Welcome to answers to the big questions. I'm your host, Allen Sonter, and I'm glad you could join me. All of us, at some time or other have wondered how we and the world around us came to exist in our scientific age.
Many people think we are too intelligent to believe that some being we call God created everything we see. Perhaps you're asking, is there any scientific way of knowing whether God really exists? To answer this question, the first episode in our series is called Is There a God? Surely this is one of the big questions some of us ask. I am sure there's a God, an intelligent being who is infinitely powerful and who made the universe, including our Earth and everything on it.
But how can I be so sure? Before answering that question, I should say that I know of no place where God tries to prove that he exists. He doesn't even try to do that in the Bible, which many people call the Word of God because he's so infinitely greater than we are. He simply takes it for granted that he exists.
And it's up to us to weigh the evidence that is provided, almost incidentally for his existence. So it's evidence, not proof, that I wish to share with you today. I'll present four lines of evidence that, taken together, I believe convincingly support the argument for the existence of God.
The first line of evidence is the existence of us human beings and all living things around us. Secular science offers evolution as a theory to explain the existence of life on this planet. We are told that, given enough time, even the most complex life forms can evolve without the intervention of an intelligent creator.
Evolution teaches that the more time passes, the more complexity develops. But our observation tells us that the more time passes, the more things disintegrate. Thus, there are serious problems with this theory, and I'll mention just two of them.
First, the law of entropy. At least my paraphrase of it, states that any organized system will tend to disorganization. That is, it will slowly disintegrate without the input of some restorative energy.
We can see the truth of that law all around us. Nothing lasts forever, and everything runs down if not looked after. If you see a house in ruins with rotten wood falling off it and window glass broken and missing, you assume it's very old, not very new.
Yet one principle on which evolution is based is that without any intelligent input an unorganized mass of elements can organize itself into continually more complex living things. This kind of organization has never been observed to be taking place. Only by direct or indirect intervention can increasing organization be made to occur.
A single living human cell is such an incredibly complex arrangement of atoms and molecules that its development without intelligent input would be impossible. According to the law of entropy, as one writer put it the likelihood of a living organism evolving over time from non living matter is about as probable as an unabridged Oxford dictionary resulting from an explosion in the printing works. The existence of the amazingly complex set of instructional codes which we call DNA, which exists in every living cell, is only possible if created by a very intelligent being.
Secondly, another principle of evolution is that any part of a living organism tends to disappear if it has no useful function. How, then could a complex organ such as an eye ever develop? Because as it started to develop, it would not be able to see, so would be lost before it could begin to be useful. So according to this principle of evolutionary theory, the only way an eye could exist would be for it to appear suddenly fully developed and able to see.
But according to yet another principle of evolution, an eye wouldn't appear suddenly like that, but would develop over a long period of time as the animal somehow sensed a need for it. But both these principles can't operate at the same time. Either the partly developed eye is lost because it can't see or else it develops without being of any use until it is fully developed because the animal wants to be able to see.
Evolution can't have it both ways. The two principles are in conflict and the theory is fatally flawed. Another problem for evolution is that sensing a need implies a purpose, while according to the theory, evolution occurs randomly without purpose.
So nothing could evolve in response to a sensed need. In any case, how could an organism that had never been able to see know that something like sight was even possible? The only alternative to some form of evolution for explaining the existence of living things is that there is an intelligent being who created life. I choose to call him God.
The assumption that God created this earth and all living things on it is made at the beginning of the Bible. Our second line of evidence is that in our own experiences and in the experience of others, things happen that would be highly unlikely to occur by chance alone. I personally have experienced many remarkable incidents in which I believe God has intervened in my life in direct ways.
But there are many people who have experienced much more incredible supernatural happenings. A friend of mine in the Solomon Islands was fed by an angel and I've talked to people who have experienced miracles of healing. I don't believe that God is directly connected with all supernatural events but because he is a loving being, he does intervene to protect and help people, especially those who believe in Him and ask for his assistance.
The third line of evidence is that in the Bible god accurately predicts the future. One reality that every one of us must face is that we certainly cannot tell the future. We may know some things about the past and we can observe the present, but to us, the future is a closed book.
Though some of us are better than others when it comes to guessing about it, even the fortune tellers and clairvoyance who claim supernatural powers measure their success in telling the future in terms of percentages of correct predictions, and their percentages are never very high. But God claims that he alone can tell with certainty what will happen in the future. About 700 BC.
When the people of Israel were worshipping idols, the true God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, challenged the idol gods, saying, yes, tell what will occur in the days ahead. Then we will know that you are God's. That's from Isaiah 41, verse 23.
Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. That's from Isaiah 46, verse ten.
God says that a unique ability he has is to accurately predict the future. And in the Bible, his record for accurate predictions is 100%. We have time for just a couple of examples.
When Cyrus, the first king of the Medopersian Empire, came to power, the Jews were a captive people in Babylon. Some 160 years before, God had spoken through the prophet Isaiah. He said, I am the Lord.
When I say of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, he will certainly do as I say. He will command rebuild Jerusalem. He will say, restore the temple.
