![]() Genesis 1:21 "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good." Beautiful feathers worn by birds are a gift of the Creator, but it takes a lot of work on the part of the birds to keep their feathers beautiful. Nevertheless, the Lord has provided birds with ways to keep their feathers healthy and beautiful. We have all seen birds preening and, while this may look a bit vain, they are really going about a very serious business. For example, birds of the heron family accumulate a coating of pond-slime on their feathers. To clean this, they have three patches of special feathers that break down into a kind of powder. These birds apply the powder to their feathers and, after the slime has been absorbed, they comb it out, using a special toe shaped like a comb. Many birds have an oil gland near their tail and oil their feathers after cleaning to waterproof them. Most birds pick up parasites, and they work at getting rid of them. For example, some will sit near an ant nest to let the ants release their formic acid that drives off mites and other pests. God has not only provided birds with beautiful feathers, He has also given them everything they require to keep their feathers beautiful and healthy. Doesn't it seem reasonable that He will also provide for us when we sincerely lay our concerns before Him? Photo: Courtesy of Chris Harshaw. 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 ![]() Job 12:7-8 "But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee." There are over 350 species of shark. These remarkable creatures range from about the size of a shrimp to the whale shark that can be over 60 feet long. Most people view sharks as an ancient form of primitive fish, often because they are popularly presented to the public as a so-called "living fossil." The truth is, sharks are not primitive or simple. In fact, scientists who classify living things are uncomfortable classifying sharks as fish, preferring instead to call them "fish-like vertebrates." Unlike all other fish, the shark has no skeleton. In fact, the shark's skin serves as the anchor for its muscles just as bones serve for anchors in other animals. Unlike fish, sharks have no gill coverings and even have a placenta very much like mammals! Sharks are also much more complex than fish. They have sophisticated sense organs, their brains are much larger compared to body weight than fish, and they can learn a route through a maze as well as laboratory rabbits. Sharks are also socially complex, and they communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Among the many kinds of creatures God has created using His unlimited imagination, it appears that He followed some similar themes in each kind. This offers us a better principle than does evolution for classifying living things, which arranges them from simple to complex. Photo: Courtesy of Fbattail. 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 ![]() "And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters" (Nehemiah 9:11). Theological liberals and many of their "evangelical" friends say that Israel crossed north of the Red Sea in the Bitter Lakes region. Consider the following statement from Halley's Bible Handbook, which is reputed to be conservative: "The sea then would have flowed north into the depressions known today as the Bitter Lakes. If a steady wind pushed the shallow water north into the Bitter Lakes, it would have lowered the level of the water so that a land bridge would appear, which is not an uncommon phenomenon." In reply to this we offer the following: (1) The Hebrew word "suph," which is translated "Red" in most Bibles, does mean "reed," but this does not mean that the Bible is talking about a shallow reed lake. The Red Sea was called "Reed Sea" in ancient times, not because it was shallow, but because reeds grow in marshy areas in places along its shores. (The Hebrew word refers to water reeds in general and not to papyrus only.) Further, in the New Testament it is called the Red Sea and not the Reed Sea (Acts 7:36; Heb. 11:29). In ancient times the name Red Sea was given to the entire Arabian Sea, including the modern Red Sea and its arms and the Persian Gulf (Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament). In 1 Kings 9:26, the Gulf of Aqaba where Ezion Geber was located is called the Red Sea. (2) The bottom line is that the Bible says they crossed a sea, and the description of the crossing is not the description of a marsh or a lake. In ancient times the Bitter Lakes were not deep; they were more like marshy salt flats.* But the water that Israel crossed is described as deep and mighty. It formed a wall unto the Israelites on the right and left as they crossed it (Ex. 14:22; 15:4-5, 10; Neh. 9:11; Psa 106:9; Isa. 51:10). Paul describes the crossing as a baptism in the cloud and in the sea (1 Cor. 10:1-2). Baptism means immersion, so Paul was saying that Israel walked between walls of water beneath the cloud of glory. We know, then, that the crossing was over an arm of the sea itself and not a lake or marsh. (* "Prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Great Bitter Lake was a large salt flat; in the arid climate, basins rarely accumulate enough water to become true lakes," NASA Earth Observatory). (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) ![]() Psalm 104:27-28 "These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good." Popular science magazines and school textbooks have, for more than a century now, repeated the theme that mankind evolved from the animal kingdom. Have you ever stopped to think what this means? Those of us who live where the winters are very cold know fully well that human beings