QUESTIONS FOR GOD
“Beam me up Scotty, there is no Intelligent Life Here”
Psalm 8: 3-9
We are in our 3rd week in this series of messages I have titled Questions for God. During the month of December I invited you to submit questions that you wanted answered and told you that I would look at these questions and see what the Bible has to say about them. The first week we looked at the question, Jesus when are you coming back? Last week the question was Lord how can I overcome worry? One thing if for sure your questions have a lot of variety. Today’s question is twofold: Lord is there life on other planets? Definitely a tough question.
So we begin this morning with a question for you. How many of you believe that there is life in another universe? And before you answer, I want to clarify that I am talking about intelligent life. Mars has shown signs of water, for instance but that’s not what we are talking about? So how many of you believe there is intelligent life in other places besides earth? How many of you believe there is intelligent life in Florida? Debatable, huh?
I want to show you a couple of pictures from my childhood. Is that kid cute or what? But really I want you to see the next one. I went to bit of trouble to get this one yesterday. It is a picture of me and two of my friends …taken in 1968. What happened is that we decided to try to photograph a flying saucer. This next picture shows the flying saucer. We thought the picture was good so we walked down to the newspaper office and showed them and they agreed to come print the picture…..on the front page by the way. We were celebrities for about two days. One of my loves as a child and for my friends as well was astronomy. Several of my friends had telescopes and so we spent many a night looking at the moon, a few planets and also looking for flying saucers. The first flying saucer ever reported was supposedly seen in 1952. My best friend still tells the story of seeing a flying saucer come through our neighborhood and swooping down to where he could almost touch it. The problem is my friend lied a lot. Just saying. But these have been reported for years. So what does the Bible have to say about it?
We go first to the OT. And we quickly look at 3 passages.
(1) Genesis 5: 24. The Bible says (NLT) “Enoch lived 365 years,
walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.” Can you imagine…just walking along and God took him. He has been labeled as the first astronaut.
(2) 2nd Kings 2:11. “As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.” This was the 2nd astronaut.
(3) Ezekiel 1. It’s a lengthy chapter but let me point you to a few verses. V. 4 Ezekiel is speaking and he says, “I looked and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north-an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal.” He goes on to speak of living creatures that were present and then look at verse 27. Now you have to admit that is a strange passage of scripture. Who is he speaking of? Where did he come from and why is he there? This is one of those passages where the writer actually tells us. He doesn’t leave us guessing. I love it when the Bible does that. Look at verse 28. Read. This is the appearance of the Lord and it was when he called Ezekiel to prophesy. Based on what we know of the scripture it is safe to say these passages have nothing to do with flying saucers/UFO’s.
Other religions teach this. Two examples. (1) The Mormon faith. They knock on your door most likely on occasion. The Book of Mormon says that, during His visit, Jesus Christ healed their sick, taught them His gospel, blessed their children, and called twelve disciples to organize His Church in the Americas. The book of Mormon, by the way is referred to as another testament of Jesus Christ. The problem with that is that the Bible teaches there would not be one. When the scripture was closed in 90 AD, that was it. And we are told clearly in the book of Revelation that we are NOT to add anything. But the Mormons have. And what they have added in their book does not agree with this book.
The 2nd is a popular religion found right here in our area. Scientology. Movies stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta are devout scientologists. Cruise is seen here speaking to the church. He is considered their number 3 in their organization. Scientology was founded by L Ron Hubbard. Hubbard has written 235 books all science fiction. He also wrote the book Dianetics which is the primary book scientologists use. I had an interesting thing happen several years ago while I was going into WalMart. Outside they had several tables set up and this group was offering a test to see how much stress you have. And on the table they had copies of the book Dianetics. I immediately recognized that these were scientologists. So I went up to the table and said to them, what church are you representing today? Not a church. I said are you a scientologist? Yes but that does not have anything to do with why I am here. I’m thinking yeah and I’m Billy Graham. I said I know that book is what you base a lot of your teachings on. She denied it. So I went it and got the manager and told him who I was and why I wanted to speak to him. I told him that I didn’t think it was right to allow them to promote their religion on Wal Mart’s parking lot unless I could do the same. If they can do that then I want to bring a group in and give out Bibles. So he promptly went outside with me and he shut them down. And I thanked him.
