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Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000028S
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00:01 - When Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" came out in 1818,
00:02 it rattled a lot of people. 00:03 The question is, though, 00:05 what does this book have to do with the Bible? 00:07 [chill introspective music] 00:28 The story of "Frankenstein," 00:30 which was first published 00:31 more than 200 years ago back in 1818, 00:34 is just a work of fiction. 00:35 It never actually happened. 00:38 It's the story of a scientist 00:40 by the name of Victor Frankenstein, 00:42 who tries to figure out the secret of life 00:43 by cobbling dead tissue together 00:46 into an oversized human body and then reanimating it. 00:50 The basic building blocks for his experiment 00:52 came from, and I quote, 00:54 "The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse," 00:57 pretty grisly stuff. 00:59 The author, Mary Shelley, 01:00 apparently gathered the ideas for this book 01:03 after visiting Frankenstein Castle in Germany, 01:06 where back in the 1600 an alchemists and occult practitioner 01:11 was engaged in all kinds of strange experiments. 01:14 So there was a lot of speculation 01:16 about what he was doing inside the castle. 01:19 Add to that the fact that philosophers 01:21 and scientists of that day were absolutely fascinated 01:25 by the prospect of discovering the secrets of life, 01:28 and, well, Shelley's imagination went wild. 01:32 When her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, 01:34 and Lord Byron, another famous poet 01:37 suggested a competition to see which one of them 01:40 could write the best horror story back in 1816, 01:44 she put her ideas to paper. 01:47 The result was one of the most famous 01:49 horror stories of all time. [thunder crashes] 01:51 And what you'll find is that the book 01:52 has a lot of references to the philosophy 01:55 and literature of Mary Shelley's day. 01:57 And because it deals with the subject of life 02:00 and our inability to master its secrets, 02:04 the book also has a lot of religious and biblical allusions. 02:08 Take, for example, this speech that comes from the monster 02:11 who is so hideous 02:13 that the world wants nothing to do with him. 02:16 The creature somehow finds a bag of books out in the forest 02:19 and somehow teaches himself to read. 02:22 And this is how he suddenly becomes conversant 02:25 in the great classics. 02:26 And he mentions in the book 02:28 that he's also read John Milton's "Paradise Lost," 02:31 and that leads the monster to express this thought. 02:35 He says, "Like Adam, I was created apparently united 02:39 by no link to any other being in existence; 02:42 but his state was far different from mine 02:44 in every other respect. 02:46 He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, 02:49 happy and prosperous, 02:51 guarded by the especial care of his Creator; 02:54 he was allowed to converse with, 02:56 and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature: 03:00 but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. 03:03 Many times I considered Satan 03:06 as the fitter emblem of my condition; 03:08 for often, like him, 03:09 when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, 03:12 the bitter gall of envy rose within me." 03:15 The monster in this novel 03:17 realizes he is not the work of God, 03:19 but the work of a man who is playing God. 03:22 And that's exactly where this novel 03:24 touched on some of our very worst fears. 03:27 As the world came out of the Dark Ages 03:29 and launched itself into the Enlightenment 03:31 and the Scientific Revolution, 03:33 we were tempted to believe that human beings 03:36 are capable of just about anything. 03:39 Our worst problems, we thought, 03:40 were gonna be solved through sheer ingenuity, 03:43 through discovery and logic and science. 03:46 And maybe, just maybe, 03:49 we might even unlock the secrets of life and death. 03:52 And if we could do that, maybe we could finally quit dying. 03:57 But here in Mary Shelley's book, 03:59 a work of fiction from a very active imagination, 04:02 we suddenly get this warning that maybe dabbling 04:05 in the secrets of the universe is a really bad idea, 04:09 especially when we consider 04:11 just how faulty human beings are. 04:14 We almost never seem to be able to foresee 04:16 all the horrible unintended consequences 04:19 that come from even our very best intentions. 04:22 In the case of Victor Frankenstein, 04:25 that unforeseen consequence is a horrible monster 04:28 who ends up ruining the rest of his life. 04:31 And in our case, who knows where it's going to lead? 04:35 It's the same with another 19th century horror novel, 04:39 this one written by Robert Louis Stevenson. 04:42 Even if you've never read this one, 04:43 I guarantee you've heard of his book, 04:44 "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." 