Do You Live As If There Is No God?

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:18-21, ESV)

Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, writes in his essays titled The Words that “I had been playing with matches and burned a small rug.  I was in the process of covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me.  I felt his gaze inside my head and on my hands.  I whirled about in the bathroom, horribly visible, a live target.  Indignation saved me.  I flew into a rage against so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed, I muttered like my grandfather: ‘God damn it, God damn it, God damn it.’  He never looked at me again.” (p. 64)

All human beings know that God exists.  We cannot hide from Him.  He sees our every indiscretion.  In spite of Sartre’s claim, he never escaped the watchful eyes of God.  Sartre became an atheist precisely because he understood that God does exist.  It was the inevitable conclusion that God’s existence requires our accountability to Him that Sartre could not tolerate.  Therefore, Sartre – like millions of human beings before and since – (including myself at one time) chose to suppress the knowledge of God rather than to acknowledge God’s right to absolute sovereignty over us and our accountability to Him.

The guilt of unrighteousness drives us to a form of insanity in which we conclude that we can lock God away in some dark corner of the universe.  We are driven to suppress the truth of a supremely righteous, holy God because we know that our desires and actions fall far short of His holy standards.  Fallen man is like the mythical vampire exposed to light.  We fear the burning exposure of the presence of God.  Consequently, we choose to hide in the darkness.

Nevertheless, like the mad, self-deluded Jean-Paul Sartre, we too will one-day face the inescapable judgment of God.  All that we have said, failed to say, done, and failed to do will be weighed on the scales of justice.  The standard of God’s holy law will cast a light that overwhelms our illusions of self-righteousness.

Unless!  And this word, “unless,” is supremely important.  Unless we stand before almighty God in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who atoned for our sins by His death on the cross – we will be like a people who wish the mountains would fall on them to cover them and hide them away.  God’s wrath is real and terrible.

You must, therefore, suppress the truth no longer.  Acknowledge the truth of God and your accountability to Him as your Creator.  Do not incorrectly assume that you can continue postponing this day of reckoning.  Flee quickly to Christ for His mercy and righteousness (John 3:16).