Participants:
Series Code: SCM
Program Code: SCM200004S
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00:01 A great controversy rages between good and evil
00:03 and humanity is caught in the crossfire. 00:05 Satan has crafted his most cunning end-time deceptions 00:08 but his plans are doomed to fail. 00:11 Get ready to anchor your minds in truth 00:13 as the Bible exposes his lies 00:15 and prepares us for our soon-coming Savior. 00:18 And now live from the Campus Hill Church of SDAs 00:22 in Loma Linda, California, we bring you this presentation of: 00:32 Amen and Amen. 00:34 We are here bringing you a message from the Lord 00:39 in the Campus Hill SDA Church. 00:42 Part of 3ABN's Winter Camp Meeting continues, 00:45 the blessings continue. 00:47 And we just want to welcome you and hope that you have been 00:50 blessed thus far, and there are more blessings coming. 00:53 And during this hour we have a message from 00:56 Dr. Tim Standish: Darwin vs. the Creator's Account. 01:03 Also the title is: Delusions, Illusions, and Reality. 01:10 I would like to read to you Dr. Tim Standish's little 01:14 biography because I can't remember all this. 01:18 So: Dr. Tim G. Standish earned a Ph.D. 01:23 in Environmental Biology 01:26 and Public Policy from George Mason University. 01:31 His earlier studies included a M.S. in Biology 01:35 and a B.S. in Zoology from Andrews University. 01:40 Dr. Standish currently holds the rank of Senior Scientist 01:45 at the Geoscience Research Ctr. in Loma Linda, California. 01:50 He also serves as adjunct professor 01:53 in the LLU Earth and Biological Sciences Department 01:59 and the Adventist University of Africa. 02:02 His publications range from The Molecular Basis 02:06 of Cricket Behavior. That's right... you heard it right. 02:09 Cricket Behavior to Turtle Conservation and the Interfaith 02:16 Between Science, Faith, and Public Policy. 02:22 We know that Satan is attacking 02:26 God and His children from different angles - 02:31 different directions - trying to bring before the people 02:35 the idea that God does not exist. 02:39 But today you're going to hear exciting and wonderful things 02:44 and we know that God is real. Amen? 02:48 Amen. Before Dr. Standish 02:54 comes before us with a message we're going to have a song 02:57 that I will tell you about in a moment. 03:00 But before this, we're going to have prayer together. 03:03 So I would like to encourage you to stand with me. 03:05 Let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask for His blessing 03:09 upon all that are here present 03:11 and those that are joining us through the different methods 03:14 that they can watch 3ABN. 03:16 Let us pray together. 03:19 Our loving heavenly Father, 03:22 we thank you for Your goodness and mercy unto us. 03:26 And we thank you that we have the privilege 03:29 of hearing a message that helps us understand 03:33 that You are our Creator. 03:38 We ask You, heavenly Father, to bless 03:41 Dr. Standish with Your Holy Spirit 03:43 that he may speak words from Your throne of grace 03:46 and that it may be a blessing to those that are here with us 03:50 and those that are joining us all over the world. 03:54 We pray that this would draw us close to Jesus. 03:59 And we ask You for a blessing upon all 04:01 in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 04:05 Amen... Amen. 04:07 We now invite Pastor John Lomacang to come forward. 04:10 He will be singing the hymn Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus 04:14 and then the next word you will hear will be that of 04:17 Dr. Tim Standish. God bless you. 04:41 Oh soul, 04:44 are you weary and troubled? 04:49 No light in the darkness 04:54 you see? 04:59 There's life for a look at 05:04 the Savior 05:07 and there's life more abundant 05:12 and free. 05:17 Turn your eyes 05:21 upon Jesus. 05:25 Look full in His wonderful face. 05:33 And the things of earth 05:37 will grow strangely dim 05:43 in the light 05:46 of His glory and grace. 06:06 His Word will not fail you 06:10 for He's promised. 