 Just to let you know, Art Bell passed away yesterday. I don't know how many of you know who he is. Yeah, he founded the largest radio audience program ever, Coast to Coast AM, which ran from like 11 p.m. till 5 in the morning. Actually brought it up to an audience of 10 million listeners. Did you talk about UFOs? Oh yeah, UFOs. I mean, if you're addressing an audience that's up at 3 a.m., what do you talk about, right? So, it's all the stuff that goes creaks in the night that... There you go. Bigfoot? Yeah, I mean... Well, what was interesting about Art is he would actually have me on a show once in a while, typically I'd get on like once a year. And the last time I was on, I was on with Fuzz, and he had us on for four whole hours. But towards that last hour, he basically said, no, you guys are Christians, right? What is this gospel thing all about? And so, he gave us like 15 minutes really just to explain the gospel. And he said, that really sounds attractive. I mean, I don't know whether he ever gave his life to Christ or not, but the very fact that he gave us a clear opportunity to present the gospel to an audience of people who believe in UFOs and aliens and conspiracy theories about how the government's doing this and that, well, the government does do a lot of things. So, I can see why. So, they called in and asked you questions? Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing Art would do. He'd let me field calls from people calling in, literally from around the world. So, couldn't believe he got 10 million night owls that are up there listening to radio, but they do. Anyway, he passed away. He is now taken over the program. He also has us on probably about once a year. So, and Georgia also gives us some good opportunities. Clearly, it's a program that's dominated by unbelievers, but I am grateful that we've had the opportunity to really clearly lay out the difference between Christianity and why Christianity provides a rational way to evaluate these claims and actually led to me doing a debate with a very frequent guest that Art would bring on. He was a big UFO guy. A guy who believed that aliens had actually set up civilizations on the surface of Mars. So, wound up doing a major debate with him at the University of Wisconsin. And, you know, why we know for sure aliens haven't been here. Haven't been to Mars. The other thing they always talk about is how the aliens help the Egyptians build the pyramids. And this gave me an interesting opportunity. People often think that people who lived thousands of years ago just weren't as smart as we are. They were incredible in what they were able to do. And so, this idea that they needed the technology of aliens to build pyramids. You know, it is true that these pyramids are designed to within a 15th diameter of the moon in terms of the orientations. And basically, people concluded that had to be beyond the technology of people who did not have telescopes. But what they don't realize is a degree to which the Egyptian government invested in astronomy. And they had this whole team of astronomers making accurate measurements, basically using transit instruments. They would set up a telescope that would be right on the north-south line. And they would literally time it with their heartbeat at a high precision. And they were able to make measurements with that degree of accuracy. And they would also say, well, there's no way you could build a pyramid of that size with that degree of accuracy. Well, if you've got 100,000 slaves working for, you know, 60, 70 years, and you've got all these astronomers that are giving you the measurements they need, it's no big deal. Hard to imagine that we would ever hire 100,000 people to work for 60 years at 12 hours a day today. That just wouldn't happen. Or what I tell my astronomer friends, there was a time in the history of the Egyptian Empire where 25% of the national income went for the support of astronomy. As an astronomer, I'm a little bit envious. So today we're surviving on .0025%. So, yes. It was, and those stone masons would work on a block for months. I mean, we'd get the idea, okay, we're going to build a stone building. Just get a saw, chop it up, put it up. But no, they would make the stones so perfectly rectangular that they could actually set the stones on top of one another without any kind of cement because of how smoothly that they... So, I mean, we just wouldn't spend that kind of labor today. It's unheard of, but back then, hey, we just captured all these slaves in this country and let's put them all to work. They also figured out something, too, that it really pays to feed your slaves. If you feed them well, they get to actually do more work. And both the Egyptians and the Romans were very good at making sure they got the greatest productivity out of the slaves. They'd give them good food, give them periods of rest. But there's a new paper that just got published making the point that these stone masons would go up to build these structures in the Egyptian Empire. They figured out that they were dying of arthritis because they had to carry heavy stuff up these steep hills. And, you know, if they're doing it all with a van power, if you're carrying, like, 100 pounds of stones up a steep hill every day, it does impact your knees after a while. So, a few of us can appreciate that, right? Okay. All right. Okay. When is Earth Day? Anybody know what Earth Day is? There's a date from that. 24th of April, I think? Okay. You know, a major discovery happened this week. I think I'm going to save it for the skeptic swarm because that would be closer to Earth Day because it's all about something to discover about the early Earth. Why did you have to tell us about it? Why did you have to tell us about it? So, you'd be more motivated to bring skeptics and other people to the skeptic's forum, right? Next Sunday, I'll talk to you about this discovery, but it's all about how they found that the crust of the Earth transitioned to a new kind of crust. Basically, magnesium iron crust transitioned to silica and had a major impact on whether or not it could survive long-term on planet Earth. So, you ever visited a green sand beach? Haven't you ever seen a green sand beach? There's only a couple of them in the world. So, yeah, there was a time when all the sand on planet Earth was green. So, previous to three billion years ago. So, transitioning from green sand to white and brown sand made all the difference about whether or not you could actually be here in class today. We'll talk about that next week, the skeptics forum. If