Latest / Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies / Evangelism Using God's Creation | Mike Houts | Week 01

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Evangelism Using God's Creation | Mike Houts | Week 01 · Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
• 0:37
  Speaker B: Starting out Going to kind of set the tone for the class and several Bible verses apply to how we can evangelize using God's creation. Start out Romans 1:20. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. And so when we let that sink in, the beauty of it is no matter who we're talking to, where we're talking, we've got God's creation all around us. And so if we know, no matter what the person's background is, they're all going to know something about God's eternal power and divine nature just by creation. And so we can use that to evangelize. And also, though it's also very important, a lot of verses in the Bible just talking about we need to really put our full trust in the Bible, put our full faith in the Bible as God's inerrant word. John 3:12 if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And so one of the things we'll be talking about, there's all kinds of, I'll just say alternatives to the Bible out there, like where'd the universe come from? Where'd life come from? Where'd Earth come from? Well, and those can be distractions. And if someone starts to follow one of those distractions, then how are they gonna put their faith in the Bible? In other words, if they don't trust what the Bible says about physical things, how are they going to trust the Bible, what it says about spiritual things? And that's again what John 3:12 and other verses are alluding to. And then also examples in the Bible where it's even more direct, where people are evangelizing using God's creation. Of course, everyone's familiar with this set of verses. It's in Acts 17. This is where Paul's going through. It's Paul in Athens. And I'll just read verse 23 and 24 says, for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, therefore the one whom you worship, without knowing him, I proclaim to you God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. And he goes on, and it's kind of interesting, he gets the same response that we usually get. A lot of people believed him, A lot of people followed him. A lot of people were sort of interested, they wanted to hear more. And I think some of them were like, well, what's this babbler talking about? You know, and so don't. I try to always bring stuff like that up too. So don't, you know, talk to a couple, three people and they, you know, you're not. Don't feel like you're connecting. Believe me, you're always connecting. We'll have examples. It just might be your connection takes about 15 years or so to take root, but you are connecting. So just keep at it. Be persistent. Don't worry about, you know, don't worry of doing good. So going to start out, just brief description of class. One thing is class, we're going to have at least one field trip. Okay, so this is a field trip. It's up to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. We tried to squeeze it in. So no one misses school, no one misses work. You might slip out a few minutes early on Friday and you might need an extra few cups of coffee on Monday. But what you do is we'll head out Friday, August 28th, about five o' clock, and we'll be back August 30th. Now this is just kind of, I'll call it the main group, or if we get up there, we got about 16 people already. If we get up to about 50, we'll get a big Greyhound bus. And yeah, you can sleep on the bus and stuff. But this is like one of the church buses will be holding to this schedule. We got them Both of the 15 passenger buses reserved right now. You don't have to stay that late. You don't have to leave that late. If you can get half day off on Friday and you want to drive up yourself, that's great. Had a lot of people do that last year and the same Thing if Arkin county, you're like, this is great, but, you know, I want to get home. Then you leave early on Sunday. But that's the basic schedule. It's $200 a family, and that'll include a hotel room for two nights. The hotel, we get. It will sleep five comfortably, but it will sleep as many as you want, uncomfortably. Okay, so it's. And so. And then. And then it's. But anyway, yeah, so both admissions, the hotel for two nights. And so we just. We kept it for family because we just wanted big families to feel as encouraged to go as single people. Believe it or not, that's actually a really good deal even for a single person, you know, by time to take everything into account. So if you want to send me an email, that's great, let me know you're coming. But the person who's really keeping track is Kathy Stevens, because she's taken the $200. So if you get on her list, you're good to go. But if you can, let me know too, that's great. It's mainly just how many hotel rooms to get and whether or not we can get the Greyhound or the. I think we use spirit coach a couple years when we usually go with. But something like that. Okay, so then going into an initial observation, the idea that the universe and everything in it simply made itself is strongly refuted by true science. True science is the Christian's friend. And God has given us tremendous evidence that we should put our faith in him, but he also lets it be our choice. Okay, so this is the first. I separated this one out. To me, the fact that God gave us the ability to choose, that's part of his creation. And so it's not really a technical one, but I really appreciate everybody choosing to be here tonight. And you got to choose what time you left the house, what you had for dinner. All kinds of choices we make, but you could not make even a simple choice if you were just a complicated chemical reaction. And so to make even a simple choice, you have to have a soul. And