Video Transcript: Personal Evidence of the Creator

We continue our series of messages in the book of Romans today. And we're continuing to focus on  Romans 1:18-25. Last week, we focused on these verses as well, where it says the God has made  himself known in the things that he has made and we looked at some physical evidence of the Creator.  Today, we're going to look more closely at personal evidence of the Creator things that shine forth in  the way that he has made us and the human personality and spirit. The wrath of God is being revealed  from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of man who suppress the truth by their  wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to  them. 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 men are without excuse. 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. Although they claimed to be wise, they became  fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds  and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual  impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchange the truth of God for a lie,  and worshipped and served created things, rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen. I'll  just review with you for a moment physical evidence of the Creator things that we looked at in more  detail in our last message. Four areas that I highlighted were the intelligent design of the things that are  made, just the fact that there is anything being and life, the stunning wonders that we see in the creation around us. And also the daily delights that we experience, intelligent design, evidence of God's  wisdom, and skill, and engineering are all around us. I mentioned the DNA structure and the fact that  one cell of human DNA contains enough information to fill 500 books of 1000 pages each, when you  find a library of 500,000 pages, you do not assume that it came into being by accident. And there are  many, many other examples of intelligent design, the design of the eye, the ear, and all of those marvels of the human body, as well as the structures of physics that you can study and they follow these  mathematical patterns. Why in the world, if nothing was made, according to pattern, and by some  wisdom, does everything somehow find a mathematical pattern that suits it, an eye, an ear, a hand,  these are quotes from atheists, I'm not going to quote the Christians here, I'm just going to point out that it's obvious to everybody, even the atheists, these things have a are complex mechanisms that serve a  particular function, it looks as if it had been made for a purpose, it looks as if it had been made. For a  purpose. This is an atheist, it looks as if it had been made for a purpose, and this appearance of purpose  is pervading in all nature. That's why Paul says these things are clearly seen. And another atheist,  Richard Dawkins, Biology is the study of things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. They give the appearance of having been designed for it looks for all the world to me, like it's  been designed for a purpose, and I shall now do my level best for the rest of my life, to explain that it's  not really designed, but he's fighting, the obvious, then there is not only the intelligent design, but just  the fact that we're here and that everything else is here. The thought that nothing produces something is just how do you even think about such a claim? The thought that what is nonliving produces life is  again, a staggering step of faith, that what is dead somehow emerged into life, the simplest kind of cell  that exists involves the interaction of more than 200 enzymes and is nearly mathematically impossible,  then all of those enzymes have come together in the right combination to produce the simplest life form that there is, it is a it is just an axiom of biology that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation.  That nonliving stuff just boom produces life that is a basic principle of biology and science. And yet it  is a basic principle of unbelieving biology that had happened. Okay. spontaneous generation is  absolutely disproved by the experiments of Pasteur and others, it's utterly rejected that life comes from  non life, except it had to, for the theory to work. Then, you know, aside from arguments about design,  or, or thought about how can something produce nothing. Sometimes it's just, you know, look at the  stars, look at the mountains, look at the waterfalls, just look at the wonder of a new baby. Just look, and be stunned, and amazed. And then just let your heart know, who has done all this. And then there are  the daily delights. The Bible says, God fills your stomach with food and your hearts with joy. And he 

does this so that people will reach out for him and find him. Do you think that all those good things that you enjoy every day just happen? These are some of the physical evidences of the Creator. And there is  a considerable effort to define it so that you simply are not allowed to consider that the creator might be doing this, I compared it to someone where you find him lying on the ground, he's got a knife sticking  

