Ask him what percentage he knows of all the knowledge to be known in the entire known universe like what is happening in the core of Mars--right now. What is the temperature of that star that Hubble (or whatever spacecraft) is about to approach, etc. If he is honest, he will have to tell you he knows practically 0% of the knowledge to be known in the entire universe. Then you can say, "So in other words you know practically nothing." The answer must be yes.
The breakdown:
The following white box represents all the knowledge of the universe.
The dot in the following box represents the atheist's knowledge of everything in the universe (the dot should be even smaller but you get the point). All the white space is unknown to them--they can make absolutely NO reasonable claim that there is no God, because they don't know everything. THEY KNOW ALMOST NOTHING. God could easily be outside of their knowledge (not to mention that God is a Spirit and the natural man cannot discern the things of him, but spiritual men can, those born again.
Many people do not want to obey God's righteous commandments and that is the exact reason why they set themselves at war against him--they are presumptuous and selfwilled. Other people have actually been taught to be fools that deny the God of the Bible (I've seen this in my own education and in children's books--we are a deformed, denatured people--the television and the school system are the two great weapons of mass destruction that have destroyed our minds and captured many souls, but the seal of God standeth sure; the Lord knoweth them that are his).
***** MANIFEST *****
I submit to you in accordance with the word of God (Romans chapter 1) that that which may be known of God is manifest in all men--
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Romans 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Romans 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Romans 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Romans 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
Romans 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Romans 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Romans 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Romans 1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Romans 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
God is real and the day of judgment is coming. Many that call themselves atheists are just trying to convince themselves that they can do what they want to do and that that day of judgment will not come--the ostrich-head-in-the-sand syndrome. They would rather cleave to the fairy tale of evolution than open their eyes and see the obvious, self-evident fact that God made the amazing heaven and earth and all that in them is including all the amazing systems with each component of the creation. Plugging up your ears to the truth will not stay the wrath of God against you and make it go away. When people get thrown in hell they will be without excuse and it will be too late to get right with Jesus. It is in this life you get it right or never. If you do not repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will burn for ever in hell and the lake of fire that burneth with fire and brimstone. If you do not repent, you will perish spending an eternity in torment.
Instead of fearing hellfire, some hardened individuals respond in the following type of manner--
"Your God is a God of fear! A good God wouldn't put His creatures in hell! If your God does that I don't want Him!"
To that I say,
"Oh so you want to continue in rebellion to your Maker? I see. And you've got the nerve to think that you are automatically entitled to live in His home? Heaven is God's home and there will not be one evil, rebellious person living there like liars and murderers and heretics and whoremongers. Either get washed in the blood of the Lamb or perish in the flames of hell."
The following is an excerpt from a sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon entitled, "Turn or Burn" will shed additional light on the subject (...all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Ephesians 5:13)--
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
First, we cannot expect that the God of the Bible would allow sin to go
unpunished. Some may imagine it; they may dream their intellects into a
state intoxication, so as to fantasize a God apart from justice; but no man
who has any common sense, can imagine a God without justice.
You cannot
conceive of a good king or of a good government that could exist without
Justice, much less of God, the Judge and King of all the earth, without
justice in His heart. To imagine Him all love, and no justice, would be to
make Him less than God. He would not be capable of ruling this world if He
had not justice in His heart.
There is in man a natural perception of the
fact, that if God exists, He must be just; and I can cannot imagine that you
can believe in a God, without believing also in the punishment of sin. It
would be difficult to imagine Him elevated high above His creatures, seeing
all their disobedience, and yet looking with the same composure upon the good
and upon the evil; you cannot imagine Him giving the same reward of praise to
the wicked and to the righteous...
This world is not the dungeon where God punishes sin...judgment is reserved for the next world...
Your
own consciences will tell you that God must punish sin. You may laugh at me,
and say that you have no such "belief." I did not say you had, but I said
that your conscience tells you so, and conscience has more power over men
than what they think to be their belief. As John Bunyan said, "Mr.
Conscience had a very loud voice, and though Mr. Understanding shut himself
up in a dark room where he could not see, yet he used to thunder out so
loudly in the streets, that Mr. Understanding used to shake in his house
through what Mr. Conscience said." And it is true so often.
You say in your
understanding, "I cannot believe God will punish sin;" but you know He will.
You don't want to confess your secret fears because to do so would be to give
up what you have so often most bravely asserted. But because you assert it
with such boasting and high-sounding words, I think you don't really believe
it, for if you did, you would not need to look so big while saying it... I
know that when you are dying you will believe in a hell. Conscience makes
cowards of us all, and makes us believe, even when we say we don't, that God
must punish sin.
Let me tell you a story; I have told it before, but it is a striking one, and
sets out in a true light how easily men will be brought in times of danger to
believe in a God, and a God of justice too, though they have denied Him
before. In the backwoods of Canada there lived a good minister, who one
evening went out to meditate, as Isaac did, in the fields. He soon found
himself on the borders of a forest, which he entered, and walked along a path
which had been walked on before him; meditating, and still meditating, until
at last the shadows of twilight gathered around him, and he began to think
how he might have to spend the night in the forest. He trembled at the idea of
remaining there, with the poor shelter of a tree that he would be compelled
to climb.
All of a sudden he saw a light in the distance, among the trees, and thinking
that it might be from the window of some cottage where he would find a
hospitable retreat, he hurried to it, and, to his surprise saw a space
cleared, and trees laid down to make a platform, and upon it a speaker
addressing a multitude. He thought to himself, "I have stumbled on a crowd
of people, who in this dark forest have assembled to worship God, and some
minister is preaching to them, at this late hour of the evening, concerning
the kingdom of God, and His righteousness;" but to his surprise and horror,
when he came nearer, he found a young [man] speaking loudly against God, daring the
Almighty to do His worst upon him, speaking terrible things in anger against
the justice of the Most High, and venturing most bold and awful assertions
concerning his own disbelief in a future state.
