OPEN: Back in London’s Hyde Park in the 1940’s, there was a “”Speaker’s Corner” where different people could speak in the open air. One of the regular speakers there was a Catholic author and publisher named Frank Sheed. On one particular day, Sheed had spoken on the beauty and majesty of God’s creation. He described how intricate and extraordinary the universe was and how it proved that it had been created by a loving and powerful God.
As often happens in these kinds of events, there was a heckler in the audience. And this heckler repeatedly challenged Sheed by pointing to all the suffering and injustice in the world. Then he ended by saying: “I could make a better universe than YOUR God did!”
Sheed paused for a moment and said “You could make a better universe than God has?”
“You heard me,” the man replied
“Well, I tell you what.” Sheed answered :”I won’t ask you to make a universe… but would you mind just making a rabbit… just to establish some confidence in your abilities? Then I’d be satisfied that you MIGHT be able to make good on your claim.”
APPLY What Sheed was saying to that man was this:
If you’re going to pass judgment on God you had better be better than He is.
And when it comes to making a universe no one is better than God is.
And there’s a reason for that. The Psalmist said:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? Psalm 8:3-4
God created the heavens and the moon and the stars.
And He created it for you and for me.
He created it the entire Universe because He loves us.
The answer to the Psalmist question of “what is man to God?” is “Man means A Lot to God”. It didn’t make any sense that God would love us… but it was true nonetheless. And the proof of God’s love is displayed in the care He took in making our world.
Psalm 136 put it this way
”Give thanks to the Lord of lords: His love endures forever
to him who alone does great wonders, His love endures forever.
who by his understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever.
who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever.
who made the great lights— His love endures forever.
the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever.
the moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever.
Over and over again, the Psalmist is telling us: “Just look at what God has created. Then you’ll begin to realize just how much ‘His love endures forever’”.
Paul tells us in Romans that
“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.” Romans 1:20
The repeated message throughout Scripture is this:
God not only is “there”, but “He cares.”
And one of the proofs of that is the beauty and majesty of the world God created for us to live on.
Just as an example of this, allow me to take you out into the Universe.
A couple of years ago, Astronomers found a new planet.
It was the first and smallest planet on which they suspect they might one day find life.
They named it Gliese 581 C.
Gliese is 15 times closer to its sun than our earth is to ours, but that’s ok because Gliese’s sun is 50 times dimmer than ours.
(We showed a graphic of the size difference between our earth and Gliese. A good site for this would be http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gliese581cEarthComparison2.png)
Gliese 581 C is 50% bigger than our earth and 5 times more massive and it is speculated that the gravity on Gliese is similar to ours.. (adapted from Space.com April 2007)
Scientists are so excited about this discovery that there have been various artists have portrayed how they think the planet’s surface must appear
(We showed a couple of graphics on the screen)
One artist even visualize life
(We showed another graphic, followed by a cartoon such as the one found at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_M5bBKfTxp6s/R1SGnkCfZOI/AAAAAAAAALM/OJRjoGyV6fI/s1600-R/05-03-07-Cartoon-CLR.gif)
So scientists are all excited about finding life on this “earthlike” planet.
But, of course, there is one small problem with this Gliese 581 C. It never turns as it orbits it’s sun. One side of the planet is always faces its star and the other side is always facing away. This would make the sunny side unbearably hot and the dark side freezingly cold.
This leads most astronomers to speculate that whatever water and “life” may be found on the planet would be found around the edges where the dark side meets the light.
Now, that’s nice.
They’ve found a planet that JUST MIGHT support life.
But now, let us compare that planet to the earth God gave us.
Our earth is 98 million miles away from the sun, which is just right.
If it were much closer to our star, life couldn’t survive the heat.
And if it were much father away, everything would freeze
AND unlike Gliese 581 – our earth rotates on its axis. This makes it so that the entire earth is exposed (every day) to the life-giving rays of our sun.
AND our earth is tilted just enough to allow the maximum amount of places for life (23 °).
If our earth didn’t have that tilt - the poles would be colder and less likely to support life, and the equator would be much hotter and make that area into a barren desert.
If during the next orbit around the Sun the Earth deviated only a fraction of an inch every twenty iles or so, within a year - our world would either fry or freeze.
