The Root of the Problem

   “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20)

   My sermon topic is “The Root of the Problem” and my wife asked me yesterday, “Well, what is that?”

   I said, “What do you think it is?”

   She said, “Why, sin, of course.”

   My wife is a very perceptive lady, and I said, “Honey, that’s right, and if you go to the etiology of the whole problem, eventually you get back to sin.”

   I was thinking of something more recent, a more modern human construct which is, indeed, the root of most all of the problems we face today, or have for the last several centuries. I wonder what that would be? It would be interesting to have all of you write your answer down. I’m sure some of you would get it right. Others of you would not.

   I also believe that when I tell you what I think it is, many of you will not believe me. I also trust that before this service is over, you will see why I say what I am going to say. The root of the problem of most of the great ills that have afflicted society and do afflict it today are caused by the teaching of evolution. It has been called “The Big Lie.” It has deceived hundreds of millions of people and has probably brought about more deaths than any other view in the history of the world.

Evolution

   Evolution simply says that the whole universe is made up of nothing but matter; that matter, time, and chance—the trinity of materialism—have brought all things into existence that exist, and therefore, there is no God. One scientist said that he was confident that if you interviewed social scientists at our elite universities across the country, and if they were willing to be honest about the matter, you would find out something surprising. He said you would find that at least ninety-five, perhaps ninety-nine percent of them would not be willing to sign the Declaration of Independence, if they were honest about it.

   Why? Very simple: They do not believe in a Creator; they do not believe we have been created equal or any other way. They do not believe that we have been endowed with certain inalienable rights by this Creator. None of that they believe, and if they were honest, they would not sign the document that makes us and made us Americans.

   He says, “Parents can work hard to educate their children to be patriots and morally upright citizens. But four years of college of the kind I experienced—where I was surrounded by a culture of drugs, sexual libertinism, political radicalism and little homework—can destroy the efforts of the best parents in America.”

   If that doesn’t do it, he says a couple of years of graduate school are almost certain to destroy any vestige of belief in God, moral absolutes, morality, Americanism, patriotism, or any other of our values. That, my friends, is due to evolution. Evolution has made our public schools and universities and colleges like the one he attended, a mortal danger to the lives and souls of young people—with tragic consequences.

   Dr. Ernest Gordon, dean emeritus of the Princeton University Chapel, also the hero and author of the book, Bridge over the River Kwai, is a fascinating and godly man. He said:

   During the late fifties I was invited to address the senior class of an English department in a city high school. When I arrived at the school, I introduced myself to the assistant headmaster, whose office was at the entrance. He guided me to the appropriate lecture hall.

   Twenty years later, I was invited to the same school for the same purpose. I again presented myself to the same office, but it was no longer the habitat of an educator [of the assistant headmaster]. It was the command post of a police inspector. Corridors and classrooms were monitored by police officers who reported regularly to the inspector. The reasons for the change were obvious: violence, assault, rape, drug-induced madness.

   I interpret this scene as evidence of the end times of a civilization that had once benefitted from the Christian worldview, one that exalted creation and people and provided ideals essential for authentic education. I recognize that civilization does not create Christians. However, the community of faith created and still creates the civility that is evidence of civilization. The demoralized school is the tragic consequence of society’s rejection of the biblical worldview that provided the intellectual dynamic of Western education.

   At the heart of all of that is the doctrine of evolution which, first of all, got rid of God—and since there is no Creator, there is no God. Since evolutionists believe that all life arose spontaneously from matter, there was no need for a god to create anyone.

   Another of the fruits of evolution has been the proliferation of atheists. Do you realize that before Darwin, an atheist was as scarce as a hen’s tooth? Oh, there were a few around, but very, very few. Do you know why? Because if you said you were an atheist, all I had to say to you was, “Look around, buddy. Where did all of this come from?”

   And the atheist said, “Ah . . . bu . . . da . . . I don’t know.”

   Then came Charles Darwin. One evolutionist said, “The greatest contribution of Charles Darwin was that he made atheism respectable.” For that this atheistic evolutionist was forever grateful—or at least forever, as far as whatever few years he had left in this world, until the day of the Great Awakening, which was to come and is to come for all of us.

Does Evolution Make a Difference?

   So evolution got rid of God. Does this make any difference in our current society? Yes, it does, my friends. I was talking to an expert in legal affairs who has often appeared before the Supreme Court, and he told me that the main problem in the Supreme Court is very simple: Six of the judges are evolutionists and three are not. Have you wondered why they vote the way they do when it comes time to decide:

·         Whether or not God should be taught in the classrooms.