04:49 It's the story of a man, Dr. Jekyll, 04:51 who is bothered by the fact 04:52 that he seems to have this propensity for evil 04:55 that keeps coming back again and again and again, 04:58 no matter how hard he tries to suppress it. 05:01 So he heads into the lab, 05:03 he creates a potion he hopes will drive the evil tendencies 05:06 out of his life. 05:08 But what happens in the story 05:10 is that he splits himself into two separate identities, 05:12 one good and the other one a moral monster 05:16 who wreaks havoc on the neighborhood. 05:18 So again, it's the story of a human being 05:21 trying to conquer the worst things about human nature 05:23 by using logic and science, 05:26 and the results are disastrous. 05:28 So Mr. Stevenson managed to issue 05:31 yet another 19th century warning 05:34 that human ingenuity has some, 05:36 well, rather frightening limits. 05:39 It's really the problem of unintended consequences, 05:42 and I guarantee this is something you've seen happen 05:44 many times over the course of your life. 05:47 The government comes up with a solution to a sticky problem, 05:50 but the end result is worse 05:51 than the problem was in the first place. 05:53 Medical science works on a solution to a situation, 05:56 say like the discomfort of morning sickness. 05:59 And the end result is the horror of thalidomide babies. 06:02 Now, please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. 06:05 I'm not some anti-science Luddite 06:07 who doesn't believe in modern medicine, far from it. 06:10 I've been the beneficiary of modern medical technique 06:13 more times than I can remember. 06:15 But what I am pointing out 06:17 is how our best intentions as humanity 06:19 always seem powerless to stop the very big problems. 06:23 Maybe not the little ones, the everyday situations, 06:25 but the biggest problems. 06:27 And at the top of that list of big problems, 06:29 you'll find things like our natural propensity toward evil. 06:33 And of course the big problem, which is death. 06:37 That was at least part of the point being made 06:39 in some of these 19th century horror novels. 06:42 Let me give you an example from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" 06:45 and see if this doesn't at least match 06:47 some of your own personal experience. 06:49 This passage is the good doctor 06:51 trying to figure out why he seems to love 06:53 good and evil at the same time. 06:55 And it says this, 06:58 "It was on the moral side, and in my own person, 07:00 that I learned to recognize 07:01 the thorough and primitive duality of man." 07:04 In other words, 07:06 that we seem to be both good and evil at the same time. 07:08 "I saw that of the two natures 07:10 that contended in the field of my consciousness, 07:13 even if I could rightly be said to be either, 07:16 it was only because I was radically both. 07:19 If each, I told myself, 07:20 could be housed in separate identities, 07:22 life would be relieved of all that was unbearable." 07:26 Now, in some respects, 07:28 that's not a lot different 07:29 than the writings of the Apostle Paul, 07:31 who points out that he also struggled 07:33 with two distinct natures, 07:34 two different forces operating on his heart. 07:37 On the one hand, 07:38 he says he wanted to follow the will of God, 07:40 but on the other, 07:41 he found this irresistible force 07:43 that kept pulling him in the opposite direction. 07:45 He says in this agonizing moment in Romans chapter seven, 07:50 "I find then a law, that evil is present within me, 07:53 the one who wills to do good." 07:57 The authors of both these two books, 07:59 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Frankenstein," 08:03 are kind of taking us to the same inescapable point. 08:06 When human beings try to tackle 08:08 the really big questions of life, 08:09 like the problem of suffering or the problem of death, 08:13 for some reason, we find ourselves powerless. 08:16 And some of the science we did in the 20th century 08:20 seems to confirm that. 08:21 I'll be right back after this. 08:25 - [Announcer] Dragons, beasts, cryptic statues. 08:29 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 08:34 If you've ever read Daniel: a Revelation 08:36 and come away scratching your head, you're not alone. 08:39 Our free Focus on Prophecy guides 08:41 are designed to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 08:44 and deepen your understanding 08:46 of God's plan for you and our world. 08:48 Study online or request them by mail 08:51 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 08:55 - Back in 1912, 08:56 a French scientist by the name of Alexis Carrel 08:58 was working at the Rockefeller Institute in New York 09:02 when he took a bit of tissue from an embryonic chicken heart 09:05 and bathed it in a solution of chicken blood plasma. 09:08 Now, I know that sounds like the work of a mad scientist, 09:12 but trust me, there was a method to his madness. 09:15 He was looking for a way to culture cells 09:17 that would enable us to start conquering 09:20 some of the worst diseases. 