Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
Today, we're beginning a new series. I'm entitled, How Can I Know? Answers to Life's Seven Most Important Questions. We're going to answer questions like, how can I know the Bible is true? How can I know there's such a thing as life after death? But today, we're going to begin with the most foundational question of all, how can I know there is a truth? Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. In the opening verses of the Bible, we read, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
But really, outside of Scripture, is there any tangible evidence to prove that God exists? Today, on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress addresses several of the greatest doubts people wrestle with regarding the existence of God. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress, Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Hardship has a way of forcing the essential issues in life. It's like a pot of boiling hot water, a crucible. And the crucible that you're sitting in, that is whatever hardship you're facing right now, can have a purifying effect on your life. You see, when the heat is on, and you have no way of escape, it forces a very basic question.
And it's this one. Does God really exist? And if He does exist, then how do I engage with Him? Today, we're starting a new teaching series I've prepared for those who doubt. It's for those who find themselves in the crucible, wondering if God knows and really even cares about their situation. My teaching series, How Can I Know?, is highly personal and transparent. For the doubters in our listening audience, including me occasionally, I'm going to tackle seven of the most common and sequential questions with answers you can embrace with confidence. Now, in addition to these daily visits during the month of January, please be sure to take advantage of the companion resources we've prepared for you. The first is a book I've written titled How Can I Know? When you give a generous gift to support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'd like to send you a copy of this book. It comes with my thanks. It's a popular brochure that answers a very common question.
Is Christianity the only right religion? We'll say more about these resources later on today's program. But right now, let's get started with today's study called How Can I Know There is a God? I'm a pastor in a church. I write books and preach sermons to teach other people about God. I can't go through a few hours a day without talking to God. But occasionally, I have doubts that God exists.
And I imagine if you were truthful, most of you would say the same thing as well. You know, polls show that an overwhelming number of Americans believe in God. George Gallup claims nine out of 10 Americans believe that God exists.
But I'm not sure people are really as confident in their belief about God as they claim to be. Daniel Dennett is one of the so-called new atheists. And he's written a book called Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I disagree with everything in that book. It's an attack against theism about belief in God.
But I do agree with one thing. And it says there's a difference between belief in God and belief in your beliefs. A lot of people confuse their beliefs and their beliefs with a belief in God.
They believe in a God that they've created in their own mind. Dennett says something very profound. He said, if as many people really believed in God as they say they do, then certainly they would conduct their lives differently. Whether we're willing to admit it or not, most of us have doubts about God. In fact, I've become convinced that the only people who never doubt are those who never think.
I agree with Mark Buchanan's claim. The depths of our doubt is roughly proportional to the depth of our faith. Those with strong faith have equally strong doubts.
That principle bears out in the other direction as well. People with a trivial and shallow faith usually have trivial and shallow doubts. Today we're beginning a new series. I'm entitled How Can I Know? Answers to Life's 7 Most Important Questions. We're going to answer questions like, how can I know the Bible is true? How can I know out of the thousands of religions, Christianity is the right religion? How can I know there's such a thing as life after death? Today we're going to begin with the most foundational question of all. How can I know there is a God? Many of you have been sitting in church for many, many years.
You may be embarrassed by the fact that if asked, you could not give a succinct and credible answer to those questions. Even if you embrace those beliefs yourself, if your child or grandchild or family member or coworker were to ask you, how do you know the Bible is true? How do you know there is a heaven? How do you know there is a God? You would be hard pressed to answer. The fact is, as Christians, the Word of God says we need to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us for the hope that is within us.
This series is designed to help you, to equip you to answer those questions. By the way, questioning foundational beliefs is not a sin. It's not a sin to have doubts. Sometimes doubt is a prerequisite to genuine faith. Today we're beginning with that most basic question, how do I know there is a God? I want to speak for a moment about five reasons people doubt the existence of God. There are five major sources of doubt about God. First of all, there are natural doubts. By that I mean it's very natural to doubt what you can't see. Every parent knows that.
It's hard not to doubt what you can't see. We spend, as parents, a lot of time teaching our children about the tooth fairy. We can teach them about the tooth fairy. We can describe the kindness, the beauty, the generosity of the tooth fairy. We can even leave evidences of the tooth fairy's existence under our child's pillow when they lose a tooth. But sooner or later our child comes to understand there's no such thing as the tooth fairy.
And it's only a short journey from there to doubts about the big man up there. I'm talking about Santa Claus. My point is it's hard to believe in something that is invisible. I believe God understands that. I believe God not only understands how natural it is for us to doubt, I think he's merciful for those who doubt.
By the way, that feeling is not based on some warm and fuzzy imaginative idea I have about God. Actually, scripture says God has a special compassion for those who doubt. Tucked away in the New Testament is a little book called Jude.
It only has one chapter in it. But in verse 22 of Jude, Jude expressed God's attitude toward those who doubt. He writes, be merciful to those who doubt. Be merciful to those who doubt.