·         Whether or not prayer should be directed to God? Nein!

·         Whether or not the Bible should be taught? Nein!

·         Whether or not the Ten Commandments can be posted? Nein! We cannot have that!

·         Whether or not it is legal to abort a child? Of course.

·         Whether or not it is legal to marry a man with a man and a woman with a woman? That is yet to be seen. (There may be significant enough political pressure to avert that one. I don’t know.)

   But if there is no God, there are no moral absolutes. As Dostoyevsky put it: “If there is no God, then everything is permissible.” Think about it. That is true.

   Because of evolution, man has lost his significance. In Western civilization, it has always been held that man is a creature with a great purpose. He has been created in the image of God to fulfill His purposes in this world, and he has an everlasting life ahead of him.

   Today, students are taught that man has no purpose, because teleology, the science of purposes, is the bête niore, the black beast of evolution. Evolutionists cannot stand that anything would have purpose. Teleology must go. Therefore, everything is not pre-planned by a divine intelligence and a beneficent God who providentially provides for His creatures. No. It all happens purely by chance with no forethought of what the end might be. Therefore, man has no purpose. Consequently, he has no significance.

   Stephen J. Gould was the most influential evolutionist in America, a professor at Harvard University for twenty years—and he had a great awakening: He died (in 2002) and he met the Creator face-to-face! That must have been a horribly shocking event, to say the least.

   However, in one article he wrote, he said: “Man—or even woman—as the crowning achievement of some grand cosmic plan? What mortal conceit.” To Gould it was a mortal conceit. “We are but an afterthought,” said Gould. “We are a little accidental twig”—the kind you would pick up off the lawn of your back yard and throw into the garbage. That is what your students are learning in our colleges: They are nothing but dried up little accidental twig of no significance and no purpose.

   So man lost all of his divinely bestowed significance and importance with the onslaught of evolution. The results of that have been staggering. Among them is the fact that suicide is the second largest cause of death among college students in America. When life has no meaning nor purpose and no future, then why not? Tune out. Tune in. Live a life of drugs, alcohol, sec. Life really doesn’t have any meaning after all because, you see, it has been “demonstrated scientifically” that evolution is a “fact,” and you have to get used to it. They are told it is a fact that is believed by all scientists. How many times have we heard that?

   I remember listening a few years ago to a television broadcast on public television in which a young lady was interviewing Sir Julian Huxley. He was the grandson of Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog, who popularized evolution during Darwin’s day. Darwin was too meek and mild to get out and defend his own theory, but he had a bulldog, Thomas Huxley. His grandson was Sir Julian, and he was, a few years ago, the most important evolutionist in the world—even knighted by the king. He was also the president and founder of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). He was a world ambassador for evolution. If Sir Julian spoke, that was the law, the last word. This lady interviewing him asked, “Why do you think evolution caught on so quickly? [Why do you think the scientists leaped at  The Origin of Species?”].

   I remember exactly where I was sitting while watching this public broadcasting station on television, and Huxley’s response, verbatim. The greatest living evolutionist in all of the word, Sir Julian Huxley, said, “We all jumped at the Origin [The Origin of Species] because . . .” I would love to ask a college class of seniors in the science department that question, “Why did scientists leap at the Origin?” They would say that Charles Darwin presented such unimpeachable evidence that proved the fact of evolution that we, in our scientific integrity, could not help but to accept his conclusions.” That is what every student in the world is taught.

   But what said the greatest evolutionist on Earth, Sir Julian Huxley? He said this: “[I suppose the reason] we all jumped at the Origin was because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” Remember: If there is no God, everything is permissible.

   By the way, that is not a lone opinion. Aldus Huxley, one of the great agnostic evolutionists of the twentieth century, said the same thing. He believed in the meaninglessness of the world, which Darwin taught, because, he said, “We objected to the morality, because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

   Such statements from various highly placed evolutionists could be quoted. What was evolution really all about? Science? Evidence? . . . Sex! Of course, it unleashed The Kinsey Report, the sexual revolution, feminism, divorce, homosexuality, and all of the rest of those ills. Does evolution really make a difference in our world? Believe me it does. The people I am quoting to you are not merely evolutionists—they are the world’s greatest evolutionists, and what they often say to each other, they don’t say to the people.

