Back during World War II, an American fighter was flying over the pacific ocean when they began to run out of fuel. There was a chaplain on board with the crew and they were very thankful for that because they ended up landing on a japanese-held island on a dirt strip. Well, the crew felt it was going to be hopeless, that soon they'd be captured and put in prison. But the chaplain said, "let's pray that God will deliver us." Well, they thought it was hopeless, but they said, "well, go ahead, chaplain." And he prayed that God would work a miracle to deliver the crew. Well, they slept that night by the plane and early in the morning, one of the crew was awakened with a strong impression to go down to the beach.
Down at the beach, rolling in, when the sun was rising, he saw a large drum of aviation fuel. Well, with a yelp, he woke up the rest, they ran down to the beach, they transferred the fuel into the plane, and they were able to make it back to their base. A miracle. What's even more interesting is that that fuel had been knocked off an American ship during a battle where it was jettisoned. It floated a thousand miles, past 25 other islands, and landed on the beach of that one island just when the crew needed it most.
Is there a God? We're going to talk about it. Welcome to M.I.Q. How can I know that God is listening? Did I come from apes or prehistoric sludge? Can the Bible be trusted? What should I do with my life? College? Cars? A job? Can I ever be perfect? Can I make a difference? [Questioning simultaneously] or what? Doug Batchelor: "M.I.Q." Your questions, God's answers. Does God really exist? The answer to this important question will affect every other question. Join us now for M.I.Q. Good evening, friends. Welcome to M.I.Q.: Most important questions. My name is jean ross and I'll be your host on this exciting adventure and we'll tackle some of the most challenging questions, the most important questions of life. I would like to welcome our local audience here in cedar lake, Michigan, and a big thank you to great lakes adventist academy for hosting this event and also a big thank you to 3abn for the filming and the production.
To those of you who are watching us across the country, and around the world, we'd like to extend a special welcome to you. We're delighted that you've joined us on this exciting adventure for truth. Now, if you have a Bible question, we'd like to hear from you. You can actually send us a text message with your Bible question. I will give you the number in just a few moments, but for those of you who are watching, and those here in the audience, we're going to try to answer as many questions as possible during this series.
So, if you have a Bible-related question, the number to send that question to is 760-5-afacts. That number is 760-523-2287. Send us a text with that message and we will try to get to as many questions as possible. Now, to aid you in your adventure for truth, amazing facts has put together a great resource. We have a series of lessons that have been especially written for the programs.
These lessons are filled with fascinating facts and great illustrations, Scripture, Bible answers. And if you'd like to find out how you can receive your amazing, or rather, most important question book, filled with amazing answers, go to the M.I.Q. Teens website. That's miqteens.com. We also have a very special theme song that we'll be singing each evening, and it's a song that was just written for the series.
I'd like to invite our song leaders to please come forward at this time for that song. Now, as we sing The Song, please look on the screen, notice the words, because we're going to ask for your help immediately following that. After our song, we will have Christie do the prayer. Let's stand as we sing together. When I gaze about the countless stars or on an endless sea my mind may swim with questions bewildering to me but then I read the Bible and seek your face in prayer I'm satisfied remembering your loving grace and care whatever questions I may have whether great or small I know Jesus died to save me and that he forgave me Jesus is the answer to it all Jesus is the answer to it all I ask so many questions I wonder in my heart how something comes from nothing when did forever start why can't I see your glory where is the promised land I trust that you will lead me there if I can take your hand whatever questions I may have whether great or small I know Jesus died to save me and that he forgave me Jesus is the answer to it all Jesus is the answer to it all dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity that we have, that Doug Batchelor can come to our school.
Please help many lives to be changed this next week. Please give us all a blessing as we listen to the sermon. We love you so much. In your name we pray, amen. Pastor Doug: amen.
You may be seated. Pastor jean: well, did you enjoy that song? I hope so. By the end of this, I think we'll have the words memorized. Now, this is a brand new song, Pastor Doug. I guess it was being partly written today, just before, some changes made.
Yeah, little finishing touches still happening. So one thing that we don't have, we don't have a name for our theme song. So this is where you can help. Those of you who are watching, you can send us a text message with the name of The Song. So, I'm going to give you that number again, and you can send us a text message with the name for The Song that we just sang.
That text number again is 760-5-Amazing Facts. 760-5-Afacts. Pastor Doug: very good. Well, we're so glad that you're all here. We're going to be talking about the most important questions.
We call the program M.I.Q. That stands for "most important questions." Now you can say "M.I.Q.," You can say "my-q," or you can say "my i.q." It all works. But either way, we're gonna be dealing with the biggest questions in life and so we're gonna be taking your questions. Some are coming in through the internet, some are gonna be texted in. And some will be in the lesson study book that we have.
