My name is Rick, and I want to welcome all of you and all of our campuses across Dade County
to Christ Fellowship. We are so glad that you are here today, and if you are a guest with us for
the first time, we are especially honored to have you. Let me kind of bring you up to date. All the
way back at Christmas, we began a brand new series that we have entitled “I Wish I Knew What
to Believe”. We have been trying to answer three fundamental questions of our existence, the
first question being “Is there a God?” Is there a creator? Were we created by somebody?
Again, you may be here today and you might consider yourself to be an atheist, and you would
say honestly in your heart, “You know Rick, I don’t know if I believe in God. I’m just not sure I
am there.” For the past few weeks, we’ve been tackling that particular question: “Is there a
God?” which we are going to wrap up today and if you continue to go with us, next week we are
going to move in to the second question which is the question of an agnostic. An agnostic would
say, “I believe there is a god. I’m just not sure I know which god to believe in. I wish I did but
I’m not sure. There are all of these gods, all of these faiths out there, and Jesus is just one of all
of them. I wish I knew if he is really the true God. I wish I knew which god to believe in.” Then
if you follow along with us through that, and you might say, “Yeah, okay I know there is a God.
I even believe the God of the Bible is God.” The next question we want to answer is does this
God care about us? Does He love us? Does He care about you and does He care about me?
With all of that said, I want you again to open your Bibles to Hebrews, chapter eleven. If you
don’t have a Bible, don’t worry about it. It will all come up on the screen and you can follow
along with us that way. Let me get us started by just saying this. All of us have moments in our
life that sort of define life for us. In fact, we refer to those moments as defining moments,
because what you experience in that single moment of time subsequently has a way of defining
life for you. For me, one of those moments, one of those defining moments was Christmas Eve
night, 1968. Folks, what I saw that night, what I experienced that night, forever defined what I
believed about myself, and especially what I believed about God.
Follow me here, because December 21, 1968, NASA launches Apollo 8. It’s destination, the
moon. Now mind you, Apollo 8 would not land on the moon. That would be the mission of
Apollo 11; but this would be the first time that human beings would actually leave earth’s orbit
and then journey out into space and make it all the way to the moon. Folks, I will never forget
that Christmas Eve night as long as I live. Four days after launch as Apollo 8 astronauts began to
approach lunar orbit, all major networks were tapped into this. All of the major networks were
carrying this live. I was glued before the TV. Mind you, I was twelve years old. I was absolutely
fascinated by astronomy already at this point in my life, so I could not wait to see the moon up
close and personal. Listen, what I was about to see that night was a sight that was so wonder full
in the strictest sense of that word, that it would change my life forever. In fact folks, the entire
human race was about to see a sight that had never been seen by human beings before; a sight
that was so awesome, so inspiring that it moved the entire world to silence, and moved some
people to tears. It moved others to worship. You say, “What are you talking about?” Well, the
men who worked in Mission Control that Christmas Eve night, described the wonder of that
night; the wonder of that sight I’m talking about. (showing video)
“Christmas Eve, 1968, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Landers in Apollo 8 have
just disappeared behind the moon. While they are on the other side, they will perform a critical
engine burn. The trench has calculated the exact instant Apollo 8 should reappear. If the engine
burn is successful, it will come around at this point and we will see them. If they didn’t do the
maneuver then they would be early. “We have heard nothing yet but we are standing by. We saw
the clock. We heard the call. We knew the crew had performed the perfect maneuver. We knew
Apollo 8 was now in moon orbit.” For the first time, humans had arrived within sixty miles of
another planet.”
Voice of an astronaut: “The best way to describe this area is a vacuum of black and white. There
is no color.” The entire crew, and everyone watching on earth, sees something else. That was
indescribable. If you experience that, you’ve missed something. You see it now you can make up
that picture on any computer, but that was real, and it meant a lot to me, and it meant a lot to
every human being on earth that saw it. Then they did the unbelievable. I just couldn’t believe it.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” They started reading from the Book of
Genesis, and this was on Christmas Eve. “And the earth was without form and void, and God
said ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. God saw the light and said, ‘That is good’.”
That was a surprise. Everything else had been preplanned. It was real for everybody who was
there and experienced it. “God saw that it was good.” From the Apollo 8, goodnight, good luck,
Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.”To hear that from
Americans circling the moon on Christmas Eve was a very emotional moment, and a very proud
moment.