out of him. And there are fingerprints all over that knife, and you are told to explain what happened in  terms of natural causes. Your job is to investigate carefully and use all scientific means at your disposal. But you must explain it so that you say the person died of natural causes. The knife is in his back, the  fingerprints are on the weapon, but he died of natural causes. Now you can come up with some very  elaborate theories. But It's kind of a strain, isn't it? And God leaves his fingerprints all over the physical creation, and it is your job to explain that it all happened by natural causes? Well, maybe not. We  looked at the weak evidence now for the Creator, which is overwhelming. But what resembles the  Creator more than anything else he has made the people that God made in His own image. So when we  hear that what God has made shows something of who he is and of his reality of His eternal power and  divine nature, we look not just at the creation around us or even at the physical structures of the human  body. We also consider the personal evidence, what does it mean to be a person, a human being created  in God's image? If God really didn't create us in His image, then it's no surprise that who we are, and  some of our capacities, reflect Him and reveal at least something of who he is. And I'll just mention a  few thought. conscience, choice, love, and longing. And as we move along, we'll see the contrast by  those who attempt to suppress the truth who change the truth of God into a lie. Francis Crick wrote a  book titled The Astonishing Hypothesis. And here is the astonishing hypothesis. The astonishing  hypothesis is that you your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions. Your sense of  personal identity and freewill are in fact, no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells  and their associated molecules. Let us rephrase that. Francis Crick is nothing more than a vast assembly of nerve cells and molecules. Do you want to listen to his theory? You've really, I mean, the the quick  rejoinder to that is Speak for yourself. If that's what you are, I see no reason to listen to anything that  might come out of that random assembly of molecules. You are not really you, okay? This is the  essential claim, okay, you got to understand this claim. You think you're you? You're not you think you  love, there is no such thing. You think you make choices? There is no such thing as choice. You think  you feel some things are right and others are wrong? That's Hooee. It's all molecules. This is the claim.  And the question is this. Shall you deny everything you know about yourself in order to believe those  claims? That's the question Are you really you? Because the only way you can be you is Through the  Creator who made you you. the moment you deny at all. I'm just random blobs in my brain. Everything about me is random nerve cells and molecules. Consider thought. Francis Crick thinks that the brain is  a randomly evolved blob of meat. So do all the other secular scientists, the universe is a randomly  flying around massive chaos, and your brain is a randomly evolved blob of meat. Let me ask you, do  you have any reason, then whatsoever to think there is any connection between the randomly evolved  blob of meat and the universe out there? The blob of meat, you have no reason to think it's intelligent.  And you have no reason to think the universe is intelligible. There is no order or pattern to be detected,  because it's chaos. And there's nothing in here that could detect an order or a pattern, because it too, is  chaos and randomness, and molecules flying around. The Christian view is that this mind was created  by a far greater mind, and that the universe also was created by that mind. And in it, he put various  patterns. And one of the glories of the human mind is to discover some of his patterns. As you know,  the Bible says it's the glory of God to conceal a thing, and it's a glory of people to find it out. God has  made a universe with these marvelous patterns. And one thing that is a glorious science is finding these  wonderful patterns. But then trying to deny that you have a brain that works in the first place, doesn't  inspire confidence. In thought, the mind is created by a greater mind, and the universe is created by that same great mind, or as the Bible puts it, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.  And the Word was God, the logic of the universe is coming from the logos Himself, Jesus Christ. So  thought, comes from a creator, or it comes from random firings of random brain cells. And you have no

reason to put confidence in thought. With me, the horid doubt always arises at Charles Darwin, whether the convictions of a man's mind are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the  convictions of a monkey's mind if there are any convictions in such a mind? I'm not quoting the great  Christian leaders of the faith. This is the founder of atheistic evolution. And Darwin says, Would  anybody trust a mind that was merely the result of the process, I've been trying to describe just a  randomly evolved blob of meat or to flatter it a monkey's mind. You wouldn't put much confidence  about what happened 10 minutes ago, if you thought that that's all the mind was, nevermind your  projections about what happened eons ago? Well, then there is conscience. And conscience is another  these capacities that we have. The astonishing hypothesis, of course, is that conscience is nothing.  