All right, so in Christianity one O 1, looking at the basic
fundamentals of the faith, I tried to back out as far as
possible to come up with what where do you begin to to discuss
Christianity? And so today it it's about as
far a 10,000 foot view as we can get as possible.
And we're going to deal with the topic of theism.
You may not be familiar with some of the words and
terminology. I don't mean any of it to be
overly and intellectual. And we'll define some of those
definitions. But first, let's just deal with
point #1 which is the case for a creator.
Theism is the belief that there is a God, the case for a
creator. If you backed up the furthest
away possible to look at Christianity at the surface, I
think at the center or the greatest possible thing you
could walk away with would be that there is a God.
In Christianity. We believe in a God and really
as we look at the world, there are really only two major world
views that we that somebody believes there is a God that
created all things and that doesn't mean they're a
Christian, but that there is some kind of God or someone that
does not believe in some kind of God.
Now what whether you believe that or not doesn't make it
true. Truth is true whether what it
doesn't matter what we think or care about it.
But let's first talk about the the opposite of this, and that
is atheism may not be a popular church word today.
It's not technically a Bible word.
But if theism is belief in God, the A in front of theism is an
awe. It it, it takes away theism.
So it is without God. This is essentially where our
country is headed, where much of the world is.
We're so smart, we don't need God anymore.
And I have a statistic for you on the screen.
It might be a little bit small, but I think this was twenty,
2444% of Portland and Vancouver were religiously unaffiliated in
some way in some form of atheist, agnostic, or nothing in
particular. So you're looking at about half
of the city that would say we we want absolutely nothing to do
with spirituality, with faith, with God.
We're literally not interested, and that ranks at one of the
highest 4 cities in the United States.
So these are the people that we're trying to reach, people
that think God doesn't even exist.
And that's why this topic is so big and so broad today.
Many would not claim atheism and they would use another term,
agnosticism, which is to say I can't know if there is a God or
not a God, as atheism is kind of a difficult position to hold
down. But let me give you words from
one of the greatest prophets of atheism in our day.
Maybe you've heard of Stephen Hawking.
He says we are each free to believe what we want.
And it's my view that the simplest explanation is there is
no God. No one created our universe and
no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound
realization. There is probably no heaven and
no afterlife either. We have this one life to
appreciate the grand design of the universe.
Somehow an atheist would say there is a grand design of the
universe, and for that I'm extremely grateful.
This is the end of atheism. There is no heaven, there's no
afterlife, there's no meaning or purpose to life.
That's one of the greats. Psalm 14 says the fool hath said
in his heart there is no God. That's the position of atheism.
It doesn't mean they're not intelligent or haven't studied
things, but that is the the position of atheism.
Let's look next at the position of theism.
Theism, as I said before, is a belief in a God.
And if you look up this word, it mostly leans itself into a
monotheistic Christian kind of worldview.
But at the very core of our faith is a belief in God.
You know this, right? If you open your Bible to the
very first page, Genesis 11, how does it go?
Yeah, in the beginning, God, right?
It is only four words into the Bible until there is a God.
So it is perhaps the biggest, most basic, fundamental element
of our faith that we believe there is a God.
According to this verse, the first verse in all of the Bible,
God exists. He created all things and He
exists outside of the physical universe.
He is not a part of creation. He existed before creation.
Right there lets us know how everything began and it really
is quite amazing how even one verse in the Bible can give more
answers than tons and tons of research.
Looking for an alternative option.
Here in this verse, we get time, space, and matter.
All beginning time in the beginning space, Heaven.
If you study Genesis 1, you'll see that heaven is an expanse.
It's called the firmament. The waters are separated from
the waters, and everything in between is called heaven.
And then we have matter, which is earth.
All of life's answers are so simply found in the truths of a
God creating the world. There's a famous Christian
scholar named William Lane Craig who said our whole universe was
caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it.
For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions
of what theists mean by God is creator of heaven and earth.
It's a pretty basic fundamental force.
So I put it to you this way in your notes.
Theism doesn't make 1A Christian, but you can't be a
Christian without theism. So theism to believe in a God
isn't the thing that saves us. It's not the thing that makes us
uniquely Christian. There are many people that
believe in a God, a form of God, a different God.
The Bible even tells us in the book of James, Thou believest
that there is one God. Thou doest well.
The devils also believe in tremble.
So even God's enemies, there are spiritual beings in the
universe. They know that there is a God,
but that doesn't make them Christians.
