Obama focused on immigration;
Health care website contractors to testify to House;
Thailand bus accident;
Red Sox win Game 1 of World Series.

Answers in Genesis has a new billboard campaign aimed at atheism and designed to encourage people to visit their web site to find answers to skeptical arguments and to hear the gospel. The signs, which are posted in San Francisco, New York City's Times Square, and Los Angeles, say, "To all of our atheist friends: Thank God you're wrong." That simple message has been greeted with vile and blasphemous language whereby "atheists" have shown their true moral colors, yet traffic at AiG's web site is up 30%. The Freedom from Religion Foundation has responded in New York with a billboard of its own that reads, "OMG, there is no god!" If there were no God, the atheist would be playing a fool's game in worrying about it one way or the other, since it would mean that there is no ultimate meaning to life or significance to man's existence and nothing beyond the grave. All would be empty, vain, purposeless, hopeless; life would merely be a strange, unfathomable accident. That is the atheist's glorious message. If the atheist is right, it doesn't matter what you believe about religion one way or the other, but if the Bible is right it matters a very great deal. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ... He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16, 18).

(Friday Church News Notes, October 18, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Psalm 107:24
“These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.”

 “The most perfect design I've ever seen.” Those words were uttered by a materials engineer after studying a deep sea sponge from the Pacific Ocean. And, indeed, the Euplectella aspergillun, claimed to be an early and primitive sponge, can teach modern materials engineers a number of useful things.

The sponge’s body is made up of a thin layer of cells over an intricate glass skeleton. The sponge grows into a cylindrical shape about 8 inches long and about an inch across. The wonder lies in the glass skeleton that is made up of vertical and horizontal beams of glass. Diagonal beams strengthen this grid. One-third of these beams are thicker than the others, adding the extra strength of ridges to the cylinder. What’s more, each of these glass beams is made up of small cylinders of glass glued together with more glass-like tree rings.  The result is a structure that spreads the pressures that might crush an ordinary glass structure this size. It is a delicate looking, but nearly unbreakable, glass structure.

In a less-than-scientific test, one researcher noted that one has to jump full weight on one of these cylinders to even produce any cracking, and such jumping will still not break it. “The most perfect design I've ever seen,” said the researcher. There’s little that we at Creation Moments can add to that.

Notes: Science News, 3/25/06, pp. 184-185, Aimee Cunningham, “Making the Most of It.”
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

President Obama renews talks with Pakistan;
Typhoon Francisco bears down on island;
Panda twins named;
3-month old Prince George is christened.

Pres. Obama meets with Pakistan Prime Minister;
Detroit bankruptcy challenged in court;
Military exercise blamed for starting Australia fire;
Baby Prince George's christening

2 Corinthians 8:21
“Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.”

Many plants give ants special protection and, in return, the ants protect these plants from other insects. In itself, this widespread arrangement offers evidence of design. However, sometimes these arrangements are even more complex than they at first appear.

A small tree that grows in the central Amazon of Brazil, called the Hirtella, offers small ants shelter in tiny pouches that form in pairs at the base of young leaves. Scientists prevented the ants from reaching some of the branches of a tree and noted that those branches lost about half of their new foliage to other insects. It appeared that the ants were keeping other pests off the new growth in return for shelter. However, scientists also found that the branches that had no ants also had eight times as many flowers as those branches the ants could reach. Apparently, the ants do a good job at protecting new growth, but once flowers begin to form the ants become the pests. The Hirtella doesn’t ignore this. Once the new foliage is established and it is time to flower, the leaves drop the ant shelters so that the ants have to find somewhere else to call home.

This elegant defense arrangement is clear testimony not only to God’s design, but also His provision for a complex creation with a vast array of creatures.

Notes: Science News, 11/2/02, p. 285, “Ant cheats plant; plant cheats back.”
Photo: Courtesy of Vojtěch Zavadil. Licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

In a recent interview, 82-year-old retired Episcopal bishop John Spong says he has no regrets for his liberal views. During his long career as an Episcopal minister, Spong has denied every cardinal doctrine of the Bible, including the virgin birth, vicarious atonement, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his 1988, book Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality , Spong said, "The time has surely come not just to tolerate, or even to accept, but to celebrate and welcome the presence among us of our gay and lesbian fellow human beings" (p. 199). That year Spong visited a Buddhist temple and said, "As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground" ("A Dialogue in a Buddhist Temple," John Spong, The Voice, Jan. 1989). In his 1991 book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Spong called the apostle Paul "a self hating, repressed homosexual," and in 1998 Spong said, "I would choose to loathe rather than to worship a deity who required the sacrifice of his son" (Christianity Today, June 15, 1998). In the recent interview, Spong said that the time in which he made such statements "was really a very exciting time" and he is proud of the fact that by his retirement in 2000, his own diocese "had 35 openly gay and lesbian clergy" ("An Aging Maverick," Religious News Service, Oct. 10, 2013). Spong's days on this earth are quickly drawing to an end, but he will have plenty of time to regret his apostasy.