Yesterday I called one of the facilities in Clearwater. I asked a few questions and they told me where I could go to get the truth…their website. So I did. This is one statement I found and it was all I needed. Scientology holds Man to be basically good, and that his spiritual salvation depends upon himself, his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe. Man is not basically good. The Bible says there is no one who is good and our salvation depends totally on Christ. According to Hubbard, when we die we go to a “landing station” on the planet Venus, where we are programmed to “forget” their previous lifetimes, thus causing amnesia. Then sent back to earth. We have a Greek word for that in Arkanasas. Baloney.
Now look at Psalm 8 with me. We believe this was written about 2500 years ago. When I read this psalm I can just picture David the young shepherd boy, sitting on a hillside in Bethlehem, gazing at the moon and the stars. The book of Psalms is actually a hymnbook so we believe he probably sang these words.
Look at verses 3-4. One father told of taking his family to a national park in Colorado. The sky was amazing that night. Very clear. The stars were so bright it seemed like you could touch them. His 3 boys decided they would put their sleeping bags out on the ground so they watch the stars. The man and his wife had just settled in for the night when their youngest child came to the tent dragging his sleeping bag. What’s the matter? Too cold? No, I just never knew I was so small. I can imagine David looking into the night sky and thinking, man I am so small, how could a God who is so big, be mindful of me? Why would he ever think about me? Carl Sagan felt this way. Many scientists do. But David never believed that we are insignificant. David tells us that God made this world and not only that,He made it ….for us.
3 Big Truths we can see in the Bible. (1) Man was created in the very image of God. That means that you and I are different and that we have the ability to communicate with God. Animals can’t. Only mankind. That’s what it means to be made in His image. That means several things. (1) It does not mean we look like Him. But it does mean we can think like Him. (2) it means we can talk to Him and He can talk to us. (3) it means that we can learn to love like He loves. (4) it means we can learn to hate the things God hates.
(2) As a result, we need to develop a realistic opinion of ourselves. You see we ruined what God was trying to do in our lives. The Bible says we are sinners. It also says that God loves us so much that He came and died for us. Who did that? Not Joseph Smith. Not L. Ron Hubbard. God! Many of us go back and forth on this range of thinking we are nothing to quickly thinking we’re the cat’s pajamas. We’re it. Isaac Watts wrote Alas and did my savior bleed and in the hymn he says would He die for a worm such as I? We go from one extreme to the other. David says we are created a little bit lower than the angels. One version says just lower than God himself. We are not God but we are the apple of His eye. We are unique. Special. There is a danger here. If we think too much of ourselves pretty soon we think I’m not just created in God’s image. I am God. I’m in control. But don’t think too highly of yourself either. When God made Adam and Eve He told them some things they were not to do. They had all these things they could do and only one thing they shouldn’t do and that’s what they chose. And they sinned. And makind has paid the price for it. They had children and look what happened. They fought. One killed the other. Why? They learned it from their parents. And it was carried out in future generations as well. We see it in our own kids that they lived like we do. We argue and fight, they learn to do the same. We show hatred, they do the same. They learn from us. And so God’s image stops showing up.
But here’s the deal. We were created to walk with God. We were created to talk with God. But there is the great gap between us. Religion will fill it. Only Christ can.
(3) The death of Jesus makes us able to once again reflect God’s image. Paul says you and I are complete in Christ. In Him we have everything we need.
Bob Russell, great pastor, now retired tells the story of a medical doctor named Dr. Sumi. He said he had never seen anyone quite like him. He loved people. He loved God and He just wanted people to know Jesus. So he would go out wherever he could…in neighborhoods and apartments and share his faith. This was a dedicated medical doctor who just wanted more than anything to tell people about Jesus. One day he said to Bob Russell, preacher you know what? The church has so much more to offer than we have to offer at the hospital where I work. Bob Russell said what do you mean? Dr. Sumi said “well at the hospital I can perform surgery. I can make an incision and help people live longer…I can give them a few more years of life. But when I go out and talk to these people I am offering them eternal life. Not just a few more years …an eternity. That’s what the God of this great universe offers to you and me. Do you have it? You can today.