But I think we're ready to start with questions for tonight. Pastor jean: our first question is a video. Hi, my name is justin and my question is, is Jesus God? Is Jesus God? Of course, our lesson tonight is going to be dealing... With the subject, "is there really a God?" Now, when you say "God," biblically, you're thinking of the three persons that comprise God: God The Father, The Son and the Spirit. Even Jesus said, "you baptize in the name of The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.
" At the baptism of Jesus, Jesus was in the water, God The Father spoke from heaven, the Holy Spirit came down. Some have thought before that God just reveals himself different ways and it's all just one person who kind of changes form and morphs. But in reality... God The Father and The Son, all different persons. Otherwise Jesus was a ventriloquist when The Father said, "this is my beloved son" and he was in the water.
See what I'm saying? It's like you have one family. People get mixed up by when you say there is one God. "Hear, o Israel, the Lord our God is one," Deuteronomy 6:4. How can it say "one" and yet be father, son and spirit? That really makes people struggle. All through the Bible it speaks as one being united.
God says, "in the beginning let us make man in our image." God The Father, son and spirit. And so, the three persons comprise our one God, our united God. Pastor jean: well, Pastor Doug, our next question that's coming is a text question, and here's the question. Pastor Doug: I actually saw this question when it first came in, and I think the rest of it said, "my grandma says, 'no.'" [Laughter] listen to grandma. Um, frankly, I don't even know if I would recognize a single song by that artist, but I saw him once on the news and it looked pretty scary.
So that's all I'll say about that right now, but these are some of the questions that we're getting in. Pastor jean: I think the second question that we have is related to that somewhat. It says... Pastor Doug: I don't know. Are you listening to ozzy osborne? [Laughter] in the sermon? You know, I actually have -- first of all of course, you should be tuned into the Lord and listening to the Lord.
I actually have the Bible on... Well, I've got it on my phone. I've also got one of those things called an itouch. And so I'm on the airplane, I was flying out here, I was listening to the new testament. And so, you could be listening to good things, but I'm hoping that you'll give your attention to the pastor.
I know sometimes we fire blanks. Pastor Ross and I are both pastors and we look out there and we see you sleeping sometimes, while we preach. And we've thought before, "maybe we'll get even someday and we'll go to sleep while we're preaching and let you see how it looks." [Laughter] okay, next question. Pastor jean: our next question is a video question. If we're ready to roll that now? Hi, my name is keaton neds [phonetic], and my question is: if God had a favorite basketball team, who would it be?" Pastor Doug: well, there is a Scripture that says, "we are a nation of priests and Kings," and since we're from Sacramento, it'd be the Kings.
[Laughter] you want biblical answers, don't you? Pastor jean: the next question is a text question and this is what it says. Pastor Doug: well, the essence of these meetings is really to talk about the most important questions that deal with life in eternity. Now, most of you are young people here and the insurance companies tell us that, boys, you might expect 76-78 years, girls might go 78-81, 85 as an average, and then you're gonna die. There's a 100% death rate in the world. And so, you might be thinking about "what am I going to do with my life?" But you really oughtta be thinking about "what am I going to do with my eternity?" And we are dealing with the most important question: how can I live in this life and forever? And so that's really gonna be the core focus that we're hoping to address during this series.
Pastor jean: we've got another video question that we will run at this time. Hey, my name is jamal and my question is: I want to know like how God has always been here, forever, just always been existing. Pastor Doug: now, our lesson tonight's gonna talk a little bit about that, but you realize, we're confessing up front, we don't have all the answers. Some things are mysteries. And you could go back and forth forever saying, "which came first? The egg or the chicken who laid the egg? Or the chicken who came from the egg that was laid by the chicken?" And it's that age-old question: "how do you get everything that you see in the world around you from nothing?" What was the first thing that always existed? Something had to always exist.
And so we're presenting that this is God that has lived through eternity. We'll be talking about that, matter of fact, in the lesson tonight. Pastor jean: well, Pastor Doug, I think that's it for our time for our questions at this point, but to those of you who are watching, if you'd like to send us a text message, again, that number that we told you is 760-5-afacts. 760-5-Afacts. Pastor Doug? The time is yours.
Pastor Doug: all right. Thank you and be praying. Well, listening friends and those who are watching, we are going to be talking about some of the most important issues, like I said, in eternity. And we use this study guide that we've made available for this series -- it's brand new; this is the first place it's ever been used -- dealing with the big answers for the big questions. And I've got about, for each presentation in this series, there's about 10-12 questions.