you know someone who's interested in that kind of stuff, bring them along. Well, let me, I'll actually show you a little bit of this. Here we go. That's just a little teaser. Yeah, those are little green pebbles. Almost looks like jewelry. That's white and Hawaii. Yeah, this is actually from that green sand beach in Hawaii. The taboo one. Yeah. And the reason why is that, you know, Hawaii is sitting on top of a hot plume. And so, ancient crustal material is actually coming to the surface. So, yeah, you only get this kind of stuff if you're sitting on top of a hot plume. So, yeah, it's very near the southernmost point beyond Hawaii is where you can see this. But you're telling me you can't visit anymore? Oh, you can. You're not supposed to bring it home. You don't want to bring any home? No, this stuff is rare. You don't want to bring it home. Exactly, yeah. So, compared to what we have today. Okay? So, that's a present-day crust, and this is what the ancient crust looked like. Anyway, we'll talk about that next time. Back to our talk on the book of Isaiah. And what we're doing, we collected all the passages relevant. Incidentally, if you don't have the questions on the Isaiah, we got questions here for you. We've still got some there, too. Okay. Well, 50 is distributed for folks that don't have it. But, hey, we've distributed, I think, last count 350 of those, so we should have... Just bring them to class. I mean, that was pretty good. And you've got to have them memorized anyway. Okay. Are we at question one still? Question one. And you know what? We're going to spend a little bit of time on question one, why? Because it's actually going to help us answer the other nine questions. But question one is all about what is the book of Isaiah got to say about the creation of the universe and God's role in creating the universe? And we began with this passage last week, Holy, Holy, Holy, as the Lord opposed his glory fills the whole earth. And every part of God's creation reveals God's glory. And, incidentally, that earth, there is generic validity to everything. So, no matter where you look in the earth, in the universe, first life, the interior of the earth, that green sand, no matter where you look, it reveals the glory of God in preparing the earth for us human beings. And then moving into Isaiah chapter 14, verse 24, the Lord opposed the sport. This is where we ended up last week. The Lord opposed the sport as I have purpose. So will be as I have planned it. So it will happen. And we were talking at the end of last week how what this passage is telling us about creation is that God creates in a way where there is no accidents, no random outcomes, every outcome can event as a purpose. Now, what was really interesting is when the class ended, they came up and said, well, what do you do about quantum mechanics? What do you do about statistical mechanics? I mean, those are accidental random outcomes. And yet you're saying with God there are no accidents and no random outcomes. We had a really interesting dialogue on that that I'll share with you right now. Even the randomness and the accidental outcomes of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics must be exactly the way they are in order for us human beings to be here today. So even what looks random to us is not random at all. It actually has to be fine tuned. Now having said that, God knows, we don't know. Like with quantum mechanics, for example, there's what they call the Heisenberg uncertainty. Which means if you choose to measure the energy of a quantum particle, you're not going to know its position to very high precision. And so what kind of precision we're talking about? If you measure the energy of, say, a proton or an electron to reasonably high precision, the uncertainty in the position of that particle is roughly plus or minus half a mile. So that's a pretty major uncertainty, right? We're talking about a little tiny particle and yet the uncertainty of the particle of the particle is a little tiny particle and yet the uncertainty is plus or minus half a mile is exactly where it is. However, here's the importance of that uncertainty. If you make that uncertainty, say, plus or minus a quarter of a mile or plus or minus three quarters of a mile, suddenly there's a whole lot of proteins in your body that will fail to function and also proteins that act like transistors. And the way the transistors function, they take advantage of that quantum uncertainty to probabilistically get a certain amount of energy jumping the quantum barrier. And how much jumps basically depends on that quantum uncertainty. So, thank God that God exactly may be uncertainty what it needs to be transistors in our body doing they need to do so that we can live in incidentally every animal life form even all of the vascular plants have those proteins that are crucial for them to be able to function and to live. So, if it wasn't for that quantum uncertainty being exactly the way it is you couldn't have a planet with plants and animals thriving. It just wouldn't happen. And even some of the bacteria would function without that. Likewise with the statistical mechanics and you say what in earth are you talking about? You know, it was interesting the first time I taught this class 43 years ago I thought everybody in the class knew everything about statistical mechanics and those people came up to me afterwards and said you know maybe everybody hears about this in Canada in junior high and high school but that doesn't happen here in the United States. So I quickly became aware that the education I had in Canada isn't the same as what happens here in the California so all the other parts of the country that do quite well. For statistical mechanics, for example there are machines inside the cells that every cell has machinery within it that basically takes advantage of what's called brownie emotion. And brownie emotion is simply the fact that molecules here in this room randomly bump into one another so just kind of a chaotic motion of molecules and there are machines inside the cell that take advantage of that in the sense that these random brownie emotions will cause a ratchet like device to move forward but the ratchet prevents it from going back. And so the brownie movement actually causes the ratchet to move and you actually have to fine-tune the chaotic motion of molecules inside the cell for the ratchet to work the way it needs to work in order for all of us to live. So you go home and have your lunch today you might want to thank God for the randomness of statistical mechanics