When Charles Darwin examined a star-shaped Madagascar orchid, with its 11-inch nectar tube, he predicted that a moth would be found with an 11-inch proboscis that could reach the nectar. He stated this in his 1862 publication On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilized. In 1903, 21 years after Darwin’s death, the Morgan’s sphinx moth was discovered, and in 2004, Philip DeVries used an infra-red camera to film the moth’s nocturnal pollination of the orchid with its amazing proboscis. See video below. In 1867, Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the “theory” of co-evolution to explain the existence of symbiotic relationships such as flowers and their pollinating insects. This remains the myth that is promoted in museums and science textbooks today, as if any naturalistic method could possibly explain the origin of such amazing living things and such wonderful symbiotic relationships! Both the flower and the insect are fantastically complex. They shout divine creation at every level of their existence, from their living cells and DNA to processes such as photosynthesis and metamorphosis to the ability to see and hear and fly and reproduce. A vast amount of perfect genetic information is involved in producing an orchid and a moth that operate in such perfect harmony. What Darwinian process accounts for such a thing? “Natural selection” can act only within the parameters of existing genetic information, and mutations are known to be overwhelmingly negative and destructive. For all its huffing and puffing, Darwinian evolution has never proposed a “natural” creative mechanism supported by scientific evidence than can explain life. Evolutionary accounts of how life came into existence or how any creature originated are fictional “just-so” stories. They only thing they prove is that evolutionists have big imaginations. Further, if the flower and the pollinating insect did “evolve,” they had to have evolved at the same time--like in the same week or month--because they are dependent on one another for their very existence. Darwin was right about the moth’s existence and dead wrong about the process by which the moth came into existence.

(Friday Church News Notes, May 16, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Genesis 1:11
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

God doesn't make cheap things! While we speak of “simple” forms of life, the more we learn about living things, the more clearly we see that there are no simple forms of life.

Evolution has long theorized that life began with simple forms that gradually, over millions of years, became more complex. Evolutionary scientists say that the “simple” forms of life still around today prove their claim. The problem is, there aren't any simple forms of life! Take the “lowly” fungus, for example. The cap throwing fungus has a number of dandy designs that enable it to spread its reproductive spores. First of all, the cap throwing fungus has a built in clock. The fungus bends through the day in response to the sun’s movement. It also throws its masses of spores out in order to spread them over the widest possible area.

The built in clock of the cap throwing fungus waits to blow its top until the fungus is turned at the best angle to produce the widest possible spread of its spores. The light sensing system in the fungus releases the spores at about nine in the morning – aiming the spores at an area that is most likely to be open, so the spores can be spread even further by animals. But whether the spores land where animals pass or on a leaf, they are coated with a glue to aid in further dispersion.

The lowly fungus reminds us that there aren't any simple forms of life. Even this fungus has been given sophisticated ways to carry out its command to reproduce after its kind.

A slow-motion video showing the fungus blowing its top can be seen below.

Notes: Howe, George F. 1972. “The cap thrower fungus.” Creation Research Society Quarterly, v. 9, n. 3, Dec. p. 172.
Photo: The spore discharge of Pilobolus crystallinus has been called the fastest living thing on the planet. Courtesy of F.H. Wigg.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Researchers have discovered that when under attack by cutworms, tomatoes signal the danger to surrounding vegetables and produce a chemical that is absorbed and converted by surrounding plants into a toxic weapon that harms the caterpillars (“Tomato Plants’ Chemical Signal Turned into Pest-killing Weapon,” Popular Science, May 1, 2014). Other plants like Sorghum and rice can produce the chemical “and may be using a similar technique to defend themselves.”

(Friday Church News Notes, May 9, 2014, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Job 36:22
“Behold, God exalteth by his power: who teacheth like him?”

Many types of animals help each other – an activity called “altruism” – even though some of these animals would normally eat each other. Different kinds of animals that help each other pose a serious problem for those who deny an all wise Creator. Evolution has lots of reasons why natural enemies would not cooperate to help each other. But consider the example of the yellow tailed goat fish.