so it takes a little while to sink in. And then we'll give some examples of how you actually use that to evangelize. Because you look at this, you know, family we're coming out of, we're actually going sort of back into fall, winter. Hopefully a lot of you guys get to go outside. You have campfire and stuff. You know, you're watching a campfire. It's nice and relaxing. And the, you know, it's a good thing to do as A family. But if you want to ruin it, what you do is you start pointing out to somebody just how complicated that chemical reaction is, that they're just calling a campfire because a campfire. You know, it depends on the texture of the wood, the composition of the wood, density of the wood. It depends on the air going by the wood, the velocity of that air, you know, composition, all kinds of factors. Really complicated chemical reaction. In fact, it's so complicated, we can take our best laboratories. We have laboratories now. We can measure surface texture down to the microns, and we can use our best CFD programs. We cannot look at a piece of wood and predict how it's going to burn when we put it on a fire. So it's a very complicated chemical reaction. But does the wood choose where it's going to burn? In other words, what are you going to do? You're out this fall and you're sitting next to somebody watching a campfire, and person next to you just goes, oh, that's just beautiful. I'm so glad the wood chose to burn that way. Okay, well, you need to take action. Okay, what do you do? Get a blanket on them, get them inside. I mean, because that's crazy. The wood's not choosing where it's going to burn because it doesn't have a soul. It can't make a choice. If God had not given us a soul, we would be just like a piece of wood burning in a fire. We'd be a very complicated chemical reaction, but we could not make a choice. I mean, a lot of us in town, you know, fascinated with the Artemis mission, SLS launched in. I mean, I'm actually really glad that those engines can't choose whether or not they want to burn. You know? Yes. I'm sure the astronauts are even more glad. You know, I mean, it's. And so it's. But again, it doesn't matter how complicated the chemical reaction is. If that's all it is. It comes down to just, you know, physical ph and density and concentration, just all these factors that dominate that chemical reaction. Temperature. But it's not making a choice. Okay, so does that make any sense to anybody? So how would you use that? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 8:15
  Speaker A: I have a question.
• 8:16
  Speaker B: So if we're using the choice whether or not they have a soul, but then animals make choices, right? So. So. Oh, boy. That's how to phrase that. That's a. Okay. Believe it or not, there's actually a huge divide over that. Okay. And so we don't want to get into it. So Whenever there's something like that, I always dodge the question. And so. One thing I just like to say, I know we have choices. And so that means we're more than just a chemical reaction, which means we have a soul. So we need to do what the Bible says. Follow, obey the gospel, hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized. Anything the Bible says. But what animals do, what I actually do say is I never want to limit life because I don't know. And all I do know is the simplest life is more complicated than anything I can imagine. And if you want an example of that we make, well, going back to the Artemis mission, we made the sls. God gave us the creativity and the intelligence to make that huge rocket, and it worked. No one's ever come close to making even a simple life from even a bacteria, from basic chemicals. So that's going to be a second point. We'll talk about that a lot more. I mean, literally. And so I just never want to limit life. So I know I totally dodged your question, but yes, animals are amazing. But I'll just keep the focus on we're the ones that we know we can make choices. Okay. Was that unsatisfactory to everybody? All right, good. Perfect. All right, so I hit the right balance. That's great. Okay. Okay. So that's the. And so one way to think about this. The fact that we can choose tells us how we should choose. In other words, the fact we can make a choice means we need to choose to put our faith in God and act accordingly. Study His Word, basically do his will. And so that's really important. Now you think, well, okay, how would I use that? Well, a way you could use it would be, say, someone. You invite someone to Bible study, and they say, sure, I'd love to come to Bible study. Then you say, great. And the reason we study the Bible is because the fact you could. You're like, I'm so glad you made that choice. You probably want to introduce the word choice first. So glad you made that choice. And realize the only way you could make that choice is because God gave you a soul. And that's why it's so important to study the Bible. Or God gave us souls, and so that's why it's so important to study the Bible. If someone keeps telling you no at some point, without trying to make it too awkward, cause you want to keep, you know, don't ever burn bridges and keep all the doors open, you might say, well, you know, is that kind of your choice not to go with me and they'll look at you funny. I mean, it's not that weird of a thing to say, but it's not a normal thing you'd say. And then they'll say, yeah, it was my choice. And then you point out the same thing. Well, you know, the fact that you can choose means that you really should study the bible. Okay, so that one, it's 100%. But just in case they start going out on the Internet, what they'll notice is when you go to the atheist quotes and they get on this subject, they all very adamantly, firmly say, we have no free will. Very adamantly, firmly say we can't make choices. This is William Provine, he was up at Harvard. Real famous evolutionist atheist. