ATHEISM is for FOOLS!

by Pastor Paul Naumann

The fool has said in his heart: "There is no God." 

— Psalm 14:1

In the name of the Triune God, the living God, the God who was, and is, and always will be, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

An "atheist" is someone who believes that there is no God. I don't think there are many true atheists in the world, but there are a lot of people who say they are...and even more who live like they are. An old Christian man was once confronted by a strident young man who identified himself confidently as an atheist. He said, "I will not believe in the existence of a God that cannot be seen. We are creatures of reason, you know!" "Well," said the older man, "have you ever seen France?" "No, but other people have, and my reason allows me to believe in France on the basis of their testimony." "I see," said the Christian, "— then you will believe only in what you or somebody else has seen?" "That's it exactly!" said the young man. "Have you ever seen your brains?" the old man asked. "No." "Has anyone else ever seen them?" "Well, no..." The old Christian smiled at the perplexity of the young man. "Then what makes you think you have any?!"

To a long-time Christian, atheism may seem like a particularly "brainless" belief to hold. But one thing is clear — there are masses of people in our world of today who do hold just that belief. Maybe they don't say it with their lips, but they say it very clearly with their lives: "There is no God." And don't think that atheism is something new to the world; centuries ago already, the Psalmist showed that he was quite familiar with atheism and atheists. He summed up his thoughts on the subject with these words: "The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." On this Trinity Sunday, let's consider the theme:

"ATHEISM is for FOOLS!"

I. Nature says: there is a God. II. Conscience says: there is a God. III. Scripture says: He is the Triune God.

Everybody can know that there is a God. His voice can be heard all around us. "The heavens declare the glory of God," the Bible says, and the firmament shows His handiwork." All of the evidence in this remarkable universe of ours says that there is a God.

In fact, the Apostle Paul once said that there's no excuse for not knowing God exists — everyone should be able to tell that, he said, simply by looking around at all the things God has created. In other words, if you stand out on your porch on a warm spring evening and look up into the sky, you should be getting a message from what you see. When you see all those beautiful stars, all placed in their exact position and running in their exact courses, it should be obvious that they could just have come into being by accident. The trees, the plants, the myriad species of wildlife...all the evidence says that Someone must have created all these things, and that that Someone is all-wise and all-powerful.

What about the human body? Consider the anatomy of the human eye: it has thousands of intricately designed parts. All these parts fit together just right, to form a picture-taking apparatus more versatile and accurate than the most expensive camera. When faced with such a wonder, it just seems like common sense that everyone should come to the same conclusion that King David did: "I will praise You, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well!" — Ps 139:14.

In our day, though, very few people come to that logical conclusion. They prefer to believe in something that seems a lot wilder to me: the theory of evolution. Evolution says that, over millions of years, simple one-celled creatures gradually changed and grew more complex, until gradually our world was populated with a large variety of infinitely-complex creatures. Well if you ask me, it takes more faith to believe a tall tale like that than to believe in the Bible account of creation! There was once a Christian man who worked in a factory that made sausage grinders. He remarked, "It takes an employee in our factory about two days to learn to put the 17 parts of a sausage grinder together. Now, it may be that all the millions of parts in the human body, each in just the right place, and each with a specific function — it may be that they all just came together by accident. I don't know. I'm just a simple factory worker. But this I do know, that you can shake the 17 parts of a sausage grinder around in a washtub for the next 17 billion years, and you'll never get a sausage grinder."

Nature says there is a God! Are we getting the message from the created world around us? Or have we learned to take all these things for granted? Are we so used to the rising and setting of the sun that we've lost our sense of awe and wonder over the great designs of our great God? God's marvels are all around us. Only a fool would say, "There is no God!"

But there's another clear witness to the existence of God, isn't there? Something every person on earth has in his heart that should tell him of God's existence. It's called the conscience. It's that persistent voice within us that tells us the difference between right and wrong.

