Princeton University physicist Freeman Dyson is quoted in a book that I am reading right now saying, "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some way must have known we were coming." Oh say friend! He must be right about that! Suppose we study about that today.
What a pleasure it is to have you join our Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way. We pray you will be as blessed by this study as much as I have been in preparing it. I think when we are finished, you'll understand why that quote from Dr. Dyson excited me as it did.
My friend, Phil Sanders in Nashville, Tennessee wrote a few days ago about a "A recent survey conducted by the Harris Poll." He said the poll "revealed that forty-two percent of US adults are not "absolutely certain" that there is a God. And that’s compared to thirty-four percent who felt that way when asked the same question just-- three years ago. Eight percent is statistically significant, friend, especially in so short a period of time. Yes, people are changing.
"As to whether God controls events on earth, twenty-nine percent believe He does, while forty-four percent said 'God observes but does not control what happens on Earth.'"
Also, a recent Barna report noted that many US adults don't view morality the way their fathers did. There are large generational gaps in how people decide what's right and what’s wrong. Nearly half of all older adults said that they view truth as absolute, but three out of ten of those born between 1964 and 1981 embraced the concept of absolute truth. Two thirds of those over forty said humans should determine what's morally right and wrong by examining God's principles; less than half of those born between 1964 and 1981 agree with that.
You're probably inclined, as I was, to ask, "Why? What's happened?" Well, just a little thought is enough. Running parallel with that course of events has been another. The collective and concentrated efforts of several groups of people to silence God in our nation and they are having an effect on the nation's moral and ethical standards. Without a belief in God, it's impossible to maintain moral order. Our fore-parents knew that. Does God exist?
Today's message is titled, "Design Demands A Designer." If you think you'd like to have a copy of the message, you may have it free just by mailing your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or by e-mail our address is Searchtv@aol.com. You might just want to call in your request. Be sure to leave your name and address, if you do. We can't fill your request without it. Our toll-free telephone number for your use is 1-800-321-8633. It's available on our website, too at searchtv.org. Ken Helterbrand will lead us now in a hymn, and then I'll be back for Bible reading and prayer.
I am reading one verse for our text today. From the book of Isaiah chapter 45 verse 18. “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who Formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord, and there is no other.” That’s the end of that verse. Now let us go to God in prayer. Our Father and our God, we come before you now as the great designer of this habitat for humanity in which we live, with all of it’s marvels. And help us today Lord, to share this kind of faith as we talk to people who perhaps have not given a second thought to the place where we are living. We pray Father we can point to you and to your glory and point them in that direction. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
A few minutes ago, I related some of the bad news of the increase of atheism among American adults. And I want to follow that with some encouraging thoughts.
An ABC News report about two years ago, (December 9, 2004 to be exact) was titled, "Famous Atheist now believes in God." Well Fox News had a very similar report --almost word-for-word, as a matter of fact, with the ABC one. And it told of "A British philosophy professor who's been a leading champion of atheism for more than half-century, and he has changed his mind. He now believes in God --more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so in a video, that’s obtainable even now.
"At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew had concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation," he said, "for the origin of life and the complexity of nature."
I had the pleasure and the privilege of meeting Dr. Flew in September 1976 when he debated Dr. Thomas B. Warren on the campus of North Texas State University in Denton, Texas. I was impressed with his apparent honesty and integrity even then. He was the son of a minister. His name and stature have been "big" among knowledgeable atheists. It's said of him, by a fellow-atheist who respected him greatly that he "has virtually set the agenda for atheism for the past five decades." Having studied the physical evidence, he is now a believer in the existence of God. Although, to my knowledge, he hasn't become a Christian. But, what a terrific change he has made. He turned atheist at age 15. It was at about at that age, 15 that I, too, had serious thoughts about the existence of God.
Probably, I don't need to tell you, I grew up on a farm. I mention it here only to say that few, if any, farm boys of my generation were --or, still are atheists. We lived among and with and saw "up close" too many evidences of the purpose and design in the world, for it to have "just happened." We (I mean the Lyon family) farmed with horses and mules. (Although not many farmers did in those days, my father did have access to one of the first old-timey farm tractors. He didn't like it much, and used it very little.) I walked behind a horse-drawn plow myself. Oh, how I loved the smell of the fresh earth as I walked in the furrow behind the plow as it turned over the fresh soil in the early spring.
There were four of us children. We had a cousin, the son of my mother's sister, who was an only child, and they came to visit us quite frequently. He was younger than I --about the age of my brother I would say. Maybe five years younger than I. He took vitamins in liquid form and by pills. And to persuade him to take them, his parents had "sold" him on the idea that they were ‘um so good. We didn't take vitamin pills. We thought it was because we were poor. But that wasn't it at all. Our parents explained that we didn't need those pills. We got our vitamins out of the soil I was talking about a minute ago. But we didn't eat the "dirt," did we? Of course not. No we didn't. You see during those days of the great-depression, when many people in the cities were dying of starvation, farmers had fresh fruit to eat from the orchard, and fresh vegetables from the garden, and chickens and ducks and squirrels and other animals and fish from which we got those necessary nutrients. You see, they were designed and created for that purpose. Created? By whom? My friend, don't you agree with the good Dr. Dyson that "the universe must have in some way known that we were coming?" Those forms of vegetable, plant and animal life were created before we were so we would have access to those essentials in the soil --without eating the dirt. Read I Timothy chapter 4 verses 4 and 5. And, I don't have time to discuss the marvelous body of ours, and it's proficiency in hungering for, and extracting those necessities from the food that we eat and distributing it to the various parts of the body that need them. Yes! Yes! Oh, yes. Design demands a Designer.