06:14 Just believe it 06:16 and all will be well. 06:22 Then go to a world 06:25 that is dying 06:29 with His perfect salvation 06:34 to tell. 06:40 Turn your eyes 06:43 upon Jesus 06:47 and look full 06:49 in His wonderful face. 06:55 And the things of earth 07:00 will grow strangely dim 07:06 in the light 07:09 of His glory 07:12 and grace... 07:18 in the light 07:20 of God's glory 07:24 and grace... 07:33 in the light of 07:35 God's glory 07:40 and grace. 07:49 Amen! 07:55 Sometimes I tell pastors - 07:58 I am only joking when I do this - 08:01 that I don't want special music before I speak 08:06 because how can you match that? 08:10 Turn your eyes upon Jesus. 08:13 Why would we want to look at Jesus? 08:17 I know my reason. 08:20 There is something beautiful there for you to see, 08:25 and I am a man with a terrible weakness: 08:31 I like beautiful things. 08:36 I live here in Southern California, 08:39 and just walking over here 08:42 to the Campus Hill Church 08:44 how much more beautiful could it be? 08:49 Blue skies; snow up on the mountains. 08:54 Wow! And now we get to have this beautiful experience 09:00 together because I want to talk with you 09:04 about beautiful things. But just a word of warning: 09:10 there are people who don't want you to see the beauty out there. 09:14 There is an end-time deception 09:20 that blinds people to beauty. 09:26 Let's read about it. 09:55 Now I don't know about you, 09:58 but I still quite like life. 10:00 I don't want to perish. 10:03 Life is a beautiful thing. 10:06 It's a precious thing. 10:12 Why are these people going to perish? 10:30 Truth is a beautiful thing 10:36 and yet there are those who do not want to see it. 10:41 And now come 10:45 some of the most chilling words in Scripture. 10:51 This is Paul. He's writing to the Thessalonians - 10:54 Greek people - and he's warning them. 10:59 He's saying: "If you don't love the truth, 11:05 if you don't value it, 11:07 there is something that I'm warning you about. " 11:25 Who's sending it? 11:28 God. 11:32 That frightens me. 11:36 People who do not want truth 11:42 will embrace deception. 11:47 And that deception 11:52 comes from God! 11:55 Wow! 11:58 God provides something else. 12:04 He provides this strong delusion "that they should 12:08 believe the lie. " 12:12 If we love pleasure 12:18 over what is true, 12:22 we will be deceived 12:24 and we will die. 12:31 Deception can look attractive 12:37 sometimes. 12:40 In fact, that's what makes it so deceptive, isn't it? 12:44 I mean, who's going to believe something 12:47 that looks unattractive? 12:50 We like things... We can be blinded 12:54 by what appears to be beautiful. 12:59 But we need to love truth 13:04 more than anything else. 13:08 I am not going to claim 13:13 to be a prophet, and I am not going to claim to be 13:18 the final word on what 13:21 THE end-time deception is. 13:26 But I do know what AN end-time deception is. 13:35 The philosopher, an enthusiastic Darwinist, 13:39 Daniel Dennett wrote about it 13:42 and he said this: 13:55 Up until this point in his book 13:59 he had been writing or talking about something 14:04 he and his friends used to talk about when they were young: 14:09 universal acids. Ironically, I remember talking about it 14:13 with my own friends as well. 14:15 The idea of a universal acid... it is something 14:18 so powerful that it dissolves, it melts, it destroys 14:24 everything that it comes into contact with. 14:27 So you can't put universal acid into a test tube. 14:31 It's not a real thing... it's just sort of an idea 14:34 that sometimes young people like to talk about. 14:37 It would destroy the glass of the test tube. 14:40 And what would happen once the universal acid got out? 14:44 It would dissolve everything. 14:46 It would dissolve the whole world. 14:47 It would dissolve the whole universe, wouldn't it? 14:50 So universal acid's kind of a fun thing to talk about 14:54 as long as it's not real. 14:56 But look at this. Now he starts talking about Darwin's idea. 15:01 This is Darwin's theory of evolution. 15:06 He says: 15:26 Are you familiar with the concept of a world view? 15:29 This is how we perceive reality. 15:33 God tells us in Scripture 15:36 that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" 15:39 and that changes our whole view of humanity. 