The yellow tailed goat fish is a mostly white fish that swims in small schools. They often cruise around reefs where the yellow French angelfish live. The angel fish hide from the goat fish who might eat them. However, the goat fish are often bothered by parasites that lodge in their scales and gills. When this happens, the goat fish swim to the reef in which the angelfish live and blush a bright rust red color.

When this happens, the angelfish knows that the goat fish has not come for lunch but to be cleaned. So the angelfish swims out and cleans the goat fish of his uncomfortable and unhealthy parasites! When the goat fish is clean, he stops blushing and swims off to leave the angelfish in peace.

Is it possible that our wise Creator has provided for the needs of His creatures in a way that could provide these unexplained mysteries for those who want to explain things without Him? We think so. We think this is one of the ways in which His glory, power and wisdom are made evident to those who don’t want to admit an intelligent Creator.

Photo: Courtesy of Albert Kok. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“To employ soft words and honeyed phrases in discussing questions of everlasting importance; to deal with errors that strike at the foundations of all human hope as if they were harmless and venial mistakes; to bless where God disapproves, and to make apologies where He calls us to stand up like men and assert, though it may be the aptest method of securing popular applause in a sophistical age, is cruelty to man and treachery to Heaven. Those who on such subjects attach more importance to the rules of courtesy than they do to the measures of truth do not defend the citadel, but betray it into the hands of its enemies. Love for Christ, and for the souls for whom He died, will be the exact measure of our zeal in exposing the dangers by which men’s souls are ensnared”

(quoted in a sermon by George Sayles Bishop, author of The Doctrines of Grace and Kindred Themes).

Deuteronomy 4:28
“And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.”

The woodpecker’s tongue can stretch from three to five times its normal length in order to fish bugs out of trees. You would think that his tongue would have to be rooted in his tail to do that neat trick! This beautiful creation in which we live is not only filled with testimonies to the wisdom of God. It is also filled with special designs that deny the possibility that life in all its complexity developed entirely by chance.

Consider the woodpecker. Incredibly, the woodpecker’s tongue is rooted in his right nostril. Exiting the back of the nostril, his tongue splits into two parts, wrapping around his head between his skull and the skin, passing on either side of the neck bones, and then coming up through his lower jaw or beak. This gives the woodpecker a long enough tongue to stretch it out far enough to do an effective job of pest control on bug infested trees!

Now how could this happen by blind evolutionary chance? Even evolutionists admit that it’s silly to suggest that the woodpecker’s tongue gradually got longer over thousands of year and began to grow under his skin. As one evolutionary scientist said about the woodpecker’s tongue, “There are certain anatomical features which just cannot be explained by gradual mutations over millions of years. Just between you and me, I have to get God into the act too sometimes.”

Why wait to call on God as a last resort? Let’s begin with our wonderful Creator!

