Chapter One: Does God Exist?

Text: Romans 1:18-25 | Supporting: John 3:14-16; Psalm 19:1

From the Witness Stand to the Jury Room

In the Prologue, four witnesses took the stand. The Beginning. The Settings. The Rulebook in your chest. The Hunger. Four testimonies you have known your whole life, whether or not you ever knew they were testifying.

So as we open this book together, let me tell you how to read it. Think of these pages as a trial, and think of yourself as a juror. Not a spectator, a juror, because in this case there is no gallery. There is no aisle seat and no neutral ground. On the question these chapters take up, postponing the verdict is rendering one. Every chapter will lay evidence before you, and at the end of every chapter you will meet the same charge, so let me give it to you now, at the start, so you know where we are headed: the evidence is in, and the verdict is yours.

Now, into the jury room. Because the apostle Paul examined this same case two thousand years ago, and he has news about it that is going to change how you see every doubter you know, and maybe how you see yourself. Paul did not conclude that the human race lacks evidence. He concluded something far more sobering. He concluded that the human race is suppressing it.

The Text: Romans 1:18-25

Hear the Word of God:

“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. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20, NASB 1995)

The knowledge God has given (vv. 19-20)

Notice the direction of the action. God made it evident. Man did not climb his way up to the knowledge of God. God bent down and made Himself known, through the witness within, that conscience and those questions that every human being carries, and the witness without, creation itself. You have already met these witnesses. The universe that began. The settings sighted in dead-center. The law written where you cannot lose it. The hunger this world cannot feed.

And then Paul reads the verdict of heaven’s courtroom over the whole human race: “so that they are without excuse.”

Without excuse. Not under-informed. Not waiting on better data. Without excuse.

The suppression man performs (v. 18)

So if the evidence is sufficient, why doesn’t everyone believe? Paul answers in verse 18. Men “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

That word suppress means to hold down, the way you hold a beach ball under the water. It takes constant effort, because the truth keeps trying to surface. Unbelief, according to Romans 1, is not a passive condition. It is an active project.

The exchange man makes (vv. 21-25)

And Paul traces where the suppression leads:

“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. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:21-22, NASB 1995)

It ends in a trade. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (v. 25).

Underline that in your mind. Nobody worships nothing. Every person you will ever meet is a worshiper. The only question is what they have put on the throne. And when a man will not worship the Creator, he does not become worship-free. He worships the creature, and most often, the creature he worships is himself.

Part One: Why We Believe

Brothers and sisters, before we can help a doubter, we need this settled in our own hearts: you do not have to shut your brain off to believe in God. The witnesses have testified. The universe started, and nothing does not produce something. The dials are set dead-center on the first and only throw. The moral law stands over every nation that ever voted. The hunger for eternity is stamped into every heart ever born. Clue after clue after clue, all pointing the same direction, and that is how every real case is ever proven. Our faith stands on evidence.

But now I want to take you deeper into a question that came up in my own house, and I want you to hear it, because it is the best question anyone has asked me about this whole study.

Why doesn’t God turn the lights all the way up?

People ask it all the time. If God is real, why doesn’t He simply show Himself, fully, plainly, beyond all doubt, so that every skeptic on earth is convinced?

When this study was being prepared, our church opened it with a courtroom drama, closing arguments in the trial of the question itself, and my own children played the parts. And while they were rehearsing, they kept circling back to one of the arguments in the script, and they were not satisfied with it. The argument said that if God revealed Himself in His full glory, we would be so overwhelmed that belief would be compelled, and our freedom would be gone. My children pushed back, and they were right to. They pointed to the angels. The angels stood in the unveiled presence of God, no dim light, no clues, no arguments, and some of them still rebelled. So the full blaze of God’s glory does not take away a creature’s freedom to refuse Him. My own household caught the weak joint in the argument, and this chapter carries the stronger truth they helped me find. That is what this whole book is, brothers and sisters. We test the arguments, we keep what holds, and the case gets stronger for it.

Here is the stronger truth, and it turns on one word: believe.

If God unveiled Himself in all His blazing glory this morning, one thing would certainly happen. The question “Does God exist?” would be over. Fact compels acknowledgment. You would no longer weigh evidence, because you would no longer have evidence, you would have Reality itself, standing before you. That is exactly the condition the demons are in. James tells us “the demons also believe, and shudder” (James 2:19). Their belief was compelled, they have stood in the presence of God, they saw the Incarnate Christ walk this earth, God in the flesh. They have the facts. The facts are unavoidable.

But is that what Jesus means by believe? Turn to John chapter 3. Jesus is talking with Nicodemus, and He says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14-16).

Now think about it. Was Jesus asking Nicodemus to believe that Jesus existed? Nicodemus could reach out and touch Him. His existence was a given fact, standing right in front of the man. No, Jesus pointed backward to the bronze serpent, to dying Israelites who had to look to God’s provision to live, and He was talking about trust. Putting your faith in. Staking your life on.

