The Existence of God  |  Psalm 19:1-4

I am going to read to you from Psalm 19. If you want to read with me, Psalm 19, and I am going to read the first four verses. This is one of the great Psalms that speak about God’s revelation of Himself in creation. Psalm 19:1,

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

Keep it open at Psalm 19 but that’s as far as I will read for the moment. A little girl one day was in deep concentration as she was drawing a picture and her mother asked her what she was drawing and she said, “God”.

Her mother replied, “But no one knows what God looks like.”

And she said, “They will now.”

Well, of course no one knows what God looks like, but I want to talk over several weeks about God, what we may know about God. I am calling this “Knowing God”. And I realize right from the beginning this is both an impossible undertaking on the one hand and yet an absolutely necessary undertaking on the other. I say impossible, because we are talking about the finite trying to understand the infinite, we’re talking about the temporal trying to understand the eternal, we’re talking about the localized trying to understand omnipresence, because all those things are statements that we would affirm about God. He is infinite, He is eternal; He is omnipresent. And we can therefore only catch just a glimpse, just some facet in the same way that you might scoop up a cup of water from a wave, but not comprehend the vastness of the ocean that lies behind it. But on the other hand, I say this is necessary because Jesus described the Christian life this way: in John 17:3 He said,

“This is eternal life” (praying to His Father), “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

And therefore, says Jesus, at the very heart of the Christian life is knowing God. In fact, the distinguishing mark between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the one knows God, the other does not know God. The other may know about God, may have all kinds of ideas about God, but it is a personal knowledge of God that Jesus talks about there that is the hallmark of the Christian life. Now what that means we may discover over several weeks.

But I want to start today at the most basic level and just talk to you about the existence of God. The most basic question about God is of course the question, “Does God exist?” And how do we know the answer to that question? Well, I want to base what I have to say to you on Psalm 19, which we read a little bit of a moment ago.

Historically, theology and philosophy gave two answers to the question of whether God exists or not. Those two answers are what we call “natural revelation” - God reveals Himself naturally. And Psalm 19:1-6 addresses that. And then what theologians speak of as special revelation where there are things that we can only know about God if He tells us - and Psalm 19:7-11 address that question. And I am also going to include a third question that Psalm 19 answers, or third answer – here it is – that it is by personal revelation that God also reveals Himself to us. And the last part of Psalm 19 addresses that and in particular, Psalm 34:8 says,

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

There is personal experience of God that finally enables us to know God.

Now let me talk first of all then about natural revelation. The fact that there is evidence of God in the works that God has given to us by His creation. So, what Psalm 19 begins by saying,

“The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

In other words, says the writer of this Psalm, that we may see the existence of God in the marvel of His creation; the creation reveals the Creator. Now we may suppress this revelation, we may undermine its credibility, we may regard it as naïve, as a little simplistic, but the fact remains the creation reveals the Creator. However, this can bring only a very limited understanding of God. If we read what we see in creation and say behind it all there is a God, that may tell us about His existence; it tells us nothing about His character. We may conclude from observing the universe that God is powerful but we cannot observe from that, that God is good. So how do we know if God is good? We may observe that God is intelligent when we look at creation but we do not know by that: Is God kind? So, there are certain things that natural revelation reveals to us but only certain things.

If I can illustrate this: if you lived next to a house that had a high-walled garden around it, you may conclude that somebody lives there for all kinds of reasons. You might see smoke coming out of the chimney of the house, for instance. You might occasionally hear some music playing that wafts over the wall to your place. You may occasionally see a vehicle go and come. And all of that may be evidence to you that you actually have a neighbor who lives next door, but none of that tells you anything at all about what kind of neighbor that you have, whether he or she is kind or unkind, good or bad, young or old, even male or female.

