009. What reasons have we for being sure that there is a personal God?

What reasons have we for being sure that there is a personal God?

There are many conclusive proofs of the existence of a personal God.

First of all, there is the proof from the marks of design in nature.

History also proves the existence of a personal God. While sometimes if we look only at a little patch of history, it seems as if there was no intelligent and beneficent purpose in it; if we look at history in a large way, following its course through the centuries, we soon discover that back of the conflicting passions and ambitions of men there is some intelligent and beneficent and righteous power restraining and constraining man, and making the wrath of men to praise Him. We find in history that there is “a power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness.” From history we discover that there is a moral governor of the universe. Everything in the universe is attuned to virtue. Everything in nature and history conspires to punish sin and reward virtue. This is a proof of the existence of a personal God. But the history of Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in the four Gospels, in a special way proves the existence of a personal God. It is one of the first principles of science that every effect must have an adequate cause, and the only cause that is adequate to account for the character, conduct and works of Jesus of Nazareth is such a God as the Bible reveals. The attempt has been made over and over again, and is being made still, to discount the miraculous in the history of Jesus of Nazareth—indeed, the attempt is made to eliminate the miracles altogether from that story, but every attempt of that kind has resulted in total failure. The ablest effort of that kind was that made many years ago by David Strauss in his Leben Jesu, and for a while it seemed to a great many persons as if David Strauss had succeeded. His theories were almost universally accepted in the universities of Europe. But his book would not bear careful critical examination, and after a while was totally discredited, and today nobody accepts Strauss’ interpretation of the life of Jesus. Every other attempt of the same kind has met with similar failure, and today for any candid student of the New Testament this much at least is settled, that the story of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the four Gospels is at least substantially accurate history. (To my mind far more than this is proven, but that is enough for our present purpose.) If that be true—and it cannot be honestly denied by any one who goes into the evidence—then the existence of a personal God is proven. Only a personal God will account for the life, character, conduct, miracles, above all for the resurrection from the dead, of Jesus of Nazareth. But the supreme proof of the existence of a personal God is found in the experience of the individual believer in Jesus Christ. Every real Christian knows God in personal experience. I know God more surely than I know any human being. I once doubted the existence of a personal God. I did not deny His existence, I simply questioned it. I was not an atheist, I was an agnostic. But I determined if there were a God I would know it. I became convinced from the study of history of the probability of the existence of God, but to me at that time it was only a theory. But I made up my mind to put to the test of rigid, personal experiment the theory that there was a God, and that the God of the Bible was the true God. I risked every thing that men hold dear upon this theory. If there had been no God, or if the God of the Bible had not been the true God, I would have lost years ago everything that men hold dear. But I risked, and I won, and today I know that there is a God, and that the God of the Bible is the true God, and every other person may also know it by doing what I did.

There was a time in my life when I was put into a place where I literally lived by prayer to the God of the Bible, in the condition so clearly stated in the Bible. Every penny that came to me for the support of myself and wife and four children, for rent of home and of halls, for missionaries, and for everything else, came in answer to prayer. I took the ground that I would not go in debt a cent for anything, that when I could not pay I would not buy. I gave up my salary, ceased taking collections or offerings, told no one but God of any need. This went on for days, and weeks, and months. Every source of former income was cut off, and yet the money came, sometimes in very ordinary ways, sometimes in apparently most extraordinary ways, but it always came, and when I got through, I knew there is a personal God and that the God of the Bible is the true God. To me God is the one great reality who gives reality to all other realities.