15:42 Not just ourselves. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made 15:47 but so are you. 15:51 And as a consequence of that, you are valuable. 15:56 You are beautiful; you are special. 16:04 A revolutionized world view. This changes our view. 16:10 In the Darwinian view of things 16:13 you are literally not together 16:19 by chance and some natural laws and things. 16:23 There's no guidance; there is no plan. 16:26 You are full of bad designs. 16:30 You are not fearfully and wonderfully made. 16:33 There might be some elegant things in there 16:35 but there's also lots of rubbish and garbage 16:38 left over from this evolution that you've been through 16:43 from single-celled organisms 16:46 through worm-like things and reptiles 16:49 and on and on. 16:54 You see all of reality differently. 16:57 Your world view is changed; it is like a universal acid. 17:03 It destroys the universe in one sense 17:08 and provides an illusion 17:12 instead of a real universe... one in which: 17:27 You can still recognize that somebody is a human being, 17:33 but a human being is a different thing. 17:37 A human being is not beautiful any more. 17:42 Several years ago I had a beautiful experience. 17:47 Something went wildly wrong in Israel 17:51 and as a consequence of that - 17:53 I know this seems unlikely - 17:55 I wound up in Athens with my friend Darius. 18:00 It was kind of fun. I always think about the irony 18:02 of being with somebody named Darius in Athens 18:05 given the history of people named Darius 18:08 and the history of Athens. But anyway, 18:11 there we were together and we went out walking. 18:15 And we saw off in the distance the Acropolis. 18:20 Soon we found ourselves in the Agora 18:26 and it struck us: "Wow! 18:30 This... This is where Paul went 18:36 and talked about truth. " 18:41 And in that marketplace 18:45 he met some philosophers. 18:50 People who love wisdom. 18:54 And they thought to themselves: "Maybe this guy has some wisdom 18:58 to share with us. We love it; we like hearing different ideas. " 19:02 And they invited him up the hill 19:06 to the right of the Acropolis. 19:09 Sometimes we call it Mars Hill. 19:13 The Areopagus. 19:15 And up there on the Areopagus they could look to the left 19:19 and see all of those temples up on the Acropolis. 19:25 And it must have sparkled 19:30 as they walked up that road to get there. 19:35 Can you imagine having that as a teaching tool 19:40 as you talk with people? 19:43 There it was... and it was all new 19:49 or relatively new at the time. 19:51 A lot newer than it is now. 19:53 It must have been amazing! As Paul looked over there 20:00 and I'm willing to bet you that he was gesturing 20:04 and pointing towards those temples 20:09 as he said these words to the philosophers: 20:37 Everything comes from God. We can't give Him anything back 20:41 that He needs. 20:45 "And He has made from one blood every nation of men. " 20:51 Can you see how he is telling the story of creation here? 21:00 Athens was a cosmopolitan city. 21:03 People were coming in from all over the place. 21:06 The philosophers who were there... we know that they... 21:09 they weren't all just natives of Athens. 21:12 They came from all over the place. Zeno of Citium 21:15 for example, the father of the stoic philosophers, 21:19 came from somewhere completely different. 21:21 Many of them you hear a place name that is far away 21:25 associated with them. 21:27 And yet Paul is pointing out 21:30 "Look at this: God made us. He made us through one man. 21:34 He made us one blood. Doesn't matter 21:37 whether you think you are Caucasian. It doesn't matter 21:41 whether you think you're Asian. 21:43 It doesn't matter whether you think you're a Native American 21:48 or an African 21:50 or anything else you want to come up with. 21:52 All of these things that we think divide us 21:56 God points out 22:01 are artificial. They are not real. 22:04 We are all one blood. 22:06 A beautiful, beautiful thought. 