And so, it is with natural revelation. It may help us to address some questions: Is there someone there? We might ask that question and begin to answer it this way. Is there a cause behind our universe? But it doesn’t help us answer the question: What actually is God like? Is He in fact the Christian God or is He some other kind of god that other people have speculated about? Is He just powerful or is He good and kind? Is He just intelligent or does He have emotions as well? These questions we can only answer if there is some measure of self-disclosure – that is, God tells us something about Himself. And this is where special revelation, the second aspect is so crucial, because this is where God reveals Himself to us so we can know things about Him. Now in Psalm 19:7-11 that’s when he addresses, “The law of the Lord is perfect,” and begins to talk about the word of God as being God’s means of self-revelation. We can, from His word, if God has given to us His word, if this is not just a compilation of human speculation but God has revealed Himself through this word, then we can learn something about His character, what kind of God is he.

You see if you have a neighbor in the big house next door behind the wall and you see the smoke from the chimney and you realize somebody is there and the music occasionally and the car leaving and returning, but if one day your neighbor called you on the phone, you’d begin to get to know something about him or her. If they invite you over for coffee or come to your house for coffee, you get to know quite a bit about them. If you go and have a barbeque together or if you discover your neighbor has written an autobiography and you get hold of a copy, you get to know a lot about your neighbor. That’s what God has done in His word. It’s not just the smoke coming out the chimney - the evidence that somebody is there - but there is the personal revelation that is not only through His word but is supremely through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Hebrews 1:1 adds to Psalm 19 by saying,

“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways” (God has spoken in the past) “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

He hasn’t just sent us a book, so to speak; He sent us a movie. We can see Him by the Son. That’s the neighbor calling on you, calling you on the phone and coming over for coffee with you.

Now natural revelation then and special revelation are classically understood as the means by which God reveals Himself.

But I do want to introduce this third means too, because the first question is: Does God exist? The second question is: Has God spoken? But then God reveals Himself personally in His revelation. The third question is: Is God relevant? And if you read the last part of Psalm 19:12 down to the end, you will find that he speaks about God in experience and particularly in the area of our conscience, “Who can discern his faults, forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant from wilful sin, etc.” And then he speaks about empowering us to live lives, as He wants us to live.

So, the final knowledge of God comes not from simply observing the universe or reading the revelation He has given to us but by experiencing God personally in a relationship that is alive and growing. And that of course is what the Christian life is all about.

You see if you had a neighbor next door behind the wall and you saw his smoke and you heard his music and you saw the car go and come and you conclude that there is somebody who lives there and then they call you on the telephone and come over and have coffee with you, you kind of know much more about them and you read the autobiography. But if you were single and your neighbor had an eligible daughter or a son and you got to know them and you fell in love and you married, then you would become part of the family next door, of the man next door. Now you don’t just see the smoke and hear the music and get the phone call and drink the coffee, but now you are part of the family and you are on intimate terms, you’re in a relationship with him. So, it is with the progressive revelation of God to us. We know Him, we become part of His family, part of His – we become intimate with Him.

So, the three real questions are: Does God exist? Has God spoken? And is God relevant? Interestingly, that third question is probably the most important question in our culture today.

Thirty years ago, when I began preaching in Britain I would often be invited, as I was over all the years I was in the U.K. until I came here, often invited to go to University Christian groups that would meet one night in the week. And thirty years ago, frequently be asked to give a sort of an apologetic, a statement of why we might believe in the deity of Christ, what is the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, what is the meaning of the cross of Christ, a response to the issue of suffering – these kind of questions. That was the kind of thing that when I began preaching, were issues that you were asked to address. But as time went on, those issues we were asked to address less and less and instead the key issue became: Is God relevant? Because you could say to folks, “Here’s the evidence that Jesus Christ was not just a man, that He was divine, that He was God.”

And they would shrug their shoulders, “So what?”

“Here’s the evidence that He was raised again from the dead.”

“So? The real question is: is He relevant, is this relevant to me?”

And this very subjective world that often has become detached from the objective world of history and facts, but nevertheless that’s the world we live in, part of what we call “post-modernism”, which is very subjective in its orientation.