and the uncertainty of quantum mechanics because otherwise that lunch would have no benefit for you and you wouldn't even be alive to enjoy your lunch. So think about that explain that to your children and your grandchildren and they'll be thrilled. They'll be thrilled another reason if it wasn't for statistical mechanics we would all have a problem in this room because of that brownie in motion, that statistical mechanical motion of molecules in this room for all breathing in air that's the same temperature and if it wasn't for the statistical mechanics we could have this lady over here breathing in air that's below the freezing point of water whereas this gentleman over here would be breathing in air that's above the boiling point of water and we'd have numbers of you just dying on this I mean, I wouldn't get through the class before half the class would be dead so I'd probably be one of them so thank God for the randomness that exists and the whole point is and this passage is making it clear even that is planned and designed by our God the randomness is fine too but again people that asked me last week too okay I can understand where we can't see the certainty of where that particle is well what about God God's not limited by quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics he knows what's going on in this physical universe that we not know what's going on so as a physicist I can't measure the position of a quantum particle to anything greater than plus or minus half a mile if I choose to measure its energy level to high precision and so what quantum mechanics tells us we're more ignorant than we thought we were before quantum mechanics was discovered likewise statistical mechanics ignorance is crucial for us to be able to live here so you can thank God for the way God made us ignorant about certain things follow that from this one passage moving on to Isaiah 14 of 27 the Lord of hosts himself is planted therefore who can stand in its way it is his hand that is outstretched so who can turn it back okay we haven't got to this one yet so what I want to do I want to get a comment from this side of the class and a comment from this side of the class then I'm going to reverse it because I remember last time the comments were all coming from one side of the class and I can't forget which side of the class it is so I'm not was this side this side of the class was doing really well okay alright got it but now you've got Doug on this side of the class alright we'll start with this side of the class alright maybe we can get you switching back and forth that might be interesting but yeah okay based on this text what do we learn here about the creation of the universe and how God created the universe what's the basic claim here that's being made and that's a hint it kind of fits in with the last two texts we looked at over here yes okay he's the ultimate authority but I think you're getting onto something else he's not the ultimate authority he's the only authority okay yeah yeah it's like how about this side of the class can you want to add here I would say that this seems to indicate that it's literally impossible for anyone to stand in opposition to God's will and matters like this and I would say that probably begs the question of why I would say it probably is transcendent nature that literally his superior dimensionality and power just makes it where nobody can stand here can possibly stand up and oppose what he has planned in this domain yeah do you think anybody ever tried to actually do that I mean I read this text I would just say you know I mean it seems pretty clear that God's in control of everything no one can overturn his plans oh I've met quite a few people that think they can I mean that's the amazing thing they're actually human beings running around and it's not just human beings I think there's one other guy that we meet in the Bible who thought that too so yes well the obvious thing to me about is he stretched it out so it's expanding and it's irreversible is that two things or well that's actually we're coming to that we got a passage coming up really quickly on that in Isaiah 40 but yeah this text is making the point nothing stands in God's way and do you think he can overturn God's plans you're mistaken yes I have a question why does it say the Lord of hosts has helped planned it therefore who can stand in his way well at the different translations they'll put different points there the reason they put it there is the original is ambiguous but most translations will say his way and that certainly fits what's there you can stand for power yeah so I was thinking you know it's he designed the universe but not only designed it but he designed the plan for how it evolves in the sense of how it proceeds that's a very good insight because a lot of people say well this is what God did and we can actually alter it so even when we alter it it's part of God's plan so you think of any passage in Scripture or talk about that how we human step in and try to alter what God does and God basically says even that I'm in control wasn't there an incident in Exodus where God was going to punish the people of Israel for sin and Moses interceded with him and asked him not to do it because he is God and there's nations around him and God it changes mind oh would you answer something like that sure well Isaiah actually gets into that part of our study question analysis we're doing but you see God because it tells us God never changes he's immutable and yet you see passages where he claims that God relented God repented of what he did God changed his mind how do you reconcile those texts with the texts that say God never changes his mind nothing can alter God's plan or this text this is nothing standing in God's way that's a common question that skeptics throw up we actually got that skeptics for him like three years ago so what's the answer well ultimately God still Abraham intervened or Moses in this case intervened but it still was the choice of God still was the choice of God and you think God actually set Abraham up to do that very thing that's a great topic the language is used there I think it's what they call language of appearance it's a language of perspective from our perspective it appears that God changes his mind and he will use it and he will say that he's not really changing his mind he's not really changing his mind but what he is doing is expressing his emotional commitment to what he has done when people look at God and it says well God never changes or falters it's like they interpret that