(2/23) One of the biggest comedies on TV begins with this: (Big Bang Theory)

The story is told about a young boy that came to his Father and asked, "Where did we come from?" The father explained how there was a big bang in the universe and how after everything cooled down, life began in water then came onto land and frogs became monkeys and from monkeys man evolved. The boy then went to his mother and asked her the same question. His mother explained how God created the world in 6 days and how man was created as the crown of all creation and was made in God’s image. The boy was baffled and said, "That’s not what dad said at all. Dad said we evolved from monkeys and you say we were created special by God." His mom replied, "That’s because he told you about his side of the family and I told you about mine."

While we may laugh at a story like that, it reflects a real conflict in our world. It is the 7th of our 8 Great Lies That America has Embraced. That is, that Evolution Explains our Existence. This may well be the greatest lie of all history. Let’s also remember that Satan from the Garden of Eden has been perpetuating lies. This, I believe, is Satan’s greatest lie of all. (top 2)

It is assumed by most secular educational institutions that the world we live in is the product of spontaneous generation otherwise known as, evolution, and that those who believe in intelligent design or special creation by God are ignorant and fools. That’s what Oxford Scientist and Author Richard Dawkins said, "It’s absolutely safe to say that if you met someone who says he does not believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane, (or wicked but I would rather not go there)." Evolution as fact is taught in every science book in every secular school in most of the world. Creationism is considered foolish, ignorant, stupid, with no foundation. "Evolution is a Fact amply demonstrated by the fossil record and molecular biology," said the late Carl Sagan But we have a dilemma. Most of us who believe the Bible is God’s Word believe in special creation. Is it true that we have evidence that? Let’s take a few moments and look at a few portions of the Bible.

In our Old Testament reading we looked Genesis 1. Look for a moment at John 1:1-3, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" and Colossians 1:16, "For by Him (Jesus) all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." Let’s go back and look at Psalm 19:1-6.

What do you see in Psalm 19? Look at the verbs, "Declare, shows, utters speech, reveals." What do they tell you? What do you see when you see a sunrise, or a sunset? What do you think when you drive by or thru the Rocky Mountains, or the Shenandoah Valley, or when you sit by the ocean when no one else is around? What do you think when you see a newborn Baby? I don’t know about you but I am in Awe and aware that there is someone greater than myself out there.

How many of you watch any of the CSI shows or NCIS? The shows are all about police using forensic evidence to solve crimes. Finding hair, or cloth fibers, or tracing DNA to find the perpetrators. Let’s suppose that there is a fire in an abandoned building and after the fire is controlled, the investigators find damp but empty gas cans around the building and a pack of matches by the gas cans. What do you think they would conclude? Arson? But what if they said, "It looks like arson but we don’t believe in arson so it must have been an accident?" That’s exactly what we have when it comes to our existence. We know it looks like creation and the evidence actually supports creation but we don’t believe in creation so it was an accident. Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winning scientist and co-discoverer of DNA, actually said, that life here had to have been generated from another planet.

Look at Romans 1:18-25. Zero in on verse 20. The evidence is there. There is no excuse not to believe in a creator, but they willingly exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Why? The rest of the chapter tells us, so they can do what they want without feeling accountable. In a couple of weeks Fox is going to run a 13 part special update of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. They are going to show it on all of their stations including their sports stations all over the world. You will see the wonderful glory of God but you will hear how it all evolved from nothing. Before I get going here. I want to say that I am obviously not a scientist, nor am I a philosopher. I owe a debt of gratitude to people like Ken Ham of Back to Genesis, Lee Strobel and The Case for Faith, Dwayne Gish and Henry Morris of The Institute of Creation Research, Hank Hannegraff – The Bible Answer man, and Del Tackett of the Truth Project and others.