Notes: Sunderland, Luther D. 1975. “Miraculous design features in woodpeckers.” Bible Science Newsletter, v. 13, n. 10, Oct. p. 4.
Photo: Courtesy of British Wildlife and Environment Forums.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Pastor Ken Shigematsu of Vancouver, B.C., is an example of how that contemplative prayer continues to break down walls of separation between “evangelicals” and Rome. In his new book God in My Everything, Shigematsu, senior pastor of Tenth Church, promotes Roman Catholic mysticism and builds bridges to Catholic/New Age mystics such as Thomas Merton, John Cassian, and Benedict of Nursia. As we have long warned, contemplative prayer is a major element in the building on the end-time, one-world “church.” Shigematsu was led into Catholic mysticism by Leighton Ford, Billy Graham’s brother-in-law. Shigematsu attended a pilgrimage to Ireland led by Ford during which they “listened to stories and legends about saints,” such as “Saint Kevin,” who stood in icy water for hours praying with his arms stretched toward heaven, and on one occasion a blackbird supposedly laid eggs in his hand (God in My Everything, pp. 15, 16). Shigematsu said that the Ireland pilgrimage was “a second conversion for me, a journey of growing to appreciate the beauty of the monastic way of life.” At the National Pastor’s Conference in San Diego in 2009, Leighton Ford told me in a short video-recorded interview that he refuses to judge heretics. He was obviously angry that I had asked him to comment on the fact that many gross heretics, such as the author of The Shack, were speaking at the conference. Any preacher who refuses to speak out plainly against heretics, any time, any place, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is no wonder that such disobedient men would be duped by Catholic mysticism. The field of monasticism is demonic. It is populated by men and women who hold to a false sacramental gospel and often venerate Mary above Jesus. The Catholic saints and monastics are religious, passionate, and self-sacrificing, but they are deeply deceived people, communing with devils masquerading as angels of light. To mess around with Catholic monasticism and its contemplative prayer practices is to play with fire. At the very least, it breaks down divinely-ordained walls of separation from heresy. And we have documented how it often leads to the heresies of universalism and panentheism, even to Buddhism, Hinduism, and goddess worship. See the Articles Library section of the Way of Life web site under “Contemplative Prayer,” www.wayoflife.org.

(Friday Church News Notes, May 9, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

John 1:3
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

What does the Bible’s teaching on creation have to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Are these just two separate and unrelated biblical teachings? Christians often ask us, “Shouldn't we just worry about the basics? Why worry about a teaching like creation?”

But what happens to Christ’s work of salvation if creation is not true? If evolution is true, then death came into the world long before the first humans and their sin. If death is not a result of sin, why did Christ have to receive the penalty of sin – death on a cross? So in challenging human origins, evolution challenges the origin of sin and its effect on humanity. And in challenging this, evolution challenges the very reason Christ came to Earth! He becomes just a misguided being on the wrong planet! The Bible tells us that all Scripture was given to make us wise unto salvation. That includes Genesis. The first chapter of John’s Gospel tells us that all things were created through the Word – the Word who became flesh.

We see that Word in action in Genesis 1 when we read, “And God said…” That Word who made us and everything is the very same Word who came and purchased our salvation.

So Genesis, beginning with the first chapter, is actually the beginning of God’s revelation to us of the Person and work of the Son of God – our Savior, Jesus Christ. If we reject God’s revelation about our Savior in Genesis 1, we have only part of a Savior – and only part of Christ is no Christ at all!

Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

V. Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican Church, is divorcing his “husband,” Mark Andrew. The two “married” in 2010 when same-sex marriage was legalized in New Hampshire (“First Openly Homosexual Episcopal Bishop Divorces,” OneNewsNow, May 4, 2014). In 1990, Robinson broke his marriage vows when he left his wife and two young daughters and moved in with Andrew. In a speech in April 29, 2000, the day before a “gay pride” march in Washington, D.C., Robinson said: “... we are loved beyond our wildest imagining by a God who made us the way we are and proclaimed it good. We proclaim today that we too read our Bibles, and through the voices of its many witnesses, we hear God’s voice--NOT saying ‘You are an abomination,’ but rather, ‘You are my beloved.’ We lay an equal claim to a savior who loves us as we are and who died to save us from our ‘manifold sins and wickedness,’ which does NOT include our being gay. And we come here today, laying claim to our full membership--our FULL membership--in the Body of Christ.” At the 2006 Episcopal convention, Robinson said, “We don’t worship a God who is all locked up in the Scripture of 2,000 years ago.” He quoted John Fortunato, a homosexual author who claims that God visited him and confirmed that homosexuality is fine if it is “loving.” Fortunato said, “God smiled and said quietly, ‘How can loving be wrong? All love comes from me” (“Two Minds in One Episcopal Body,” Christian Research Journal, vol. 29, no. 5, 2006). That same year, Robinson sought treatment for “alcoholism.” In 2009, Robinson delivered the benediction prayer at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

(Friday Church News Notes, May 9, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Leviticus 11:44a
“For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy:”

Is right and wrong really a matter of doing what you think is best? What does morality have to do with origins?

