Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190010A
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00:01 The big questions of life...
00:02 Where did we come from? 00:04 Why are we here? 00:05 And where are we going? 00:32 Well in this session we're going to talk about 00:34 why I think that evolution has one foot in the grave 00:38 and another on a banana peeling. 00:40 It's not able to answer the big questions of life: 00:43 Where did we come from? 00:45 Why are we here? 00:46 And where are we going? 00:48 I'm telling you that the evidence today that points 00:52 back to the Creator is more powerful 00:55 than ever before. 00:57 Evolutionists today are being confronted 00:59 with their own science. 01:00 And many of them don't know what to do. 01:03 It's almost like there's a religion of evolution out there 01:07 that they're going to defend it no matter what. 01:11 But I believe that the Bible 01:13 is really the source of those answers. 01:15 There's no conflict between science and Christianity. 01:20 It actually was Christianity, the New Testament, 01:22 that gave rise to investigation. 01:24 Some of the greatest early scientists, like Isaac Newton 01:28 and others, were great men of God. 01:30 They loved the Lord. 01:32 And they believed that science was simply 01:34 finding out about God's creation. 01:38 So today we want to talk about that. 01:40 Because the Bible itself makes some pretty strong 01:42 powerful declarations about our origins, 01:46 and about where we came from, and how we got here. 01:50 Genesis 1:1 is a very powerful, a very powerful statement. 01:55 It says, "In the beginning God created..." 01:58 So it says there's a beginning. 02:00 "In the beginning God created..." 02:03 So obviously God had to be before the beginning 02:05 because He created and started it. 02:08 "In the beginning God created the heavens," the universe, 02:12 "and the earth." 02:14 God created time in the beginning. 02:17 He created space, the heavens. 02:20 He created matter, the earth. 02:23 Science today will tell you that they believe the universe 02:25 is made up of those three things: 02:27 time, space, and matter. 02:30 But Jesus is also declared to be the great Creator. 02:35 The apostle John makes an astounding statement 02:38 about Jesus in John 1:1-5. 02:44 He says, "In the beginning was the Word..." 02:46 The Word, meaning, Jesus. 02:48 "In the beginning was the Word..." 02:49 So He was there in the beginning. 02:51 He wasn't created. 02:53 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God..." 02:59 So God and the Word are with each other in the beginning 03:05 as they create the heavens and the earth. 03:08 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 03:12 and the Word was God." 03:16 Now that's a very powerful statement. 03:18 Can we understand this great wonderful heavenly trio 03:22 that expresses itself as one God? 03:25 We worship one God made up of three unique beings 03:30 who are united together. 03:33 We sometimes call them the Godhead. 03:36 You know, God said in the beginning when He made man, 03:39 He made them male and female. 03:43 Man expressed as two. 03:46 The God of heaven expressed as three. 03:50 You can't explain how three can be one and one can be three, 03:54 but then there's a lot of things I can't understand. 03:56 My mind is just not big enough. 03:58 I can't understand how Jesus could come and be a man. 04:02 I can't grasp that. 04:03 But I praise God for the results of it. 04:06 Some things we just have to accept by faith 04:08 because the human mind isn't able to explain everything. 04:12 In fact, a lot of people get into trouble 04:14 with Scripture because they try to explain things 04:18 that cannot be explained instead of just accepting it by faith. 04:23 So in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 04:25 And John says that, "In the beginning was the Word, 04:29 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 04:33 He was in the beginning with God. 04:36 "All things are made through Him..." 04:38 So God the Father and Christ working together 04:41 for the creation, and the Holy Spirit. 04:44 In the book of Genesis we have the Holy Spirit 04:46 hovering over the face of the earth. 04:49 And it says, "All things were made through Him, 04:53 and without Him..." 04:55 These are very powerful, totally inclusive 04:59 statements, so to speak. 05:00 "...without Him nothing was made that was made." 05:03 So first, all things were made by Him. 05:05 And then just to double down, he says, "And there's nothing 05:08 that's been made that didn't have His hand making it." 05:12 And then it says this: 05:14 "In Him was life, 05:17 and the life was the light of men." 05:19 The reason I have light right now and I can talk to you 05:23 is because that life is not original with me. 05:27 It was borrowed, it was given to me from Christ. 05:31 But in Christ, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, 05:35 our God is life original and unborrowed. 05:42 So as we think about these great claims, 05:44 we just are astounded by these mighty claims. 05:48 So I'd like to say, first of all, that this means that 05:52 there was a beginning to the universe. 05:55 And we can hear that in the Scripture in Psalm 8:1-4. 05:58 Listen to the Lord say, "O Lord, our Lord, 06:01 how excellent is Your name in all the earth, 06:05 who have set Your glory above the heavens!" 06:08 God is above space. 06:11 He's above time. 06:13 He can interject Himself in a time or out of time. 06:16 Can we understand that? No. 06:18 We sometimes use a big word called, transcendent. 06:20 In other words, God can be above the heavens, 06:24 above the earth, above the universe, above space, 06:28 but He can also transition Himself into it. 06:32 He said, "...who have set Your glory above the heavens!" 06:35 "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, 06:40 the moon and the stars, which You have ordained..." 06:43 Then he asked that question, "...what is man 06:46 that You are mindful of him? 06:48 And the son of man that You visit him?" 06:51 Why is it that we are so important to God? 06:55 Why are we so precious to God? 06:57 When we look at the heavens and the earth 06:58 and we seem so small and so tiny, 07:00 how is it that we are important? 07:04 And yet, I want to tell you that we are important. 07:08 Our heavenly Father loves us. 07:11 The Bible says that God stretched out the universe. 