Listen to the sermon: 

Download the notes: 05192013BooksAndBindingsDonRuhl

Books and Bindings 

Do you believe that someone wrote the books in your home library and

that someone put them together in bindings?

Hebrews 3.4

Don Ruhl • Savage Street, Grants Pass, Oregon • May 19, In the year of our Lord, 2013

 

  1. Books 
    1. Are you one of those people who believes
      1. that someone wrote the books in your home library?
      2. If you think that someone composed the material in those books,
        1. then you have daydreaming.
        2. Every intelligent person knows that books happen by chance.
    2. People do not write books, but
      1. they happen by chance, because
      2. given enough time anything can happen.
        1. Every scientist knows that this is the way it happens.
        2. Those who deny it are incompetent.
      3. Did you see the person who wrote these books,
        1. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, 
        2. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, 
        3. godless by Dan Barker, and
        4. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan?
          1. If you have not met these authors,
          2. how do you know they wrote these books?
    3. Since science, the only true form of knowledge, cannot discover the writers,
      1. we have to conclude that this book came together by natural forces.
      2. Granted, the odds against that are astronomical, however,
        1. here they are;
        2. therefore, it happened.
    4. You will hear some people declare that these books show design.
      1. Obviously, those objectors do not have university degrees.
      2. Yes, these books appear to have intelligible
        1. sentences,
        2. paragraphs, and
        3. chapters, but
          1. it only appears that way.
          2. It is not scientific, however, to assume
            1. that intelligent beings wrote these books.
            2. If so, where are they?
              1. I want proof that they exist.
              2. Do not expect me to take it on faith.
    5. How then can we determine these books evolved?
      1. Well, anyone can copy them.
      2. We could keep making copies of the copies.
        1. Eventually the originals will have disappeared.
        2. As the copying of the copies continued,
          1. there might be mistakes and
          2. so we would have to conclude
            1. that an original from an intelligent source
            2. never existed.
    6. Yet, this copying of the copies relentlessly through time
      1. would keep producing mistakes, and
      2. every once-in-a-while,
        1. a mistake would improve on the original.
    7. Furthermore, we could conclude
      1. that these four books all came from a single source millions of years ago.
      2. We know this has to be the case, because
        1. these books have some things in common.
        2. They all adhere to rules of English
          1. grammar,
          2. vocabulary, and
          3. composition.
            1. In fact, I can show you that a majority of the words
            2. appear repeatedly in all the books!
              1. This shows they all came from a common ancestral book.
              2. Who is ignorant enough to deny it?
    8. You will hear from some wild-eyed right-wingers claim
      1. that people have created these books, but
      2. as you go back in time,
        1. you find less sophisticated books and
        2. the later in time, more sophisticated books.
          1. If people had written these books,
          2. they would have been just as sophisticated then as now.
    9. You will also hear these anti-intellectuals
      1. say that you have never seen one book transform into another book.
      2. That should not surprise us, because
        1. the changes that occur are so small you cannot detect them, and
        2. it takes hundreds of thousands of years and sometimes millions of years
          1. for any noticeable change to occur.
          2. It is not likely you will see it happen in your lifetime.
            1. The fact that all these books have common elements in them
            2. shows that they have evolved from a common ancestor book.
              1. The fact that the books are here
              2. proves that I am right.
                1. We might see minor changes in our lifetimes, and
                2. given enough time
                  1. these books will keep transforming themselves into
                  2. completely different books, or
                  3. even become cars, computers, and rocket ships.
    10. Some of you might complain
      1. that I do not have all the details on how books could evolve, but
      2. that is beside the point that the books are here.
        1. Therefore, evolution had to have happened.
        2. The millions of changes that had to occur
          1. for letters to form,
          2. then letters into words,
          3. then words into sentences,
          4. then sentences into paragraphs,
          5. then paragraphs into chapters,
          6. then chapters into a book, and
            1. from that one book we have
            2. all the millions of books in the world today,
              1. well, not everything is going to leave a trace.
    11. You see, in order for the millions of transformations
      1. that had to occur for these four books to be here today,
      2. previous books had to be much older than the believers in authors assert.
        1. Books had to predate man.
        2. We are not talking thousands, but millions of years.
          1. It is impossible for all the changes to have been preserved
          2. in the fossil-library record.
    12. If you assume that intelligent people wrote books,
      1. that is just a faith position.
      2. It is just what you feel.
        1. Faith is not scientific.
        2. Therefore, you cannot prove or disprove your position.
          1. That makes your view religious and
          2. not scientific.
            1. If having religious faith that people wrote these books
            2. makes you happy, keep it to yourself.
              1. Certainly do not force it on others, and
              2. do not teach it in the schools.
    13. It is humbling to think
      1. that these four books started from something so simple as a single letter,
      2. then over time,
        1. the letter divided, and kept dividing,
        2. until they started arranging themselves into sentences, and
          1. before long,
          2. there were paragraphs, chapters, and books.
            1. Then those books started changing into other books.
            2. Books on medicine soon turned into Shakespeare’s material.
    14. Then these books started reproducing themselves into various bindings.
  2. Bindings 
    1. In ways we cannot explain yet,
      1. trees turned themselves into paper, and
      2. other things in nature turned themselves into
        1. the materials list for the making of bindings for books.
        2. We did not see any human do this for these four books.
          1. Yet, these books are here.
          2. Therefore, it had to be by evolution.
    2. Some came together as paperbacks,
      1. some came together as hardbacks, and now
      2. we have witnessed another form of evolution right during our generation,
        1. some have come together as eBooks!
        2. They do not even use paper, but
          1. they use digital components
          2. for reading on our computer screens.
    3. How the ideas expressed in the words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters
      1. of these books came together by themselves
      2. is perfectly natural, and
        1. how those ideas managed to find paper and bindings to be housed in,
        2. makes us marvel at the wonders of nature.
    4. It is like a mind inhabiting a body, which we all know came together by chance.
  3. The Mind and The Body 
    1. You know that I just used satire to show the absurdity of saying
      1. that the material in books and the bindings that holds them together,
      2. could have come about by evolution.
    2. Yet, I ask you, which is greater
      1. the thoughts in a book and its bindings, or
      2. a mind housed in a body?
        1. Do books and bindings make minds housed in bodies, or
        2. do minds use the bodies to make books and bindings?
          1. You know it is the latter.
          2. Therefore, minds in bodies are greater than thoughts in books.
    3. Yet, if books and bindings could not make themselves,
      1. how can man claim that humans evolved by themselves?
        1. If the lesser could not evolve,
        2. how could the greater?
      2. The truth is, all books and the bindings in which they are housed,
        1. had people who wrote them, and
        2. had people who manufactured them,
          1. although we have never met any of them, and
          2. although we have never observed the process.
    4. The Bible shows the
      1. logical,
      2. scriptural,
      3. natural, and
      4. scientific way
        1. humans came to be,