They're not submitted to him. They don't believe him by faith.
They don't want to follow him. So if you're new to your faith,
this is the place where you have to start believing that a God
exists, acknowledging him and saying if you're real, I need to
know, I want to know, I'd like to find out.
That's the place where we all have to begin.
Secondly, let's look at the case for evidence.
So far, we've made a really bold claim that Genesis 11 is the
answer that science can't figure out.
But what about the evidence? Wouldn't it be intellectual
suicide to say that you have faith that something happened
that you can't see to describe a being that you'll never
physically material interact with?
Well, not really. We have a few verses that tell
us that it's possible for us to see and understand things even
if we can't fully describe them. Romans chapter 1 says the
invisible things of him. Him is God.
From the creation of the world are clearly seen, so it is
possible for man to see clearly invisible things.
Perhaps it is not absolutely scientifically, perfectly
observed, but the creation of the world tells us that there is
an eternal power and Godhead to the universe.
You, you know this, right? Like we can't go and see God in
person. The Bible says no man has seen
God at any time but nature. We have to have an answer for
how did we get here? How is the world the way that it
is? And it would be just like this
building, right? This building was, it's
wonderful. And it was constructed by
somebody that you've never met. Do you think that this building
built itself? According to the second law of
thermodynamics, you cannot get order out of chaos.
It's not possible for this building to accidentally
assemble itself. But you don't deny that the
building exists. You don't deny that it was
built, although you've never met the person to build it.
We see the same thing in the Bible.
Psalm, chapter 19. The heavens declare the glory of
God. All we have to do is go out and
look up. However far you can see, we can
tell that there is something greater and more powerful than
we understand. The firmament is the whole
expanse of the heaven shows a handiwork that there is somebody
actively involved in creating and designing the fine tuning of
the universe. For example, Earth's place just
close enough to a son, no other life anywhere in existence.
This witness of creation goes beyond even the special
revelation of the Word of God. It says day unto day utter a
speech every single day. Creation speaks even through the
night. There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard. If you can see, you can tell
that there's a God. Now, I have a few folks that
I'll be introducing you to today through this time, and one of
them is a Nobel Prize winner. Christian B Anfinson won the
Nobel Prize in 1972 for his work on the ribonucleus.
He is a biochemist. And this is what he said.
I think only an idiot can be an atheist.
We must admit that there exists an incomprehensible power or
force with limitless foresight and knowledge that started the
whole universe going in the first place.
So tell me that Christianity and science can't work together.
Here's a Nobel Prize winner that would say, if you can't figure
that one out, you're just not very smart.
So first, let's look at creation.
Creation proves that God is real.
We're talking now about the objective observable sciences.
So in case you need to be reminded, if it's been a minute
since you've been in science class, science, this is the
definition from Google. OK, it's the world's best
trusted source. Here you go.
This is for you the systematic study of the structure and
behaviour of the physical and natural world through
observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories
against the evidence obtained. Now this through observation
part is critical. To be a scientist is essentially
to observe, to study, to figure things out, to test and probe
over time. But what most science is today
is theory. We're talking about things
authoritatively that we've never seen or observed.
And if we're specifically talking about the theory of
evolution, we have predicted a model backwards into the past
millions and billions of years that we've never observed.
We just think our algorithm is right, and then we make a
declarative, authoritative stance to say this is absolutely
the way it has to be. And that's honestly not science.
That's called theory. Christianity in some way is also
a theory in the sense that we cannot observe and prove the the
beginning of the universe. We take it by faith that God
says in his word. But we do have material things
that we can prove as well. But you've got to be careful
with people that use the word science or have degrees in their
names or teach courses and classes or write books.
Just because they're revered, just because they're peer
review, doesn't make them right. Paul writes to Timothy and says
to him, Timothy was a pastor. He says, O Timothy, keep that
which is committed to thy trust and avoid profane and vain
babblings. Profane would be gross, immoral.
Vain would be empty, meaningless, purposeless.
And he says an opposition's of science falsely so-called.
Now, that is not to say that you can't enjoy science or be a
scientist and be a Christian. I'll tell you in a moment that
that's definitely not true. But science, falsely so-called,
is what most science is today. It's claiming to be something
that it actually is not so we don't waste our time.
I don't read books by people I don't respect.
If I do, it's for research. I bought a book by Secular
Humanist recently, and I did it really just to be able to quote
them. I'm not interested necessarily
in what they have to say. Maybe you've had this
experience. This has been my experience.
