Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers.
And here is today's presenter, Pastor Lyle Southwell. Okay, so we talked about living on a golf ball a couple of weeks ago, and we drew a couple of illustrations from that just to give us an understanding of who God is and how big God is and how powerful God is and where we sit in the universe.
And so we had this illustration of a golf ball, and if our world was a golf ball, what would the universe be like? And we went through some different illustrations. And just as a quick reminder, because we sort of need to gain a little bit of context for today, we found that if the Earth was a golf ball and you were to put our Earth the size of a golf ball beside one of our big stars like Canis Majoris, then, and you were to measure with a tape measure the size of that star in comparison to the golf ball. You would.
You would have to start at sea level and stretch your tape measure all the way to the top of Mount Everest, and then keep going a little bit further, and that's how big that star is. And we looked at how there's. What did we say there was? 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and we started to feel a little bit small in comparison to all that.
So we talked about a whole bunch of things in relationship to the world that God created, and then we went the opposite direction. So in from the macro, we went to the micro and we talked about the cell and how a cell can be as small as one thousandth of a millimeter, which means that you can take a thousand cells, line them end on end, and put them in a millimeter. So that's kind of small.
And we found that in our body, there are 100 trillion cells in our body, and that cells are made up of atoms and that there are 100 trillion atoms that make up a cell. So, and then we looked at how it doesn't matter whether you go big or you go small. You see the fingerprints of God and you see God at work.
Okay, so we're going to. We're going to pick up from that today, and we're going to look at, you know, just the. The enormity of the universe and also the complexity of the universe and ask ourselves the question, is it reasonable to believe in God considering all that there are, you know, from us who come from a Christian worldview, we look at that and say, how could that come into existence without a God? Other people look at it from a very different worldview, a worldview that doesn't include God.
And they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. That universe is so big, it is so massive, it is so complex, that no being, no single individual being could bring it all into existence. And you're claiming that somebody out there just spoke it into existence.
And so the evidence that we use to say that there is a God is exactly the same evidence that they use to say that there isn't a God. And that's the interesting thing about evidence. In this whole discussion between, you know, creation, evolution, whether God exists or not, is that evidence.
You know, we often. People will often come to me and they say, you know, where is your evidence for God? Well, I use exactly the same evidence you do, because evidence by nature doesn't change, does it? Evidence is evidence. It's not going to change.
What it comes down to is how you interpret the evidence and which interpretation of that evidence is actually more reasonable. When we look out at the world that we have and so forth. And so we have these two views on where our world came from.
We have the materialistic view or the no God view. And the materialistic view states that everything is made from material energy and matter. So all you are is a collection of energy and matter.
You are a collection of various chemicals that have come together and they have come from various places to come together to form you. And when you die, they will go to various other places and they won't actually disappear. You'll just.
There'll be a, you know, death is just a. A chemical change that takes place. It's all that it is.
And so, of course, within that view, death is a very moral thing because death is the means of creation. Because, you know, the whole process of survival of the fittest without lots of death, we are not here. Within that view, you have people like, say, for instance, Adolf Hitler, who starts the Second World War and millions of people die, is the most moral man who ever lived.
Because he is improving the planet. He's creating an environment in which survival of the fittest can come to the fore and cleanse the planet of weaker individuals so that the human race is stronger. And so he is being a moral person, he is improving the planet.
And that's what he wanted to do anyway. That was the whole Nazi plan, was to build a super race through the process of survival of the fittest and selective breeding and so forth. However, when it comes to human beings made out of matter and energy, there's a couple of things that we're going to look at today.
And we're going to begin by looking at, and we're going to come back to this, at the concept of love. What part of matter and energy is love? If you're going to break down love, what chemicals is love made out of? You know, what about intelligence? Thoughts? What are your thoughts made out of? What kind of chemical composition are your thoughts? Your identity, your personality, your individuality, your consciousness? These are interesting things to consider in relationship. We can understand how these things are created and the chemical processes that create emotions.
But love is more than an emotion, far more than an emotion. So what part of matter and energy is that which leads us to the other view? And so if we have one view that is materialistic and says everything is made out of matter and energy, we have another view that is God based, the God based view. And that is, has materialistic, but it also has the spiritual aspect.
