THE BIRTH THAT ENDED DEATH
1 Corinthians 15:22
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
People ask, "Why is there death and suffering in the world? Is this the way God wants it?" The Bible's clear answer is an emphatic "No!" The world God created in the beginning had no death, suffering or disease. When God created mankind, man knew God with a perfect knowledge and was happy with that knowledge. God and man communicated with each other more simply and easily than we can between ourselves today. This is what God wanted for man.
However, God did not create robots. He wants us to love Him, but this involves our will to do so and the choice not to do so. God warned us that choosing not to love Him, or turning our back on Him, would result in death. We have to admit that even Christians sometimes withdraw their love for God. The resulting suffering in this world is only a warning of the eternal consequences of our sin.
God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and died for us that our death may not be eternal. Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life and, while He deserved no punishment for sin, He willingly suffered that punishment on our behalf. His resurrection from the dead was God the Father's signal that He had accepted Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. In Christ, our death has become a mere passage to eternal life.
Dear Lord, I confess that I will never understand the depth of Your love for me while I am in this world. But I believe that You have indeed rescued me from sin, death and the devil. Help my unbelief. Amen.
Illustration: Although not technically a Christian cross, the Chi-Rho invokes the crucifixion of Jesus, as well as symbolizing His status as the Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:22
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
People ask, "Why is there death and suffering in the world? Is this the way God wants it?" The Bible's clear answer is an emphatic "No!" The world God created in the beginning had no death, suffering or disease. When God created mankind, man knew God with a perfect knowledge and was happy with that knowledge. God and man communicated with each other more simply and easily than we can between ourselves today. This is what God wanted for man.
However, God did not create robots. He wants us to love Him, but this involves our will to do so and the choice not to do so. God warned us that choosing not to love Him, or turning our back on Him, would result in death. We have to admit that even Christians sometimes withdraw their love for God. The resulting suffering in this world is only a warning of the eternal consequences of our sin.
God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and died for us that our death may not be eternal. Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life and, while He deserved no punishment for sin, He willingly suffered that punishment on our behalf. His resurrection from the dead was God the Father's signal that He had accepted Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. In Christ, our death has become a mere passage to eternal life.
Dear Lord, I confess that I will never understand the depth of Your love for me while I am in this world. But I believe that You have indeed rescued me from sin, death and the devil. Help my unbelief. Amen.
Illustration: Although not technically a Christian cross, the Chi-Rho invokes the crucifixion of Jesus, as well as symbolizing His status as the Christ.
CHIMPS DISCOVER NEW ANTIBIOTIC!
Romans 8:20-21
"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
When penicillin was first used as an antibiotic, it was considered a wonder drug. Infections which had been fatal for thousands of years were all of a sudden curable.
Man has long known that some natural substances have a natural ability to fight infection. But modern medicine had to step aside and acknowledge that not all medical breakthroughs are made by doctors – or even human beings!
For years it has been known that the roots and leaves of the Aspilia shrub are used as a traditional African treatment for wounds and stomachaches. Researchers also observed chimpanzees swallowing the leaves of the shrub. This led them to investigate more about the leaves. They learned that Aspilia leaves and roots contain a chemical which kills some infectious bacteria as well as fungi and worms. Researchers hope to learn whether this chemical is safe and effective for humans when taken orally.
However, the mystery remains. How did the chimps discover the antibiotic nature of Aspilia? We need to look to our Creator, Who appears to have given the chimps this knowledge. For while disease and death are not part of His original design for the creation, He was loving enough to provide medicinal help for these consequences of human sin. But the permanent cure for sin and death began with the birth of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Dear Father, disease and death were not Your plan for the creation, but were the result of man's rebellion against You. Let the wide scope of Your mercy in providing us with some earthly remedies for the results of sin fill me with even greater appreciation for Your boundless mercy and love to as in Christ. In His Name. Amen.
Photo: Alexander Fleming is credited with discovering penicillin in 1928.
A COMPUTER WITH FINS
Job 21:22
"Shall [any] teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high."
