us today like he did with Adam and Eve; sending a beast of the field to deceive us. Today he enters the heart of man, much the same way that God does, by deceiving men who are in a position of authority, using them to also deceive many other people.
So the answer to the question, “What do we need to repent of?” is, “We need to repent of our unbelief and believe God’s Word, instead of the doctrines and teaching of men who have not been sent by God to teach us the truth of His Word.”
CALLED AND SENT
The Bible tells us that God sets certain men in certain leadership positions in the church for the work of the ministry. These men are put in the positions of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. These men are put into these positions by God in order to bring us all into the unity of the faith. Now what does it mean to be in the unity of the faith? It means that the whole church, all its members, believe the same thing. Since the entire church, all of its members do not meet at the same time, or in the same place, it is important that all those men in those leadership positions believe and teach the same thing. That is the only way the church can ever be established in the unity of the faith.
But, there is where the church has a problem. All preachers and teachers today do not believe the same thing, nor do they teach the same thing. Consequently there are divisions in the church due to the inconsistency in the established doctrines brought about by incorrect teaching of the scriptures. So why has this happened? What has caused the differences in these doctrines to be taught and established?
The reason—there are divisions in the church, and we have not all been brought into the unity of the faith, because all of the men in leadership positions of the church have not been ordained of God to hold those offices. God has not sent them to preach and teach His Word. God, without a doubt, calls many men to be preachers and teachers, but before they are ready to be “sent out” to minister to the church, they take it upon themselves to start out on their own. Can you see what I am saying? There is a difference between being called to preach, and being sent to preach. The Bible itself makes the statement: (Romans 10:15) “How shall they preach, except they be sent?”
Now, how can someone know if God has sent a preacher or teacher to the church? Well, the answer is: God will vindicate their ministry in the same manner that He has always done. When their prophecies came to pass, the prophets of old were vindicated as prophets of God. Moses was vindicated as having been sent by God by the supernatural signs that followed his ministry. Jesus was believed to be the Son of God because of the miracles that occurred during His ministry. Then lastly, the apostles of Jesus had their ministry vindicated also by the signs and wonders that followed their ministries.
God is consistent in the way He does things, He never changes. If he vindicated the ministries of all those men in the past in that manner, He will do the same thing today. We cannot question the calling of a man to preach or teach, for that occurs just between God and the man that He calls, but we can question whether or not a man has been sent by God to preach or teach or has been anointed as a prophet, by observing if those supernatural signs and wonders follow his ministry or not.
WHAT CAN WE BELIEVE?
If God ordains a person to be a prophet, their prophecies will come to pass. If God ordains a man to be a preacher or a teacher, what he teaches will agree with the original scriptures and God will vindicate his ministry with signs following. If a person has been ordained with a gift of healing, supernatural healing will occur as a result of their ministry. If a person has been ordained with the gift of working miracles, supernatural miracles will occur as a result of their ministry. God divides these gifts to individuals in the church, as He determines the church has a need, “for the work of the ministry, the perfecting of the saints, and the edifying of the body of Christ, to bring us all into the unity of the faith.” (Eph 4:12-13)
But, just because a man is ordained to be a prophet, and vindicated, we cannot assume that he has been sent to preach or teach. Nor can we assume that someone that has been given the gifts of healing or miracles is also ordained to preach or teach. The Bible gives us several examples where a person ordained into one office, attempted to operate in another capacity and caused problems in the body of the church. The Bible tells us that, just as it was in the old days, where there were false prophets among the people, there will be false teachers among us also.
Men do not always turn out to be false prophets or false teachers intentionally, this occurs in most cases because they have allowed themselves to be deceived by satan. The Bible cautions us to make sure that we recognize what our calling is, and says that every man should remain in the calling where God has placed him (1 Cor ).
WHAT CAN WE DO?
God’s purpose and divine will for the people on the earth, always has been and continues to be, that they would believe His Word without exception. Each one of us has the choice, just as Adam and Eve had in the beginning, to believe God’s Word to be true, or not to believe it. And each one of us, individually, will be held accountable for the choice that we make.
If we cannot find a man that God has sent to teach us His Word, and is vindicating his calling to preach or teach, then it is our responsibility to study and learn the truth of His Word on our own. The big lie of the devil today is that the Bible cannot be understood unless one is trained in some kind of theological setting, a school, university or seminary. This is just the opposite of the real truth. All of these institutions that I have knowledge of, put their own interpretation on the scriptures and in so doing conceal the real meaning of them—just exactly what the Bible says not to do. The scripture itself says that they are not open for any private interpretation by anyone. (2 Peter 1:20)
Jesus said that in the last days, someone with the spirit of Elijah the prophet on them, would come and restore all things. And I believe that time of restoration is very near. The people must be restored to the original faith of the apostles and learn the real truth of God’s Word, before Jesus returns for His church and the Millennium sets in.
How will we know when this happens? This person’s ministry will be vindicated by God in such a great supernatural way, there will be no doubt that God has sent him. For, it will be necessary for the faith of the believers to be raised to a very high level before Christ calls His church home and this great supernatural vindication of this last Messenger’s ministry will be instrumental in raising their faith.
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