Life, Like a Watch, Is Designed in an Array of Systems Within Systems

Alright, those are the announcements for today. Now go right to the main message for today. And of course, it has to do with lessons from being outdoors. You look around the beauty, the design of everything around us. Sometimes we don't have time to look and appreciate everything our Creator God has done for us. Just think of all the work it took to make a tree like this that gives us oxygen, that absorbs carbon dioxide, that provides a home for the birds, gives us shade, it also provides wood energy to warm many homes. And so, I'd like Shaili to come forward, just come around this way next to me. And I have this visual that I'll be presenting to you about nature.

And I have two boxes here. And I'll have Shaili just lift the first box, see what's there. Yes. All right. A rock. Very good, very good. All right. Now, Shaili, how old do you think this rock is? I think it's older than me. Yes. Yes. Rocks have been around for a long time. They can even be produced by volcanoes. These are igneous rocks. Then you have the pressure that's metamorphic rock.

And you also have water that has settled in the mud. And that's sedimentary. So this is more of a sedimentary rock. Now, who made that rock? God. Okay. So we believe God made it. Now, a lot of people would say, well, it just happened. This rock just is part of matter. And there's no design in this. It's just part of what nature has produced. And it certainly created, in the sense of dirt and sand and hardening to make it. And if you saw this in the forest, you would know how old it is. You probably would know the composition of it. And it wouldn't really catch your attention. But how about this other box? Go ahead and lift it.

What if you were walking across a forest and found that? Go ahead and show it to everybody. Okay. Now, how old do you think this watch is? You think it's a couple thousand years old like this rock? No, it looks pretty new. All right. And who made this watch? Who do you think just designed it and made it? God. Okay. He's the one that brought all the materials. But man has to design it, right? I don't think a monkey made this, right? You wouldn't think a monkey would make a watch? And actually, people that are specialized. So a watchmaker has to make this watch.

And that's the difference between a rock and a watch. Thank you. Give her a round of applause. All right. Now we have a handout that is going to be given to each row and then in the back area to just go ahead and pass it along. And the title of this message is that life, like a watch, is designed in an array of systems within systems, all integrally assembled to work.

We have a watch here. Most people have it. Now, the coolest watch I ever saw was one that my mother received as an heirloom. When we fled Cuba, we basically had to hide in the luggage and in the clothing everything we would take with us. We left our home. We left jobs. I was only seven years old. But my mother was able to hide a watch she brought from Cuba. And it's kind of like the equivalent of a Rolex watch today, but it's called the Patek Philippe watch.

And I remember she'd have it. It was more of a pocket watch that people used to use. I remember she'd hang it around her neck. And I always like to see it because if you turned it around, instead of having a solid cover, it was glass. It was made out of crystal. And you could watch all the cogs as it told time.

Now this particular Patek Philippe, and you can see as it is passed out, it can do several things at the same time. It not only tells time, but also it can show you the day of the month, the phases of the moon. And it's also a stopwatch. Now this is an example of something that is designed with systems within systems. See, you've got to have one that's just based on the date, telling you the right date.

But at the same time, it's moving other cogs, which tell you the time. Others are telling you the phases of the moon. And others are ready if you want to use it as a stopwatch. The point is that, just like a watchmaker, has to put all of this together. And each part is integrated into the hole without affecting the rest. Because if you had a system that you put in, and you're actually creating spaces which clogs the other system, it's not going to work. So if you look, the Patek Philippe Swiss watch has 265 parts.

And this little part of a watch, 265 parts. And there are systems within the systems. Now, all those gears and cogs had to be designed to give the exact time, the date. Everything has to be timed in the same way. Now, I want to introduce you to one of the great writers and scientists back in the early 1800s. His name was William Paley, a British author. How many have ever heard of William Paley? Okay, a few. William Paley wrote the book Natural Theology. And it was a classic in his time. And he is the author of the watch analogy. He's the one that said if you're walking through woods and you stumble upon a rock, you're going to think that's natural, that can happen.

