(Transcribed from the Words of Life Radio Program)
It is great to be together to look into the Word of God. The title for the lesson is “What Has Been Made.” Our text from the Bible is in the New Testament, the book of Romans chapter one verses 18 through 20. Let’s listen together as I read the Word of God.
Verse 18: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men 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.” This is the Word of God.
Years ago I overheard my number two son ask my number one son: What is an orphan? And my number one son answered: It is a kid without a mom or a dad. Then number two son thought about that a little bit and then he exclaimed: Well, that is impossible. You can’t have a kid without a mommy and a daddy. So true. But, of course, you know what an orphan is.
It is so very, very sad that so many today don’t know, don’t understand, don’t believe in a personal accountable God, a God who deeply desires to be Father to all of humankind, that we would join his family, that we would be part of his spiritual family. So many even claim to be believers, but their lifestyle, the pattern of their life proves that they are not really born again believers. Faith without deeds is useless. It is deeds, our lifestyle, our mindset, the pattern of our life that backs up whether we, in fact, have saving faith.
Creation itself shouts the existence of a creator God. We all need to be equipped to witness, to testify to our faith. That which is unseen even by that which is seen, the wonderful universe all around us. Design demands a designer. Even in the natural order there are many realities that are unseen, but which we believe in. For example: gravity, germs, bacteria viruses unseen, that is, with the naked eye. Today with powerful telescopes we can peer into our tremendous universe.
Scripture amplifies and affirms the wonder of the creator of the cosmos. For example, in Psalm 19 and verse one and following it reveals: “The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge”.
Someone has written that the cosmos is a wordless book that everybody can read because it needs no translation. God speaks through his creation day after day and night after night. God’s speech pours out abundantly, magnificently, universally. The skies point us to the supreme being, the creator of the cosmos, all around and above. I have actually read that in modern times, amongst scientists, astronomers are becoming believers in a creator more so than most other scientists percentage wise. Why? Because they look up at night. Astronomers look out into the vastness of the cosmos and they see and oft times acknowledge a creator.
For example, Dr. Robert Jastro was founder and director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA and he wrote these words, and I quote, “The discovery that the universe had a beginning means there had to have been a beginner”, end of quote. That is, a creator, because now we believe, scientists believe, astronomers believe in the big bang, not the steady state theory as to the beginning of the cosmos scientifically. Even our English word cosmos is where we get our English word cosmetic. Cosmetic means ordered, beautiful. And our ordered, beautiful cosmos points to the organizer, our creator who brings order and beauty to his creation. And science is in agreement.
For example, quantum physics demonstrates that at the level of subatomic particles there is the irresistible urge of electrons towards symmetry, harmonious arrangement or characteristic correspondence, orderliness. That is an awesome cosmetic aspect of the cosmos. It is because we have an awesome architect of order and design of this cosmos.
Dr. Russ Humphries is a nuclear physicist who developed a model to compute the present strength of the planetary magnetic fields. Dr. Humphries developed his predictions by starting with principles he found in the Bible. Amazing, but, yes, it is because of the author of the Bible.
In Genesis chapter one and verse 31 it reveals, in part, that God saw all that he had made and it was very good, that is perfect, in the beginning. According to modern science we now know that the mass and the size of earth is just right. If the earth was even 10 percent larger or 10 percent smaller, life as we know it would be utterly impossible. Our earth is just the right distance from the sun, receiving just the right amount of heat and light. Even the exact tilt of axis of our planet earth is just right. It is believed that none other known planets are so tilted. And our tilted angle, our planet Earth as it revolves, has all its surface receiving the needed rays of the sun. Without the tilt of the earth on its axis, the earth at its poles would accumulate enormous masses of ice and the center part of our planet would become intensely hot, torrid.
