If God Exists, Does He Care?

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Hi, I'm Megan Hoffer, and I want to invite you to check out another show brought to you by the Salvation Army. Heartbeat is a one-minute show about real life. Heartbeat touches on topics ranging from finances and prayer to dating and mental health.

If money is important to God, then it should be important to us. Recently, I began feeling like my life was on autopilot. The alarm goes off, get ready for work, battle the morning commute, rush to get home. If you are looking for a short message of hope to challenge you and brighten up your day, subscribe to Heartbeat wherever you get your podcasts or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Hi, welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Cheryl Gillum.

And I'm Bernie Dake. Last week, we began our series called Skeptics Welcome with Ken Argot. He started off this series by asking probably the biggest question an unbeliever could ask, does God even exist? If you missed that episode, spoiler alert, Ken didn't prove God exists. In fact, he reminded us that God doesn't need us to defend him, only represent him.

Yeah. And this week, Ken continues the conversation by asking, if God does exist, does he care? And as the episode was coming together, our producer referred us to Psalm 8. And in that passage, it says something to the effect of, who am I that you were mindful of me? And I never thought of that scripture as deeply until my wife and I were celebrating an anniversary a few years ago. And we went out west.

And in the United States, we have the Grand Canyon, which I think is one of the eight wonders of the world. When we pulled into this national park and walked over to the edge, there's this vast expanse. And that's when I realized, amongst all of the things that God has created, I am so small. Who am I that you were mindful of me? And I had a moment with God that day. It was beautiful.

It's going to be an interesting series. So we hope that you, as our listeners, and maybe even the person that submitted the very question that Ken is addressing, will enjoy what he has to share with us today. Well good morning and welcome back to our show Skeptics Welcome. Are you a skeptic? Do you believe just because everybody else believes? I don't know if you've heard that saying God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Maybe you've said that yourself.

We're going to talk about that more in the days to come. But I believe that we need to really think through what we say to other people. Because in the process of saying something like that, we can really disregard somebody's experience, what somebody is going through.

And so that's sort of what this show is about, is not only how we can have the confidence of what we believe, but how to evangelize those persons who are struggling with these questions and how do I possibly give them an answer. The truth of the matter is, I find very few people who believe that God does not exist. I mean, when you think about it, anytime somebody's in trouble, all of a sudden they're praying to God that something will change. I think the question really is more, not if God exists, but if God exists, does he really care?

I mean, what's his objective? Because when I look at everything going on, sometimes I fail to see where God is involved. I don't know if you've ever seen the comedian who talks about the different ways that people view God.

One is like this boss ordering around his angels that are somewhat incompetent. There's another who's this grandfather type of God who's senile but wants to give us whatever we want. Some people see God as this judge and they fear him. You see, the way we experience our life has a huge impact on the way that we see God. But God really isn't limited to our self experience.

So what do I do when somebody asks me, how did this happen? I mean, how is it that when I watch the news that somebody might be on there saying, praise the Lord, he spared us from this storm, and right next door, perhaps a family lost their life in that tornado? Or what do we do with the fact that children are being abused at this very moment? How did God spare some of us?

Why do some people have to go through that pain and others don't? Where is God in all that? And why doesn't God just end all these wars that we're in?

Why can't we have, in fact, world peace? Is God too busy? Is he sleeping?

Perhaps he's going to the bathroom. You might remember that challenge that Elijah gave to the prophets of Baal when they are on the top of Mount Carmel. And he says, you know, go ahead and call down your God. And they're slitting their wrists and they're yelling and screaming to try to call down their God upon the sacrifice. And Elijah just says, perhaps he can't quite hear you. And then Elijah prays and the fire falls and the sacrifice is consumed and he wins the argument. But what happens when you've put the sacrifice there and you've called down on God, you're not slitting your wrists or you're not yelling and screaming, or maybe you are and God's not answering. What do we do then?

Well, there's this one question about, you know, the protected him or, you know, but not her argument. And it really goes back to Genesis chapter one in that verse two, when it says after God created the heavens and the earth says the earth was without form. It was empty and darkness covered the face of the waters, but the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep. There's this idea that chaos is intrinsic in creation, but that God still hovers over these waters that are somewhat chaotic. And sometimes he'll say, let there be light and he'll separate the seas from the land. He'll fill the earth with good things.

But sometimes the chaos remains because we've allowed it. You will notice that when you look at the rest of those chapters following Genesis chapter one, you have Adam and Eve failing in the garden. You have in chapter five and six, man becoming excessively wicked, where he has to find Noah, who is still righteous.

You will find them then going again to build a great tower to the sky. You see, God gave us this ability to rule over the earth and he gave us that command at creation. And he gave us this free will to do it. The unfortunate thing is because he's given us this free will, many people have chosen to do their own thing rather than what God would have. Because if everyone listened to God, we would have a perfect world, but not everybody's there. And so this self seeking continues to be destructive and it brings chaos, not only in that section of the world, but everywhere. Chaos spreads.

When people do evil, it starts to grow out of control. You see, miracles, when God does act and intervenes in human history, they only happen certain times. Miracles are miracles because they don't happen all the time. So what do we do when the miracle doesn't happen? Because sometimes the miracle does happen.

Let's face that. But what happens when it doesn't? Well, there's something called resiliency. It's the reason that we really love stories.

There's this person who grows up poor on a desert planet with two sons and he ends up becoming savior of the entire galaxy. We like these stories because they remind us of us, that everything, the odds are against us and we continue to press forward to find what God's will is for us. It strengthens us and these tragedy to triumph stories are all over the place. But then there are some stories that are truly tragic, that become warnings that when we do not follow God's will, twisted and bad things happen. The issue of free will is at the very center of all of this, that God did not want us to be robots.

He doesn't even create us like the rest of his angels, but he creates us in his image with the ability to rule and to act and to reproduce. And those who seek self will always be at war with those who seek the benefit of others. And the truth is because of the limited resource idea that most of us have, this scarcity mentality, most people are thinking I need to get mine when if they only understood the resources that God provides, I believe there's enough to share. We also start to, when evil starts to happen to us, we begin to get caught in this cycle of learned helplessness and we begin to become victims. And when you become a victim of what anybody else is doing to you and you allow that to become part of your psyche, bad things will happen to you as well.

Victims act out and lash out in anger and fear and through the struggle. Rather, we need to seek what God would have for us. And in those cases, we become that protagonist who overcomes all the obstacles and can see ourselves through to the next day. Does God really care?

Does he want more stories like the ones that we even talk about? It's the purpose of our testimony. It's the purpose that you need to be sharing your testimony with other people.

Want the best possible way to evangelize the world and to know that something out there is bigger than yourself? Share your testimony. What did God pull you through that couldn't be seen any other way than as a miracle? You see, God is still in the miracle business and I don't want you to lose that with all the other stuff going on. Now, someone might ask you the question, how do you know God cares? You can give them your testimony, but I challenge you to do something different. What happened to you that makes you feel that he doesn't care?

Ask that question and then sit back and listen because in that place, you can win their heart just by listening without interrupting with our own agenda. Father, we just ask that you are still in the miracle business and that you will help us walk through these difficult circumstances that we don't understand. In your name, amen.

Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen.