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Computer Fiascos:
1. An irate customer called the hotline complaining about software not working. The man at the 800 number told her to mail in a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later, the corporate office received a letter from the lady containing Xeroxed copies of the faulty floppies.
2. A man called in to vent some steam about how his computer wouldn’t fax anything. He had been holding a sheet of paper against the screen and vainly hitting the “send” button over and over.
3. A third dissatisfied customer howled that her new computer wouldn’t power up, even though she had hit the neat little foot pedal a great number of times. It turned out the “foot pedal” was actually the computer mouse.
4. The technician from Dell suggested to a flummoxed customer: “Mister, what you really need is to go to your local Egghead.” “I’ve got several of those,” the angry man replied. When told that “Egghead” was the name of a popular local computer store, the client blushed and admitted: “Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of computer geeks.”
Even when computers are a mystery to us, we know it is a designed item. Somebody thought it up, researched it, and went to the drawing board.
Family Story: In How Now Shall We Live, Chuck Colson relates the tale of a father and daughter at Disney World. Every exhibit seems to powerfully support the cosmic accident of evolution; Dave Mulholland’s belief system is under attack. He finally buys Katy an ice cream cone; as they sit on a bench, he observes: “It’s an immutable law of the universe, honey: everything that is designed has a designer.”
Mount Rushmore: No tourist with a brain ever says to his family, as they travel through South Dakota: “Oh, look, kids, at what the wind and the rain and the snow and the eons of time and the ‘glacial erosion’ of drip-drip-drip caused to show up. Cool! There’s Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson and Roosevelt all by blind luck!” You know that an architect named John G. Borglum came along with a pretty big rock hammer and a designer’s vision and the willingness to painstakingly birth the dream in his mind’s eye.
Watch This! English theologian William Paley used this illustration two centuries ago. If you’re walking along a beach and suddenly bend over and pick up a beautiful watch, ticking away and keeping good time, you don’t say to yourself: “Amazing what the waves and the pounding surf and the tug of the tides will fling together if you just let enough centuries go by! A really nice watch that says Rolex on it! Thank you very much, currents and crawfish. I think I’ll keep this.” No, a wise person remembers what it says in Isaiah 40 and gives God the credit.
Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Colson concludes: “Paul teaches that those who look honestly at the world around them should be able to conclude that it was created by an intelligent Being.”
The Miracle of Birth: What an increasing number of scientists are now conceding is a valid field of study, “ID,” or “Intelligent Design,” is even more true as this dad at Disney World talks to Katy about the fact that he IS her dad. Simply having a child—you talk about design! When one egg and one sperm get together—just two tiny cells—and then for nine months multiply and divide, turning into all the right clusters of more cells, organs, blood, lungs, heart, brain, skin, entire systems. All at once, you see this new little life emerge. And it has a face! How did two cells turn into a little scrunched-up face? There are two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a very noisy little mouth and vocal cords. Within 15 minutes Daddy’s giving her a bath and even having to already change a diaper, so those functions are working too. And he says to himself: “This is a designed miracle. This child is fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are the works of God!” (Psalm 139:14.) This concerned-but-still-proud papa, Dave Mulholland, said to his daughter as they sat eating their overpriced Disney ice cream bars: “Honey, everything I know about the universe, including my incredibly beautiful daughter, indicates to me that somebody designed it. Created it.”
Law & Order: Many branches of science concede that some form of “Intelligent Design” must surely be real—and reluctantly use the idea in their work. Colson writes regarding forensic science: “When police find a body, their first question is, Was this death the result of natural causes or foul play (an intentional act by an intelligent being)? Pathologists perform a battery of fairly straightforward tests to get an answer.” A TV detective looks in the carpeting for clues; he sees a piece of thread here that doesn’t look quite right, a bit of fluff over there which doesn’t fit. Is there, as the title suggests, CI—criminal intent? Some person behind the evidence. Did the victim just slip and fall, or were they pushed?
Conclusion: “The Christian worldview [tells] us we were created by a transcendent God who loves us and has a purpose for us. Nature itself is covered with His ‘fingerprints,’ marks of purpose in every area of scientific investigation.”
Invitation: It is a wonderful spiritual breakthrough when a man or woman finally looks beyond the limited horizon of their own little world and determines to see the fingerprints of God. Many couples wait the nine months and go into the delivery room, see that scrunched-up face make its miraculous debut . . . and don’t see beyond a romantic evening of fantasy and flowers nine months before. Babies get here because of what it says in the biology textbook and the sex ed curriculum. They simply don’t SEE that their own baby having ten unique little fingerprints shouts at us: “God’s fingerprints were here first! You didn’t make this new life; God did! Wake up and smell the coffee.”
Say right now: “Everything created must have a Creator . . . and I would like to get to know myCreator.”
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Submitted by David B. Smith. Better Sermons © 2005-2007. Click here for usage guidelines.