We often hear today that right and wrong is really a matter of doing what you think is right and wrong in any given situation. This idea that right and wrong depends on what you think comes from the view that humans are nothing more than evolved animals. According to this idea, we have no one to be responsible to but ourselves. We must explore and discover for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.

But according to the Bible’s teaching about creation, we were created by an all wise and powerful God. He designed and made us, and He knows which activities are destructive to us and which are good for us. Beyond that, being our Creator, He owns us – lock, stock and barrel! He has all rights over us, including the right to hold us to account for our decisions and actions. His commandments and rules for living are given to us for another reason; He knows that the activities and attitudes they encourage are healthy for us, while breaking His laws hurts us. He doesn't want to see us hurt.

So God’s commandments are absolutes that we are responsible to keep. Unfortunately, we have all broken these. Fortunately, He knows our condition and still loved us enough to send His only Son to rescue us from our sin. Creation shows us what our sin and our salvation are based upon and what they really mean to creatures of God.

Photo: Parchment of the 10 Commandments at the Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue, 1768.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

In the free eBook Collapse of Separatism Among Fundamental Baptists, we documented the slippery slope of change and compromise associated with the adaptation of Contemporary Worship Music. One example we gave was Southside Baptist Church, Greenville, South Carolina. This church was founded in September 1946. From 1965 to 1996, it was pastored by Walt Handford. His wife Elizabeth is a daughter of the famous fundamentalist preacher John R. Rice, founder of the Sword of the Lord, and Southside was an “old-fashioned” fundamental Baptist church until the 1990s. In 1993, the church hosted a Contemporary Christian Music concert featuring Ray Boltz and also gave up the King James Bible in favor of the NIV. By 1994, the church had a staff member who was employed by the extremely ecumenical Campus Crusade for Christ which works closely with the Roman Catholic Church. Today Southside (now named Southside Fellowship) is a full-blown, rock & roll church with the darkened worship stage and big screen monitors and broad ecumenical associations. Caedmon’s Call performed at Southside in February 2008, which is very telling as to the church’s position. Caedmon’s Call’s greatest love in music is secular rock and the band often performs Beatles music. Its leader, Cliff Young, said one of his favorite musicians is the foul-mouthed Alanis Morrisette. Caedmon’s Call performs for the Metro Bible Study, which represents 128 churches in Houston, Texas. The speaker for the Metro Bible Study is David Edwards, a Pentecostal who was on the steering committee of the North American Renewal Service Committee, which sponsored several of the most radical ecumenical-charismatic congresses. I attended two of these (New Orleans ‘87 and Indianapolis ‘90) with press credentials. Half of the tens of thousands in attendance were Catholic, Roman Catholic priests were featured as speakers, and a Catholic mass was held every morning. It is obvious that Southside Fellowship has moved very far from its former position and is swimming in dangerous spiritual waters. But, hey, who believes in a slippery slope?

(Friday Church News Notes, May 9, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

I am convinced that if the Lord’s Bible-believing churches would earnestly, regularly, and often pray for the nation, great things could happen. This is true for any nation, but here I am referring specifically to America. We are in dire straits. There is no wisdom in high places. If we would stop leaning on the arm of the flesh (e.g., political activity, conservative talk radio, Fox News, complaining and fretting) and instead cast ourselves fervently upon the arms of the Almighty, we might see real supernatural change for the better. Could we not have some special prayer meetings just for this purpose? Could we not pray with fasting? At the very least, could we not bring this matter before God at every meal and in every church service? Is our liberty and our grandchildren’s liberty not worth the effort? Sure, the signs of the end times are everywhere, but the mystery of iniquity has been working for 2,000 years and the reigns of the times are in God’s hands, not the devil’s. Jehovah is the God of the times and the seasons (Daniel 2:20-21). He is the One who “now letteth” or restrains the devil’s program (2 Th. 2:7), and He can restrain as long as He pleases and as much as He pleases. Do we believe that God’s hand has gone slack in these apostate times? “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:1-4). “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3).

