Wandering Stars:
The small, almost throwaway comment about the creation of the stars in Genesis 1:16 – “He made the stars also” – is well known. Other passages in the Bible allude to the vastness of the Universe and even to individual astronomical objects such as the constellations of Orion and the Bear, or Great Bear as we know it. So people in Bible times were not ignorant of the vastness of space, but the limited description of the creation of the stars in Genesis 1 emphasizes the greater importance God places on the creation of mankind. As we have often commented, the mention of stars in Genesis 1 includes not only what we would think of as stars today, those hot balls of glowing gases, but also all other astronomical objects, including planets, comets and much more.
The word planet is a word of Greek origin (πλανηται) and literally means “wandering star”. Before the discovery of the solar orbits of the planets, and well before the discovery of outer planets Uranus and Neptune, these wandering stars were so named because their position in the sky was not fixed night after night, but changed against the further “fixed” stars.
Planets were known in Bible times because Jude uses their wandering nature in verse 13 of his epistle to describe those who reject that “fixed universe” of the authority of God’s word and warns that their lack of fixity will result in their end if they do not repent.
strong Prayer: Father God, help us to have compassion for those who are wandering and lost in Your universe, and grant us the joy of pulling some from the fire. Amen.
The Singing Lake:
It's a quiet, cool, overcast morning at the lake. There's a hint of fog in the air and a fine, lightly falling drizzle. Then you notice the sound. It's almost a musical note, and it's coming from the lake. It's almost as if the lake were singing.
Many people report hearing a lake sing, when there is a fine drizzle falling. Those who have never heard it are skeptical. However, now science has confirmed that lakes do indeed sing, in a fine drizzle. Scientists even know what causes it. And in this case, the scientific explanation doesn't decrease our wonder and awe at this amazing phenomenon.
Canadian scientists placed an underwater microphone at a depth of about 100 feet in a Vancouver Island lake. They placed the microphone almost 1000 feet from shore so they would be certain not to pick up any sounds from the shore. Then they waited for the weather to change. The scientists eventually recorded the sounds of rain, hail, drizzle, and even snow hitting the surface of the lake. Yes, even snow makes a sound when it strikes the water! Their findings show that the fine drops of water in drizzle strike the surface of the lake almost as if they were tiny explosive charges. When they burst on the water, they give off a ping. While you would never hear a few of these droplets ping, countless billions of them add their sound together to make the lake literally sing.
Scripture is correct in a literal sense when it tells us that everything in the creation sings praises to its Creator.
Just More Stories:
Timothy 4:3-4; For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
Parables are a good way to teach. Jesus often used parables to teach a lesson. Parables can even be a good way to teach science. However, parables cannot be used to establish scientific fact.
Unfortunately, Charles Darwin frequently used parables as part of his scientific method. Many modern evolutionists continue that tradition. Let's look at an example. hose who believe in evolution have tried to find an explanation for why some birds have luxurious, bright plumage. Does the peacock really need those brilliant tail feathers? Well, say evolutionists, females prefer the males with the most beautiful plumage. So the brightest males had more babies. Evolutionists call this sexual selection.
However, that does the story prove? It doesn't prove anything in the scientific sense. It doesn't explain where the colors came from in the first place. It doesn't explain why females prefer showy males. Nor does it explain where peacocks originally came from. And it doesn't explain why some birds have very drab colors. However, the biggest problem with this explanation is that it begs the question. You see, many evolutionists admit that they have no good explanation for how sexual reproduction evolved in the first place.
So the evolutionists story for how the peacock came to have such bright feathers is just a story – not scientific proof. And when it comes to stories, we prefer the stories reported in the Bible because thy have our Creator's own personal guarantee of truth.
The Miracle Star:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men form the East came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He who is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
What was the star the wise men followed to find the infant Jesus? About this time of year, articles appear in magazines and newspapers offering many opinions. Some suggest that it was a comet. Others say it was the conjunction of two or more planets or stars. Do any of these theories offer possible explanations?
It's not a very complicated task to evaluate these explanations. All you need is a Bible and a map of the Holy Land. Matthew 2:1 tells us that the wise men came from east of the Holy Land. Verses 2 and 9 further tell us that these men had seen the star indicating His birth in the eastern sky. Despite the pictures on Christmas cards, they had not followed the star to Jerusalem. Once they arrived in Jerusalem, we learn in Matthew 2:9 that the star they had seen in the eastern sky moved to lead them to the Christ Child.
Matthew clearly tells us that the wise men went from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in their search for the child. Bethlehem is due south of Jerusalem. He also tells us that the star moved over where the child was. That movement is very unlike a star. In fact, the movement of the star was even more unstar-like in that it directed them to a specific house!
