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What would it mean if there was no God?

As we continue studying the book of Ecclesiastes, we see that Solomon goes through some really interesting times in his life. He experiences a dark period where he thinks about life as if there is no God, and what that would mean.

I recently heard the famous song by John Lennon called "Imagine." Lennon sings:

"Imagine there is no heaven. It's easy if you try.

No hell below us above us only sky.

Imagine all the people living for today..."

Solomon expressed the same message. He said that without the existence of God—no heaven, and no hell—then life is bleak.

The only thing we can do is try to divert our minds. One of the ways you do that is to live for today.

And living for the moment is what pleasure is all about. You.

But in Ecclesiastes 3:11, Solomon expresses that God set eternity in the heart of mankind:

Why are we always looking for more?

It seems as if we are always looking over the horizon for something more or different than what we have, regardless of how much we have.

Do we believe that more is better?

Could it be that materialism is not so much about things, but more about the heart? Perhaps we believe more is always better because we believe that life is linear.

From Ecclesiastes 2, Solomon tells us, "I said to myself, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.' And behold, it too was futility. I said of laughter, “It is senseless,” and of pleasure, “What does this accomplish?”

I explored with my mind how to refresh my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely; and how to seize foolishness, until I could see what good there is for the sons of mankind to do under heaven for the few years of their lives.

I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.... 

What is your life all about? What are you trying to accomplish?

If we are not asking these kind of questions, we may not be living very thoughtfully. And where can we find lasting enjoyment?

Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 says, "There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink and to tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without God?"

What is it that really drives us as human beings?

We really have two primary dimensions:

1) The physical dimension - our bodies, and

2) The spiritual dimension - our souls.

So every human body has a soul, and that soul thirsts for God. But many of us don't realize that we yearn for Him.

How should we be sharing our faith in the public square?

Paul gives us some great instruction about dealing with with those outside the faith. In Colossians 4:5-6 he says, "Conduct yourself with wisdom towards outsiders (those outside of the faith). Let your speech be with grace, seasoned as it were with salt, so that you know how to respond to each person."

I think Paul is following his own instruction and we should too.

Acts 17:16-17 tells of Paul's time in Athens:

Once you realize how big God is, is anything too hard for Him?

What's harder for God to pick up one pound or a million pounds? Neither one. Nothing's hard for God. Remember that when you say your prayers. Preach to yourself.

If you take all the teachings of Christ, they can be distilled down to three ways you can spend your life:

1. You can just waste it. It's like the Lord's given you a bag of tremendous seeds to grow marvelous things and you just walk around. There's a hole in your bag, then the last seed goes out, you're dead. It was like you were never here.
2. You can sell out. Spend all you have on things for yourself. But on the day you die, who's all this stuff belong to?
3. You can give your life away. It's what Jesus did. He gave his whole life away for us. You give your whole life to God and you give your whole life to people that God loves. Just give it away.

I want you to check yourself. Are you all in or is this just the religion you believe in? If that's true, you're wasting your life. He wants you to deploy, get in the fray, stay in it till you cross the finish line. Amen.

Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

What happens when we truly understand the power and privilege of prayer?

In this encouraging and challenging message, Richard's guest, Jerry Leachman calls believers to take their prayer lives seriously—not as a religious exercise, but as direct access to the God who created and rules the universe.

Drawing from Scripture, personal experiences, and powerful stories from history, Jerry reminds us that praying in the name of Jesus is powerful, that God looks for a sincere and humble heart, and that forgiveness is essential to a life of effective prayer warrior.

He shares practical ways to develop a consistent prayer life, including keeping a prayer list, using short “breath prayers,” and asking the Holy Spirit to guide us when we don't know what to pray.

Above all, this message is a call to trust God even when we cannot see what He is doing.

As Jerry's closing story reminds us: sometimes we cannot see God, but He can see us. The question is, will we trust Him enough to jump?

2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us, "If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

What kind of friend are you?

I'm going to talk today about something that affects our everyday life. If you have it or if you don't have it, it'll make you or break you. I'm talking about friendship.

The entire Old Testament and the entire New Testament is all about friendship, not religion. Christ is not looking for Christians or religious people—He's looking for friends.

