A Ready Defense
March 13, 2005
The Existence of God
Intro: 2 weeks ago we began a series entitled “A Ready Offense.” I’m attempting to deal w/ the 7 most common objections to Christianity. So far, we’ve looked at 2 questions: 1) What about all the people who’ve never heard of Jesus? 2) How could a good God allow innocent people to suffer?
Insert: Today we’ll look at the question of miracles – are they possible? Many Americans are willingly accept miracles. Recent Newsweek Poll - 84% of Americans believe in miracles! 79% believe that the miracles described in Bible occurred. 48% claim to have personally experienced a miracle!
Trans: Still, 21% among us just can’t accept the miracles described in the Bible.
Story: A boy came home from S.S. having been taught the biblical story of the crossing of the Red Sea. His mom asked him what he had learned in class, and he told her: “The Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharaoh and his army chased them. They got to the Red Sea and they couldn’t cross it. The Egyptian army was getting closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie, the Israeli air force bombed the Egyptians, and the Israeli navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross.” Mom was a little shocked. “Is that the way they taught you the story?” “Well, no, but if I told you the way they told it to us, you’d never believe it!”
Note: Sometimes miracles are hard to accept – that’s b/c divine interventions aren’t that common! Or so we think. That’s why critics are always trying to explain away the miraculous in the Bible – Take the Red Sea:
Story: In college, I had a professor tell us that the Israelites crossed north of the Red Sea near a body of water called Bitter Lakes. B/w Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea there’s a marshy area sometimes called Sea of Reeds. Critics claim this is where the Israelites crossed. If that’s true there’s a greater miracle here. It would mean that the Egyptian army drown in 2” of water!
Trans: Skeptics will always have problems w/ miracles.
Note: The Real Issue is this: Does God Really Exist?
Insert: Think about it – If there is God, then there must be miracles. If God exists, miracles are not a problem. .Even if you don’t believe in miracles, but believe in God, you would still have to believe in at least one miracle: CREATION!
Trans: So the real question: Do you believe in God?
I If you want to know that God exists – Just LOOK UP!
Verse: The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies; yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world. Psalm 19:1-4
Note: The Bible claims that the most powerful proof of God will be found by looking at the heavens. . .
Scientists have come to believe that the universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree. Smaller than an atom. . . During the first few nanoseconds, that the universe became an unbelievably hot. In that cosmic instant, something w/in the tiny universe flashed, causing a gigantic explosion. It burned w/ a fiery heat beyond human imagination. It hurled rapidly expanding matter every direction. Universe exploded w/ such force, the echo can still be heard bouncing around in space!
Scientists claim that w/in the brief moment following the big bang. All the fundamental particles necessary for life were formed – simply amazing. . . Scientists have calculated that it happened in 1043 of a second! That’s .000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second!
Note: Look back to Psalm 19:4. The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.
Note: Hebrew word translated “marvelous craftsmanship” is scientifically specific. Hebrew lexicographers describe the word as meaning “motion of different parts of the same thing, at the same time, in opposite directions and w/ force.” Young described the word as “to spread out or over.” Strong described the word as “to pound” or “to expand.”
Think – a perfect scientific description of the Big Bang written in 1000 BC!
II If You Want to Know That God Exists – Just THINK!
Verse: The Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out. Isaiah 42:5
Note: The Big Bang violates both the 1st and the 2nd law of thermo dynamics. . .
2nd law of thermo dynamics: Left to itself everything moves from order to disorder.
Insert: Did you ever leave you house a mess and find it organized and clean when you returned. Has your car ever replaced the gas in the tank and rotate the tires on its own – NO!
Trans: Here’s the problem: How in the world did such an violent explosion get so organized? The Big Bang should have created a black hole – but it didn’t – why? Stephen Hawking, is today’s foremost theoretical physicist, “The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the big bang are enormous. . . I think clearly there are religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe. There must be religious overtones.”