09:23 The cells in that solution 09:24 started separating and multiplying, 09:26 and after moving them to containers 18 different times, 09:29 all of the cells miraculously were still alive. 09:32 In fact, Carrel describes these heart cells 09:36 as still beating. 09:38 And they were still alive a couple of years after 09:40 the great scientist himself died. 09:43 The conclusion that everybody came to 09:45 was that if you remove living cells from an organism, 09:48 say from an animal or even a human being, 09:51 they could go on living practically forever 09:54 provided that you kept them nourished. 09:57 Unfortunately, though, 09:59 the cell culture he created didn't actually live long enough 10:02 to determine whether or not the cells were in fact immortal 10:05 because his assistant Albert 10:07 disposed of the culture back in 1946. 10:11 But still, you got to admit 10:13 34 years is a pretty impressive lifespan 10:16 for a clump of cells in a beaker. 10:18 So even though the cells all perished in 1946, 10:22 everybody assumed they would have been immortal. 10:26 And for a really long time, 10:27 this was considered established science. 10:29 Cells could be immortal. 10:32 In fact, in 1951, 10:34 a cancer researcher by the name of George Gey 10:37 appeared to do the same thing with human cells. 10:40 And that was exciting because having an everlasting 10:44 and always growing supply of human cells for experiments 10:48 was really, really important. 10:50 It enabled researchers to do things 10:52 like study how cancer begins, 10:54 or it allowed them to infect some of those cells 10:57 with viruses so they could develop 10:59 life-saving vaccines against monstrous diseases 11:01 like, well, rubella or polio. 11:05 But then in 1960, 11:07 another researcher by the name of Leonard Hayflick 11:10 suddenly noticed something really troubling 11:12 in his own collection of cell cultures. 11:15 Every time a collection of cells grew too big, 11:19 he would split it and move some of the colony into new jars. 11:22 But after a number of years, 11:24 one of those collections suddenly turned murky 11:27 and the cells appeared to be disintegrating. 11:29 They were dying. 11:31 At first, he wondered if some kind of contaminant 11:33 had made its way into his doomed colony. 11:36 He wondered if maybe the bottles 11:38 hadn't been washed properly, 11:39 or maybe an unseen virus was lurking in the cells 11:43 causing them to die. 11:45 But it turns out none of that was true. 11:48 There was no contamination. 11:50 And eventually he realized something important: 11:53 cells, just like you and me, get old and die. 11:57 They weaken over time. 11:59 A cell's ability to replicate 12:01 gradually slows down and stops, 12:04 and their resistance to infection also plummets over time. 12:08 The idea that human cells could live forever in the lab 12:11 was nothing but a myth, 12:13 and Leonard Hayflick established a principle 12:15 that we now call the Hayflick Limit. 12:19 The Hayflick Limit says that a colony of human cells 12:21 will divide only somewhere between 40 and 60 times 12:25 before the cells finally die. 12:28 With each passing generation of cells, 12:30 the telomeres, 12:31 the little caps at the end of your DNA 12:33 that protect it from damage, 12:34 well, those get shorter 12:36 and eventually the cells begin to die. 12:39 So what that really means for you and me 12:42 is that it's not just our bodies as a collective whole 12:45 that are getting older, 12:47 aging is a process that happens at the cellular level. 12:50 What this discovery did 12:52 was open up a whole new field of research 12:53 in the area of aging and death. 12:56 In fact, if I remember this right, 12:58 some of Hayflick's children 13:00 are now specialists in that field. 13:02 And of course, what they're hoping to do 13:04 is figure out what causes our cells to age 13:07 and stop that process. 13:09 Because if we can stop it, 13:11 maybe we can finally conquer death 13:13 or at least put it off for a really, really long time. 13:18 Now, there's another interesting development 13:20 that came out of this same field of research, 13:22 and it relates to our attempts to clone animals. 13:25 You might remember back in 1996, 13:28 the scientists at the Roslin Institute 13:30 succeeded in cloning a sheep. 13:32 They named her Dolly. 13:33 And what made Dolly special 13:35 was the fact that she had been created from adult cells 13:38 in her mother's body, 13:40 something that had never, ever been done before. 13:43 But when Dolly was about a year old, 13:45 they discovered something really troubling. 13:48 The telomeres in Dolly's cells 13:51 were much shorter than they were supposed to be 13:53 for a sheep that age. 13:55 So in other words, her cells were older than she was. 13:58 They figured the reason was that her original material 14:01 had come from an adult sheep 14:02 whose telomeres had already been shrinking for a long time. 14:06 And I guess it's almost like what happens 14:09 when you make photocopies of photocopies. 