In the Old Testament Abraham was called a friend of God. God is offering us friendship.

Now if a great man called you around his deathbed and he said, "I got a few things I want to tell you. I'm on the way out." Would you listen to that? He is going to give you the good stuff.

These are some of the last words of Jesus before He was arrested, brutally tortured and then murdered. He looks at His guys and a lot of women that were following their band, and He says:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love. If you keep My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." - John 15:9-11

What kind of friend do you have in Christ? He laid it all out there for you.

Are you holding anything back? If you give it all, you'll never be afraid again.

How important is our human sexuality?

In Chuck Colson's last book The Final Word, he writes "Christianity is becoming more and more unpopular in our culture, primarily as a result of conflicts over sexuality. This is where modern human beings do not want to be in any way restrained.

Most of the Bible they accept; they just do not like the way it governs sexual passion."

Conflicts over sexuality is a very serious issue in our culture, and we may not be paying much attention to it. But as you'll see in today's talk, this issue really has implications for our children.

Our souls have a deep longing to belong and be accepted and to have soul oneness. All of us desire to alleviate our sense of loneliness and to be deeply and permanently connected with someone else.

This is why God created sex. It is the means of expressing and achieving complete life unity between a man and a woman in the covenant relationship of marriage.

Are you building a strong foundation for your life?

It is important to know that everyone is building a house with their life. We are constructing a strategy that we believe will best prepare us for the future. Yet no one is exempt from hardship or pain.

The good news is that we can be prepared when they do come. Philip Yancey says the best way to prepare for the storms of life is to work on a strong, supportive life when all is going well. You cannot suddenly construct a foundation of inner strength. It must be built day by day.

This is such a significant issue because the storms of life, or potential storms, are what generate fear in our lives. We fear the uncertainty of the outcome of these storms.

Throughout the Bible we see God telling and instructing us to “Fear not; do not be afraid; Be anxious about nothing; Let your heart not be troubled.”
Isaiah 41:20 tells us, “Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will also help you, I will also uphold you with My righteous right hand."

Today Richard's guest is Norman Jetmundsen, retired attorney and active member of The Center's Bible Studies.
The faith of C.S. Lewis can be summed up in his own words:

What is the source of love? And what is belovedness?

Belovedness engenders love. If you are actively cherished altruistically by another, despite all of your own shortcomings and feelings of loss and history, that spontaneously and inevitably creates the fruit of love.

1 John 4:9-10 tells us, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Today Richard's guest is Russell Levenson, author and retired Episcopal minister. Russ shares:

The longer I live, I've found I'm still kind of turning things over to the Lordship of Christ. And that is tough. And that requires humility. What am I doing with my time? How am I interacting with others? Does my relationship with others speak of one who walks in Christ?

Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. The primary purpose of prayer is to bring us into a life of communion with the Father. That by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are increasingly conformed into the image of the Son.

In Parts 1 and 2, we've been studying verses in the Bible that begin with this phrase, "Do not be deceived..." Why would God give us this warning?

I believe it is because there are certain areas in our lives as human beings where we can easily be deceived. Our lives can easily be corrupted by false ideas.

In honor of Memorial Day, we are re-airing this popular episode.

Richard's guest is WWII Marine survivor Edgar Harrell, who shared his heroic survival story at one of our Men's Breakfasts in 2019.

Who or what gets your time?

Someone shared with me that they once asked Coach Bear Bryant, "Coach, with all these national championships, is there anything you would've done differently?" He said, "Yeah, I missed my family."

My friend said, "You mean you were so busy, you kind of missed them while you were working?"

Coach Bryant answered, "No, I missed it."

You know, this is one stage of your life between father and son. If you miss it, it's a one time event. Today I'm speaking both to you young men and both to your dads back and forth.

God and your family are the things that are gonna last not only through your lifetime, but through generations. Consider doing these 2 things:

1. Be honestly inconsistent. This means resist the temptation to blame or make excuses. Own your mistakes. Learn to trust the Lord and stop trying to control the world.

2. Develop deep abiding relationships with each other. Profound friendships. Now this only happens through laying our life down for each other. You know, the thing about relationships is they can only be developed through shared history, and that takes time.