God has no feelings and no emotions so these few texts we see where it talks about God repenting relenting, God greed or what he had done it talks about in early chapters of Genesis that God greed that he created man because of the outcome as God basically expressing his feelings and his emotions which is encouraging to us that God actually has no relationship with all of us and so just like a parent grieves when they see their child going the wrong way likewise God grieves when he sees us going the wrong way and so in your parents your parents use the same language right go ahead well I think the language here is from frame of reference it's the creation so the trajectory of the whole creation can't be disturbed by less than God so I don't know it takes you all the way to Calvinism but if you only had this and no other texts you could take Calvinism out of here but that doesn't really always follow everything down to every microsecond as planned well I think you've got to go back what was it 40 years ago in this class we actually took on the issue we resolved human free will in divine predestination and we did it in nine months I mean and thanks to that nine month experience I wound up writing a book on it beyond the cosmos I'm not going to repeat it the book is over there you can go check it out but the whole point is God can still be utterly immutable at the same time allow us to express free will and God is in control and he got texts for example where God refers to Pharaoh and said I raised him up to be an instrument where he would commit evil but I would use his evil for a greater good and you look at all the Egyptians that wound up joining the Jewish people group as a result of the actions of Pharaoh and basically says I even use the actions of the evil to achieve my purpose it's all under my control and you got that passage in that Romans are from the Proverbs 15 a king makes a decision that God predetermined the decision ahead of time which gives me some comfort when I see our government doing things I thought well I mean is that really the wisest decision well sometimes God even uses the foolishness of decisions that our leaders make to achieve this ultimate purpose which is why we were called to pray for our leaders and not get discouraged anything else before we jump to the next text yes Steve it's really a blessing to me that God and his omnipotence is so kind and to Israel he gave blessings and cursings stepwise letting them know as a witness beforehand what would happen and as it happened what would happen next if it happened oh that's really nice of him yeah he even treated Pharaoh with a degree of kindness that's an interesting point which gives us an example of how we're to treat evil people that come across our path and do evil to us we're to follow that same example even be kind and realize God's in control of their actions he has a question I see it relating to the big laws of physics immutable, unchangeable unless God chooses to over call them and despite Hollywood and Star Wars and Star Trek breaking the laws of physics that sort of what I see okay yeah it's good the laws of physics are something we can trust and you know I kind of look at this as a scientist and say okay if this is really true I can trust everything I'm seeing in the record of nature God's not going to mess with me there whatever is revealed I know that's something I can trust and you had a question? they're just directing a question but we had one over here there was a small group a girl that had grown up in the Jewish world she was talking about punishment for some reason and she said and somebody asked her how that happened in her household in Jewish because they always say remember so I don't know well I think what you were saying Steve you see here in the book of Isaiah and in Jeremiah as well God basically tells the Jewish people because of what you've done there's going to be consequences they're not going to be pleasant he kind of lays them all out but every time God does that through Isaiah and Jeremiah and you'll be blessed at the outcome I'm going to bring it back to the land I'm going to bless you but yeah for 70 years this is what's going to happen to you and you will come back so there was always a promise of redemption coming through there okay nothing stands in the way of God's purposes and plans we can count on everything God has revealed to us to reveal truth and nothing but truth Isaiah 37 16 Israel who is enthroned above the cherubah you are God you alone of all the kingdoms of earth you made that heavens and the earth what is this saying about the creation of the universe and what is this saying about God's role in creating the universe I've got a couple of sentences here so I'm going to start with this start of the class yeah go ahead he's higher than all creation higher than all creation enthroned okay he's above everything so basically making a point the cherubah they're not part of this only God is because keeping in mind the nations around Israel at that time thought that the angels were the creators and what he's saying here yeah the cherubah which is the highest of the angels he says no God's enthroned above them they're not part of this God's the one that did it all anything else on the side of the class okay over here Jesus couldn't have been an angel because you know the John will just say that okay yeah but you got this phrase the angel of the Lord and when you see that in the Old Testament the angel of the Lord is as if he has God himself so why is the second person the Trinity Jesus referred to as the angel of the Lord any clues? more figurative, not literal more figurative, not literal yeah go ahead because he's the one that came down and was actually their donor he was the one that came down and actually was there doing it yes? means messenger also maybe his functions what would you call it for stoppany what would be incarnated maybe as an angel or it was only perceived to be an angel only okay because you know angels have a power to appear to us in physical form they're not constrained in physical form like we are but they have the power to come and reveal themselves in physical form and you'll see instances in the Old Testament where the angel of the Lord actually ate physical food and the Moses for example fed the angel of the Lord and Moses referred to him as being God so he treated him as God and what do we see in the book of Colossians of a fullness of the deity dwells in the second person the Trinity in physical form so the Holy Spirit the spiritual the Father is spiritual but