I may not get through all the questions, and that's why we've got this here. It's got the Scriptures I'm giving, and we're going to talk about it. Big question we're talking about is dealing with the subject of "is there a God?" Is there really a God? Now, I was sitting at my desk and I get a lot of email from my friends. Somebody sent me a youtube that evidently had gone viral. And it was dealing with this airplane that was at an air show, going through all its acrobatic maneuvers and the camera on the ground was following it.
And all of a sudden, a wing -- just too much stress evidently -- a wing snapped and fell and you could see the plane starting to spiral, the engine going out of control towards the ground, and you could hear the people in the crowd scatter and scream. And the cameraman's doing his best to stay focused on it. At the same time, you can hear him saying, "run!" And then all of a sudden, the pilot did the most remarkable maneuver. He gunned the engine, and this acrobatic plane was so powerful, the plane began to work like a helicopter and it corrected itself and it was flying, like you see here, nose up and it managed to slowly creep back down to the ground and it landed. And when I saw this -- and I'm a pilot -- I thought, "that is the most incredible piloting skill I've ever seen in my life.
Who is this pilot?" Did a little more research and found out the whole thing was a hoax. They had combined a real acrobatic show with a model airplane. And then they did some very creative editing and I guess it was a commercial in germany. And you know what happens? There's so much of this going around that you begin to wonder after a while, "what can you trust? What is truth?" There's so many scams and so many people are being bamboozled that it's hard to figure out "what is true?" Where do you go for the right answers? Are we gonna get it from the news pundits? Are we going to get the answers from, you know, television? Now, I'll be sharing more with you about my personal experience later during the week, but I believe there's only one book that has stood the test of time, and there's a reason that year after year it is a bestseller. And that's the Bible.
And so, I'll tell you right up front here: in this series, the Bible is going to be our answer book. And I think you're going to find out these are not old-fashioned answers. This is not an old-fashioned approach, that they are factual, current, working answers for the biggest questions in life. And if the Bible's true... And if God is real and he made everything.
.. And if the devil is real... Then the devil would be doing everything he could, in this modern culture, to convince people there is no God. Well, we're gonna get right into the questions dealing with this first lesson, and the first question is, question number one: now we've got some verses we're gonna use to help fill in the blanks. Some of you that have the question books, you can write them right in there and you'll have that as a resource for yourself.
Psalm 90:2. Now, that means that as far back as you can go in eternity, in one direction, or as far in the future as you can go, God has always been. Now, if you're anything like me, that sort of makes your brain start to bubble. How do you comprehend -- "but where did he come from?" Right? Isn't that what we're always wondering? And "who made him?" Well then, you'd have to ask the question: who made him? And you know there are some religions that teach our God is only a God of this galaxy. And there are different Gods of different galaxies.
But that's not the Bible. The Bible says, our God is the God that made everything everywhere, and he has always existed. Don't feel bad or inferior if you can't comprehend that. Even in the Bible it says, "God is past finding out." the Lord says, "as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above your ways." And so don't let that discourage you. Question number two: now, the Bible tells us that God is invisible.
Here you have it, and it's from 1 Timothy 1:17. Now, do we believe in anything that we can't see? What do you say? I don't want to scare anyone. I'll be back. Okay. Jean? I want Pastor Ross to give me a call.
I need a volunteer from the audience. It probably should be a girl because I might get another -- you need to be near the end maybe. I want Pastor Ross to give me a phone call. And um, I got to turn my ringer on because we told you all to turn your ringers off. All right, let me see.
Did I get that right? I am a little technologically challenged. All right, there we go. So Pastor Ross is going to call me. [Phone ringing] okay, phone's working. [Phone ringing] jean, is that you? Are you there? Did you hang up on me? He did.
[Laughter] all right. Does everyone know that the phone's working? All right. I need a girl. Who's willing? Someone near the front. Real quick.
Aw, come on. I'm up here. I'm not scared. All right, I see... You volunteered her.
Do you want to come? No? You come... Sorry. You've been trumped by a girl. I'm using a boy next time. You're next.
All right. You ever made a baked potato? No. You've never made a baked potato? Pretend. Just wrap that up in tin foil. Just keep wrapping that roll, no, just wrap the whole roll around it three or four times.
[Roll hits stage] that's it, keep going. You're doing good. [Laughter] do you have a cooking school here at this school? [Laughter] okay. Just wrap that, wrap that up. Pastor Ross, give me a call.
What's your name? Marissa. Huh? Marissa. Marissa. Thank you very much, marissa. That's probably good enough.
Let's see what happens. Jean, are you calling? I think he is. We tried this before and we proved something. This is a very scientific experiment. [Laughter] why isn't it working? Come on, you guys.