And that's found in Isaiah 44, verses 24 and 28. History records that after the Babylonian Empire fell to the armies of Persia under the generalship of Cyrus, cyrus became king. And he did indeed decree that the Jews should return to Jerusalem and rebuild both the temple and the city.
How could anyone but God know, more than a century and a half beforehand, that the Babylonian king would destroy Jerusalem and the temple, and that a king called Cyrus would decree that Jerusalem and the temple should be rebuilt? Some might claim that those details were added to the writings of Isaiah later, after the events had occurred. But there is good evidence from early manuscripts that the prediction is genuine. Let's look at another prediction which we ourselves can observe to be true.
Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest king of the ancient Babylonian empire, had a dream. He could not recall the details, so demanded that his wise men tell him the dream and its meaning. When they couldn't do that, Daniel, a Jewish captive in Babylon and a worshipper of the true God, solved the problem by telling the king that God had given him a picture of the future.
He told the king he had dreamed about a large image with a head of gold chest and arms of silver, waist and hips of brass, legs of iron and feet of iron mixed with clay. He explained that it represented the nations that would rule the then known world down to the end of time. From history.
We know that the first nation, the Golden Head, was Babylon itself. It was followed in turn by Meda, persia, the silver chest and arms, greece, the waist and hips of brass, and Rome, the legs of iron. All of this history accurately fulfilled the prediction as given by God to Daniel.
But then Daniel said that the feet and toes of the great image made of iron and clay represented the nations that would arise after the decline of the Roman Empire. He said they would never again form one united world empire, just as iron will not mix with clay. He said that the nations would retain their own identity to the time of the end, when God would step in and set up his own world kingdom.
All this is recorded in the second chapter of the Book of Daniel. Now, despite attempts by leaders such as Napoleon and Hitler to build vast empires, and despite ideologies such as international communism which aimed to unite the world, there never has been anything that came near to being another world empire. There hasn't even been an empire uniting all the lands ruled by Rome at the height of its power.
Even if, as some claim, daniel's predictions were made after some of the nations mentioned had come and gone, and I don't believe the evidence supports this claim, our disunited world today continues to confirm the truth of God's prediction made through Daniel. Yes, God does know the future, and there are many other Bible examples of his accurate predictions. In our own time, God still accurately predicts future events.
A friend of mine living in the Solomon Islands was told by an angel to meet a plane at a particular time at a remote airstrip the following day. The plane arrived right on time, but the pilot was not on a scheduled flight and had made the decision to land at that place only minutes before doing so. God can still predict the future.
The fourth line of evidence for the existence of God is that human beings everywhere throughout history have worshipped something. Where did this compulsion to worship come from, if not implanted in us by the God who created us? It's true that this basic need to worship has often been perverted and debased, but it's always there, even, I suspect, in modern secular people who deny the existence of God. Now, we have looked briefly at four lines of evidence that support the belief that there is a God.
I believe that the evidence is so strong that we can confidently act on the assumption that God does exist, and we can go on to ask some of the other big questions. The question I want to answer in the next presentation is what is God like? You've been listening to answers to the big questions. I'm Allen sonter.
I hope you can join me next time.
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You how can I doubt your love for me how can I think you don't exist how can I sin intentionally how can I doubt how can I shut my heart for you how can I run the other way? How will I live without you how can I die when you for me in the world and you sustain me through your hair you carry me in your arms how can I doubt how can I feel abandoned how can I not see your faithfulness? How can I think I'm not pardoned? How can I now you for me in the you just take me through Your power when you carry me in Your arms how can I? When you came here to give me life and you gave yourself as a sacrifice when the Calvary Jesus you die.
How can you formed me in the you sustain me through your power when you carry me in your how can I? You came here to give me life and you gave yourself as a sacrifice. When that calvary Jesus you died. How can I doubt, lord, I just can't deny sach out who you really are to know you is to read your word and humbly love what you do to pray and talk with you.
This is my desire. To know you, got to know you is to come before you as I am to know you is to feel my utter helplessness and clean walking by faith this is my desire to know you got to know you it's to put aside all of the things to know you is to seek you first and lay all of my selfishness down at your feet. This is my desire to know you I want to know you I want to love you I want to love you I want to serve you I want to know you all of my days got to know you is to have a heart that's just like yours to know you is to reach out to this dying world they know who you are this is my desire this is my desire this is my desire to know sam, abraham and Sarah never thought they'd have a son.
Then descendants came as countless as the stars. Moses and God's people had nowhere left to. Then the waters of the Red Sea stood apart so many times the light of all setting like the sun and it seemed to the faithful it was over it.
But God see when miracle his eyes the day when fear would tell us there is just no you can look the whole world over for the meaning of its home, for the purpose I always but in the there is no answer but God I know your heart is breaking. The pain just comes in ways everywhere you look it seems like there's no peace. You try not to give up but the tears will not remain any minute.
Now you might step to fear so you stand there with impossible next word I believe your vision has been blinded and nothing's making sense but God see away when miracles will be on our view here's all the day when fear tell us there is just no use. You can look the whole world over for the meaning of its own, for the purpose that mankind has always but indeed discover there is no answer. And you have been listening to a production of three ABN Australia Radio.