   I further will say that ninety-five percent of what you hear from me today, you have never read in the newspaper. They will say, “But it is a face, and therefore, we must live with it, adjust to it.” That is what many people have tried to do, because they have been told it is a fact. It’s not even a theory, we are told—it is a fact.

   Dr. Karl R. Popper, according to one evolutionary scientist, is incomparably the greatest philosopher of science the world has ever known. You ought to remember the name—Dr. Karl Popper. He said the final word in the philosophy of science: that evolution is not a theory; it doesn’t even rise that high. It certainly is not a fact. It is not a theory; it is not even a hypothesis—it is nothing more than a “metaphysical research program.” So said the most incomparable philosopher of science the world has ever known. He got a lot of flack for saying that!

Not a Fact

   So, evolution is not a fact; it isn’t eve a theory. Evolutionists say, “Evolution is not a theory; it’s a fact.” However, the greatest authority in the world says it’s not a theory; it’s not even a hypothesis. It’s metaphysics. It’s basically theology.

   Others will say, “All scientists believe in evolution, and therefore, we must believe it.” In fact, I would say the most persuasive argument as to why students ought to believe in evolution in our colleges and high schools is that all scientists believe it. You have probably heard that statement before.

What is True?

   Let us take a little deeper look. First of all, who invented science? It was Francis Bacon, who is credited with having been the inventor of the scientific method, that combination of induction and deduction, of hypothesis and proof (empirical proof). Bacon was a devout Christian. He believed in God. He believed in Christ, he believed in the Bible, and he believed in creation. He said that God had given us two books. He has given us the book of nature to understand the world, and the book of Scriptures—and we are to read both of them, said the founder of science. Wasn’t a Christian? Hardly.

   Who was the greatest scientist that ever lived? A poll taken of scientists just a few years ago concluded that the greatest scientists that ever lived was Sir Isaac Newton. If you read a list of the things he discovered, it is awesome. The mathematical laws of gravity are just one piece of that huge puzzle from this gigantic intellect. He was, also, among other things, the co-discoverer of calculus. Sir Isaac Newton. Newton believed in God, he believed in Christ, he believed in the Bible, and he believed in creation. To the utter chagrin of modern evolutionary scientists, he wrote more books on theology than he did on science. He still became the greatest scientist that has ever lived, according to them.

Christian Scientists

   If the scientific method was invented by a Christian and the greatest scientist that ever lived was a Christian, what about the people that gave us all of the various branches of science? Who were they? Let me tell you about them. They were all men who believed in God, believed in Christ, believed in the Bible, and believed in creation. Not an evolutionist among them. Some of them were:

·         The inventor of Antiseptic Surgery was Joseph Lister, who was all of the above.

·         Bacteriology—Louis Pasteur—all of the above.

·         Calculus—Sir Isaac Newton, as I’ve said.

·         Celestial Mechanics—Johann Kepler, who said that science was thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

·         Chemistry—Robert Boyle, who left a large sum of money in his will that a series of lectures should be taught in his university in England defending the Christian faith. An unbeliever? Hardly.

·         Comparative anatomy—Georges Cuvier.

·         Dimensional Analysis – Lord Rayleigh.

·         Dynamics – Isaac Newton

·         Electrodynamics – James Clerk Maxwell.

·         Electromagnetics – Michael Faraday, who had about twenty-two honorary doctorates. He was being given a huge award by the king at a banquet on a Wednesday night. After the banquet, the people talked for a while, and then he was called up to receive his award, and they found that he had slipped out to go to prayer meeting. That is what you would have done, isn’t it? After all, what is an award from the king compared to worshiping God?

·         Electronics – Ambrose Fleming.

·         Energetics – Lord Kelvin, a great Christian.

·         Entomology of Living Insects – Henri Fabre.

·         Field Theory – George Stokes.

·         Galactic Astronomy – William Herschel.

·         Gas Dynamics – Robert Boyle.

·         Genetics – Gregor Mendel.

·         Glacial Geology – Louis Agassiz of Harvard, a great Christian man.

·         Gynecology – James Simpson.

·         Hydraulics – Leonardo da Vinci.

·         Hydrography – Matthew Maury.

·         Hydrostatics – Blaise Pascal.

·         Ichthyology – Louis Agassiz.

·         Isotopic Chemistry – William Ramsay.

·         Model Analysis – Lord Rayleigh.

·         Natural History – John Ray.

·         Non-Euclidean Geometry – Bernard Riemann.

