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  (JOHN) JESUS AND CREATION
  by Brian Brodersen
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Summary: The sermon emphasizes the connection between Jesus and
creation, and argues that evolution is a theory contradicted by the
evidence.

Duration: 52:14 Topics: "Creation Theology", "Gospel Power"
Scripture References: John 1:1

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DESCRIPTION
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In this sermon, the preacher discusses the power of the gospel and how
it cannot be extinguished. He emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the source
of life and that he created all things. The preacher also urges the
audience to have a personal relationship with God and to yield to his
plan for their lives. Additionally, the preacher mentions the conflict
between scientific evidence and beliefs, particularly regarding the
creation of the universe, and highlights the importance of recognizing
the innate knowledge of good and evil that God has instilled in every
person.

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CONTENT
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Open up to John's Gospel, John chapter 1. Let me read to you verses 1
through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made
through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines
in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John is, as we
pointed out previously, intentionally drawing a parallel with Genesis
chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 of course reads, in the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth.

And so here in the opening of John's Gospel, we are told that the Word,
Jesus Christ, is the one through whom the heavens and the earth were
created. This is intentional. John, of course, is being led by the
Spirit, and he goes straight from his statement about the relation
between the Word and God to the phenomenon of creation.

The self-communication of God occurs first in creation, and then
ultimately in the incarnation. That is why creation and salvation are
very closely connected in the New Testament. You see, both of them have
to do with God's self-communication.

The apostle Paul made that same connection so beautifully when he said,
for it is the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness who
has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. You know that there is a huge battle
raging all around us over this issue of creation. And sometimes
Christians foolishly say things like, oh, well, you know, that's not
that big of a deal.

I mean, hey, Genesis, you know, it was a long time ago, and what does
that matter? We just need to concentrate on Jesus. No, that's foolish.
You cannot disconnect Jesus from creation.

He's the Creator. And the New Testament never disconnects it. The New
Testament connects that over and over and over and over again.

Listen to what Paul said in writing to the Colossians concerning Jesus
Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all of
creation, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for
him.

Listen to what we're told in Hebrews chapter 1. God, who at various
times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, has in these last days spoken to us in his Son, whom he has
appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he made or created
the worlds. You see, when we come to understand the connection between
creation and Christ, between Genesis and the New Testament, I think it's
going to give us a better idea of what's going on in our culture in
regard to the issues of creation and evolution. You see, this isn't
merely a cultural war.

This is a spiritual battle, and it's just another manifestation of man's
hostility, his innate hostility toward God. Did you know that the United
States Supreme Court has declared it unconstitutional to teach young
earth creationism as fact in a public school classroom? Can you imagine
that? The U.S. Supreme Court says it's a violation of the Constitution
to teach young earth creationism, and of course it constantly is coming
down in support of the teaching of evolution. In Britain, a friend of
mine was recently told by an Anglican clergyman that he did not know of
one single Anglican minister that believed in a literal interpretation
of the Genesis account of creation.

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't any Anglican clergymen that
believe that. I'm just saying that this man, who is an Anglican
clergyman, said he didn't know of anybody. So it would just show you how
few and far between they are.

The Roman Catholic Church has recently come out with statements to the
effect that the faithful should not believe the accounts in Genesis of
creation as literal, but should understand them as more poetic, and
should stay away from the fundamentalist idea that there was a literal
creation, a six-day creation, and encouraging more an embracing of
evolutionary ideas and so forth. Now, ironically, with all of that going
on, all of the propaganda promoting evolutionism, and the many, many
attempts to discredit creationism, ironically, a recent CBS poll here in
the U.S. found that 51% of those surveyed believe that God created man
in his present form, and another 30% say that God used some sort of
evolutionary process. So 81% of people polled indicated that they
believed that God had some involvement in creation.

