11/7/2021 Des Steyn – Atheism Is Taking Over
And then it says they are corrupt, they do abominable deeds. And so the ultimate level of foolishness is to reject the existence of God, and that, to me, is a serious lack of common sense because there is a God.
And I'm going to tell you right now that you have heard me over every now and again in a lesson. You hear me talk about what we call Christian evidences or apologetics, something that we look at the universe about, that it reminds us that there is indeed an intelligence out there, a designer slash creator who created everything. And the reason why I will continue to share information of this nature is because I feel so strongly about the fact that we need. It's important for us to communicate the fact that there is a God, and he does exist because atheism and I've said this before, I will continue to say it.
Atheism is taking over. Right now, the latest statistics out of the U.K., the United Kingdom is that 60% of the young people between the ages of 18 and 30 have become atheists, and they say the US is behind that. The numbers in the US is not that bad, but it's growing. And so we have this onslaught, and because of this atheistic onslaught, there is ultimate foolishness to be seen in Romans 1:21-23 For since the creation of the World His Invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse for. Even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. But they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened and so foolishness.
Huge foolishness comes from a rejection of God. And when we look at the universe, we know that it's huge. In fact, anything bigger than Haltom City here begins to our mind, begins to check out. We struggle. But the universe itself, the known universe is 90 billion light years across.
Now, how do you measure that light travels at 186,000 miles per second? It is how much how far you multiply that by a second in a year and then you multiply that by 90 billion. That is the known universe that is huge.
What is interesting, though, and the atheists believe and I've said this before, I'm saying this again. They believe that the universe came from a little speck, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an atom that just came from nothing. There was nothing that existed. It suddenly happened. And it produced what? This whole universe? That's crazy. That is foolishness. If ever there was foolishness. And what is interesting is that not too many years ago, the Hubble telescope, which is about the size of a bus which is floating around in space, which is able to point to stars and galaxies, a nebula and people from Earth are directing it to point in different places. And they were looking at the stars and the nebula and all of that, and it was sending the pictures back to Earth. And one day, a bright spark said, You know what? Why don't we send it? Why don't we pointed to a piece of blackness where there is no evidence of stars, just a little patch of black that's out there? And so they said, Well, what? What do we have to lose?
So they pointed this Hubble telescope at a little patch of blackness. The size of that little patch of blackness would be the same as if you took up a piece of sand, a grain of sand and put it on the end of your finger and held it out there. And the area of sky that that's grain of sand covered would be the size of the area that the Hubble telescope pointed at it. It pointed at that it took pictures of it, and they realized that there were galaxies out there in that little patch. They were able to count 10,000 galaxies, and they have determined that they are very probably trillions of galaxies that are out there, each one containing at least 100 billion stars. And to me, that is when you consider stuff like that.
How can you not? Just be in awe of a God who is so great. In first. So God has blessed us by giving us this opportunity to have a faith that is based on sight, we see that and because of that, we can believe that there is indeed a God who we haven't seen empirically, but we believe it because of what we have seen in second Corinthians five and verse seven. It says we live by faith, not by sight, but then in verse one onwards, it says, now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God an eternal house in the heavens, not built by human hands. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose, and he has given us the spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. And then verse six says therefore, we are always confident and we need to recognize that verse six is very important to us simply because of what is out there and what has proven that there is a God because we believe that we have every reason to be confident this life right now. 2021 is a little scary, don't you think? When I pull up at the gas station and I put three dollar a gallon gas in my vehicle, it's a little scary.
Just twelve months ago, it was $1.50. They even say that it's probably we can expect it to go even more. I think in California right now, it's running at $5 a gallon. That is craziness. They are telling us that that if you wait until December to buy toys for your children and grandchildren, they will be four times more expensive because they are ships that are sitting out there in the ocean, waiting to drop off all of their loads from all over the world. All of the goods and they're not able to offload. They are not enough trucks to bring it. They are not enough people to sell it. And we sit there and even meat I mean, you go and you buy a used to buy a steak. Not anymore. Will buy a hamburger. Why? Because the prices are screaming up.And so we look at all of these things going on and we look at the the foolish decisions that are being made that are creating this, this upheaval and we wonder where in the world it's going to be.
Some of you have heard of a man by the name of Eli Wiesel. He was a survivor of a concentration camp. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was an author, a humanitarian, and he had an organization that helped individuals as a humanitarian, and the organization had $47 million available. That it was using. And he decided, well, he's going to invest this money with an individual who is an incredible investor who will bring back. We will multiply what he puts into it. The problem is the man's name was Bernie Madoff, and Bernie Madoff was a fraud and a cheat, and he just spent everybody's money without really investing it. He had this scheme going his pyramid scheme. And so Vissel said this after he lost everything. He said we gave him everything. And then He said we thought he was God. We trusted everything in his hands.