And once you add in the spiritual aspect, of course, then do you think have things like angels and God and so forth and you have the supernatural which transcends the laws of physics. We're not just bound by the laws of physics. It's interesting because scientists will tell you today that the laws of physics are not fixed laws anyway.
They don't know how and where they change. But they do know that they are not fixed laws and that they do change. And so we come to it from a God based view which has more than just matter and energy, it also has the supernatural.
Well, because it includes the supernatural. Then you have this situation where the non God person looks at the God person and says, well, that is faith. You come from a faith perspective and that is true, isn't it? We come from a faith perspective.
We need to find out what is faith. We need to understand faith. Because Christians and non Christians are confused, very confused in relationship to what faith is.
You see, a non Christian will typically look at a Christian and say, well, we understand that you are a person of faith and we respect the fact that you are a person of faith. And you ask them, well, what is faith? And they might say, well, faith is believing in something that you have no evidence for. So that's how a non Christian will look at a Christian.
And a lot of Christians and people of other faiths, religious faiths, will take that same definition of faith on themselves. Yes, we believe in things that we have no evidence for my question, is that biblical? Is that the biblical definition of faith? Other times, people have the view that as Christians and as people of faith, we are people who believe in something that we know to be wrong because of the evidence that is around us. And you can kind of understand how people come to this conclusion.
If you are brought up with a particular worldview, if you grow up with it, if you are educated in it, and the only thing that you learn in school and from your parents and from the people around you is the know God position. And then you come across somebody who believes in God, but yet they can't show you God. The natural conclusion is, well, they believe in something that they have no evidence for or that they know doesn't exist.
They just believe because they believe, because they believe. So my question to you this morning is this. Does God expect us to believe because we believe? Because we believe? No.
Thank you, David. I'm glad that somebody here today has a very firm view on this. Okay, what does the Bible say? Hebrews, chapter 11 and verse 1.
The Bible says, now faith is the what substance. So that's something that's real, isn't it? Okay, faith is the substance of things hoped for. And what's the next thing that it says? The what? The evidence of things that we cannot see.
Do we have evidence in our world of things that we cannot see? Yes. Do we have evidence of the wind? Do you believe in the wind? Have you ever seen the wind? No, you've never seen the wind, but you believe in the wind because you have evidence of the wind. And so when we come to faith, the Bible says that this is what faith is like.
You can believe in something that you have evidence for. Jesus said that this is what conversion is like when he was talking to Nicodemus, the work of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes on a person, you can't see the Holy Spirit, can you? But can you see the evidence of the Holy Spirit? Can you see how that person's life has been dramatically changed? Yes, you can.
And so this, the Bible says, is what faith is like. So we need to have a very clear definition of what faith is. The Bible never, ever, ever, ever calls us to exercise blind faith.
Blind faith is believing in something you don't have evidence for or believing in something you know to be wrong. And God never calls us to exercise blind faith. God always gives us enough evidence and substance so that our faith can be real and can be intelligent.
Often as Christians, I think we present ourselves as being, you know, just a little Bit unintelligent at times. And we should present ourselves as being highly intelligent and looking at the world from an intelligent perspective. Okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to spend a little time, we're going to ask ourselves a number of questions this morning in relationship to the two different worldviews.
The materialistic worldview that says there is no God and the theistic worldview that says that there is a God and sort of. And have a look which one, which one gives the best explanation of the evidence that we have? And so we're going to begin with our vase. Our title this morning was who made the vase? So let me ask you this question here.
We have a vase. Help me out. How did this vase come into existence? It's a jug, actually.
But I had to pick this one because when I looked at the vases that were out there in the cupboard, they didn't have everything that I wanted. Okay, so how did this come into existence? Okay, who believes here that somebody made this? Okay, I think I got everybody's hand up. If you didn't put your hand up, we'll get some help for you.
All right, so now if I was to go down to the shopping center over here and I was to ask, you know, everybody that's there in the shopping center, and there was a great crowd of people standing around, I said, who believes that somebody made this vase? What kind of a response would I get? Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir here and you're all going to agree with me, but down in the shopping center they would not necessarily. Everybody would not necessarily all agree with everything that I have to say. But if I say who made the vase? We.
What are they going to say? Somebody made it, wouldn't they? Okay, so here's what I want you to do for me with this vase. I want you to tell me what evidence you have that somebody made this vase. Did anybody see this vase being made? Now, you didn't see it being made, did you? Okay, someone saw it.