22:09 When you walk into a Christian church you see exactly 22:13 what I see in front of me right now. And this is true 22:17 all over the world. People of different races 22:23 altogether, all in harmony, all worshiping our Creator 22:29 and Redeemer. 22:30 All of us recognizing that we are descendants 22:35 of Adam and we are saved by the blood of the second Adam. 22:44 Just to prove to you that I've been to the Acropolis 22:53 I'd like to show you an image of that. 22:57 There I am. Now, when you're up there on the top 23:00 you realize that people exhibited some pretty bad 23:03 decision making up there. Somebody decided that 23:07 the Parthenon would make a good storage place 23:14 for explosives. 23:16 And they did that during a war. 23:20 And things went wrong... 23:23 that's why it looks 23:26 so damaged today. 23:31 But when we look at it 23:36 we see some interesting things. 23:38 Now I need to give you a warning right now 23:41 because I'm going to start talking about some math. 23:46 And you may be a little bit like those students 23:50 that I've had over the years 23:52 who've shown up in general biology class 23:57 and expressed shock and surprise 24:00 to learn that biology involves mathematics. 24:05 But it does and it's fabulous! 24:09 So don't panic... 24:11 don't panic because you don't have to be a genius 24:16 mathematician. I want you 24:19 to just look at the shape 24:23 of the Parthenon up there. Remember: this is something 24:28 that Paul was seeing as he talked about these temples 24:34 made with men's hands. And I will tell you 24:37 it is beautiful even as a ruin. 24:41 And what you can see 24:45 very clearly in this building 24:49 but only really if you take a trip to Nashville... 24:55 I know that seems improbable, doesn't it? 24:58 But if you take a trip to Nashville you will see 25:02 that there is the Acropolis there... 25:07 sorry, the Parthenon there. 25:10 It has been reproduced. And so you can see it 25:13 a little bit more clearly. And you can see that there's 25:16 something interesting about those proportions. 25:20 The Acropolis, sorry, the Parthenon is a beautiful 25:23 building. It's a beautiful building. Why is it beautiful? 25:29 Well, there happen to be certain dimensions 25:34 that are appealing to our eyes. 25:39 If you draw a square starting on one side 25:44 and going to the top and going to the bottom 25:48 it doesn't cover it. But then if you do another square 25:53 that takes you from the top to the other side of the 25:57 Acropolis, still doesn't really do anything. 26:01 But then if you do another square underneath that square 26:04 at the edge going to the bottom 26:06 and then you start filling it in with another square 26:09 all of a sudden you find 26:11 that the entire thing is actually defined by squares. 26:15 And the space that you have left over inside 26:19 is exactly the same shape 26:24 as the rectangle formed around the outside. 26:29 And so you can fill that one in with squares 26:32 and you get the same pattern. 26:34 And you fill in the little tiny bit of remaining space 26:37 with more squares... and it actually goes on forever. 26:41 It's a kind of interesting... interesting, interesting shape. 26:50 If we start looking at the proportions of that shape, 26:55 there is some interesting mathematics going on with it. 27:00 It turns out that if we take that first... 27:04 just the side of that first square 27:09 and we call it a. 27:12 And we look at the ratio of a 27:16 to the next square which we'll call b 27:21 it turns out that it's the same as the ratio of those two sides. 27:28 And the same is true as you go through all of these 27:32 combinations of squares. 27:35 Kind of fun, isn't it? This is not math with numbers. 27:40 This is math with squares, and squares are relatively simple 27:45 kinds of shapes. We call this kind of rectangle 27:50 that's made up with this infinite number of squares 27:53 a golden rectangle. 27:58 And if we take 28:01 the ratio of the two sides 28:05 we get an interesting number. 28:09 And this is where things really become fun, yeah? 28:16 That number 28:21 is a 28:26 plus b 28:28 divided by a 28:31 which happens to equal a divided by b. 28:36 That's kind of weird... kind of weird. 