When I go to Powell's Books, my office is in the Pearl District.
Right down the road is Powell's Books.
And when my wife and I go on dates, we go into the city and
walk around and do stuff. And Powell's Books is a city
block of just books, tons of books.
And in Portland, it's like a virtue to read.
It's like, you're a good person if you read books, right?
So I go in the bookstore and we, I just try to putz around and
look at books. And I'm just overwhelmed by the
amount of falsehood that's published, the things that would
disagree with what we truthfully know about science, like things
like gender and the basics of life and reality.
And yet the the reprobate mind is at work producing, producing
and producing and writing and publishing tons of information.
And I just struggle to wonder who is reading all of these
books and why so much of it is emotion.
It's not science, it's not data, it's not good.
It's politics and emotion. And this is where honestly we
end up. To come to a position of theism
means I can't make that decision based on how I feel.
But if you have talked to people, even good staunch
atheists, it is a feeling based decision.
I have two examples for you. I talked to a guy this week who
would openly call himself a devout atheist materialist.
And I joke, I'm getting to know him.
So I joke around a little bit and I say, what, what would it
take for you to be a person of faith?
And he's like, you know, kind of already starts to get worked up.
And that was, that was my basic question.
And he immediately went to Christian nationalism.
And I was like, bro, I don't, I mean, that isn't where I was
started. And we, we had this kind of
emotional conversation and I just tried to digress and keep
the main thing, the main thing. But finally I asked him and I
used you should use this. I use this.
I said, if I could prove to you that there is a God, would you
believe it? And he said, no.
You see, what he really said in his answer was I don't want
there to be a God. It isn't.
I'm objectively wanting to know the truth.
It's I reject the truth. I don't like that is most
people's position. Recently, probably two months
ago, I met with a guy who was a chemist.
His, his job is to do chemistry things.
So I inquired at the scientist in him and said, ah, you're a
scientist. So if I and I asked this
question, if I could prove to you that God was real, would you
believe him? And he said no.
And then he admitted how illogical it was to be a
scientist and deny evidence. And he admitted from his own
work, his own mouth, that he made the decision about whether
there's a God or not based on how he felt a scientist.
This is how people discern their worldview.
It's not about the truth. It's about do I want there to be
a God, yes or no. But let me encourage you for a
moment. There are several respectable
men in the sciences, fathers of modern science.
I want you to hear from them. You don't have to just go with
the flow of what everybody says or whatever is popular and
trending today. 1st is Sir Isaac Newton.
He invented calculus, he formulated the laws of motion,
developed the theory of universal gravity and design
telescopes. How's that for being a
scientist? He says this most beautiful
system of the sun, planets and comets can only proceed from the
counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.
They'd kick him out today, wouldn't they?
They don't want your calculus. That's that's evil.
That sounds conservative to me. How about Robert Boyle?
He's called the father of chemistry.
He developed Boyle's Law and the vacuum pump.
He says the two great books of nature and of Scripture.
Have the same author. So the latter does not hinder at
all an inquisitive man's delight in the study of the former.
How about Sir Francis Bacon, known as the father of
empiricism? He's the one that created the
scientific method. We study and we check and we
check and we we study and check over and over again.
He says if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with
doubts, but he if he will be content to begin with doubts, he
shall end in certainties. If you think you got it all
figured out at the beginning of your experiment, you probably
don't have a very good experiment going on about Blaise
Pascal. This guy developed Pascal's
triangle. He designed one of the first
calculators, he revealed how pressure is transmitted through
liquid liquids and he's known for his wager where he says if I
believe in God and life after death and you do not, if there
is no God, we both lose when we die.
However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain
everything. That's Pascal's wager, you
should use that one. Lastly, how about Galileo?
Galileo is known as the father of modern astronomy.
He invented a telescope, improved heliocentric theory,
inertia and more, he says. I do not feel obliged to believe
that the same God who was endowed us with reason, with
sense reason and intellect, has intended us to forgo their use.
Now, those are some of the big names in science.
We haven't made these kind of discoveries in the modern era.
We're, I mean, this might sound crude, but we're a whole lot
Dumber than these men were. So I put it to you this way in
your notes. Basic science helps us answer
the question, Do I want there to be a God?
You can simply look at heaven and begin that pursuit.
The Bible says in Acts chapter 17 that they should seek the
Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him, though
he be not far from every one of us.