Even our moon acts as a clean up servant to clean our oceans and shores. Really? You see, our moon creates our ocean tides. Without the moon our ocean harbors and shores would become stench pools of garbage. It would be impossible to live near them. But the tides of the oceans with continuous waves breaking on our shores aerate our oceans, circulation for clean out, even provide plankton, plant and animal organisms that float or drift in great numbers in fresh and salt water which is the very foundation of the food chain on earth. So our moon, regarding the tides and aeration and plankton, is absolutely necessary. And it is just right in size and mass and distance from the earth to perform all of these indispensible functions for life on earth as we know it including the gravitational pull and other forces. And this all by lucky chance, by randomness, by blind, impersonal evolution, just a chaotic coincidence? No!. Even reason points to God’s creation because in the beginning God made it all and it was all very good.
Consider our study text in Romans chapter one in verses 18 through 20. In verse 18 it reveals, in part: “The wrath of God is being revealed against all the godlessness and wickedness of men”. That is the wrath of God because he is perfectly righteous and mankind is unrighteous after sin came into the world. Men are in rebellion toward God as unregenerate sinners until they are born again and regenerated by God. Godlessness of those without God, that is, unbelievers and including those who claim to know God, but their lives deny genuine faith which must be evidenced by a pattern of obedience, by deeds, by a life pattern that is truly an obedient faith. And yet godlessness means that those today that have not received Jesus Christ as their Savior, who is the only way to God, have no way of being part of his family.
In verse 18 it also says that men who suppress or deny the truth by their wickedness, because sin reigns, it is in control of their mortal lives. And it is generally without confession, without godly sorrow, without contrition, without repentance. And in spite of the evidence from conscience and from creation and from Scripture, most choose to resist, to refute, to refuse God’s truth. And Jesus is the truth and Scripture is truth. It cannot be broken.
In verse 19 it says, in part that since what may be known about God is plain to those who would see. Evidence of God’s existence and truth has sovereignly been planted in the very nature of mankind by way of reason and logic, and by morality and guilt through conscience, even made known through the tangible, perceivable, visible creation itself.
In verse 20 it says in part that because of what has been made, men are without excuse. Even those who have not had opportunity to hear the gospel and today have not heard or know about Jesus Christ, the only way to the Father, they still have gotten clear proof of a creator God from what has been made, that is, the creation, the cosmos itself. God will judge each one according to his or her right, even if it is just the creation, that is, that points to a creator God.
Consider this. If our brains, our intellect are only products of evolutionary randomness, just chance out of chaos, then why should we even reasonably, rationally trust our generally human conclusion, that is, the lack of a creator God, because it is a marvelous creation. Again, for example, we live under a great expanse of air, about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and one percent about a dozen other trace elements. Studies of other near planets indicate little or no atmosphere there. Nowhere in the known cosmos is there the same or similar composition of air as it is on planet earth. And our air, the elements, are not chemically combined, but continually mixed mechanically by the tidal effect of our moon upon our atmosphere. Mankind dumps tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is absorbed into our oceans, which serve as a filter for planet earth. Plus our atmosphere is very thick. If not, we would be crushed by billions upon billions of pieces of cosmic debris, like meteorites that move continually toward earth.
Make no mistake. It is an internal battle within that is the real problem with mankind. It is not really about God as creator, but God as chief, as CEO, chief executive officer of our lives, because, you see, most people want to be their own boss. Most with the sin nature—and all of us have a sin nature, since sin has come into the world—most live and desire to live in disobedience without repentance, living only by the flesh. Being a physical orphan is a temporary situation, but being a spiritual orphan without Father God is forever, and to be separated from Father God is very much worse.
And so our witness needs to be that we choose Father God. Choose to be part of the family of God. Receive Jesus personally as your Savior and Lord, because Jesus today is the only way to the Father, receiving him by faith, repenting of sin, confessing him as Lord, as the Son of God, living a life of obedience, which begins with being immersed, baptized into Christ. But that is not the end. As we persevere in Christ we seek to live, purifying ourselves even as he is pure. Live for the Lord because he is Lord, which points back to genuine saving faith. Won’t you choose to be a child of God and to be part of his family through Jesus Christ even today?
David Johnson is minister of the Sellersburg Church of Christ, Sellersburg, IN