Lay down your life for each other, and you will become best friends and mutual advisors. That's the dream and the goal to aspire to.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Are the ideas that we adhere to true or false?

There are four verses in the Bible that begin with this phrase, "do not be deceived." Three of these come from Paul, and one comes from James.

They all have to do with developing false ideas. They are saying to make sure you're not being deceived into believing ideas that that are contrary to the teachings of Christ. His teaching is based on truth.

Today we'll study three of these verses. Paul spoke this in 1 Corinthians 15:33, "Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”

I think he is saying, do not be blind to the fact that we are being influenced every day by people. I recently read that in our country that up until the 1950s, people's lives were primarily shaped by the culture; the culture being the family, the neighborhood, the schools, and the churches.

Are we aware of the ideas we have about life? Can ideas be dangerous?

We live in a culture that gives little thought to our ideas. And whether we are aware of it or not, we all live with a certain set of ideas.

Jesus spoke this in Luke 11:33-36,

“No one lights a lamp and puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness.

What are the covenants that are found in the Bible?

Today we're discussing the covenants of both the Old Testament and New Testament. In the Old Testament, there was limited access to God. The priests acted as mediators between God and the people.

Because human beings inevitably failed to keep the law perfectly, animal sacrifices were required to atone for sin. And these sacrifices had to be repeated continually, highlighting their temporary and incomplete nature. That is the old covenant.

Then go to the New Testament, and we read in Hebrews 8:6, "And now He has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as He (Jesus) is the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises."

What does it mean for Christ, who is a part of the triune life of God, to make Himself known and present within the history of Israel?

To speak about Jesus in the Old Testament raises all kinds of questions about His pre-existence. That's really a driving concern.

Today we will discuss the ways in which the Old Testament patterns and figures for us what God will ultimately do in time in Christ. So in that sense we think about the Old Testament creating a sense of anticipation for what will come in time.

Are you troubled with guilt? Can doing good things cleanse our hearts and give us the freedom we are searching for?

No, the only way we can be forgiven is through the shed blood of Jesus for our sins.

Some people hate the idea of the necessity to shed Christ's blood. But if you take out the theology of the cross, then Good Friday and the Easter message is meaningless.

Looking in the book of Genesis and moving through the Old and New Testaments, God seems to make it quite clear. The heart of our faith is being forgiven of our sins. That's what gets us into heaven. But the forgiveness of our sins is only possible through the shed blood of Christ.

Why is Good Friday good? In this year's special message that Richard gives each year on Good Friday, he discusses

• Jesus' conversation with the two criminals
• The 3 hours of darkness that fell over the land
• The moment that Jesus finally died

From Luke 23:39-43, we read: "One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” 

But the other responded, and rebuking him, said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our crimes; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” 

And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

What are you storing up for the future?

In Bruce Wilkerson's book A Life God Rewards - Why Everything You Do Today Matters Forever, he tells of a week-long seminary class he taught on rewards in heaven. Every afternoon after the class, a special group of scholars met and debated every point. One day, a church historian from Romania asked the group,

"What do the greats of church history such as Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Spurgeon all have in common?" When everyone hesitated, he told the answer. "They all earnestly believed in and hoped for eternal rewards."

Wilkerson said that toward the end of the week, he noticed a shift. The room full of scholars were spending less time debating and more time responding personally to the material.

One afternoon, an older participant pulled him aside and said, "I thought God brought me here to learn more about eternal rewards, but I was wrong. "He brought me here to change my heart. I'm leaving a changed professor."

How can we understand the motive of our hearts? What about the motives of others' hearts?

How does God reveal Himself in the Old Testament to us? And where does His Son Jesus peer through?

John 1:18 tells us, "No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known."

So Jesus, who is the Word, makes visible that which is not visible. We cannot see God in His essence. We would be consumed by that.

How is the best way to respond to the storms of life when they come my way? And how can my response be pleasing to God?

When most of us experience painful circumstances our response is, "How can I get this out of my life?" And, if you have something in your life that's causing you pain and suffering and you can get rid of it, then you should.

But we're talking about things that we have no control over.