Now what I want to talk about for the next minutes that we have is the natural revelation of God. We’ll talk about the house next door; is anybody there? To put it another way: What is the evidence of God from a closed Bible? We Christians of course learn about God from our open Bibles. But is there any evidence of God that comes from a closed Bible – that is: outside the revelation of Scripture; what kind of evidence is there? It’s one of the great philosophical questions of course: Is there a God?

And over the years of history philosophers have come up with four answers to that question, four main arguments. And they have varying strengths and they all have weaknesses. These are evidences, not proofs, but they are interesting nevertheless because through great minds over history these have developed and become sort of the classical arguments for the existence of God. And I am going to give them to you, four of them, one by one, and comment on them a little bit.

First of all, there is what is known as the cosmological argument. The cosmological argument is an argument from the evidence of the fact that we exist. You see, every affect has a cause, goes this argument. Rest is natural. Motion is unnatural. Motion always has a cause. This pulpit right now is sitting here and you’re hardly aware of it because its natural state is a state of being at rest and being stationary. But if suddenly this pulpit began to move across the platform, most of you would want to know why. Has somebody got a piece of string over there and they’re sort of pulling it? Is it on casters of any kind? Is there some kind of magnet over there that attracts some responding element in this pulpit? Something is causing it to move across the platform. You would conclude that. Of course, you would, because motion is not natural; rest, stationary, is natural. If I was suddenly bombarded with tomatoes, most of you would look up to the balcony to see who is throwing them. Tomatoes don’t just take off on their own; there’s somebody behind them.

Thomas Aquinas, who was one of the great minds of the church’s history in the 13th Century, probably one of the biggest influences in the development of Christian understanding and theology – especially in the area of reason and faith, if you like. He was a sort of Josh McDowell of his day. And Aquinas argued this way: Everything that moves has to be moved by another thing. But this chain of movers cannot go on to infinity because there has to be a first mover or else there could be no other mover. In other words, like a set of dominoes, there’s got to be the first domino that you flick and then it knocks the rest and they all fall down. There’s got to be a first mover. And Aquinas says, “And this first mover everyone assumes to be God.” Well, actually, not everyone assumes this to be God and this is the weakness of that argument and there are weaknesses in all of these arguments. You see if we argue everything has a cause, by the same token we need to argue that God has a cause. But when we say, “What is the cause of God?” the answer we give is: God is the first cause. So, we say, “The first cause is God”, but other people might say, “Well the first cause is the universe itself.” And they might say you can either choose to believe in a self-existent God or a self-existent universe. That is the weakness for that argument. Nevertheless, it is a very important factor, that every cause – every affect has a cause; there is something behind what happens. And we know this world is a moving universe all the time. And the argument is, this cosmological argument is, that because we exist and because we are alive, there is a cause behind it. And that cause is God.

The second argument is the teleological argument, which is an extension really of the cosmological argument. The teleological argument argues from the fact that there is design in the universe that is clearly more than simply coincidence. The world reveals intelligence and order and harmony and purpose. There are laws, there are scientific laws that are universal and constant and this implies existence of an intelligent purpose behind this.

Statistically somebody has said that the world evolving to where it is with all its intricacy and marvellous design would be like a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and at the end of the hurricane blowing through the junkyard, you’ve got left behind a 747 that actually flies. Statistically the chances of the world being what it is, is something similar to that. Now, I have no way of checking statistically, but when you see a Boeing 747, you know there is a manufacturer somewhere, probably in Seattle, who put it together.

And the teleological argument says, just look at our world for instance; everything in this world is just so finely balanced. The earth must be just the right size to sustain life, its rotation must be just right, the distance of the earth from the sun must be within very narrow limits if life is going to exist and it’s just exactly right. Its tilt must be exactly right to cause the seasons. The land and water ratio is a very delicate balance. Biologically we are extremely fragile – a little too hot and we burn; a little too cold and we freeze – either way we die. We are just exactly able to live because the temperature is right. We need light but not too much ultraviolet, we need heat but not too much ultrared.