could not survive outside as the animals do. We need the protection of clothes and shelter, but the Creator has provided for the winter needs of the animal kingdom. Dogs for example, if living outside, develop a thicker coat in winter. Does human body hair become thicker under cold conditions? Not at all. Many animals store fat to carry them through the winter, and their metabolic rate slows down so that they require less food. The fat they store and their metabolism are carefully coordinated and are often very different even between males and females of the same species. The bottom line is that the animals survive the winter and finish up in the springtime looking sleek and trim. Just the reverse usually happens in the case of man. We tend to eat more in winter, and in springtime often have the waistline to show for it! If human beings had evolved from the animals, we would expect a much greater similarity between how animals and humans cope with winter. No, human beings never have been part of the animal kingdom. Photo: Courtesy of Christopher Holden. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() "The number of mentally ill people who have been killed through euthanasia in the Netherlands has tripled in a single year, according to new figures. The Daily Mail reports that in 2012, 14 people with 'severe psychiatric problems' were killed by lethal injection, a figure that rose to 42 in 2013. There had also been a 15 percent overall rise in assisted dying over the past year, with the number of cases increasing from 4,188 to 4,829. Deaths from euthanasia have risen by a total of 151 percent in a period of just seven years, with most cases involving cancer sufferers. However, there were also 97 people who were killed by their doctors because they had dementia. The figures do not include 'terminal sedation,' where the patient is sedated and then has food and fluids withdrawn. If they did, however, euthanasia would account for one in eight of all deaths in the Netherlands. Dr Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship told the Daily Mail that euthanasia in the Netherlands is 'way out of control,' saying that it proves that assisted dying is impossible to regulate. 'The House of Lords calculated in 2005 that with a Dutch-type law in Britain we would be seeing over 13,000 cases of euthanasia per year,' he added. 'On the basis of how Dutch euthanasia deaths have risen since this may prove to be a gross underestimate. What we are seeing in the Netherlands is incremental extension, the steady intentional escalation of numbers with a gradual widening of the categories of patients to be included. The lessons are clear. Once you relax the law on euthanasia or assisted suicide steady extension will follow as night follows day.'" ("Assisted Suicide 'Out of Control' in Netherlands," Breitbart, Oct. 3, 2014) ![]() In ruling after ruling, the United States Supreme Court is fulfilling Bible prophecy. Most recently, it did so by letting federal court rulings stand, thus overthrowing the laws of states that forbade same sex "marriage," effectively making this abomination the law of the nation. In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that American women have the right to murder their unborn children that bear God's image. The rule was based on a mythical "right to privacy." In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading and prayer is not allowed in public schools. This effectively robbed students and teachers of their constitutional rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion. All of these were rulings against Almighty God and His holy Word. It is a fulfillment of Psalm 2, which describes the rulers of the earth taking counsel against the Lord and against His Anointed (Messiah in Hebrew and Christ in Greek). According to the 3,000-year-old prophecy, the rulers will say, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us" (Psalm 2:3). That is a reference to a rejection of God's law. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court is not the only institution taking counsel against God. It is a global phenomenon in preparation for the rise of the antichrist and the Battle of Armageddon. (Photo credit: swordattheready.wordpress.com) (Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) ![]() "The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear appeals from five states of appellate court rulings striking down state marriage laws. The decision to not hear the cases, for now, means that Virginia, Wisconsin and Utah will begin recognizing marriage of two people of the same gender. Since the appeals courts for those states cover other states, the decision could mean that an additional six states may be required to recognize same-sex marriages, even if the voters or elected bodies of those states chose to define civil marriage as only the union of one man and one woman. The Court was petitioned by both traditional marriage supporters and same-sex marriage supporters to hear the cases. The Court could be waiting for a split decision at the appellate level before hearing the cases. So far at the appellate level, the courts have only struck down state marriage laws. There are several cases pending at other appeals courts, however. If one of those courts upholds a state marriage law, the Court will be more likely to hear the cases. The Court has until January, if it is going to take up gay marriage this term. Ryan Anderson, William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, criticized the Court's decision as leaving in place poor court decisions that trampled upon democratic processes, or government of the governed. 