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Atheist Tuesday: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

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I preached a sermon a couple of weeks ago based on Psalm 139. Here’s an excerpt that will prove to atheists that I am not against science at all. At the end of the excerpt you can read the sermon in its entirety or watch it or listen to it online.

Have you stopped to consider the piece of work you are?

Just consider the human cell: A single DNA molecule contains 20 billion bits of information. How much is that? Its equivalent, if it were written down in an ordinary printed book, would be about three billion letters.

If there are approximately six letters in an average word, the information content of that DNA molecule corresponds to about 500 million words.

If there are about 300 words on an ordinary page of printed type, this corresponds to about two million pages.

If a typical book contains 500 such pages, the information content of a single human DNA molecule corresponds to some 4,000 volumes.

“It is clear, then, that the sequence of rungs on our DNA ladders represents an enormous library of information. It is equally clear that so rich a library is required to specify as exquisitely constructed and intricately functioning an object as a human being.”

Do you know who gave that great quote?

Believe it or not, that quote and all that information comes from astronomer and atheist Carl Sagan, who thinks it all happened by chance! (The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence [BallentineBooks], pp. 23-25)

Yes indeed, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. He knows everything about you because he made you special. He made babies special. He made those in the mother’s womb special.

If you are a Christian, you must be pro-life and anti-abortion. If you go by Scripture alone, you see that God is the one who knit you and me in the womb.

Why are people so adamant that the pre-born are not human?

My friend Dan had a bumper sticker on his truck that read: “Fetus is Latin for baby.” His truck got rocks thrown at it.

Why is the big question always: “When does life begin?”

Here’s how it’s answered: “Biologically speaking, human development begins at fertilization.” Who said that? National Geographic in 2006. (“The Biology of Prenatal Development,” National Geographic, 2006)

“The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception, when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created, a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.” (“In the Womb,” National Geographic, 2005)

You and I and we are all absolutely unique, and God knows everything about us. But check this out:

Are you familiar with laminins? They are the proteins in our body that hold one cell to the next cell. Without them we would literally fall apart.

Now that you know what they are, do you know what they look like?

This brings to mind what Paul wrote about Jesus in Colossians 1:15-17:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Are you special in God’s sight? He knows everything about you. He knows everywhere you go. He knows everything you are and everything you do—and he’s in complete control of everything you are involved in.

*****

If you want to hear or watch the sermon in its entirety click here then scroll down to July 17, 2011. Or you can read it below:

HE KNOWS ME!

Psalm 139

 

It seems that every time I want to teach about a Psalm I say the same thing in the introduction: This is one of the greatest Psalms in the Bible. I suppose I will say that for every one of them.

 

But Psalm 139 really is one of the great ones. It offers this simple truth: There is no escape from God. That can be immensely comforting for the Christian who is struggling and wonders if anyone really cares, does anyone know what I’m going through?

 

This Psalm is written from the perspective of King David who is deeply troubled by his enemies and knows that the best thing to do in a time of trial is to meditate on who God is.

 

Psalm 139 outlines the fact that God is intimately acquainted with who we are and knows exactly what we are going through. It reassures us that God is in control of every aspect of our life and watches over every step of our way. There is no escape from God.

 

Where are you at today? Are you worried? Are you in trouble? Is there a particular challenge you are facing that you cannot find an answer to? Are you uncertain, afraid, sad, hurt or scared?

 

If so, then you are in the right place to hear from God’s Word as he reminds you once again of Who He is and what He can do, so that you will be encouraged to put your trust more fully in Him.

 

Read Psalm 139.

 

No other Psalm details the three attributes of God that make him God so thoroughly and applies them so personally:

His omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence—His complete sovereignty over all creation!

 

If you’re not familiar with those terms they simply mean that God is all-knowing, all-present and all-powerful.

 

In other words: God knows what needs to be done: That’s omniscience. He’s always wherever He needs to be to do whatever needs to be done: That’s omnipresence. He has the power to do it: That’s omnipotence.

 

The wonderful thing about those attributes, as written about in this Psalm, is that they are directed toward us when explaining God’s loving care for us.

 

Vs. 1-6: God’s Omniscience: He knows EVERYTHING about me!

 

v.1: O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

The Lord knows his own. If you have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins, then God knows you. Intimately.

[How can you tell if the Lord knows someone?]

v.2: You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

 

He knows you in your passive life and in your active life. He knows your every action. He knows every thought that you have and the very motivations of your heart!