(Friday Church News Notes, May 9, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

In what should have been a unanimous decision, a slim majority of Supreme Court justices (5-4) ruled that a town’s practice of starting legislative sessions with prayer does not violate the First Amendment, and those prayers can even include the name of Jesus Christ. This is a welcome push-back against secular activists who have sought to forbid prayers mentioning Christ and who desire freedom from being “offended.” Writing for the majority, Anthony Kennedy observed that the U.S. Congress appointed chaplains just days after approving the First Amendment, so it is obvious that the Establishment Clause does not forbid such a thing. He wrote, “An insistence on nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard is not consistent with the tradition of legislative prayer outlined in the Court’s case. ... The Congress that drafted the First Amendment would have been accustomed to invocations containing explicitly religious themes … The decidedly Christian nature of these prayers must not be dismissed as the relic of a time when our Nation was less pluralistic than it is today. Congress continues to permit its appointed and visiting chaplains to express themselves in a religious idiom. It acknowledges our growing diversity not by proscribing sectarian content but by welcoming ministers of many creeds.” Kennedy said that “offense does not equate coercion,” dismissing atheists’ argument that they are offended by Christian prayers. All of that is well and good, but at the same time, four dissenting Supreme Court justices would have forbidden explicitly Christian prayers, and even Kennedy said there are limits to what can be said in prayer, specifically singling out prayers that “threaten damnation or preach conversion.” The only true friends of religious liberty on the Court are Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, both of who thought that Kennedy did not go broadly enough in support of prayer.

(Friday Church News Notes, May 9, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Genesis 2:7
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

“Lucy” is said by its discoverer, Dr. Donald Johanson, to be the best and latest proof that humans evolved from some ape like creature. But Lucy is really a monument to human imagination!

In 1978, Dr. Johanson announced his discovery of Lucy to the world at the Nobel Symposium on Early Man. Every newspaper quickly picked up the story. Lucy was supposed to be the earliest human ancestor. Dated by evolutionists at about 3 million years old, Lucy was said to be an almost complete skeleton of a creature that walked upright like humans. However, there are some facts you should know.

Lucy is really a demonstration of how creative people can be – sort of tinker toy science. For example, her knee comes from a location over 200 feet lower in the rocks and over a mile away from one of her leg bones! Lucy has been assembled from materials found in two different locations separated by several miles. Her bones were sifted out of plots of ground at these two sites, each of which was almost the size of a football field!

Strangely enough, all of Lucy’s bones from one of the locations provide her human like characteristics, while all of the bones gathered from the other location provide her ape like characteristics. That sounds at least a little suspicious!

Notes: Willis, Tom. 1987. “‘Lucy’ goes to college.” CSA News, Feb. p. 2.
Photo: “Lucy” skeleton. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

As Christians, we believe by faith. But did you know that even evolutionary scientists believe by their own kind of faith? Scientists early in the previous century, like scientists today, had no evidence that humans had evolved from ape like creatures.

In 1922 in Nebraska, a tooth was discovered that was said to have belonged to a missing link between human and ape. But what did this creature look like? As is done today, paleontologists began to “reconstruct” “Nebraska man.” They reconstructed what the jaw bone around the tooth might have looked like, and then the bone touching those bones, and – well, you know how the song goes: “The head bone’s connected to the neck bone; the neck bone’s connected to the back bone…”

Before long they had constructed, from that one little tooth, not only what “Nebraska man” looked like, but also what his wife looked like. And they put this “proof” in museums and textbooks. Eventually they discovered more parts of the animal from which the tooth had come. It turned out to be the tooth of an extinct pig! But even this was wrong – in 1972, living herds of this very pig turned up in Paraguay!

Anyone, including scientists, can make mistakes. But what this true story shows is how, by rejecting God’s account of creation, a pig could be made into a human. You see, even the evolutionist’s belief is not based on scientific fact but on his own faith in nature rather than in the Creator. We Christians should not be ashamed to admit that we believe by faith because our faith is built on the solid statements of the uncontradicted Scriptures!

