Tough questions 2
Notes
Transcript
Tough Questions 2
“What About Evolution?”
Gen. 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
If you believe these first four words of the Bible, then the rest is easy.
On the other hand:
If you accept a philosophy or a belief system that opposes the first four words of the Bible, then you might just as well throw the rest of the Bible away...
If the first four words are not true, then none of the rest of it is true.
If the first four words of the Bible have no meaning....then the rest of the Bible has no meaning.
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Let me ask a question: Would you be offended if I burned a Bible right here in front of you?
Would you be angry if I spit on this book, tore it to pieces then trampled on it with my feet?
Would it trouble you if I told you this book is nothing more than a collection of myths and fables and there is nothing sacred or true about it?
Or if I said it is a book of lies that needs to be removed from society?
Or worse, if I said that we need to take the Bible off the book shelves, out of the libraries, out of all education institutions, and we need to have a massive book burning of these ridiculous and harmful books?
Would that offend any of you?
Well, that is exactly what the philosophy of evolution has done to the Bible!
The philosophy of evolution has permeated every part of human society: From the sciences to the arts, religion to education, the media to the museums, philosophy to theology, from classroom to congress, and grammar schools to governments.
Evolution has become the “World-View” of the entire world.
Our children are educated and saturated in it every day.
Your own life and thinking has been shaped by it far more than you likely realize.
One world renowned ecologist said at a national Sigma Xi lecture:
“Most enlightened persons now accept as a fact that everything in the cosmos—from heavenly bodies to human beings—has developed and continues to develop through evolutionary processes. The great religions of the West have come to accept a historical view of creation. Evolutionary concepts are applied also to social institutions and to the arts. Indeed, most political parties, as well as schools of theology, sociology, history, or arts, teach these concepts and make them the basis of their doctrines.”
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But there is a reason it is still called the “theory” of evolution, for it has never been conclusively proven.
It’s much like the issue of man-made global warming today—it’s NEVER been proven, in fact has been greatly disproved…but that doesn’t matter to its supporters.
I can’t begin to deal with all the ins and outs of evolution in one sitting, but I want to tackle it on two fronts—The question of First Cause, and as Darwin put it, the origin of species.
The number one question evolution must answer is the question Genesis already answers in 1:1—that is,
How did it all begin?
What was the First Cause?
In other words, what force or source was behind the appearance of the first matter, not to mention the first living thing.
—Regarding where all that we see, hear, taste, touch and smell first came from, Genesis says God did it, God was the first Cause.
—Evolution says the Big Bang did it…
Let me read the explanation of the Big Bang theory straight from a Big Bang website.
The Big Bang theory (notice again-“theory”) is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning.
Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.
According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago.
What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure.
Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of "black holes." Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure.
The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind).
These zones of infinite density are called "singularities." Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something—a singularity.
Where did it come from? We don't know. Why did it appear? We don't know.
After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the "Big Bang"), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe.
It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown.
Notice the phrases, “We don’t know,” “we don’t know for sure,” “reasons unknown,” “boggles the mind…”
This is the Big Bang theory!
If this is the way our universe came about, then the first question we logically must ask is this:
Where did the “MATTER” come from for the black hole?
Because something can’t come from nothing, unless Almighty God speaks something into being from nothing.
Where did the black hole come from? Or the universe that contained it come from?
And who or what triggered the reaction that caused this unexplained matter to explode?
And where did the “ENERGY” come from that sparked the explosion?
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Let’s use an illustration of a BOX for a moment.
Picture our universe as a big box, a box we are all living inside of.
We are locked up inside the box trying to figure out the origin of the box.
We have no idea what is on the outside of the box, but this much we do know....If we are on the inside of the box, there must be an outside.
The inside of the box is “time and space.”
The outside of the box is “eternity and infinity.”
We therefore have two possible choices when trying to answer the question of “First Cause” and where everything came from.
