Creation Day 5

Since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made. You cannot conclude anything other than that there was an eternal pre-existing Creator and consequently those who reject that and suppress that truth, Romans 1-20 says, are without excuse. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In your day-to-day life, you probably use a computer or a smartphone or some piece of technology that you don't understand 100 percent.

In other words, just because you don't know what every button does and can't explain the engineering behind the device, that hasn't kept you from using it. Today on Grace to You, John MacArthur is going to help you apply that principle to a vital biblical doctrine, the origins of the universe. He'll continue his look at the battle for the beginning by showing you that you don't need to have an advanced degree in science, or seminary training for that matter, to defend what the Bible says about creation. And if you have a Bible, turn now to Genesis chapter 1, and here's John. And we're looking at day 5 in the creation, Genesis 1, 22, 23, Genesis 1, 20 to 23. The text says, Then God said, Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens. And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. In December 1996 brought the death of an evolutionist astronomer by the name of Carl Sagan, probably the most well-known astronomer in the world. His perception was that life just sort of happened, and he ended up his life with absolute emptiness, absolute hopelessness. And near the end of his life, he was interviewed by Ted Koppel on television. Koppel asked Sagan, realizing he was at the end of his life, that he had spent his life in science studying the universe as an astronomer. He said, Do you, sir, have any words of wisdom for the people of the world? To which Sagan replied, and I quote, We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a hum-drum star that is one of 400-plus billion other stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a large number, perhaps an infinite number of other universes. That is well worth pondering.

End quote. He thought about it and he thought about it and he thought about it and he never let God and he never let God be a reality. In the end, the most brilliant evolutionist only knows that the universe exists. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know why, and mostly he doesn't know who the Creator is.

How sad. Everything in the universe points to God the Creator. Even Albert Einstein said, Of course there is a massive intelligence behind the universe.

A man is a fool who doesn't believe that, and then went on to say, But we could never know Him. The humanistic evolutionist refuses to see what is obvious, refuses to meet the God who wants to be known. Back to the created order itself, again the complexity and diversity leave you with no other possible explanation than divine intelligence and divine power of proportions beyond our comprehension.

I just pick out little pieces of the created order that speak to this complexity and diversity and share a few of them with you. Some birds navigate by the stars when migrating. How do they know how to do that? In fact, birds raised from eggs inside a building where they have never seen the sky can orient themselves toward home when shown an artificial sky representing a place they've never been. Moths have two ears. Mites, little microscopic bugs, like to live in a moth's ear. But interestingly enough, mites occupy only one ear of a moth. If mites get in both ears, the moth can't fly. So, scientists find mites only in one ear.

How do the mites know that one ear is occupied? And then the fascinating bombardier, Betel, has two chemicals in his little body which mix perfectly and at the right moment combine outside his body when they're fired and they intersect, they explode in the face of the enemy. That's why they're called bombardier beetles. However, the two chemicals that create an explosion outside the body never combine prematurely to blow up the beetle. And by the way, how did the beetle evolve those explosives and keep them separate? The University of Alberta, Canada once showed that in that temperate climate there are an average of 1,800 storms in operation at any time, and that those 1,800 storms in operation at any time expend energy at the inconceivable figure of 1,300,000,000 horsepower.

Where does that come from? A Canadian physicist said a rain of four inches over an area of 10,000 square miles would require the burning of 640 million tons of coal to evaporate enough water for such a rain. And to cool again the vapors and collect them in clouds would take another 800 million horsepower of refrigeration working 24 hours a day for 100 days. And yet God by the massive power of the sun evaporates the water, refrigerates it in the sky, sends it back down again as water.

By the way, the average farmer in Minnesota is provided free of charge, 407,510 gallons of water per acre per year by that process if the annual rainfall of 24 inches is occurring. Now where does all this power come from? The U.S. Natural Museum says there are over 10 million different species of insects. There are 2,500 kinds of ants.

