Do You Believe in Theia?

Introduction

Four things before I begin quickly. Number one, at 530, the monitors will not turn into CBS. Number two, despite reports to the contrary, it is not appropriate to douse your preacher in Gatorade like they will the winning coach. Number three. On to more important things. Today’s assemblies have been so thoughtfully led and edifying. And I appreciate our men who lead so effectively. And I hope I don’t mess it up. Yeah, thank you. The final thing is I appreciate Mike’s investment in us this morning by sharing very important information. And I appreciate what he did on a deeper level than just the material that he presented. And I’ll reserve more comment about that later. Another sermon.

Again, unusual for me to let the cat out of the bag. The title at the very beginning, of course, we publish these things these days. You can find them on our website. Scott takes care of that for me. And so you might have known, and you might have seen this morning in the greeting slides. Tonight’s lesson is entitled, Do You Believe in Thea? Of course, that really doesn’t reveal much, does it? This is the result, this lesson, to a publication very recent in the journal called Science, where a report was published regarding a study that was done at UCLA regarding moon rocks that were examined from the Apollo 12, 15, and 17 missions. Don’t ask me the years on those. But it was before you all were born.

Which, surprisingly, in the study of those moon rocks, had almost identical oxygen isotopes, one of Scott’s favorite words, as those found in the Earth’s or from the Earth’s mantle, found in Hawaii and Arizona. Now, the reason why that discovery of the oxygen isotopes of moon rocks and those found from the Earth’s mantle is so significant, is because that discovery has now had a drastic effect on the theory of Earth’s beginnings. Brace yourself for this quote. While it was already known that two planets collided. Now, young people, I want you to listen to that. While it is already known that two planets collided. Now, this fact is known and reported as a fact by a number of news agencies, it was previously thought that Thea merely grazed Earth, causing the former to break up.

That is Thea broke up, with a piece of the fledgling planet forming the moon. Okay, so the moon exists because of this glance off of Earth and a part of Thea, which is considered a planet embryo, a planet in the process of becoming roughly perhaps the same size as Earth. But because of this glancing blow, the moon was thus created, but if it was that, then it would be of radically different composition than the Earth. And so that’s what created all the fur. And so the view was changed that no longer was it considered a glancing blow, but now many scientists believe that it was a head-on collision. And in this collision, that’s Thea running into Earth.

Why don’t we have a video? We have a video of everything else. I need a video of this. Wouldn’t you like to see that? But supposedly, though it’s a fact, Thea has crashed into Earth, and as a result, Earth survived. Thea didn’t, and the moon thus was a result of this explosion emanating from Earth itself. Thus you have the same oxygen isotopes. This violet head-on collision happened 4.5 billions ago when Earth was already 100 million years old. Young people, this is the giant impact hypothesis. That sounds good, doesn’t it? That’s what you, if you hear this story about Thea, it’s the giant impact hypothesis. Edward Young, who led this study of the moon rocks and those from the Earth’s mantle, noted we don’t see any difference between the Earth’s and the Moon’s oxygen isotopes.

Just do that in for you again, Scott. They’re indistinguishable. According to Professor Young, Thea was growing and would have likely had become a planet, but it was destroyed in the collision. Now, one problem. Where does the water that is on Earth that covers nearly or more than two-thirds of our planet? Where did the water come from after this collision between Thea and Earth? No problem. Millions of years following this, there were a number of asteroids that bombarded Earth that contained water, and that’s how our globe now has asteroids brought the water to Earth. Have you seen that in your lifetime? Has the Earth ever been hit by an asteroid and left a bunch of water? But this happened over millions of years, we’re told, and that’s how water came to be on the planet after Thea hit the earth.

So let’s answer the question. Do you believe in Thea? No, I don’t. I do not hesitate for a millisecond. Nor do I possess even a smidgen of doubt as I answer this question. And I’m not the least bit concerned that in the next world or after my life is over, that the joke’s going to be on me. I’m not concerned about that at all. A CNN report about this news story began. It’s the only world speaking of the moon. It’s the only world besides Earth that man has set foot on, but we still don’t know exactly how it got here. That was their conclusion to the moon rock study. You know what’s really sad about that is that I do.

One of my favorite movie quotations of all time says, Back off, man, I’m a scientist. You have to be old and know that movie to know what I’m referring to. No, I’m not a scientist. But I know how the earth and the moon came to be. Because I read about it very clearly in Genesis chapter 1, when it says, God created the heavens and the earth. And in verse 3, he said, Let there be light. And there was light. We read of the moon’s creation in Genesis chapter 1. That’s how it all came to be. It’s called creation. It’s called the amazing product of intelligent design. A powerful God who is infinite in understanding. If you don’t know this kid’s Psalm 147, 4 and 5 are some of my favorite verses, at least in the Psalms, you know, I have a lot of favorite verses like Jared.