the Son has the capacity to manifest himself bodily so given that angels have that capacity that's why he takes the title the angel of the Lord but yeah he's above the angels and if you want to see this is a big problem for Jews at the time of the first century church and that's why you got the book of Hebrews the book of Hebrews was written for the Jews and notice how the book of Hebrews starts off the book of Hebrews contrasts the angels with Jesus Christ and says yes he is the angel of the Lord but he is at a level beyond all of them he's the only one that's eternal the angels were created and then Paul's one reminds us there will come a time when we followers of Jesus Christ will become rulers and educators of the angels of the creator they're not involved in creation Satan thought he could create but he couldn't so that's why I'm not a gap theorist the gap theorist basically saying Jesus created and he let Satan have a go at it Satan messed it all up and God fixed it all up again that's kind of the gap but the problem of that theology is that Satan does not have the power to create these are passages and Isaiah that tells God alone is the creator the angels don't have that kind of power or capacity that rests in God alone and this is actually a message of the Jews with reference to all the nations around them their gods can't do this only the god of the Bible is capable of creating and this is something that you'll see in the book of Isaiah repeated over and over again is that these other gods they can't do it there is no other agency of creation there is no other factor sometimes people will say today for example gravity created the universe well gravity can't create anything just like the angels can't create anything gravity can't create anything either there is no other factor in creation but the god of the Bible it's like your brain can't create consciousness that's very popular once my peers were not Christians astronomers and physicists saying well what brought this universe into existence with some unknown law of physics or some unknown feature of gravity or some unknown feature of space and time lose the text that tells us no that doesn't work there is no other factor God alone is the agency would they assert that gravity or these laws are self existence that they exist well that's what Hawking was saying before he passed away is that gravity predated the universe and the gravity brought the universe into existence but you know the laws of physics are basically describing features of the universe they don't have creative power so and maybe people watched too many star wars movies they also would imply that those things are self existence is a very extraordinary category well I kind of look at the laws of physics like mathematics they describe what God has created and set up they're descriptive mathematics doesn't have creative power the laws of physics don't have creative power but the fact that math actually tells you how physics works is remarkable in fact my colleague Ken Samples he is a talk where he basically points the fact that mathematics so elegantly describes the physics of the universe both its beginning and all the way through tells us there's got to be a God otherwise why does math work, why does physics work and you know when I talk to my peers who are not believers they say you know science works but they need to ask another question why does science work it's true, science works and you know it was the concept that science works actually came out of the Christian faith it's the Christian faith that gave birth to the scientific revolution based on the Christian principle science does work competing things before the scientific revolution you had competing religions especially in the east who basically thought science only works some of the time but basically science works all the time it always works therefore we can trust it okay Isaiah 40 verse 5 a glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken what is this did anybody ever hear this being Sun, Sun, Time of Christmas? yeah it's Handel's Messiah right? yeah you can sing it for us alright yeah it's one of the favorite parts of Handel's Messiah so it was wonderful about Handel's Messiah was the people going through the entire Bible saying let's pick up the verses that we see throughout the Bible it really communicates through this kind of music the basic fundamentals of gospel and this is one of the texts they picked up the glory of the Lord will be revealed all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken so let's start with this side of the class any comments on this text have you ever sung Handel's Messiah speaking of nature well I think this is why it was put in the Messiah musical is the fact that the whole thing about the Messiah is communicating the gospel and basically this is the one text they picked everybody has seen it everybody has heard it everybody has seen it and heard it because that's the way God created and designed the universe so this is making a point yes God created the universe but he created the universe in such a way that it would declare to all mankind that God's glory is revealed through creation therefore no one is without excuse we've all seen the evidence that God is behind it because glory is there he has spoken it into existence to me it sounds like Psalm 19 sounds like Psalm 19 everybody has seen this the glory of God and creation is evident to all all of her all without excuse and again I think that's why I got put into that musical making a point hey this is something that's universal in everybody just listen to scriptures when we say that in high school and I wasn't even a Christian then just the words of it just got to me so much and handle was not inspired like the Bible is inspired man what a wonderful work that is well I also appreciate that in handle you've got Joe 19 where it actually talks about how Joe saw God and the gospel message in creation so I think that was all done on purpose to make it clear hey this isn't just for those who have Bibles in front of them part of the Christian community this is something that's communicated to all what it tells me as a scientist is that when I look at nature the component of nature I will see the revelation of God at everything I study that's something I do and I challenge my secular peers to say I don't care what discipline the science are in look for the glory of God being revealed in what you study you'll see design there that's something I hope to communicate as we watch into our skeptics forum next week about what will happen