“The Pitiful Fool”
September 1, 2013
Psalm 19:1-4
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
Romans 1:18-22
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine who receives the sermons I send out asked me if I could send him one of my sermons for a friend of his who is a “true non-believer.” I sent him a sermon and a Bible Study, but I wasn’t really happy with what I sent. His friend is a very intelligent, scientific kind of guy.
As I thought about Chris and his friend, some thoughts came to mind. I want to share them with you today. My hope is that they will encourage and build your faith and also that this information may be helpful for you to use with your friends. Of course, I want it to bring glory to our great God and Creator, too.
In our Scripture the Word boldly declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God!” And they DO! A few hundred years ago some of the greatest scientific minds in the world at that time set out to count the stars. Man has probably always been doing that. Laying on a grassy hillside or up on a mountain top, gazing up at the milky way and all the galaxies, some ambition shepherd or hunter probably did his best to count them. Well, our early scientists did their best. They came up with a couple of thousand. A hundred years later some other brainiacs tried again. They doubled that count. Now with our sophisticated instruments that count has gone from thousands to sextillions. A sextillion is a one followed by 21 zeros. The internet says there are 300 sextillion stars. To gaze up at the stars is overwhelming to us. And the more we learn about the stars the more evidence we find of God.
I remember in college I came across the “cosmological evidence of God.” I loved it. Simply put it says that the universe is made up of matter and motion. Matter is in a state of entropy. It is always in a state of falling apart. (Second law of thermodynamics). Matter cannot be created from nothing because it is a proven law that matter is in a state of degeneration. If you throw out a box of puzzle pieces on a boat speeding across the lake – will it tend to come together or continue to fall apart. We all know it will just be a big mess.
It also says that motion always has to have a starter. An explosion to propel the bullet; a muscle to move the arm. The universe in motion had to have had Someone to set it in motion.
Of course I am simplifying things quite a bit. But you get the picture. The heavens declare the glory of God. Not only that, our Scripture in Romans tells us that God made Himself plain to see in the creation. He isn’t hiding from us. He has made Himself obvious. His divine nature, even His divine attributes are clearly seen – if you want to see them. But there’s the rub. Some don’t want to see. Granted, many people are simply ignorant of God. I know I was before I came to Christ. I just didn’t think about Him. He didn’t cross my mind. I was too busy doing my own thing and going my own way.
Some people who do not see God simply are not looking. They are ignorant. If you show them the plain facts; if you show them the evidence; if you reveal truth to them – they will accept and believe in God. They are just ignorant and if you give them some knowledge they will be able to see and believe. We all have an intuition – an inbred knowledge of God we are born with. Only about ten percent of people say they are atheist. Most people believe.
There are that ten percent of people who will not. They are the pitiful fools. No matter the evidence; no matter the logic or the facts – they choose to not believe. “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”
Carl Sagan was one of those pitiful fools. He said that evolution is supported by molecular biology and the fossil record. It is not and it is obviously not. He was either lying or he was a fool. Since the early 1970’s most researchers rejected the idea that the cell originated by chance. They found the evolution theory laughable. Many of them mocked the evolutionist. The numbers just didn’t add up.
The problem with not believing in special creation is that you are left with two choices. Either creation has always existed – or it was created from nothing. They want to believe that something could come from nothing. But all science proves otherwise.
At one time the scientific community believed that hypothesis. They saw little worms coming from a rotting piece of meat. “Something from nothing!” Louis Pasture proved that wasn’t true. Cover the meat so the flies don’t get to it and the maggots don’t magically appear. Another scientist wrote that believing something coming from nothing was as absurd as believing a watch could appear out of thin air as all the molecules collide at just the right moment and –BAM! There it is. Drops right at your feet.
A few years ago I was on a canoe trip in Minnesota with my family. We were peacefully floating down the Bigfork River when something shiny caught my eye down in the water. I hopped out of the boat and dove down to see what it was. I brought out an old watch. The crystal was intact but the mechanism was all corroded. It didn’t tick. It didn’t work. But nobody said, “Look at that cool rock!” No. It was obviously created by someone. No one remotely believed “it just happened!”