Have a lot of favorite verses.

And we talk about the creator God, he would have to be pretty smart, would he not? To do the things that Genesis 1 describes and all the other miracles that we read about in the Bible and the creation of man, the marvelous creatures that we are by design, he would have to be pretty smart. Well, his understanding is infinite. And how many stars are there? He counts them all and knows them all by name. The heavens are arrayed with his glory.

David marveled at creation as he was off, no doubt with his father’s sheep. And he gazed into the stars. And as he saw how wonderful creation was and how wonderfully he was made, he said, How excellent is thy name. And all the earth. What is man that thou art mindful of him? What’s wrong with Thea? The theory of Thea. It is just that. It is a theory, it is a hypothesis, it is mere conjecture, and it is not even a plausible one.

I got a surprise in the mail. Was it last week or early this week? Can’t remember now that all the days are running together. I got a book that I didn’t order. Free of Charge from Dr. Bo Kirkwood. Some of you know Dr. Bowe from Pasadena or his brother Ron or his brother John. They all have a family medicine practice that they work together. Dr. Bo has been writing a book. And he sent me a copy. And it’s called the Evolution Delusion. And what he does in the book, it’s a great book. I read most of it this week. Dr. Bo decries what he calls naturalism. Now listen very carefully. This is why we have theories like this. Naturalism is the prevailing philosophy of most scientists today, and is the reason many, but certainly not all of them, disregard creationism.

Let me tell you why Thea is believed. Because creation is not believed. Because an intelligent designer is rejected out of hand. The supernatural is thrown out the window, not a possibility. And so there must be some naturalistic cause, naturalism. There must be some natural explanation for everything. And that’s how the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. That’s why there’s this collision between Thea and Earth and asteroids dropping off water just so very magically because God is ruled out of the equation. I said this for a long time, and I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think so. All the massive collisions that I’ve ever seen produce destruction and chaos and not order and design. And I wonder, have we observed any collision in the universe that produced order and design rather than disaster and destruction?

Has anyone scientifically ever observed and documented that? I don’t think so. With the most powerful telescopes that observe our galaxy and beyond, nothing like that has ever been observed. And so here’s what I want to tell you about Thea. It’s pure faith and a blind faith. At that. Not only does a naturalistic explanation not work, Dr. Kirkwood observes that the inhabitability of Earth is aided, amazingly, by the size and nature of the sun compared to other stars. The fact that we have a singular moon, which causes gravitational effects that the Earth needs to sustain life. He even postulates that Jupiter may serve an important role in the survival of Earth in the fact that though it is 318 times, and perhaps there’s a reason why Jupiter is 318 times larger than Earth, and has this massive gravitational pull that perhaps it sort of serves like a blocker for Earth, drawing objects in the universe toward it rather than toward us.

Let me tell you about this graphic that I found for this lesson. I like it.

And seeing how large those hands are, how powerful those hands are. And when we think of Jesus as the one who brought it about. According to Colossians chapter 1, it says, for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him. And later in that context, he is the head of the body. But this isn’t anything new. In the John Gospel narrative in John 1, all things came into being by him. Everything that was created, all things came into being by him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. More on the importance of those passages in a minute, but I want to tell you this.

Our faith is rooted in simple observations and consistent historical truth. The creation is evident. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, we are without excuse. The design, everything around us says, creator. And we ought to be able to conclude that just from what we observe with our eyes. But beyond all of that, our belief in origins comes from a trustworthy, unique, one of a kind document that has no rival in the world, that is the product of men who claim to be inspired of God, who performed miracles, to which there were eyewitnesses glore. So let me tell you some things tonight about the creation story. I want to make three observations about this that are very important. Number one.

1. You Can't Reject the Creation Story and Embrace Jesus

You can’t do that. There are people that do it all the time. That reject Genesis chapter 1 as unscientific, like the story of Thea is so scientific, please. But they reject the story of Genesis chapter 1, but still want to embrace in some way the story of Jesus. The passages I just read in Colossians 1 and John chapter 1 do not allow you to do that. The same passages that we might refer to as Jesus as the Savior, the light of the world, John chapter 8 and verse 12, it is that same person who created light in the very beginning. And those two things go hand in hand. You can’t take the parts of Jesus you want to take and throw out all of the others.

And let me tell you what Jesus said about the Old Testament, where we had Genesis chapter 1 located and the origin of our world, the origin of man. Jesus validated over and over again the Old Testament of Scripture. And I don’t mean to belabor this point, but he himself said in a discussion with the Pharisees that Scripture cannot be broken. And he was referring to that Old Testament canon and all of it. He regarded it as scripture, as God breathed, as issuing from him. And he says, Scripture cannot be broken, and yet people want to come along and say, Oh, I believe in Jesus. I just don’t believe in the biblical account of creation. You can’t do that. Why do we get to pick the parts of Jesus that we want to take and reject things that are in the New Testament about Jesus Himself and the claims that he made?

