The Incredible
Journey
Sheila Burnford wrote the tale called The Incredible Journey, which Walt Disney made into a film. It is the story of two dogs and a cat that lost their master and searched for him on a 250-mile trek through Canadian wilderness. For centuries mankind has been on an incredible journey taking him across every generation and through every conceivable experience in his search for God.
A young man approached a holy man of India sitting on the bank of the Ganges and asked him how he could find God. The holy man seized him and held him under the water until he nearly drowned. As the youth came up sputtering and gasping, he asked: "Why did you do that?" to which the holy man answered: "When you long for God as much as you longed for air when you were under the waters of this river, you will find Him." Ever since man's separation from God in the Garden of Eden, man has been trying desperately to find his way back to paradise.
The Bible begins with the majestically simple words: "In the beginning God." These four words are the cornerstone of all existence and of all human history. Without God there could have been no beginning and no continuing. God was the creating power and the cohesive force that brought cosmos out of chaos. By divine fiat He brought form out of shapelessness, order out of disorder, and light out of darkness. As Alfred Noyes said: "The universe is centered on neither the earth nor the sun . . . it is centered on God."
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You Cannot Rationalize God
If you try to rationalize God exhaustively, you will fail. There are mysteries about God that we will never understand in this life. How can the small and finite, limited to time and space, understand an infinite God? We should not think it strange that it is impossible to comprehend God intellectually, when it is equally impossible to explain many mysteries in the realm of matter. Who can explain why objects are always attracted to the center of the earth? Who can fathom the law of gravity? Newton discovered it, but he could not explain it. Who can explain the miracle of reproduction? For years scientists have tired to reproduce a living cell and solve the mystery of procreation. They believe they are coming close, but as yet they are without success.
There are many arguments we could marshal to give evidence of the existence of God. There is scientific evidence pointing to God's existence. For example, whatever is in motion must be moved by another for motion is the response of matter to power. In the world of matter there can be no power without life, and life presupposes a being from which emanates the power to move things such as the tides and the planets.
Or there is the argument that says nothing can be the cause of itself. It would be prior to itself if it caused itself to be, and that is an absurdity.
Then there is the law of life. We see objects that have no intellect, such as stars and planets, moving in a consistent pattern, cooperating ingeniously with one another. Hence it is evident that they achieve their movements not by accident but by design. Whatever lacks intelligence cannot move intelligently. An arrow would be useless without a bow and an archer.
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What gives direction and purpose and design to inanimate objects? It is God. He is the underlying, motivating force of life.
Thus many evidences and many arguments could be advanced to indicate that there is a God. Yet the plain truth is this: God cannot be proved by mere rationalization. He cannot be contained in a tiny man-made test tube or confined to an algebraic formula. If God can be fully proved by the human mind, then He is no greater than the mind that proves Him.
Other Gods
In my travels throughout the world I have met very few atheists. Whatever period of history one studies, whatever culture one examines, the searcher finds man believing in a god of some sort. All peoples, primitive or modern, have acknowledged some kind of deity. During the past two centuries archeology has unearthed the ruins of many ancient civilizations, but none has ever been found that did not yield some evidence of a god who was worshiped. Man's concepts of God have been as varied as his moods. He has made gods out of his imaginations in all kinds of multiple forms.
Some in their frustration give up the pursuit of God and profess to be irreligious, but the vacuum left within them must be filled with some kind of deity. Therefore man makes his own "god." Today many use the nation as an object of worship and espouse the gospel of nationalism. They make the mistake of making a god and a religion out of their nationalism. This takes the place of the true and living God in their lives. Although the Communists deny faith in God, they have made a god of their cause. Thousands willingly lay down
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their lives, suffer privation and poverty because of their belief in "the cause."
Thus, having failed to find the true God, millions declare their allegiance to lesser gods and causes. This has always been man's way. But these other gods and causes do not bring the ultimate answers or satisfactions. Just as Adam was made for fellowship with God, so are all men. When Jesus, commenting on the First Commandment, said: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength" (Mark 12:30), He meant that man has the capacity to love God.
Can Man Know God?
The great questions are Can we know God? Has God revealed Himself? Can fellowship with God be restored?
Ultimately you must come to God by faith. Faith is the link between God and man. The Scriptures say you must believe that He exists. This is why the word "faith" is used so many times in the Scriptures.
Astounding as it may seem, in spite of man's transgressions and rebellions, God loves man with an everlasting love. God has never forsaken man. The most dramatic quest of the centuries is God's loving and patient pursuit of man. God longs for man's return and recovery. In his poem The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson portrays God and His persistent pursuit of man, chasing him down the corridors of history, relentlessly tracking him, graciously stalking him, like a compassionate St. Bernard pursuing an imperiled child in the mountains of Switzerland.
Where does the breakthrough of this revelation of God occur? How can a blind man see? How can a deaf man hear?
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When man chose in the Garden of Eden to defy God's law, a great tragedy occurred. The line of communication between God and man was broken. They could no longer have fellowship. Light and darkness could not live side by side.
One of the things the average person does not realize is that God is "holy." God said to Israel long ago: "I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2). In Joshua's farewell address to the armies of Israel, he said: "He is an holy God; he is a jealous God (Joshua 24:19). The Psalmist said: "God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness" (Psalm 47:8). In the book of Revelation the cry in Heaven night and day is: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" (Rev. 4: 8).
Because God is holy, He cannot look upon iniquity and sin. Sin is ugly and revolting to God. It is impossible for our finite, sin-dulled minds to comprehend the absolute holiness of God. Because man was stained with sin and iniquity, God could no longer have fellowship with him. Somehow, some way, God must devise a plan to restore fellowship with man in spite of his sin. As a holy God, He could not go back on His word. He had said, in effect: "In the day that you transgress my law . . . you shall die" (Genesis 2:17). Man had to die, or God would be proved a liar, and then He would no longer be God.
Because man still sins, still defies authority, and still acts independently of God, a great gulf exists between God and man. It is across this dark and barren chasm that God beckons, calls, and pleads with man to be reconciled to His heart of love. For as the Apostle John said: "For God is love" (1 John 4:8). Jeremiah the prophet quotes God as saying: "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3). Likewise Malachi the prophet quoted God as saying: "I have loved you, saith the Lord" (Mal. 1:2). Because God is holy,
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He could not automatically forgive or ignore man's rebellion. Because God is love, He could not completely cast man aside. This was the great divine dilemma: How could God be just and still justify the sinner? This is the question Job posed: "But how can a man be righteous before God? (Job 9:2).
Revelation is a means of communication. It means "to make known" or "to unveil." Revelation requires a "revealer," who in this case is God, and it also requires a "hearer." God's hearers were the chosen prophets and apostles who recorded God's revelation. Thus it is a line of communication, at one end of which is God, and at the other end, man.
When I was a boy, radio was just coming of age. We would gather around a crude homemade set and twist the three tuning dials in an effort to establish contact with the transmitter. Often all the sound that came out of the amplifier was the squeak and squawk of static, but we knew that somewhere out there was the unseen transmitter and if contact was established and the dials were in adjustment, we could hear a voice loud and clear. After a long time of laborious tuning, the far distant voice would suddenly break through and a smile of triumph would illuminate the faces of all in the room. At last we were tuned in!
In the revelation that God established between Himself and us, we can find a new life and a new dimension of living, but we must "tune in." There are higher levels of living to which we have never attained. There is peace, satisfaction, and joy that we have never experienced. God is trying to break through to us. The heavens are calling. God is speaking! Let man hear.