India is an interesting country: although it has only one-third the land mass of the United States, it has roughly twice as many people. In 1981 a census was taken in India which asked, among other things, the religious persuasion of each person. Out on 6.5 million people, only 20 claimed to be atheists. Those 6.5 million people all had that voice inside them, telling them it simply be foolish to deny the existence of God. Why do you think that someone who has committed a sin in the secrecy and privacy of his own home, where nobody could possible have seen it, still feel the twinge of a nagging conscience? Because every person knows in his heart that there is a God, that God is against sin, and that God will one Day call man to account for his sin.

Some of this world's most brilliant people have claimed to be atheists. Voltaire, the great French philosopher and leader of the enlightenment, denied the existence of God throughout his life. But on his death-bed, he suddenly changed his mind. Standing on the brink of eternity, he couldn't shake the terrible conviction that there really was a God, after all. His last words were an agonized cry: "I am abandoned by God and man: I shall go to hell!"

"The fool has said in his heart: 'There is no God.'" All the evidence — in nature, and in man's own heart — says, "Yes, there is too a God...a God who is all powerful, and a God who will judge mankind." You'd have to be a fool to deny it!

God exists, alright; down deep, everyone knows it. But it's not enough just to know God exists. There's something else we need to know — vital information that can only come from one source. Only the Bible can tell us who this God is. The Lord has left an unfailing revelation of Himself in His Word. This testimony shows that he is the Triune God.

The true God, the God of the Bible, is the Triune God. A few moments ago we said the Athanasian Creed together. — To put it frankly, that creed is kind of long and difficult to get through. But I think it's well worth it, if it reminds us how important the Doctrine of the Trinity is. It was important enough to the Christians of the 4th century that they nailed down the Biblical teaching of the Trinity with this creed. They did that because a lot of people were making errors about the nature of God. Some said that Jesus and the Holy Ghost were somehow inferior to the God the Father. Some went the other way, and said that there wasn't one God, but three Gods!

The error of denying the Trinity — three distinct Persons in one God — is still around today. The Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses deny the Trinity, and that's why we make a clear stand against their false doctrine. We stand against the lodges; they are quick to tell us that they're respect and worship God...but which God? Virtually every lodge proclaims a belief in a "Supreme Being." But they leave out any mention of Jesus Christ. And Jesus tells us clearly that you can't have one without the other: Jesus says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." Jesus Christ is the only Way of salvation. He gave Himself on the cross to pay for our sins — ALL our sins — and to free us from eternal death in hell. He rose triumphantly from the dead as the "firstfruits of those that rise," showing us that we will one day rise to everlasting life. Not because of our merits or worthiness, not because we are by nature "more righteous" than others, but because we have received the perfect righteousness of Christ through faith.

Nor do we dare leave out the Holy Ghost, for without Him we couldn't have received our faith in Jesus: "No man can say that Jesus Christ is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit."

Where does the true Church get it's doctrine of the Trinity? — From the Bible itself. And one of the clearest pictures of the Triune God in Scripture is the Baptism of Christ. When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, all three members of the Trinity made their presence known. You remember that John the Baptist objected when Jesus asked to be baptized by him. "But Jesus answered and said to him, 'Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then Jesus, when He had been baptized, came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He was the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'" — Matt. 3:15-17.

If there are any doubts left in your mind about the doctrine of the Trinity, recall Jesus parting words to His disciples on the day He ascended into heaven. He said, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." — Matt 28:19. God does indeed exist, and Scripture says that He is the Triune God!.

"There is no God?" Don't be a fool! People can live without money, without fame, without education. They can eke out an existence without friends, or liberty, or health. But they can't really live this life - and they can never know the life to come — without knowing the true God. The way of salvation lies only in Jesus Christ. The Father, in love for us, sent Him to the cross to die for our sins. The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts to give us faith to believe in Him. Let's use every opportunity we have to tell the world, with our lips and with our lives, that there is a God...and that God is the Triune God! In Jesus' name, AMEN.