That was a defining moment in my life; seeing the earth from space for the first time. Sitting in
front of the TV by myself on Christmas Eve night, hearing those men reading from Genesis,
chapter one; that was the the defining moment in my mind that I knew there was a God.. I was
not a Christian at that time. We did not go to church as a family. I didn’t know what a Christian
really was, but I knew at that moment that in the beginning the God that created the earth,
created me. Folks, what I love so much is that God used astronomy to nail down that truth that
would get me started on a journey that would eventually take me into the faith.
Today as we conclude this first question of the series, and that question all along has been “Does
God exist? Is there a God?” This is my proposition and this is what I want you to walk away with
today. God Himself says to us:”Go outside and look at the universe. Go outside and observe the
universe, and God says that you will know there is a God. You will know that God exists. You
say, “Rick, how does the universe point us to God? How does the universe tell us that God
exists?” Well, we are going to find out as we go back to this question in this series, the series we
have entitled, “I wish I knew what to believe.” I want to give you three thoughts as we do that.
How many of you have your listening guides? Hold them up in the air. How many of you have
your apps with you today? All of our campuses hold them up. If you are a guest with us, we
always like to take notes so we’ll remember what we talked about. I want to give you three
thoughts that I want you to take away today. Number one: Astronomy points to the existence of
God. With that in mind, listen to Hebrews 11:1. Here is what the Word of God says: It says,
“Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe
that He exists.” Now, when you read that it is kind of like how can you have a relationship with a
God that you don’t even believe exists. How can you believe in a God that you don’t know
exists? On the other hand, how can we know that there is a God? How can we know that God
exists? Well folks, there is only one way that we can know anything. There is only one way that
you can know that God exists, and that is, you have to have evidence. Right? You need evidence
that you can see. You need evidence that you can observe. Why? Because evidence takes away
ambiguity. Evidence takes away the guess work. In fact, when you have observable evidence, it
takes away what people call blind faith.
I’ve been saying since the outset of this series: God does not call us to blind faith. Blind faith is
when you believe something but there is no evidence that you should believe it. God does not
call you to that. To the contrary, God calls us to a faith that is built on evidence, evidence that is
observable; evidence that you can see. Listen to verse one again: “Now faith, that is the Biblical
faith, is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence.” Folks, where does God point our
eyes to see the observable evidence? Where does God sort of lift your chin to see the observable
evidence? We’ve been looking at evidence from all kinds of angles so far, haven’t we? We’ve
looked at the physiological evidence. We’ve looked at systems evidence. We’ve looked at fossil
evidence, but I, especially for one, love the evidence that God points to in verse three. Watch
what He says: “By faith we understand that the universe.”
Astronomy is the observation of the universe. Astronomy is the observation of the universe, and
God loves astronomy. In fact, listen to verse three. “By faith we understand that the universe was
formed so that what is seen.” Folks, that is astronomy. Astronomy is seeing the universe.
Astronomy is observing the universe, and men and women have been doing that since the dawn
of creation; since God put us on this earth. And what I love is what astronomy reveals.
Astronomy reveals order. That is exactly what God tells us. Listen to Romans 1:20: “For since
the creation of the world, God’s invisible quality - his eternal power and divine nature have been
clearly seen.” In other words, you can see God’s power; you can see God’s wisdom just by
looking out at the universe. The word “world” there – since the creation of the world – is a
translation of an interesting Greek word. I always tell you that your Bible was originally written
in Greek- your New Testament – and then was translated into English, French, whatever –
translated to all other languages. But that word “world” there is the original translation of the
Greek word cosmos. The word cosmos in the Greek didn’t just mean the universe. It literally
means the ordered universe. In other words, God is saying if you go outside and look at the
universe, you will see order, not disorder. By the way: the Greeks had a word for disorder. It was
notcosmos, but chaos. Chaos means disorder. Cosmos means order. God says if you look at the
universe, if you look at the galactic universe, you will not see chaos, you will see cosmos. You
will not see disorder. You will see order.
For example: Just think of the order between the sun, the earth, and the moon. Put your
astronomy thinking caps on for a moment. We are going to think through some of these things.
For example, the surface temperature of the sun is between eleven thousand and twelve thousand
degrees Fahrenheit. If it were any hotter, we would burn up. If it were any cooler, we would
freeze to death. It is a perfectly ordered temperature. Think of this: the earth maintains a precise
distance of about ninety-three million miles from the sun. Folks, if we drifted any further, we
would freeze to death. If we drifted any closer, we would burn to death. By the way, all of the
other planets in our solar system hae what is called an elliptical orbit which means they go way,
way, , far away from the sun and then they come closer to the sun. The earth on the other hand
has an almost circular orbit around the sun, which keeps our temperatures constant.