Someone saw it being made. And you could go and ask them and they could say, well, I saw it being made. But then you would have to trust what they said, wouldn't you? And that would be faith, wouldn't it? Okay, so nobody saw this vase being made.
Alright, so what evidence do we have? Please give me the evidence that this vase was made. Okay, I'm gonna start here with Lawson. Okay, so Lawson has a theory that only people make vases.
And when we look around in our world, Today, we could probably test that theory and say, yeah, we haven't actually seen any other creature maker vase. All right. Okay.
All right. Sorry. It had to have a mold, all right? And you can see evidence of where there was a mould.
But, you know, there's a line that runs down here where the mold joined together and it hasn't been cleaned off particularly well. So we get a basic understanding. Well, who made the mold? Okay, how do you know that? How do you know that this vase didn't come out of an explosion? You know, glass can come out of an explosion.
Okay, somebody. Steve, does it have a sticker underneath that says Made in China? It does. Okay, so the vase contains information.
Not only does it say made in China, but it says something else. And this is why I chose this one. It's.
I can't actually read it without spilling the water, and I'll try not to do that on myself right now. Sorry, Nakara, you're a shorter person. Would you like to come and read it? Okay, so it says something on the bottom there.
What does it say? Has P, I, s, a V, a H, s. Okay. Passable or something.
Or other. Something like that. Okay.
She spelled the word out for you. So there's writing on it. Okay, so the vase contains information.
All right. It has. Somebody said that it has form and that it has structure.
Okay. It has functionality, doesn't it? So we can put water in the vase, we can put a flower in the vase, and we can actually pour water out. Well, this one actually is a bit of a jug, so.
But we're using it as a vase because I looked at all the vases out there and none of them had information. And I thought that was an important aspect of what we're going to be talking about. What about artistic design? And if you wanted to make something that would hold water and hold the flower, you didn't have to make it round.
You didn't have to give it curves, you didn't have to give it a spout. If you're using it as a jug, you don't have to give it any of these things, do you? So it's functional. It has a handle on it, so you can pick it up and carry it around.
And the handle is about the right size for a human hand. You know, it's a nice fit. Okay, so these are all evidences that we would use to say that this vase has been made.
We can even understand how it was made to some extent. It's made out of sand. It's a liquid form of sand.
I find it fascinating that we use a liquid to put a liquid in. You know, glass is a liquid. It's a very slow moving liquid, but it's a liquid.
It's liquid sand right there. And we have liquid inside of a liquid. Okay, so when we look at the vase, we can see lots of evidence for that vase being created.
What about the flower that is in the vase? Let us compare the flower to the vase for a moment. If I go down here to the shopping center and I say, okay, where did the flower come from? What are the majority of people going to tell me? Okay, okay, it came from the florist. But where did the flowers and the florist come from? They grew out of the ground.
Well, where did they come from? They came from seeds. And where did those seeds come from? Other flowers. And if you trace it back, where did they come from? Sorry.
Okay, you guys are creationists, all right, you all need to be pretend to become atheists for a moment. Okay, back to a big explosion. What exploded? Ah, where did those gases come from? They actually came from nothing.
Okay, so let's. We're going to come back to this in just a moment whereabouts it all came from. But let's ask ourselves, do we have, you know, we as Christians.
Okay, you can take your atheist hat off now and put your Christian hat back on and breathe a little bit more easily again. As Christians here this morning, we would say that God created that flower, wouldn't we? That this flower was, you know, came from creation. So what evidence do we then have that the flower was created? Well, if we look at the flower, we have all exactly the same evidence that we have for the creation of the flower as we do for the creation of the vase.
So let's begin. Does the flower have form and structure? Yes, it stands up nicely. If you go outside, you can see where I picked this off the plant.
There wasn't too many out there because it's wintertime. But it is doing what it does. It has form, it has structure.
Does it have function? What's the function of the flower to reproduce? And why does it have color data in reproducing? Is it possible that it could reproduce without color? Yes, it could. Absolutely. There are many, you know, this one attracts bees, but you don't have to attract bees to reproduce.
Many plants reproduce without attracting bees. And so this brings up another point. If all you had to do was attract bees, you could make all flowers the same color.
Just make them, you know, hi vis orange or hi vis fluoro. Green, that's all you need. The bees can see it.