We have an air screen above us that shields us from literally millions of missiles every day. If you get the chance to lie out under a clear sky, see how many shooting stars we call them, which are the tiny little pebbles really that come into our atmosphere and get burnt up. It protects us; otherwise we’d be bombarded all the time. And we live just ten miles away from a terrible heat. We’re shielded by a rock screen below our feet. We’re only ten miles away apparently from a heat that would destroy us instantly under the earth’s surface.

Now, it’s either by chance that all these things have worked out so exactly or it is by design. The universe is either an accident or a plan. And of course, if we say it’s by chance, that’s not providing an explanation for our existence; it’s actually abandoning an explanation and saying there is no explanation, which actually is what some people have concluded and therefore life has no meaning. But the teleological argument is the argument that says there is evidence of an architect, an intelligent architect behind this world because of the way things work so exactly. And you examine any portion of our marvellous creation, whether it’s the human body with its incredible design and ability or any other part and there’s evidence of intelligence that lies behind it.

The third argument is the ontological argument. This is an argument that says that our ability to imagine God is a strong indicator that God exists for the simple reason we can only conceive of things that actually exist. If something exists in the mind, it must to some extent exist in reality as well. You see, we can think of fictitious things but only as they are based on things that are. For instance, a mermaid is totally fictitious but we can conceive of a mermaid because it is half woman and half fish. We can conceive of Martians, but whenever we do, they’ve always got color for instance, because we can only conceive of color. They’ve usually got either some of the senses, of sight, of hearing, of touch, of taste, because we can only conceive – no one has conceived of some kind of creature that has none of these things. Because we can only conceive of things that are related to what is. The unicorn is a mythical creature but it’s a horse with a spear – now what’s the word I want? – Horn, that’s right, an extended horn.

Now when it comes to God, it’s an almost universal understanding, this idea of an absolute power, of absolute perfection, and yet nobody has ever seen absolute perfection or absolute power. Our concept of God is not a combination of other realities; it is something that is bigger than any reality that we can see. And you can go to any part of the world and you won’t see a lot of things in common; you don’t see industry in every part of the world, you don’t see great education in every part of the world, you don’t see great development in every part of the world, but you will see worship in every part of the world. Whether it’s a shrine on the side of the road or a temple or a mosque or a church, there are people saying, “There is somebody somewhere, bigger than us who is powerful, who is good.” Where do we get that idea from? We’ve never actually seen the equivalent of that.

And so, this argument is that because we conceive of an absolutely perfect being and an absolutely powerful being, He must exist and even exist in our sub-conscience, as actually Ecclesiastes says, “God put eternity into the hearts of man”, or we would not be able to conceive of Him, is the argument.

The fourth argument is the moral argument and this is argument that comes from our awareness of right and wrong and the existence of a conscience that we have. It’s sometimes called the anthropological argument. Now, there are various forms of this argument but basically the most simple aspect of this argument is the fact that we have an innate sense of right and wrong. Children have an innate sense of what is just and what is fair. Children know what is fair - you don’t have to teach them - they know every quickly as they grow up. There is this moral consciousness. Paul actually spoke about this and used this in Romans 2:14 when he said there,

“When Gentiles, who do not have the law” (which of course God had given to the Jews through Moses) “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”

Now says Paul, here’s a marvellous thing: Gentiles who have never had the law of God, the Ten Commandments and the revelation the Jewish people live by, actually believe the same things about what’s good and what’s bad, what’s right and what’s wrong. People have this innate sense of right and wrong. We may be spiritually dead, we may be separated from God, but the fingerprints of God’s moral character are in our conscience. And incidentally, this also reveals something that God is not just a passive, impersonal power but that there is a moral dimension, an ethical dimension, a right and a wrong dimension, a good and a bad dimension to God. And that’s why you will find that most movies that you watch, most novels that you read, the good wins over evil, because if it doesn’t we are offended by that, because the natural heart of people wants good to win.

