Jeremiah 42:5

Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us.

The Lord is a true and faithful witness that God is real.

How that works is personal and no one can tell you it is not real if and when God reveals Himself to you.

As an angry teen I saw myself following the same path that my oldest brother took to find himself kicked out of our home and forced to live elsewhere at the age of sixteen. I did not want to fall to that same fate so one Sunday morning, in church, I prayed to God for the first time.

“I don’t want to be like this!”

I wasn’t sure it was a prayer, I didn’t even address my thoughts to God, or Jesus, or the Lord. It was more like self-talk, admitting how I felt. It did not feel like repentance, it was an acknowledgement of helplessness.

Psalm 10:17

O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear

While my prayer was not classic, it was enough for God to hear me and in that very moment my anger left me and it could only have been done by God.

God is real. I knew it but that was all I knew in that moment. That was my moment and it is personal and I have not heard anyone tell me that their experience in discovering God being real was the same.

Is knowing that God is real enough?

Now, sixty years later, I have to answer no.

The modern word in English has its roots in the Greek language and consists of just two words and only two words, Theo meaning God and logia meaning speaks. God Speaks

Hebrews 1:1-4 English Standard Version

The Supremacy of God’s Son

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

We will not find this comment in the Torah nor the Koran. Nor will we find it in the hearts of those who have lied to thousands that they and they alone are the mouthpiece of god.

I am a complex person who believes in the simplicity of the gospel. God in His own divine wisdom has not made it difficult for His chosen to hear Him directly.

If we look back in history to Abraham, the father of faith to three prominent religions, he was born into a pagan world and grew up surrounded by wooden and stone idols that did not speak.

Genesis 12:1 English Standard Version

The Call of Abram

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

How did Abram know it was the Lord’s voice? It was unlikely that Abram knew it was the Lord since the Lord had not spoken to anyone in that pagan land. He had no one to ask and had no historical references given to him to lean on. The only two options for Abram were that the voice was real or he was insane.

The test which Abram passed was to obey what he was told even though it went against every tradition and desire without any clear direction except a promise that he would be shown where to go after he took his first steps of faith. Obey without question and wait for further instructions.

This is the basis of all theology, hear, believe and obey by faith. The results will determine whether that faith is true or false.

Jeremiah 42:5

Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us.