in the context like every paper gets published you actually look at it from a divine design perspective you're going to see something really glorious and exciting and yet it's thrilling to the heart to say wow even this plays a role so I remember talking to my wife Kathy and she says well what about spiders so over a romantic dinner one night I told her why she should be really grateful that there's spiders and at the end of it she said well I still want you to take care of those black widows in the garage so they have violent spiders here in Sierra Madre didn't they those are worse than the black widows I had to kill a few of those actually been inside our house but you know they're part of God's glory can you think of how bad things would be there weren't violent spiders around that's what the question Kathy asked me over this romantic dinner okay please our dinners are different in fact I remember this waitress coming by she says she's just totally plumbing so what's going on there you go there you go thank you alright this side of the class what do you have to contribute here yet well it starts out with the word that God spoke the word and the word was God and through it everything was made and I have the feeling that the word is very important the mouth of the Lord is very important being part of our Christian theology is that God spoke the universe into existence that's how powerful he is he's able to speak it into existence with all the design features all the glory embedded in it so literally every component of it reveals him gentlemen in the back today there's a lot of people that are atheists okay there is no God but this scripture says that all men are united together so eventually God will reveal himself yeah all mankind together will see it they still have to look so I think that's why we're seeing a rise in atheism today you've got an increasing percentage of our population that simply doesn't look and what God has revealed in nature we need to learn I've been wondering for a few minutes whether all mankind together will see it whether that's the second coming or other revelations like changes in the sun and moon maybe a comet, maybe an asteroid hitting but to word together to me now indicates that maybe the second coming what's your take yeah my take is I would include that but I think the text is actually saying all mankind together in all contexts look for the glory that God revealed it's everywhere and yeah I mean we've had people in this class saying hey you keep saying God is responsible for all this I can't see it we need to help people actually look okay and so it's a matter of training people when you're actually studying component nature look for the glory that God revealed look for the amazing designs in that beetle you're looking at I mean it's remarkable I just wrote a blog a couple weeks ago making a point we now know there's over 500,000 distinct species of beetles the amazing thing is is how each of them is designed in a different way to reveal the glory of God and the thing about beetles is the amazing distribution of colors the amazing distribution of structures it really is awesome even bold labels of many subspecies yeah and you go home today thank God for the beetles I'm not the musical kind I go ahead what strikes me is that there's no alternative no alternative the universe exists describe to me an ultimate alternative very good point there is no alternative model other than God created and designed the universe for our specific benefit and again that's something we've been debated amongst our peers basically saying yeah God created the universe for life no he created it explicitly for us human beings all the life we see here on planet earth is to make possible our existence, our thriving our capacity here in responding to the gospel including those half million species of beetles it's all there to help us so it means when we look at creation look for that look for how God uses this tiny point now we've got a passage that speaks about this I think it's coming right up here we go Isaiah 40 verse 12 who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure we've been making a point every component what is this telling us part of this side of the classroom go over here the night sky they couldn't possibly count all the stars but the one who created them must be able to so it's one of the witnesses you get by not living in the city in this amazing canopy over here you can't even count it all so how it came into being has to be from a source that you can't measure but the source can you know what's sad today none of us are able to see whether naked eye the stars of Abraham was able to see no matter where you go on planet earth there's lightly air pollution of blocks of capacity to see the stars as Abraham could see it so when God said to Abraham can you count all the stars you see up there you tell someone in Shanghai can you count all the stars you see up there yeah I don't think I can count any or you're here in Los Angeles maybe 30 stars if you're in downtown LA but Abraham could see more than 15,000 stars you can see a lot there are places in the United States where you can still see 6 to 7 thousand stars but still not like what Abraham was able to see so but now we got telescopes that show us that we're not just talking 15,000 plus stars what about Northwest Territories? yeah or North Korea the problem is even in places that are really dark you still got air pollution I mean it's there but yeah it was about a decade ago they started founding what they called dark sky parks so there is a park in southern Utah that they basically make sure no lights for 40 miles around that could be a part of space tourism in the future well actually this park has become a tourist destination it's a place you can come with your telescope or binoculars and see the sky that's really dark but I meant like with Brant you'll see the sky like you never saw before well I've talked to astronauts who have been up there and they said yeah what you see at the space station is something way beyond what you can see here on the earth and yeah there's actually been plans maybe we can put telescopes in the back side of the moon where the light of the earth never impacts so there's actually some serious talk about doing that but hey they found a wonderful site in Antarctica that's isolated by more than a thousand miles from the nearest light and it's 14,000 feet high and the temperature never changes day or night, summer, winter that's what's really got them excited it's the only place on the earth where the