But then, if you stumble across a watch, you know that is different from a rock. Because the design of it cannot just evolve on its own. It needed intelligence, it needed precision to be able to make it. Now, when Charles Darwin, in 1859, a little over, this was written in 1803, it was a required reading in Oxford, Cambridge, and basically here in the United States.

And then Charles Darwin came because this analogy of design in the cogs was throwing a monkey wrench into his theory of evolution. So he attacked this book of Halley, but he did it in a very clever and diabolical way. He knew it was absolutely true. All of this is designed, the trees, the animals, the cell. You see there is a comparison of the cell. The cell has 200 different types in the human body, all working together without getting in the way. Imagine if you had a heart cell that's pumping and it gets involved in the lung area.

It just messes up the whole works. And the cell itself has 13 parts that all work together. And that's from the most primitive cell to, of course, the human body. And so Darwin knew he could not refute this idea, but he used a very clever scheme that lawyers will go to, and that is the loose brick strategy. In other words, you can't refute that this is a building, but let's look at this. This brick is kind of loose, and that's what Darwin used. And he said, well, Mr. Paley shows us how everything is so elaborate and design, but he says this is all made by a good God, a God that made everything so perfect.

And Darwin says, I've got them. Because Darwin then said, look at the cruelty in nature. Look at how animals just kill each other. And look at these wasps that inject into a spider the venom, and then the eggs come out. And so he used this, which was this tiny little evidence, and Mr. Paley did not mention it because he didn't even conceive somebody would come up with this argument. And so the Bible does show that we do not live in a perfect world today. We live in a fallen world.

And because Paley did not bring this up, Darwin went after him, and he said, well, not everything is right. And look how cruel, and look at all the animals eating other animals and killing and all of this. So let's go to the Bible and see what is the answer. That really, Mr. Paley was attacked unfairly with this type of malicious argument.

Notice what it says in Genesis 1, verse 31. After God created the animals, he says in Genesis 1, verse 31, then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. But what happened? Later in chapter 3, it says here in verse 17, after Adam and Eve sinned, then to Adam, he said, verse 17 of Genesis 3, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake.

So, of course, that wasn't going to produce the abundance. People have to work so hard to get food to grow. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. That wasn't the case in the Garden of Eden. See, in the Garden of Eden, it was everything abundance. There was peace and harmony. And he says, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. So now you're going to have all kinds of damaging plants.

Also, this is when the animals were changed. Their constitution, instead of being vegetarians, they became animals that would eat meat and all kinds of things would happen. And it says, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. You shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. Now, that is the present case. We live in a fallen world. And that's why the cruelty and the law of the jungle, the strongest survive, that's what governs.

But that's not always going to be because the earth is going, when Christ comes back, to return to the state that it was during the time of Eden. Notice in Isaiah 11, Isaiah 11, in verse 5, talking about Christ and His coming kingdom, he says, righteousness shall be the belt of His loins and faithfulness, the belt of His waist. In the previous verse, he says, but with righteousness He shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. That hasn't happened, but it will. And once he establishes his kingdom, verse 6, See, nowadays, there are mortal enemies. A wolf will kill the lamb. But here, it says it will dwell. The leopard shall lie down with a young goat. Again, mortal enemies today.

Now they're at peace. And the calf and the young lion, again, some mortal enemies now, and the fatling together. And a little child shall lead them. There's no danger, there's no evil, there's no survival of the fittest. The cow and the bear shall graze. Again, mortal enemies now. The young one shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. They will become vegetarian, but they call herbivores.

And it says, verse 9, They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. So when Darwin attacked Paley, he knew this was a key moment. If he could undermine and throw doubt on Paley's arguments, then his theory of evolution would be more widely accepted.

And that's what happened. But it didn't have to do with Paley's arguments. Those were solid. It was just that Paley didn't take into account somebody who was going to attack because he says, Well, right now the earth isn't so perfect, and we have violence, and we have all this venomous animals and venomous plants.