Consider this: The sun is fueled by nuclear fission. That means it converts seven hundred million
tons of hydrogen into six hundred and ninety five million tons of helium every second. Folks, we
are rotating, we are spinning before this sun like a barbeque spit, and we are spinning at exactly
eleven hundred miles per hour. If we were to go any faster, we would freeze to death. If we were
to go any slower, we would get barbecued! The speed is ordered by God.
Check this out: The earth is tilted on its axis at twenty-three degrees. If it were not so tilted,
vapors from the ocean floor would be north and south and develop into gargantuan continents of
ice which would take over the planet. Consider the moon: If the moon did not maintain its proper
distance from the earth, ocean tides would inundate the land two times a day. I guess after the
first time it wouldn’t matter! But two times a day we would get inundated by water. Consider the
earth’s atmosphere, which is confined of seventy-eight percent nitrogen. Twenty one percent
oxygen, some other trace gases, and water. It is the perfect prescription for life on the earth.
Sigmund Brower, in his book “The Un-random Universe” says this: “The odds against the
essential atmosphere on the earth forming by chance is once in a hundred trillion.” Now, we are
not talking about our bodies. We are just talking about getting our atmosphere right. The chance
of that happening is once in a trillion times. Listen, is it possible that it just hit the once in a
trillion times. Is it possible? We decided we are going to go ahead and say, “Yes, it is possible.
What is the next question?” Is it probable, or is it not probable. It is probable that it was created
by God because God ordered the universe.
I keep quoting from a lot of men who are atheists, but you can feel it in their hearts that they are
struggling with it. Stephen Hawkins who I have quoted from a number of times says this. Listen
to this: He says “The odds against the universe like ours emerging out of something like a big
bang are enormous. The odds are enormous” he is saying. “I think clearly there are religious
implications when you start to discuss the origins of the universe.” What is he saying? “I’m an
atheist, but the more I look at it the more I see cosmos, not chaos, and the more I see the hand of
God, the finger of God, the more I see design.” We need to pray for this guy: Amen? We need to
pray for Stephen Hawkins. Here is a guy who is struggling with atheism, because he sees so
much order.
Astronomy not only tells us that God exists, but astronomy triggers worship. Listen to what God
says in Isaiah 40, verse 25. God says, “Who will you compare with me, or who is my equal, says
the Holy One?” Watch what he says: “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.” God is saying,
do a little astronomy. Even if you do not have a telescope. They didn’t have telescope back in
those Biblical days. He just said, “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all of
these? “He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of His great power, and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” Astronomy not
only leads us to believe there is a God; astronomy leads us to worship God.
I love that song, and I know you do to. At all of our campuses, when we sing that song, “How
Great Thou Art”, people just rare back and sing. Even if you are not a Christian, you would like
that song. It is just so beautiful. Listen again to the lyrics. It goes like this: ”Oh Lord, my God,
when I in awesome wonder, consider all the world thy hand has made.” That is astronomy. That
is just going out on a dark night, getting on top of your car, laying down and looking up at the
stars.“Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have
made. I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe,
displayed.” That’s looking at the universe. That is astronomy. What happens when you take an
honest look at the universe? Do you know what happens? The rest of that verse happens. How
does the rest of the verse go? It goes like this: “Then sings my soul, my Savior God to me. How
great thou art! How great thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee: How great thou
art, how great thou art.” And all of God’s people said “Amen”.
Let’s do this: Let’s take a journey out into the galactic heavens, and do a little wondering at
God’s universe. Let’s start with our closest star. Let’s start with our next door neighbor. Our next
door neighbor, if you want to call it that, is our closest star, which is Alpha Centauri. Alpha
Centauri is only four light years away. I don’t have to tell you that the universe quickly gets so
large that you have to change your way of measuring. You have to resort to what is called a light
year. You know what a light year is. A light year is the distance that light travels in one year; and
how far does light travel in one year? It travels 5.88 trillion miles per year. So our nearest star,
Alpha Centauri, is four times 5.88 trillion miles, or approximately twenty-four trillion miles, and
it is close.