14:11 The first generation might be pretty good 14:13 with minor imperfections, but when you copy the copy, 14:17 more imperfections show up 14:19 and even more in the next generation and so on. 14:22 So Dolly the sheep was a copy of her mother 14:25 and she already carried her mother's imperfections. 14:29 And what we had in a field 14:31 where we were exploring the idea of creating life in a lab 14:34 was the discovery that death is always going to be there. 14:38 And sometimes when we tamper, 14:40 we actually make problems worse. 14:42 Now, again, please, please don't take what I'm saying 14:45 and run to the goalpost of absurdity. 14:47 I am not speaking out against medical research. 14:50 I for one am glad for some of the discoveries 14:53 that came out of Hayflick's lab, 14:55 because he's one of the people who helped eradicate polio 14:58 here in the Western world. 15:00 And thanks to this kind of research, 15:02 smallpox has been wiped off the face of the earth 15:05 and things like stepping on a rusty nail 15:07 no longer threaten our lives. 15:10 But at the same time, 15:12 when we cross that blurry line 15:14 between saving lives and playing God, 15:16 we almost always run into a world of trouble 15:20 because the actual secret of life does not belong to us. 15:25 That was at least part of the warning 15:27 being issued by writers at the dawn of the scientific era. 15:32 When Victor Frankenstein in that story tried to create life, 15:35 he made a monster. 15:36 When Dr. Jekyll tried to eradicate evil 15:39 from his life through ingenuity, 15:41 he made the problem worse. 15:43 And now our best attempts at immortality 15:46 are coming up, well, unsurprisingly empty. 15:50 I mean, sure, we've extended the human lifespan 15:53 by sharply mitigating our exposure to risk, 15:56 but going from 60-some years of life to 80-some years 15:59 is hardly eternal life. 16:01 And who knows, maybe we will push the boundaries 16:04 even a little bit further and I'll be glad for it. 16:07 I mean, the other day I found out 16:09 that my childhood piano teacher 16:11 died at the ripe old age of 105. 16:13 And the people living in Loma Linda, California, 16:16 a bunch of Seventh-day Adventists 16:17 who take healthy living and biblical principles seriously, 16:21 they're outliving most people by a decade or more. 16:24 So extending life a little bit is possible, 16:28 but that's not eternal life 16:30 because that's a prospect that seems to be beyond our grasp. 16:35 Today, we talk about artificial intelligence, 16:37 the ability to create computers that know how to learn. 16:40 And some of them, to be honest, 16:42 are getting, well, a little spooky 16:43 because they create the illusion 16:46 there's a ghost in the machine, 16:47 some kind of intelligent presence. 16:50 And if that was true 16:52 and a computer could be programmed to keep repairing itself, 16:55 some people are convinced 16:57 that might be a form of eternal life, 17:01 except for the fact that it's not really life at all. 17:05 I know that science fiction has programmed us to believe 17:07 that machines might become self-aware 17:09 at some point in the future, 17:11 that they might become sentient beings, 17:13 preachers that can actually sit around 17:15 and contemplate their own existence. 17:17 But they are not. 17:20 I like the question that Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths 17:22 ask their book, "Algorithms to Live By." 17:26 Here's what they say. 17:28 "Why are four-year-olds, for instance, 17:30 still better than million-dollar supercomputers 17:33 at a host of cognitive tasks, 17:35 including vision, language, and causal reasoning?" 17:39 Now, honestly, 17:40 I doubt they're suggesting the same thing I am 17:43 because these guys seem hopeful 17:45 that we might actually get there. 17:46 But I maintain that computers will never be entirely human 17:51 because they're incapable of real, 17:53 conscious, self-aware thought. 17:56 It's not just cognitive tasks 17:58 and causal reasoning that are a problem, either. 18:00 It's the fact that computers 18:01 are really nothing but programmed algorithms 18:04 and human beings are certainly 18:06 something more than just programming. 18:10 We do not seem to have the capacity, folks, 18:12 to actually create real life. 18:15 So why did Alexis Carrel's chicken cells 18:18 appear to be eternal? 18:20 I'll be right back after this to tell you why. 18:25 - [Announcer] Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 18:26 we're committed to creating top quality programming 18:29 for the whole family. 18:30 Like our audio adventure series, "Discovery Mountain." 18:33 "Discovery Mountain" is a Bible-based program 18:36 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 18:38 Your family will enjoy the faith building stories 18:41 from this small mountain summer camp and town. 18:44 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 18:46 and fresh content every week, 18:48 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 18:55 - Scientists were completely baffled 18:57 by Hayflick's discovery that disembodied cells 19:00 are not in fact eternal. 