In Britain, a recent BBC poll found that half the British population
believe that God is responsible for life. Half the British population.
Now, the pollsters were astounded, the people there in positions of
power in the academic world, everybody was stunned by this poll,
because, of course, Britain has been, in many ways, sort of the
epicenter of the whole evolutionary movement.

Of course, Darwin came from England himself, and so there's a big uproar
now amongst the scientific community because the BBC poll discovered
half the population still believes that God is responsible for life.
Now, I'll bet that that sent Oxford professor Richard Dawkins through
the roof. You see, he thought that it was only dumb Americans that still
believed in creation, or in God.

Now, Dawkins is so sure that evolution happened that he says it is
blasphemy to think or to say otherwise. That's how confident he is that
evolution is not a theory, but is actually a fact. So, what do we say
about this whole idea of evolution? I mean, clearly, as we have read
here in our text tonight, John, in no uncertain terms, states that Jesus
created all things.

By him, or through him, all things were created, and without him not a
single thing that was made was made. That's literally what John said.
So, what do we make of this idea of evolution? Well, quite honestly, it
is a theory contradicted by the evidence.

In 150 years, 155 years or so, they have not been able to come up with
any concrete, substantial, verifiable, empirical evidence for evolution.
But there is this unbelievable insistence coming from much of the
scientific community that evolution had to have occurred. And it's
amazing, if you read the literature, it's amazing how these guys will
just, you know, invent things that no one has ever seen.

It has never been duplicated in a laboratory. Couldn't possibly take
place, but they will come up with this stuff and say, you know, this is
how it happened. But truly, evolution is a theory contradicted by the
evidence.

Many years ago, they stated that within the fossil record, we would find
proof for evolution. You see, of course, they're looking for what was
popularly called the missing link or a transitional form is a more
technical term. You see, the idea behind evolution is that lower life
forms, through a process of time, evolved into more complex and higher
life forms.

And so, they theorized many years ago that the more we dig into the
fossil record, we will find these transitional forms. We will find these
forms that are in this process of transition. But the reality is they've
never found a single transitional form, not even one.

Now, if this occurred like they confidently assert that it had, you
would not only find one or two or five or 15 transitional forms. The
fossil record would be full of them, but there's nothing there, nothing
at all. So, observation and the fossil record support the biblical
account of reproduction after kinds.

If you go back to Genesis 1, 10 times in Genesis 1, it states that what
God created reproduced itself according to its kind. Ten times God says
it there. That's exactly what has been observed all throughout history,
and that is exactly what you see in the fossil record.

Everything reproduces after its kind. There's no blending. There's no
mixture of kinds.

Now, even to this day, evolutionists will still insist that evolution is
taking place. They will go back to some of the arguments of Darwin and
people after him. Every time I read an article on this subject, they
will make reference to these finches, these little birds in the
Galapagos Islands.

And they'll talk about the finch beaks and how some beaks are longer,
some are shorter, some are softer, some are harder. And they'll say, you
see right here, this is evolution in process. We can see it.

When the finch becomes a golden retriever, then we will have to concede
that evolution is a reality. But until then, as long as it remains a
finch, hard beak, soft beak, long beak, short beak, it's still a finch.
It doesn't matter.

You see, the Bible teaches that God created kinds, and within the kind,
there would be a tremendous amount of variation. That's what we see. But
one kind doesn't become another kind.

Never has happened. Never will happen. It is a figment of the
imagination of these men who are committed to this theory that
completely lacks scientific evidence.

I subscribe to this magazine called Natural History, and I don't know
why I do that. It's kind of torturous to read through it. But a few
issues back, the entire issue was edited by Richard Dawkins.

The entire issue was dedicated to proving that evolution is a fact, not
a theory, and doing everything possible to try to discredit creationism
or to try to discredit the intelligent design movement. And as you read
through the various articles, basically you find just a regurgitation of
the same things they've been saying over and over and over again with
absolutely no evidence to support it. And then in regard to the
creationist especially, but also the intelligent design people, there's
just a bunch of slander and a bunch of name-calling because there's
nothing else they can really do.