 

v.3:  You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

 

He knows when we get up in the morning to when we go to sleep at night; he knows all our habits: the good ones, the bad ones, the ugly ones.

 

I read about how a few hundred years ago parents would put a picture of a big eye in the rooms of their children to remind them that God was watching them.

 

[Woody Allen movie with Mom in the sky]

 

Aren’t you glad that God is invisible? Because of that fact we truly can live our lives with the choice to live for his glory instead of looking over our shoulder and being forced to do good. That’s the difference between love and legalism.

 

We want to live to please the Lord because we love him, not because we have to.

 

v. 4: Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

 

We think when we’ve held our tongue we’ve done good, but Scripture goes a step further: “…we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5)

 

That’s the tough part, training ourselves to be godly, to bring every word, deed, action and thought into obedience to God.

 

We may believe by controlling our tongue we are not sinning against the Lord, but what’s in our hearts?

What are you thinking toward those who despise you? Who malign your good character? Who abuse you? Who take advantage of you?

 

Jer. 17: 9: The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

 

Obviously, the Lord does. He knows every thought. This is why it’s important to confess not only our outward sins, but our inward, too. Hey! He knows everything already. It’s an opportunity to come clean. He loves you. You can talk to him.

 

Vs. 5-6: You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

 

God has his hand upon us so that we cannot escape his grasp. I like looking at it as if we are sown in a little pillow. He’s got a hold of us.

 

What should our response be to a God who knows everything about us? Awe. Thankfulness. Praise. We do this because he loves us, even though he knows everything about us.

 

Sometimes when I think about me, my personality, my sins, the motivations of my heart…I can’t stand me. But here’s my God who despite all my failings, loves me.

 

This is why we get depressed. We focus on us: our problems, our situations, what we don’t have, our issues. Me! Me! Me! And that can only get us down.

But when we think about the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us with an everlasting love, who died for us, who lives in us—not because of anything we’ve done but because of his mercy, that’s cause for rejoicing!

 

He knows me.

 

Romans 11:33-36: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

 

Vs. 7-12: God’s Omnipresence: He knows EVERYWHERE I go!

 

This is pretty obvious, but you can’t hide from God. Like that old song sung by The Police: “Every move you make, every breath you take, I’ll be watching you.”

 

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.


9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Adam and Eve tried to hide from God after they disobeyed him in the Garden of Eden, but God found them. And he banished them from paradise.

 

Jonah tried to hide from God because he didn’t like the work God had planned for him. But God found him. And he was swallowed up in a great fish until he came to his senses.

 

Judas tried to hide from God by taking his own life after his disobedience by betraying Christ. But God found him. And he is now in the presence of God’s wrath for all eternity.

 

Christians still think they can hide from God. It starts with a hurt, a betrayal or a disappointment in people or circumstances.

 

It manifests itself in less time spent with God. The Bible gathers dust. Prayer becomes perfunctory; a meal time blessing suffices.

 

Church fellowship becomes a “have-to,” a chore, an obligation. Because life tends to take over, the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke out God’s Word.

 

Christian character is now of little or no importance. No one holds you accountable for your actions; you do what you want. You give full vent to your anger. You scream a bit more. You take a few extra drinks—after all, you’re not really getting drunk.

 

You medicate. Call the psychologist. Renew that pain-killing prescription. You contemplate divorce. You consult the lawyer.

 

You re-marry. You move. You make new friends but they have the same issues that your old ones had. Your new spouse is even more obnoxious than your last one. Your new job is worse. You ignore your problems. Things don’t change.

 

And you think you are hiding from God?

 

Jer. 20:23-24:

 

“Am I only a God nearby,”
declares the LORD,
“and not a God far away?
24 Can anyone hide in secret places
so that I cannot see him?”
declares the LORD.
“Do not I fill heaven and earth?”
declares the LORD.

 

So many Christians want that fresh start, a new chance, but they aren’t learning the lessons that God has put before them, so they run.

 

They convince themselves that the sin they are involved in is right and they go from pastor to pastor until they find one that agrees with them.

 

But God patiently waits. He knows where you are. He waits until you get sick of the pig pods for dinner; He waits until you come to the end of yourself. He waits for you to return. In fact, he makes you return—if you are truly his.

Jn 10:28: I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

 

He knows where you are. Stop hiding from him. Stop ignoring him. Come back. He loves you.

He knows you!