'This is an unfortunate setback for sound constitutional self-government and a setback for a healthy marriage culture,' he wrote. ... In a system of limited constitutional self-government, the people and their elected representatives should be making decisions about marriage policy...' he wrote. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a social conservative advocacy organization, also warned that the decision undermines democracy and the rule of law. 'Even more alarming,' he said, 'lower court judges are undermining our form of government and the rights and freedoms of citizens to govern themselves. This judicially led effort to force same sex "marriage" on people will have negative consequences for our Republic, not only as it relates to natural marriage but also undermining the rule of and respect for law.'" (Photo: Reuters/Gary Cameron) ("Supreme Court Declines to Hear Gay Marriage Cases," The Christian Post, Oct. 6, 2014) ![]() Genesis 9:4 "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." While most would agree that our circulatory system is vital to life, many of us don't fully appreciate the almost miraculous workings of that system. Your heart pumps about one-hundred thousand times every day. That means that your heart pumps the equivalent of 10 tons of blood every day or 80 million gallons in a lifetime. Your circulatory system brings that blood to every cell in your body through a capillary network that is so large that the combined capillaries of only four people, stretched end to end, would reach from the Earth to the moon! But your circulatory system involves quality as well as quantity. The chemistry of your blood is monitored and adjusted to within incredibly fine limits to keep it in precise balance second by second, day by day, year in, year out. For example, the acidity of your blood is adjusted constantly to within one part in a hundred million. Our circulation system cannot be simply "good enough"; it has to work perfectly. So if mindless evolution created us, it had to make the whole system perfect the first time. There is no room for millions of years or for a poorer circulation system to be improved by mutations. Here, the facts clearly support Scripture, strongly indicating that we were created in finished form – not developed slowly by trial and error. Photo: Transmission electron microscope image of a capillary with a red blood cell within the pancreas. Courtesy of Louisa Howard. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() Genesis 6:14-15 "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits." One of the common arguments used by skeptics against the biblical account of the Flood claims that Noah's Ark could not possibly have accommodated all the millions of species of animals. The first problem with this argument lies in the word "species." Species is a modern human classification. Genesis says that Noah was sent "kinds." The biblical "kind" includes many species. For example, the dog kind includes: foxes, fennecs, wolves, jackals, colishé, and coyote as well as the domestic dog. All these can interbreed and have fertile offspring, meaning that they were originally one mating pair. This applies to all species and drastically reduces the number of animals on the Ark to a more reasonable figure. That figure is further reduced when we realize that one-third of all animal species live in the sea and had no need to be taken on the Ark. But let's not forget that the Ark was the largest ship ever built until the 1860s. It had a capacity of one and a third million cubic feet – about equal to a train made up of 522 railroad stock cars! So when the facts are all considered, even a generous estimation of the space needed on the Ark tells us that there was room not only for Noah and his family and all the animals, but also for plenty of food. Photo: Courtesy of Raoulduke47. 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 ![]() "The new generation is intoxicated with the rallying cry of 'self-expression.' The new generation is letting itself go. If it has any standard, it is the standard of exalted personalism and self-pleasing at any cost to old law and old custom or old manners. ... With the weakening down of law and self-restraint, there is the over-leaping race for material pleasures. This is the inspiration of the 'get-rich-quick movement'; get money that may be spent on pleasure and more pleasure. ... No one has time; all are pressed, life is too short to stop and think. ... 'On with the song' and 'on with the dance,' these are the cries, and the music goes faster and more furious, the very sounds of the music are barbaric, appealing to the animal, to the brute sense within, stirring the blood, adding fuel to the fire till passion is at white heat." (Written in 1929 by I.M. Haldeman, A King's Penknife, or, Why I am Opposed to Modernism) ![]() Job 15:8 "Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?" Hydraulics are part of our everyday lives. Fluids – such as the brake fluid used in your car – cannot be compressed, so when you step on the brake pedal that fluid can be forced from a cylinder into the braking mechanisms attached to your wheels. All hydraulic machines work in a similar way because the fluid used will flow easily to areas where there is less pressure. Our Creator made great use of hydraulic principles in many of His creations. We have rigid bones and use fluid to expand and contract our muscles to bend and then stretch our legs. But the spider, for example, does not have a rigid skeleton, so it uses muscles to bend its legs, then pumps fluid into its leg to straighten it out. The North American Dwarf mistletoe builds up hydraulic pressure equal to that found in a truck tire in order to catapult its seeds out to a distance of almost 50 feet at a speed close to 60 miles per hour. The squirting cucumber found in the Mediterranean area uses the same principle to propel its seeds up to forty feet. Unless you think that the brake system in your car came together by chance and natural forces, it doesn't make any sense to believe that spiders and other plants and animals came about without a Designer and Creator. Photo: Courtesy of J Schmidt. