Daily Devotional Thoughts All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.  This Week’s Study: Romans 1:20,21 Monday - God’s attributes clearly seen - Part 1. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:20- 21). Today’s text tells us that from “the creation of the world” God’s “invisible attributes are clearly seen.” I realize this statement seems mutually exclusive but Paul goes on to explain he is talking about God’s “eternal power and Godhead.” His point is God, though invisible to us, has clearly revealed Himself to us.  He gives each one of us enough data to know Him, to accept Him as supreme, and to love Him.  Paul writes God’s attributes are clearly seen leaving us “without excuse.”  How are  these attributes clearly seen?  In the things God as made.   Verse 20 reminds us, we see God in the “creation of the world.” Why is this important?  Because recognizing God as our Creator is the foundational to understanding God’s claim on our lives and our worship.  Failing to glorify God leads to darkness and eternal loss.  Listen again to Romans 1:21: “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). What a tragic end to those created by God and destined for greatness!  Today, will you join me in glorifying God as Creator? Tuesday - God’s attributes clearly seen - Part 2. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:20-21). As we continue our study from yesterday’s verses we find Paul laying the groundwork for his explanation of human depravity.  He maintains darkness and depravity occur when human beings refuse to acknowledge God as Creator. So does intelligent design make any sense at all?  I maintain intelligent design is the only possible explanation for our origins.  Certainly, we do see random mutation and change in living organisms.  What we don’t see is the development of complex and interdependent change resulting from random mutation.  Never.  We’ll explore that in depth tomorrow.  Evolution teaches change comes as an organism accidentally or randomly experiences change and when that change makes life more viable or provides other benefits the organism thus evolves into a higher form of life.  Does this hypothesis hold up in the real world?  We’ll look into that tomorrow. Think of the impossible probability of this.  Believing human beings evolved form simpler forms of life is like believing if we threw enough parts together in a hostile environment, let them interact enough times, after eons of time, we would see a space ship evolve.  Ludicrous you say?  Yes, ridiculous.  But no more so than believing that, given enough time, we could also take simple cell organisms, let them shake around and interact long enough in a hostile environment and end up with intelligent beings capable of building and piloting such a spacecraft. Makes a whole lot more sense to believe “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).  And in believing, we owe full allegiance and worship. Wednesday  - God’s attributes clearly seen - Part 3. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:20-21). As our Scripture points out, God is clearly revealed by His creation.  When we study the complexity of living organisms, or of the universe, or of the interactive laws of physics, we inevitably see God. Yesterday, I promised we would look closely at the impossibility of random chance developing complex organisms.  The real-life illustration for today is eyesight. Think of the way eyes work.  What we see is electromagnetic radiation in the spectrum we call light.  Our eyes sense this radiation and relays this to our brains.  We interpret these sensations as visual images.  Evolution tells us random changes occured and when these changes favored life, or a specific form of life, the organism evolved and changed as a result. How does one ever explain how random changes evolved into vision?  The existence of working eyes gives credence to creation by God and destroys the theory of evolution.  The multiple random mutations that would have to occur to bring eyesight are involved and complex.  The impossibility of such random development resulting in vision is underscored by the fact that none of the required mutations would have any reason for being until the entire evolutionary process resulted in working vision.  My point? Assuming we start with non-seeing form of life:  A mutation that produced light-sensing cells would have no reason to survive unless all the other items required for vision were in place.  Light-sensing cells have no evolutionary value without optic nerves in place to carry the visual impressions to the brain.  No random chance process would have any reason to allow the many changes necessary for sight.  Each evolutionary change would die out for lack of a reason to exist.  Why would evolutionary theory allow light sensing cells to develop if the rest of the seeing mechanism (lense, optic nerves, etc.) weren’t also in place? No, we are left with only one choice. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Thursday  - God’s attributes clearly seen - Part 4. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:20-21). So this week we have been looking at probability and possibility.  What are the chances random mutation in simple organisms can produce complex upgrades like vision?  Our conclusion?  Zero.  Statistically impossible.  And we were looking at the example of vision.  Let’s take one more example. What about sexual diversity and genital differentiation?  Can you imagine the virtually numberless developmental changes required to produce male genitalia from a simple organism?  Couple that with the understanding that no evolutionary justification for male genitals exists until female genitalia also evolved and both male and female development was complete.  No, it takes more than random chance to develop two simultaneously dependent complex systems in a species.  To believe that is beyond ludicrous.  And evolution would teach us that these kinds of developments randomly occurred over thousands of species givingus what we have today.  Nobody with a good understanding of probability and statistics would accept evolution if he or she really looked at the improbability.  No, accepting God’s version, while certainly requiring a strong measure of faith, at least makes sense. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; . . . .” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 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” (Genesis 1:26-28). Friday/Weekend - God’s attributes clearly seen - Part 5. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:20-21). This week we parked on this text and briefly looked at two examples illustrating the absurdity of the creation-by-evolution argument. In summary, the list of complex organisms which could never develop by eons of random chance goes on almost to infinity.  Only intelligent design can be credited with putting together a working system in our body which brings us sight.  Too many body parts have to work together simultaneously for viable sight to have evolved from unnumbered random changes.  Evolution is absolutely ruled out.  When studied in light of reality, the theory that given enough random mutations one can develop sight, or any of the other complex and interactive systems in human bodies is shown to be an impossible hypothesis.  Indeed, the only really viable answer to the complexity of life, physical law and the universe is found in God’s word.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).   Acknowledging God as Creator is so important that God gave us the Sabbath, the seventh-day of the week.  God asks us to set that day aside and remember that He is our creator.  You can read all about it in Genesis 2: 1-3 and Exodus 20:8-11.  God asks us to remember.  We are created by God.  We are created for fellowship with God throughout eternity.  Let’s not miss it! 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