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans either. Okay, now that's, you know, he's, he's right up front. That's usually not their opening paragraph on, you know, why you should become an atheist. Because that's kind of depressing when you think about it, you know. But that's Francis Crick, okay, so he's co discoverer of DNA. This is another point we'll make is a lot of people with very strong scientific credentials. I mean he won a Nobel Prize for whatever reason they've chosen to be atheists. And I use that a little tongue in cheek now that we've said that they have chosen to be atheists. If you ask them if they've chosen to be an atheist, they'll say, yeah, I chose to be an atheist. Then you can point out to them, well, if atheism was right, you couldn't have chose right. It's true. But anyway, so don't be intimidated on this subject just because someone with scientific credentials might say something. Make them explain it to you, make sure it actually makes sense. And so one way to think about it is you'll have a lot of atheists with scientific credentials. If they're speaking as scientists, they're just as right and wrong as everybody else. But if they're an atheist with scientific credentials and speaking as an atheist, well then you really just need to just evaluate it based on the religious, where they're putting their religion. Try to help them. View them as a victim of your enemy. Don't view them as the enemy, but Satan's deceived them. But that's an important distinction to make. So you get a lot of that. Anyway, here's Francis Crick. Your sense of personal identity and free will are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells. I mean totally non scientific statement. I mean it's just, that's his religious belief. But no science in that. That's not observable, testable, repeatable, nothing that would make it scientific. That's just his religion. Robert Sapolsky, a couple newer atheists I guess you call it. There's no God, there's no free will, there's no purpose to anything. Makes you want to run out and become an atheist, doesn't it? And then Susan Blackmore, there is no stream of consciousness, no conscious self. There is no free will. Okay, so there's ways we can use this. If they, you know, can you assume that anything you say, they're going to try to go check it. That's why you keep the communication. If they go on the Internet, they're going to find that out. Now another reason this is important is we've lost church members, members over this. Had one student from, he's about 100 miles from here. He went to college, he was in engineering. And this isn't an engineering versus other majors. Well, it's a little bit, but anyway. But he switched over to philosophy. And the first thing the philosophy departments try to do is convince you you don't have free will. I mean the ones that are dominated by atheists because they realize that even if they convince you all these philosophical reasons you should be an atheist, if you think you have free will, it's not going to stick. And so literally he went from a leader in his youth group, very strong Christian, to an atheist. And so of course everybody's kind of in shock. They're talking to him and we got on this subject and he's like, oh no, I know I don't have free will. And he had some very smart, well dressed, eloquent professors that somehow convinced him he had no free will. And so be real careful when you go out to college, if you have someone start trying to do that, that's not objective. They are 100% trying to basically lead you astray, lead you away from your faith. And they know that they have to do that because everything else they can make, everything else as we'll get into, goes against what we know about science. But that's the one that until they convince you you don't have free will, you're never going to become a devout atheist. Now there's a lot of people that will say they're atheists and they've just never really thought about it. But if you're a Christian and they know it, they're going to, if they want to try to convert you, they're going to focus on that one. And the really sad thing was it didn't change his personality. It was almost like he just kind of went, I don't want to say crazy, but you go down there, you study with him. Can I get you some coffee? Would you like anything to eat? Politest person grew up, still kept his Christian morals and ethics. But as far as we know, I mean, people tried for several years. No one converted them back. So it is actually a very serious one. Give one more example of a way to use this and then we'll move on. Unless someone else has other ones. But. Okay, so anyone know? I'll pick on an age, say a 3 year old or 4 year old. Anyone know? Anyone? Okay, so say that some of you know them better than others. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So sometimes, not always, you might tell, a three or four year old might say, hey, can I have a cookie? And the standard parental response is going to be yes, okay, you can have one cookie. And you make them ask a couple times. Okay, you can have one cookie. Okay. So they walk over the cookie jar and they, you kind of notice they're taking two or three and they come back. And so then you can say, well, did you take just one cookie? Okay. And then just panic, right? I mean, it's just, I mean a lot of us remember this when we were little. So it's okay, so you got all this stress generated and then you say, well they'll say, yeah, they'll fess up usually. And then you say, well, was that your choice? And now they just know that they're just like not leaving the house for a month, right? I mean, yeah, yeah. And they'll probably say, yeah. And you say, well, you know God, that's how you bring this in. You say, well, you know, God gives us the ability to make good choices and bad choices. Only God could