Romans 2:14-15

  Dear Friends in Christ,                                                                                   

One of the neat things about being a pastor is that you get asked all kinds of questions about earthly, spiritual, and eternal matters. And sometimes I’m amazed at how many times the same questions get asked. So just for the fun of it, I got to thinking about what are the most frequently asked questions that come my way. And I narrowed it down to these three: 1. What about cremation? 2. Will we know one another in heaven? 3. Where did God come from?

And just so I don’t leave you hanging with those questions and thinking about them instead of listening to my sermon, I’m going to give you a brief response to each of them, starting with the one on cremation. The official position of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod on cremation is that this is what we call an adiophoron. An adiophoron is something that is neither commanded nor forbidden in Scripture, so it becomes basically a matter of choice or preference. The one time I know when cremation would be wrong, however, would be if a person were to do it as an act of defiance against God. For example, some people who scoff at the idea of the resurrection of the body will ask to be cremated and have their ashes scattered because then, according to their way of thinking, even if there was a resurrection, God would never be able to put them back together again. Of course, if God could make a universe out of nothing, then I don’t think he’d have any problem putting the scattered particles of a cremated person back together again, right?

The 2^nd question is: Will we know one another in heaven? And the short answer to that is, Yes. At least that’s what the Bible seems to indicate in several different instances. For example, when Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus on the Mt. of Transfiguration, they had been dispatched from heaven to that location. And yet they were still recognizable as the same Moses who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and the same Elijah who defeated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.

We can also look at the story Jesus told in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus. When the rich man died, he ended up in hell, and when Lazarus died, we’re told that he was carried to Abraham’s side, which was the Jewish way of describing heaven. Yet neither of them shed their earthly identity when they entered those eternal residences. The rich man was still the rich man in hell and Lazarus was still Lazarus in heaven. So I have no doubt in my mind that yes, we will know one another in heaven. We will carry our earthly identities with us into eternity.

Then the 3^rd question I get asked is: Where did God come from? Little children especially like to ask that one. And the only way to answer it is to say that God did not come from anywhere. According to the Bible he is an eternal being which means he had no beginning and he will have no end. Or to put it another way, there never was a time when God did not exist. He’s just always been there. Now can I understand that? Not really, but that’s ok because I’m a finite being while God is infinite. So how can I expect to squeeze the infinite God into my puny finite brain? We’ll talk more about that in a few weeks when we start looking at some of the attributes and characteristics of God.

Well, the reason I shared these top 3 questions with you this morning is because for several weeks now we’ve been trying to answer another question as part of my “Back to the Basics” sermon series that I’m currently preaching. And that question is: How can we know there is a God? The 1^st way that we’ve looked at is that we can know there is a God through creation – through the world and the universe that we see all around us. This, of course, flies in the face of the theory of evolution which we’ve spent several weeks studying, pointing out some of the major flaws and weaknesses in this theory in the hopes of bolstering your faith in the Genesis account of creation.

But before we move on to another reason how we can know there is a God, I want to explain to you some other problems that evolution poses for Bible-believing Christians. First of all, if evolution occurred, then human beings are nothing more than a higher form of animal. And if we’re just a higher form of animal, then we’re not really made in the image of God as the Bible says and we do not possess an immortal soul that will live on after we die. So when we die, that’s it. There is no heaven. There is no hope. There is no possibility of a better life after this one. Which means that this world, with all of its trials and tribulations is as good as it’s ever going to get.

Another problem worth noting is that if evolution occurred, then man is only a cosmic accident and therefore has no good reason for being here. He has no meaning, no purpose. Many years ago I came across a little poem that is entitled “Once Upon a Time.” That poem was prefaced with these words: “The belief of atheistic evolution can probably best be summed up as follows: Once upon a time, no one knows WHEN, at some given place, no one knows WHERE, a speck of protoplasmic substance, no one knows WHAT, came into existence, no one knows HOW. Over a period of time, no one knows HOW LONG, from that tiny speck of protoplasm, no one knows HOW, all forms of life in the animal world were developed, yet no one knows WHY. How true that is, my friends! If we’re just cosmic accidents, products of chance, then we have no reason and no purpose for being here. But if we are the product of a divine Creator, then all of a sudden life is infused with meaning and purpose that comes from the relationship that we enjoy with that Creator.

But there’s another problem that evolution presents. If it actually occurred and chance is the only thing responsible for all that exists, then there is no ultimate authority, no ultimate lawgiver, and consequently no ultimate laws by which all people should abide. In that type of a world moral relativism prevails, which means that each person basically has to determine their own set of rules. Consequently, what may be right for you may not be right for me. What may be wrong for you may not be wrong for me. And all of a sudden, we’ve got the moral chaos on our hands that is so evident and so prevalent in the world we’re living in right now.