temperature never changes and that's important for astronomy because changing temperature actually changes the figure of our mirror so this is a place where the figure of your mirror will never change but guess what that temperature is minus minus 95 centigrade minus 5 Fahrenheit, pardon me but yeah it's a place where the temperature variation is 2 degrees Fahrenheit, day and night, summer, winter that's all it changes so and there's no wind no wind, high altitude I mean it's ideal for astronomy besides the backside of the moon but it's a lot cheaper to go to what about Joshua Tree I am another guy we're talking about we've been there and we see a lot more stars in that you will in Joshua Tree but I've been there you still see light pollution it's not really dark what percentage does that block out how much better would it be in the perfect place the oldest amazing about living here in the Los Angeles basin 40 minute drive from here you can be in a spot where you can see with the naked eye the Milky Way is where we do our star parties because it's a place 7,350 feet above sea level lights parking lot there but as you look up at the light sky you can see the Milky Way with the naked eye for the light it's not ski season one reason we don't go during ski season because they turn on the lights that lights basically ruins everything but once ski season is over Mount Wilson no longer can you see the Milky Way the reason why they took those telescopes from Mount Wilson they took advantage of L.A. Smog and L.A. Smog blocked out the lights of the city and also made for very laminar air that Mount Wilson observatory had some of the best scene in the world in the old days but the problem is they cleaned up the pollution and now the night sky is no longer they got lights there the scene is no longer half an arc second it's worse than a second arc that's why they turned over Mount Wilson telescopes to amateurs where Hubble was Hubble did his research it was at Mount Wilson where the first measurements were produced and continuous expanding universe happened right up there because for a long time that was the world's largest telescope and it was in a dark site where the scene was excellent but hey we cleaned up the smog and ruined everything from Mount Wilson it's good for us down here in the valley when's the next star party I think Cross-Hobelins working on that but yeah we have to wait but the earliest we could do it is in May because right now they still got the lights onto the ski resort so and besides people don't like going up there in the winter time anyways too cold can I ask you a question that's a little bit off topic but you're talking about the measure of the universe so this passage is implying that the universe is very large so the question I ask you're going to ask is how do you measure light in one direction basically that's what I understand what you're trying to say so that you're free to especially a light coming from distant stars it's a lot of light it's a lot of light it's a lot of light it's a lot of light it's a lot of light it's a lot of light it's a lot of light it's a lot of distant stars it's velocity of that it could be just infant velocity where light when I'm going from earth I can't speak light and then when you take the round trip it's going to still be the velocity of light average it out so he says therefore gosh we've created the universe and just put the stars there and the light will come to us we don't need to worry about like travel time as a measure of the distance of the universe however I was thinking even the high school of physics tells us if you use a consider light as a wave or a particle couldn't you measure the speed of light in any direction you want because if you the basic idea is a wave you measure the speed of the wave by counting the frequency and the wavelength you multiply the two and you get the speed you could measure Jason Lyle is correct when we measure the velocity of light we're always measuring the return path and so yeah he thought well as a younger creationist maybe we'll just say that the velocity of light going away from us is half of 300,000 kilometers per second when it comes to words this is infinite so that distant light can get here immediately and so you can add galaxies billions of light years away where the light gets to us immediately look here let me complete this okay the reason why his speculation fails is that we have to for his model to work it's got to be in an infinite velocity coming to us from all directions not just one direction so I mean he is right is that we only can measure the return path of the velocity of light which would be okay if we're talking one direction only but he wants to make it work for all directions why do we have that convention coming opposite to us and towards us at all these different velocities now you could actually appeal to general relativity but the problem is this if you got the velocity of light coming at you and if the velocity from all different directions general relativity tells you that's equivalent to having a second gravitational field and we don't measure a second gravitational field there is no gravitational field and the very latest this didn't make it into my book you'll see two pages in a matter of days where I use diagrams to refute Jason Wilde's speculation but there's a new observation that actually shows us okay you're right we can only measure the return path of the velocity of light however there's a supernova exploding in a galaxy that's gravitationally lens but it's gravitationally lens by different components in the galaxy cluster that's causing the gravitational lensing and we're actually seeing is this supernova erupt again and again over several years why? because the eruption of the supernova because of the complexity of the gravitational lens will take a different angle in reaching us as it does at different components so you're actually putting to a test as hypothesis okay if we change the direction does it make a difference and it makes no difference at all which really means the velocity of light is 300,000 kW per second as it travels in all directions because this is the one example where we get to measure the velocity of light taking different pathways to reaches from a single supernova eruption we've actually got three papers published in the astronomical literature where they've been able to see it a supernova eruption takes about seven months to go from start to finish what was fascinating about this particular supernova we saw it about four years ago we saw it again three