do that. You know, people will try to tell you so you get through. They will remember that. Okay. Because that's going to be such a traumatic experience for them. They will remember that. So I'm just saying you can pull that in at any age. But again, just really get it ingrained that just the fact they can make even a simple choice, that proves they have a soul. Now still a long way to go studying the Bible and learn about the Bible, but that proves they have a soul. Okay, any other comments, thoughts on that? Yeah, Mike, I was talking about what Laura mentioned. It seems to me I know you can handle this. That's why I'm going to throw it at you. I was gonna dodgeball. Humans making choices is that we can make moral choices. Animals make choices for survivability, right? Yeah. If it's the survivability of, you know, her cubs or her pups or whatever, their survivability, their survivability choices, they're not moral choices. Right. And we, and we can choose to make choices that affect our eternity, maybe another way to phrase it, or someone else's eternity. Whereas a animal, typically, it's going to be like you say, the physical survival, protect their pups from being a prey or whatever. But it's not a moral choice, right? No, that's true. Yeah, yeah. And I was half joking, but just still be careful on that. Well, okay. I better drop this while I can. I won't dig any deeper, but yeah, no, you're right. That's as deep as I can go. So don't pull. Yeah. Oh, no, no. I mean by digging I have a bit about if you find yourself in a hole, you know, stop diggin type of thing. But. No, that's a good point, Barry. There's definitely differences. But I also don't want to ever underestimate animals because they're more amazing than anything people have ever made. Okay, so can anybody, I mean just. I know it's hard when you first think about it. Anybody can almost imagine someone you might be able to use this on. And I know that sounds kind of. I don't know what that sounds, but you know, in other words, like someone that's been not coming to church with you or not wanting to study the Bible with you or not, or they have been coming to church with you and they have been wanting to study the Bible just kind of reinforce it. I actually like the positive example. If you invite them to church and they say, sure, I'll come, boy, that's a great way to positively enforce it. Because right there they're in a good mood. They're going to be receptive to what you say and just point out to them, hey, the fact you made that choice, that's awesome. That's one of the reasons to go to church because that means we have souls. To me it seems like atheism, a lot of people relate it back to is or is not. They're a God.
• 19:33
  Speaker A: Right.
• 19:34
  Speaker B: I think a lot of atheists that claim to be atheists, it bases it on that God question. They don't go to the level of free will, you know, I don't think they go on to that. And they don't. But, boy, they will respond to it. So I'll just give two personal examples. One. So one thing, if you ever want to talk at a university and this sounds easy and it is easy, find a Christian group on that university campus that's willing to sponsor your talk. And almost every US University, as long as they're a recognized group, you know, they have to be recognized by the university. If they've recognized a Christian group, they can arrange the talk, they can advertise it on campus, they can reserve the room and stuff. So I got the honor to speak with Kyle Butt down at Mississippi State a few years ago and the University Christian Student center, they had reserved a room. We ended up with them like 300 people there. Well, the first two rows, it was the Free Thinker Society. Okay, another one for you guys. Watch out for code words. I know you guys know all this and you're HARP because of social media and everything else. Watch out for code words. Free Thinker. That's code for atheism, right? But it was just so fun in the middle of just natural flow. I said, you know, and you know, if God hadn't given us a soul, we wouldn't even be able to think freely, okay? Every one of them just facial expression change, okay? Because it clicked. And so, and then, and then another time I was at Jacksonville State, I think it is, and same thing as a talk. And afterwards, the head of the atheist club comes up and we're talking. And the real you can always keep a conversation respectful. And he goes, trying to be as friendly as I could. I said, well, you know, did you have a choice to come here tonight? And I don't think I'd use this one as a quick technical talk. And I said, do you have a choice? And he's like, oh, yeah, I could have done a thousand other things. Of course I could choose. And so worked through this and he agreed he didn't get baptized that night, but that's what I meant about planting the seed. Who knows what's going to happen? Yeah, it was his choice not to, but he agreed that he had just told me he could have done a thousand other things. Of course it was his choice. And then you point this out. So you're right, they don't think this deep. And so it's our job to make them think that deep. Because if someone just goes through their life and they just don't ever think deep enough to be anything other than an agnostic Then, you know, Satan wins. I mean, it's not. They don't have to. He doesn't have to keep him a devout atheist, even just keeping him an agnostic. It's kind of like the agnostic skydiver. Heard that one, right? Yeah. Jumps out of the plane, should I pull this chute or not? Well, I need more evidence. Well, this guy told me I should. Okay. After all, while. Okay, so, yeah, so it's analogous, but anyway. Okay. Okay, so now we're going to get into things a little more technical. We'll start out, I'm just going to define science and of course we'll then talk about scientific theories, a little bit