The North Star: We could go outside today and take a look at it. The North Star is not four light
years away. It is 316 light years away, which means that the North Star, when you look at it, is
approximately eighteen hundred trillion light years away. And it really is not your next door
neighbor. It’s the chair beside you in the living room. It is that close. So, what I want us to do
right now is we are going to get on a make believe space ship, and we are going to travel at the
speed of light. We are going to travel at one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second, six
hundred and sixty nine million miles per hour, and 5.88 trillion miles every year. Everybody put
your seat belt on because we are about to blast off. Are you ready? Boom! Off the pad we go!
One second later, that was the moon that went by. It is gone.
But a thousand years later, traveling at the speed of light, 5.88 trillion miles a year, a thousand
years later we arrive at the Vela Pulsar. You say, “What is a pulsar?” Well, a pulsar is a star that
explodes, and becomes a supernova. In less than one second the atomic structure of the star
collapses in on itself and becomes a highly magnetized neutron star. The pulsar begins to
oscillate like any magnetized field would, and check this out: As they oscillate, they make these
sounds. So this star not only says “You’ve got to see me”, this star says, “You’ve got to hear
me.” So we build these huge electron telescopes, radio telescopes, to look at these pulsars, and
when we aim them at these pulsars, these are the sounds that we hear. (sound). We heard the
Vela Pulsar. This sound is the PSR937. It is spinning so fast: This star is spinning at seven
hundred times a minute, and as it spins it makes this incredible noise. They are out there just
giving glory to God. They are singing indescribable, uncontainable, “You made us.” God just
takes all of those sounds like a cosmic DJ and just mixes them together. When we put our
telescopes out there, we hear all of these incredible sounds.
A thousand years traveling at the speed of light, we reach Vela Pulsar. Two thousand years later,
traveling at that speed, we reach the Ring Nebula. You say, what is a nebula? A nebula is a dying
star. One that is dying is 5.8 trillion miles in diameter. It is a light year across. It is huge. Folks
what I love is, as these stars die, it is kind of like us when we die to ourselves, because they give
off these beautiful colors: hot yellows and hot blues, creating a psychedelic look. By the way,
you remember back in the sixties when the hippies tie-dyed their T-shirts in psychedelic colors?
God looks at that and says, “That’s cool! I tie-dyed the universe. I tie-dyed a star. It is called the
Ring Nebula.
Eight thousand years later, we are still traveling. We are booking 5.88 trillion miles per year, and
eight thousand years later we come to the Hour Glass Nebula. Here is another star that gives
glory to God; another nebula, actually, that gives glory to God. This is actually called “The Eye
of God”. It is almost like God is saying to us who see this and believe in Him, it is almost as if
He is saying: “I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you, and there will never be a time when I
am not watching you. There will never be a time in your life when you are alone. There never is
a time when God’s eye is not on you. Just to be sure you know that, God made a star, a nebula, to
be sure that you know that His eye is always on you.
Next we come to the Horse Head Nebula. Isn’t that amazing? I can’t believe people think God is
boring. God has it going on, doesn’t He? I mean it is almost as if God is saying, “Let’s create one
that looks like a horse head.” And then He says, “I can’t wait for them to see that.” Come on
guys, build a telescope. Somebody invent a telescope and finally a thousand years later we build
a telescope, and then God says, “That’s not big enough. You’ve got to build a bigger one.” We
build these big telescopes and then God says, “You’ve got to get one out in space. Build a
Hubble.” So we finally build a Hubble and God is going, “Aim it over there! Aim it over there!”
and we go “Wow” Look at that. It declares the glory of God. This is all pretty much in our
neighborhood - our house where the earth resides.
We reside in a galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a swirl of stars. It is a hundred
thousand light years across and contains a hundred billion stars. It is a spiral galaxy. The only
way I can describe it is it looks like a hurricane coming in. It is spiraling and spinning. We are in
the Milky Way galaxy. There are a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, and guess what? God
knows every one of those stars by name. But that is our yard. That is our house, the Milky Way
galaxy. But I want us to look at some of our neighborhood galaxies. One is called the Sombrero
galaxy. This is a galaxy that says, “God loves the Spanish people. This was just for you.” The
truth is, the Sombrero galaxy is actually a spiral galaxy. From where we, we are seeing it edge
on. We are six degrees below the plain. If we turned it and could get above it, it would look just
like the Milky Way. It is a spiral galaxy.
How about this one: This is the Whirlpool Galaxy. This is called the darling of the universe. You
can kind of see why it is called the Whirlpool Galaxy, because it looks like this spiral galaxy is
sucking this galaxy in, doesn’t it. The fact is, these two galaxies are millions of light years from
each other. They are millions of years separate.