Then there’s our moon.
The Moon causes our oceans to rise and fall. Its pull on the Earth in just the right way to cause the oceans to circulate. This movement helps the oceans to clean themselves and absorb and give off oxygen. Thus, the tides caused by our moon are needed for the ocean to support life.
If the moon were much closer or bigger tidal waves would be the size of tsunamis.
If it was much smaller or farther away it would have little if any effect on the on ebb and flow of the ocean and our seas would become dead bodies of water.
The planet God created for us is so unique, that it is the only known place in the universe where life can exist.
ILLUS: Back in 1968, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders took pictures of the earth and he noted that “It was the only color we could see in the universe…”
Our earth is the most unique planet in all of God’s creation.
And that’s because God created it for YOU and for Me
He cares for us.
He loves us.
But Romans 1:18 tells us that God also looks down upon our planet with wrath.
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness”
God’s wrath is stored up for those who “suppress the truth”.
There are those who criticize the idea that our Universe requires a creator
They laugh at the idea of a Intelligent designer
(pause) But if they take God out of the picture… what’s left?
Paul says, when you take God away - all people have left to worship are the things God created.
He says “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator— who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:25
Is that a fact?
When man rejects God as the creator, all he has left to praise is the creation.
That may explain why we find that people who reject the creator give credit to the created things for being “intelligent”.
For example, just a short inquiry on the internet turned up these statements;
One site declared “Enjoy Nutrition as Nature Designed:”
Another site proclaimed “Jewelry Designed By Nature”
In another place someone stated “nature designed you to hold as little muscle and as much fat as possible” (that should give us at least good excuse for being overweight!)
But my favorite quote was from the title of a book by an evolutionist at Amazon.com:
“Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong”.
Wow, even people who reject God realize there is an intelligent design to our universe.
But since many of these same people reject God (the “Intelligent Designer”) they have to credit the intelligence they see to “NATURE”.
They reject the Designer of the Universe, and they praise the things He created as if His created world had the intelligence to design and direct the world around us.
But that irrational!
To believe that a senseless/mindless creation could design anything is absolutely bizarre!
Why would anybody believe such drivel?
They believe that because – if they didn’t – they would have to accept the idea that there is a God. An Intelligent Designer. A Being who is far and above them.
And that would mean:
* they might have to accept the idea that there is a moral standard that’s higher than theirs
* they might have to accept the idea that the things they do is wrong
* they might have to change their lifestyle… or face condemnation
But people don’t want to do that
Once they accept that premise (that God exists) they’re not in charge anymore… God is.
That’s why Paul stresses the fact that God has the right to judge us because He created everything/ owns everything. As Paul wrote:
“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.” Romans 1:18-20
God created everything… He owns everything… it’s all His.
Therefore He alone has the right to pass judgment on us.
One person said it this way: “Only God is in a position to look down on anyone." Sarah Brown
But many people don’t like that
They don’t want anyone to judge THEM
They’d prefer to be the judges
ILLUS: Several years ago, renowned Christian writer & apologist Ravi Zacharias did an open forum on a radio talk show. The host was an atheist. And from the start, the callers were antagonistic to him.
One angry woman called and said, “All you people have is an agenda you’re trying to promote.” Then she started talking about abortion, she said, “You want to take away our rights and invade our private lives.”
But abortion had not even been brought up til she mentioned it.
Why did she bring it up?
Because – if God existed, He would be able to set the standard of right and wrong
And since she preferred to be in charge of HER OWN LIFE she used abortion as the focus of her challenge.
Noticing that, Zacharias said “Just a minute, we didn’t even raise the subject.”
“Ok,” she said, “what is your position on abortion then?”
Zacharias then said “Can I ask you a question? On every university campus I visit, somebody stands up and says that God is an evil God to allow all this evil into our world. This person typically says, ‘A plane crashes: 30 people die, and 20 people live. What kind of God would arbitrarily choose some to live and some to die?’”
“But when WE play God and determine whether a child within a mother’s womb should live, we argue for that as a moral right. So when human beings are given the privilege of playing God, it’s called a moral right. When God plays God, we call it an immoral act. Can you justify this for me?”
The woman hung up. (Leadership Spring 95 p. 21)
God is God… and He has the right to judge us.