They go there, they get their butter. All flowers made up of hiviz orange or hi Vis Fluoro green, or whatever you wish. Why is that, Lawson? Okay.
Lawson likes those colors. Yep. Well, next week we'll see Lawson turning up in his Sabbath vest with his high vis vest.
Have you noticed how incredibly extravagant the natural world is when it comes to color and design and form? I mean, look at the design of that. Which one has more design in it, the vase or the flower? You know, that has beautiful. You just look at it and it's automatically appealing to the eyes, isn't it? And you can go and you can find every different shade of color and shape and form that you can even begin to imagine out there in the natural world, spread all over the natural world, all of which.
All of that extravagance is entirely unnecessary to the reproduction of life. So why does it exist? We would say for our pleasure. Other people would say, ah, well, it just happened that way.
Okay, all right, let's look a little bit further. We find that it has artistic design. What about information? Any information there? Yeah.
Okay, so on the vase, how many letters did we have there? Nakari? We had maybe eight letters on the bottom of the vase, something like that. Okay. Eight or ten letters.
Okay. There's not a lot of information on the vase, is there? How much information is there in the flower? Okay, so this brings us to something that we were talking about last presentation where we talked about cells. And in the time of Charles Darwin, of course, the cell was just a blob.
It was a brick. And so Darwin proposed that there was a big bang. A bunch of souls came out as a result of that big bang and ordered themselves.
They looked like a shape of a brick. They're the building bricks of life. And suddenly you had a brick wall.
Has anybody ever seen a brick wall come out of an explosion? No, I've never seen that. So I would have to accept that by faith if I was going to accept that. However, we now know that cells for their size are the most complex devices in the universe.
They are living, breathing, reproducing organisms. They have motors, conveyor belts, propellers. They have nanotechnology that is beyond our imagination.
And of course, last presentation, we looked at how in your body there are. What did we say there were? I have to get my facts right here. Yeah.
100 trillion cells in the human body. And every seven years, every single one of those cells is replaced. So you're completely new person every seven years.
So if you don't like the way you are right now, just wait seven years. You'll be a different person. I kind of actually wish I could go back the other direction, but one day, one day that will happen.
Okay, now if we look at a cell and we take something like a single cell, like say, for instance, an amoeba. An amoeba is one of those really small ones that you can put a thousand of them end to end across 1 millimeter. So it's an amoeba.
Let's think about it for a moment. It has a circulatory system within it to distribute food and oxygen. It has a reproductive system so that it can maintain its species.
It has a digestive system in it so that it can maintain life. It has a hormonal system in it, or an endocrine system, we might call it in the human body for communication. It has an integumentary system.
I struggle with some of these words because it has skin, it has a muscular system so that it can move. It has a. Well, in our body we have a lymphatic system which is a defense against viruses and bacteria.
And a single cell still has a defense system as well as it has a respiratory system for breathing. It has a structural system to allow movement, and it has a filter and cleansing system. All of these systems functioning within just that single cell.
And this is made up of many, many, many cells. And then you go a step further, of course, and you start to look at the DNA, which is the most complex part of the cell. Now, what is the purpose of DNA? What does DNA do? Okay, identification.
Alright, so Daniel will use DNA if he wants to identify who you are. If you've been blown to pieces and spread all over the place by a terrorist bomb that goes off. So if we think about that for a moment, that's rather robust form of information storage, isn't it? Because if I was to take the computer down the back there and blow it to pieces and spread it all over the place, would Daniel be able to extract any information from it? No.
So DNA is very, very robust way of storing information. Okay, so DNA is not just about how you identify someone. DNA is how you store is.
What is the means by which you store information? It's like a book, okay? A book is a means of storing information. In this book is stored information, isn't that so? Okay, so the DNA is the equivalent of the book. All right, let's talk about DNA for a moment.
In a single cell like an amoeba, then you can Put a thousand of them end to end across a millimeter. How much storage do you think you might have there? How much storage we got in the computer down the back there, David? Fair bit. We got a terabyte back there.
Not. Not that much. Okay, well, in that single cell.
And you can go down the back and have a look. David doesn't have a terabyte. He's got maybe half a terabyte, I don't know.
But it's a rather large machine to store that half a terabyte in a single cell amoebar, there are 15 terabytes, and you can line them up a thousand of them across a millimeter. So not only is it a very robust way of storing information, but it is a very compact way of storing information. They've actually produced synthetic DNA and they would use it in our computers if they could create it in a way that was economically viable.