28:40 It's a strange number, and being strange 28:44 we give it a Greek letter. 28:46 And that Greek letter is phi. 28:50 One of the best Greek letters out there because you do 28:53 all kinds of fun "puns" with it. 28:57 "Phi am I here this morning? " 28:59 "Phi do I exist? " 29:02 They're not that good really, are they? 29:04 And this particular number 29:08 is an irrational number. 29:12 That means it goes on forever. 29:15 It's not like 1.25 or something like that and ending there. 29:22 It's an irrational number. 29:25 It goes on for eternity. 29:28 For infinity. It's a divine number. 29:32 A really special one. 29:34 Oh, another really cool thing about it 29:37 is that if you do 1/phi 29:42 you get exactly the same number as if you did phi minus 1. 29:49 And it goes on forever as well. 29:51 We symbolize that with lower case phi. Don't worry, 29:56 you don't have to memorize this. 29:58 But you've probably heard of another number that's kind of 30:02 like this called pi... 30:04 which is the tastiest number in the Greek alphabet. 30:09 Yeah. It also goes on forever. 30:15 And out there in the universe 30:18 there are all sorts of things that involve pi. 30:22 It turns out that there are all sorts of things 30:25 that involve phi as well. 30:29 And we call that ratio 30:33 of this golden number 30:37 phi to 1 the golden ratio. 30:42 Now what's so special about all of this? 30:44 Remember how I said that the 30:48 Parthenon is a par- ticularly attractive building? 30:52 It just is. It looks right. 30:58 Why? 31:00 It's because it has this ratio in it. 31:05 By the way, I realize 31:07 that my computer here also has a similar ratio. 31:12 Yes. That's an attractive kind of rectangle. 31:17 Start walking around. Start looking at buildings 31:21 and things like that. You'll see some are really ugly. 31:24 Then there are other buildings that are quite attractive. 31:29 Just putting things like pillars in front of a building 31:32 is not particularly attractive. 31:34 BUT putting pillars in front of a building with beautiful 31:40 dimensions to it, something like that golden rectangle, 31:45 and the whole thing kind of works together in a very 31:47 beautiful way. 31:51 Anyway, these golden rectangles 31:55 appears all over it. 31:59 It's... Just all over the building you see 32:02 somebody sat down and was putting that in there. 32:06 All over the place. 32:09 Now you've gotta be careful with this sort of thing 32:13 because there's something call confirmation bias. 32:19 Have you ever met somebody who sees something 32:22 in everything that they encounter? 32:26 I remember encountering a very interesting guy. 32:29 A very intelligent man who was seeing Hebrew writing 32:35 everywhere. 32:36 Pictures from outer space. 32:39 "Look at that! Hebrew writing. " 32:43 At first... I mean, he was absolutely completely 32:48 serious about it and didn't seem to be 32:54 completely insane or anything. 32:57 But, you know, I was kind of looking at these things thinking 33:01 "Well that would be rather unusual if this picture 33:04 of the earth from space happened to show some 33:06 Hebrew writing and I'm certainly not seeing it. " 33:11 Am I the blind one? let's say. 33:17 There was no Hebrew writing there. 33:20 So we do have to be a little bit careful 33:23 about overstating things sometimes. 33:29 But when you look at that Parthenon 33:33 you do see that ratio showing up over and over and over again. 33:39 Maybe the person who designed it just had much better 33:42 taste than I have naturally. 33:45 Or maybe - much more probably - 33:49 they knew something about phi and they realized 33:53 there is something pleasing to the eye about it. 33:56 And so they were putting it in all over the place. 34:00 Taking advantage of some geometry if you want to call it 34:03 that, some math... this fabulous number. 34:07 Phi... it's just everywhere, and once you start looking 34:12 you see it. We know 34:18 that the Parthenon was designed by brilliant men. 34:24 We know that it was made with men's hands. 34:30 I'm a biologist. 34:33 And I've already confessed to you that I love 34:36 beautiful things. I have the unusual privilege 34:40 of being married to the most beautiful woman in the world. 