about engineering, but I'll try to minimize these. But this is just sometimes people say, well, what do you mean by science? This is a Google English Dictionary. I mean, there's like all kinds of definitions about science. Says the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. Okay, so you notice that not once in there does it exclude God. I mean, a good definition of science is, hey, you basically, you make observations, you experiment, you test, and then you just follow the evidence. You see where the evidence leads. And so, but a lot of times people. And unfortunately, it's in most of our textbooks. I mean, they're complete, well, extremely misleading at the best, but almost like intentional misstatements just to avoid mentioning God. But you notice. So that's another thing you might need to get through when you're talking to somebody. If they say, oh, I put my faith in science, we say, that's fantastic, because true science always points to the Bible and that it's 100% true. And that's what we'll talk about. But what they usually will mean when they say, oh, I put my faith in science means I'm not allowed to believe in God. And that's just a misconception that people have somehow gotten in the last century or two, because that wasn't there at all. I mean, Isaac Newton was not all afraid to talk about God. Albert Einstein talked about God. Wernher von Braun talked about God. It's just the last few decades, all of a sudden it's been this, oh, well, if you want to be a scientist, you're not allowed to talk about God. It's completely false, but it's out there. And so we're bring that in. This is another question you can ask people. You notice when Christ was talking to people, a lot of times, if they would Ask him a question, he would respond with a question. And that's a great way to keep the conversation friendly. You've probably noticed that if someone's, even if, no matter how irate they are, if you can think really fast and think of a question to ask them, and usually it's not why are you so mad? But you'll come up with some kind of question just to keep, keep the conversation going. Well, a lot of times that'll, you can figure out what's up and you resolve it peacefully. And even if it's not spiritual related, that's obviously a good thing. But spiritually, if someone comes into your office and this actually happened to me and says, well, again, they've just chosen to put their faith in science, well, maybe work in a few sentences, but just ask them a question. And so this is one question you could ask. And you pretty much ask any of this. Yeah, I like science a lot too. But is it, is it really scientific to believe that something happens spontaneously? And in this case it would be life arising from non life that we've been unable to duplicate given our best laboratories, our smartest scientists and virtually unlimited financial resources. Because again, and you can push this one as hard as you want if you're in a high school or college setting, you can say, well, do you think our university could make life from basic chemicals? Spoiler alert. There's no universe in the world that can do that. There's no company in the world that can do that, no government in the world that can do that. And the other spoiler alert is you will get in trouble if you ask the wrong person that question because they think you're just being smart with them. But the whole point is, so is it really scientifically to say, well, that just happened randomly. And you say, well we've got this multi million dollar laboratory, can we just go do it on purpose? And they get mad at you. And that was actually one of the things that started me really figuring out because I grew up an evolutionist. That's one of the things that got me really starting to think, hey, this really is religion. It's not a scientific argument. It's just a couple few things hit where you realize, no, this is just a false religion, it's got nothing to do with science because science again goes completely on the side of the Bible. We'll talk about that. Okay, so never once had a person say yes to that. Okay. What usually would happen is they'll say, well it's not scientific, but it's still what I believe. Okay, and so you think, and that goes back to. Oh man, I thought that was a good one. And that didn't go anywhere. Well, you think it didn't go anywhere, but it actually did because that person who had just told you hey, I put my faith in science, has just heard their own voice say something fundamental to their religion that life just made itself is not scientific. Okay, so they've just introduced their own self contradiction because again if that, see what I'm saying? They're saying, oh, I just follow science. I'm putting my faith in science. Is it scientific to believe something happened spontaneously we've been unable to duplicate, given our best laboratory, smartest scientists, virtually unlimited financial resources? And you can push it much harder than that. I mean as far as just challenging basically any university to make life from basic chemicals and then saying, hey, well why are you teaching your freshmen that life just arose 3.8 billion years ago if you're literally in some cases billion dollar lab can't do it on purpose and then you for sure will get escorted off campus. But I'm just saying, you know, it's a. So you can push this one really hard if you want to, but you don't have to because really all you did was you just planted the seed. They just heard themselves admit that what they, within a paragraph saying they're putting their faith in science and then basically saying fundamental to their belief is completely against science. Okay, so you know, going on now, this, we'll do very. We. Well, you can get as much detail as you want. This, this slide is just in here to set up the next couple slides. So don't, don't, I mean, please come back next