Because it's so much more robust and compact than the forms of storage that we have in our world today. Okay, so it is robust and is compact. And you can put 15 terabytes in a single cell if you need to.
And you think about how many cells we have in the human body or how many cells there are in that plant right there. And I don't know how many cells there are in that flower. And.
But let's compare the amount of information that is contained in that flower compared to the eight or 10 letters that are written on the bottom of the vase. Which one has more flour, has infinitely more, doesn't it? In fact, if we look at DNA, 1 gram of DNA can hold 2.2 petabytes of information.
Okay, so you don't know what that is, a PETA. But because I didn't know what it was, I had to look it up. Some of you probably do.
A PETA is a million billion or 10 to the power of 15. So to put that in context, that we can understand, if you were to take all of the information that exists in our world, that's a lot of information. There's a lot of computers out there, right? But not just the information that exists in computers.
Information that consists in books and so forth. If you were to take all of the information that exists in our entire planet and to store it in DNA, you could put all of that information in the back of Holden Ute. And we think as human beings, you know, we're pretty smart.
You know, we can create a computer. Remember, the first computer I ever saw had a 7k hard drive on it? I was like, wow, this is so amazing. That wasn't that long ago.
7K. And we think we are incredibly intelligent. We can create something like this.
And when we look at that computer, we say, well, that computer had to have been created by a human being because of its form, its functionality, all the different things it can do, etc. And then we come to this and it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. That can't be created.
That can't be created at all. That came by accident. That came out as a result of an explosion.
Yep. Okay, then we go another step further. Before I move off of DNA, let's go another step further on DNA.
Let's think about. Oh, a pepper bite. There you go.
We have some information coming from the back of the room. I didn't even know what a pepper bite was. Let's go to.
Let's continue on. Let's think a little bit more about DNA. We've got some more things to discuss here before we pull this all together.
DNA is the means by which you store information. So this book, let's say that this book is like DNA. It's a means of storing information, isn't it? It's a storage thing.
So our book is a storage thing. And our book is made up of leather and paper and ink. So the leather, paper and ink, that is all material, isn't it? Okay, so from a materialistic perspective, we can say, yes, we understand how this book is put together.
It's made up of leather, paper and ink. What about the information? What part of the information in the book is material, energy and matter? Because the information in this book is here because somebody has arranged the ink on the paper in such a way that we can extract the information and we can go to DNA and we can extract the information from the DNA. Okay, where does the information come from? What is the origin of information? Okay, the information in this book came from Jesus, didn't it? All right, we say that because we are Christians.
Praise God. All right, let's talk to our atheist friend. Or you can put your atheist hat on for just a moment.
I won't make you wear it for too long. And you look at this particular book right here. And where would you say that the information came from? Human beings.
All right, and why is it that a human being can create information? What do we create information with? Our brain, our mind, our intelligence. So if we go to observable science, In observable science, can we observe information originating with intelligence? Is that observable? Yes, it is. We can See, that information comes from intelligence.
An intelligent being discovers things, they have information, they can then communicate that information to others. All right, has science ever observed information coming from non intelligence matter and energy? Is that observable? No, that's never been observed. That is not observable.
Okay, so the atheist says, well, I believe in observable science and you believe in blind faith. And I come along and say, okay, but I believe that information comes from intelligence. You believe that information comes from not intelligence.
What I believe in is observable and what you believe in is not observable. So why do you believe in it? Because of faith. Right? You have faith in that.
Okay, so why do I believe what I believe? I don't have all the details for sure, but at least it's observable. It's a scientific principle that information comes from intelligence. Of course, the discoverers of DNA decided that DNA had been seeded to our planet by aliens because they couldn't come up with any reasonable theory as to where information came from other than intelligence.
Well, my question is, where did those aliens come from? It sort of doesn't solve the problem a whole lot, does it? You know, famous Latin proverb, out of nothing, nothing, Okay? And that just creates another whole level of complexity, doesn't it? A whole lot more faith. Okay, so over here, over here we have our atheist, and our atheist says that it came from a big bang, nothing exploded, and everything came from that. So the universe came out of nothing, for nothing, by nothing, because of nothing.