34:45 Some of you might be, too. 34:52 When I look at her face 34:56 of course I see a lot more than golden ratios. 35:02 However, in her face 35:07 there are golden ratios all over the place. 35:11 She IS the most beautiful woman in the world! 35:15 It's amazing! 35:18 If I did this with your faces, 35:21 I would see something similar as well. 35:28 Yes there's variation there, 35:31 but you know what? Human faces are beautiful 35:38 AND they happen to have a whole lot of golden ratios in them. 35:44 You can decide whether that is by chance. 35:49 You can decide whether evolution just somehow or other 35:53 zeroed in on that. 35:57 But we don't see evidence of that in nature. 36:02 We don't see a fossil record 36:05 that slowly slowly slowly zeroes in 36:09 on golden ratios and things. By the way, 36:12 there are golden ratios all over your body. 36:18 The distance from your elbow to your wrist 36:23 and from your wrist to the tip of your fingers 36:29 is close to a golden ratio. 36:33 One of my favorites... some of these are inside us. 36:39 Hopefully, no one's ever going to see them. 36:41 But you know how your skull is knit together 36:47 with these interesting kinds of joints that we call sutures? 36:52 There happens to be a joint here 36:56 and then there's a joint that goes all the way across 36:59 up here. And then there's a joint right here at the back. 37:03 And if you have a beautiful Neanderthal-kind of skull 37:07 like mine, you have a lovely occipital lobe 37:11 bump back here so you can easily find it. 37:15 It turns out that the ratio from here to here 37:19 and from here to the back 37:23 is a golden ratio. 37:25 And it's not just in humans. 37:28 You also see it in other organisms... other mammals. 37:31 Kind of amazing. 37:33 And probably at this particular point 37:36 I should make a confession to you. 37:40 Yes, not only am I married to the most beautiful woman 37:45 in the world, I have a girlfriend 37:50 and her name is Jill. 37:53 And I think she's the most beautiful dog in the world. 37:57 What a gorgeous gorgeous creature! 38:00 Gift from God! She's just so full of love and perfection. 38:06 When I watch her move it's amazing. 38:11 Every day I know that I'm going to come home 38:15 and there is going to be an excited welcome. 38:19 And it's not just because it's supper time. 38:25 I've been staying at home and writing the last few days. 38:31 I never need to worry that I'll be alone. 38:34 Jill is always there... right by my side. 38:38 Sometimes she snores quite loudly 38:41 but she's there. I know she's there. 38:44 She is absolute perfection. 38:48 Wherever we look, wherever we are 38:54 in the world there is this beauty that is reflected 39:01 in this golden ratio. 39:04 Golden ratios happen to be related to something called 39:07 Fibonacci Sequences. 39:09 And just as I walked over here 39:12 I wasn't just enjoying the sunshine. I happened to look down 39:15 and I saw this pinecone. 39:19 And it turns out that the way these scales 39:23 pack together is described by 39:26 the Fibonacci Sequence. 39:28 If you look down from the top... In fact, 39:31 you can see all of these curves coming up here to the top. 39:36 You see the same thing in many different biological things. 39:43 What you don't see 39:45 is stuff gradually evolving towards it. 39:49 There are fossil pinecones and guess what? They exhibit 39:53 exactly the same thing. 39:57 Sometimes people point out that there are practical reasons 40:02 why you would want to pack things together 40:05 in that way... and yes, there are. 40:09 But underneath everything there is the mathematics. 40:15 If you don't start with the mathematics, 40:20 you are not going to end up with the beauty. 40:27 Mathematics is something 40:30 that is purely in your head. 40:35 I did my Ph.D. working on the most beautiful molecule 40:40 in the world. 40:44 And the great thing about this molecule 40:46 is that it's found in every single living thing. 40:50 It's called DNA. 40:53 And there are many many many wonderful and beautiful things 41:00 that we could talk about with DNA. 41:03 But I just want to point out to you 41:06 that one turn of that double helix 41:12 happens to fit inside a golden rectangle. 