These wise men from the East were accustomed to the sights of the night sky. They could tell the difference between a conjunction and a comet or a miracle star. This star was clearly created by God to announce the birth of the Savior of the world to the world He came to save!
Not a Chance!:
Praise the LORD from the earth, You great sea creatures and all the depths; fire and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling His word…Is there any such thing as chance or luck? Does anything ever happen randomly? Many people don't realize that the Bible speaks to these questions.
In late August 1992 a tornado swept through a small Wisconsin town and caused a great deal of destruction. That made it newsworthy enough. However, the destruction it wrought on one church in town received special notice on some national newscasts. Pictures showed the church in ruins. But the altar still stood, barely visible in the rubble. Most astonishing was the fact that the Bible still stood on its stand in its customary place on the altar. The undamaged Bible was open to where Psalm 77 reads, The clouds poured out water, the skies sent out a sound; your arrows also flashed about. The voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind; the lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook.
In Matthew 10 Jesus tells us that God is so involved in His creation that not one of the billions of sparrows in the world falls to the ground without His knowledge. Psalm 148 tells us that the entire creation praises God in everything that happens. God is so personally involved in the creation that He even instructs each wind about the speed and direction to takes. Was it simply luck that the altar was spared and the Bible was open to Psalm 77? God is involved in every detail of the creation. Let's praise God that there is no such thing as luck!
Chinese Giant Salamander:
In previous Creation Moments, we have seen how many amphibians can be very small. For example, there are frogs in Madagascar that are very little bigger than a large grain of rice.
But not all amphibians are so tiny. In various parts of China, there lives a giant salamander. The Chinese Giant Salamander is one of three species within the giant water salamander kind, or cryptobranchidae – the other two being the slightly smaller Japanese Giant Salamander and the smaller still North American hellbender.
This unusual giant salamander can grow up to 3 feet 9 inches in length and can weigh around 50 pounds. Yet, its tadpoles hatch at about an inch in length – though they do grow to nearly two feet before final metamorphosis.
Their feeding habits are also unusual. Although they eat a number of different animals – and they are nearly completely carnivorous – analysis of food contents showed that 23 percent of their food comes from freshwater crabs. This was their second biggest food source. The biggest source – 28 percent – was other giant salamanders. The animals are highly cannibalistic.
Pollution and loss of habitat has hit the numbers of this giant salamander hard. It is considered a delicacy in China. Its Japanese cousin is protected in Japan, but Chinese salamanders have been imported, and some have hybridized with the Chinese animal, demonstrating that this family of salamanders constitutes one biblical baramin.
God has made some unusual animals in His world, and the giant salamander is one of the strangest! Prayer: We stand amazed, Lord, at the variety of unusual animals that You have made, demonstrating Your creative power and majesty. Amen.
The King of the Universe:
That infant in the manger is God’s voice to mankind. And despite appearances, He is the King of the universe.
The world waited 4,000 years to see the fulfillment of God's promise to restore humanity to Himself. That promise was first given to our first parents, Adam and Eve, when their sin separated them and the creation from God. Through the next 4,000 years, the faithful never grew weary of their belief that God would keep His Word. Hundreds of times over those 4,000 years God repeated His promise of a Savior.
John's Gospel tells us that the same Word that became flesh for our salvation was the Word through Whom all things were created. This Word was the instrument Who created the incredible variety of living things that we see on Earth. He created the human brain and the petal of a rose. In but a day, before going on to greater things, He created the countless billions of stars and energized them with enough power to shine for thousands of years. And who are we, for we cannot even measure the energy those stars put out in only one second of their history!
Yet now we see Him, an infant clothed in our form. Here lies the King of the niverse unable even to ask for nourishment. Why? The answer is no mystery. He was the Instrument who made us. We are eternally lost without help. So He would be the Instrument of our salvation – at any cost! We can only stand in deep reverence at such love that would come among us to rescue us from our own sin.
I thank You, dear Lord Jesus Christ, that You spared nothing, not even the loss of heaven and giving up Your life so that You could rescue me. Help me to have a heart and mind like Yours so that more might know of the forgiveness of sins You have won for us. Amen.
Fossil Graveyards:
Genesis 7:21
“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:”
News reports were majoring recently on a fossil graveyard found in North Dakota. Reports suggested that the graveyard must have been formed when a large wall of water threw hundreds of fish onto a sandbar in a river estuary, while those fish were pelted from above by little glass beads. These glass beads were supposedly formed by the dust thrown up as the meteor which killed the dinosaurs hit the Earth. The large numbers of fish are intermingled with tree trunks, mammals, insects, part of a triceratops and ammonites. It certainly seems clear that this graveyard was produced by a catastrophic event. But the only catastrophic event that evolutionists can think of is the supposed meteor strike at Chicxulub.