Let me put it in modern terms. Suppose you are on an airplane, and the pilot comes over the intercom: “Folks, due to a malfunction, this plane will hit the ground in sixty seconds, and the crash will kill everyone on board. There are parachutes on the bulkhead in front of you, and a parachute will save your life. Pilot signing off.”

Now suppose I am sitting next to you, and I ask, “Do you believe the pilot? Do you believe that parachute will save your life?” And suppose you spend the next fifty-five seconds declaring, as fervently as a person can declare anything, “Yes! I believe the parachute will save my life! I believe it! I believe it!”, all the way into the ground.

Your belief was real. And it saved nothing. For that parachute to save your life, you had to get up out of your seat, walk to the bulkhead, strap it on, open the door, and step out of the airplane, putting your whole life into the ability of that parachute to bring you down gently. That, brothers and sisters, is what Jesus means by believe. Not “I acknowledge parachutes exist.” Whoever believes in Him. That is heart, not head.

So now we can answer the question. If God turned the lights all the way up, His overwhelming presence would compel the answer to “Does God exist?” It compelled it for the demons. But would it compel trust? Would it compel faith? It did not for the angels who fell in the full blaze. It did not for Israel, who watched the sea split and worshiped a calf a month later. It did not for the men who saw Lazarus walk out of his tomb and went straight off to plot a murder. Reality can force the head to acknowledge. Reality cannot force the heart to trust.

And here is the sobering part. If God revealed everything, the only thing full revelation would accomplish for the unwilling heart is to lock in its guilt. Because faith needs room to grow, and growth requires something more to be shown, something greater to be offered, and after the full, factual revelation of God Himself, there is nothing more and nothing greater left to offer. The angels who said no in the full light received no rescue, “for assuredly He does not give help to angels” (Hebrews 2:16). There was nothing left for them to learn. But you and I, choosing in the half-light, can still say what Paul said, “I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13).

So the dimness is not God’s absence. The dimness is God’s patience. He gives light enough for every honest seeker to find Him, and He holds back the blaze, because He is not after the compelled acknowledgment of demons. He is after the freely given trust of sons and daughters. “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (John 20:29).

Part Two: How We Share It

So what do you do on Tuesday, at the shop, across the fence, at the family table, when somebody says, “I just don’t see any evidence for God”?

First, get the diagnosis right. Romans 1 has already told you: the deficit is not information. So share the evidence, gladly and gently, but do not be surprised when evidence alone does not move him. Here is the line I want you to carry through this whole book. Evidence answers the head, but only surrender answers the heart.

Because more often than not, the doubter does not have a head problem. He has a heart problem. He does not want to cut into the lordship of his own life. The writer Aldous Huxley admitted it in print, that he and his generation wanted the world to have no meaning, because a meaningless world left them free to live as they pleased. That is Romans 1 in a modern man’s own handwriting. Jesus said it long before: “the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

And remember what verse 25 taught you. You are never talking to a non-worshiper. You are talking to a worshiper whose worship has been redirected. The conversation was never really “is there a God?” The conversation is “which god?”, and one of the candidates is sitting in his chair.

So, practically. Ask more than you argue. Here is the question I want you to keep in your pocket, and it is this chapter’s Juror’s Assignment: “If it turned out God was real, would you want to know?” Ask it, and then do the hard part, just listen. Watch what that question surfaces, because it goes around the head and knocks on the heart’s door.

Do not panic when you meet an objection you cannot answer on the spot. No witness has to carry the whole case, and “let me think about that” is an honest answer that keeps the conversation alive.

And do not forget where Romans 1 is headed. Paul does not indict the suppressor in chapter 1 so he can condemn him forever. He indicts him so that grace can find him in chapter 3, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). The same God who wrote His name across the heavens wrote His love in blood on a Roman cross. The parachute has been provided, brothers and sisters. Our job is not to shove anybody out of the plane. Our job is to tell them, honestly and gently, what the pilot said, and to show them we have already put ours on.

The Charge

You have heard the testimony. You have been inside the jury room. And you have learned that the verdict was never waiting on more evidence.

So here is the charge you were promised at the start of this chapter, the one that will meet you at the end of every chapter in this book. The evidence is in. The verdict is yours.

And if you are reading this unsure which way you lean, I am not going to press you. I am going to hand you one question to carry, the same one the jurors are carrying: if it turned out God was real, would you want to know?

He is. And He wants to be known.

The Juror’s Assignment: Before you turn to the next chapter, ask one person, “If it turned out God was real, would you want to know?” Do not argue, do not correct, just ask, and listen. Report to no one but God, and tell Him what you heard.

Next: Chapter Two — Can We Know What Is True?