I know they were all at your last picnic. One colony of ants can have as many as 100 million ants. How do those little tiny things have such a reproductive system? Some have estimated there are five billion birds in America. Mallards can fly 60 miles an hour, eagles can fly 100 miles an hour, and falcons can dive at 180 miles an hour. By the way, codfish, not that you need to know, can lay nine million eggs and herring only 70,000.

I don't have any other comment. Just that is enough to stagger me. Nine million eggs, nine million little codfish, that's why there's so many fish and chips places in England.

You never run out of that stuff. The earth is 25,000 miles in circumference, is 25,000 miles in circumference, weighs six septillion, 586 sextillion tons, hangs in empty space, spins at a thousand miles an hour with perfect balance, and that's important so that you're not just jumping every time the earth moves. At the same time that it's spinning at a thousand miles an hour, it is moving through space around the sun at a thousand miles a minute in an orbit of 580 million miles.

It does so at a perfect angle set to create the seasons which provide all the crops which feed its inhabitants. Comet heads can be from 10,000 miles to one million miles long and the tails can be a hundred million miles long. They travel at 350 miles per second. Your heart, about the size of your fist, weighs less than half a pound, pumps 1,800-plus gallons of blood a day, does enough work in 12 hours to lift 65 tons off the ground. Did you know that the sun burns up...this is staggering...four million tons of matter per second? Consider things that are very small like the atom. They're not visible.

We know they exist, but to this day they're not visible. Atoms are so small, it takes three atoms to make up one water molecule. And if you were to take every water molecule in one drop of water and blow them up so that each molecule was the size of a grain of sand...now this is one water molecule. If you were to take every molecule in one drop of water and blow it up the size of a grain of sand, you would have enough grains of sand to make a road one foot thick, one-half mile wide that would go from L.A. to New York City.

That's how many molecules in a drop of water. And there's three atoms in every molecule. And yet the atom is mostly empty space. The actual material in the atom takes up only one-trillionth of the atom's volume. And when atoms combine, they only join together at their outer electron orbit, that's all.

What makes matter seem solid are the motions within the atoms. Because everything is mostly empty space. If the average person had all the space squeezed out of him...that's an interesting thought, isn't it? If the average person had all the space squeezed out of him, how much volume do you think he'd occupy? If you had all the space squeezed out of you, you'd be lost on the head of a pin. For you could only occupy one hundred millionth of a cubic inch. So when somebody comes along and says, you're nothing, they're right. But on the other side, you're thinking diet, I know.

You're thinking there's got to be a way to make this work, but I want you to know a full cubic inch of that material would weigh a billion pounds. A teaspoon full of water contains a million billion trillion atoms. I mean, it's just staggering, isn't it? Did this all happen by accident?

Come on. Let me talk about the wheel of life. This fascinates me. I mentioned who invented the wheel and somebody said the Mayans did. No, the Mayans didn't. God did. There's a wheel of life.

You've got them all through you. The wheel that I'm talking about, the wheel of life, scientists call it the wheel of life, is found in the enzyme ATP synthase. Its structure has only recently been elucidated and has won a joint Nobel Prize in 1997 for two scientists, Paul Boyer of the USA and John Walker of the UK. The wheel in this enzyme rotates at about one hundred revolutions per second. This miniature motor is two hundred thousand times smaller than a pinhead and it's revolving a hundred revolutions per second. Every cell in your body and every cell in every living thing has thousands of these motors. Every cell in every living thing has thousands of these motors in just one cell. Every cell in your body has thousands of these motors. Thousands of these motors in just one cell. Someone estimated that your body has ten quadrillion little motors.

Let me tell you what the little motor does. The ATP motor's job is to make the molecule adenosine triphosphate, ATP, from adenosine diphosphate, ADP, and phosphoric acid, a synthesis which requires an input of energy. The ATP can then break down to ADP again, giving up the energy by coupling itself to another chemical process within the cell which requires the energy in order to react. So energy is directed and the products are recycled constantly, constantly in that little tiny motor of which you have ten quadrillion going on all the time. Says Dr. Walker, we require our body weight in ATP every day. So the little motor has to reproduce your entire body weight every day. We're turning over that amount of ATP, cycling that energy to keep ourselves thinking and walking around doing whatever we do. If we have a lazy day, we will only use about half our body weight of ATP.