How can you say it's all so good? But it was just, again, an argument out of deceit. And that's the way human beings were deceived. I'm just going to mention a couple of the differences between evolution and creation today. Because when Paley wrote that, that was 1803. Now we've got 220 years or so of much more information. Paley's book would have been much fuller because the evidence has been going against Darwin. With now the discovery that cells are programmed by genetic digital information, just like the types that we use for computer software.

In other words, there's this electronic instruction manual in the simplest of cells. How did that information come? Who got it? So here are the differences in why Darwin was wrong. 1. Evolution cannot explain the appearance of the first cell that is equipped with the ability to program itself. In other words, it's not only the hardware, the cell with its 17 parts, but also you have a program to run it. Just like a computer doesn't work unless you have a software for it.

Just because you have the hardware doesn't do anything. It's the software that gets it moving and acting. So the first cell had to be equipped with the ability to program itself with a genetic code. It could fully reproduce itself. So it's not just creating the first cell, because if it didn't have the ability to reproduce, that cell would have died. And then you have to start from scratch again. No, you have to have a self-replicating system. And up to today, with all the computers of the world, with all the laboratories of the world, they have never designed something that will reproduce itself.

That it has the genetic or the operating material to reproduce. It's too complex. It also can repair itself. The first cell had to be able to repair itself, or else it wouldn't have survived. It had to feed itself and also to eliminate waste products. So all of this has to be involved, because in order to have a cell working, it has to be nourished. And then you have waste products, that if you don't have a way to eliminate them, they'll poison the cell. Number two, evolution cannot explain where the instructions for building and maintaining the cell came from. The DNA has been the mortal enemy of the theory of evolution.

It's the Achilles heel, because here you have a genetic code that is based on intelligent information. The last time I saw it, that genetic information in the human body, in one of the cells of the human body, is enough to fill 4,000 volumes worth of instructions. It would be longer than a football field of instruction manuals in this tiny little cell.

Who wrote it? How do you get it compressed? How do you get it to be read? So none of these things have been answered. There's this loud silence from science about it. You're never going to read about this in the biology books. Number three, evolution cannot explain how the different parts of the cell came together at the precise time without damage to the other parts. Just like this. How did the cell organize itself? That each one is producing what's necessary.

One is eliminating waste products. The other one is processing the energy you need. The other one is the brain's programming things. How did everything get together without jamming the rest?

Number four, evolution cannot explain systems working within other systems to cooperate. So that's one of the Achilles heel again, because it's not just a system. Inside is another system. You have the lungs, the pulmonary system. It has to be in its own enclosed section, and it has to work with the heart. It has to work with the circulatory system. All of these are working together just like the cogs in a watch without getting in the way. We have all of these organs, and they all are cooperating, and none of them hinder the others. By the way, there's a very good book. It's called The Body's Design, and it's by what they call systems engineers. That's their specialty, and they analyzed the human body. It is mind-blowing how much of these systems within subsystems, and they're all working in harmony. See, Paley didn't know that. If Darwin would have known this, he never would have written his book. Then, fifth, evolution cannot explain the law of biogenesis. Any other kids learned in biology, what is biogenesis? The law of biogenesis. The law of biogenesis is one of the few laws that biology is in agreement with. That is, that life can only appear from life, not from non-life. Nobody's ever seen that. Something that was non-living all of a sudden arises, because you'd need a computer system inside DNA and all of this. It's like the question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? How many think it was the egg? Raise your hands. Well, if you say the eggs, how did the egg come? It came from the chicken. But, someone will say, yes, but the chicken came from the egg. So, you see, according to evolution, somehow you had to develop, first of all, a chicken, evolve a chicken that can produce an egg that's also evolution. Well, the Bible tells us in Genesis 1 that God created the animals. So, the answer is that God made the first chickens, and chickens can produce eggs. You have to get started with something that can make something and make eggs. Notice what it tells us in Psalm 139, verse 13 through 18, talking about the human body. Now, David lived about a thousand years before Jesus Christ was born, around the year 1000 BC. But, he had enough understanding that he used the human body as an example for believing in the Creator God. He said, talking about God, for you formed my inward parts. Yes, all of my organs, he's saying, you covered me in my mother's womb. So, here's this little baby inside the womb of a mother, all programmed to develop. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. So, that's a beautiful description. And when it talks about fearfully, it means awesomely, marvelously. He says, marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. We've accepted that. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret. There, nobody could tell as the embryo started developing. He says, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, because we all come from being dust, and out of this God created the human body. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed as it grew in the womb. And in your book, they are all well written. God has an instruction book. He knows how to make people the day's fashion for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, there would be more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. Just like Graham's message about being conscious of God, praying to God. When you wake up, you're still connected to God. When we go to bed, that's when we say goodbye for that moment, but then in the morning, we're back.