And even when there are evil movements in the world, they have been justified by their followers in the belief that they are good – like Hitler in the 1930’s where the whole nation of Germany, pretty well, rallied behind him because Germany after the defeat of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which stripped Germany of all its assets, which took away from her all her foreign territories, that gave back areas that she had occupied – there were parts of Czechoslovakia, Poland and so on – gave these back, that denied them the freedom to build up armed forces and especially in the Rhineland which was a buffer between Germany and France and Belgium and Luxembourg. And when this agreement was made and was signed forcibly by the Germans because they were told if they didn’t, World War I would re-start. It so humiliated the nation, there was such an anger burning under the surface that when the Weimar Republic fell in 1933, Hitler came to power with the objective of re-occupying the Rhineland, which he did in 1936 and then taking back Czechoslovakia and Poland, which precipitated the World War II. But for the German people, the argument was: this is restoring our dignity in giving us back our rights. So, the belief was this was good thing even though the tactics and the ultimate campaign to annihilate the Jewish race in Europe was evil.

The same with Al-Qaeda; those who support it believe that western influence is bad for the world, especially for the Islamic world. And the presence of infidels in Islamic territory as they would see it, need to be driven out. Even evil has to be justified as something good. No movement exists that says, “we are going to do something evil”, period. They say, “We are going to do something good”, even though it may be evil, as in those two cases for instance.

And so, this argument says that this sense of the need for good is an evidence, that we’re not just a fluke, an accident; we are a creation of a God who has a moral dimension to Him.

Now these philosophical arguments all have their weaknesses and of course four weak arguments don’t equal one strong argument, but nevertheless they are pointers that are valid, they are consistent with what Scripture says about the natural revelation of God, as in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” You look up into the sky and you realize a number of things. One thing you realize is God is big. Look at the vastness.

I have always lived in the country and always enjoyed clear skies at night until we moved here and now we live in a town and so the light is polluted. We can’t see the sky unless we get out of the town somewhere. But I love to look up at the sky and the furthest distance you can see is 2.2 billion light years away. Our minds cannot comprehend that - that’s Andromeda – it’s just a blur but it’s a whole galaxy, our nearest neighbor. And God created that in half a sentence on a Wednesday afternoon and He made the stars also – a little bit of time left before dinner, just making the stars also. That’s how the Scripture summarizes the creation of the universe. You look at it and you say, “God is big, God is vast.”

I heard somebody say, and I think I’ve said this to you before but I’ll say it again, that when an artist paints a picture he does two things, or she does two things. First of all, they copy something – if it’s a landscape, you’ll recognize it; if it’s a portrait you will recognize it. Even if something abstract, it is made up of things that you do recognize in some form or other. If you look at a Picasso, for instance and his cubism where you see a leg coming out of the ear of a woman. You know afterwards you will say, “Oh it’s a woman, you know – a little different from the way I see women – but that’s a Picasso”. So, you copy something.

But the second thing an artist does – and this is why art, as opposed to photographs, are important; an artist expresses himself. The history of art is the history of how people think, how they view life. So, you look at a Picasso and you say, “Picasso is warped”, because anybody who sees the world that way is probably warped because anybody who sees the world different to me we say is warped. It’s actually saying about the artist.

Now, if that is what an artist does – he copies something and expresses himself – when God as the supreme artist created the universe, He did only one of those two things. He didn’t copy anything; there was nothing to copy. He just expressed Himself. And “the heavens declare the glory of God.”

And as Romans 1 says, Romans 1:20 when Paul writes about God’s revelation of Himself, He says,

“Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

There are all kinds of paradoxes in that verse, by the way. That God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen – that’s a paradox – invisible qualities clearly seen. How have God’s invisible qualities been seen? The way an artist expresses himself – you look at his painting; you see something of his perspective and his character. And God has expressed Himself in our creation.