But if we work hard, up to one ton of ATP is recycled in a day. In 1993, Professor Boyer deduced by indirect means how ATP was produced. But it was left to Dr. Walker in 1994 to provide the first detailed picture of how the motor works.

He used x-rays and an electron microscope to take an atomic snapshot. And then some Japanese fellow came along in 1997 with a tiny fluorescent filament attached to the electron microscope so that the motor could be seen spinning under the microscope. These extremely complex little spinning motors are brilliantly designed. Each motor is built from 31 separate proteins. Now remember, this is 200,000 times smaller than the head of a pin.

And they have 31 protein components that are made from thousands of precisely arranged amino acids. Am I losing you? It gets worse. This thing goes on paragraph, after paragraph, after paragraph. These little machines are producing with every turn of the wheel at some hundred revolutions per second. They are producing the necessary energy cycle to keep you alive and keep you functioning? It's incredible, says Dr. Walker, to think of these motors of life spinning around in all the cells of our bodies. And they are spinning in all the cells of everything that lives. Who designed these little wheel motors?

Who energized them? Psalm 139 14 says, We were fearfully and wonderfully made. Now my friend R.C. Sproul is part theologian and part philosopher. And I appreciate him for his theology, but I really appreciate him for his philosophy.

He is actually...he is actually a funny philosopher because he can make people look so foolish that you can hardly help but chuckle. Now Sproul says, There are only four options for the origin of the universe. You only have four. Option number one, the universe is an illusion. It doesn't exist. That's option number one. Option number two, it is self-created. Option number three, it is self-existent and eternal. Option number four, it was created by someone who is self-existent.

Sproul says there aren't any other options. Either it doesn't exist, or it created itself, or it always existed, or somebody created it. That's it. He says, I have puzzled over this for decades and sought the counsel of philosophers, theologians and scientists. I have been unable to locate any other theoretical options that cannot be subsumed under these four options.

That's all you've got. Then Sproul says, Option number one must be eliminated for two reasons. That's the option that says it doesn't exist, it's all an illusion. First, if it's a false illusion, then it isn't an illusion. If it's a true illusion, then someone or something must be existing to have that illusion.

If this is the case, then that which is having the illusion must either be self-created, self-existent, or caused by someone ultimately self-existent, so therefore everything is not an illusion. Secondly, he says, you can eliminate number one, the illusion theory, because if we assume the illusion is absolute, that is nothing does exist, including that which is having the illusion, then there is no question of origins even to answer because literally nothing exists. But if something exists, then whatever exists must either be self-created, self-existent, or created by someone who is self-existent. Let's look at option two, that the universe created itself. Well, this is by all logic formally false. It is contradictory and logically impossible. Sproul says, in essence, self-creation requires the existence of something before it exists.

You get that? You can't create yourself unless you exist to create yourself. Self-creation is a logical and rational impossibility, he writes.

For something to create itself, it must be before it is. This is impossible. It's impossible for solids, liquids, and gases. It's impossible for atoms and subatomic particles. It is impossible for light.

It is impossible for heat. It is impossible for God. Nothing anywhere, anytime can create itself because if it could, it would have to exist before it created itself. Sproul points out that an entity can be self-existent and not violate logic, but it can't be self-created. When scientists say, well, 15 to 20 billion years ago the universe created itself, what are they saying?

They're saying nothing exploded into something. That is a logical impossibility. To retain a theory of self-creation is totally irrational and rejects all logic. Such a theory can be believed, but it can't be argued reasonably. And you've got option number three, that the universe as it exists, as we know it, has always existed eternally.

Well, that doesn't fly. You're not eternal and neither am I. We didn't always exist. There was a time when we didn't exist.

There was a time when our children didn't exist. There are all kinds of things in this world that once did not exist. In fact, everything around us once did not exist. How could the universe exist forever and then do in time, i.e., create life what it had never done forever? If the universe always existed, then everything in it always existed. And we know everything in it didn't always exist because you and I didn't always exist.