Now, this analogy between the rock and the watch is something that isn't just to understand God as a creator, but also that God is love. Who would have designed all of this, taken all this time, if it isn't that He has a greater purpose for all of us? Notice what it tells us in 1 John chapter 3. Starting in verse 1, it says, My brethren, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God. In other words, what honor it is. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know Him. The world doesn't know that God is a family that is growing, and we're having a chance to be part of that family. Then he goes on to say, beloved, now we are the children of God. If we have His Holy Spirit in us, we're already in the process of preparing ourselves for that kingdom. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. We're still not transformed yet. But we know that when He is revealed, talking about Christ, we shall be like Him. We'll have a spirit body, we'll have the intellect, the character that is shaped and designed to be like His. For we shall see Him as He is, spirit seeing spirit. We can't do that now as human beings. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself just as He is pure. So we're in the process of purifying ourselves, but we know the purpose of life. We know how much God has taken time, the love that He has expressed to call us, to pay for our sins. Notice another scripture in 1 John 4, verse 8, just another chapter across the page. He says, verse 8, He who does not love does not know God. For God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. And this is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His only Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. And so it's greater than just an analogy of a watch. It's talking about a family that God is creating, and that we have a chance to be part of it in the future.

So, I just got a few more scriptures. In 1 Timothy 6, let's go back. 1 Timothy 6. In verse 20, Paul warns Timothy, O Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust. Guard these truths, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. And so, of course, they had all kinds of false teachings at that time. The Gnostic heresy had taken over as well about God actually not having His Son here on earth as a human being. The Gnostics believed that that was just Christ coming, but then before being crucified going up to heaven. They had all kinds of weird ideas. But what is falsely called knowledge. It's very interesting what the believers Bible commentary says about this verse. This verse may also be applied to many forms of natural science as taught in our schools today. Actually, no true finding of science will ever contradict the Bible because the secrets of science were placed in the universe by the same one who wrote the Bible, God Himself. But many so-called facts of science are in reality nothing but unproven theories. Let's go to the last scripture, Psalm 14. Sums up what we've been talking about. When you think that a rock and a watch evolved without any intelligent intervention. Psalm 14 verse 1. It says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none who does good. Darwin, when his daughter Anne was sick, nine-year-old daughter, and she had a very prolonged sickness. After Anne died at the age of 10, he said, God, I'm going to get you back. I'm going to design something that's going to damage. He turned against him and became an enemy. That's in the biographies of Darwin. What happened, he became an embittered man, blamed God for what had happened. And by the way, Darwin's family, a lot of them died because he married his first cousin. Genetically, they were too similar. They didn't have the protections of separate family lines. It was the same family line. He had all kinds of things. That's something the Bible says. Don't marry the close of kin, like first cousins, which he did. He had a lot of responsibility in this. It goes on to say, verse 2, the Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good. No, not one. So, most people don't want to get closer to God. But we're here enjoying this beautiful day. And let's remember the lesson of the Rock and the Watch.