"I've done it!" cried out the monkey. "I have finally created a device that proves the principle of evolution!"
Have you ever thought of just how much work has gone into the creation of our physical beings?
This message is the first in a series of messages which is designed to help you achieve a deeper faith by giving you an intellectual foundation on which your faith can rest. If you are not a Christian, then it's meant to do the exact same thing.
God expects us to have faith. What He never expects us to have is BLIND faith. Believing what someone has told you simply because they have told you is nothing short of foolishness. Blind faith is what perpetuates the cults of the world, atheism included. God has called us to have an educated and informed faith.
What is the difference? Let's say you have two cats boarding a submarine. One of them has ridden in the submarine many times before. He knows from experience that the sub will not leak. The other has never been on the sub. He has no idea whether it will leak or not. He has said that he believes it because someone else told him that it is seaworthy, but he doesn't actually know this. Who is more likely to actually get on the ship? Once on the ship, who is going to be at peace during the ride?
If we're going to put our faith in God, the first thing we have to know is that there IS a God.
Consider this: Your body is one the most advanced machines in the universe. If you want to take that as meaning your real life body or your form here in imagined reality, it really doesn't make any difference. All of our projected forms are based on the same technology which makes up our real-life bodies. And a formidable technology it is, too. It is able to repair itself, able to combine with another in order to copy itself while giving the copy a completely unique set of characteristics. It is able to disassemble similar machines and use their components in itself in the same process by which it takes in fuel. It has an onboard computer more subtle and complex than a cray. It is able to detect complex patterns in light and sound. It also detects motion, heat, numerous chemicals and the proximity of external objects. It is fully autonomous, needing no direct control from outside, and usually requires only minimal tweaking to last five times the lifespan of most automobiles.
Who has ever managed to build a machine that even comes close to the level of technology represented by the animal body?
Evolutionists would have you believe that it all happened by accident. That's like saying that a hurricane blew through a junkyard and assembled a 747 by accident. One look at a 747 and you know that this is impossible. A machine that complex can only be built my an intelligent being. How much more complex are our bodies than a jet plane?
According to the theory of evolution, life had it's beginning when lightning struck the primordial soup, resulting in the formation of amino acids. But Amino acids are not life. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of protein. Proteins are the tools of living cells as well as many of their components. However, for a protein to work, it must be constructed just the right way, using a carefully constructed string of amino acids folded in just the right way. Fold a protein the wrong way and it becomes an incurable disease. It is not a living thing, but it becomes a poison that interferes with any cell it touches. We call them "prions", and they include such horrors as Alzheimer's and Mad cow disease.
The spontaneous creation of a working protein from random amino acids would be like pouring a cup of alphabet soup and finding that it says "HELLO SORRY TO TROUBLE YOU BUT I JUST THOUGHT YOUD LIKE TO KNOW THAT THIS PARTICULAR BOWL OF SOUP IS LONG PAST ITS EXPIRATION DATE AND PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE EATEN". If you saw that in your soup, you'd assume someone was playing jokes on you, wouldn't you? That kind of order arising from a random assembly of letters just doesn't happen unless it is directed by a living, intelligent creature.
Now I don't know how evolutionists make the leap from the collection of amino acids to DNA. DNA is not made of amino acids. It is a completely different kind of chemical. I'm sure there must be a theory, but I've never heard it. But after DNA comes into existence, it replicates and replicates as it gradually evolves to the state where it begins to build cells around itself. anyone who has studdied DNA and how it works knows that this is impossible. DNA by itself is rather like a windows startup disk. By itself, it is useless. A disk doesn't do a darn thing until you put it into a working computer. Likewise, DNA cannot work without a large number of molecule-sized machines helping it out. It needs free neucleotides, both DNA and RNA. It needs specialized spindles which it can wrap around to conserve space while still allowing access to genes. It needs Palimerases, the molecules which zip and unzip it and insert neucleotides. It needs transfer RNA with amino acids attached. It need ribosomes in order to build proteins. It needs mitochondria to provide energy for the processes. It needs those tiny devices which carry RNA and other molecules on infinitessimaly thin highways from the neucleus to the cell. DNA cannot work without all of these.
When we look at the incredible nanotechnologies from which we are made, how can we come to any conclusion but that we have been created by an incredibly intelligent and powerful being?
But there is more we can learn from our bodies. Take for example the fact that we require symbiotic bacteria to perform many of the body's functions, especially digesting food. Such integration of life forms shows a level of wisdom that is almost unfathomable. Not only did the creator make our amazing bodies, but he created a host of tiny creatures to help take care of them.
God provided us with everything we need to survive, but he did much more than simply provide. He made it pleasant to do the things we need to do. It is highly enjoyable to eat. It is enjoyable to sleep. It is extremely enjoyable to procreate. Even drinking and breathing can be highly enjoyable.
And yet He didn't just stop with the necessities. I'd like to include an illustration taken from the text of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty". Observing a rose, Sherlock Holmes observes: "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion. Our highest assurance of the goodness of providence seems to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. It's smell and color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."
Even the world itself is a sign to us that God is a wise and loving creator. It is just right for life to exist. It is neither too hot nor too cold. It has just the right amount of water. The atmosphere has just enough carbon dioxide to support photosynthesis but not enough to be toxic to animals. The soil is full of chemicals which readily become nutrients first for plants and then for us. It is tilted just enough to create zones in which every living thing can thrive at its proper lattitude.
By studying His creation, what can we deduce about God? We know that He is real. He is intelligent beyond our simple comprehension. He is wise, clever, resourceful... He is artistic in many different respects. We can see that He is caring. Not just caring, but loving, giving us all we need and more.
If you do not know the creator, then my challenge to you is this: Take a hard look for yourself at creation and see what you can discover about God. See for yourself that He is real.
For the rest of you, I have a special challenge this week: I'd like you to contact me some time during the week and answer the following question: "How do we know that the bible is true?" I'm going to include the best answers in next week's sermon. Hopefully, this sermon has strengthened the faith of at least some of you. I'd like for us all to work together to strengthen one another's faith in the immediate future.
Thank you for coming and God bless.
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Pastor Oren Otter
March 18, 2006
Today's reading
Genesis 1:25-31
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.