However, creation is only a partial revelation. As I said just now, it might tell us that God exists. It’s like the smoke coming out of the chimney of the neighbor’s house next door. Somebody probably lives there but who in the world is he, what is he like? Is he friend or foe? And that’s where we need the special revelation, which comes through Scripture. He reveals Himself by the works of His hands first of all, but He reveals Himself by the words of His mouth, secondly.

And if you look at Psalm 19:7 on down, because the Psalm really is about how we might know God. It’s a progressive Psalm that from creation to His word, “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul”.

By the way, let me just very quickly run through some things here that you may find interesting. There where it says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul”, it ministers to our spiritual condition; it revives the soul. “The statues of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple”, he goes on to say. It ministers to our intellectual condition, gives us wisdom. “The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.” It ministers to our emotional condition. It brings joy. “The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” It ministers to our psychological condition; we begin to see things well. “The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous.” It ministers to our moral condition.

Interesting how the word of God ministers to us in our spiritual condition, our intellectual condition, our emotional condition, our psychological condition and our moral condition, because the law of God reveals God, the word of God reveals God to us. And we haven’t time to look at that section more fully, but the word of God is the means by which we know God in a way that is not just abstract but personal and real and relevant.

And then very briefly, the third part of this Psalm, that He reveals Himself to us personally. I have put in my notes here: if the first six verses reveals Himself by the works of His hands and then He reveals Himself by the words of His mouth (Psalm 19:7-11), He reveals Himself by the witness of His Spirit in Psalm 19:12-14, which is the end. Because the first answers the question: does God exist? The second answers the question: has God spoken? And the third answers the question: is God relevant? Yes, He is relevant because it talks here about His forgiving our faults and “keeping His servant from willful sins that they may not rule over me.” “Then I will be blameless”, he says, “innocent of great transgression.”

You see, we do not know God simply as an intellectual exercise of our minds; we know God as our conscience responds to Him with the awareness of our separation from Him, our guilt that keeps us distant from Him. And then the forgiveness and the cleansing that enables us to be brought into a relationship with Him. And I find it very interesting that the Psalmist here talks about the conscience so fully in this area of knowing God.

But let me finish by saying this: knowing God as Creator cannot save you. You know, the person who says He worships God in his garden or on the golf course is really kidding himself. You can see the Creator maybe in your garden- you don’t usually see Him on the golf course but you see Him in your garden maybe. But you cannot know God until something has been done with your sin.

So, knowing God as Creator cannot save you. Knowing Scripture cannot save you, even though the Psalmist extols the virtues of the word of God by which God has revealed Himself. It’s only Christ who can save us, when He deals with our guilt and our consciences are brought before Him and He cleanses us and restores us.

So, this Psalm answers the question God can be known. He can be known generally through creation. He can be known specifically through Scripture. But He can only be known personally through salvation, cleansing and forgiveness and reconciliation.

And so, my question to you as I finish is: do you know Him? Maybe you are watching on television and you’re curious, you’re interested, you’ve stuck with us for this last half hour or so because you’re really interested – can you know God, can a man, a woman know God? You can look at all these evidences; none of them will make Him real to you until as the Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that God is good”.

You come and say, “Lord I recognize that You exist and that I am separated from You. Please forgive me, cleanse me of my sin; come to live within me.” And as Jesus said, as I quoted at the beginning, “This is life eternal, that they know you and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” It’s knowing God in a personal, living way – that’s what the Christian life is all about.

Let’s pray together. Lord, we are grateful that You have not left us in the dark, fumbling along, speculating, guessing, but never being certain: Is there a God behind this universe? You’ve not left us wondering: are you a good God and a kind God and a merciful God? You have revealed that to us through Your Word and through Your Son. But thank You we don’t just stand back and applaud a good God; rather, we may know You personally in our lives and our experience. And I pray that each one of us will grow in our knowledge of God, that we will know You and allow You Your place in our hearts as our Saviour, our Lord and our King. I pray this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.