The first choice—endless time and random chance gave us our universe.
The second choice—GOD is eternal, and He created all matter out of sheer will, and organized it into an expanding universe containing life.
Now, be very careful how you answer the question of “First Cause.”
Because the way you answer that question is going to shape your entire world-view....It’s going to impact everything in your life, and in your eternal destiny.
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For me, the only reasonable and logical conclusion is:
There is a God.
He created all matter that exists as the Bible claims.
And He has a great and glorious purpose behind what He is doing.
I really believe, if you will put aside all assumptions and prejudices, and all the evolutionary gobbly-gook you were taught in school, and look at all the observable evidence before you...
You will have to conclude—surely this all is not some kind of “COSMIC ACCIDENT:”
The universe is not random but orderly.
The universe does not appear to be driven by chance but by choice.
Think about it—this vast, immense universe runs like a fine tuned watch!
The Apostle Paul wrote that it is the creation itself that irrefutably testifies of God:
Ro. 1:20 “Ever since the creation of the world men have seen the earth and sky and all God made, and have known of his existence and great eternal power. So they will have no excuse when they stand before God at Judgment Day.”
He also said that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven because the ungodly suppress the truth of His reality that is so obvious all around them.
Ro. 1:18-19 “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.”
I believe that evolution’s claim of a Big Bang—which their own website describes with the words “we don’t know,” “we’re not sure,” “we don’t know for sure”—is a monumental effort at suppressing the truth about God!
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Now, secondly, let’s look for a moment at evolution’s next big claim: that “Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species—perhaps a self-replicating molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.”
Natural Selection is the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. Also called survival of the fittest.
So bottom line: According to evolution, all of the thousands of species of life evolved from one ancient ancestor, a single-celled organism.
This requires that one species—the first species—experienced a mutation that spawned another species altogether—like a dog experiencing a genetic mutation that eventually produces a mockingbird.
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Held up against this claim is the Bible’s claim that species reproduce only “after his kind.”
Sixteen times in the first 7 chapters of Genesis the phrase “after his kind” is used to describe the way God created life.
Nine of those times is found in the Creation account of Gen. 1.
Regarding vegetation He said,
Gen 1:11-12 “Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”
Regarding animal life He said,
1:24-25 “Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”
So God makes it clear that, in all that He made, species produce after their kind and will not produce other species.
There are many kinds of dogs, cats, birds, fish, but all within their ow species.
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Evolution claims that, with endless time and chance, the first species—whatever that was—mutated and ultimately produced a brand new species.
Evolutionary scientists call this process “speciation.”
This is NOT the same thing as a species adapting to its environment by slight changes in its appearance.
That is something God gave to species for their survival.
The ability to blend into the surrounding environment can come in handy when trying to avoid a predator, especially for those animals with little else in their defense arsenal.
For instance, several animal species, including scorpionfish and leaf frogs, can change their appearance to match their surroundings.
But “speciation”, or genetic mutation that produces a brand new species requires that there had to have been countless successes and failures over a long period of time until finally a mutation occurred that adapted and survived.
If that’s so, we would be finding endless fossil records showing all the failed mutations.
But we don’t find those fossil records…they aren’t there.
There is no fossil record that conclusively shows a species undergoing endless mutations that eventually produces another species.
Even Darwin himself wondered,
“Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.”
He expected to see certain evidence in the fossil record if his theory was true, but it is not there.
When asked why they couldn’t be found, Darwin replied:
“To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer.”
He also considered the sheer impossibility of just one part of the human body—the eyeball—evolving from endless time and chance:
“To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”
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The first four words of the Bible answer for us the question of “First Cause”—“IN THE BEGINNING GOD...”
And the explanation for all the thousands of species is also found in the first four words of Genesis—“IN THE BEGINNING GOD.”
And evolution’s explanation for the thousands of species having come from endless genetic mutations is shot down by the simple phrase “after his kind.”
LET’S PRAY