And the lesson for us is that the only one that we can trust is God. We cannot trust anybody else at that level. And so it goes on and on and on. But yes, the thing big obstacles and some of us may think that what we are dealing with is a big obstacle.
And if that's the case, big obstacles require a big vision to be able to see behind the obstacles. In Africa when they want to round up a bunch of wild animals, usually wildebeest or buffalo or or Springbuck or whatever, they have a system, very simple system. They will string rope from tree to tree. They'll they'll choose specific trees in the vicinity that if they string the rope around from tree to tree, it makes a kind of enclosure from the rope. They will hang opaque plastic sheeting cannot see through it. In this case, the color was green, couldn't see through the plastic sheeting. They would leave one of the places open and they would herd In this case, a herd of wildebeest into this enclosure. And then they would close it off. And what was interesting is the wildebeest were captured. And we are thinking to ask ourselves what dumb animals, because they could have just walked right through that plastic. But you see what those wildebeests saw was a solid wall. And to them, you don't go walking through solid walls. And then I thought to myself, Well, how many times do we see things that we think is a solid wall but actually is just smoke? And so what God wants us to have and what his Bible tells us to have is a sight beyond sight.
We've got to be able to, in spite of what we see, not allow the troubles of the Earth to debilitate us. But to be able to see beyond and know that God is there for us. And so that's what we call sight beyond sight.
And what the Bible really wants us to do is take that phrase fools rush in where angels fear to tread and flip it around, and the Bible wants us to be angels who rush in. We fools fear to tread. And I'll tell you right now that the word when we hear the word angel we think of of heavenly beings that come down to Earth. We've read about them in the Bible, but the word angel, the Greek word angel is simply the word Angelus, which literally means messenger. And in that sense, we're all angels because we are all messengers, because we all have the message of the gospel that can be taken to the world. But all of this makes me remember the story of Joshua and Caleb. And you will remember that in Numbers Chapter 13. Remember the Hebrew people had just left Egypt and they they just within days, they camped at the southern border of the Canan land, the Promised Land. They count, they camped there, and they, I guess they had a little discussion and said, Well, we need to check out that land before we go into it. And so they they they chose twelve spies. And among those two were Caleb and Joshua. And they sent those twelve spies into the land and they spied out the land for 40 days. And then they came back with their report and they said, Oh, it's a wonderful, beautiful land. It's flowing with milk and honey. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. But they said there are giants who live there. The sons of Anneke. And what is interesting is that Caleb immediately said, Let us go up at once and occupy it for we are able to overcome it.
You see, Caleb and Joshua displayed faith, but what was interesting is that the other ten didn't, and they turned around and said, No, we, those sons of Annek are just too big for us. We cannot go there. And in the next chapter in Numbers 14, God shows his displeasure at their lack of faith. And he tells them for every day that you spent in the in the land, the Promised Land. I'm going to make you spend a year in the wilderness. And so they ended up turning around and spending, as we know, 40 years in the wilderness.
And that was why. Not because they didn't know they were where they were going, not because they were trying to figure things out, but because God determined that that would be their punishment because of their lack of faith.
And what is interesting is that God also said, in the middle of that, you said, and all of you spies. None of you will make it to the Promised Land, except Caleb and Joshua. And so finally, then in the book of Joshua, when they finally crossed the river and they get into the Promised Land, Caleb comes up and they're dividing the land out, and all of the different leaders of the tribes have to go and find a place and conquer the people and settle there. And Caleb says, and that's in Joshua Chapter 14, verse ten. He says, I am now 85 years old. And then he said, Give me Hebron, the land where the sons of Anek live. And he took the mountain and the land and dwelt there. And so here was Caleb, who right in the beginning said, we are, well, able to take it.
He had the faith and he never lost that faith. And so when the land was divided, he said, you give me the mountain with a giants are. And at 85 years old, I will throw them off the mountain. And that is what they did. And someone one time talked about fear and faith and faith said, Let's take the land. And fear said over my dead body. And 40 years later, faith stepped into the Promised Land over fears, dead body and even today, in 2021.
God wants us to have that kind of faith. He wants us to be angels who are willing to rush in where fools fear to tread. He wants us to be able to stand up, and in spite of all the negativity in the world, let us look beyond this and recognize that we are the children of God and we have a future that is unbelievably glorious for us. In first John Chapter five and verse four, everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world. And so when you wake up tomorrow morning and you face a new week and you face the bad news that you hear on the news, you need to be able to say today I'm going to be an angel who is going to go where fools fear to tread. And you can look at all of the opportunities that every day gives to you.
And you can choose to honor God by what doing the things that come into your into your office if you like and choose to accomplish those things. An invitation is always shared to us, and I talked about the fact that angels rush in, where fools fear to tread, the most important thing that we can do as an angel is come to God is embrace him with open arms is back. Let Jesus be the lord of our lives. Put him on in baptism and join. The company of people called the church, called the Church of Christ Christ's Church that overcomes the world, and you can be a part of that if you come. And as we stand and as we sing.