week. That's what I'm trying to say. Okay, so one of the things they talk about, well, could you make DNA or RNA or proteins, you know, could they somehow spontaneously assemble? So we've tried all kinds of things. You might have heard of the Miller Urey experiment, all these other things to try to try to see if you could get just any of the, either the nucleotides or the amino acids to spontaneously make themselves. But it's a lot more complicated than that. For nucleotides they have to all be right handed because it's like the physical structure of DNA double helix. They actually have to be all what they call right handed nucleotides for proteins. They have to be all what they call left handed amino acids. And you can't throw in just a random right handed amino acid. So we've tried that. Miller Urey, that was a famous experiment. It was really funny. Two of the same four authors wrote my biology textbook that wrote my daughter's biology textbook. And they had literally shifted from the Miller Urey experiment as proof of evolution to. Well, the Miller Urey experiment really isn't that relevant. It was the same people writing it just in the space of. But anyway they. And so, but what I'm going to hone in on is these building blocks have to be one handed. Okay. And so what happened was we sent a mission to a near Earth asteroid and it was the Osiris Rex mission. And what they did was they brought back samples, landed on Earth. I don't know if you remember, this was a few years ago, they landed out in the middle of Utah. It was actually a really amazing mission, you know, billion dollar mission. But that they were able to get the samples back to Earth. They were able to land, they were able to collect the samples and they were hoping to, to find somehow like all left handed amino acids because amino acids, they're pretty stable molecules so they'll just tend to form. So they found the amino acids but they ended up. It was actually more racemic than they are on Earth because on Earth most samples get a little bit contaminated. All amino acids are left handed from life. And it was a 5050 mix. Okay, so this was the chief scientist for organics. I think it's Dennis Glavin. I can't remember his first name but anyway, he says, I have to admit I was a little disillusioned or disappointed. Glavin said, I felt like this had invalidated 20 years of research in our lab and my career. But I mean, here's the thing. This is exactly why we explore, this is why we do these missions, right. If we knew everything in advance, we wouldn't need to do an Osiris Rex to bring these samples back. Okay. So I actually admire that. I mean, feel sorry for him. Apparently he's still able. Not. He's not a Christian apparently. So you feel sorry for him, but at least he's open and he's admitting him disappointed. Okay, does anybody remember the media spin on that? The media spin was, wow, we found 14 of 20amino acids, the building blocks of life. I mean it was just all over the thing. This was like page two of an article in Science where they started actually interviewing the researchers. They're saying, no, this was actually really disappointing. And so I kind of let that one go. But then I heard last week we were at a conference and people mentioned apparently there was A recent podcast, and Lisa said it was Bill nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and they were saying, oh, yeah, the Osiris Rex mission. That proves that we're all just stardust or something like that. You'd have to get the quote again. And they've said stuff like that in the past. Well, no, it actually proved we are absolutely not stardust. In other words, it proved that the stardust gives you amino acids. That's totally, totally useless for making life okay. So just be careful. That would be one. When you see a headline, you really dig into it. Because that one, to me, that was just completely misleading. And it's almost like they'd written the headline ahead of time because they knew they're going to find amino acids. And rather than getting to this level of detail where they acknowledge, hey, those are amino acids, but they're totally useless for life, they just stuck with the, oh, 14 to 20amino acids. And so just something, I guess, to say to be careful with. Now, a lot of people have. Now, these are, again, famous atheists that have acknowledged how difficult it is to make life or for life to have made itself. And so this is one. Why don't you read this? Because this is, to me, this is also something we always have to keep in mind when we're talking about this. This was Frederick Hoyle. So Sir Frederick Hoyle, he's the one that named the Big bank the theory. Okay? So he coined the term Big bang, but he knew evolution wouldn't work. And so just kind of picture you're outdoor knocking, you're on a mission trip. Maybe we're down in Peru. And you say, well, you get on the subject, you say, well, where do you think life came from? And the guy that answered the door goes, well, the likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 zeros after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There's no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other. If the beginnings of life are not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence. Okay, so what are you going to do? Okay, if you're in Peru, your translator is going to kill you. But if you're. Yeah, if you did something like, wow, that's amazing. But you're going to think, wow, this guy. Yeah, we just need to study the Bible a little bit. Because then you might ask him, why are you a Christian? He'd be like, well, no, but the problem is, for whatever reason, Fred Hoyle had decided he did not want to believe in God and literally he had chosen not to believe in God. And so he knew evolution could not work. And those numbers are actually about right. I think he was just talking like the