So that is the reality. Observation and the fossil record record
support, the fossil records support the biblical account of reproduction
after kind. Another area where we see the crisis in the evolutionary
world is in regard to the ape men.

Now, we've all probably heard of or remember hearing about maybe when we
were in school or some of you are in school now, and perhaps you've seen
the charts or heard all about the various different ape men, hominids,
the Nebraska man or the Java man or the Peking man or the Piltdown man
or all of the different names that they give to these supposed creatures
that were evolving from lower life forms, from apes into men. Did you
know that in the scientific community, there is so much confusion and
conflict and argumentation among them? Did you know that there are some
scientists who actually believe that apes evolved from humans rather
than humans evolving from apes? That's how disoriented they are in their
perspective. You see, this isn't a unified school of thought.

There's so much division within it, but they do unify over one thing.
They are all adamantly against the biblical account of creation, and so
that's where they find unity with one another. But when you look at
these ape men, did you know that every one of them have been proven
either to have been a hoax intentionally perpetrated upon people, as was
Nebraska man and Piltdown man, both intentionally fraudulent, and the
rest of them have been proven to be nothing more than either human
skeletal parts or ape skeletal parts? And generally, it's apes.

The only ones probably being Neanderthal man, they've come to the
conclusion that Neanderthal man was actually really man with probably a
severe case of arthritis. But you know, this stuff is taught still
today. It's been totally discredited, but it doesn't stop our public
school systems from still teaching it.

It is astounding. There's another thing that has come a little more
recently that radically contradicts the theory, and that is the idea of
irreducible complexity within the cells. Now, you know that today there
are two movements that are opposing evolutionary theory.

There's the creationist movement, and then there's what's called the
intelligent design movement. Now, the intelligent design people
generally want to disassociate themselves to some degree away from the
creationist because creationism has that stigma of believing in a young
earth, thousands of years rather than millions of years, and a literal
six-day creation as is recorded in Genesis. So, you know, that's
ridiculous.

And as we've already seen, the U.S. Supreme Court has come out and
stated that it's unconstitutional to teach that in the classroom. So,
the intelligent design people are seeking to sort of disassociate
themselves from the creationist simply because they realize we're not
going to get anywhere if we're being identified with that. So, they have
taken a bit of a different approach, and they've sought to show that
there is too great a complexity within nature for it to have occurred
accidentally, which is, of course, what Darwinism teaches, that it all
happened randomly.

Now, within the intelligent design movement, one of the arguments that
they've put forth is this irreducible complexity of the cell. Now, if
you read, like I read about five different articles today, if you read
articles reporting the different battles that are going on in places
over this particular topic, they will generally refer to the intelligent
design people as putting forth an argument that says, you know, things
are too intricately designed to have evolved, therefore there must be a
designer. That's only part of the argument.

And there's a lot to that part of it, but there's another part to it
that makes it really, I think, irrefutable. And it's the irreducible
complexity of the cell. You see, it's not only that a cell is so complex
that it must have been designed, but the cell is irreducibly complex,
meaning that if you took any part of the cell away, the cell itself
could not exist.

Now, you see, the whole idea behind evolution is that things develop
over a long period of time. It's called gradualism, and gradually things
came together. But irreducible complexity shows that you cannot have the
gradual development of a cell.

It has to come together in its entirety, or it can't exist at all. And
Michael Behe, in his book Darwin's Black Box, he entitled the book
Darwin's Black Box to point out that back in Darwin's day, he did not
know about the complexity of the cell. He thought the cell was rather
simple.

And thinking the cell was rather simple, he thought it probably wasn't
all that big of a deal for the evolutionary process to take place. But
what biochemists have come to understand is that the complexity is, it's
just unimaginable. And so, because of the irreducible complexity,
evolution is not a possibility.