God has revealed His wrath in specific revelation. He has demonstrated with the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of Egypt, and then Jericho and Canaan, His wrath for ungodliness. He has also revealed in special revelation His wrath that will be displayed in the future when Jesus returns and then all will appear before His Great White Throne. It is all in the Book and part of our History and our certainty for the future. Perhaps, and I say this cautiously with no specific event in mind, that some of the natural disasters of the last 10 years that have been of, "Biblical Proportion," may have been part of His wrath on a world that refuses to acknowledge Him.

On December, 27th, 1831, the H.M.S. Beagle left England for a five year journey to South America and the Galapagos Islands. That journey would result in the most influential faith and philosophical system since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On board the Beagle was a former medical and ministry student named Charles Darwin. Darwin had been influenced by some that believed that the world came into being not by divine creation but by natural processes. As a result of his study and observations on that journey, Darwin would write several books that would impact the course of the modern era more than anything else. The first was, The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection published in 1859. This book became the bible and the primary source of what we refer to as the theory of evolution. The second book was, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. In this book Darwin, postulated that man came from apes or monkeys, humanity evolved, and that there is a dominate species or race. These two books and those who would expand on them would change the world in unimaginable ways.

How important is this stuff? Evolutionist William Provine, of Cornell University, stated it well when he said that there are 5 inescapable implications if Darwin is right. These are implied every time evolution is taught. If Evolution is true there is

1. No Evidence for God (no one to whom we are responsible)

2. No Life after Death (no heaven or hell)

3. No Absolute Foundation for Right and Wrong (no absolute truth, we make up our own rules and mores)

4. No Ultimate Meaning for Life (no real purpose for our existence)

5. People don’t Really have Free Will

Carry this further, and there were no Adam and Eve, no original sin accounting for our inherent sin nature, no need for a Savior, and so, Jesus died cruelly on a cross in vain. If evolution is true, faith of any kind is futile and the Bible is a book of fairy tales. C. Richard Bozarth, American Atheist, said, "Evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and original sin and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God… and if Jesus was not the redeemer who dies for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."

Now, if the Bible is true, then evolution cannot be. Although there are some who believe in Theo-Evolution, or that God created by evolution, it must be one or the other, as the logical law of non-contradiction points out. Sir Julian Huxley, one of the world’s most noted evolutionists said it this way, "Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion. Darwin pointed out that no supernatural designer was needed; since natural selection could account for any known form of life, there was no room for a supernatural agency in evolution….I think we can dismiss entirely all ideas of a supernatural overriding mind being responsible for the evolutionary process."

If you think this isn’t important, I want you to know that it is the Darwinian theory of evolution that was the basis of Hitler’s regime, the Russian and Chinese Revolutions and more that resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths. It is the basis of how America moved from being a Christian Nation to the separation of Church and state and why we can abort hundreds of millions of unborn children. Is this important? It is one of the biggest lies ever imposed on the world. It attacks the very first words of God’s special revelation, "In the beginning God, created….."

Now, people of faith believe that an Intelligent Creator has revealed Himself to us in at least 2 major ways. One is what we call Special Revelation. He has given us the Bible and Jesus Christ. The Bible is the primary means by which God has revealed His character and attributes and His story which has become history and our hope for the future. The life, death, and resurrection and influence of Jesus Christ are all undeniably true and written in this book.

The second means is General Revelation. General Revelation is the revelation of God through nature, the world, creation, and our make-up as humans. Look at Psalm 19. Verses 1-6 declare the general revelation of God in creation, and verses 7-11 declare the value of special revelation, and the Psalm concludes with vv. 12-14 and the psalmist’s desire to live for the glory of God. Look at verse one, "The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork."

But here is what I want to tell you. Are you listening? Say, "Amen!" It takes more faith to be an evolutionist than it does to be a Theist or a Christ Follower, (Book by Frank Turek and Norm Geisler). Teach your children this. Teach them that our faith isn’t based on blind faith but on solid evidence. Evolution, of necessity, is based on blind faith. If a frog is kissed by a princess and that frog then turns into a prince we would say that is a fairy tale. If however, a frog becomes a man after billions of years of positive mutations, we would call this science.