proteins in an amoeba because you can run the, you know, they all have to be left handed amino acids and it's still being optimistic, but that's one and one followed by 40,000 zeros. So he knows it's not going to work. So he knows evolution doesn't work, but he doesn't want to believe in God. So you think, well, where did he go? What's your other option? Okay, so really smart person, extremely smart. I mean, that's a statue of him in front of Cambridge University. So he was one of the ones working with Francis Crick, who we mentioned earlier, that came up with this idea that, well, maybe aliens put us here on Earth. Okay. And so, you know, because you don't want to believe in God, evolution doesn't work. So aliens must have put us here on Earth. And there's just some really, really, I'll say, cheesy YouTube videos on that, you know, so if, you know, just, just kind of have all this innuendo and stuff. But again, he's really smart. So what's the obvious question he's not answering where the aliens come from. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then it's like, well, that's easy. They're just these smarter aliens. Yeah, exactly. So I think. So you get up. How do you phrase that? Yeah, yeah. You get an infinite regression of aliens basically or something like that. I don't know what it means. So pardon? He just then eventually called God an alien then. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what, you know, they'll go that direction. But he was basically. Yeah, that was just his false God was the alien. But he just, for what everybody knew, he just dropped it. He wrote three books on the subject and as far as anybody knows, he passed away without becoming a Christian. So it's kind of like the individual, the student I was mentioning that got led astray by the philosophy department. Well, he had to, for whatever reason decide he didn't want to be a Christian. But it wasn't based on the. A lot of times people will say, well, it's because of the science. Well, no, the science 100% points to the Bible. So they either have not heard the science, which I think you're mentioning, some of them just don't think about it. That's all they've heard since they're two years old. Evolution, atheism, no need for God. Some of them haven't thought about, well, those you can. That's one. Just, hopefully just a few evidences, they'll start at least be willing to study the Bible with you. Faith comes from hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. So what we need to do is get them into the Bible. But others that might have been their decoy. They want you to think that they had scientific questions, but they really have some reason that they're rejecting God. And that's a tough one. That's why I think we all know people. I mean, you guys know people I'll never meet. I probably know people you might never meet. And so that's why it's so important to have that personal relationship where you really, I mean just without ending the relationship, just say, okay, what's the real reason? What's the real reason you're not considering Christianity? What's the real reason you're not studying the Bible with me? Just very lovingly. Because sometimes it really is. Especially these days, unfortunately, if someone just grew up being an evolutionist, they never thought they'd never been to church, they no reason to believe anything else. That's one approach. But if someone, especially if they've been in the church and for whatever reason they're. They start pretending that science is the reason they're leaving the faith, that's probably not the reason. Make sure it's not the reason. But that's probably not the real reason. Because if they looked into that at all, they'd realize that no science again backs up the Bible.
• 36:24
  Speaker A: All these examples prove that it goes back to the initial sin of pride. That's what it really goes back to. Before getting into it, this specifics of why not God or why not this God or that it comes back to if you can't see yourself as not the center of the universe, then nothing else will. That's the fundamental thing here. I think it's the difficulty people have letting go of. If I believe that, that means I'm not in charge, I'm not the center of it. And I think that's where the divide is because that means you have to yield and submit things. And that's hard. It's hard. I get it. The very human. I mean God made us strong willed to seek him, but we can twist that. When you see that you have very smart people who. It sounds silly, but why not aliens then? Because then you can say because I see the language you put there. We do see more and More scientists saying, okay, I'll acknowledge there's a superior intelligence, but I won't call it God. And I get that because that's a moving wall, because that's a cop out. And I love science fiction as much stories, you know, but that's great because if God's an alien, then that means it's just an advanced version of me that I'll get there too. Right. Submitting to it. It's constantly punting, moving the goalpost. But it's just very simple. It goes back to, I cannot admit there's a superior power.
• 37:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think for some people, that's definitely true. For others, it's something bad happened to them. They're blaming God for others, so. Yeah, exactly. But if that's the one, then even then, you want to make it as hard for them to pretend that as you possibly can.
• 38:03
  Speaker A: I think, like you said, there's two types of people that either just deny the existence or say, and I've talked to at least one person who that was. Their response was, well, if he is real. If he was, then I would rather it's the whole Dante reign in hell than serve in heaven. If he is real, then I will gladly forget because I refuse to.
• 38:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, and you'll get those.
