--Earnest Baxter
ATHEISTS AND THEIR BIG TALK AGAINST GOD.
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Atheists, agnostics, evolutionists, and false prophets sure do have some big words against the God of the Bible, the true God. A lot of them come to this site and even link to us with derogatory remarks which is fine--they know they need Jesus, that's why they keep coming here. They know hell ain't no fairy tale.
Atheists say, "There is no god," like they know what exists in every speck of the universe. The Bible says, "The FOOL hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'." In actuality, there is no such thing as a "real atheist". Here's an illustration which can be used on any atheist.
There is no such thing as an atheist because no human being knows everything and has all knowledge as we've seen above. Neither can any person be everywhere at the same time. For a person to be able to confidently say, "There is no God," he'd have to know EVERYTHING that existed EVERYWHERE--and no human being fits that bill. There is no atheist. At the very BEST a person can say, "I'm agnostic" although this is not true either... I submit to you in accordance with the word of God (Romans chapter 1) that the big talkers and blasphemers know that God is real and they know that their day of judgment is coming. THAT is why they call themselves atheists--they are trying to convince themselves that that day of judgement will not come--the ostrich-head-in-the-sand syndrome. They would rather believe that a monkey is they daddy and a fly they cousin than give the reverence to God and Him alone. Plugging up your ears will not stay the wrath of God against you. When you get thrown in hell you will be without excuse and it will be too late to get it right with Jesus. It's in this life you get it right or never. Turn or Burn. Repent or Perish [1]. Some man might say to me... "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 got the nerve to think that you are automatically entitled to live in His home? Heaven is God's home and it won't be one evil, rebellious person living there. Either get washed in the blood of the Lamb or perish in the flames of hell." An excerpt from a sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon entitled "Turn or Burn" will shed some nice light on the subject (the light maketh manifest)... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 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! |
[1] When we say perish, it does not mean that people will cease to
exist. They will be forever tormented in hell and the lake of fire. To perish in our context is to
be banished from the presence of God to everlasting punishment. John
3:16 tells us, "...that whosoever believeth in him [Jesus] should not PERISH but
have everlasting life." Those persons who find perdition their eternal
home have perished and they will live forever in torment.
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