Illustration Source: Illustrated London News (1922).
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“‘... the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward’ (Gen. 15:1). This promise opens out to general truth that God Himself is the true reward of a devout life. There are many recompenses for all sacrifices for God, some of them outward and material, some of them inward and spiritual, but the reward which surpasses all others is that by such sacrifices we attain to greater capacity for God, and therefore possess more of Him. This is the only Reward worth thinking of—God only satisfies the soul”


(Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture). 

Psalm 74:16
“The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.”

According to evolution, some explanation for the sun and planets must be found that does not include God as the Creator. Today, evolutionists generally believe that the sun and the other planets of the solar system are related to each other.

One of the most popular theories is that the sun and the planets of the solar system each formed when a single cloud of dust and gases were drawn together by gravity. As this material was drawn together, it began spinning faster and faster, like a giant skater pulling his arms toward his body. According to this theory, the amount of this angular momentum – which we will simply call “spin” – among the planets must equal the amount of “spin” the sun has.

As we have gradually learned more about the solar system, we have been able to compute this energy more accurately. Figuring in the mass of the planets, their orbits and the mass and rotation of the sun, scientists have concluded that 98 percent of the solar system’s “spin” is in the planets. Only two percent, not the 50 percent expected, is in the sun.

So modern science has confirmed – probably as much as it can in this case – that the Earth was created independently from the sun. Of course, we know that Scripture clearly says that the Earth was created three days before the sun. Here, a scientific mystery for evolution is easily explained when we turn to the Bible!

Photo: Artist’s conception of the early Solar System, the way NASA imagines it.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“The prevalence of non-alcohol drugs detected in fatally injured drivers in the U.S. has been steadily rising and tripled from 1999 to 2010. Marijuana is the most commonly detected non-alcohol drug involved. Toxicological testing data from six U.S. states that routinely performed toxicological testing on drivers involved in fatal car crashes (California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and West Virginia) for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System shows that of 23,591 drivers who died within one hour of a crash, 39.7% tested positive for alcohol, which has remained steady. Other drugs were involved 24.8% of the time with marijuana showing sharp increases, from 4.2% to 12.2, which corresponds with increased usage of ‘medical’ marijuana. ... Joanna Brady, author of the study, said, ‘The marked increase in its prevalence as reported in the present study is likely germane to the growing decriminalization of marijuana.’ Over the last 17 years, 20 states and Washington, D.C. have enacted legislation, and four more states have legislation pending, to decriminalize marijuana for medical use. ‘Although each of these states has laws that prohibit driving under the influence of marijuana, it is still conceivable that its decriminalization may result in increases in crashes involving marijuana.’”

(“Marijuana Led,” Science 2.0, Jan. 30, 2014)

Job 37:8
“Then the beasts go into dens, and remain in their places.”

We often hear people speak of “simple life forms” or the “simple cell.” Is there really such a thing as “simple life”? Although we often speak of the “simple cell,” there really is no such thing as a simple form of life. Even the single celled creature is a highly complex organism.

Let’s imagine building a model of the cell, using atoms, each the size of a tennis ball. The typical cell has about 10 million atoms. In our model, the cell would be over ten miles in diameter! Now let’s look inside the cell and see whether it is simple or not. First of all we would see lots of activity going on almost everywhere. This is because this single cell has to carry out all the same jobs that your body uses many different organs to accomplish.

Inside the cell we would see structures that digest food and others that carry off the waste from food. Other structures would be busy carrying off the waste produced by the cell itself. The cell must also contain everything it needs to reproduce. And remember, while we have many complex and different organs to do all this, the cell must do it all without those organs.

Humans have never even come close to creating anything like this. Surely the cell is not simple! Science cannot explain the cell by any natural laws it knows. Scripture is correct when it tells us that the origin of the cell – and everything else – is the superior power and wisdom of God.