High school. Radio waves aren't getting to my phone, right? The signals that go through the air. Thank you very much. Could you give this baked potato to that lady right down there with the headphones? How many of you believe in radio waves? Can you see them? Right now, while we're sitting here, there are radio waves and frequencies that are swarming all over around us. We've got the satellite transmission going invisibly from the truck, up the satellite, bouncing down.
We don't have any problem believing in invisible things, because now -- I mean, if you think, the first 5,000 years of human history, they would have thought that was witchcraft. Isn't that right? But now we just, we don't even think anything of it. I can remember when I saw my first wireless phone. Most of you don't remember that. And I thought, "wow! No wires!" So there's invisible things going on all around us.
Just because we can't always explain it doesn't mean it isn't true. So it tells us that God is invisible. But that doesn't mean you should believe in him less; he is everywhere. He inhabits eternity. Question number three: well, you can read just right in the Bible, the opening words.
How many of you know that? It says... Everything. Everything that is around us has been created by God. All right. You were going to volunteer.
You want to come up? No, the gentleman. I'm sorry. Thank you very much. I gotta grab something else here. Now, this is a very sophisticated piece of apparatus that we designed for these meetings.
Okay? What was your name? Nazilla [phonetic]. Nazilla? Yes. Okay. Put that on and I want you to put it on so you could look through this one hole. Cover up your other eye.
That's why I didn't do a girl because I thought it would mess up her hair. Okay. All right. Now you come over here, no, no peeking. Just through, just what you can see.
Now I'm going to aim you. Can you see the screen? You see the screen? All right, don't move. Just keep on the screen here for a second. All right. We're putting another picture up here on the screen.
Can you tell what that picture is? Uh, a keyhole. It's a keyhole. And what's in the keyhole? Is that tin foil and felt? Uh, I think it's, is that the sky? The sky? All right, you kinda have a limited perspective. When you're looking through the keyhole, next picture, that's what you're looking at. Now you see a little more of it huh? You probably still need to move your head around a little bit to take it in, appreciate it.
[Laughter] you can -- you know what? We're gonna let you keep that, but you have to wear it through the rest of the program. Nah... [Laughter] you can take that down there. I'll probably never use that again. [Laughter] sell it on ebay.
[Laughter] now, do you know why I did that? What is a person's perspective, a human's perspective, on eternity? Think about how big space is. Think about how small our world is. Think about how big a perspective we have. And so when humans are down here, just microscopic pipsqueaks on this planet, we're saying, "there's no God." We've got such a limited perspective of what is going on through the cosmos, that we need to factor that in to our understanding. You can even see the creation of God through the things he's made.
How many of you have heard of the story of robinson crusoe? Daniel defoe wrote this story about a young man, went away, wanted to find his own adventure in life. Ended up becoming shipwrecked on a deserted island. I think it was off in the caribbean somewhere. And after a long time, nobody came, there was nobody else on the island that he was on. He kind of made himself comfortable and got to where he was comparatively happy.
By the way, the story of robinson crusoe was based on a true story about a man named alexander selkirk, who was shipwrecked on an island off of chile, who got back to england and told the author the story. A true story. And, but one day, as robinson crusoe, in the story, he's walking around this island and he's able to completely go around the island. One day he sees footprints on the island, and they're not his footprints. What does that tell him right away? And it wasn't just one mistake in the sand that kinda looked a little like a human footprint.
It's a series of them walking. And he knew just from that little glimpse, "I am not alone." Now, if he can tell that from the footprints on that island, do we have evidence in nature that we're not alone? That there's a God? Let's talk about that a little bit in our next question. Question four: there's an abundance of evidence. You know I grabbed that little creature because he kinda looked cute, didn't he? [Laughter] you read in job 12:7-10: all around the world you see the evidence for God in the incredible marvels of creation. Now I should tell you at this point, when I'm talking to you about "is there a God?" I was raised atheist/agnostic, I think I went back and forth a few times.
I did not believe -- I believed in evolution. I did not believe in the God of the Bible. I thought that was laughable. I thought it was an insult to your i.q. If a person said, "I'm a Christian and I believe the Bible.
" I used to pity them. Really. And then I moved and I lived in a cave for a year and a half. Up in the mountains. And while living there, instead of being in New York city, surrounded by the things that man made, I was now surrounded by the things that God made, and my whole perspective began to change.
I thought, "this cannot be an accident." There was too much evidence for creation. You know, I like doing Amazing Facts. That's where our ministry gets its name, and I did a sermon one time and it's based upon that one Scripture that says... Consider the ant. Do you know there are over 8,000 different kinds of ant? They come in virtually every color, ranging from white and clear and red and blue and purple and green.