Mathematically speaking, evolution is an impossibility, mathematically.
I heard somebody give an example the other day that I thought was quite
astounding. And this was the example.

This is the probability that evolution could have occurred randomly, or
life could have spontaneously generated from nothing, is the same as if
you could take the entire universe, the entire universe, not just our
galaxy, not just all of the planets, not just our solar system, not just
the stars, not just our galaxy, but if you could take the entire
universe, all of the many galaxies, if you could take it all and reduce
it down to its molecular base, in other words, if you could reduce it
all to atoms, you'd have quite a few atoms, to say the least. Now, let's
say that you could somehow mark one of those atoms. Or in this case,
you'd have to mark several, but we'll do it one at a time.

If you could mark one, then blindfold yourself. And then, on your first
attempt, reach out into the universe reduced to atoms and find the one
marked one. If you could do that 1,300 consecutive times, then evolution
might have been able to occur.

Now, needless to say, this is a mathematical impossibility. Somebody
said if you won the lottery two or three times in a row, they'd shut the
thing down. Because it can't, you know, in a random situation, it just
cannot occur.

But this is, this is mathematics. Now, it's so, the irony is that those
who are still holding fast to evolutionary theory, they are not able to
do it. They will refer to people who are in the intelligent design
movement as mindless, numbskulls, uneducated.

Their scientific degrees are invalidated, they say. Richard Dawkins
refers to them as pseudo-scientists, because no true scientist, he said,
would believe anything but evolution. But you see, when you look at the
lack of support for evolution in the fossil record, when you look at the
ape-man hoax, when you look at the irreducible complexity of the cell,
and all of these things, they're all basically telling us the same
thing.

Evolution did not occur, could not have occurred. Let me quote to you
from a few well-known scientists who are not by any stretch believers.
These are men who are very well known in the scientific community, and
most of them probably still holding on to evolutionary ideas in one way
or another, amazingly.

But let me quote to you from these guys. I just want to give you a real
clear picture of what those in the scientific community believe.
Scientific community who are being honest are thinking and feeling.

NASA astronomer, Robert Jastrow, he said, I'm fascinated by some strange
developments going on in astronomy, partly because of their religious
implications and partly because of the peculiar reaction of my
colleagues. The essence of the strange developments is that the universe
had in some sense a beginning, and that it began at a certain moment in
time. Most remarkable of all, astronomers have found proof that the
universe sprang into existence abruptly in a sudden moment of creation
as the Bible said it did.

Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the universe had
a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. It turns out that the
scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in
conflict with the evidence. For the scientist who has lived by his faith
and the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.

He has scaled the mountains of ignorance. He is about to conquer the
highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by
a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

Now that's Robert Jastrow, NASA astronomer. Listen to physicist Sir
James Jeans. Nature seems very conversant with the rules of pure
mathematics.

In the same way, a scientific study of the action of the universe has
suggested a conclusion which may be summed up in the statement that the
universe appears to have been designed by a pure mathematician. The
universe can be best pictured, although still very imperfectly and
inadequately, as consisting of pure thought. If the universe is a
universe of thought, then its creation must have been the act of the
thought or an act of thought.

If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creation must have
been an act of thought. Indeed, the finiteness of time and space almost
compels us of ourselves to picture the creation as an act of thought.
Modern scientific theory compels us to think of the creator as working
outside time and space, which are part of his creation, just as the
artist is outside of his canvas.

Now this man is not a creationist by any stretch, but he's just looking
at the reality. The universe is designed. And he says it seems
inescapable that there would be a designer.

Nobel Prize-winning biologist Francis Crick passed away recently. He was
involved in the process of discovering DNA. He said, an honest man armed
with all the knowledge available to us now could only state that in some
sense the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.

So many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied
to get it going. This is the same man who said that it is impossible, it
is an impossibility that evolution could have occurred on this planet.
So you know what he concluded? He concluded that it occurred on another
planet and space people brought it here to earth.