Vs. 13-18: God’s Omnipotence: He knows EVERYTHING I am, EVERYTHING I do—He’s in control!

The thought that the darkness cannot hide us from God brings David to the thought that God formed him in his mother’s womb and that he is sovereign over every aspect of his life.

Vs. 13-16a: For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.

Have you stopped to consider the piece of work you are?

Just consider the human cell: A single DNA molecule contains 20 billion bits of information. How much is that? Its equivalent, if it were written down in an ordinary printed book, would be about three billion letters.

 

If there are approximately six letters in an average word, the information content of that DNA molecule corresponds to about 500 million words.

 

If there are about 300 words on an ordinary page of printed type, this corresponds to about two million pages.

 

If a typical book contains 500 such pages, the information content of a single human DNA molecule corresponds to some 4,000 volumes.

 

“It is clear, then, that the sequence of rungs on our DNA ladders represents an enormous library of information. It is equally clear that so rich a library is required to specify as exquisitely constructed and intricately functioning an object as a human being.”

 

Believe it or not, that quote and all that information comes from astronomer and atheist Carl Sagan, who thinks it all happened by chance! (The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence [BallentineBooks], pp. 23-25)

 

Yes indeed, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. He knows everything about you because he made you special. He made babies special. He made those in the mother’s womb special.

If you are a Christian, you must be pro-life and anti-abortion. If you go by Scripture alone, you see that God is the one who knit you and me in the womb.

Why are people so adamant that the pre-born are not human?

[My friend Dan and his bumper sticker: “Fetus is Latin for baby.” His truck got rocks thrown at it.]

Why is the big question always: “When does life begin?”

Here’s how it’s answered: “Biologically speaking, human development begins at fertilization.” Who said that? National Geographic in 2006. (“The Biology of Prenatal Development,” National Geographic, 2006)

“The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception, when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created, a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.” (“In the Womb,” National Geographic, 2005)

You and I and we are all absolutely unique, and God knows everything about us. But check this out:

Are you familiar with laminins? They are the proteins in our body that hold one cell to the next cell. Without them we would literally fall apart.

 

Now that you know what they are, do you know what they look like?

 

***ROBERT: SHOW AN IMAGE OF LAMININ FROM GOOGLE IMAGES***

 

This brings to mind what Paul wrote about Jesus in Colossians 1:15-17:

 

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

 

Are you special in God’s sight? He knows everything about you. He knows everywhere you go. He knows everything you are and everything you do—and he’s in complete control of everything you are involved in.

 

Vs 16b: All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

 

You mean he ordained me to be married to this brute? You mean he put me here in this stinkin’ job with this lousy, cruel boss? You mean he, he, he…

 

YES! He put you there to trust in him. Are you thanking him? Are you praising him for the situation you find yourself in?

 

You know how often God thinks about you and your circumstances? How much he thinks of you?

 

Vs. 17-18: How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

 

How many thoughts is that? Someone calculated all the grains of sand in the world to be seven quintillion five quadrillion. (700,500,000,000,000,000,000)

 

[Incidentally, there are way more atoms in the body: (7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) That’s 7 followed by 27 zeros.]

He knows us.

 

Then all of a sudden in the next verses the Psalm takes a nasty turn:

 

Vs. 19-22: If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

 

Why in the midst of a beautiful poem like this does David call down fire from Heaven with an imprecatory prayer?

 

Perhaps he is in the midst of trouble with his enemies and as he reflects on God’s care for his life he wants revenge.

 

Or could it be that as he meditates on the goodness of God and his loving kindness he gets angry at all those who would blaspheme his name?

 

Regardless, it’s an honest request for God to take action—and now!

 

The wonderful thing about having an intimate relationship with God is that you can tell him anything, he’s our Father. Be honest with him. Be open. He cares.

The best revenge anyone could get on an enemy is to pray that he becomes a Christian. Then you turn an adversary into a brother or sister. “Get him God! That’ll show him! Make into one of those Born-Agains! Ha! Ha!”

The Psalmist, as if catching himself getting irritated and agitated again as he loses his focus on the One who cares for him, brings it back to the Lord who cares for him and protects him from all harm.

Vs. 23-24: Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

In conclusion, I want you to apply these words of J. I. Packer, from his book, “Knowing God” to you, personally.

“What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me.

“I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me.

“He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off of me, or his attention distracted from me, no moment, therefore, when his care falters.”

Are you willing to trust him where you are?

He knows you.

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