And even though they're all ants, and anatomically they share just about everything in common, there are some ants, they bake bread. They actually take these seeds up on the ground. When it rains the seeds sprout. They then clip the sprout. So they stop their growth.
They let them dry in the sun. They bring them down, these worker ants masticate them with their mandibles. They mix them into little dough balls, cookies. Ant cookies. They take them back up, they dry them and then they store cookies and they eat cookies.
Then you got other ants, like the ones in the picture here, that herd aphids. Little aphids, you know, they suck nectar out of plants and they excrete -- they suck the sap and they excrete nectar, and that's what the ants eat. And so they take really good care of their herds, like shepherds. And they carry them from one plant to another to make sure they're well fed and they protect them and they'll fight for them and they harvest them. And they stroke them when they want to milk them.
And they're just like any old shepherd. And then there's the leaf cutter ants. And they go around, they cut all these leaves up and they put them down and they wait until the leaves begin to decompose, and they don't eat the leaves, then they eat a special mold that grows on the leaves. And this is just a fraction of the variety in ants. You look at the kaleidoscope of different creatures.
The symbiotic relationship between birds and apple blossoms. To believe that all of this just slowly grew over thousands or millions of years, you know, I just couldn't believe that anymore. There's so much evidence for a designer and a loving God in the things that he's made. Question number five. I heard about this little boy one day that was um, he was sitting down with -- he had a computer that children use to learn to spell.
I think it's call a speak 'n' spell. And he was typing in words. And then it says the word back to you. And so he typed in the word "God." Easy three-letter word: g-o-d. And up on the screen it said, "word not found.
" And he looked around, he typed it in: g-o-d. Same response, "word not found." And his father overheard him saying, "Jesus is not gonna be happy about this." [Laughter] but that's sort of typical of what's going on here in the world. It's like we're trying to delete God from the equation, even though we are absolutely swimming in evidence for God. So, hasn't science proved -- you know if there was any one thing that I could put my finger on -- and we've got a lesson that's gonna talk about creation and evolution specifically. But I need to touch on this tonight.
If there's any one thing where I believe the greatest hoax has been perpetrated on intelligent people, it's the idea that because we appreciate science for their accomplishments, if someone who believes in science says there's no God, they must be right. I mean, after all, look at the sophistication in medicine and look at what they've done with experiments. You know, some of these people are sending rockets into space. "And they say there's no God? Obviously, they know more than me." But it's just not true; there is a God. And the evidence for God is everywhere.
It is, I think, one of the greatest hoaxes, like an internet hoax, that has ever been put over on intelligent people. Psalm 139:14, it says... We are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made man to be the crowning act of his creation. I mean, you think about what's going on right now.
While I'm speaking, you're listening, your ears are processing my words. They're sorting them out and making some kind of abstract thoughts out of them. I'm hoping you're listening to what I'm saying. Your eyes are taking in everything from just the plain three dimensions that you see in front of you, to everything from my body language and physical expressions. And your eyes are taking in a thousand more things being recorded in your brain that you are even consciously aware of.
How did that all happen? Why did humans develop 80% more brain than they ever use in their lifetime? What in evolution would explain that? And of course depending on your personality, you could be using more or less of that. We're hoping that you'll maximize what you're using. And so, you really begin to ask the tough questions. There's a growing number of people in the science community that are coming to the conclusion that you cannot support that all of the organization and interworking [sic] systems and intelligence and design that we see in the world around us happen by accident. I mean, you think about it.
You got two big choices: everybody and everything everywhere came from nothing... Or was there someone who made everything everywhere? Those are the two choices you're all faced with. And you know why this lesson is so important? Because what you decide about this question is going to affect every other question. Whether or not you believe there is a God -- think about how big that is. If there is -- oh, you know what? I never ever read to you.
I got a definition for God here in my notes. We're talking about "is there a God?" What does that mean? Let me read this to you real quick. And by the way, I had to combine a couple of internet definitions. It was like that little boy with his speak 'n' spell. It shocked me.
I mean, you type in some words like "the" in the dictionary on the internet, and they'll have five pages of definitions for "the." I typed in "God..." And there's hardly anything. I thought, "wow." "God: a perfect supernatural being conceived as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent," and I added one, omnipathic. You know, the "omni" means everywhere, all. Omnipathic means he feels everything. That's sort of like being all powerful and all knowing also.
But everything you're thinking or feeling, God knows it. He experiences it. "The originator and ruler of the universe. The principal object of faith and worship and monotheistic religions." From everlasting to everlasting, God has been there. Can you think of anything more important than having the answer to that question? "In the beginning, God.