years ago and we saw it again about a year ago and so all because the light from that supernova traveled along different pathways to reach our telescope along the pathway was a shorter pathway than the other so it actually got here earlier than the other pathways and they're actually predicting we're probably going to see two or three more signals from that supernova because we expect that this gravitational lens is complex enough that we're going to get other pathways of reaching our telescopes as well so with that his model is dead in the water what I'm trying to say is I think we measure the speed of light in any direction we choose if you go by the speed of a wave just like I said all you need to do is be able to measure the frequency and the wavelength you don't even need to know the distance or any clock you just measure those two you multiply the two you get the velocity of light or a good estimation of it so let's say you send an eczema or laser from here to the moon and the astronaut receives the light and he can just he doesn't even have to know anything he just has to measure the wavelength and the frequency of that light that's incident to the moon and he can just multiply that same thing as he sends a light to us we can just measure the frequency you know using like all this got discussed in the scientific literature and there were famous physicists that said we really can measure the one way velocity of light that's what the bottom line is they're all mistaken we don't have any instrumentation that can tell us what the one way velocity of light is we're always stuck having to measure a return path but couldn't you just measure the wavelength coming in using like the fraction grading that astronomers use like themselves use all the time that's what people thought it doesn't work that doesn't work also obviously e equivalency square obviously if this people like changes so the mere math also that it has to be constant if you have any variation in e equivalency square then the whole universe isn't going to work properly and everything we see wouldn't work properly so mathematics and the physics also say it can't change and because of this supernova observation number of younger creation scientists have said that's a bad argument that doesn't work and recently it was Danny Faulkner came out and said we younger creations must recognize none of our models work well that's a fair statement but you'll see a stronger statement that I make in a matter of days saying there's a fundamental problem here none of them will work and it's that very point if you want light in the universe there is no possible younger model for the light travel time problem other than the fact that God changed the laws of physics but the Bible tells us God didn't change the laws of physics moreover we can measure the velocity of light to high precision everywhere we look at galaxies and stars but this came up in a discussion I had on Facebook about whether or not we can actually measure something like the velocity of light with high precision at all different look back times the strongest spectral line we can see is what's called the hydrogen neutral hydrogen line the neutral hydrogen line is a hyperfine spectral line which means it's a single line that splits into two because of the magnetic field well the degree by which it splits into two depends on the velocity of light so by measuring the frequency of that neutral hydrogen line we can determine what the velocity of light was like when that light left that galaxy or star and because that light is so incredibly strong we can see that line and galaxies as far away as 13 billion light years which means over 13 billion light years no change in the velocity of light which basically verifies what the Bible told us God set up the laws of physics he made them fixed as it says in Jeremiah 33 I am immutable I never change as proof I never change in the heavens and the earth as they don't change I don't change and recently we've been able to prove that the laws of physics don't change over the history of the universe to better than 16 places of decimal per year so with very high precision we know they don't change and one more question a time is also constant always goes forward, can't be stopped can't be reversed in this class well it seems like it goes faster than we do so much you measure what's apparent and what you're experiencing it's a little bit different you can always tell when you feel this way okay well we'll pick up the rest of these passages next time and I think it better and better to go through but here's what I want to conclude with here yeah we got a passage coming up which makes the point that I also stated in Psalm 147 how God knows the name of every single star but this is making the point God actually knows every speck of dust every speck of dust is something that God knows and understands and is controlled for our existence so when you go home for lunch today and you see a speck of dust on the table thank God for that speck of dust even that tiny speck of dust has been purpose determined by God he has measured every single speck of dust he knows where it is and he's got a purpose for that speck of dust however that does not give an excuse for your children to allow specks of dust to accumulate in their rooms or on their desk so yeah you're able, I mean I'm giving you permission to clean up those specks of dust to keep in mind that's right but literally even the dust of the universe must be fine-tuned for all of us to exist and there's a lot of dust in the universe but every speck plays a role you see is this really true yeah they've actually been able to measure the fine-tuning of the bits and pieces of matter in the universe it literally has to be fine-tuned better than one part in a quadrillion, quadrillion quadrillion, quadrillion and yeah there's not that many specks of dust in the universe so every little speck has been counted by God measured by God every speck needs to be exactly the way it is in order for us to all be here in the class today so thank God for dust alright, Father in Heaven we do thank you for dust we thank you for everything that you created everything that you designed and Lord, help us to see as we look out at your creation the way you designed it the way you expressed your glory in a matter so that all that there is so that we can exist and serve you and show us Lord given the great value which you put in each one of us what it is you want each one of us to do in order to bring you pleasure and glory and honor in Jesus name Amen Thank you