• 38:22
  Speaker A: I think that they say that, but there's a defiance that has nothing to do with reason or science. It's all pride.
• 38:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. And that can definitely happen. Now, I still say plant the seed because they might say it to you, but they might start thinking about it a few years later and you never know. And I'll just give a couple more, then we'll pick up next week. But Carl Sagan, again, very devout atheist, he had big TV programs and he says, well, it is clear that one could randomly assemble all the elementary particles in the universe a billion times a second for the age of the universe and never get this protein commenting on the 1 in 10 to the 130th odds of random formation, that's one with 130 zeros under it. I think everybody's familiar with that. When I said that 1 and 10 to the 40th, that'd be a one over with a one followed by 40,000 zeros dividing that. So he's basically saying it's not going to happen. This was actually an interview he was doing for mit, and this is how it got caught. He was live on tape. And they did a transcript of the interview. Okay. And they were talking in the early 70s, you know, aliens were a big thing. You know, Extraterrestrial intelligence. And so, and so they were talking about, how are you going to communicate with these extraterrestrial intelligence? So he says this. So that's a pretty strong statement. He basically said, the odds of just a single protein, a single protein is not going to make itself. And then. But a few seconds later, he goes on and says, well, there's no doubt about the fact of evolution, but there's still sizable questions on the mechanics of the evolutionary process. Okay, so you catch that. It's like you go out to the airport and you say, there's no way that airplane just made itself. But then you catch yourself and you have to say, well, there's no doubt about the fact that all those airplanes just made themselves. But there's still sizable questions on how. I mean, that's even more absurd than this because we can make airplanes. God gave us the creativity, intelligence. We can't make life. So again, it goes back to what Michael was saying. It's just for whatever reason, he was philosophically committed to making sure there was no God because he would know better, Fred Hoyle would know better. But I will say everybody's different. And so another key is maybe use all kinds of any evangelism technique you know of to figure out, okay, what's their real stumbling block. Because God does want all men everywhere to be saved. People that crucified his son, he still wanted them to be saved. A lot of them were saved. So it's. So again, be persistent, I guess I would say, okay. And so there are excellent technically detailed resources. This book's on the back table. I think I mentioned some of you might have come in a little after I mentioned it. All the books on the table, I'll have sign up sheets and stuff, but they're all available for free. If you just see any that you want. Have a lot of different study Bibles, defending the faith. Study Bible. They just came out with a large print, one that's great for a lot of people. They also have them in Spanish now, but then there's just a lot of other books there. So they're back on the furniture box and back there. But this is a really good book. It talks about, again, simple life, more complicated than anything man has ever made. Could jet airplane simply make itself. But it gets into a lot of detail that could be a grad school level biochemistry class. Just some of the details they get into. So it's a good book. If you're interested in this subject or if you know someone that is, I think another point Just going back to a lot of the points that were made. This is why it's so important that we teach our kids. Because before they get set in stone, before they develop this pride, before they decide that, no, I'm going to reject God no matter what. Because a lot of times this is an area where they get led astray on. So you can go. A lot of you have grandchildren, and so as parents, you don't have time for this. But as a grandparent, you can sit there and watch a bug for an hour. It's awesome. All you have to do is point out to that child. That bug is more complicated than anything people have ever made. Well, they're going to remember that. They can remember just sitting around with grandpa watching a bug, but they'll also maybe make a point or two. So that's a really important one. And then I'll always end with this slide, but we'll start there. If you're going through all this again, the key is to get them into the Bible. And so every now and then, someone's going to say something like to you, okay, well, if you don't believe in evolution, what do you believe? So the way to answer that question is always, it does not matter what I believe. See what the Bible says, okay? And that's actually what helped Julie and I become Christians. We finally got that answer from somebody and they're like, that's weird. But obviously it makes sense. And so a lot of great Bible studies out there. I'll bring in a couple examples of good Bible studies next week. But the Bible is the best Bible study, so a lot of times just go through the Book of Acts pretty much. If you go through the examples in Acts, they will answer every question a person might have, ranging from, well, I can't be saved, to why do I need to be baptized? I was sprinkled. I mean, just all kinds of stuff anyway, so I think we'll go ahead and close with a prayer and then we'll be dismissed. Heavenly Father, just thank you again for all the blessings that you give us and the opportunities that we have to be together and to fellowship and just ask that you be with us this week and please keep all of our thoughts and words and actions pleasing to you. Help us to see the opportunities that you give us to serve you and glorify you in every way that we can. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.