Now if that's not science, I don't know what is. Here's a final one. And
this one to me, this one says it all.

Harvard University biochemist George Wald. Listen to what he said. One
has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the
spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible.

Yet we are here as a result I believe of spontaneous generation. Listen,
when it comes to the origin of life, now this guy is being dead honest.
Listen to what he says.

When it comes to the origin of life, there are only two possibilities,
creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Now listen,
spontaneous generation was disproved 100 years ago.

It was disproved but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of
supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds.
Therefore we choose to believe the impossible that life arose
spontaneously by chance.

Now there is an honest man right there. He's an honest man. He's telling
the truth.

Spontaneous generation is impossible. Disproved, there is no way it
happened. But the alternative is God and we cannot live with that as an
alternative.

So again what does it show us? It shows us that what's going on is not a
battle over science and superstition. And that's constantly how it's
being represented in the media, isn't it? All these medieval minded
Christians trying to take us back to the dark ages. They're coming in
and they want to teach our children that there's a creator.

And they're attacking science, they say. No, the superstition is
evolutionary theory. And you know if you listen to a debate between an
evolutionist and a creationist or intelligent design scientist, you find
that they have no evidence to marshal to their cause.

So they are forced then to just revert to a name calling kind of a
situation. That's the only defense they have. Now going back to our
text, as we have diverted a bit, notice it says, all men are equal.

All men are equal and all things were made through him. And without him
not one thing was made that was made. That's literally what it says.

Not one thing. Now moving away from the evolutionary issues for a
moment, you know there are those who would tell us that Jesus Christ is
a created being himself. They would say that he's a creature rather than
the creator.

And they would say that he was the first of the created order and then
the rest of creation happened through him. But they definitely assert
that he is a created being. He is a creature.

But notice, without him there was not one thing made that was made. See
John couldn't have said that if that had been the case. Because there
would have been one thing that was made without him and that would have
been he himself.

But John says, no there's not one thing. And of course as we've seen,
the Lord Jesus Christ shares in the eternal name of Jesus Christ. Nature
along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

But verse 4 John tells us concerning Christ that in him was life. You
see life, this thing that we experience, it's not simply created by him.
It proceeds from him.

In him was life. And in him was life. And in him was life.

You see every living thing, every living thing owes its life to him.
That's why Paul would say in Colossians, we read the passage there about
him having created everything. But then Paul goes on to say that by him
all things consist.

And what he means by that is that everything that is, is presently being
held together by him. You see it's not that Jesus created everything and
then stepped back from it. He created everything and he's still
intimately involved in it.

He's enabling it to go on. Because life itself is vitally and
essentially connected to him and apart from him you can't have life.
There is no such thing as life apart from him.

Peter refers to him as the author of life. He is the author of life.
Life is because of Jesus Christ.

In him was life. Isn't it interesting when you think about that? You
know we really have no power over life, do we? Which one of you in this
room or maybe somebody listening over there, which one of you are
responsible for your own existence? We had nothing to do with it. We had
no say so in the matter, did we? He's the one who has given us life.

And isn't it a strange thing but a sad reality that as much as we would
want to hold on to life, we can't even do that. We can't even do it. Oh
how many people have come to that point where life is expiring and with
everything in them, if they could, they would pay anything.

They might even have all of the money, imaginable. But they can't buy
life. They might have all the power but they don't have power over that
one thing.

Think of all the people that have lived and died, all the people that
have exerted power, all the people that have ruled throughout human
history, all the great rulers and kings and even dictators. All of the
power that they possessed but when it came to this one issue, they had
no power whatsoever. You see it just shows us clearly that life is
outside of our grasp.

It's outside of our power. It's outside of our control. It doesn't have
anything to do with us.

In him was life. He's the author of life. In him was life and the life
was the light of men.

The life of God that he has imparted to us has also included in it
light. Light, did you know that people have to be taught atheism? It is
not the natural inclination of a human being. It is not natural.