(Friday Church News Notes, October 18, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Top adviser assigned to help Obamacare computer woes;
Nev. Middle school gunman was 12;
Apple unveils new Macs, i-Pads;
China adopts new smog emergency measures.

BART Strike over;
Kerry visits France;
Australia fires;
World War II Vet honored.

Gospel preaching in the first century was serious business. It was a demand that men repent of their sin and idolatry and rebellion against God. It was Paul on Mars Hill saying to the Greeks, "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent" (Acts 17:30). It was Paul saying to the Romans that there is none righteous, no not one, and that God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all men because of their rebellion. Even the preaching to believers in the churches was serious business in the first century. It was James saying to Jewish brethren, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness" (Ja. 4:8-9). It was Jesus saying to the church at Laodicea, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth" (Rev. 3:15-16). That's what America needs to hear today. When Billy Graham was a very young preacher, before he chose the path of compromising pragmatism over faithfulness to God's Word and became one of America's most popular men, he preached something like that at times. But he changed his tune, and his son Franklin is following in his footsteps. They don't have gospel crusades anymore; they have rock & roll festivals. They have gospel parties. On November 8, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Crusade is promoting "My Hope Parties" during which a 29-minute gospel video will be shown and participants will be urged to "believe in Jesus." If that's not Quick Prayerism, nothing is. You can be sure that the message won't be repent or perish. What America needs is for every "evangelical" and "fundamentalist" and Bible-believing church in the land to preach nothing but God's highness, holiness, and wrath for several months running, because a pampered people who have been treated with a powerful dose of self-esteem from infancy don't understand their great sinfulness before God, and an individual who doesn't understand his sinfulness doesn't properly understand God's grace. In the Epistle to Rome, Paul spent nearly three chapters preaching on God's holiness and judgment before he mentioned justification by grace, but evangelism is usually quick and shallow today, whether it is evangelical evangelism or independent Baptist evangelism.

(Friday Church News Notes, October 18, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Job 40:15
“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.”

The Genesis creation account tells us that in the perfect world that God created there was no death. This means that there were no predators. In fact, Genesis 1:30 specifically states that God gave all the beasts and birds every green herb for food. And, yes, this would include all the dinosaurs. Some discoveries made in 2005 now add strong scientific evidence to support the Genesis account that in the beginning all the beasts ate the green herbs for food.

Of course, evolutionists found great amusement in these Bible claims since even plant-eating dinosaurs didn’t have the right kind of teeth to eat, say, grass. And besides, they said, grass did not evolve until long after the dinosaurs were extinct. Scientists from India’s Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotony examined fossilized sauropod droppings to see what they were eating. Common in such droppings are bits of silica called phytoliths. These bits of silica were the remains of the plants eaten by those dinosaurs and are unique to each species of plant. To the surprise of the entire scientific community, the phytoliths were made by grasses, including relatives of rice, bamboo and forage grasses.

It is now unquestionably clear that grasses did exist when the dinosaurs lived and that the sauropods ate grass. On this fact, the Bible was right all along, and evolutionary science was wrong.

Notes: Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11/18/05, p. A4, Lauren Neergaard, “Rewriting prehistory: Dinosaurs had their grass and ate it, too.”
Photo: Courtesy of Henri-Georges NATON. Licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

President says no excuses for computer glitches,
Gridlock in Bay,
NSA French connection unacceptable,
Fires spread in Australia.

Same sex marriage legal in NJ;
More arrests expected in FL prison escape;
BART strike ties up SF traffic;
Giant pumpkin in New York.

Psalm 148:7, 10
“Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps ... Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl....”

Here on Creation Moments we have often mentioned the gecko’s amazing ability to walk up or even upside down on surfaces as smooth as glass. We have pointed out that the gecko can grip even a glass surface as it walks with microscopic hairs on its feet. These minute hairs actually grip the surface at the molecular level.
    
Noting that geckos never seem to clean their feet, scientists wondered what would happen if the microscopic hairs became fouled with microscopic dust particles. They computed that particles would have to foul between 26 and 59 hairs on each foot to be effective. They then fouled geckos’ feet with micro-spheres and observed them as they walked on a glass surface. To their surprise, with each step the geckos’ grip on the glass surface became stronger. This result suggested that with each step, the geckos’ feet were shedding some of the micro-spheres. To determine if this was what was happening, scientists removed some of the fibers from gecko feet and studied their interaction with the micro-spheres. Their conclusion was that gecko feet are indeed self-cleaning.

Not only is the design of the gecko’s feet amazing, but God evidently realized that His design would not work unless it was self-cleaning and able to shed dust. This design certainly cannot be attributed to a hit or miss process like evolution.

Notes: Science News, 1/8/05, pp. 21-22, P. Weiss, “Twinkle Toes.”
Photo: Courtesy of Ginger Me. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Escaped Florida prisoners are back in custody;
A suicide truck bomb kills at least 30 in central Syria;
Raging Australian wildfires could get worse;
Thousands re-enact the Battle of Nations.

