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