Why? Because God is merciful to those who doubt. Remember how Jesus dealt gently with Thomas, the doubting disciple? He's merciful to those who doubt and yet have still dedicated their lives to serving an invisible being. Secondly, there are philosophical doubts that lead some people to question the existence of God. And the most cited philosophical argument against God is the reality of suffering and evil in the world.
An 18th century philosopher, David Hume, attempted to discredit Christianity by his famous trilemma about suffering and evil. Hume said, is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then God is impotent.
Is God able but not willing? Then he's malevolent, evil. Is God both willing and able to prevent evil? Then where's evil? In other words, what Hume was saying was, when you look at evil in the world, is God willing to stop it but he just can't pull it off, he's not able? Then he's an impotent God. On the other hand, if God is able to stop suffering, if he could have stopped the Holocaust, if he could have stopped the disaster you're facing in your life but chose not to do so, then he must be evil. If he's both willing and able to stop suffering, then where is evil? In other words, there must not be a God.
Actually, there is a fourth explanation that Hume doesn't offer. It's one that we're going to explore in the message, how can I know God is good with all of the suffering in the world? But many times it's a philosophical argument that keeps people from God. Thirdly, there are experiential doubts.
You know we're all prisoners of our experience. If you grew up in a home that didn't believe in God, you're inclined perhaps not to believe in God. Sometimes God intervenes miraculously in that situation. I remember in the first church I pastored, I invited William Murray to come share his testimony. William Murray was the son of famed atheist Madeline Murray O'Hare, and he talked about in his testimony how he observed the misery, the unhappiness, the discontent with his mother about life. She was so unhappy that he decided to reject her belief system, which was an unbelief system in God, and that's how he became a Christian. But the one thing that causes most people to deny the existence of God is being disappointed by God. That's the experience that causes people to question God. The loss of a child, the betrayal of a mate, the abuse of a parent, unanswered prayer, all cause people to be profoundly disappointed in God and come to the conclusion there must not be a God. One example of that is Ted Turner, the media mogul who founded the CNN network. He grew up in a Christian home, but he rejected Christianity after praying night after night that his sister would be healed from a terrible disease, and instead she died.
What was Turner's conclusion? He came to the conclusion that, quote, Christianity is a religion for losers. A fourth source of doubt about God is spiritual doubts. You know, we most often think of atheists as these highly intelligent human beings who have examined all of the evidence that is out there, and somewhere they discovered the smoking gun that proves there is no God, and we're intimidated by atheists.
We think they're smarter than we are. I admit to having fallen victim to that fear. Some years ago, I was invited to come on television and debate the president of the American Atheist Association, and I have to confess to you, I was a little uptight about doing that. I spent the whole night before preparing and cramming and honing my arguments, just fearful that this guy was going to pull out of his quiver some flaming arrow that would destroy Christianity forever.
I should not have been afraid at all. When my time came and I listened to him, his arguments were tepid at best. He didn't have anything to say. And it reminded me again of the truth that the reason most atheists reject God is not for intellectual reasons, it's for moral reasons, spiritual reasons. They do not want to admit there is a God to whom they're accountable. Turning your Bibles to Romans 1, verses 18 to 20. Paul is talking about those who reject God. He says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them.
Now get this, underline this. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. Anybody and everybody can look up there and know they didn't make that sun, they didn't make that cloud, they didn't make that star. There's something or someone greater than we are.
Nature teaches that. We call that general revelation. And while that acknowledgement that there must be a power greater than we are, while that's not enough to save a person, that truth, if rejected, is enough to condemn a person. And that's what Paul is saying here. Unbelievers have willingly received the truth, but they have rejected the truth that they have received.
Why? Look at verse 21. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Why did they reject God? Because they knew if they acknowledged there's a God who created this world and a God who created us, then it's only natural that we would be subject to that God. He would have authority over our life, and the unbeliever, the atheist, refuses to bow his knee before the God in heaven. You know, we get this idea that atheists are sincere seekers of the truth, who are out there just sincerely searching for answers.
That's all they want, answers. No, the Bible said. The reason an atheist cannot find God is the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. They're never looking.
Not really. Paul says everybody has received the knowledge of the truth. The unbeliever has rejected the knowledge of the truth, and instead, they're not content to just reject it. They want to replace that truth with their own truth.
Look at verse 22. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of a corruptible man, of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. When I read that description of birds and animals and crawling creatures, I think about the theory of evolution. You know, evolution is man's attempt to create an alternate explanation for the origin of life, the origin of the universe, and by the way, it is a faith-based explanation for the world. You never thought that evolution was faith-based.
It is. Both evolution and creationism have something to say about God. The evolutionist comes to answer the question, where did everything come from, with an assumption that there is no God, or that there is no God at least who exercises any control over the origin of life. By definition, evolution says life came into existence by chance, not by design.
