I have here, a handful of dirt--
a handful of soil actually. It's alive, it smells alive.
I've taken it from this park--hopefully I'm not going to get in trouble for doing so--
and the thing is, there's a lot going on in this handful of soil,
including pitched war.
That's right. War.
There's a battle going on in here.
There's hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of micro-organisms.
There's predator and prey. Some of them, amazingly, are forming teams,
and they're engaging in chemical and biological warfare,
one type of organism against another.
Or they're engaging in fierce one-on-one battles, where the winner eats the loser.
In these fights, you can see specialized and sophisticated weapons.
You can see defenses, measures, counter-measures, tactics, responses.
What's going on in this handful of dirt, frankly, is a hellish nightmare
of conflict, struggle, and death.
But the thing is, what goes on in this handful of soil is no different, really,
than what goes on throughout all of the natural world.
This is representative of the relationships of the creatures of the earth,
from the smallest right on up to the largest.
All the earth, in fact, is a battleground.
Everywhere, we're seeing predator and prey,
we see conflict and fear, we see disease and parasites, we see suffering and death,
and for Christians, that's a problem.
In fact, it's a profound problem.
You see, the Bible tells us in Genesis chapter one
how God created the earth.
It also tells us in Job 38:7, that when He created it, the angels sang.
And from this, we conclude that it was so beautiful, so special,
that it dazzled the angels. It was so good in fact,
that God called it "very good" at the conclusion of His creation work.
Now, the Bible tells us that God is love.
In other words, the essence of His character is love.
He is also generous, He is supportive, He is nurturing, He is protective of us,
but more than anything else, He is the very definition of love.
In fact, in John 3:16, the most memorized verse in the Bible,
the Bible says that God profoundly loves the world,
which includes humans, and everything else He created--
we're talking the world that He loved, not just mankind.
So taking all this into account,
let's ask a critical and fundamental question:
What kind of world would God create?
If God's character is the definition of love,
then really, He could create nothing but a
loving, harmonious, elegant, supportive, nurturing, amazing world, right?
A character of perfect love cannot create something that is contrary to its character.
So what God created would necessarily reflect His character, right?
Further, we can understand that love,
or more broadly, let's call it "loving-kindness",
would be God's organizing principle for the operation of His earth.
In other words, love, or loving-kindness, would define
how the world fundamentally operates.
It would define the relationships between creatures,
and even define the operation of the natural systems
that support life on earth,
such as our atmosphere, our hydrosphere, our oceanic systems, our climate systems.
If God created a world that operated on a system that's contrary to love,
then logically, God would not be who the Bible says He is.
And if God created something that was contrary to His character,
then the angels would not be dazzled by it, nor would they respond by singing.
They would in fact, respond in shock and confusion instead.
But the world doesn't operate on a system of loving-kindness,
we know that just by looking all around us.
Because when we look around us, we see struggle, we see fear, we see fighting,
we see disease, we see
parasites and death.
The world calls this system, "the survival of the fittest".
But when I look at everything going on, I see more than just individual struggle.
The system that I see is, in fact, an intentional system.
And if we examine it carefully,
we see that the ultimate organizing principle of this system,
is selfishness.
Which is the exact opposite of what the Bible says God's character is.
So, here's our dilemma:
If God created the world as we observe it,
then the Bible is false, and God is a monster who is unworthy of our worship.
Full-stop.
It's either that, or He is who He says He is,
and the Bible is true,
but something happened to change the organizing principle of the earth
from loving-kindness, to selfishness.
If this second choice is true, then it raises a whole slew of questions--
important questions.
Including, "Why would an all powerful God, allow His earth to be twisted
and perverted like that?
And how is that consistent with a God that the Bible says has a character of love?"
Well, these are really, truly important questions,
and we'll begin to take them up, in the next video in this series.
In the course of doing so,
we'll eventually come back to this handful of soil.
Because there's more that it can teach us about the character of God,
and the organizing principle of the earth.
It can in fact, teach us something about ourselves.