It is not the natural inclination of a human being. It is unnatural. You
have to be educated in atheism because you would not naturally draw the
conclusion because the very life that is in us has also brought us
light, at least enough light to know that there is a creator.

A few weeks ago when we had our missions conference we had with us Frank
Drown who spent almost 40 years in the jungles of Ecuador ministering to
the Chihuahua people. And as he was sharing with us he asked a question.
He asked the question, would God really send people like those people to
hell? Or in other words was it really necessary for a missionary to go
and bring the gospel to them? And then he proceeded to explain to us by
his own experience what those people knew.

Now most people would assume that they did not know anything. But what
he discovered in his time with them is that they knew a lot more than
anyone ever would have imagined. They knew there was a creator.

They knew it intuitively. There is no question about it. They lived in
the jungle.

They saw the trees. They lived there at the base of the Andes. And then
of course the animals were all around them.

And they looked at it and they drew the conclusion that any thinking
person would draw. There must be a creator. They knew there was a
creator.

They also knew about a fall from a relationship with a creator. They
knew somehow that God had fallen. They knew somehow that things had gone
wrong.

That went back in their folklore. They also had a story of a universal
flood. They also believed in a hell.

And they believed they were going there. Amazing. Now you see
psychologists and sociologists, anthropologists, these people, they
study societies and cultures and all of that.

And they look on at our society and we're a society that's riddled with
guilt and we've got all these problems. And they say, well, it's because
of our upbringing. We've been made to feel guilty over things that we
shouldn't feel guilty over.

And it's all has to do with your upbringing. It all has to do with your
culture. It all has to do with how you were raised.

They say, you see these people out here, they don't have any of these
restrictions put on them and they just live these wonderful lives and
they don't ever feel bad or guilty about anything. And well, Frank told
an interesting story about how in this particular tribe, they were
warring with other tribes and they would kill each other. They were
revenge killings.

And the witch doctors were generally the ones that were killed because
they were the ones who were believed to cast the spells that caused the
death. And so the witch doctor would be hunted down and killed and
beheaded and then their heads would be shrunk. And Frank tells a story,
and you can read it in his book if you pick up his book, but he tells a
story of how they went to kill this particular witch doctor.

And he builds the drama and finally comes down to the fact that they
murdered this guy. But what he doesn't tell you in the book is the
conversation that he had with the guy who cut off his head later. And
what the amazing thing is, this man told him that when he was taking off
his head, he was terrified.

He was petrified. And Frank said to him, what were you afraid of? How
could you have any fear? There were two women with the man and they had
fled. There was nobody else around.

He was there with his fellow tribesmen and they were not in any danger.
And he said to him, why were you afraid? And you know what the man said?
He said, I was afraid because I knew what I was doing was evil. How did
he know that what he was doing was evil? No one ever told him it was
evil.

They told him it was the right thing to do. But you see, intuitively he
knew it was evil because God instilled it in the heart. The law of God
is written on the heart.

You shall not commit murder. It's there. And even though it was
culturally acceptable, even though everybody around thought it was the
right thing to do and the best thing to do and the noble thing to do,
this guy knew in his heart, this is wrong.

In him was life and the life was the light of men. As sure as we have
life, we also have light. You see, there's not a person on the planet
who's guiltless because everyone has a degree of light.

And when a man sins, he sins against light. That's the whole point of
Romans chapter one. And that's why Paul says men are without excuse.

There's not a single person that's going to be able to stand before God
in the future and say, you know what, I didn't know. You can't judge me
because I wasn't aware of these things. No, everyone has been given
light.

And the light shines in the darkness. Now Jesus, of course, gives light
beyond just that light that's connected to our creation. He gives us
light beyond that.

He gives us the light of life, eternal life. And I think both things are
probably included in this, but notice, and the light shines in the
darkness. The idea is the light continues to shine in the darkness and
the darkness did not, past tense, extinguish it.