Diagram: Courtesy of LadyofHats.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“It is said to be China’s biggest church and on Easter Sunday thousands of worshipers will flock to this Asian mega-temple to pledge their allegiance--not to the Communist Party, but to the Cross. The 5,000-capacity Liushi church, which boasts more than twice as many seats as Westminster Abbey and a 206 ft crucifix that can be seen for miles around, opened last year with one theologian declaring it a ‘miracle that such a small town was able to build such a grand church.’ The £8 million building is also one of the most visible symbols of Communist China’s breakneck conversion as it evolves into one of the largest Christian congregations on earth. ... Officially, the People’s Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied. Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 signaled the end of the Cultural Revolution. Less than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just the world’s number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation. ... China’s Protestant community, which had just one million members in 1949, has already overtaken those of countries more commonly associated with an evangelical boom. In 2010 there were more than 58 million Protestants in China compared to 40 million in Brazil and 36 million in South Africa, according to the Pew Research Centre’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.” We would add that China continues to persecute churches that refuse to bow to its demand to be registered and controlled by the official state church entity.

(“China on Course,” The Telegraph, London, April 19, 2014)

Job 10:9
“Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?”

Did life form all by itself, without a Creator, in some warm little pool of water or a clod of mud many billions of years ago? Some scientists would like us to think so. Over the years, newspaper headlines have declared that life has been created in the laboratory. We are told that life is no mystery and that the chemicals that cause life are common.

Such claims have a lot of “hype” and little science to them. There are some things you should know about these experiments. First of all, scientists don’t end up with life. They do end up with some simple chemicals that are like those found in our cells. But the chemicals they make, called amino acids, are a mixture that is quite worthless to form life.

In order to get these amino acids, which are supposed to show that life could form by itself, researchers use a special combination of gasses that they believe formed the Earth’s atmosphere millions of years ago. They must also carefully control the kind of light that enters the experiment and protect in a special container anything that is produced. It is obvious that a lifeless Earth did not offer all these advantages.

It seems silly to invest millions of dollars worth of equipment, dozens of years of specialized training, more years of research and then say that we are proving that no intelligence or design was needed to create life! What these experiments do show is that life cannot happen by itself – it took a Creator with much more power and wisdom than we have to create life!

Diagram: Apparatus used in the Miller-Urey experiment in 1953. It only produced a number of different amino acids. Courtesy of YassineMrabet. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

In response to a one-man campaign (no apology for the gender specific language) by a young girl, McDonalds has promised to stop classifying its Happy Meals prizes as “boy” or “girl” toys. Formerly, the customer would often be asked, “Would you like a girl toy or a boy toy?” After Antonia Ayres-Brown, doubtless with the encouragement of her father, a Yale professor, challenged the policy beginning when she was 11 years old, McDonald’s “chief diversity officer,” has responded as follows: “It is McDonald’s intention and goal that each customer who desires a Happy Meal toy be provided the toy of his or her choice, without any classification of the toy as a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ toy and without any reference to the customer’s gender. We have recently reexamined our internal guidelines, communications and practices and are making improvements to better ensure that our toys are distributed consistent with our policy” (“McDonald’s Trying to Stop Differentiating,” Consumerist.com, Apr. 21, 2014). Will every toy company bow to pressure from some activist and stop making gender specific toys? Will it become illegal to make, sell, and buy such toys just because it offends someone somewhere? “And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. ... As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (Isaiah 3:4-5, 12).

