Sunday Message: Dark Matter

This morning, Dr. Jeremiah began his discussion on having passion in our faith by reading from a book he'd read.  The author used the hymn Leaning On The Everlasting Arms to make his explanation for the lack of passion in today's church.  He pointed out that we see leaning into the arms of God to be leaning BACKWARDS, safe and secure as the song says... instead of Leaning FORWARDS to accomplish God's plan for us.  And as Dr. Jeremiah elucidated, he mentioned his life verse.  Which got me to thinking about my life verse...

1Sa 7:12 And Samuel took a stone, and laid it between Masphath and Sen: and he called the place Eben-Ezer (Stone of Help). And he said: Thus far the Lord hath helped us.

 

 

Which could be looked at as a leaning backwards verse- God the stone, the Rock that keeps us secure.  But, though it involves LOOKING backwards, it doesn't mean backwards to me.

See, there are a lot of elements trying to convince the world that God doesn't exist.  Currently, most of science is among them.  I see things scientifically, but I realize what science is today has gone off the rails.  Science should start with observing.  Then, after observing, you test a few things.  You look for more observations.  Then you form a theory based on what you observed, and after try to prove it.  But today, science is agenda-driven:  I have a theory that backs up my agenda.  I search for observations to back it up.  I discard anything that doesn't fit the agenda as "anomalous" or "corrupted".  Then I proclaim that my theory is right, and you are an idiot if you don't believe.  Research global climate change if you don't believe me.  If your research leads to no other definite conclusion, the phrase, "Then I proclaim that my theory is right, and you are an idiot if you don't believe" will be borne out clearly.

Science today is the business of proving God doesn't exist- that is the agenda.  Great minds like Galileo and Isaac Newton felt no need to do that- they did science without agendas.  And you can read today's science, and couple it with "the state of the world", and "tolerance" and all your other PC buzzwords and become doubtful of God.  And this is where my life verse comes in.

I look back to what I KNOW God has done for me.  The handful of times I have heard the Spirit.  The wonderful moment when accepting Christ raised the curtain for my soul.  The many times when things have "happened for the good" for this man who believes.

And I realize science is not wrong per se- just misapplied.  How many of you have casually heard the term Dark Matter?  Let me use wiki to try and explain it.

dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe.^[1] Dark energy is the most accepted hypothesis to explain observations since the 1990s that indicate that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. According to the Planck mission team, and based on the standard model of cosmology, on a mass–energy equivalence basis the universe contains 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy (for a total of 95.1%) and 4.9% ordinary matter.^[2][3][4][5] Again on a mass-energy equivalence basis, the density of dark energy (1.67 × 10^-27 kg/m³) is very low: in the solar system, there are only 6 tons of dark energy within the radius of Pluto's orbit. However, it comes to dominate the mass-energy of the universe because it is uniform across space.^[6]


Er, ahem, what we're trying to get at here is that, according to science's calculations, there is something we can't see out there- a lot more than what we CAN see.  And what this missing thing is, is what sets all things in motion.

Dark matter plays a central role in state-of-the-art modeling of cosmic structure formation and Galaxy formation and evolution and has measurable effects on the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background. All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts with electromagnetic radiation.^[10]


In layman's terms, "dark matter and energy are what put things in the universe together in the form we observe them in."

Dark matter cannot be seen directly with telescopes; evidently it neither emits nor absorbs light or other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level.

Or to put it another way, it cannot be seen in anyway, but we know it's there because of it's observable effects.


¹⁸ No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son,^[a] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. John 1:18

Something much more than we can see, invisible to us but believed on due to it's observable actions, capable of controlling the structure and motion of the universe.  Isn't that what GOD IS?


Recently, and curse me that I don't remember where, I was reading new findings on what happened during the Big Bang.  Fractions of a nanosecond into it, something shifted that allowed the positive energy structure of our universe to form.  Had this event held off a fraction of that fraction longer, the shift would not have been made, matter and anti-matter would have co-existed just long enough to annihilate each other, and the whole business would have torn a hole in what we think of as reality and it would have all went back to square one.  THINK about that.  The difference between everything and nothing was a fraction of a fraction of a billionth of a second.  But because it COULD have happened by dumb luck like that, science tells us there is no God.

BTW, do I believe there was a Big Bang?  Sure I do...

³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.  Genesis 1:3-5


But here's the point:  science comes up with ways that this all could have happened WITHOUT God.  They can take dark matter on faith, but not God.  And it CAN make you wonder.  But then, when I feel a shade of a doubt come into my mind, I look behind me- at the many Eben-Ezers in my life, moments that God has been there.  And I think of the key part of that verse- "Thus far".  It doesn't only show me where He HAS been my Stone of Help, but shows me where He will be again.

My life is full of stones I set up when God proved Himself to me.  That I yet live, yet breathe, is one of them.  How about you?