That's the idea. Most of our translations read comprehend it. That's the
wrong translation of the word.

The idea of, of darkness comprehending light is not really consistent
with the biblical idea of man and sin. Man in sin doesn't go toward the
light and try to understand it. Man in sin goes away from the light.

He hides from it. So this word that's translated, comprehended, this
verb can also be translated, overcome or extinguish. And that's really
the idea.

And what is being said here is that Jesus, he continues to shine his
light into the world and the darkness did not overcome it. Probably a
reference to his victory at the cross. When all the powers of darkness,
Jesus said that when he was being arrested and led away to be tried and
condemned and crucified, he said to them, this is your hour and the
power of darkness.

But the darkness could not extinguish the light, could not overcome the
light. And of course we know that Jesus came through that victoriously.
But even today you think of it, think of, as we were talking about
earlier, think of all of the forces at work to try to extinguish the
light, to try to overcome the light, to try to put out the light.

And again, referring back to those recent polls, I just think of the
irony of that. After all of these years of education, after everything
from sitting in your classroom to what you would watch on television to
just hearing this over and over and over again about millions and
billions of years and there is no God and we all evolved and all of
that. And yet we find that still at least half the population hasn't
bought into it.

The darkness has not been able to overcome the light. The light is still
shining. The light shines in the darkness.

The darkness did not overcome it. But of course, again, the greater
light that's shining is the light of the gospel. The light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as Paul said.

That's the glorious light that has not been overcome, that will never be
overcome. You think of these countries that have been sought to do away
with any belief in God. The communist nations declaring themselves to be
atheistic nations.

And yet we know that there was always a faithful remnant of people
amongst those nations believing. And when that power, that stronghold
was broken, we saw the great hunger and thirst that people had for the
gospel. And we see that same thing today.

There's this attempt to put out the light, to extinguish it, but it
can't be done. That must be so frustrating to the devil. You know, he
just can't.

He just seems like he maybe squelches it in one place and then somewhere
else it just pops up. The light of life, the light of men. So as we
close tonight, remember this.

In Him, in Jesus Christ is life. He created all things, visible and
invisible. He created the earth, the heavens, all of the various life
forms.

And ultimately, of course, He created us. And He created us to know Him,
to have a personal relationship with Him, to live for Him, to do His
will. And as we close tonight, I just wonder if there's anyone here who
maybe has not yet come to know Him.

He created you and He loves you and He has a plan for your life. And all
you need to do is yield to Him. Just surrender.

Yield yourself up. It's, it's, it's, it's utterly foolish to try to
think that you were not created. It's utterly foolish to think that
you're here by accident.

It's utterly foolish to think that having been created, we do not have
some accountability to the Creator. And of course, Jesus has come and
told us that we have much that we are accountable for. And primarily
that's to believe in Him, to put our trust in Him.

And so tonight, I just want to give you an opportunity to do that as we
finish up the service this evening. Just over on my left and your right
is the prayer room back there. And there are some folks back there,
they'd love to pray with you.

If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, He created you, He died
to redeem you and He wants to have fellowship with you. Go over to the
prayer room and let them pray with you. Lead you in a simple prayer and
you can leave here tonight knowing the God who made you and the God who
loves you, the God who's waiting to work in your life and bless you.

Don't let that opportunity pass you by. Let's pray. Father, we thank you
for your Word and the many infallible proofs of the truth of your Word.

And Lord Jesus, that you are indeed our Creator, that we are not here by
accident. But Lord, you made us. You made us for a purpose, to know you,
to love you, to serve you.

And so, Lord, we want to commit ourselves to you tonight in a fresh and
a new commitment to follow you, to live for you and to glorify you. So
take our lives, receive our praise. Let's pray.

Work in us your perfect will for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.

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Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/11/SID11256.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/brian-brodersen/john-jesus-and-creation/
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