Violinist Yehudi Menuhin, a British violinist and conductor who is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, was invited at the age of 13 to perform with the British Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He played some of the most difficult works of Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms masterfully. The response was electrifying, and when the concert ended, the authorities struggled to manage the almost out-of-control crowd. One member of the audience was Albert Einstein, who had listened in rapt attention to the prodigy perform and who, at the concert’s conclusion, ran around and through the authorities to the youngster’s dressing room. Upon finding him, Einstein exclaimed as he embraced the surprised youth, “Now I know there is a God in heaven!”
Belief that there is, and has always been, a God in heaven did not come hard for most of us. All it took for us to know was that at some time we read, “In the beginning God….” (Gen. 1:1) We can identify with Abraham Lincoln’s observation when he said at the age of 19: “I never behold the stars that I do not feel that I am looking into the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”
In 18th-century in Britain, two eminent lawyers set out to deal a deathblow to Christianity. George Lyttleton, a member of Parliament, was going to discredit the account of the conversion of the Apostle Paul, while at the same time poet Gilbert West would attempt to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After diligently considering all the information they could assemble, the two men met to compare their findings. Each had written a book on what they discovered. West’s book affirmed the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Lyttelton’s supported the accounts of the miraculous conversion of the Apostle Paul. They failed in discrediting their original skeptical theses—and when they met, they greeted each other as fellow believers in the claims of Christianity.
More recently, there is the case of Antony Flew, once considered one of the most influential atheist philosophers in the world. His arguments against the existence of God permeated the pages of many anthologies and textbooks. Then Flew read a book by Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, a book that argues that “the minimal and cellular and biochemical requirements for life display an ‘irreducible complexity’ that cannot be random but must have been designed.” Mr. Flew, having dialogued with a philosophy professor at Liberty University, Gary Habermas, confided to him that he had come to believe that “there is a God.” He subsequently co-authored a book titled There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. (Lifesite.net, Nov. 2, 2007)
One supposed atheist came to reckon with his unbelief in a rather dramatic way. Mordecai Ham (1877-1961) was a Jewish believer in Christ and a southern evangelist. He once heard of an infidel who, when he saw Ham approaching, went into hiding. The evangelist began to hunt his prey, and when he heard suspicious sounds under a corn shock, he pulled the fellow out. “What are you going to do with me,” the atheist quivered. Ham said, “I’m going to ask God to kill you! You don’t believe God exists. If there is no God, then my prayers can’t hurt you. But if there is a God, you deserve to die because you are making atheists out of your children and grandchildren.” As the infidel begged him not to pray that way, Ham said, “Very well, then, I shall ask God to save you.” He was saved, and before the revival meeting was over, all of that infidel’s family was baptized—40 of them! (Note: I copied this story out of some Christian publication years ago and am not sure to whom it should be attributed; but knowing of some of the antics of the old-time evangelists, it is believable!)
“In the beginning, God.” That’s how the Bible begins, and that’s good enough for me! Modern science has found that in every living cell—36 trillion of them in a typical human body—there is information that could not possibly have occurred randomly. DNA has discredited evolution, and also unbelief in a creator God. To embrace atheism today flies into the face of all that is credible. There never has been, nor is there now, any reason—any excuse—for claiming to believe that there is no God.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”(Psalm 14:1)
YOU and GOD 