19:03 So if Hayflick was right 19:05 and in our cells naturally get old and die, 19:08 then why did Alexis Carrel's chicken cells 19:11 appear to live forever? 19:13 You've got to understand something. 19:15 The belief in immortal chicken cells 19:17 at that point in history was so strong 19:19 that people actually warned Hayflick 19:21 not to reveal his discovery 19:22 because they thought it would kill his career. 19:25 And that of course is very telling. 19:28 Our drive to overcome the prospect of death 19:30 is so overpowering that when we think we're onto a solution, 19:34 when we think we're within spitting distance 19:36 of real immortality and somebody's challenges our hope, 19:40 most people want to shoot the messenger. 19:42 Hayflick did it anyway. 19:44 He risked the possibility that revealing his findings 19:47 would actually kill his career. 19:49 Now, I know this sounds like 19:52 a chicken crossing the road joke, 19:54 but why did those chicken cells appear to be immortal? 19:58 The answer was contamination. 20:01 Hayflick determined that the fluid 20:03 Carrel was using to nourish those cells 20:06 was contaminated with new cells, 20:08 and those new cells started replicating 20:10 as the old ones died, 20:12 and that created the illusion of immortality. 20:15 It turns out the old cells had been dying all along. 20:20 And sure enough in the 1960s, 20:22 one of Carrel's former assistants 20:24 confirmed Hayflick's suspicions. 20:26 She had actually told Carrel this is what was happening, 20:29 and she had been told by the powers that be, 20:33 "Never mention that again or you're gonna get fired." 20:36 So it turns out there never was immortality, 20:39 which brings me to the Book of Ecclesiastes, 20:42 which spends a lot of time examining the subject of death. 20:46 We're reminded in Ecclesiastes nine verse five that, 20:49 "the living know that they will die." 20:53 We know, all of us, full well 20:55 that nobody has ever escaped the clutches of death, 20:58 but there's a big part of us 20:59 that kind of refuses to believe it. 21:02 We still think that somehow, someday, 21:04 we're gonna conquer the grave 21:05 and learn how to live forever. 21:07 On another show last season, 21:09 I discussed the way that some people 21:10 have turned to cryogenics, 21:11 actually freezing their heads when they die, 21:14 hoping to be thawed out 21:16 when science finally finds a cure for whatever killed them. 21:18 And they plan to be reattached, I guess, 21:21 to a cloned body and then live forever. 21:25 But I'm gonna wager this: it's not gonna happen 21:28 because you and I do not hold the secret of life. 21:31 The way the Book of Genesis tells the story, 21:33 the secret of life belongs exclusively to the Creator. 21:38 It says this. 21:39 "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground 21:42 and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; 21:46 and man became a living being." 21:49 You and I have absolutely no power to do that. 21:52 We have failed, utterly failed, 21:54 to generate any kind of life. 21:56 And that realization generates 21:58 one of our most fundamental scientific principles. 22:01 You just can't get life from non-life. 22:05 And yet somehow we're still trying to do it, 22:08 even though we know at the level of pure empirical science 22:12 it never, ever happens. 22:15 You know, there was a time historically 22:17 when people believed that the spontaneous generation of life 22:20 really occurred. 22:22 After all, it appeared to them that a lump of dead meat 22:24 appeared to magically give birth to maggots. 22:27 But then in 1665, as you probably learned in high school, 22:31 Francesco Redi conducted an experiment 22:33 that proved beyond any shadow of a doubt 22:36 that the maggots were coming from flies 22:39 and not spontaneously generating from the meat. 22:42 Then 1864, Louis Pasteur proved 22:46 that microorganisms do not magically appear out of nothing. 22:49 And now today, it's established science 22:52 that life does not come from non-life. 22:57 And apparently, it also doesn't come from our ingenuity. 23:00 The art of reviving the nearly dead or the newly dead 23:04 is not the same thing as creating life. 23:07 And we should probably note that we find ourselves 23:09 incapable of reviving, well, the decidedly dead. 23:12 Why? It's because the secret of life does not belong to us. 23:17 The opening words of the Gospel of John 23:19 are some of the most profound language in the Bible. 23:21 And here's what it says where it's talking about Christ. 23:25 It says, "In the beginning was the Word, 23:28 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 23:31 Now, we could probably dedicate 23:32 an entire show to that sentence because it's so powerful. 23:36 And I think maybe we'll do that on another day. 23:38 It continues, 23:39 "He was in the beginning with God. 23:42 All things were made through Him, 23:44 and without Him nothing was made that was made. 23:47 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." 