So, how can a preacher who is not a scientist make such a bold statement? I can only answer briefly that many scientists, while not proclaiming to be Christ Followers, are proclaiming that Intelligent Design is the reason for our existence. Consider the following:

I. Empirical Science Supports Creation and Not Evolution (science that can be demonstrated).

A. The First Law of Thermodynamics.

Consider the primary laws of science called the Laws of Thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics says that energy and matter can be converted but cannot be created or destroyed. Something cannot come from nothing. Something exists so something must have had a cause. Evolution says there is no first cause or cannot identify a first cause, even if you say, "What about a Big Bang," the question still remains, "Where did it come from? The Big Bang does not answer the question of origin. While no scientist would ever say let’s ignore this law, they have to just that in order to accept evolution. It is as William Paley described. Suppose that while you walked in the woods you looked down at something that was small round and ticking, and that had 2 hand-like extensions that were moving and 12 numbers in a circle in numeric order from 1 to 12, and gears that were moving in perfect sync, you would have found what, class? A watch. Would you ever say, "My, what the earth and water and minerals have evolved into?" No. A watch presupposes a watchmaker. Someone designed and made this watch. Everyone take out your cell or I phone. You would not say, "My, what a wonderful product of millions of years of evolution has produced." That phone is the product of very intelligent minds and craftsmen. Who would never say, as they gaze at Mount Rushmore, "My, how time and chance turned that mountain into what looks like the faces of 4 presidents." No. You would say, "My, what an artist." You would never assume that a hunk of marble evolved into a statue that looked like David, or that the Sistine Chapel evolved with a ceiling that looked like a painting depicting creation. These required the genius of a Michelangelo. Yet, we look at things much more intricate and awesome and we say, "My, what chance and time and nothing has become." A Building has an architect and a builder, buildings don’t evolve. This is a fixed law like the law of gravity, something cannot come from nothing. Except our origins, evolutionists would say.

To be an evolutionist you have no other choice than to believe that out of an eternal nothingness, everything came to exist. By random chance, coupled with time, nothing became something, AND, from non-life came life, AND, that billions of years of chance and positive mutations produced – Us! Everyone must believe either that there is an eternal Creator, or that matter in one form or another is eternal with no creator; its either God or Gas. Evolutionists have chosen the second and that takes a lot of faith, and in fact, rather than being supported by science, science has shown that intelligent design and not spontaneous generation is how we came into being. This first law says something cannot come from nothing. Something has a first cause. To believe in evolution takes great faith!

B. The Second Law of Thermodynamics

This Law says that entropy is occurring. That is, energy is changing from greater to lesser, and that our biological clock is running out of gas and is dying. We are going from order to disorder, from complexity to decay. The universe is winding down. If evolution were true it would be expanding and gaining energy. It’s like this, we get gasoline form the earth’s oil. We put it in our cars, that gasoline is burned and becomes fumes and eventually we run out of gas. The day is coming when the sun will burn out. But for evolution to be true we have to be going from disorder to order and to greater complexity. Evolutionists must deny this law to believe in evolution.

C. DNA. Walter Bradley, co-author of the Mysteries of Life’s Origins and retired Professor from Texas A&M said this, "What is encoded inside every cell of every living creature is purely and simply written information. We use a 26 letter alphabet in the English; in DNA there is a four letter chemical alphabet, whose letters combine in various sequences to form words, sentences and paragraphs. These comprise all the instructions needed to guide the functioning of the cell. They spell out in coded form the instructions for how a cell makes proteins. It works just the way alphabetical letter sequences do in our language.

Now when we see written language, we can infer, based on our experience, that it has an intelligent cause. And we can legitimately use analogical reasoning to conclude that the remarkable information sequences in DNA also had an intelligent cause. Therefore, this means life on earth came from a "who," not a "what." He also said that a single cell has more information than 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It takes a lot of faith to believe that just happened.