It was altogether a[n] extraordinary scene; it was lighted up by a fire of pine-
knots which cast a glare here and there, while the thick darkness in other
places still reigned. The people were intent on listening to the speaker,
and when he sat down thunders of applause were given to him; each one seeming
to emulate the other in his praise. The minister thought to himself, "I must
not let this pass; I must rise and speak; the honor of my God and His cause
demands it." But he was afraid to speak, for he did not know what to say,
having come there suddenly; but he would have spoken anyway, had not
something else occurred.
A man of middle age, robust and strong, rose, and
leaning on his staff, he said: "My friends, I have a word to speak to you
tonight. I am not about to refute any of the arguments of the speaker; I
shall not criticize his style; I shall say nothing concerning what I believe
to be the blasphemies he has uttered; but I shall simply relate to you a
fact, and after I have done that you shall draw your own conclusions."
"Yesterday I walked by the side of the river over there; I saw on its waters a
young man in a boat. The boat was out of control; it was going fast toward
the rapids; he could not use the oars, and I saw that he was not capable of
bringing the boat to the shore. I saw that young man wring his hands in
agony; in a little while he gave up the attempt to save his life, kneeled
down and cried with a desperate sincerity, 'O God! save my soul! If my
body can't be saved, save my soul.' I heard him confess that he had been a
blasphemer; I heard him vow that if his life were spared he would never be
such again; I heard [him] implore the mercy of heaven for Jesus Christ's sake, and
earnestly plead that he might be washed in His blood. These arms saved that
young man from the river, I dove in, brought the boat to shore, and saved his
life. That same young man has just now addressed you, and cursed his Maker.
What do you say, Sirs?"
The speaker sat down. You may guess what a shudder ran through the young man
himself, and how the audience in one moment changed their mind, and saw that
after all, while it was a fine thing to brag and boast against Almighty God
on dry land, and when danger was distant, it was not quite so grand to think
ill of Him when near the verge of the grave. We believe there is enough
conscience in every man to convince him that God must punish him for his sin;
therefore we think that our text will awaken an echo in every heart.--"If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it
ready." (Psalms 7:12)
...O, sirs, you may think
that the fire of hell is indeed a fiction, and that the flames of the pit
that lies beneath the earth's surface are but someone's dreams; but if you
are believers in the Bible you must believe that hell is real. Did not our
Master say: "Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched?"
You say it is metaphorical fire. But what did He mean by this: "Be afraid of
the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Is it not written, that
there is reserved for the devil and his angels dreadful torment? And do you
not know that our Master said: "They will go away to eternal punishment;"
"Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels?"
There is not a man who has been born and educated in this land whose
conscience does not know that the existence of hell is a reality. All I need
to do is to press upon your anxious consideration this thought: Do you feel
that you are a fit subject for heaven now? Do you feel that God has changed
your heart and renewed your nature? If not, I beg you lay hold of the
thought, that unless you are born again then all that can be dreadful in the
torments of the future world must inevitably be yours. Dear listener, apply
it to yourself, not to your fellow men, but to your own conscience, and may
God Almighty make use of it to bring you to repentance.
Sinner! You are so desperately set on sin, that I have no hope that you will
ever turn from it of yourself. But, listen! He who died on Calvary is
exalted on high "to give repentance and forgiveness of sin." Do you this
morning feel that you are a sinner? If so, ask Christ to give you
repentance, for He can work repentance in your heart by His Spirit, though
you can't work it there yourself. Is your heart like iron? He can put it
into the furnace of his love and make it melt. Is your soul like a very hard
rock? His grace is able to dissolve it, like the ice is melted before the
sun. He can make you repent...
O! what would I give if one of my listener[s] should be blessed by God to go
home, and repent! If I had worlds to buy one of your souls, I would readily
give them, if I might but bring one of you to Christ. I shall never forget
the hour when God's mercy first looked on me. It was in a place very
different from this, among a despised people, in an insignificant little
chapel of a peculiar sect...
I went there bowed down with guilt, laden with
sins. The minister walked up the pulpit stairs, opened his Bible, and read
that precious text: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God,
and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:22) and, as I thought, fixing his eyes on me,
before he began to preach to others, he said: "Young man! Turn! Turn! Turn!
You are one of the ends of the earth; you feel you are; you know your need of
a Savior; you are trembling because you think He will never save you. He
says this morning 'Turn!'"
O how my soul was shaken within me then! What! I thought, does that man know
me, and all about me? He seemed as if he did. And it made me "look!" Well,
I thought, lost or saved, I will try; sink or swim, I will run the risk of
it; and in that moment by His grace I turned to Jesus, and though desponding,
downcast, and ready to despair, and feeling that I would rather die than live
as I had lived, at that very moment it seemed as if a new heaven had had its
birth within my conscience. I went home, no longer cast down; those who saw
me, noticing the change, asked me why I was so glad, and I told them I had
believed in Jesus, and that it was written,
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1-2)
O!
if one such person like I was should be here this morning. Where are you,
you chief of sinners, you vilest of the vile? My dear listener, you have
never been in church perhaps these last twenty years; but here you are
covered with your sins, the blackest and vilest of all! Hear God's Word.
"Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be like scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as
wool." And all this for Jesus' sake; all this for His blood's sake!
"Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved;"...
Sinner, TURN from your sins or BURN for your sins!
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