(Friday Church News Notes, May 2, 2014, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Last week, Dan Haseltine, front-man for the popular and influential CCM band Jars of Clay, announced his support for “gay marriage.” He wrote the following in a series of Twitter posts: “Not meaning to stir things up BUT… is there a non-speculative or non ‘slippery slope’ reason why gays shouldn't marry? I don’t hear one. ... I’m trying to make sense of the conservative argument. But it doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny. Feels akin to women’s suffrage! I just don’t see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage. ... I don’t think scripture ‘clearly’ states much of anything regarding morality. ... I don’t particularly care about Scriptures stance on what is ‘wrong.’ I care more about how it says we should treat people” (“Dan Haseltine,” MetroWeekly.com, April 22, 2014). Haseltine tried to back pedal a bit after his Twitter comments were made public, but he did not renounce the concept of a “homosexual Christian” or reject same-sex “marriage.” The reason for this is not difficult to discern. Typically, CCM musicians have been accepted as Christians upon the flimsiest testimony of faith and have not been properly taught and discipled. They have fed their spiritual lives with dangerous authors such as C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Brennan Manning, Leonard Sweet, Rick Warren, and Rob Bell, loved corrupt Bible translations such as The Message, immersed themselves in sensual music, and have sought after emotional highs and “signs and wonders” instead of living by faith. They have played with the world, which is more dangerous than any poisonous snake, instead of living separated lives. They have sown to the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.

(Friday Church News Notes, May 2, 2014, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII are the latest editions to Rome’s mythical sainthood. The Vatican Information Service reported that half million people crowded into St. Peter’s Square and the surrounding area to witness the canonization ceremony on the morning of April 27. Delegations attended from over 100 countries. There were 20 heads of state and many figures from the world of politics and culture, including the king and queen of Spain, the king and queen of Belgium, the president of the European Union, and the president of the European Commission. Special hymns were written and sung to both popes. Pope Francis made the following pronouncement: “We declare and define Blessed John XXIII and John Paul II be Saints and we enroll them among the Saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole Church.” John Paul II was put on a fast track to sainthood because of his great popularity and his role in vastly increasing the stature and popularity of Roman Catholicism in this generation. Both popes had a massive role in promoting end-time ecumenism. John XXIII was the convener of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s which opened the door for Rome’s ecumenical relations with Protestants and Baptists and prepared the way for the creation of the apostate one-world “church” described in Revelation 17. Both popes were great venerators of Mary. Engraved in John Paul II’s wooden coffin, viewed at what has been called “the world’s largest funeral,” was a large letter M for Mary (The Evening Standard, London, Apr. 8, 2005). When elected pope in 1978, he dedicated his papacy to Mary, taking as his episcopal motto the Latin words “Totus Tuus,” meaning “Totally Yours” (“John Paul II’s Devotion to Mary,” Inside the Vatican, special insert, May 1996). He had these words of blasphemous devotion to Mary embroidered on his papal robes. In his autobiography Crossing the Threshold of Faith, which sold four million copies the first year alone, he said: “During the Second World War, while I was employed as a factory worker, I came to be attracted to Marian devotion. ... Mary is the new Eve, placed by God in relation to Christ, the new Adam ... the Mother of God shares in a unique way in the Resurrection and in the Glory of her own Son...” The Bible condemns this heresy in the clearest terms. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8).

(Friday Church News Notes, May 2, 2014, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Exodus 15:11
“Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?”

The cells of all living things are filled with highly detailed information. The incredible system that is used for storing this information makes our best computer information systems look like a child’s simple slate board!

Believe it or not, it takes more information to make a complete human being than can be stored in the average city library. And all of this information is stored in less than a few thousand millionths of a gram of material within each of our cells. You have literally billions of copies of it! Our most sophisticated computer system cannot even come close to being able to store information like that.

It is estimated that one billion species of plants and animals have existed since creation. The information storage system within the cell is so compact that all of the information to make every one of those one billion species could be held in a teaspoon – with room left over to hold all the books ever written if they, too, were stored with the same efficient system. Even more amazing is that this information storage system is not only able to store information like a computer but, unlike a computer, it can also copy itself and correct errors if any creep into the information!

How could anyone believe that this brilliant information storage, copying and correction system could have come about by chance? To believe that this could be created by no one is certainly an act of faith. But it is clearly the wrong faith! And that highlights what the origins debate is really all about.

Photo: Co-discoverers of the double-helix DNA molecule, Francis Crick (left) and James Watson, shake hands. Photo published in a Public Library of Science (PLOS) journal. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com