Believing that something could come from nothing is about as believable as thinking if you dropped a box of scrabble letters enough times it would eventually spell out a line in ‘Hamlet’. The Bible says that God is a God of order. He is not the creator of confusion. Our universe has a wonderful order to it.
The Godhead is clearly seen. God has made it plain to us. The atheist has to ignore what is plain for all to see. When he does that he is a fool – a pitiful fool. But that is what many very intelligent people do. Professing to be wise – they become fools. Not only are they fools – but they are arrogant fools. Psalm 94:4 says, “They pour out arrogant words”. But they are fools because they reject what is so plain.
Some say, “If I could just see God – I would believe.” But they wouldn’t – because they do – and they don’t. They see evidence of God and they still don’t believe.
We have a tendency to see things from our own position. Two people can see the same thing and come to two different conclusions. But does that change the reality? No. There are some things you can’t refute. Darwin said that when he saw a peacock’s feather he went all cold inside. He said when he thought about the eye it made him shutter. Why? Because evolution could not explain it.
We are surrounded by evidence of creation. I love the illustration of blood clotting. When you get a cut your body shuts down blood to the site. It’s called vascular constriction. Then it sends a substance to the wound site – no where else – that knows to bind together in the cut. Anyplace else and it would kill you. How long do you think it would take a body to evolve with that ability? How about NEVER! Without it being in place you would bleed to death.
There was a time when scientist believed the cell was just a black box and therefore could evolve. Now molecular biology has found the cell to be full of DNA and little machines. These little machines that do so many amazing things are irreducibly complex. A common irreducible complex machine is the mouse trap. If you take away one part – it doesn’t work. Take the spring away and the mousetrap is useless. Take the pan or the little staple away – and it doesn’t work.
In every cell there are hundreds, maybe thousands of such little machines. Only a pitiful fool could believe that these just happened. Most scientists who work with them conclude that they had to have been made by intelligent design. If you are interested in this subject you may want to read the book, “Unlocking the Mysteries of Life.” You can buy it on the internet for a couple of dollars.
The point is that God’s ‘general revelation’ of Himself is clearly seen all around us and only a fool fails to see what is so plain. God’s ‘special revelation’ of Himself – the Bible – backs up what we see all around us. But belief is a choice. Truth has to be accepted. Our Scripture talks about a people who chose to believe the truth was a lie and the lie was the truth. We still do that.
I remember talking to a college student many years ago who arrogantly considered himself wise – and he was very knowledgeable – but who foolishly reject the truth I was sharing with him. It might have been my delivery of the truth message or my attitude for I was very young myself. After sharing with him the cosmological and teleological and empirical evidences of God he said, “You can’t convince me there is a God if I don’t want to believe it. If I say that wall is a figment of my imagination – you can’t convince me otherwise.”
And he was right. I said, “You are right – but take a run at that ‘figment of your imagination and see what happens.” God’s law will break us.
There will be some who hear or read this and dismiss the evidence with no further thought. But I hope you will weigh the evidence – because the evidence is weighing you. One day the Creator of this Universe will hold you to account. All your foolishness – or your faith - will be revealed for what it is. My prayer is that you will be found acceptable.
Let me conclude by saying that I know the Creator of this Universe personally. His name is Jesus Christ. His special revelation says that there is no way else to be saved except through Him. (Acts 4:12)
Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.” (The Message)
That is an unpopular truth, too. But it remains the truth. Jesus is the only way (John 14:6). If you would like to accept Him as your Savior and Lord, you simply have to believe and receive (Romans 10:9-10). You simply pray a little prayer like this:
“Jesus,
I have been living as if you were not there. I have been doing my own thing and going my own way. Please forgive me. I choose to believe in you. I will do my best to follow you. Please help me to grown in knowledge of you and help me to learn to live as you would like me to live.
SONG
