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The Truth Of A Spiritual Realm
The Truth Of A Spiritual Realm
If I can't see it, hear, or touch it then it doesn't exist. All reality is material. Hence the Soviet cosmonaut looked out the window of his space craft and not seeing God, declared that God doesn't exist. While such a world view is prevalent today, it is not a true view of reality.
As we begin reading the book of Job we are ushered into the very presence of God and the angels. While they are 'spirits' and spirits have not flesh and bone (Luke 24:49), they ARE real. If Job could have been privy to what WE read in the first two chapters there would have been no book written about him. There would have been an understanding of what was going on in his materialistic world.
Many people today would argue that allowing the thought of God into the thinking process would make understanding of this world impossible. It would allow for willy-nilly events to take place (i.e., miracles - God intervening in the affairs of the world) and thus there would be no 'science'. Thus 'science' by definition rules out any concept of God. We are told that all answers must come from a materialistic framework. [I hope you see that THAT concept did NOT come from a materialistic framework but is a philosophical concept. ] Hence any 'true' and 'real' understanding of this world must EXCLUDE God.
As with Job, some things can only be understood when God's intrusion into this world has been understood. The very existence of the universe that all indications say is finite and had a beginning is understood with 'in the Beginning God created…'. The existence of life become fathomable because God is the living God and from him comes life. The existence of good (and hence evil) becomes understandable because God is good. Our lives become purposeful and not just a grand accident because God has created us for HIS purposes.
The challenge for us comes, like it did with Job, when life throws us a curve and we try to answer the question: "Why did God…."? Without a revelation from God we will make the same mistakes that Job and his friends made. We will get part of it right and then mess up our application of it. We will become 'miserable comforters' just like they did. We will pontificate on what God is doing when in fact we are clueless.
Let us hold firmly to our faith in the existence and providence of God while having our feet firmly planted in His revelation. When we speak, let us speak as the oracles of God (1 Pet. 4:11).