So you got you don't have to know math and science to have
faith, but if you know math and science, you can still have
faith if you want to know him. So that's creation.
Secondly, let's look at morality.
See, morality proves that God exists.
This is a unique part of the human experience, that there is
something within us that understands good and evil.
It certainly didn't come from evolution.
There's no purpose for so much of our conscious morality apart
from a God or a standard of good and evil.
There is no objective right and wrong, Christian apologist Frank
Turek says. Without God there is no basis
for objective morals. It's just Mother Teresa's
opinion against Hitler's. It's not that atheists think
there's no right and wrong. They just don't have an
objective standard. They can't prove one.
It's opinion. It's essentially whoever has the
most power gets to make the rules and determine what's right
and what's wrong. But there is something deep
within us. We know that something is right
and wrong. It doesn't even have to be
taught to us, Romans chapter 1 says, because that which may be
known of God is manifest in them.
There is something uniquely inside inside of us.
We are wired for it. If you read CS Lewis in his book
Mere Christianity, he talks about this law that all of the
world has. Every nature, every culture
seems to have a similar set of rules whereby we know things are
good and evil. Like don't murder the innocent,
that's a good start. Don't take another man's wife.
We should protect children from bad people.
Some of these things you can look throughout the whole world
and just say we all just know that that's not right or that we
should do that. It's deep within us, as Roman
says. For when the Gentiles, those
were the people that didn't know God, which have not the law,
they didn't have the scriptures, he said.
They do by nature the things contained in the law.
These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show
the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness. See, we have something deep
within us. God has designed us to know
things are good and bad. This is the shame that you feel
when you've made a poor decision.
Maybe you have things in your life you've done that you you
hope nobody ever finds out. There's something deep within us
that knows that, but it's only in a Christian framework that
you can have an objective moral standard.
The conscience isn't perfect. This is the objective standard.
The conscience points us to the objective standard.
But famous atheist Richard Dawkins says that without God
there's no objective morality. And he's absolutely right.
Without a standard, it's just whoever's opinion.
And the end result of this kind of opinion is really quite sad.
I want to read it to you from Dawkins's book The Blind
Watchmaker. He says in a universe of blind
physical forces and genetic replication, some people are
going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you
won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we
should expect. If there is, at bottom, no
design, no purpose, no good, and no evil, nothing but blind,
pitiless indifference, isn't that sad?
There's no purpose. That means, according to
atheism, you have no purpose over any other thing on the
planet. There's no design.
You were not intentionally created, you're just an accident
from a bunch of soup. There's no good and evil,
really. It's just everybody do whatever
they want to do. There's no justice.
There's no ultimate justice for people that make really, really
bad decisions. It's really sad that people
believe this. Put it to you this way.
Rejecting God is ultimately a rejection of what you know is
right on the inside. See, the way that you come to
Dawkins's understanding is you have to reject your internal
mechanisms that tell you there's a God.
You have to choose. I don't want there to be a God.
And then you formulate a scientific worldview around it
that is essentially atheism. But let's look now at the case
for consideration. These are some high and lofty
kind of claims. Maybe we're throwing some words
and phrases around you're not familiar with, but let's just
humble ourselves for a moment. I put these in your notes.
If you're not a Christian, will you be open to the possibility?
Will you be willing to seek the truth and the evidence no matter
where it takes you? If you are a Christian and you
would say, of course, I believe in creation and design and
order, are you living like God is real?
You would say there's a conscience and there's something
in you that knows good and evil. Are you obeying it if you're
doing good so far, Are you getting equipped to be able to
handle this book and share it with others and say there's an
alternative way that has purpose and meaning and hope?
And it's true? I hope if nothing else today can
encourage you that it's OK to read and study and think and
test and probe at the universe. And you will discover, like all
of these fathers of science, God is true and so is his word.
It's not a compromise to be a person of faith.
I'd say most of us in the room are believers.
And so I'd like to take a moment to respond here in a little bit.
We'll have communion. We'll jump back into the
scriptures. But let's take a moment and pray
if you, if you kind of get the tone of which I'm trying to
approach this series, maybe you think there's somebody else that
needs to be in the room that's not here right now.
Maybe at very least you can pray for somebody who believes some
things that aren't true or maybe even for yourself.
There's some decisions that you need to make today to say, man,
I've been living totally different than what I would say.
So I'm going to give you a moment of silence to pray and
respond to the Lord. I'll lead us in a prayer and
then we're going to have a Psalm.
So let's take a moment and pray.