He created everything. He owns everything. And He stands in judgment of all mankind.
ILLUS: Do you remember what day of the week the Jews worship God? (Saturday/Sabbath). Why do the Jews worship God on the 7th day of the week?
Because they are celebrating God’s creation of the world.
Week after week they are reminded of the fact that everything in this world (including themselves) was God’s creation. And week after week they are reminded that because God created everything… He owns everything. It’s all His.
And as God looks down upon His creation, the Bible tells us He looks upon us and sees one undeniable truth: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23
And Paul gives us a whole litany of the sins of people who are
“filled with every kind of wickedness,
They are evil, greedy and depraved.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.
They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful;
they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
And although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Somewhere along the line… we’ve all done one or more of those things.
We’re all sinners
ILLUS: But now – I look out over this audience and I see a bunch of really nice people.
Aren’t you all really nice people?
Of course you are.
Look at the person next to you. Aren’t they a really nice person?
Of course they are.
We’re just surrounded by really good people in this church.
And oftentimes people like you and I will say “I’m really a nice person. I don’t really sin all that much.”
But we’d have to admit that even “good people” sin a little bit.
So, let’s suppose that a person only sins 3 times a day.
They commit a sin in the morning, a sin during the day and a sin at night.
Doesn’t that sound like a pretty good person to you?
But now, let’s think about that for a moment.
If that person (who sins only 3 times a day on the average) started sinning at 10 years old and died at 80 years old… over their entire lifetime that would amount to 76,650 sins!!!
That’s nearly 80,000 sins.
And that’s in the life of someone we would refer to as a good person
That’s nearly 80,000 sins that they’d have to give account for when they stood before the judgment seat of Christ.
Now there’s a reason why Paul starts out his letter to the Roman Christians this way.
Oftentimes people read the book of Romans and they think of as simply a theological document meant to be studied. And it is that. But it actually was more than that. It was a letter from Paul to a church at Rome that was having problems.
Apparently at Rome the church had a division of sorts. There were two types of believers there who were at odds with one another.
One group was made up of Christians who had once been Jews.
The other group were Christians who had been born Gentiles (non-Jews)
Somewhere along the line, the Jewish and Gentile believers began to look down on one another. The Jews thought: we’re people of the Old covenant, God loves us more than anyone else in the church.
And the Gentiles responded: Yeah? Well if you’re such a wonderful people… how come you crucified the Christ?
Paul’s purpose in Romans is to drive home that neither one of them were righteous enough to be saved on their own merit. They had ALL sinned and had fallen short of the glory of God: Jew and Gentile alike.
And so he starts the letter out by saying:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” Romans 1:16
It doesn’t matter who you are.
It doesn’t matter who your ancestors were.
The only thing that matters is the power of God’s Gospel about Jesus Christ because in Jesus Christ is the salvation for everyone who believes both Jew and Gentile.
Everyone on the face of the earth was dead in their sins. And the Gospel had power to take those were dead in their sins and gives them new life.
And that simple reality is revealed in the simplicity of God’s creation.
Repeatedly in nature, God reveals His ability to take that which is dead and make it alive again.
ILLUS: Consider the simple “wooly worm” or caterpillar.
About this time of year (the fall) the wooly worm faces the prospect of death, and so God has designed it so that it takes its final days and builds it own casket – a cocoon. The caterpillar literally dies to this world.
But several months later, the casket opens.
But what comes out is not a wooly worm. That which comes from the place of death is a beautiful butterfly. One of God’s most marvelous and fascinating creations.
The caterpillar is also a unique creation. But nobody I know of collects caterpillars.
The real collectors collect God’s symbol of new life from death – the butterfly.
It is in nature that God reveals His eternal power and divine nature
And for all who are willing to look – God reveals His love for them.
CLOSE: Astronomer Allan Sandage says he was “almost a practicing atheist as a boy,” but was nagged by mysteries whose answers were not to be found in the halls of academia. Among them: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Sandage began to despair of answering such question through reason alone, and so, at 50, he willed himself to accept God.
“It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.” (Sharon Begley Saturday Evening Post Jan/Feb 1999)
God has the power to bring new life to those who are dead in sin.
And it’s because we believe that that we offer an invitation at the end of every service…