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() About 3,500 years ago Moses wrote the following: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away" (Psa. 90:10). According to the World Health Organization and the World Factbook, the worldwide average life expectancy at birth for 2010-2013 is 71 years. (Friday Church News Notes, October 3, 2014, www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) ![]() Joshua 10:10 "And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah." Modern criticism of the Bible began in the late 1700s and has continued to this day. The usual claim, often from Bible scholars, has been that the Bible is nothing more than error-filled human writings. Before serious excavation work had begun in the mid-1800s, scholars felt free to consider lack of evidence as proof that people, cities, and even whole nations mentioned in the Bible never existed. It didn't seem to matter to them that they had never even bothered to look for the evidence. Soon, biblical archaeology started finding the evidences. And with each discovery, the critics' pronouncements about errors in the Bible began to crumble. One example is the biblical record of Joshua's leadership of Israel in occupying the promised land. Joshua 10:10-11 reports how Joshua defeated Hazor, burning the city to the ground. All this had been dismissed by the doubters, but then archaeologists found the ruins of Hazor. The ruins clearly showed destruction by an intense fire. The fire had been so hot that adobe had been baked lobster red, stones had been changed by the heat of the fire, and the ashes of the city were five feet deep! Every claim that there is error in the Bible has been based upon lack of knowledge. Let's face it, no matter what the subject, including history, God has more knowledge than we do! Photo: Courtesy of האיל הניאולית. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() About 2,500 years ago, during the Persian Empire, an angel told the prophet Daniel, "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" (Daniel 12:4). We are seeing a dramatic fulfillment of this in our day. Recent inventions include the following: Scientists have encoded audio, photos, and text in DNA. Researchers at Harvard University encoded a 54,000-word book in strands of DNA, while other scientists at the European Bioinformatics Institute in England encoded an audio speech, a photograph, a scientific paper, and Shakespeare's sonnets ("Storing Digital Data in DNA," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 24, 2013). "DNA could hold vastly more information than the same surface volume of a disk drive--a cup of DNA theoretically could store about 100 million hours of high-definition video." Artificial leg can be controlled by thoughts. The first-ever artificial leg that is controlled by the person's thoughts has been developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The computer sensors in the prosthetic leg are attacked to nerves in the patient's leg which are rewired to his hamstring muscle ("Bionic Man," CBS Chicago, Sept. 25, 2013). This research is funded by a grant from the U.S. Army, which is seeking better prosthetic limbs. More than 1,200 soldiers have lost lower limbs from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) has developed a procedure that allows a patient to control a prosthetic arm with his own mind ("How the business of bionics is changing lives," CNBC, Nov. 28, 2013). One patient remarked, "It's amazing. I actually feel these arms are part of me, and I'm running them, and they're not a foreign object." Hydrogen bonds have been photographed for the first time using atomic force microscopy. The new technique has allowed man to glimpse the handiwork of God and to see the amazing bonds that hold our DNA together and give water its unique properties ("See the World's First Images," Business Insider, Sept. 30, 2013). A physics laboratory in Jerusalem has constructed a menorah for Hanukkah the size of a dust speck ("World's Tiniest Menorah," Arutz Sheva, Dec. 3, 2013). The Brojde Center at Hebrew University used its nanoscribe system to build the microscopic nine-lamp menorah engraved with the star of David. It is the width of a human hair. A bionic hand allows amputees to feel again ("Bionic Hand," Reuters, Feb. 6, 2014). The European device is still in prototype, but it has worked in experiments. Dennis Sorensen, who lost his left hand 10 years ago, said, "It was pretty close to having the same feeling as in my normal hand." A new device beams movies and video games directly into the wearer's eyeballs ("Meet Glyph," CNN, Feb. 5, 2014). The Glyph headset, which plugs into any mobile or entertainment device, uses a set of 2 million microscopic mirrors--1 million per eye--that reflect visuals, including 3D, into the user's eye. (Friday Church News Notes, October 3, 2014,www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) ![]() Psalm 22:6 "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people." The lowly earthworm is one of the most under-appreciated little creatures on Earth. People probably don't appreciate the earthworm because it's not very pretty. Biology textbooks say that the earthworms