He opened the scriptures from Isaiah and said, Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And it was Jesus who talked about the scriptures in Matthew 12, validating on more than one occasion, by the way, the story of Jonah and the great fish that swallowed him. And just like that, he’s going to be in the earth three days. And by the way, I went ahead and add the verses after that because we sometimes don’t talk about the Queen of Sheba that we read about during the reign of Solomon. She’s real too, by the way. That’s a real story. Jesus consistently validated the Old Testament as scripture. And so the first thing I want you to know about the creation story of Genesis chapter 1, that it is both reasonable and wise to believe it.

It is not a sacrifice of logic and intellect. It is a reasonable response considering what you know to be true about Jesus himself. How is it reasonable and wise? Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

It’s what faith is all about. We have a conviction about that because the evidence is credible. The eyewitnesses are credible because Jesus is credible, because the apostles are credible. That’s why.

And by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. You can’t come along and say, I’ll take parts of the New Testament, but I’m rejecting Genesis chapter 1. Hebrews, you’re going to throw it out too. The Hebrew writer, he’s not trustworthy and reliable because he has just validated creation. In Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3. Okay. Do I have all the answers about creation? No. I don’t. How did God do it? Now, why is the creation story in Genesis chapter 1 so short? I want more information. We’re so curious. We want to know the answers to everything. How did he do it? Do you think we could understand if he told us?

Do you think if God explained it to, first of all, how big would the book be? Where God explained how he created the universe. Do we really need to know the how? Or even the when.

But how old? Is it possible that some way in Genesis chapter 1 that there might be more time there than what they’re seeing, what we’re seeing? I mean, he talks about that at length in the book. But I’ll tell you here’s the bottom line. As we saw in our study of Deuteronomy. Don’t worry about things that really don’t have anything to do with you. You set your focus and concern on the things that God has given you to set your focus and attention on. The things revealed belong to you and to your sons forever. That’s what we need to know. There are some things that we will never know. I want to make this observation before we move on. If God created instantaneously, if he said, let there be light and there was light.

And here is Adam who is created. How old did Adam look when he was one day old? I don’t think he looked like he was one day old, do you? His real age did not match his apparent age. And what about trees that were created? We know how they developed those rings over the years, right? Would be interesting to see the rings in the original trees. A parent age versus. And the fact that if Adam looked up into the skies and looked at the stars, somebody tell me how long, you don’t have to really answer this. How long does it take for the light from stars? They talk about this all the time to reach us so that we can actually see it across long time.

So if God automatically made those visible, and look, if he can create the universe, I’m going to suggest to you that he could make that light visible to Adam and Eve. So here we have stars that are very young, whose light is already visible in Earth’s sky. So don’t let it throw you. When they talk about carbon dating and the rocks, young people, oh, this rock is obviously, I don’t know however old they come up with, whatever number they put on it. First of all, they don’t know the rate at which things began or what they contained in the very beginning, and no one is able to observe that scientifically. It is all a hypothesis and a guess. And don’t ever forget that. But this is the point.

2. Have Confidence in God When Circumstances Turn Undesirable

You can’t reject the creation story and embrace Jesus. It doesn’t work. Second observation that I want to make about Thea being recently in the news, the story of God’s creation. And that is that we need to have confidence in God when our circumstances turn undesirable. What connection are you making there? What is it that erodes oftentimes our confidence in God and in this word? When we go through a difficult time, when we experience pain, we start to question, is God there? Does he really care? We begin to immediately entertain doubts. And people start questioning Genesis chapter 1 and other passages that speak of God being present, that he’s the creator, that he’s all powerful, because if he’s all powerful, why am I suffering like this? Why am I hurting?

Why hasn’t he fixed all of this? And you’re going to go through some pain in your life. And you’re going to wonder why God is allowing you to endure it. And I’m just here to tell you, when that pain comes, and inevitably will, that God is still the creator. He’s still the power of the universe. And don’t question it merely because you hurt. All I can tell you is that some of God’s people were sawn in two. They wandered about in caves and deserts and holes in the ground. They were individuals of whom the world was not worthy. But they were individuals of faith.

Because I see people whose circumstances don’t match their dream. What they would want them to be.

And sometimes there is no fix. And so they start to question. I’m not sure if I believe in God. I’m not sure if I should trust him. I’m not sure if I should continue believing in him. What are all these stories that we talk about all the time? What do we talk about in regard to David this morning? He was anointed to be the next king. He has this great victory over Goliath the giant. Everything is going great. And then Saul turns against him, and his life is turned upside down. It’s a number of years before he will finally ascend to the throne as he was anointed to do. And even then it’s all not a patch of roses the rest of the way. He has to flee from his own son, Absalom, at one point.