41:17 AND when you look at DNA 41:21 there's something called the major groove 41:24 and the minor groove. 41:28 It turns out that the ratio of the major groove 41:32 to the minor groove... it's a golden ratio. 41:37 That's one reason why when you look at DNA 41:40 it looks so cool. 41:43 It's just a really really cool shape! 41:48 And it conforms to this fascinating 41:52 fascinating geometry. 41:57 The reason for that is because 42:01 that ratio of the width to the length 42:06 of one twist of DNA happens to fall into 42:11 what's called the Fibonacci Sequence 42:14 and the Fibonacci Sequence approximates 42:18 the golden ratio. And the further you go along 42:22 the Fibonacci Sequence the closer the approximation is. 42:25 It's amazing... it's absolutely amazing 42:31 and beautiful... and it's not the sort of thing 42:36 that you slowly slowly zero in on. 42:42 It's either perfect from the start 42:46 or not at all. 42:49 The mathematics which is completely abstract - 42:55 completely a product of minds - 43:00 must be right first. 43:05 And if it's not, no living thing 43:10 exists because everything depends on DNA. 43:17 There's another interesting thing 43:20 about this business of filling in the golden rectangle 43:24 with squares. 43:27 If you start drawing curves in those squares, 43:33 you get a very interesting kind of spiral 43:40 and you see it in lots of different places. 43:45 One place that you see an approximation of it 43:48 is actually in your cranium. 43:52 This is like the beginning of a spiral, 43:55 and if you go around like this and if you kept on going 43:59 inside your skull itself approximates 44:04 that shape. That's one of the reasons why going 44:07 bald isn't so bad. 44:11 You let people see that beautiful curve... yes. 44:16 But you also see it in nature. 44:20 And I love show and tell 44:23 so I brought a couple of examples here with me. 44:28 This is a fossil of a chambered nautilus, 44:33 and if you look at it 44:37 it approximates that curve. 44:40 Have you ever looked at one of these things 44:42 and just sort of felt like: "Man, that's quite beautiful! 44:45 That's a beautiful thing. " 44:47 If you have, it's probably not surprising to find 44:51 "Yeah, there's something in there about that golden ratio 44:55 golden rectangle, golden curve, whatever you want to call it. " 45:01 Now here is a similar but different creature, 45:06 and when you cut it open you get that curve. 45:10 This is called an ammonite... 45:13 but not named after the Ammonites in the Bible 45:16 by the way. Named after the Egyptian god Amun 45:20 who had horns that curved around 45:24 kind of like this. It's an interesting thing. 45:28 Beautiful, beautiful stuff. 45:32 Just a few months ago I was walking along 45:36 the coast in England... the southern coast - 45:41 There's an area there that they call the Jurassic Coast - 45:44 and I came across this. 45:46 These are some ammonites. You can see them actually 45:51 in the rock itself. These haven't been... 45:56 been removed from the rock. 45:59 And I looked at these... they were everywhere. 46:05 There were some nice pretty large ones 46:08 and there were little tiny ones you know, only about that big. 46:16 And I thought to myself: "There are people who believe 46:21 that these rocks are on the order of 46:26 80, 100 million years old. 46:31 And yet when we look at them 46:35 there is beauty, there is mathematics. 46:40 And this is data; this is stuff we can observe. 46:45 We can take it in through our senses. 46:48 It's kind of tragic... kind of tragic 46:52 that all of this stuff 46:54 is just there. We've got this record of death, and yet 47:00 it's not just dead... 47:06 it's beautiful as well. 47:09 Other people have looked at this. 47:11 In fact, in a year that you might have taken note of 47:14 previously called 1844 47:17 there was a book that came out. 47:22 And it kept pointing out 47:26 all of the dead stuff out there in the fossil record. 47:32 It pointed out all the ugly things in nature. 