Read and study the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. It tells us how it all happened, day-by-day, to be the way it is. It begins with the words, "In the beginning God..." In the beginning God already was. God is spirit (John 4:24). God is "eternal" --before and after matter (Deuteronomy 33:27). The Eternal Spirit ofGod was in the beginning, and He will be after the ending --when time and the earth and everything in it are no more (2 Peter chapter 3 verse 11).
Genesis 1:1 says: "In the beginning God created." His "eternal power" and His "invisible attributes" are "clearly seen" by or in the things which He made (Romans 1:20). Meaning of course, that the amazing design and purpose of the universe testify to -- and even demand the existence of --not a finite --but an infinite intelligent designer!
Verse two begins the story of God's preparation for the earth and preparation of the earth for man's habitation. No! The earth did not just happen! It was created as the very first "habitat for humanity." Look: The first day He created light, the first essential to life. Read it for yourself. After five days of preparation, on the sixth day, "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every thing that moves on the earth. And God said, See I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." Surely then, it's true what we read in the 115th Psalm verse 16, "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth He has given to the children of men."
Most of us have known from our high school science classes what A. Cressy Morrison wrote about our environment. In his book, Seven Reasons Why a Scientist Believes in God, he wrote these words, "The earth rotates on its axis at the rate of about one thousand miles an hour. If it turned at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, our days and nights, of course, would be ten times as long, and the summer sun would burn up our vegetation every day, and every sprout that even might have survived, would freeze in such a long night. The sun, with a surface temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, is just far enough away so that this "eternal fire" warms us just enough and not too much... [If the temperature on earth had changed as much as fifty degrees or did change maybe as much as 50 degrees on the average, for a single year, all vegetation--and man with it would be roasted or frozen. The earth travels around the sun at eighteen miles per second. If the rate of revolution had been, say, either six miles or forty miles each day, we would be too far from the sun or too close for our forms of life to exist..."
It's elementary then that the earth is tilted at an angle of twenty-three degrees, which gives us our seasons. Spring for planting, summer for growing, fall for harvest and winter for replenishing. When a university professor (an atheist) marveled at that I asked the question, "How did it happen to be tilted at an angle of twenty-three degrees?" His answer? "Oh, I know what you're going to say." David, the psalmist said it in praise to God, "You visit the earth, he said and water it: the river of God is full of water. You provide their grain. For so You have prepared it. You water its ridges abundantly. You settle its furrows; You make it soft with showers, You bless its growth" (Psalm 65 verses 9 and 10), If the earth were not tilted so, it would unproductive, even uninhabitable.
There's a passage in Hebrews that relates powerfully to the necessity of a Designer. It's Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 4. It says, "Every house is built by someone." Why you'd believe that if you had read it a builder's magazine, wouldn't you? Houses don't just spring up, do they? Well, "Every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God." But the verse before that one, says, "He who built the house has more honor than the house." Oh yes! "Who built your house? I love it! I'd like him to build one for us!" It's true of Him who built the universe, too.
Look: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Psalm 19 verses 1 to 4).
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast" (Psalm 33 verses 6 to 9).
Yes! Even more glorious than the heavens and the earth, the works of God's hands, is the meticulous designing that went into the planning. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man" That’s Romans chapter 1 verses 20 to 23). Design demands a designer, my friend, and the Designer gets more glory and more honor than the created thing. Let us pray. Thank you, Father for the beautiful and indescribable habitation in which we live. Oh, how thankful we are that you prepared it for us. And it was ready for us when we came. We thank you Father for the laws by which it operates. They are an expression of Your invisible, but Your unlimited knowledge and wisdom. We thank you for all of it, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Perhaps some of the things that we have considered today will encourage us all. But particularly, some of the younger generation that we mentioned in the beginning, to re-think their beliefs about the existence of God. "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They have done abominable works, there is none who does good." (That's the 14th Psalm verse 1.) This is thought to be a psalm of David. But, while God uses people as "penman," for His messages, this is His message. So, the strong and sometimes what appears to be an offensive word, "fool," is God's word in this instance. It conveys the thought that God intended it to convey. It doesn't mean what we sometimes think it means. It doesn't mean "blockhead," or "dunce," or "idiot." It's used here to say "it's "folly" or "imprudent" or ?"a mistake," to say "There is no God."
Well, why is it so that is a mistake to say there is no God? The answer's in the context. Such people become morally corrupt, they are presently so, or they will become so. "Why," you ask, "is that true?" Well, it's because, left to himself to write or to form his own moral code, his ethical standards, without God's guidance, man has always been corrupt. Jeremiah explained it this way: He said, "O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps." (Jeremiah chapter10 verse 23).
My friend, I want to thank you for being with us today. The message is given today with the prayer that it will encourage unbelievers to consider God, and consider Him seriously. And if we can help you in any way, whatever way we can we want to do so. And we pray that God will use this message to turn our present society to His way of life. We believe that the life Jesus lived --and taught us to live, is the best way that humanity has ever known. If you're not a Christian, I hope you will believe in His Son Jesus Christ, and repent of your sins today, get your life turned around, obey the Lord in baptism, put Him on and begin living the new life that the Bible teaches. Mark chapter 16 verse16. Acts chapter 2 verse 38. II Corinthians 5:17 and other places. If we can assist you, let us know. A free copy of this message titled, Design Demands A Designer, on CD or audio tape or in printed form, simply mail your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. By e-mail it's Searchtv@aol.com. The toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. We plan to be back next week. I hope you can be with us then. God bless you. We love you. |