07:14 So that's kind of an interesting statement. 07:17 And I'll just read that. 07:19 Isaiah 42:5 says, "Thus says the Lord God, 07:23 who created the heavens and stretched them out..." 07:28 So He stretched out the universe. 07:31 "...who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, 07:34 who gives breath to the people on it, 07:37 and spirit to those who walk in it." 07:42 So God, how He did it, we don't know. 07:46 And I'm not here to defend the Big Bang or not the Big Bang. 07:48 I can only tell you what the Scripture says. 07:51 And it says that God took the heavens and started it 07:54 like a, kind of like a curtain, if you please. 07:57 And of course, you know when you spread a curtain 07:59 out across your window. 08:00 And He says, "I did that to the universe. 08:02 I spread out the heavens." 08:06 Now God created everything for a purpose. 08:09 There's nothing God does. Love has always got a purpose. 08:12 And we need to understand that purpose. 08:13 We need to understand why we're here. 08:15 A lot of people lose purpose in life. 08:17 You know, some people commit suicide because 08:20 they lose purpose. 08:21 They don't think there's any reason for their existence. 08:24 And that's what the evolutionists 08:25 and the atheists will give you. 08:26 If fact, we've got a bunch of new atheists today. 08:30 They really don't have any new information, 08:32 they're just more militant than ever before, 08:34 and they hate Christianity and they hate the Bible. 08:37 And they cherry pick stuff out of the Bible 08:40 and they don't let the context work 08:42 and they don't see the whole thing. 08:43 They make all kinds of crazy claims about the God of heaven 08:47 that are not true. 08:49 And they have, unfortunately, along with evolution 08:52 destroyed the faith of so many people, 08:56 so many young people today. 08:58 They just say, "Well, you know, science tells me..." 09:01 But let me tell you, science is giving them false science. 09:05 It's making claims about things they don't know anything about, 09:08 like the origins of the universe. 09:10 They weren't there, by the way. 09:13 Well, let's go back to the Scripture for just a moment. 09:16 We're created in God's image. 09:18 We have a purpose. 09:20 We have a purpose like Him. 09:22 You know, God wants children. 09:23 That's why He created us; He wants a family. 09:26 Isn't that beautiful? 09:27 That's what love is. Love doesn't want to be alone. 09:30 Love wants to share. 09:32 So God says in Genesis 1, "Let us make man in Our image, 09:37 according to Our likeness." 09:39 He says it twice. 09:41 We're made in the image of God. 09:42 "Let them have dominion..." 09:44 Now dominion means power. 09:46 So God gives us as human beings power to do things, 09:51 to go places, to create things. 09:54 To do all kinds of wonderful things. 09:56 "Let them have dominion..." 09:59 Dominion over what? 10:01 Well let's listen to it. 10:03 It says dominion over the birds of the air. 10:07 God meant for there to be a special relationship 10:09 between us and the creation. 10:11 "...over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, 10:14 over all the earth, 10:16 and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth." 10:18 Do you think that dominion was ever meant to be a 10:21 selfish dominion, to be a hard dominion, to take advantage? 10:24 No. It was meant to be a kind dominion. 10:28 It was to be an unselfish dominion. 10:30 A dominion that brought happiness and joy 10:32 to those under the leadership of human beings. 10:36 But sin has disrupted all of that. 10:39 It's brought misery to the animal kingdom. 10:41 The apostle Paul says in another place that the whole creation 10:44 groans waiting for its redemption. 10:47 And that includes the animals. 10:49 I think about what the animals go through, 10:50 and all the difficulty everywhere. 10:53 And everything today, the whole system has been changed 10:57 because of sin. 11:00 Everything has to die in order to make room for the 11:03 next part that's coming along. 11:04 But some day when Jesus comes that's all going to change. 11:08 It's all going to change. 11:10 So God created man in His own image. 11:12 God is our Father, He wants a family, 11:15 and He created us for His own enjoyment and for our pleasure. 11:20 He wants us to be happy. 11:22 And it says that God formed it. He created it. 11:26 Well the claims of the book of Revelation 11:28 are very much the same. 11:30 The claims of the book of Revelation says, 11:32 and we've talked about this earlier just a little bit, 11:35 Revelation 4:8 is a song we don't have the music to, 11:38 but we have the words, "Holy, holy, holy 11:42 Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" 11:48 And verse 11, "You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory 11:53 and honor and power." 11:56 And here's the reason. 11:57 "For You have created all things, 12:00 and by Your will they exist and were created." 12:05 There's three discoveries of modern science, I believe, 12:09 and many other people are saying the same thing, 12:11 that prove the existence of God. 12:15 So let's start talking about those three things. 12:18 First of all, there was a beginning to the universe. 12:21 Now the reason I'm telling you this is because 12:25 there used to be that people would say, 12:26 the evolutionists would say, "Oh no, the universe has 12:30 been here forever. 12:32 The material things, you know, matter and energy 12:35 can be interchanged, so it's eternal. 12:38 It's been here since eternity. 12:40 It will be here for eternity." 12:44 But then there came a discovery. 12:47 A discover by a man by the name of Hubble. 12:49 Have you ever heard of the Hubble telescope? 12:52 Well it's brought marvelous pictures of the universe. 12:55 And it was named after this man. 12:56 He was an astronomer. 12:59 And he discovered something as he observed the universe. 13:04 He observed that the universe was actually expanding. 13:10 That's right. 13:11 It wasn't still. 13:13 It wasn't just static. 13:15 It was expanding. 13:19 Now that means, if it is expanding 13:23 then you could also go backwards 13:27 and figure out that it had a beginning. 13:30 This was an astounding discovery by Mr. Hubble. 13:35 But it fit right in, of course, with Genesis. 13:40 Genesis, "In the beginning God created 13:45 the heavens and the earth." 13:48 Everybody knows the universe had a beginning. |
Revised 2019-08-07