47:40 And Alfred Lord Tennyson 47:45 was struggling with something incredibly ugly. 47:50 His friend had died 47:54 and over many years he wrote a poem called In Memoriam 48:01 trying to figure out what had happened. 48:06 In the writing of that poem apparently he was influenced 48:10 by that book and he penned these words. He said: 48:34 This is the view 48:39 that Darwinism brings to the world. 48:47 Instead of looking and saying: "No! 48:52 Look! These things... they're... they're beautiful. 48:56 They're amazing. The tragedy is that they're dead. " 49:00 And asking: "Why? What's happening? 49:06 What's the solution? Where's the hope? " 49:10 The answer that Darwinism gives - this delusion - 49:16 is: this is the way it's meant to be. 49:21 This is how you came into existence. 49:25 Billions of beautiful organisms 49:29 dying, struggling 49:35 so that you could reach this pinnacle 49:41 that you find yourself on. 49:43 What's the attraction of it? 49:47 If you believe it, you are master of your own fate. 49:52 There is no God. 49:54 There are no commandments you have to keep. 49:57 There is no objective morality. 50:03 Do what feels good. 50:06 Be whatever you want. 50:08 And yet... and yet 50:13 we come back to mathematics. 50:17 This is Eugene Wigner writing, 50:21 and I should tell you he's a Nobel Prize winner. 50:25 He says these words: 51:01 You see, things don't have to be beautiful. 51:04 They don't have to be mathematical. 51:09 But when they are, they are beautiful. 51:14 And when they're beautiful they are mathematical. 51:18 And the math comes first 51:22 then the beauty. 51:26 The mind 51:29 comes before the product 51:35 with mathematics because mathematics 51:38 is the foundation of everything. 51:43 Bertrand Russell, the great philosopher, wrote: 52:19 But you know what? I disagree with him. 52:25 Yes, the beauty is there. 52:30 The beauty is true. 52:32 But the beauty shines through in the art. 52:36 The beauty shines through in the creation. 52:40 Not just physics or chemistry, 52:45 biology. 52:48 Biology is mathematical, too. 52:52 And it's beautiful, and that forms the foundation. 52:56 And then we observe things. We have data. 53:02 Logic and data... that's science. 53:06 And together in addition 53:09 we have art and beauty 53:14 and emotion. 53:16 When you see things 53:20 lining up together, 53:24 when they form a pattern... You know there's a joke 53:26 among archaeologists: three stones in a row 53:29 and you have a wall. 53:33 When you see major patterns of data 53:36 and they are lining up and all pointing towards the same thing, 53:43 that thing, that truth that they are pointing towards, 53:47 is something that we 53:52 can have reasonable confidence in. 53:58 I am going to end with a truth 54:05 that was voiced 54:09 by probably the greatest biologist other than God Himself 54:14 mentioned in the Bible: 54:17 King Solomon... who was a biologist. 54:21 Solomon wrote: 54:33 See, this is where it actually 54:35 gets interesting for me. 54:36 Not only has God made everything beautiful... 54:41 He's put eternity in our hearts. 54:55 Remember how phi was an irrational number? 54:59 You're never going to get the end of it. 55:03 The creation was made by an infinite God. 55:09 When He comes again, when He does that new creation, 55:16 when we go to heaven 55:19 and we live with Him eternally, 55:24 His creation is never going to stop giving us wonder 55:30 and beauty and things to be amazed about. 55:33 Amen! 55:36 And that is a truth 55:39 that we have to share with the world today 55:43 that is in the grip of a profound delusion. 55:50 Let's end with prayer. 55:53 Dear Father, our Creator and Redeemer, 55:57 I thank you for the beauty of Your creation. 56:02 I thank you for giving us minds 56:08 and senses to observe and comprehend the beauty... 56:15 at least to some degree. 56:18 I pray for that wisdom that only Your Holy Spirit 56:23 can give as we struggle with end-time deceptions. 56:29 Don't let us be deceived. 56:31 Enlighten us with Your Spirit of Truth 56:35 and give us a love for what is true and beautiful 56:40 I pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. |
Revised 2020-04-11