.." I heard one time that a man was given an audience with God and he said, "lord, I'm just wondering, what is a million years like for you? You live from everlasting to everlasting." And the Lord said, "well, it's like a second for you." And he said, "lord, then I suppose a billion dollars?" He said, "well, it's like a penny for you." And he thought and he said, "lord, could I have one of your pennies?" God said, "in a second." [Laughter] next question. Question number six. Now, this next picture you're gonna look at on the screen is what they call the ultra deep field image that was taken by the hubble. It is the most powerful telescope that man has. It's outside of the earth's atmosphere.
This is the deepest into space that anyone anywhere has ever peered. Now, let me tell you how they did this. It's very expensive to run the hubble. And so they said, "what will happen if we try to find a point in the sky, in the stars, where there is nothing? Seems like the deeper we look the more we find. Let's find a point that looks pitch black to us.
That's a void, an abyss in space. We wanna find the end of the universe." And it's very expensive to operate the hubble. So they reserved the hubble for ten days. First they did it in 1995. And you know how when you take a picture and there's low light, you've gotta keep the lens open for a long time? They had to keep the lens open and keep that thing perfectly still for ten days, taking one picture.
And they got what they called the deep field image. Then, 2004, they took another one. It was called the ultra deep field image. They kept the lens open for 11 days. They focused on a piece of sky.
If you take a grain of rice... And you hold it up at arm's length, that grain of rice would cover that piece of sky that it looked at. Looking into the universe like that, this is what they saw. From everlasting to everlasting he is God. And you know what? That God knows every detail.
A sparrow does not fall that he does not see on this earth. The Bible says he's numbered the hairs of our head. I always feel funny telling people that, because it doesn't sound that important for me to say that as it would with some people. But he knows every detail of our lives. God is great.
And then we've got these other constellations and nebulae in space that are just so exquisite and beautiful. And you know, I love that verse in The Song "rock of ages." It says, "we will soar to worlds unknown." We often think about, "what would you do in heaven? What will heaven be like?" And you know, after I get my initial tour, I'm gonna -- I'm gonna take off through the galaxy of the speed of thought. And it'll be so fun to explore where no man has been before, right? I love -- I wanna be the first pastor that goes up to the space station. I don't know if they've had one yet. But that to me would be so much fun.
You know one guy, he bought a ticket. Have you heard about that? He is a tourist. $20 Million he paid and they took him up to space. I think he was older than me. So there's still hope.
If you wanna make a donation to Pastor Doug's space exploration trip... [Laughter] you could buy a ticket. The russians will take you up there. Psalm 91 talks about this also. All out through space is this knowledge of God.
It can can be seen everywhere. Now, they're telling me on the screen that we've got a question that has been texted in. How many of you have wondered that before? Does the Bible talk about that? It appears that it does. Matter of fact, in Hebrews 1:2, it says, "God, who in sundry times in diverse, a place spoken to us in times past through the prophets has in these last days spoken unto us by his son through whom he made the worlds," plural. So it isn't just our world, he's made worlds.
And then you look in job 1. It says, "there was a day when The Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. Satan came also and God said to satan, 'where'd you come from?' He said, 'I came from the earth.'" Here's some celestial meeting taking place. When you think about the vastness of space, it's hard to believe that the only ones alive are here on earth. The Bible seems to tell us of all the sheep that God has through limitless space, this world is that one lost sheep and Jesus, our shepherd, left the realms of heaven, come to this world to seek this lost planet.
Because everybody in this world sins, right? We're all lost down here. So he came here to retrieve this lost world. Alright, question number seven. Romans 2:15, it says -- and speaking of the gentiles, these were the unbelievers... It means that everybody is born with sort of an inner knowledge of the existence of God.
You know, I saw a study -- and I just captured this off the internet -- that they had a question about the moral behavior. Professor Paul bloom... Yeah, professor Paul bloom of yale university, he demonstrated through careful research a number of tests that even babies as young as six months old have a built-in moral sense of what right and wrong is. It says, "a growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have rudimentary moral sense" -- and this is not a religious journal. "A rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life.
With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first years of life. Some sense of good and evil seems to be pre-wired in us." And what they did is they took these babies and they had puppets. And they kinda had one puppet beating up on another puppet. And the babies watched that. And when the babies were given the bad puppet they recoiled.
They didn't want it. But they wanted to hug the good puppet. And then they saw puppets that were helpful to other creatures. They understood that and they liked those. But the ones that were mean, they didn't like those.
They were able to take and to sense something being good and bad. But if evolution's true and if it's all survival of the fittest, you'd think the little child would have been cheering the mean puppet that was beating up on the helpless puppet. Survival of the fittest. Good for you. I mean, based on liking the good guy, we'd be extinct, right? But it seems like from the very beginning, our hearts are pre-wired with a moral sense of what is right and wrong.