But at any point, did David ever start to question God’s realness? No, he didn’t. So the next time you find yourself wandering around in a desert and a cave and a hole in the ground. Or you suffer persecution. As we read in the book of Revelation. It doesn’t mean that a powerful God has somehow gone on a journey and is absent and doesn’t care.

I have more questions about Hebrews 12 and what follows than I have answers. But in verse 3, it tells us not to grow weary. Just as Jesus didn’t grow weary and went all the way through and endured hostility by sinners against himself and paid the price for our ransom. And he said, Don’t grow weary. And he talks about that chastening, and he says it seems sorrowful for the moment. But we have to focus upon what those circumstances yield. The peaceable fruit of righteousness. He goes, and we can spend the rest of our time talking about Hebrews chapter 12. But when you are suffering and when you are struggling, you need to read it. I’m not sure how all of that works in the world, but you will go through rough times.

And I have to talk briefly about Job. And saving me a lot of time was Jared and his invitation on Wednesday night.

Job wants to know why. He lost everything, and you did a very good job, Jared, of explaining how all that happens. All that information keeps coming, his whole world’s falling apart. And all of this, he did not charge God foolishly, nor did he sin. But as the story unfolds as he’s talking with his accusers, his friends like that, who needs enemies. Job, you’re suffering because you’re a sinner. And so in the midst of all this discussion, Job says, I just want to understand. I just need to talk. I wish I could talk to God. And the amazing thing is that God does. Probably because of who Job was. But when he responds to God, and that’s the last few chapters of the book of Job, how does he do it?

This is really interesting. Got to thank Sherry for coming up with this week. He speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. Isn’t that interesting? If you think about God as the creator, when he does speak to Job, he does it out of a whirlwind. And what does he tell him? Where were you? When I laid the foundation of the world of the earth, you tell me, you instruct me, Job. Where were you? Have you ever in your life caused the dawn to know its place? That’s what I love about Job 38 and 39, he talks about the animal kingdom and all that he does in relation to the animals of the earth. And he never really tells Job why he’s suffering. His argument is completely this.

I’m the powerful creator. Trust me. It’ll work out. Trust me. Job says, I spoke of things too wonderful for me. And that’s what happens when we want answers for the reason why this circumstance is taking place, and I’m hurting so badly. We want answers, we want them right now. We speak of things too wonderful for us. The Lord hasn’t explained all of that to us. Job 19. Passage that Jared shared with us. We were talking about this afterwards. As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. And at the last, he will take his stand on the earth. In him we live and move and have our very being. That was Paul’s argument to those in Athens. Our lives are sustained by God every day. One final point.

3. God Is Still in the Creation Business

I want you to know that God is still in the creation business. Oh, you thought he was done in Genesis? Oh no. No, he’s not done. This is a word we might tend to pass over when we’re reading Psalm 51. Where David is talking about his sin with Bathsheba when he uses the word create. Same word we’ll find in Genesis chapter 1. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. I wonder when David used that word in Psalm 51, is if he was thinking about creation. The powerful God who made everything that is, that powerful God can change me, restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain me, he goes on to say, with a willing spirit.

God is still in the creation business. In Isaiah, the promise was made in relation to the Messianic age and the results of the mess, the Messiah’s work. Behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth. God is still creating.

What? Created. There’s the word. Created in Christ Jesus. Unto good works. We are created in righteousness and holiness of the truth, Ephesians chapter 4. We sing this song. And we sang it last hath yielded. And I love this phrase in the Psalm, the center of God’s will, my whole. If we’ll truly do that, God can mold us and make us into what He desires and what He desired from the very beginning. God wants to create in us the kind of person that brings praise to him and helps others to know his will. My stubborn will at last have yielded. God’s still in the creation business. And when you think about the transformation of our lives, as Mike talked about this morning in Romans chapter 12, the transformation of our lives is something that is beautiful unto the glory of God.

He’s still creating. And he wants to create in you.

Conclusion

Because they do not regard the works of the Lord nor the deeds of his hands, he will tear them down and not build them up. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Therefore, my heart exalts, and with my song I shall thank him. How can the Lord help you? By you allowing him to do his creative work in molding you after his image and the image of his son. But that’s not all. Yes, he wants to cleanse us. Yes, he will lead us to a life of productivity, but he also promises us immortality and bliss in his presence forever. That is the marvelous work of our God. Don’t you want to be the product of his new creation?

If we can assist someone in putting on the Lord in obedience tonight, come now as we stand, and we sing together.