They're just random feelings that you happen to have. But we know better. Conscience is a sense that  some things are right, and others are wrong, that there is a goodness, that we are obligated, we have a  duty to pursue goodness. And that sense of duty and of goodness, comes from the original goodness,  the Creator of all things. And he's the one who put this conscience within us. And that conscience has a  sense of who he is, and of what he wants, and our fallenness and our sin has sometimes distorted that  conscience. And sometimes our surroundings will push that conscience in different directions so that it  becomes misshapen. And people won't always agree in what their conscience dictates. But that does not change the fact that we're given a faculty for knowing what is good and what's not good. And that  faculty came from God, and that goodness is defined by God. There is a right way, and there is a wrong way. And this is obvious, it's evident in the things that have been made. It's evident in the way we've  been made. Here's the alternative. Wickedness is no more a man's fault than bodily disease. After all,  it's all molecules, right? It's all just randomly things happening. So nobody does anything wrong things  just are or to quote Richard Rorty and other atheists the idea that one species of organism is oriented  toward truth is as unDarwinian, as the idea that every human Being has a built in moral compass a  conscience. So he gets them both in one swoop, the idea that you can know anything is unDarwinian.  Again, this is a Darwinian. He's saying you shouldn't have the notion that you know anything. Well,  thank you very much again speak for yourself, you don't know anything. And at that point it silence  would become you. If you truly believe you don't know anything, and that nobody can know anything.  Why are you making these random noises. But this is the foremost a lot of you didn't study philosophy,  I majored in it. This is the foremost American philosopher Richard Rorty. Who says that it is  unDarwinian to believe that there is such a thing as truth. Just as it's undarwinian to think that you have a built in conscience. Now, again, let me ask the question, if it's a choice between thinking your mind is real, and your conscience is real, or believing that everything is random, why would you pick the  random option? You know you have a mind? You know, you have a conscience? Why would you  suppress and trample and deny everything, you know, in favor of some wacko theory. And then there is  the matter of choice. We make decisions, and many times we stand before a number of options, and we  can pick one. Or can we? Is choice really choice? Well, not if you believe the godless view on things  free will, as it is traditionally conceived, wrote atheist scientists, William Provine free will does not  exist. There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived, can produce a being that is  truly Free to make choices. It's all determined by the unfolding of the evolutionary process, there is no  choice. You think you have a choice? It's your field? It seems like you have a choice. But that is  absolutely unreal. Because the evolutionary process, as currently understood, could not produce such a  thing. Again, make up your mind, if you know you have a choice. Are you going to believe those who  say according our theory, you don't, then what you say is this. So much the worse for your theory.  Theories are meant to explain, not to explain away when there are things you know, and the theory  denies that you say that theory, let's go back to the drawing board and look for a different one. Then  there is love. Human beings are made for relationship, we know it. life isn't worth living, without  loving and being loved. And that's because we were created by the one who is love. And we're designed to be like him. And we're designed to flourish, and to live on the fuel of love. And to be those who give  love. That's what we're meant to be in our fallenness. We aren't always that, but we still know that love 

is why we're here. We just know it. And when we see or experience examples and instances of Love,  we rejoice in it and are amazed by it. That's who we are. That's what the human spirit craves. And what  it knows is best. Richard Dawkins says we are survival machines, robots vehicles blindly programmed  to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. Thank you for that information. And by the way, this  is a man who also denies design. We are robots who are programmed and it just, I'll pause for that  phrase, the moment we are robots who are programmed. Let me ask you how many robots do you  know ever came into existence by themselves? How many computer programs wrote themselves?  Without previous programs? Maybe that produced the maybe there are some fancy automated programs that can produce other scripts? My point is this any program that works? I majored in computer science in the early days before I went into the ministry, it all comes down to zeros and ones positive and minus charges. Now, if you were to say there is nothing in computer program, except zeros and ones, at one  level, you'd be right, because it all is programmed in that manner, where it all comes down to a plus or  minus charge. But you would be a moron. If you said there is no intelligence behind those programs,  that it's all just stuff that randomly got together the sand and got mixed up and turned into silicon, and  then the zeros and ones arranged in a certain way and voila, you got your cell phone. Well, even if we  were robots programmed, programmed robot You see is the is the adverb, here's a little grammar  lesson. He's got to use the adverb blindly. Because in his great act of faith, it had to happen blindly.  