23:51 So in other words, 23:52 there is only one source of life in this universe. 23:55 Here's another statement that Paul makes 23:57 over in Colossians chapter one. 23:59 And I'm pretty sure you and I 24:00 have looked at this passage before. 24:01 And again, it's speaking about Christ. 24:04 It says, "For by Him all things were created 24:08 that are in heaven and that are on earth, 24:10 visible and invisible, 24:11 whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. 24:15 All things were created through Him and for Him. 24:19 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist." 24:25 What that's saying 24:26 is the only reason that anything even continues to live, 24:30 well, also the Creator. 24:33 You and I are not just biological machines 24:35 that were set in motion by a God 24:37 who then left to go and do something else 24:38 somewhere else in the universe. 24:40 God is not only the original source of life, 24:43 He's the reason that it continues at all. 24:46 And at the end of the day, 24:47 that's the reason you and I are powerless 24:49 to solve the problem of death. 24:51 It's because the power of life does not belong to us. 24:57 I'll be right back after this. 25:01 - [Announcer] Life can throw a lot at us. 25:03 Sometimes we don't have all the answers, 25:07 but that's where the Bible comes in. 25:09 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 25:12 Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 25:14 we've created the Discover Bible guides 25:16 to be your guide to the Bible. 25:18 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 25:20 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions. 25:23 And they're absolutely free. 25:25 So jump online now, 25:27 or give us a call and start your journey of discovery. 25:31 - You know, I find it fascinating 25:32 how the basic story of Genesis 25:34 is found in almost every culture on the face of the planet. 25:38 Many years ago, 25:39 there was a guy by the name of Alonzo Bunker 25:41 who used to spend time listening to the stories 25:43 told around the campfire by the Karen people of Myanmar, 25:46 and fortunately he wrote some of them down. 25:48 I mean, listen to this story he published back in 1902. 25:52 The Karen said, "When Yuah," 25:54 that's the name of their creator god, 25:56 which is suspiciously close to the Hebrew word Yahweh, 25:59 "When Yuah had made Tha-nai and Ee-u, 26:01 he placed them in a garden, 26:03 and gave them commandments saying, 26:04 'In the garden I have made for you 26:06 seven different kinds of trees, 26:07 bearing seven different kinds of fruit. 26:09 Among the seven, one tree is not good to eat. 26:12 Eat not its fruit. 26:13 If you eat, you will become old, 26:14 you will sicken, you will die.'" 26:16 This basic story permeates our human existence. 26:20 All around the world, all of us realize, 26:22 like the Book of Ecclesiastes says, 26:24 that we're gonna die and it bothers us. 26:27 All of us realize there's something wrong with death. 26:30 So we spend our lives pushing back on it, 26:32 hoping that somehow the promise of death 26:34 will never come for us. 26:36 I'm reminded of that famous poem by Dylan Thomas, 26:39 one of my favorites. 26:40 "Do not go gentle into that good night, 26:43 old age should burn and rave at close of day; 26:45 rage, rage against the dying of the light." 26:49 But you know you know and I know that try as we might, 26:52 you can't fix this problem. 26:55 You rage all you want. You're still going to die. 26:58 And I wanna suggest that scientifically speaking, 27:00 eternal life is always going to be beyond our reach. 27:04 It's always going to be elusive 27:05 because the secret of life is not ours. 27:08 We might be able to prolong life, 27:10 we might be able to generate pregnancy in a test tube, 27:12 we might even be able to print replacement organs 27:15 with a 3D printer and use them to save a life. 27:18 But at the end of the day, everybody still dies. 27:20 The specter of death is such an integral part of who we are 27:24 that we even find it down at the cellular level. 27:27 Our attempts to finally conquer it have ended in failure 27:30 or even catastrophe. 27:31 And the warnings of a 19th century horror novelist 27:34 who could predict the disaster that comes from playing God, 27:38 well, those warnings still make really good sense. 27:42 There are things that will always, always belong to God 27:45 and not to us. 27:46 Here's the good news, though. 27:48 That same Creator has not left us without hope, 27:51 and He offers to fix the problem for us. 27:53 In fact, the Bible ends with this promise. 27:55 "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. 27:58 There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. 28:01 There shall be no more pain, 28:03 for the former things have passed away." 28:05 Let me ask you this. 28:07 Who do you really wanna trust with your future? 28:09 I'm Shawn Boonstra. This has been "Authentic." 28:12 [chill introspective music] |
Revised 2021-10-27