Now, I think I know what some of you are thinking. You are thinking, Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!.
Wait a minute Rick. You are talking about all of these galaxies being millions and billions of
light years away, which means the light that we are seeing from these galaxies must have taken
billions of light years to get to us. So, how can the Bible say that the universe is only about six to
seven thousand years old, if it has taken billions of light years for this light to reach us? How can
it take billions of light years for the lights to reach us, and God say that the universe is only six of
seven thousand years old? How can that be?: Well, listen: I want to answer that for you. I want to
answer that question for you next week. It has been working so I thought I would use it again!
So, I want to answer that next week.
This week I want to give you one more thought. Astronomy declares God’s astronomical love.
You say, “Rick, how can astronomy declare God’s love?” Well, follow me here, because in 1977
NASA launched a space probe called Voyager One. The mission of Voyager One was to visit the
planets of our solar system and Voyager One brought us back these incredible images of Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Since 1977 it has been hurtling through our solar system. A few
years back, Voyager One began to approach the farthest outpost of our solar system.
Unfortunately it had drifted below the elliptical plain and it was not going to encounter Pluto.
But folks, before it left us, before it headed out into deep space, NASA sent it one last message.
Of all days, it was Valentine’s Day, a day of love, but they asked it: Before you leave us, before
you go, we want you to turn around and take a picture of our home; take a picture of Earth from
four billion miles away. Folks, NASA turned Voyager around and Voyager took a picture of our
home, Earth from four billion miles away.
Every person who has ever lived; every person who has been born, good, bad, poor, rich, every
person who has ever lived and ever person who has ever died, lived on our planet, a pale blue dot
in the universe. How many of you have ever heard of Paul Sagan? Paul Sagan was an atheist. He
was probably the greatest evangelist of atheism, and the greatest evangelist of evolution of our
generation. Here is what he said about this pale blue dot. “Because of the reflection of sunlight,
earth appears to be sitting in a beam of light as if there were some special significance in this
small world. But it is just an accident of geometry.” Everything to an evolutionist was an
accident. You are an accident. Everything is an accident: “Our posturing, our imagined self
importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, is challenged by
this point of pale blue light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic garden.
In our obscurity, in this vastness, there is no hint that help would come from elsewhere to save
us.” Carl Sagan, thank you for making us feel so great about ourselves!
Folks, what I’ve been telling you all along is that evolution is not just a belief, it is a path. It is a
path that leads to hopelessness. It is a path that leads to emptiness, and it is a path that leads
people far, far away from God. He says this pale blue dot is nothing. It is meaningless. But in
contrast to that, listen to what God has to say about that little pale blue dot. Here is what God
says. Here is what God says about our world, and the people on that pale blue dot. John
3:16:“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believed in him
should not perish but have everlasting life.” God put you on that planet, and He gave you the
ability to look into the universe so that you could observe his astronomical power. But He also
wants you to experience His astronomical love. You are on that pale blue dot. You are on this
planet because God wanted you here, and the same God who brought you into this world has a
plan for your life and a purpose for your life and a goal for your life. There are a lot of things that
God wants to lead you to do in this life, but the main thing that you were put on this world for,
the main reason that He gave you life is so that He could have a relationship with you.
You see, it is not what God wants from you. It is what God wants for you. It’s not what God
wants from you. We don’t have much to give to God anyway. He doesn’t want stuff from you.
He wants something special for you. He created you in a relationship and He created you for a
relationship. All God wants - He doesn’t want religion; He doesn’t want to hang a bunch of rules
on you and bore you to death. You may think that is what He wants, but He doesn’t. What God
wants is just to walk with you. You walk with Him and He walks with you. You love Him and
He loves you. You talk with Him and He talks with you. You listen to Him and He listens to you:
You and God, one on one, doing life together. That is what He wants.
God loves you so much. It says “For God so loved the world.” You can put your name in there. I
can say “For God so loved Rick Blackwood.” In fact, let’s say your name and my name all
together. “For God so loved (your name). And listen: If you are here today and even though you
are an atheist, He loves you so much. Even if you are saying, “I don’t know if I believe this.”
God is saying “I love you so much. I just want to have a relationship with you forever.” That’s a
beautiful thing. God doesn’t only want to have a relationship with you in this life. He wants to
have that relationship with you forever and ever. You can have that today before you leave this
place. Let’s bow our heads for prayer.