I think the problem comes when we are only interested in how this is going to turn out. God is more concerned with how you and I are going to turn out.

What questions do you have about evil? And most importantly, how does God address the problem of suffering and evil?

We all will experience some degree of suffering in this lifetime. Some of you have probably already experienced some real suffering, because we're not immune to it.

Even as believers, we are not immune to it. But it's important to know that there are no easy pat answers to this question of human suffering.

We're not dealing with a problem to be solved. It's really more of a mystery that we need to understand. 

So this message is all about gaining understanding.

What is the purpose for the season of Lent?

Jesus taught that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man, as a gift for us. The Sabbath creates rhythms that allow us to break away from the normal routines of life and work so that we can enter into worship and enter into praise. This rest is a kindness of God to humanity. It's not meant to be a burden.

The practice of observing Lent is similar. We are not made for Lent. Lent was made for us - it is a season to be a gift to you and to me.

Do you look to God for guidance? Do you give much thought to His will for your life?

If we don't seek God's will and guidance, why not?

God invites us to ask for His guidance. However, to really grasp this, I must first ask this question - how does God really regard my life? What role does He desire to play in my life?

Acts 17:24-26 tells us, "The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 

How is the will of God working in our lives, even in the midst of deep suffering and pain?

In our last episode we talked about living in God's moral will, which has to do with His design for our lives. Today we are discussing God's sovereign will.

But if God is in control of everything, do humans really have free will? It's a good question. We're going to cover that in this episode.

How do we understand Jesus Christ in relationship to the Old Testament?

Two points to remember about Jesus:

• We properly understand Jesus of Nazareth as the author of the Old Testament. He is the primary agent of writing and giving the scriptures of Israel. John 1:1 tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus is the author.

• Not only is Christ revealed in the Old Testament, Jesus Christ is the revealer of the Old Testament. Luke 24:27 tells us, "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He (Jesus) explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself."

Jesus is describing Himself in the law, the prophets and the writings of the Old Testament, and He's inviting you into that act of discovery yourself.

How important is truth in our society today?

I've been reading Truth Triumphs by Bible teacher John McArthur, and have really gained some new insights into this, which kind of helped open the door to this study.

MacArthur believes that all of life is about the truth. In fact, he believes it's the most important reality in the universe. Think about how the issue of truth is so important in all of life. Not only do we have moral, spiritual and theological truth, we also have fixed truth in the physical world that we live in.

Most rational people care about the laws of nature and science, and they realize the harm that violating those laws bring into their lives. But some of these same people are willing to split the reality of physical laws with the spiritual moral laws. 

So we have to ask, how do reasonable people do this?

The Lord gave this reply to the Israelites through the prophet Isaiah, "Because you have said, 'We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, for we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception.'" - Isaiah 28:15

Can we really love God if we don't know him?

We have to set aside time in order to get to know Him, and also to love Him. And at the heart of our faith is learning how to trust God with our hearts and with our lives.

If you want to be a healthy, vibrant, dynamic Christian whose life makes a difference, three things have to be taking place in your life:

• The inner life of devotion. deepening your relationship with God.
• The intellectual life of rationality—developing your mind and the ability to reason and think.
• The outer life of service to others.

Life moves fast. Bodies age. But your soul can still grow strong, resulting in a vibrant inward life. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

You were made to know God, flourish spiritually, live with purpose, and pass your faith on to others. 

What is the season of advent?

The season of advent is a season of waiting on the Lord. We're waiting. We recognize not everything is right, we're waiting for it to be reordered.

And we find the people of God in Isaiah chapter 40 in a season of waiting. And what is it that they're having to wait for?

Well, Isaiah tells us they're waiting for mishpat, a Hebrew word that means "judgment," or "law. They're waiting for justice, and they're waiting for the fulfillment of these promises that come in Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Why did Jesus work miracles?

These miracles served to show love to hurting people, prove His divine nature, and affirm the authenticity of His teaching. The book of John tells us how Jesus replied to the Samaritan woman's question to him:

Who or what are you trusting in? 

Today Mark is discussing Isaiah 13-39.
"Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it. For the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host....

What is it like to be the caddy for the number one pro golfer in the world?