Because if we resemble a robot, and a computer program, and let's grant that we do, our bodies are  designed, more amazingly than any robot, and our minds, far out shine any program that can be  designed. So again, his own words testify against it. We're robots who are programmed that that's the  best you can do. And yet we know that that's even though that to an element explains a little bit of who  we are, it doesn't explain everything about it doesn't explain love. Robots, blindly programmed? I don't  think so. And the it doesn't account for what is true of the human spirit. Sometimes the picture of a  robot, or the picture program can help us understand a few things about how the body works. And we  are physical beings. But can it explain love and the need for love and the craving for love. Even people  who just study the social science, we look at little babies, they're little robots blindly programmed, why is it that they don't thrive, and many of them even die, if they're not hugged, you can feed them, make  sure they get the nourishment, and they will not thrive if they are not loved. Because we were designed  to run on love and the lengths, you got to read some of these books to believe them sometimes because, you know, somebody falls on a grenade to save his fellow humans, because there's an evolutionary  adaptation to that kind of an act. It's not because Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his  life for his friends. It's not love. It's he was programmed blindly to do that. Parents who go out of their  way to do almost anything for their children. Well, it's because they've got these selfish molecules that  wants to extend, you know, somehow they got programmed to want to extend their posterity into the  future. And so what you think is love, dream on it's programmed molecules. And then there is longing,  we desire, life without end, and joy without measure, we desire God, and nothing else can satisfy. We  want God. And if you look at human history, and if you look at your own heart, you know it. And  again, the atheists know it too, people desire God. And throughout history, most people have had some  kind of religion or another. And have believed in some sort of Great Creator, who is above and beyond  all things even above and beyond some of the little gods and goddesses that they worshipped, they've  always known that there was a creator above and beyond them. And there is a longing to know Him,  and to be united with Him and an emptiness that comes when you don't. What do you make of that  craving? This desire, our hearts are restless, until they rest in you. What is that? Freud explained it this  way. He said, The world is wild, and your urges are wild. And you want somebody who's in charge of  that world, and somebody who can tame those urges within. And so you project, a father figure out  there, you make God up to take care of those wild urges within and that wild world without and that's  why you have this urge for God. And he grants that almost everybody has an urge for God. But that  urge is wishful thinking. And it is. It's wishful thinking, we wish for God. We long for God. There's  other kinds of wishful thinking. Freud had father issues. He had a terrible relationship with his father. 

And perhaps his denial of God was wishful thinking and denial of a father figure. Aldous Huxley said,  We atheists didn't have any evidence that there wasn't a god, but we wanted to do what we wanted to do sexually. And it suited us not to believe there was a God. So wishful thinking could take you in more  than one direction, of course. But let's just grant that when people believe in God, it is not just a result  of calmly sitting back, stroking your chin, and rationally analyzing data. The Bible says, As the deer  pants for streams of water so my soul longs for you, oh God. And there is this burning desire for God?  Where does it come from? That's the question, because Freud will grant that there's a dirty burning  desire for God and He's an atheist. And he says the fact that it's wishful thinking disproves it. Let us ask this question. If there were a god, what would you expect? Do you think he would make people with a  craving for him or not? The fact that you crave God is proof that he does not exist. And the proof that  babies have a sucking instinct is proof that mothers do not exist. Baby Anna does not wake up in the  morning and think to herself, I have done a rational analysis of the universe. And I have decided that I  shall suck for my nourishment. She was born with an instinct to suck. Babies have that instinct that  desire that craving while they're still in the womb, and they suck their thumbs till something better  comes along. Does this prove that mothers do not exist? That would be a very strange way of reasoning now, wouldn't it? The fact that that instinct is there is a strong indication that there is such a thing. As a  mother, who is meant to satisfy that craving or take a person in the desert. There is no water anywhere  around. And he's getting thirstier and thirstier. And as he's feeling that intense thirst, some wise  philosopher comes up to him and says, Now, I want you to consider that thirst, it