Question number nine. Ah, that's the big question, right? Everybody wanders, "if God is good, if God is loving and if he's all powerful, why would God make a devil? If he's all powerful why doesn't he snap his fingers and destroy the devil? Well, what happened?" That's another whole study. Amazing Facts did a dvd called cosmic conflict that deals with where... Sin came from, the origin of the devil. And God is a loving God and he creates all of his creatures free.
Deuteronomy 26:8, and we'll get to that in just a moment. God has demonstrated his power through these signs and wonders. Now, if you read in Ezekiel 28:15, it tells us that God had a beautiful angel, and that God made this angel without fault. But because he makes all of his creatures free -- this is something you've really gotta grasp. God makes every intelligent creature with free moral choice, because he wants love.
He cannot force us to love him. Can you force love? If I take you by the lapel and I shake you and say, "love me, you better love me," are you gonna love me, or will it have the opposite effect? In order to get genuine love, it must be... Solicited by being loving. And as soon as lucifer began to cast doubts upon God, God could have snapped his fingers and vaporized him. But then what would the other angels have thought? "Maybe lucifer's right.
God is just bullying all his creatures." Lucifer was the highest of his angels. He was perfect, the Bible says. Now, I told you at the onset, we don't have all the answers. When you say, "who made God?" From everlasting to everlasting, I can't comprehend that. But it's easier for me to believe in that than nebulous gas particles that were floating out there in space that exploded and created all of the order and systems and design that you see in the world.
And you might ask, "if God is good, then where did the seeds of selfishness and evil come from?" Well, I don't have an easy... Answer for that question because he makes his creatures free. Some choose to be selfish. Adam and eve had two principal sons. What were their names? Cain and abel.
Same mother, same father and they had the same grandfather: God. Right? One was good and one was bad. Why? Because they chose. God has given you the greatest gift that any of his intelligent creatures have. You've got the ability to think in the abstract and to choose to understand, communicate with God in a way that no other creature has.
And you can choose to be selfish. If I was to summarize who God is -- well, he does it for us. God is what? God is love. Now. If you were gonna use one word to summarize the devil or evil -- by the way, if you just add the word "d" [sic] to "evil" you got "devil," right? If you were to summarize him in one word, it's the antithesis of love, which is selfishness.
And the big battle that you and I go through everyday -- my biggest battle, I'm so selfish. I naturally always think about myself. I mean, whatever happens I'm gonna find myself thinking, "I wonder what that will mean? Or how will that affect me?" And it really takes a miracle of the Holy Spirit for us to start thinking lovingly about God and about others. And it's a gift that God gives us. It's a new heart and he transforms us.
Question number ten. You know, some people think, "ah, the devil isn't real. It's just people have a good side and they got a bad side. When they behave badly we say it's the devil, but it's just really them." Just because you can't see him doesn't mean he's not real. The Bible says we don't wrestle -- a matter of fact, let me get to this Ephesians 6:12.
It says... The Bible admits it's a spiritual, invisible force but it's very real and personal. Yeah, the devil is very real. During world war ii, bombs were dropped on hiroshima, nagasaki. And after the initial damage that was done by the blast itself, a lot of people were then made sick by something called radiation.
Like the radio waves we talked about earlier, they were invisible, wreaking terrible damage. And the people didn't see it. Initially they didn't feel it. They could not smell it, but it was an evil that was destroying them. That's why people tell you put on sunblock, right? Any of you ever played out in the sun too long? You didn't know it at first.
And so, the devil is real. And you can feel this battle going on in our hearts between good and evil. Question 11. Now, that's the real thing we're asking. Tonight we're saying there is a God, and God is good, and God is real, and he is awesome, he inhabits eternity.
Matter of fact, one thing that confuses us about God: God exists 100% in the present, God exists 100% in the past, God exists 100% in the future. And I think that kind of throws us, right? Now God is not confined to time. Einstein kind of helped us realize a whole new way of thinking about time and space. God can live in the future. He can take a prophet and show him the future with perfect accuracy.
Isn't that right? What kind of power makes that possible? Where God can predict something down to where an arrow was going to land thousands of years ago, and that arrow finds the joints of ahab's armor perfectly. He's all powerful. And then there is an evil force. The good news is, "greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world." The devil, the prince of darkness, has been quarantined to this planet, he is restricted here. He goes to and fro here on the earth, the Bible says.
Jesus calls him the prince of this world. He has been isolated here, and the only way for us to be successful in this life and to come out victorious is to invite the power of God and the light of God into our hearts. What's the best way to get rid of darkness? To invite light in. You know, I heard about... A photographer up in the northwest of a big newspaper, and there were some forest fires that were going on at the forestry not far from the city.