One report described the North Dakota graveyard as “unique”. While this graveyard had certain features not seen in others, there is nothing unique about a fossil graveyard. Although the process of fossilization is rare, it is still quite common to find many fossils in the same place – often from wildly different species. And each such fossil graveyard is a testimony to catastrophe.
For so many creatures to have been killed all at once in the same place, something unique must have happened. We have often suggested that different rock layers imply not different eras but different ecosystems. So the onset of the worldwide Flood would have caused local conditions similar to that which we observe. The graveyards point to the truth of Genesis, not to some deep-time process.
Prayer: Once again, Lord, we see how Your word tells the truth and makes sense of the world around us – and we thank You. Amen.
Horses:
There are few more majestic sights than a horse, galloping across the countryside with an expert rider on its back. A good rider knows his or her horse well and accommodates to their whims, while also maintaining control. Horses are so important to the history of humankind that evolutionists have been particularly interested in the alleged evolution of the horse. At first sight, it seems as if they have some facts going for them because they would look at modern horses and show that they have developed over time by selective breeding. Then they will look at other similar animals, such as the wild Przewalski’s horse, as well as donkeys, ponies, and zebras. Evolutionists would maintain that all of these have a common ancestor. And they would be right! They are all part of the horse family – equidae.
Evolutionists cannot leave well alone, though, it would seem. Insisting that horses are closely related to tapirs, they have found fossils of alleged ancestors of both horses and tapirs. I recall looking closely at reproductions of hyracotherium (which evolutionists like to call eohippus, or “dawn-horse”) in the Smithsonian in DC. The hyracotherium had been placed in a display with modern horses and tapirs. At immediate glance, the hyracotherium appeared very similar to a tapir and not at all similar to a horse.
Evolutionists will sometimes see what they want to see. But God made animals according to their kind, and they do not evolve into other kinds.
Prayer: The creatures that You have created, Lord, are magnificent. Thank You especially for those creatures which can be trained to work with people for our mutual benefit. Amen.
The Unicorn of the Ocean:
Britain’s towns are replete with their popular, independent fast food restaurants known as fish and chip shops. The fish served at my local fish and chip shop, when I was growing up, were mostly halibut, cod and shrimp. These are also among the favorite foods of the narwhal – that strange and wonderful whale, sometimes known as the unicorn of the ocean.
Narwhals are sociable animals, swimming around in groups of up to 20 individuals. In the summer, many groups come together, forming a larger group of up to 500 or so whales. They can dive deeply, often diving over 2,500 feet over 15 times a day. Baby narwhals are born after 14 months gestation and are usually born singly. They are long-lived – some adults can live up to 50 years.
The thing that makes narwhals so unique is its tusk. Looking like the curved, twisted horn of a unicorn, the tusk is really a long upper jaw tooth which bursts through the creature’s upper lip. Its appearance is so striking that one wants to imagine underwater sword fights, but the truth is that we have very little idea of what this tusk is for. It doesn’t seem to have a purpose in feeding, hunting or defense. And yet it clearly was not created by chance for no particular reason.
God, in His wisdom, knows why He put this peculiar twisted horn on the face of a narwhal. For now, we can only admire its strangeness.
The Unicorn:
“God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.”
“You obviously can’t believe the Bible because it talks about unicorns. Unicorns are obviously mythical beasts – white horses, with a curly horn on its forehead, looking like a cross between a horse and a narwhal.”
Is this accusation fair? There are some of you at this moment using your electronic concordances, telling me that the word unicorn does not appear in your Bible.
Well, the word unicorn appears six times in the King James Version. But the animal described does not sound like the delicate white horse of mythology. For example, in Numbers 23:11, it tells us that God “hath the strength of an unicorn”. Since when was a fairy-tale unicorn a symbol of strength?
Unicorn is a Latin word, indicating one horn. The Hebrew word is reym, which can mean a wild ox, but can equally mean any large powerful grazing animal. The ESV translates it as wild ox, but I do not agree with this because the Greek found in the Septuagint is monokerotos, which also means single horn. So, is there any animal with a single horn that could be as strong as, or even stronger than, an ox?
The Indian Rhinoceros has only one horn. Indeed, its Latin name is Rhinoceros unicornis. It is highly possible that the reym or unicorn of the Bible could have been either this or some other extinct rhino. Whatever it was, the biblical descriptions suggest a real, powerful beast, not a Victorian fairy-tale.