Not enough Faith to be an Atheist Week 5

Romans 1, and Isaiah 40

Read Romans 1:20 “20 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.”

What does this mean?

What of God has been clearly seen?

(His eternal power and divine nature)

How do we see these things?

What does it mean that people are without excuse?

Here’s what this means in Scripture.

Romans 1:21–23 “21 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. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

In short: When man worships the created things over the Creator… we are in for big problems.

Theology is just “the study of God”

In theology there are two terms:

General Revelation and Special Revelation.

General Revelation is nature, observable characteristics of God, Universe.

Special Revelation is God’s Word, the Bible. God’s Word that He has spoken to us.

So when we read Romans 1:20 is that general revelation or special revelation?

It’s special revelation…

But Romans 1:20 is talking about General Revelation…

If we reject that God created all that we see, then we are without excuse before Him.

In other words, any intelligent being that can discern God from the creation is without excuse before Him.

However, here is something really cool…

Let’s take babies, those with special needs, etc…

There are lots of people who, before God, I do believe have an “excuse” for why they could not choose Him…

Babies do not have the ability to choose… therefore, they never could choose created over creator so before God they are accepted.

For my own life, that is personal to me. I trust that I have another child in heaven that will be there one day.

That child did not survive the womb, but I still trust God is holding that life in His care.

For those of us that can choose (Everyone in this room) we are without excuse.

We cannot reject God and be off the hook.

God is clear to us and we would be foolish to reject Him.

That’s quite literally what verses 21-23 are talking about… foolish people who reject Him.

So where does that leave us today?

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In NEFTBAA…

we are going to talk about 3 things today:

Natural Cause, Intelligent Cause, and the Principle of Uniformity.

What is a Natural Cause versus an Intelligent Cause.

Grand Canyon… How was this formed?

There’s lots of theories there…

Slowly over time…

Quickly from rushing water…

Dinosaurs.

I mean lots of theories.

Either way, nobody believes the Grand Canyon was created intelligently… it is accepted by both secular scientists and God-fearing scientists that the Grand Canyon was created by natural causes.

But what about Mt. Rushmore?

Was it created naturally or intelligently?

Well, if you go there today, you can examine it for yourself.

You can also see old videos of the men who made it from 1927-1941.

When you compare the Grand Canyon to Mt. Rushmore, both are incredible…

However, one was clearly made from natural causes and one was clearly made from Intelligent causes.

Where else can we clearly see the difference?

If you came into your kitchen on Saturday at lunch and there was a spilled can of Spaghetti o’s alphabet on the table… You would expect it to be randomly spilled on the table.

That was probably knocked over accidentally.

However, if you came in and saw that with the pasta letters someone had written “Clean up your room.” You’d probably believe this was not a natural thing that happened, but an intelligent thing that happened!

Or when your walking down the beach in a few months in the heat of summer…

You will see sand castles, writing in the sand, and other signs of a fun beach day.

You know what you never think…

Man look at that sand castle that a crab made…

Or wow, look “Will you marry me” is written in the sand, can you believe the water washed up on the beach and was able to write that so eloquently, I wonder who the ocean wants to marry?

When we see those messages, we know they came from an intelligent cause.

Now, these are small examples, let’s move back out into space for a moment and consider things there.

In our galaxy, there are roughly 100 billion stars.

Stars btw, are basically suns in other solar systems.

Do you know how close the next Solar system is?

about 20-30 Trillion miles away.…

Not billion… not million… Trillion guys…

I don’t understand a Trillion.

Here’s a good way to help…

How long ago was 1,000,000 seconds ago?

11 days ago…

1 billion seconds ago…

31.5 years ago…

1 trillion seconds ago…

29,679 BC…

or

31,688 years ago.

I can’t understand that.

I can understand a million and a billion…

But I can’t wrap my head around 1 trillion.

Things that orbit the earth travel about 17,400 mph.

If you traveled that fast in space, to reach the next star almost 30 trillion miles away would take you…

wait for it…

201,450 years…

If you had hopped in a space shuttle when Jesus was walking the earth and traveled 17,400 MPH for the last 2000 years, you’d be 1/100th of the way there.

That’s the distance between 2 stars in our galaxy…

There’s 100 billion of them…

How many are you visiting in your life time?

Isaiah 40:25–26 “25 “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

Psalm 103:11 “11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;”

God is the one who made these stars.

He is massive.

Think about how silly it is that we look back at God and try to tell him how we think the universe was created when He has clearly told us. “I made it.”

Genesis 1:1 “1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Yet that same God cares about us.

Job 14:5 “5 A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.”

Psalm 139:16 “16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

The same God who created stars 30 billion miles from each other made you, knows you, knows the hairs on your head and the total number of days you have to live.

The God of detail can handle both.

He cares for you.

He knows your struggles.

He knows your victories and your losses.

He knows what everyone knows about you and what nobody knows about you except for you.

And in it all… That God died in your place to give you His life.

He is the Good Shepherd worth following.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear him.

What a promise!