·         Oceanography – Matthew Maury.

·         Optical Mineralogy – David Brewster.

·         Paleontology – John Woodward.

·         Pathology – Rudolph Virchow.

·         Physical Astronomy – Johann Kepler.

·         Reversible Thermodynamics – James Joule.

·         Statistical Thermodynamics – James Clerk Maxwell.

·         Stratigraphy – Nicholas Steno.

·         Systematic Biology – Carolus Linnaeus.

·         Thermodynamics – Lord Kelvin.

·         Thermokinetics – Humphrey Davy.

·         Vertebrate Paleontology – George Cuvier.

   They were Christians, all believers in creation. We actually had an evolutionist in a debate here many years ago who made this astounding statement: “Creation is not scientific, and therefore, anyone who believes in creation is not a scientist.” How’s that again? He had better go back and read a little of his own history to find out if that is true.

It’s Nonsense

   Evolution has failed at every point. All of the major pillars of evolution have collapsed in the last twenty years. For example: the idea that the amazing and almost unbelievable complexity of a cell could have risen by chance. Sir Fred Hoyle of Cambridge University and Oxford, one of the greatest living astronomers, developer of the Steady-State theory of creation, said that the idea of a cell could have risen by chance “is evidently nonsense of a high order.”

   What your children are taught in every public school as scientific fact in America is “Nonsense of a high order.” Yes, my friends, outstanding scientists have said there is no basis and no real evidence for evolution at all. It is not even a theory, much less a fact.

   Hitler was a devout evolutionist and a follower of Nietzsche and Haeckel, and he taught evolution to his troops. He gave them a copy of Darwin’s book and Nietzsche’s book, which talked about evolution of the God-man, of our becoming God. He was absolutely determined to create a super race by getting rid of the inferior races.

   By the way, racism is basically an evolutionary concept. The word “race” is never even used in the Bible, except for a foot race. But all of the nineteenth century evolutionists were strong racists, including Darwin, who said that the “inferior races at some time in the future would all be destroyed by the superior races.” Hitler and others set out to do so. We also know that the founder of Planned Parenthood set out to get rid of “the human weeds,” as she called them, so the superior stock might prevail.

   Also, I trust you know that Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, felt that evolution was exactly what he needed as a pseudo-scientific foundation for Communism. He even wanted to dedicate Das Kaptial to Charles Darwin. His wife had a fit, and he said he wouldn’t do it because he didn’t want to cause unhappiness in his family. He also hoped his wife would let go of his nose. She was much more conservative than her husband, to say the least.

   Communism is based upon evolution, as is Nazism, as is Fascism. The Communists killed, according to the Senate Committee of the United States of America, 135 million people in peacetime—the greatest mass murderers of all time—Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and all of the rest—all of that, compliments of evolution.

   Therefore, we can conclude with a statement made by a very famous evolutionist, Sir Arthur Keith, the number one evolutionist in Great Britain. At the end of World War II, Keith said that what we have just seen for the first time in history is a modern secular technological state that has based itself entirely upon the principles of evolution. He was horrified. He had written twenty books defending evolution, and then he saw it in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—and he was appalled. Keith also said this:

   Meantime, let me say in conclusion, I have come to this: The law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution . . . as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.

Sir Arthur Keith, the greatest evolutionist of Great Britain

   PRAYER: Father, we thank Thee that the pillars of evolution are crumbling on every side. There are those who are predicting that by the idle of this century it will be known simply as a small religious sect of the twentieth century. As the greatest scientists in France has said, “Evolution is a fairy tale for adults.” Other scientists have said it has no evidence whatsoever.

   Lord, we pray that You will topple this whole monstrous edifice which has brought more death, more evil, more vice, more vileness into the world than any other human theory ever promulgated. We pray that the law of Christ will prevail and this One who came and commanded us to care for the weak, not destroy them; to help those that are sick, and the poor and not let them die, that His views will prevail, though they are the very antithesis of evolution, and that His love and mercy and grace will cover the world.

   We pray, Lord, that the collapse of this horrible edifice may come soon and may come completely and totally. We pray that Thou, O Christ, once more will be glorified, and that the wondrous effects of Your ethical, moral, and spiritual teaching will once more prevail in our nation and in the world. In Christ’s name, Amen.

D. James Kennedy
(1930-2007)

This is the complete, unabridged sermon as delivered and published in 2004 by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Copyright © Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc. Reprinted with permission.