Well, there are a few other problems that evolution poses for Bible-believing Christians, but I really want to move on to a 2^nd reason how we can know there is a God. And that reason is stated very clearly for us in our text for today where it says: “Even when Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, instinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong. They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right.” So a 2^nd proof we can use for the existence of God is our conscience. Now you all know what your conscience is, don’t you? It’s that still small voice inside of you that can sometimes roar pretty loudly when you violate it, when you fail to heed its warnings.

A few weeks ago at one of our Financial Peace University classes we were having a great time of discussion about what Dave Ramsey had to say about the importance of integrity and honesty. And I shared a story from my childhood about a time I had a one-on-one encounter with my conscience. There was a little neighborhood grocery store a few blocks from where we lived called Lovejoy’s and once in a while my mom would ask me to walk there and pick up a loaf of bread or a few other items. Well, one day I went there and got what I came for and paid for it, but as I was leaving I spotted these little round balls of grape gum that I used to love to chew back then. They only cost a penny a piece. So I picked one up and went back to pay for it. Well, by that time the line had gotten pretty long and not being the most patient child in the world back then, I finally decided to leave the store with that piece of gum. I knew it wasn’t right, but I justified it by telling myself that I didn’t have time to wait in line and that it was, after all, only a penny piece of gum. But I got about a block away from that store and my conscience began to kick in. And I know most of you are probably thinking that I did an about face and headed back to that store to confess my little act of thievery, but by that time the gum was already being chewed, so I continued on my way home while my conscience continued to give me a good chewing out, if you know what I mean. And although I never confessed that dastardly deed to anyone at the store, I did confess it to God and earnestly sought his forgiveness.

Now my point here is that if I was just some higher form of animal, I would have never felt even the slightest twinge of guilt that day. Why not? Because animals do not possess a conscience, this built-in warning system that God has placed in us and that lets us know that we are accountable to One who is higher and greater than we are. I know animals don’t possess a conscience because I’ve witnessed it more times than I care to remember with my dog Freddy. As I wrote about in one of my opening newsletter articles a few months ago, though Freddy was free, he has proven to be a very costly pet, especially when we first got him because he initially chewed up just about everything he could get his canine canines into. This included the welcome mats by our front and back doors, the 2 rocking chairs on our front porch, the nice piece of carpet and then later the soft fluffy pillow that I placed in his doghouse to keep him warm and comfortable, a wooden chest of drawers we had in our garage, the hose and every other attachment to my Shop-Vac, and a multitude of other things.

Now do understand that when Freddy would chew on these things I would reprimand him. I would discipline him. I would point to the item he had chewed so that he knew exactly what I was talking about. But then the next day it was like all of my stern warnings had fallen on deaf ears as he would chew on the same things all over again, thus providing what I believe is irrefutable proof that dogs do not have a conscience like we human beings do.

By the way, as much as we may not like it when our conscience gets rather vocal, please see that as a blessing rather than as something to be avoided. Because that conscience is just the voice of God trying to keep you from doing something that he knows you’ll later regret. And I might also add that the more you go against your conscience, the more you refuse to heed its warnings, the more you end up deadening and de-sensitizing your conscience until finally it loses its effectiveness and leaves you with no moral compass to guide you through the traps and temptations of this world. And trust me, that is not a good position to find yourself in.

So be thankful for your conscience. Be thankful that we have a God who loved us so much that he instilled his voice within us to give us guidance and direction. And when we do stumble and fall, when we do choose to ignore our conscience and do our own thing rather than God’s thing, be thankful that he doesn’t give up on us. He doesn’t turn his back on us. He doesn’t slam the door on us. Instead, he keeps reaching out to us. He keeps calling us back to himself. He keeps searching for us, just like the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to look for the one who had strayed. But most of all be thankful that the God who gave us our conscience also gave us his Son Jesus Christ who suffered and died on a cross 2000 years ago for all those times when we would violate his laws and go against our consciences. And for those who trust in Christ as their Savior, God takes great delight in forgiving them and restoring them when they finally come to their senses and return to his waiting arms.

So again, how can we and everyone else know there is a God? We can know it from creation itself which bears the unmistakable stamp of the intelligent design of a wise, powerful, and loving Creator; and we can know it from our conscience which reminds us that we are accountable to One who is higher and greater than we are. And the next time I preach, which will be 2 weeks from today as Vicar Tim will be preaching his 1^st sermon next Sunday, we’re going to begin a fascinating study of this great God who made us, who saved us, and who longs to have a personal relationship with us.

Amen.