It is by chance that the right molecules got together and formed the first cell after billions of years, and that first cell became a multicell creature and on and on. But it has something to say about God. God is not involved in creation. The creationist comes to the table with an idea that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but both are faith-based. The atheist either rejects God or at least attempts to refashion God. Many so-called people of faith do that. I think about Harold Kushner. Years ago, the rabbi wrote the book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
He wrote the book after experiencing the death of his young son to a terrible disease. Rabbi Kushner claimed that, quote, even God has a hard time keeping chaos in check. And then he came to the conclusion that, quote, God is a God of justice, but not of power.
Another rabbi who read that said if that's who God is, he needs to resign today and let somebody more competent take over. But that's what an unbeliever does. They try to refashion God.
One wag said it this way. In the beginning, God created man in his own image, and ever since that time, man has tried to return the favor. The atheist wants to either deny God or reduce God to somebody more manageable and who doesn't need to be feared. Finally, there are empirical doubts that cause some people to doubt the existence of God. Richard Dawkins is another one of those new atheists. He claims in his book, The God Delusion, that a survey in 1998 showed that only 7% of scientists in the National Academy of Scientists, only 7% believe in the existence of a personal God. That is, 93% of scientists reject the idea that there is a personal God. Now, you know how most people react to that. Oh, no, I can't believe that.
That's terrible. Scientists are smarter than I am, we conclude. Secondly, scientists reject the idea of God because of facts. Therefore, the only conclusion we can come to is our faith must be based on fable and not fact. That's a wrong conclusion.
Let me show you the problem with such reasoning. First of all, that study fails to identify the cause-effect relationship. You read that study, only 7% of scientists are people of faith, you must come to the conclusion that, well, the cause is being a scientist, the result is becoming an atheist. The reason scientists become atheists is because of the facts they've uncovered.
But think about it, the opposite could be true. It could be their atheism is the cause, the motivation of their being a scientist. That is, they begin with the assumption there's not a God, they don't want there to be a God, so they devote their lives to finding an alternative explanation for the origin of the universe. It's kind of the chicken or the egg, which came first, being a scientist or being an atheist? Secondly, this idea that you can't reconcile a belief in God with a belief in science is based on circular reasoning.
Let me explain what I mean by that. Everybody who's been to a basic science class in school knows about the scientific method. We're taught that the only way you can have a reasonable explanation for a hypothesis, the only way you can prove a hypothesis statement of why something happened, it has to be based in observation of that which is visible over a long period of time. If you're going to be scientific, you have to be rooted in naturalism. What is naturalism? Naturalism says nature is all that there is. The only thing that is real is what I can see, what I can measure, and what I can observe over a long period of time. And so, therefore, if you're going to explain how the universe came into existence, your explanation has to be based on the natural. By definition, science does not allow for the supernatural, that which is above nature. If you're going to come up with an explanation, it can only be based on what is seen, what can be measured and tested over a long period of time. Now, that's circular reasoning.
Let me illustrate what I mean by that. Let's just say, for sake of argument, that there is a transcendent being somewhere who created everything that we see. Wouldn't that be a scientific explanation?
It's based on truth. There's something invisible that created everything. That would be not only a scientific, but a spiritual explanation. It would be based in reality.
But here's what's happened. Scientists have allowed science to be as reality and religion, spiritual beliefs, as non-reality. Science belongs in the classroom because it's based on reality. Creationism belongs in the Sunday school classroom because it's based on the unseen. That is circular reasoning. It's possible you have a teenage son or daughter at home.
Perhaps you have children or grandchildren attending college. On secular campuses, our kids are bombarded with liberal and godless teaching that actually mocks their Christian faith. Let me encourage you to get a copy of my book that answers this important question. How can I know there is a God?
It's just one of seven common questions we address in this book. And when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll make sure you receive your copy of How Can I Know? In addition to the questions we address today, you'll also find chapters on how can I know God is good with all the suffering in the world?
And how can I know Christianity is the right religion? As we conclude today, let me say thank you for giving generously to Pathway to Victory. I'm especially grateful for our Pathway partners who give consistently every month, having 12 times the impact in one year. Our ministry continues without disruption due to the faithful giving of our Pathway partners and those who give periodic gifts as well. In any case, let me assure you that your generous giving during these unsettling times is deeply appreciated. It's impossible to overstate the value of your partnership. Together, by walking hand in hand with the truth, God will carry us through these chaotic days.
David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by sending you Dr. Jeffress' best-selling book, How Can I Know? Plus, if you opt to make your gift a monthly donation, your generosity will have 12 times the impact over the course of one year. To request resources or to become a Pathway partner, call us toll-free at 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org.
And when you give $75 or more, we'll also send you a newly revised edition of the How Can I Know Teaching series on both audio and video discs. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also send your gift by mail. Write to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us again next time when Dr. Jeffress continues to answer the question, How can I know there is a God? Right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Picture yourself relaxing aboard a luxury cruise ship as you sail the Mediterranean Sea on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise May 5-16, 2025. This 11-day journey will take you to unforgettable destinations in Italy, Turkey, and Greece.
Plus, you'll have the option to extend your trip with additional adventures in Rome. To book your spot on the 2025 Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise, go to ptv.org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