were among the first simple land creatures to evolve. Well, clearly there hasn't been much evolution since, and they are not that simple. The earthworm has a well-developed nervous system, a brain and ten hearts! Earthworms tunnel through the soil by literally eating the soil itself. As the worm draws nutrition from organic matter in the soil, its digestive system processes these chemicals to produce excellent natural fertilizers. In one recent test, soil scientists compared earthworms and the best fertilizers you can buy. The earthworms easily won the contest. The ground they fertilized had five times more nitrogen, twice as much calcium, two-and-a-half times more magnesium, and seven times more phosphorus than the best that modern science could produce. Since earthworms like lots of organic material in the soil, you can encourage earthworms in your garden by digging lawn clippings and most types of tree leaves into your soil this fall rather than throwing them away. One caution, however. Some leaves like red oak are acid and best left out of the soil. So, while earthworms are not pretty, our Creator has provided them to enrich the soil and help to feed us all. Photo: Courtesy of Jackhynes. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() Jimmy Carter, Baptist Sunday School teacher and former U.S. President, spoke out recently in favor of homosexual rights in churches. He said, "I never knew of any word or action of Jesus Christ that discriminated against anyone. ... I'm a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn't require them to" ("Jimmy Carter on LGBT Rights,"Religion Today, Sept. 25, 2014). The idea that Jesus would support homosexuals as church members is nonsensical. Jesus "discriminated" against every unrepentant sinner, warning that any sinner that does not repent will perish (Luke 13:3-5). Jesus discriminated between sinners who repent and sinners who don't repent. As for sexual relationships, Christ taught that marriage is the only legitimate sphere for sex, and marriage is between one man and one woman (Mat. 19:3-6). That leaves no place for divinely-justified homosexual sex. Outside of the divinely-appointed sphere of holy matrimony, sex is called adultery and fornication. "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). Church membership requires the new birth. Some of the members of the church at Corinth had been "fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, and abusers of themselves with mankind," but they had repented and been converted. "And such WERE some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11). (Friday Church News Notes, October 3, 2014,www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) ![]() "North Alabama Freethought Association board member Kelly McCauley will open the Huntsville City Council meeting Thursday in a non-religious invocation after a secularist group threatened to sue the council over its tradition of Christian Prayer. McCauley, who according to his Meetup page was confirmed in the Lutheran Church and 'dropped out' at age 23, told AL.com, 'My goal is to offer a non-sectarian invocation that, I hope, will lend gravity to the meeting and point to our civic values.' McCauley was invited by Huntsville leaders to give the body's first atheist 'prayer' after secularist group Freedom From Religion Foundation complained about its Christian opening prayers. Huntsville's City Council acknowledged that over 90 percent of its prayers before 2012 were Christian in nature. ... Huntsville elected to keep its opening prayers since receiving FFRF's complaints, but opened the tradition up to include various faith leaders including Wiccan priest Blake Kirk who prayed before the council meeting earlier this year. Kirk's prayer set off a community uproar, prompting the city to cancel a planned second Wiccan prayer. The city has also featured prayers from Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim leaders." (The Christian Post, Sept. 26, 2014) ![]() There are many things uniting the end-time, one-world "church," including contemporary worship, charismatic enthusiasm, contemplative mysticism, and "social-justice" issues. One of the top ecumenical social causes is global warming or climate change. A massive rally in New York City on September 23 brought together Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Baha'i, pagans, and atheists ("Atheists, Baptists and Baha'i Come Together," ChristianityToday.com, Sep. 23, 2014). This frenzy to "save the earth" is a complete rejection of God's Word, which tells us exactly what will happen in the future. After Christ returns and rules for 1,000 years, the present earth will be destroyed by God because of man's sin and replaced with a new heaven and a new earth. I would much rather trust my future to God and to the Bible which has always been proven true rather than to arrogant scientists who make predictions about the next decades even though they can't forecast the weather next week with any degree of certainty. "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10). (Friday Church News Notes, October 3, 2014, www.wayoflife.org,fbns@wayoflife.org, 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." The air we breathe has always been filled with dust particles. And whether it is dust blown off the ground, smoke particles, or tiny particles of fabric or even paper in the house, these particles find their way deep into our lungs. In His wisdom, our Creator has provided us with tiny, but effective "vacuum cleaners" in our lungs that collect and remove the particles that enter the lungs. These "vacuum cleaner" cells are actually a specific type of macrophage. They work in the