is not rational. You do  not have any proof that such a thing as water exists. You look around you on the horizon, you may see a mirage, but it's not really water. There is no such thing as water, water never existed. It's always been  sand, sand, sand, for as far as the eye can see. And don't listen to that silly craving that you've got  within you. It's just an irrational. A, you want something? Yeah, you want water. All right. But what's  that prove? doesn't prove you're gonna get any. And that's true. It doesn't prove you're going to get any,  the craving for God does not prove that you're going to find him. But it may mean he's out there. The  craving for a mother, the craving for water, very far from proving there is no such thing as mothers or  water is more an indication that those things are real. And the craving for God is a very powerful  indication that our Maker is hardwired us to live on him, to thrive on him and not be able to thrive  without him. So again, this desire that we have is one more indication that we were made by God we  were made for him. I'll go back to another Friendly Atheist mathematician Bertrand Russell. Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving his origin, his growth, his  hopes and fears his loves and his beliefs are only the outcome of accidental clusters of atoms and  molecules. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment. And then nothing.  Then he went on to say henceforth, man's habitation must be built on the firm foundation of unyielding  despair. Thank you, Bertrand. That just makes me feel warm, all over. build your souls habitation on  the firm foundation of unyielding despair, because you know that your mind is actually nothing. Your  conscience is empty, meaningless. It's molecule. There is no choice though. It feels like you're choosing all the time. There is no love. There is no reality to those longings you have for something beyond and  outside yourself. It's all atoms and molecules and despair and no splendour What about that splendour  when I look up to the heavens? What about that splendour when I look at the mountains? What about  that splendour when I look inside, what about that the things of God are evident in the things that have  been made. The inner evidence and the outer evidence both point to the same reality the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord. Searching all his inmost parts. He has put eternity into man's heart. That's why  you have that craving. He put eternity in your heart and nothing less than the eternal is going to fill it  and satisfy it. So you have the physical evidence of the Creator intelligent design, being in life stunning wonders, data delights, you have personal evidence of the Creator. When you look inside yourself. You  can think you can know right and wrong. You can choose you can love and be loved. You have this  longing and it's all there. Because God put it there. Again, think about it. God created us in His image.  And his image shines forth in the reality of thought and conscience and love and choice and craving 

and so many other things that the stamp of God's image is upon us even in our sinful and fallen  condition. And when you look at that, you say there is no God whom we image there is no such thing  as personality. There sure is. When you look at Mount Rushmore, it is your duty to say, there never was a Washington, there never was a Thomas Jefferson. There never was a Theodore Roosevelt, there never was an Abraham Lincoln. And there never was a sculptor named Gutzon Borglum, who designed this  mountain to look this way, and shaped it in that fashion, and put these images upon that mountain. This  was the random result of the wind blowing through the Black Hills, and the water trickling down the  face of that particular mountain. There never were such presidents and there never was such a sculptor.  It's natural cause. And so that's what you do. You explain away the image of God stamped on humanity, and explain away all the things that go with that image of God, and to the human personality. But the  fact remains that you've done all your explaining, what may be known about God is plain to them,  because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,  His eternal power and divine nature has been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,  so that men are without excuse. That's the good news and the bad news. The good news is God keeps  shining forth and making himself known even to people who never open the Bible, even the people  who pay no attention to his word or to the preaching the world and their own beings keep saying God.  