Doubt to Belief 6 - The Mystery of God
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
The Mystery of God audio (4MB)
“I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Eccl 3:10-11 NRSV) So writes the author of Ecclesiastes. He sees that there’s something in the human mind that knows there’s more out there than we can grasp; there’s more than the now. He goes on: “14I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.” There seems to be an innate recognition in the human spirit that there’s a God who works in the world. Yet he’s a God that we’re unable to comprehend.
It’s this unknowable aspect of God that confuses so many people I think. Because we’re so tied to the idea that reality has to have a material manifestation we can’t get our heads around the idea of an unknowable God.
Doubt to Belief 5 - Hell?
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
How can a loving God send people to Hell? audio (3MB)
This is a series based on and heavily dependent on Timothy Keller’s Best Seller "The Reason For God" for which I’m deeply grateful. It uses much of his argument though with various additions by myself or the other preachers of the series.
Matt 25:35-46
A lake of fire, of unquenchable fire, chains of deepest darkness, wrath and fury, anguish and distress; the language used in the Bible for hell is overwhelming isn’t it? Not to mention the popular images of pitchforks and horned demons. It’s the sort of distressing picture that we shy away from. It’s the sort of idea that’s so easy to make into a stereotype: preachers thumping the pulpit, spouting hellfire and damnation; men on street corners with big black bibles warning people to turn away from the wrath to come.
It’s no wonder people ask how could we believe in that sort of a God. How could a God of love possibly condemn anyone to that sort of suffering? Surely if God is the sort of God that Christians mostly talk about, he could never consign people to an eternity of suffering, could he?
The question becomes more pointed when it becomes personal. How can we look at someone who’s a leader in humanitarian work but who isn’t a Christian and suggest that that person is going to hell because they’re not saved? Can’t we think of lots of people who are really kind, who are loving and caring, who do all sorts of things for others out of the goodness of their hearts? What about them? Isn’t it a contradiction that a God of love would consign them to eternal suffering?
What do you think? Is it a contradiction? Well let’s think about the thinking that lies behind these questions. What do the people who ask them believe deep down.
Doubt to Belief 4 - Science
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Science vs Christianity? audio (3MB)
How do you answer your friends or colleagues when they ask you why you believe? What do you say when they throw up one of the many excuses for not believing. If you’ve been here for the last few weeks you may have noticed that we’ve been trying to answer those questions in this sermon series on doubt to belief. What we’ve been doing is to answer the questions people ask as though they were in the congregation. We want to equip you to answer them yourself when someone asks you. We might also be helping you to answer questions that you yourself ask from time to time.
Well, if someone doesn’t suggest that all religions are the same; or that suffering in the world disproves God; if they don’t complain that the injustices inflicted by the Church are enough to put them off God, you can be fairly sure that they will think that science has disproved Christianity. Richard Dawkins claims that evolutionary science has shown that God’s role in creation is just a myth; that the advances of science have removed the need for God. He and his colleagues would argue that science shows that miracles are impossible. Everything is governed by cause and effect, these people would say. If it can’t be measured it can’t be real.
Doubt to Belief 3 - Injustice in the Church
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
Injustice in The Church audio (4MB)
I’m going to begin today with a short parable from the Old Testament. It comes from the second book of Samuel, ch12, and happens right after David has committed adultery with Bathsehba, and he has had her husband Uriah killed, and now taken her as his own wife.
A prophet called Nathan was sent by God to David and he tells him a parable: 2 Sam 12:1-7 – (who is the rich man?)
David doesn’t realise that he is the rich man in the story. He knows that he is guilty of adultery, but he doesn’t see how this particular sin is an act of injustice.
When I was a young teenager a Catholic priest came to my school to speak to us about injustice, and I will never forget the definition that he gave ... he said justice is the opposite of ‘just us’. Justice is what we do when we are thinking of others and not just ourselves. Injustice is what we do when we think only of ourselves or our group. Adultery is a very ‘just us’ thing to do. David was focussed on what he wanted, and had no thought of the trauma he was bringing to Bathsheba’s husband, a man less powerful than he.
Doubt to Belief 2 - How Could a Good God allow Suffering
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? audio (4MB)
This is a series based on and heavily dependent on Timothy Keller’s Best Seller "The Reason For God" for which I’m deeply grateful. It uses much of his argument though with various additions by myself or the other preachers of the series.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does a 17 year old get hit by a train and die? Why does a 2 year-old child just stop breathing in the middle of the night? Why does a 35 year-old mother develop cancer and die, leaving a husband and 3 children behind?
Why does an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia cause a tsunami that kills a quarter of a million people?
The list is never ending isn’t it? All we can do is cry out in pain when these inexplicable things happen to us; and join with the psalmist in asking “How long O Lord?”.
But we feel the need to do more than that don’t we? We want to know how to answer those who ask how we can continue to believe in and all-powerful, all-loving God when these terrible things keep happening. How can God let them go on?
At first it sounds like there are only three possible conclusions to this dilemma. Either God is not all-powerful, or he’s not all-loving or else he doesn’t exist in the first place.
Read more: Doubt to Belief 2 - How Could a Good God allow Suffering
Series: Theme: From Doubt to Belief
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
From Doubt to Belief
A series based on Timothy Keller’s Best Seller "The Reason For God"
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1. Can only one of us be right? |
Is 42:1-9 |
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2. Why Suffering? |
Job 40:1-12;42:1-6; |
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3. The Church’s poor record of injustice |
Is 58:6-9a |
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4. What about Hell? |
Rom 2:1-11 |
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5. The Mystery of God |
Ps 19:1-14 |
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6. Knowing God - CA |
Romans 1:16-23 |
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7. Sin - CA |
Gen 3:1-13 |
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8. Religion and the Gospel |
Rom 4:1-15 |
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9. Why the Cross? |
Rom 8:1-11 |
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10. The Resurrection |
1 Cor 15:1-11 |
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11. God as Trinity |
Eph 2:11-22 |
Doubt to Belief 1 - Can only one of us be right?
- Details
- Written by: Chris Appleby
Can only one of us be right? audio (4MB)
This is a series based on and heavily dependent on Timothy Keller’s Best Seller "The Reason For God" for which I’m deeply grateful. It uses much of his argument though with various additions by myself or the other preachers of the series.
I guess we’re all aware of the Atheists’ conference held in Melbourne in February. You may even have seen Richard Dawkins on the TV in one of his many appearances, putting forward his dogmatic, almost religious, views on the irrelevance of religion. The way he talks you might think this is something new that he’s presenting but of course atheism’s been around for a long time. I guess the 20th century was the age of atheism at it’s strongest. Various atheist regimes came to power: the communists of Russia and China being the most obvious. But by the end of the 20th century it seemed like the cause was lost. Atheism hadn’t provided the solutions to people’s needs. The communist regimes had failed to stop people practising their religion and in fact people were saying that atheism was dead.
But clearly it wasn’t. Richard Dawkins and his friends are back as strong as ever, proclaiming Christianity and other religions as a waste of time and energy. And he’s had no shortage of supporters. The media has given him plenty of coverage. Those who have always opposed Christianity are thrilled to have someone as high profile as him promoting their cause. The sceptics are out in force. And what’s interesting is that we’ve heard very few voices critiquing his message.
Well one of the things we’re going to be doing over the next few months as we move through this new series “From Doubt to Belief” is to examine some of the major objections to Christian faith, many of them raised by Dawkins, in fact. I imagine that some of the questions that we’ll look at will be ones that some of you have asked from time to time - perhaps are even still asking. And even if you haven’t asked them, you can be fairly sure that your friends and colleagues have.
