Genesis 1:1 "in the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth." That's a brief summary of something unbelievably complicated.
Think of all the physical laws and underlying principles that God had to get
right to make the world work the way that it does. After all, if God turned
Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt and Christ walked on water then God can revise
the laws of physics at will. He could’ve set up the universe any way he wanted,
but he set it up so that things work in an orderly fashion.
Consider friction, for example. When two objects are in contact with each
other, there is a force that opposes any tendency for them to slide relative to
each other. That’s friction. The amount of opposing force is directly
proportional to the force pressing the two objects together. If you’re standing
still, your weight would be the force pressing you against the floor. The
friction force acts parallel to the floor and keeps your feet in place without
slipping. The friction force varies from surface to surface and it also depends
on the surface conditions. It’s higher for some surface conditions (dry floor),
lower for other surface conditions (wet or oily floor).
Now imagine a world with no friction. You wouldn’t be able to stand up or
walk because your feet would slip out from under you. You couldn’t go anywhere
in a car; the tires would just spin in place with no forward motion. If somehow
you did get the car moving, you would crash, because there would be no friction
between the brake pads and the rotors to slow you down. Friction is a necessary
basic principle that God created to make the universe work in an orderly
fashion.
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of any isolated
system always increases. That's a fancy way of saying that when you bring
something hot in contact with something cold, heat always flows from the hotter
object to the colder object. You put your hand on a hot stove and the heat
flows from the hotter stove to your colder hand and you get burned. The only
way to keep something colder than its surroundings is by applying external work
which is what your compressor does in your refrigerator. If your refrigerator
is unplugged or the compressor goes out, then the stuff in your refrigerator
will gradually warm up to the temperature of the room surrounding it. Heat
transfers from the hotter room to the inside of the refrigerator which is
colder.
But what if it was the opposite of that so that when you bring something
hotter in contact with something colder, the hotter object gets hotter and the
colder object gets colder? You put water in a glass full of ice and the water
gets warmer? You couldn't boil water on the stove to cook, the water would just
get colder. The North Pole would keep getting colder and the equator would keep
getting hotter which would make it impossible for life to exist on earth. It
would be a dysfunctional bizarro world universe. That's why God didn't make it
that way.
That's just a couple of examples. Think about all the underlying math and
science in our universe. God created that. Think about all the chemical
processes of the body, the nuclear reaction that goes on inside a star, the
list is endless. When God created everything we see, he also created all of the
underlying principles that make our universe work in an orderly fashion. And he
did all that in six days. That is and always will be beyond human
comprehension.
Another thing we'll never understand, at least not in this world: why did
God create us, and why with all the billions of people on earth is he so deeply
and personally concerned with each and every one of us? Who am I, this flawed
and imperfect individual, that God is mindful of me and cares for me? Yet I
know that he does because he sent his son to die for me and everyone else in
this world so that we might have a hope of eternal salvation.
If you're here tonight and you're not a Christian you have a hope of
eternal salvation, purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ. Come forward,
repent of your sins, confess your faith, be baptized by immersion in water for
the remission of your sins, and start living for Christ instead of for
yourself. If you are a Christian and you're struggling with something or you
need our prayers, come forward we can help with that as well. Whatever your
need, come as we stand and sing.