          26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1.26–28).

          7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Gen 2.7).

          21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man (Gen 2.21, 22).

          12 For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God (1Co 11.12).

          11 “You are worthy, O Lord,
          To receive glory and honor and power;
          For You created all things,
          And by Your will they exist and were created.”
          (Rev 4.11)

        2. The greater life brought the lessor life into existence.
          1. Moreover, the time approaches rapidly
          2. when we shall stand before our Maker and
            1. He shall judge the world in righteousness
            2. by the Man who He raised from the dead.

Exhortation: 

  1. Praise God we have a Creator, and 
    1. praise God that He has communicated to us, and
    2. praise God that we shall see Him someday,
      1. just as the evolutionists and atheists want, but
      2. for them it will not be as they wish.
  2. Four hundred years before Christ, 
    1. the Jews questioned where God was,

      17 “Where is the God of justice?” (Mal 2.17)

    2. He answered that He would appear suddenly, but
      1. not as they had wished, for truly
      2. He is a God of justice, and
        1. He shall carry out justice,
        2. the very thing atheists and evolutionists do not want to happen,

          1 “Behold, I send My messenger,
          And he will prepare the way before Me.
          And the Lord, whom you seek,
          Will suddenly come to His temple,
          Even the Messenger of the covenant,
          In whom you delight.
          Behold, He is coming,”
          Says the Lord of hosts.
          2 “But who can endure the day of His coming?
          And who can stand when He appears?
          For He is like a refiner’s fire
          And like launderers’ soap.
          3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
          He will purify the sons of Levi,
          And purge them as gold and silver,
          That they may offer to the Lord
          An offering in righteousness.
          (Mal 3.1–3)

          1. We could make the same argument for His return.
          2. People want to see Him to know that He exists.
            1. He will appear suddenly.
            2. He will appear for judgment,

              1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief (1Th 5.1–4).

  3. Prepare yourself now for that meeting. 
    1. Make yourself right with Him now
    2. for it to be a pleasant experience.