Is that observable science. Okay, so here's how it works. I'm over here as a Christian and I say that the universe came into existence because there was somebody there who brought it into existence.
That's the law of cause and effect. We all understand the law of cause and effect. Okay, on this side, the atheist says, well, I believe that the universe came into existence from nothing.
Okay? Have we ever seen something that has come into existence from somebody else? We can take our vase, okay? Our vase came into existence because somebody made our vase. It is a scientific principle that this vase came in, this is observable sign, somebody made the vase. Okay? That's observable science.
All right, if that vase has come into existence because somebody made it, then we look it out at our world and we look at all the evidence that we have there as to why that vase came into existence because somebody made it. And we look at our world and we say, well, we have much, much greater evidence in our world that it came into existence because somebody made it. So we use the scientific principle that where you have an effect, you have a cause.
So therefore we say, well, there was a cause here at the beginning, and that's why we have our world. This person over here uses the principle that it all came out of nothing. Has anybody ever seen something come from nothing? Okay, so why do you believe that something came from nothing? That's faith, right? That's faith.
Over here, at least we have a scientific principle. You start to see what's going on. So often I hear, you know, people talk about the gap between faith and science and, you know.
Yeah, but you are people of faith. You know, we are people of science. Science has no quarrel with the Bible.
There's no difficulty with science in the Bible. The difficulty is when people try and be unscientific. If you go to Genesis, chapter one, what does the Bible say? Genesis, chapter one.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is a scientific principle. If you want to know the origin of the heaven and the earth, it came from somebody.
There's a whole bunch of other things we could talk about here. I wrote this sermon and then I cut it in half, and now I'm going to cut it in half again. Okay, so let's think about this from a mathematical perspective for a moment, and let's think about the kind of universe that we have.
We have a universe that is unimaginably large, but we have a universe that also supports life. Let's do a little bit of review, remind ourselves of a couple of things. Again, let me just get my numbers here so I get it all correct.
Okay? In the human body, there are 100 trillion cells, and in a cell, there are 100 trillion atoms. So the question that then comes up is this, how many atoms are there in the universe, the observable universe? Well, if I was to put that number on the screen, the zeros would be so small you wouldn't be able to see them clearly. But that number is estimated to be 10 to the 80th power.
That's a rather large number, 10 to the 80th power. Okay, so that's the number of atoms that there are in the universe. What are the odds of.
Where will we start here? Let's start with this one. This is from Dr. Hugh Ross.
He calculated that there had to be 142 factors that must be exactly right to allow life to exist anywhere in the universe, and a further 922 factors that had to be exactly right to allow life to exist on a specific planet within the universe. So what are the odds of all of those factors coming together so that life can exist? Okay, so we calculated. So remember, number of atoms in the universe, 10 to the 80th power.
The odds of all of these factors combining on one Single Planet are 1 in 10 to the 1015 power. That's starting to become a rather large number, isn't it? Okay, let's take that another step further. And another mathematician, Sir Fred Hoyle, calculated the odds of getting just the right enzymes together for life.
So just the right combination of enzymes so that one cell can be alive, which is another interesting principle. You know, we understand how life comes from life. It's a scientific principle.
You know, we see that happening every day. Whereas the atheist will say, no, life comes from non life. Has anybody ever seen that life come from non life? No.
Okay, that's faith. All right, so just the right enzymes getting together. So we started at 10 to the 80th power.
Number of atoms in the universe, all the factors being combined on one planet to allow life to exist, 10 to the 1050th power. All the right enzymes coming together to create life is 10 to the. Here it comes, 40,000th power.
Is anybody's mind starting to bend yet? Okay, this is, this is numbers you can't get your brain around. I can't put these on the screen for you because that's too many zeros. Roger Penrose calculated the odds of a life friendly universe as 1 in 10 to the 10th power.
So that's kind of small right now, but no, no, no, that's not. Where it stops is one in. Okay, one in ten to the tenth power.
Two the 123rd power. Okay, so what are the odds of impossibility? The odds are impossibility are 1 in 10 to the 50th power. Mathematicians who calculate odds say that 1 in 10 to the 50th Power is something that will never take place no matter how long anything ever exists.
And yet it has all come together so that we are sitting here on a Sabbath morning reading our bibles and praising God. Isn't that wonderful? You know, isn't God good? Oh, and by the way, as research continues, they estimate that these numbers are having 1 million zeros added to them per month. As we learn more and more about what is going on.