And they assigned him to go get some pictures -- the photographer -- for the paper. Go get some pictures of this forest fire. Well they needed to rent a little small plane so they could take him up and fly him around - he could snap the pictures. He got stuck in traffic; by the time he got to the small airport he was late. There, the plane was already warmed up and running, door open waiting for him on the runway.
The photographer grabbed his bag, he ran out. He jumped into the plane, he told the pilot, "head out there towards the national forest." And the pilot took off, started flying over there. He said, "I want you to go out there towards the smoke." The pilot took him out over towards the smoke, and he began to tell him to make some twists and turns. The pilot -- the photographer took out his camera, started taking pictures. And the pilot began to look a little nervous.
And the photographer said, "what's the problem?" And the young pilot said, "so you're not my instructor, are you?" [Audience reacting] he -- there was a flight student that was all warmed up waiting for his instructor to load up in the plane. And neither of them knew how to land. Now, taking off's easier. Who's your co-pilot? We're all on a journey. The most important question you need to answer is, "is there a God?" And "what is his plan for my life?" He has a plan, a big plan for every one of you.
And the only way for you to safely negotiate the war that's raging... There's a spiritual war going on in this world, it's very real. And the only way for you to safely negotiate that war, and to come out the other side victorious, successful, is you need to have God at the stick. You need to have him flying your plane. It's a terrible thing if a terrorist gets into the cockpit, isn't that right? Who's sitting at the driver's seat in your plane? And you know, you at least owe it to yourself, friends -- during this series, this is the most important question.
If what I'm saying is true and if God is real, if Jesus is real and he has a plan for your life, then there's nothing more important than inviting him to take control. Question number 12: I bet you could probably all say this with me, it's John 3:16. Why don't you say it with me? "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." The only way for us to safely get out on the other side of this world is through Jesus. You see, the cross is a ladder that stretches from earth to heaven. God said, the only way I'm going to save those creatures down there is if I become one of them.
I'm gonna come into the world as a man, I'm gonna come as their example, so they know how to live and how to treat each other and how to relate to God. He showed us how to love our Father in Heaven. He said, "I'm gonna come to show them what God is like." Jesus said, "if you've seen me, you've seen The Father." So many people misunderstand God. If you wanna know what God is like, look at the incarnation of God. That's Jesus.
And then he said, the only way for them to survive is if I take the penalty for their evil. For their selfishness. If I take their sins, and I give them my righteousness I'll take their punishment and I'll give them the eternity in heaven that I deserve." So he came as your substitute. But as real as it is that Jesus came -- and all of history is dated from his birth -- you need to make a decision. He doesn't force.
You need to choose to say, "I want him to be in charge of my life." You know, one time I got on my knees up in a cave, after reading the Bible, and I prayed and said, "lord, if you're real, I want you to come into my life." I had a lot of questions; I didn't know. But after reading the Bible, I began to think, "if this is true..." And I tried out a lot of religions. I'd tried atheism. I said, "if this is true, nothing is more important." Isn't that right, friends? "Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness." And that's what we're going to be doing... Throughout this week, friends.
I want to encourage each of you here -- we're so thankful that you've come here at great lakes adventist academy. Those of you who are watching on 3abn and other networks, we're so thankful that you've tuned in. We hope you'll join us for our next program. And we want to close this program with prayer. So why don't you bow your heads with me? Father in Heaven, we're very thankful for the good news.
That you are real, and you are here. But most importantly, lord, we need you to come in on the inside. Reveal yourself to us, help us to know you as a personal God. Invite you to take control of our cockpit and guide us through this life and on into eternity. Bless these meetings.
We thank you and pray in Jesus' Name. Amen. Thank you for watching this episode of M.I.Q. During our next presentation, we will be tapping into the Bible: history's bestseller. You won't wanna miss this.
See you then! How can I know that God is listening? Where is he when I need him? What is heaven like? Can I ever be perfect? Is church for me? Did I come from apes or prehistoric sludge? Announcer: do you have more questions about God, the Bible and living a Christian life? The official companion to the "most important questions" tv series has more answers. Get all the Bible-based answers to hundreds of the most frequently asked questions. To order, call (800) 538-7275, or visit... Store.amazingfacts.org. Announcer: journey back through time to the center of the universe.
Discover how a perfect angel transformed into satan: the arch villain. The birth of evil... A rebellion in heaven... A mutiny that moved to earth. Behold the creation of a beautiful new planet, and the first humans.
Witness the temptation in eden. Discover God's amazing plan to save his children. This is a story that involves every life on earth. Every life. "The cosmic conflict.
"If God is good, if God is all powerful, if God is love, then what went wrong? Available now on DVD.