GET YOUR OWN DIRT!

Of all the things that man can do,
There’s really nothing that is new.
He copies all of what he sees
Of what’s been done that he perceives.
Invention, discov’ries, are not from “thin air”
For they come to past from what has been there.
There’s only been One Creator of new,
And He is the One Who made me and made you.
~jb, 5-25-2009

I like the joke I was told at church yesterday. I had been sharing a doctrinal message on the subject of man’s creation, making reference to him being God’s crowning creative work, and as such the goal of God’s creation of the world and all of its life. Obviously, this is not the same conclusion theorized by much of the scientific community, who see man as merely an evolutionary product of nature’s billion year developmental ooze. I question the age – Did they find a date written on something? – And the “ooze” – What nothingness did that come from anyway?

Ah, yes, the joke! Well, it seems that the scientists contacted preachers from all of the major denominations. They invited them to a special meeting and told them that they had discovered that God was no longer needed, that they had been able to create a man and would demonstrate their discovery for them. The preachers invited God to attend the meeting with them, and He and they were at the appointment. The scientists began to prepare their demonstration by filling a bucket with dirt, which they poured out on the floor of the lab. Then, before they could do anything else, God stepped forward and blew the dirt away. He then told them, “GET YOUR OWN DIRT!”

I am so amazed at the utter audacity of those who theorize (theory is not fact) that there is no God involved in the existence of the universe and all that is within it, and to arrive at their conclusions, they depend upon what God has provided as a resource of tools for their discoveries. They say all started with a big bang, but they never answer the question of what exploded in the first place. I wrote a little verse several years ago that illustrates this bit of theory.

If the universe expanded
From a small but weighty ball,
By whose pow’r was it compacted,
And whose hand was then retracted,
To fufil a goal protracted,
Giving reason for us all?
~jb, 3-2-1991

The standard come-back from those who deny the existence of God is that they believe only “what they can see” or perceive with their senses, or are able to understand. They never seem to take into account the very nature of what the term GOD implies. If He were able to be understood completely, He would not be GOD, who by definition is so superior to man’s highest thoughts that man cannot attain to Him, unless that door of access be opened by GOD Himself. And of course, that is exactly what He has done in giving the Bible as a revelation of Himself.

Another rational expressed by those who would deny a greater and more supreme intellect than their own is the similarity between the material makeup of man and his animal/organic environment. They propose that the shared micro and physiological structure of both indicates an evolutionary development of one into the other. Well, duht! It is a wise Creator, indeed, Who insures all of the resources of life in complimentary availability are in place before the man is “moved” into his new home. Because I can eat a carrot and glean nourishment from it does not mean I used to be a carrot!

And, as I have often said to those who pose why God didn’t create His crowning work, man, first; what would man breath, or eat, or where would he stand? God made him as His finished work, adaptable to and as caretaker of the rest of creation, along with personhood to receive and return God’s greatest gift and trait, His love.

Invariably, the question of sin then enters the mix. Why did God allow sin in such a perfect environment, if He truly purposed man to be the recipient of His love and care, and capable of returning it in kind? Evolution of a developmental “ooze” can never explain the presence of man’s complex self-awareness and conscious ability to love and live sacrificially by choice. Even the presence of instinctive sacrifice in the animal world cannot reach its measure. Man alone has the capacity to choose, to self determine his actions, good or bad. Such knowledge and choice is not within the animal’s prerogative.

Herein lies an answer to the question of sin’s entrance. Had God’s purpose been to merely create a garden with a perfect caretaker who could only act out a programmed set of “farming” instructions, sin would not even be discussed, and even this writing ever conceived. But because God’s purpose was to have a created object of His love nature, and one with whom He could intimately fellowship in “give and take” relations, He gave man a free will with capacity to choose to love or not to love, to obey or disobey, to do right or to sin.

Then knowing in His infinitely omniscient mind how that free will would exercise an imperfect choice and sin, He pre-arranged for man’s redemption before creation’s beginning. Then, in its beginning, He put His plan into action, a plan culminating in the birth and human life, then death and resurrection of His own Son, Jesus Christ, as payment for man’s sin and restoration to full fellowship with God for eternity.

So, worldly wise, here’s your paradoxical challenge. Try to prove my God doesn’t exist, but in doing so, be honest. “GET YOUR OWN DIRT!”

Genesis 1:27-28 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Genesis 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Genesis 3:1-24 records the story of man’s choice and sin’s entrance.

John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Dear friends and believers in Christ, be encouraged today. This is my prayer.