Rick Warren talks a lot about "the gospel." At the recent Exponential 2013 conference, which was hosted by Warren's Saddleback Church, the theme was preaching the gospel and making disciples. But what gospel does he preach? In chapter 7 of his ultra-popular book The Purpose Driven Life, he explains as follows how to become a Christian: "First, believe. Believe God loves you and made you for his purposes. Believe you're not an accident. Believe you were made to last forever. Believe God has chosen you to have a relationship with Jesus, who died on the cross for you. Believe that no matter what you've done, God wants to forgive you. Second, receive. Receive his forgiveness for your sins. Receive his Spirit, who will give you the power to fulfill your life purpose. ... Wherever you are reading this, I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity. 'Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you.' Go ahead. If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the family of God!" (The Purpose Driven Life, pp. 58, 59). This is one of the most superficial "gospels" I have ever seen. It's certainly not the gospel that was preached in the book of Acts or Romans. There is no clear dealing with sin, such as we find in Romans 1-3. There is nothing about God's holiness and justice. There is no clear teaching on what Jesus did on the cross. There is nothing about the blood of Christ. Warren invites the reader to "believe on Jesus" but he does not warn of false christs, such as the false Jesus of The Shack or the Roman Catholic wafer Jesus or the New Age yoga Jesus or the Mormon "brother of Lucifer" Jesus. And Warren completely ignores repentance. In contrast, the apostle Paul summarized his message as follows: "Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). Paul said that God "now commandeth all men every where to repent" (Acts 17:30), and we can be sure that God hasn't changed His mind. Beware of Rick Warren. He is an end-time bridge builder extraordinaire for the apostate one-world "church."

(Friday Church News Notes, October 18, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Tanker train derails in Alberta;
At least 32 people have died in India from drinking bootleg liquor;
Argentina train crash has injured at least 80 people;
Thrillseekers converge on West Virginia.

First, tobacco cannot be used to the glory of God (1 Cor. 6:20). Second, it produces diseases of the heart and cancer of the mouth, and many other sicknesses (1 Cor. 3:17). Third, it is a money wasting habit. Christ commanded that even the fragments of meals be gathered up, that nothing be lost (John 6:12). Fourth, it is an infringement on the rights of others. None should be forced to endure its nauseous, sickening odor (Gal. 5:14). Fifth, it is a wrong example to set before the young (Mat. 5:16). Sixth, it is a filthy habit (2 Cor. 7:1). Seventh, it is a bad habit, which once formed, holds one in bondage (Rom. 6:12). Eighth, it causes unnatural desires, and leads to other evils (Rom. 6:16; 8:13). "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).

(The Fundamentalist Digest, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Ex-House Speaker Tom Foley dies at 84;
Bay Area commuters steaming about transit strike;
Authorities hunt for 2 killers who escaped Florida prison;
National Zoo opens after government shutdown.

BART Strike;
Escaped convicts;
Homeland security secretary;
Australia Fires.

"According to National Public Radio (NPR), on the day of the Navy Yard shooting, Russian Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Alexei Pushkov mockingly tweeted: 'A new shootout at Navy Headquarters in Washington...A clear confirmation of American exceptionalism.' In response, NPR wrote, 'Pushkov sneers at U.S. gun laws, but how to do the stats look in Russia? There are fewer than 13 million firearms in circulation in Russia, compared with an estimated 300 million in the United States. That works out to about 9 guns per 100 people in Russia and close to 100 guns per 100 people in America. [Yet] the most recent homicide statistics for Russia show there were 21,603 [murders in Russia] in 2009... [while] the United States  had 13,636 homicides in 2009 with a population that is more than twice as large.' Russia has the type of gun control law Democrats in the United States have being pushing since Columbine."

("U.S. Has More Guns," Breitbart, Sept. 30, 2013)

Psalm 101:3
“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”

It defies gravity, walking up walls and across ceilings; it is harmless and only an inch-and-a-half long if you include its tail. It’s the gecko.

There are 670 species of geckos around the world. They are found in deserts and jungles, and they like living in homes where they are excellent at controlling insects, while leaving almost no trace of their presence. But the feature of the gecko that inspires the most wonder is its ability to effortlessly walk up a wall or across the ceiling.

To accomplish this neat trick, the gecko has pads on his feet. Under the microscope, these pads look like tiny pincushions. Each microscopic bristle contains even smaller branches, enabling the gecko’s foot to hook, with these microscopic hooks, into the smallest irregularities. Some geckos have over a billion of these hook-like hairs on their feet! Incidentally, this explains why geckos walk with that funny skitter. Each foot must be unhooked before it is lifted for the next step.

Unfortunately, when the gecko is stuck to a wall, and the wall falls, he will fall with it. The same is true of us. If we cling to evil – we will end up going where the evil goes. It is not by our own good intentions, but only through Jesus Christ that we are released from evil through the forgiveness of sins.

Photo: Close-up of the underside of a gecko's foot as it walks on a glass wall. Courtesy of Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. 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

President Barack Obama lays out his post shut-down agenda,
Government employees go back to work,
49 die in Laotian plane crash,
Wedding bells for a couple living together for 50 years.

Government open for business;
Booker elected to US Senate;
Philippines quake damage;
Olympic torch going to space.