The glass knifefish, popular in home aquariums, has been the subject of study by two University of California researchers. They have concluded that this unusual looking fish has such a complex nervous system that it is basically a computer with fins.
As the 6- to 7-inch native of South America swims along, it generates up to 700 weak electrical impulses a second, which it uses like radar to navigate. The returning signals are received by specialized cells all over the fish's body.
The fish's brain then processes these signals in much the same way that our brain processes the signals from our ears and tells us the direction of the source of sound. However, where we use sound waves to tell us direction, the glass knifefish uses electrical impulses that travel much faster than sound. But not only are those impulses faster but there are up to 700 signals per second to process. The fish's secret to processing this huge amount of information is called parallel processing. This is a technique that has been discovered and applied to produce the fastest computers yet.
The glass knifefish is an unlikely design to have evolved. The highly sophisticated information-processing technology built into this fish can only be attributed to the Creator, presented to us in the Bible.
Dear Father in heaven, man's greatest knowledge and wisdom and his most advanced discoveries are so small in comparison with what You have made that they serve to give us a greater appreciation of what You have done in creation. Remove human pride from me and teach me complete dependence on Your Son, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Photo: Courtesy of Haplochromis. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
Job 21:22
"Shall [any] teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high."
The glass knifefish, popular in home aquariums, has been the subject of study by two University of California researchers. They have concluded that this unusual looking fish has such a complex nervous system that it is basically a computer with fins.
As the 6- to 7-inch native of South America swims along, it generates up to 700 weak electrical impulses a second, which it uses like radar to navigate. The returning signals are received by specialized cells all over the fish's body.
The fish's brain then processes these signals in much the same way that our brain processes the signals from our ears and tells us the direction of the source of sound. However, where we use sound waves to tell us direction, the glass knifefish uses electrical impulses that travel much faster than sound. But not only are those impulses faster but there are up to 700 signals per second to process. The fish's secret to processing this huge amount of information is called parallel processing. This is a technique that has been discovered and applied to produce the fastest computers yet.
The glass knifefish is an unlikely design to have evolved. The highly sophisticated information-processing technology built into this fish can only be attributed to the Creator, presented to us in the Bible.
Dear Father in heaven, man's greatest knowledge and wisdom and his most advanced discoveries are so small in comparison with what You have made that they serve to give us a greater appreciation of what You have done in creation. Remove human pride from me and teach me complete dependence on Your Son, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Photo: Courtesy of Haplochromis. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
LEGS KNOCKED OUT FROM UNDER SNAKE EVOLUTION
Genesis 3:14
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life..."
It's rather interesting that evolutionists believe that snakes once had legs and lost them. This sounds very much like the Genesis account of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Obviously, evolutionists don't accept the story of the first temptation. As far as they are concerned, the snake evolved from some reptile which originally had legs. But evolutionists have always tried to find some evolutionary advantage to losing legs and, thus, justify their theory. In 1973 an unpublished study suggested that garter snakes use 30 percent less energy for locomotion than they would if they had legs. That study was preliminary and never published. But that didn't stop evolutionists from saying that they had found the reason that snakes don't have legs.
Now, a much more exhaustive study done at the University of California at Irvine, has shown that this evolutionary explanation is false. Outfitting black racer snakes with oxygen masks and using modern precision equipment, including a snake-sized treadmill, researchers have shown that snakes use as much energy as a creature of the same weight to get around. The supposed evolutionary advantage to not having legs has disappeared under the bright light of scientific investigation.
And so yet another so-called scientific claim that the Bible has been proven wrong fails in the light of careful science.
Dear Father, modern man seeks to avoid his responsibility to You by trying to explain the world as if You are not its Creator. Correct me when I try to deny my sin, for I know that You are love and that Your love has been shown to me in the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. In His Name. Amen.
Painting: Close-up of the snake in Michelangelo's portrayal of the Fall. Sistine Chapel, Rome.
Genesis 3:14
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life..."
