Illustration - The Existence of God - Time

Illustration:  The Existence of God

Romans 1:20; Time, the universe

Look at your watch.  See it ticking.  What does it do?  It measures time...one second after another in a relentless procession.  How long has time been going on?  Forever?  What would infinite time be like?  How much time would elapse from one year to the next if time was actually infinite?  An infinite amount of time.  How much time would elapse from one day to the next if time was actually infinite?  An infinite amount of time.  How much time would elapse from one second to the next?  An infinite amount of time.  If time was ACTUALLY infinite, we could not count from one second to the next.  Yet our watch is ticking away.  So time is not infinitely long, but it had a beginning.  When did it begin?  When the universe began a long, long time ago.  How long ago that was is debated some, but the important thing is that time and the universe has not always been here.  Since the universe had a beginning, was it caused or uncaused.  If it was uncaused, then you would have to explain how something came FROM nothing BY nothing.  That's pretty absurd.  So the universe had a cause.  Since the universe was caused, was that cause a something or a someone?  Among the things in the universe are some of the most incredible things made: thinking, feeling, creative human beings.   If the cause was a something, we would have to explain how mind comes from non-mind.  Minds don't come from rocks!  Minds come from other minds.  It is much more reasonable to think that the cause of the universe is a SOMEONE.  That someone could not be made up of the stuff of this universe, or he would have made himself when the universe was made.  That someone would be non-material.  Sounds like a spirit to me.  That someone would know everything about the universe since he made it.  He would be all-knowing.  He would be present to the whole universe since he exists outside and beyond it.  He would be omni-present.  He was able to make everything, so he is all-powerful.  Sounds a lot like God to me, and I did not have to open a Bible to know this.  It's interesting, though, that the Bible does say in Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been CLEARLY  SEEN, BEING UNDERSTOOD THROUGH WHAT HAS BEEN MADE, so they are without excuse.