Our parents will verify that. You cannot be born and be always existing. Cars and watches and chairs and all that were brought into existence at some point in time. Option one, option two, option three are impossible.

We're left with only one possibility. The universe exists because it was created by someone who existed before it existed, a preexisting, intelligent power, namely God. Matter can't create itself. Only an eternal, preexisting God could create. CNN reported that only nine percent of Americans believe that life arose purely by chance.

That's good, isn't it? But the vast majority, you can flip the figures over, over 90 percent of the people in America believed that God was involved in creation but that God used evolution as His method. And we've been trying to point out to you that that can't be how God created because evolution is what?

Impossible, absolutely impossible. That's why there's no evidence for it because it can't happen. The sin of evolutionists is described in Romans 1. The wrath of God, verse 18, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The truth of the Creator God is obvious.

It's absolutely obvious, reasonable, logical, but they suppress the truth. Verse 19, verse 19, that which is known about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them by reason, by logic, by cause and effect. It is apparent since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made. You cannot conclude anything other than that. There was an eternal preexisting Creator.

That is the only reasonable conclusion. And consequently, those who reject that and suppress that truth, Romans 1-20 says, are without excuse, without excuse. Even though they knew God, I mean, there's no other possible reasonable conclusion.

They refused to honor Him as God, refused to thank Him, became empty in their speculations. Their foolish heart is darkened. They think they're wise.

They have all their PhDs and all of that, but they are actually fools. They exchange the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, crawling creatures. They worship the creature more than the Creator. They make the creature the Creator. Life creates itself. In Romans 1, they worship the creation. They see the creation as the life force, which creates.

Logically ridiculous. Think about everything God has made. What elements of the physical world are you most drawn to in terms of creation's ability to reflect the glory of God?

Well, for me, it's the extremes. I would say it's the infinite character, or virtually infinite character, of the macro creation. To understand that there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, and then there are trillions of galaxies beyond that, this is just staggering. You could say that God created all the bodies, all the space components, whether they're planets or moons or meteors or whatever's flying around up there is one thing, but he had to create the space. He had to create the space in which all of this exists. The macro creation is just overwhelming to me, and when you think about the millions and millions of light years you have to travel going at 186,000 miles a second to get to the first star, and then beyond that, it is beyond comprehension to think of God's creative power at that massive, massive macro level.

And the other issue with me is, to go to the other extreme, is the micro level. How that, in your body or in mine, there are millions of cells, and every cell is a machine. Every single living cell is a machine. Every single living cell on the planet is a machine. It is a self-propelling machine. In other words, internally it functions on its own. It is a self-repairing machine. It fixes itself.

It repairs itself, and it is a self-duplicating machine in that it spins off other machines just like that, and the incalculable number of those cells in the world, all of them possessing life, and all of them at that minute level being controlled by something that's labeled as DNA, which is nothing more than an internal software system that runs the cell, is just staggering. And then you go from the macro to the micro and sweep through everything in between, and you begin to understand the greatness of the power of God. Thank you, John.

That is a helpful perspective. And friend, if John's current study, The Battle for the Beginning, is strengthening your trust in God's Word, we'd love to hear from you. When you have time, jot a note and send it our way. You can email us at letters at gty.org, or send your letter to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. And here's our email address one more time, letters at gty.org. And let me remind you that Grace To You is supported by listeners like you, people who love the Word of God, who have been transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and who want to help us take God's Word and His gospel to people in countries like Singapore, and the United Kingdom, and South Africa, and many more. To help us unleash God's truth across the globe, mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, Panorama City, California, 91412. You can also express your support when you call us at 855 GRACE. That's our phone number toll-free. It translates to 800-554-7223. Or you can visit our website, gty.org.

That's gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire staff here at Grace To You, I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Be here tomorrow, the same time when John shows you how to defend biblical truth about creation in a culture that rejects God. Join us for 30 more minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Friday's Grace To You.