deepest part of the lung, reaching out with tubular extensions to engulf any particle in much the same way that an amoeba eats. This "vacuum cleaner" essentially eats the particles it finds, and every one of these "vacuum cleaner" cells can clean an area forty times its own size. Scientists say that they still do not fully understand whether certain particles, like poisonous heavy metals, affect the working of these cells. They suspect that certain particles may prevent these "vacuum cleaners" from effectively doing their work. Though science has known about macrophages for over a century, scientists are only just beginning to learn how these cells actually clean the lungs. We can be very thankful that we have a Creator Who is not only clever enough to think of our need, but wise enough to know how to design a solution. Illustration: The human lungs flank the heart and great vessels in the chest cavity. Gray's Anatomy. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Many of the leaders of the creationist movement today were once evolutionists. Most of them believed that God created but that He used evolution to do it; this is called "theistic evolution." Theistic evolutionists who have come to accept biblical creation point out that there are some very serious objections to evolution. For example, the fossil record offers no evidence of the development of living things from simple to complex. Theistic evolutionists might object, but check it out: Representatives of every major phylum of animals living today are found in the very deepest layers of rocks containing multi-celled fossils. They appear suddenly without any evolutionary ancestors. Further, the fossil record offers not one undisputed "missing link" between the various kinds of creatures. Dr. Colin Patterson, formerly head of paleontology for the British Museum, who was not a creationist, admitted in a well-publicized letter that there is not a single transitional form to link any kind of animal with another. Even the most famous of the so-called transitional forms have not stood the test of scientific scrutiny. Evolution claims that there was death as indicated by the fossils long before the emergence of mankind, but the Bible clearly tells us that there was no death before Adam sinned. So whether you look at science or at the Bible, there is no reason for Christians to adopt evolutionary beliefs and every reason to believe the Bible's account of creation! Photo: The BioLogos Foundation is a leading proponent of theistic evolution. It was founded by Francis Collins in 2007. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com ![]() "Two thousand years ago when someone was baptized, publicly professing their faith in Christ, they were willing to die for the Lord. We don't have that situation today [in North America]; however, no one should be considered a member of the Lord's local church today who is not willing to live for Him. At FairHavens Baptist Church we require all members to be faithful to the services of the church. Potential members are taught that they have the same responsibility to the church that the pastor has. If the pastor misses a service to watch some sports activity on television or to visit family, the people should find a new pastor. If a church member skips church for something like that, the church member should be instructed to get in line or find a church that allows a cheap membership. Obviously, there are going to be times when the pastor or people will be away; however, if the church that Christ 'purchased with his own blood' is no more than an add-on in life, it is an insult to the Lord. At FairHavens Baptist Church members are required to be loyal to the pastor and to one another. That does not mean they will never disagree. It means they will disagree scripturally. It means if they have a problem they will 'go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone' (Matthew 18:15). Those who are guilty of 'sowing discord among the brethren' should be subject to church discipline." (Bob Kirkland, "Biblical Qualifications for Church Membership," Lifting Up the Standard, Sept. 1, 2014, www.fairhavensbaptist.net) ![]() Job 10:10-12 "Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit." For thousands of years, man has applied a huge variety of things to his skin to help injuries heal. By trial and error he has come up with ointments that keep injured skin moist to assist the natural healing process. Antibiotics were eventually added to these ointments. But until recently no one has been able to actually increase the rate at which skin naturally heals. That has now changed. Epidermal growth factor is one of the chemicals that God created to help keep the body in working order. Research has learned how to copy the chemical responsible, and tests have shown that application of the man-made epidermal growth factor can speed the rate at which wounds heal. Studies show that wounds on which epidermal growth factor is used heal about a day-and-a-half faster than normal. That might not seem like much, but when burn victims need many skin grafts, epidermal growth factor could mean the difference between life and death. With all his knowledge of the chemistry of biology, one would naturally assume that man should be able to develop better healing agents than mindless evolutionary processes. But, of course, man is not emulating mindless evolutionary processes but the work of the Creator God Himself. The Creator of natural epidermal growth factor had the original wisdom to design it and include it in our physiology. Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com |
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