god of creation: intricacy - psalm 139 - grace bible...

COLLEGE

COLLEGE SERMON PODCAST

INTRICACY

INTRICATELY

KNOWN

1O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

PSALM 139.1-6

INTRICATELY KNOW

● YOU’RE SEARCHED

5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

PSALM 139.1-6

INTRICATELY KNOW

● YOU’RE SEARCHED

● YOU’RE SURROUNDED

7Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

PSALM 139.7-12

10even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 11If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” 12even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

PSALM 139.7-12

INTRICATELY KNOW

● YOU’RE SEARCHED

● YOU’RE SURROUNDED

Ernest Walton, Physicist Won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for his “atom smashing” experiments done at Cambridge University in the early 1930s, and so became the first person in history to artificially split the atom

“One way to learn the mind of the Creator is to study His creation. We must pay God the complement of studying His work of art and this should apply to all realms of human thought. A refusal to use our intelligence honestly is an act of contempt for Him who gave us that intelligence.”

INTRICATELY

FORMED

13For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

PSALM 139.13-15

INTRICATELY FORMED

● YOU’RE COMPLICATED

Image Source: Eraxion/iStockphoto

Image Source: Eraxion/iStockphoto

206 Bones 600 muscles >10 Trillion Cells

Image: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/dna-takes-notes

Image: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/dna-takes-notes

3.1 Billion base pairs

Image: ALFRED PASIEKA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

3.1 Billion base pairs

Image: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/dna-takes-notes

3.1 Billion base pairs

It would take a person

typing 60 words per

minute, eight hours a day,

around 50 years to type

the human genome.

- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nov

a/genome/facts.html

Image: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/dna-takes-notes

If you stretched the DNA in one cell all the way out, it would be about 2m long and all the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System.

- https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-

body/how-long-is-your-dna/

Dr. Barry Starr iGeneticist-in-Residence at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA and runs their Stanford at The Tech program.

Let’s start out with people. Each human cell has

around 6 feet of DNA. Let’s say each human has

around 10 trillion cells (this is actually a low ball

estimate). This would mean that each person has

around 60 trillion feet or around 10 billion miles of

DNA inside of them.

Image Source: NASA'S THE SPACE PLACE

Pluto’s distance from the Sun is 3.67 billion miles. https://www.universetoday.com/44534/plutos-distance-from-the-sun/

PLUTO

Imag

e: A

LF

RE

D P

AS

IEK

A/S

CIE

NC

E P

HO

TO

LIB

RA

RY

Image credit: https://www.lanl.gov/museum/news/newsletter/2017/2017-

05/science-question-decay.php

Atom

Each cell in the human body contains more atoms than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

- David Blatner, Spectrums

Atom

INTRICATELY FORMED

● YOU’RE COMPLICATED

● YOU’RE UNIQUE

15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Drew Smith PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

How many combinations of DNA can a human embody? The number is essentially infinite.

Drew Smith PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Using an estimate of mutation frequency of around 2 x 10-8 per base pair per replication event, we get 60 novel mutations in every living human being. There are 7 billion humans, so we know that some 420 billion different variants are possible. And that is just the number of new changes that arise in a single generation. The number passed down and recombined from previous generations is much larger.

Drew Smith PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

The number of possible combinations is 1 x 2 x 3 … x 300 = 3 x 10614, a number that is so large as to be meaningless. At least to my desktop calculator, which returns this response when I try to plug it in: "Not a Number".

INTRICATELY FORMED

● YOU’RE COMPLICATED

● YOU’RE UNIQUE

● YOU’RE INTENDED

16Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

PSALM 139.16-18

INTRICATELY FORMED

● YOU’RE COMPLICATED

● YOU’RE UNIQUE

● YOU’RE INTENDED

Paul Davies, Physicist the winner of the 2001 Kelvin Medal issued by the Institute of Physics and the winner of the 2002 Faraday Prize issued by the Royal Society

“People take it for granted that the physical world

is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying

order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply

accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks

where they came from; at least they do not do so

in polite company.

Paul Davies, Physicist

However, even the most atheistic scientist

accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not

absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical

existence manifested as law-like order in nature

that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So

science can proceed only if the scientist adopts

an essentially theological worldview.”

Paul Davies, Physicist

The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshiped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful—

Francis Collins, Project manager of Human Genome Project The Language of God

INTRICATELY

INVITED

23Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

PSALM 139.23-24

Alexander Fleming The Nobel Prize-winning British bacteriologist who discovered the life-saving antibiotic penicilln

It is impossible to know how many lives

have been saved by penicillin but it is

estimated that penicillin saved

80.000.000 to 200.000.000 lives.

Penicillin has saved, and is still saving,

millions of people around the world.

Alexander Fleming The Nobel Prize-winning British bacteriologist who discovered the life-saving antibiotic penicilln

“My greatest discovery was that I needed God, and that I was nothing without him and that he loved me and showed his love by sending Jesus to save me.”

Alexander Fleming The Nobel Prize-winning British bacteriologist who discovered the life-saving antibiotic penicilln