God # 3

Question: What reasons do we have for being sure that God is a personal God - that He is a being with a personality and takes an active interest in our lives?

There are many conclusive proofs of the existence of a personal God. First, there is the proof from the evidence of design in nature, as referred to in the previous answer.

Second, history also proves the existence of a personal God. If we look  at only a little patch of history, it sometimes seems as though there was no intelligent and benevolent purpose behind it. However, if we look at history in a large way, following its course through the centuries, we soon discover that behind the conflicting passions and ambitions of men, there is some intelligent and benevolent and righteous Power restraining and constraining man and causing the wrath of men to praise Him (Psalm 76:10). We find in history that, as Matthew Arnold wrote, there is a "power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." From history we discover that there is a moral Governor of the universe. Everything in the universe is attuned to virtue. Everything in nature and history conspires to punish sin and reward virtue. This is a proof of the existence of a personal God.

Third, the history of Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in the four Gospels, proves the existence of a personal God in a special way. It is one of the first principles of science that every effect must have an adequate cause, and the only cause that is adequate to account for the character, conduct, and works of Jesus of Nazareth is a God such as the Bible reveals. The attempt has been made, over and over again, and is still being made, to discount the miraculous in the history of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, the attempt is being made to eliminate the miracles altogether from that story, but every attempt of this kind has resulted in total failure.

But the supreme proof of the existence of a personal God is found in the experience of the individual believer in Jesus Christ. Every real Christian knows God in personal experience. I know God more surely than I know any human being. I once doubted the existence of a personal God. I did not deny His existence; I simply questioned it. I was not an atheist, but I was an agnostic. However, I determined that if there were a God, I would know it. I became convinced from the study of history of the probability of the existence of God, but to me at that time, it was only a theory. I made up my mind to put to the test of rigid, personal experiment the theory that there was a God. I risked everything that men hold dear on this theory. If there had been no God, or if the God of the Bible had not been the true God, I would have lost everything that men hold dear. I risked, and I won, and today I know that there is a God and that the God of the Bible is the true God. Every other person may also know this by doing what I did.

There was a time in my life when I was put into a place where I literally lived by prayer to the God of the Bible, in the condition so clearly stated in the Bible. Every penny for my expenses came in answer to prayer. This included living expenses for myself and my wife and four children, rent for our home and for the halls in which I held meetings, support for missionaries, and funds for anything else that was needed. I made the commitment that I would not go into debt a cent for anything. When I could not pay, I would not buy. I gave up my salary, ceased taking collections or offerings, and told no one but God of any need. This went on for days and weeks and months. Every former source of income was cut off, and yet the money came - sometimes in very extraordinary ways, sometimes in apparently most extraordinary ways, but it always came. When I was through, I knew that there is a personal God and that the God of the Bible is the true God. To me, God is the one great Reality who gives reality to all other realities.

~R. A. Torrey~