D. Molecular Biology – Cells, man used to believe, were just little blobs of matter, but we have discovered that inside every little cell, there are factories, assembly lines, robotic parts that put reproduce and assemble the cells. It is absolutely incredible. Yet we are asked to believe that it just happened. Even in Amoebas. Before that Amoeba could evolve upward the factories had to be in place. The design and function of every cell screams intelligent design. Consider a blood clot. Why isn’t the blood always clotting? What causes it to clot when you get cut, what cause it to stop clotting when you start healing?

E. The Fossil Record.

Darwin, himself, said that if we cannot find the fossil record to support his theory then his theory should be considered invalid. For evolution to be true, non-life gave way to life, probably one celled creatures that became multiple celled creatures in the water that eventually came onto dry land and formed insects, birds, animals and eventually man. For this to be true there had to be transitional forms of creatures, like a tadpole becoming a frog. There would have to be thousands, maybe millions of creatures in transition, yet we can’t find any. One leading scientist said that it would require a minimum of 50,000 transitions. Let we have just two. The life we believed was and the life that it is and we have not found anything to link the two. You have all seen the scales that have the monkey that slowly begins to stand up and eventually is a modern man. But we have never found any such links. The few that was supposed to be was found out to be purely that of the apes we have today. The Missing Link is really Thousands of Missing Links. Every fossil we have ever found of any creature is exactly as we know that creature to be today. The silence of the fossils says, "Evolution didn’t occur." Just for a smile, I remember when the late comedian George Carlin once asked, "If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

F. The Testimony of Present Relationships.

Simply put, species may develop new breeds within a species but they can never create new kinds of species. You can breed a better cow, a better dog, a better watermelon or better corn. But you must use components within the kind. You cannot breed a dog and a cat, nor a cow and bear, or corn with tomatoes. It is as Genesis 1 proclaims, everything is after its own kind. Yet if everything evolved from a common ancestry, would it not seem possible to produce new kinds since all life comes from the same common source? Present relationships say, "No," to evolution.

G. The Testimony of Present Processes.

For evolution to be true it requires multiple thousands of positive mutations. Comic books and cartoons have popularized mutations these last 20 or more years with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the X-Men, Spider-man and more. For evolution to be true, mutations would have to be positive and beneficial. But apart from comic books, mutations in creatures usually are harmful to the species, producing defects, and sterility or inability to fight infections. Downs syndrome is an example. Yet evolutionists hold that millions of positive mutations is the basis of their explanation of our origin. It takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution.

The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the Glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork." "They are without excuse, professing themselves to be wise they became fools, because they did not want to retain God in their knowledge" (Rom. 1:28).

A little story is told about a man that said to God, "We don’t need you, we now know how to create life." God said, "Okay, let’s see." So the man picked up a hand full of soil, to which God replied, "No! No! Use your own dirt."

II. Intelligent Design

If we are as the Bible says, the product of intelligent design then:

A. There is a God and you can know Him personally through both general and special revelation (Psalm 19; Jeremiah 9:23-24)

B. There is life after death, and we can be assured of heaven by a personal faith in Jesus Christ (John 14:1-3; 1 Peter 1:3-5)

C. There is a foundation for right and wrong and it is the Word of our Creator – the Bible. (Psalm 19; 119)

D. There is a purpose for life, we were made to glorify and reflect our God. (Isa. 43:7; Matt. 5:16; 1 Cor. 10:31)

E. We have a free will to treat each other rightly and to follow our God. (Deut. 30; Joshua 24:15; 1 Kings 18:21; Matt. 7:13-14).

Brothers and Sisters let me close by reminding you of the words of Paul in Col. 2:8 "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. (May I add, do not be intimidated by those who call you ignorant because you believe the evidence and the testimony of nature and the Bible)

Moms and dads, your children and grandchildren will not hear this in school or the TV. You must teach them the truth.

You were created by an intelligent Creator. You were as Psalm 139 says, "Fearfully and wonderfully made."

Do you know your creator personally? If not, I would love to introduce you to Him today.

Read other thoughtful writings by Pastor Gary Buchman