Quest: Why would the world’s leading theoretical physicist say there must there be religious overtones? B/c of the enormous odds – just how enormous are the odds? How overwhelmingly improbable?
Note: Roger Penrose (major player in the development of black hole theory) estimates the odds for our universe at one in 10 billion to the 30th power!
That’s 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Quest: Are you willing to bet your eternal state against those kind of odds?
Note: Think about it – the world’s most brilliant thinkers readily admit the necessity of a God.
Note: Astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, (credited w/ the discovery of the resonances of carbon and oxygen atoms) explained this process, he said; “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed w/ the physics, as well as w/ the chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Point: Better you understand the facts, the greater the need for a God!
Verse: The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Psalm 14:1
Note: Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist; “The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. . . His religious feelings takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
Point: Einstein claimed that cosmos is so complex that reveals a being of super intelligence! A being who is smarter than the combined intelligence of every human who have ever lived!
Note: Robert Jastrow’s (leading astronomers) wrote this in his book God and the Astronomers, “Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, what cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy into the Universe? Science can’t answer these questions. . . For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; his is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Quote: No wonder Heinemann prize winner in mathematical physics, Robert Griffiths, said, “If we need an atheist for a debate, we got to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.”
III If You Want To Know That God Exists – Just LOOK AROUND!
Verse: He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter forever and ever. Psalms 104:5
Story: In 1959 scientists discovered the fact that the earth is perfectly balanced. Where ever there is mountain mass on one side of the earth, something of equal weight is on the opposite side of the earth! That’s why the earth doesn’t wobble out of orbit! Figure that the density of rocks varies tremendously world-wide. This is an utterly amazing balancing act! There is global weight distribution of land mass, mountains, valleys, and water!
The oceans actually exert the precise pressure against the shores that keep the mountains standing. The Bible claimed this all along – Isaiah 40:12, it claims that God measured the waters and the dust of the earth and the mountains and hills so they would be balanced.
Bible: Ps. 104:5,8 claims that God established the earth so that it would not totter. Ps. 104:8-9 Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth.
Note: Many in the scientific community are talking about “Fine Tuning” of the cosmos. Really rattling the cages of the atheistic community. Scientist have identified 75 different finely tuned aspects of our world. . . Everyone of which is absolutely essential for life. . . If any one of them were “out of tune” we would die. . .
Insert: If the sun were any further from the center of the galaxy, rock planets could not form. If it were any closer, stellar density would interfere w/ our orbit.
If the earth were 1 degree closer to the sun, we’d fry! If we were 1 degree further, we’d freeze!
If the moon was any closer or larger, the tides would destroy the coast lines. If any smaller or further away, the oceans would die from a lack of nutrient movement.
If our distance from Jupiter were any greater, asteroids and comets would pepper the earth. If we were any closer our orbit would become unstable.
If the surface gravity was any stronger, earth would retain too much ammonia and methane. If it were any weaker, earth’s atmosphere would lose too much water. . .
If the magnetic field were any stronger, electromagnetic storms would destroy us. If any weaker, ozone shield could not protect us from stellar and solar radiation.
If the earth’s crust were any thicker, it would absorb too much of our oxygen. If it was any thinner; the volcanic and tectonic activity would make life impossible.
If the decay rate of a proton was any faster, we would die from radiation. If it was any slower, insufficient matter in the in universe for life. . .
If the carbon dioxide level was any greater, runaway greenhouse effect would kill us. If it were any less, plants would be unable to maintain photosynthesis.
If the polarity of the water molecule were any greater vaporization would be to great for life. If it were any small, ice would not float – build up ice – freeze the planet!
Even the tilt of the earth’s axis is crucial to maintaining the earth’s temperature.
Note: The probability of these 75 factors occurring anywhere in the universe:
Much less than 12 in a hundred thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. If that’s not wild enough – One hundred billion other things had to happen for these 75 to exist!
Point: Ok, so maybe there is God, but. . .