It's rather interesting that evolutionists believe that snakes once had legs and lost them. This sounds very much like the Genesis account of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Obviously, evolutionists don't accept the story of the first temptation. As far as they are concerned, the snake evolved from some reptile which originally had legs. But evolutionists have always tried to find some evolutionary advantage to losing legs and, thus, justify their theory. In 1973 an unpublished study suggested that garter snakes use 30 percent less energy for locomotion than they would if they had legs. That study was preliminary and never published. But that didn't stop evolutionists from saying that they had found the reason that snakes don't have legs.
Now, a much more exhaustive study done at the University of California at Irvine, has shown that this evolutionary explanation is false. Outfitting black racer snakes with oxygen masks and using modern precision equipment, including a snake-sized treadmill, researchers have shown that snakes use as much energy as a creature of the same weight to get around. The supposed evolutionary advantage to not having legs has disappeared under the bright light of scientific investigation.
And so yet another so-called scientific claim that the Bible has been proven wrong fails in the light of careful science.
Dear Father, modern man seeks to avoid his responsibility to You by trying to explain the world as if You are not its Creator. Correct me when I try to deny my sin, for I know that You are love and that Your love has been shown to me in the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. In His Name. Amen.
Painting: Close-up of the snake in Michelangelo's portrayal of the Fall. Sistine Chapel, Rome.
HE BREATHES THROUGH HIS LEGS
Isaiah 29:14
"Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, [even] a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise [men] shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent [men] shall be hid."
Members of the animal kingdom generally have similar parts. For example, the radius bone in the forelimbs of the bat, the horse and the human look similar but this is because they have similar functions. Listeners will recall the illustration in their high school biology textbook where this similarity of parts is called "homology". Similarity is said to be the result of descent from a common ancestor and, thus, is evidence of evolution. But this is circular reasoning because the evidences are chosen on the belief that there was a common ancestor.
Then it is argued that the evidences of similarity proves a common ancestor! The octopus eye and the human eye are very similar but this example is never given since no one believes the octopus and humans had a common ancestor.
God seems to have deliberately created novelties in order to make it more difficult to believe in evolution. For example, almost all animals get their oxygen through lungs or gills located in the main part of the body. Usually, the hearing organs are in or on the head, but occasionally there is a novelty where the ears are close to the knees. Until a few years ago scientists thought that two organs on the sand bubbler crab's legs were ears, but then they discovered that they were actually breathing organs!
God's creation of novelties like this should help us challenge ideas that try to deny that He is our Creator.
Dear Father, forgive me for the times that I have been intimidated into silence in the face of ideas which deny You. Grant me Your Holy Spirit and wisdom so that I may boldly tell others the truth of Who You are and what You have done for us sinners through Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.
Photo: Amphioctopus marginatus travels with shells it has collected for protection. Courtesy of Nick Hobgood. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Isaiah 29:14
"Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, [even] a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise [men] shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent [men] shall be hid."
Members of the animal kingdom generally have similar parts. For example, the radius bone in the forelimbs of the bat, the horse and the human look similar but this is because they have similar functions. Listeners will recall the illustration in their high school biology textbook where this similarity of parts is called "homology". Similarity is said to be the result of descent from a common ancestor and, thus, is evidence of evolution. But this is circular reasoning because the evidences are chosen on the belief that there was a common ancestor.
Then it is argued that the evidences of similarity proves a common ancestor! The octopus eye and the human eye are very similar but this example is never given since no one believes the octopus and humans had a common ancestor.
God seems to have deliberately created novelties in order to make it more difficult to believe in evolution. For example, almost all animals get their oxygen through lungs or gills located in the main part of the body. Usually, the hearing organs are in or on the head, but occasionally there is a novelty where the ears are close to the knees. Until a few years ago scientists thought that two organs on the sand bubbler crab's legs were ears, but then they discovered that they were actually breathing organs!
God's creation of novelties like this should help us challenge ideas that try to deny that He is our Creator.
Dear Father, forgive me for the times that I have been intimidated into silence in the face of ideas which deny You. Grant me Your Holy Spirit and wisdom so that I may boldly tell others the truth of Who You are and what You have done for us sinners through Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.
Photo: Amphioctopus marginatus travels with shells it has collected for protection. Courtesy of Nick Hobgood. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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