A million zeros in a number that big is actually quite very small. But it would be similar to winning the lottery where there are 1 million competitors and the lottery is entirely random and you would have to win it 123 times. In a row without missing once.
If that was possible, there would be a lot of people buying lottery tickets, I think. Okay, so where do we go with all this? I want to show you something in 1st John 4:16, something we all understand very well. And I come back to something we were talking about right at the very beginning, 1 John 4:16.
The Bible simply says this, and we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love. And he that lives in love, lives in God, and God in him.
As human beings, we find our ultimate expression through love. Love is the ultimate fulfillment for any human being. Isn't that so? What is love? Where does love come from? Why do we experience love the way that we do? Why does love even exist at all? Love is entirely unnecessary to the process of evolution.
There are many highly successful creatures on our earth that live entirely solitary lives and have no experience of love. It is entirely unnecessary if you place it in the context of evolution. And yet, as human beings, we love each other.
We love our children, we love our parents, we love our families, we love our spouse. Love is the most powerful driving force that we have within us as human beings. Why can it be explained by just energy and matter? No, love can't be explained by energy, matter.
And yet we all love. Why do we all love? The Bible says, because God is love. If we go back to Genesis, where it all began, what do we find in Genesis? Genesis, right there in Genesis, chapter one.
Genesis, chapter one. And let's go down to verse 26 where it says this. And God said, let us make man in our image.
Stop there for a moment. Does love exist as a singular. For love to exist, you have to have more than one, don't you? This is why the Bible says God said, let us make man in our image, because God is love.
You can neither love nor experience love, nor can love exist if you are on your own. And this is why when we look at God, God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is three.
Because with just one, love can't exist. God is that perfect union of three. And so God comes along and God says, okay, let us.
And immediately, the moment that he says us, we have evidence for the existence of love. We have the possibility of love right there. And he says, let us make man in our image.
So now we know that as human beings, we are created in the image of God, and we find our ultimate fulfillment as human beings in loving each other. And so we understand that God is love, that God finds his ultimate fulfillment in loving each Other. And as God is plural, God is three.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And yet the Bible says we serve one God. And we try and get our heads around that.
It's like, well, how does that actually work? What do you mean, we serve one God? How can three be singular? How can plural be singular? Well, Genesis has the answers all right here. Genesis 2, verse 24. Human beings made in the image of God.
Notice what it says. Made in the image of God. It says, therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and stick to his wife.
And those two shall be how many those two shall be? One. God is love. God created us in his image, therefore God creates us with our ultimate fulfilment being love.
And when we understand that our ultimate fulfillment is love, we understand that this is where we experience the power of God. This is where we experience what it is to be in God's image here on this earth at this particular time. And then we think about God's expression of love.
And we ask ourselves, why did God bring the universe into existence? If God is love, why does the universe exist? For what purpose does the universe exist? The answer is very simple. The universe exists for one purpose only, and that purpose is providing a home for people that he can love and that can love him. The universe exists for only one reason.
It exists because God is love. How do we see the love of God in our lives? We see the love of God because God created us so that he could spend eternity with us. We messed that up.
God redeemed us so that he could spend eternity with us. And now God is coming back so that we can spend so that he can spend eternity with us. We talk about God and we talk about.
We use theological terms in relationship to salvation. Jesus died for our salvation. Jesus is coming back for our salvation.
You know a simpler way of putting it? Jesus died for our friendship and for no other reason. That's it. God is love, friends.
God is love. Don't you want to love him in return? He gave us a wonderful gift, didn't he? We live in an amazing world. And the fact that we love each other and we find ultimate fulfillment in love is the greatest evidence we have of the existence of God.
We're going to close the prayer. I've been informed that we don't have a closing hymn. So in place of a closing hymn, we're going to stand for the benediction.
Father in Heaven, we thank you for the unimaginable love that you have toward us insignificant human beings, but that you created in your image. And created with such amazing complexity. Created as individuals redeemed by your blood.
Father, may we always remember this. May it inspire us in our service to you. May we love you in return.
And may we live in your image as we love others. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen. This message was made available by Adventist Streaming.
For more resources like this, visit adventist-streaming.org. It's been our pleasure bringing you this program Today here on 3 ABN Australia Radio.