And so the bad news is, we've got no excuse. If God was just completely hiding himself and revealing  nothing of Himself to anybody. We could just say, but how was I supposed to know. And the Apostle  says, their voice goes out into all the earth their words to the ends of the world, although they knew  God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to him. That's the problem. They didn't want to give him the glory, they didn't want to thank him. They didn't want to owe anybody. They didn't want  anybody greater than them. So their thinking became futile, their foolish hearts were darkened. And  although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and  worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator. It used to be, they'd worship an alligator  or a cat, or worship the moon or the sun, they would worship these things that God made that were not  even as great as the human spirit that God had made. But there's something comforting about  worshiping something less than you or sometimes they would see the image of God in humans. And  they'd say, Well, the gods are pretty much like us, you know, there, there's a bunch of squabbling  humans up there on Mount Olympus or somewhere else. And that's what they are. But they would  never glorify God as God, or give thanks to Him as the source of all those good things. And nowadays,  of course, we live in the machine age and the computer age. So now we've become programmed  computers. He used to worship alligators now he worships computers, and you think he is one. You're a randomly evolved computer. That's what foolish hearts do when we don't know God and, and we're all  in that boat. Unless the Lord rescues us from it and, and puts his wisdom back into us so that we can  discern and see the things that he has made. Romans goes on to say how this happens, how God has  paid for our sin and our rebellion and our ingratitude with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by  faith in Him, we can have our sin taken away, and be made right with God by trusting in Jesus as our  Savior. And then when we're made right with God, and we can again, see him for who he is and glorify  Him for who He is, then we can recognize that his glory is displayed and the things that have that he's  made around us. And his glory is displayed in the way he's made us right in our human personality he  created us in His image elsewhere, it says that man and woman, humanity is the image and glory of  God. And we fall short of the glory of God by not praising him. And by not living up to that glory by  shining for him ourselves. Psalm 8 says, Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.  You set your glory above the heavens, from the lips of children and infants. You have ordained praise  because of your enemies to silence, the foe and the avenger. When I consider Your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you've set in place. What is man that you're mindful of him the  Son of man that you care for him, You made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with  glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands, you put all things under his feet, all flocks and herds and beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of

the sea, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. That Psalm shows us the right  response to God, you look at the universe, and you say, How excellent is Your name? You look inside,  and you say, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I praise you How excellent is Your name, I thank  you. And I praise you for who you are, for who you've made me to be. And I'm not going to fall for the  various lies, that foolish men with darkened minds have put out there, if those lies tell me that I don't  have a mind. And I don't have a conscience. And I don't have a choice. And there never was any such  thing as love. And then my craving for God is just one of those weird things. Why would I deny  everything I know about myself, you know those things better than you know that the universe exists?  Because you, you can't prove that physical things outside you exist, you're right to think so. But you  can't prove it. But you know, you know yourself. And yet, there are scientists who say there is no self.  An entire religion is built on the doctrine of no self, the religion of Buddhism, that you are just a candle for a moment, and then you're out. And there is no self. There is no personality, it's all an illusion. Well, you can have that if you want it. You can build your soul on the foundation of unyielding despair. Or  you can build your soul on the rock that is Christ. Dear Lord, we thank you that you have made  yourself known and we pray that you'll give us eyes to see and hearts to receive and rejoice in you. And help us Lord, when you do grant that knowledge and even richer knowledge through the Bible and  through the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, help us not to feel superior to those who may still  be fooling themselves or denying your reality, but instead to love them to pray for them to seek always  your intervention in their lives. Because we know Lord that as this whole book of Romans is going to  go on to tell us everybody's without excuse. And when we look down on somebody else, we find  ourselves in the exact same boat. And so we we pray, Lord, that you will give us gladness in your  salvation help us to boast in the cross of Christ and in your glory, but not to boast in our own superior  smarts or anything like that. And we pray, Lord, for those who still struggle to know you, we pray for  those who may be wavering and are unsure of your reality. Have mercy on them, Lord, we know that  you've provided ample evidence around and even within them, but you still need to open the eyes of  their heart. And so we pray that you will do that and that you will help each of us Lord when we  struggle with our own doubts or hesitancies. To realize that that's just sin within us or the attacks of, of  evil and to see through again, more clearly to you and to follow you to love you to rejoice in our Lord  Jesus Christ forever. We pray in His name, amen.