CREATION MOMENTS: 2.24.18

TALENT AND EXERCISE

Matthew 25:21

“His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
In another Creation Moment, I described the natural ability of a sportsman like David Beckham and how his work could be defined by math. When we consider great sportsmen, we consider the link between talent and what they have done with that talent.

 A great soccer player like Beckham, for example, has a God-given talent, whether or not they acknowledge this. I have the ability to describe the bending free kick by math, but I could not actually kick the ball this way even if I practiced for hours every day. God has given me one talent, and Beckham another.

 In any sport, however, we occasionally come across players where we think that their talent has been wasted. I can think of one British soccer player of the past who showed early promise but who developed an unfortunate and public addiction to alcohol.

 The relationship between talent and the work done to develop that talent is a biblical concept. In the parable of the talents, the man who started with two talents and who brought back four was commended as highly as the man with five talents who brought back ten. Both men had started with talents, which they did not earn, but were given to them, but both men developed those talents further. It was the man who simply buried his talent who was condemned.

 Both the abilities that God has given us and our exercise and development of them are important factors in our lives and in our witness.

Thank You, Lord, for the talents that You have given me. I pray that You will help me develop my talents and not bury them so that You can use me more effectively for the furtherance of Your kingdom. Amen.

 

 THE PHYSICS OF SPORT

Hebrews 12:1-2

�Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.�




One popular science TV show in the UK suggested that David Beckham was a master of differential calculus in the way he scored goals. Beckham, who played for such major soccer teams as Real Madrid and LA Galaxy, was a master of the curling free kick that could fool defenders and goal keepers, as the ball bent around them into the net. He did not have the reputation, however, of a master mathematician.

 If one were mathematically to describe the trajectory of the ball as it left Beckham�s foot, the math would be pretty sophisticated. The equation would include g � the acceleration due to gravity. But a large number of other factors would have been in Mr. Beckham�s head. These would include information from his eyes about the positions of various defenders, the power of his foot on the ball, and the positioning of the point of contact that would produce exactly the right amount of spin. Perhaps some peripheral constants would include the material and method of manufacture of his boots.

 There is no doubt that David Beckham�s experience and talent would have informed his decision about how to kick the ball. Few would expect him to plot the trajectory on paper or give details about the nature of the equation described above.

 Whether they would acknowledge this or not, God gave athletes like David Beckham their talents, and God gave them the means to develop their soccer brains to enable them to judge how, why and where to kick the ball. And God gave other people the means and tools to be able scientifically to analyze their actions.

We are amazed, Lord, at the sporting talents that You have given some people, and how they have developed those talents. Thank You for those sportsmen and women who do acknowledge You and who give You the glory. Amen.

 

 THE DINOSAUR MUMMY

Genesis 7:23

�And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.�
We have now got used to the idea that there are dinosaur fossils containing soft tissue. Our familiarity with such finds has begun to dull the edge of the surprising import of such finds. Whichever way you spin this, the presence of soft tissue is not consistent with evolutionary ages for the dinosaurs.

 Perhaps this sense of surprise, for the evolutionist, will be rekindled by the discovery of dinosaurs complete with skin, scales and pigments. One such dinosaur find is that of Borealopelta markmitchelli. This amazing specimen caused one expert to remark that it �might have been walking around a couple of weeks ago�.

 When the protein molecules of such organisms break down, they form secondary proteins called kerogens. These molecules have been found in this dinosaur. Although the exact lifespan of such molecules has not been fully researched, it is clear that they cannot last anywhere near as long as the required 112 million years � the date assigned to this dinosaur.

 Similarly, pigments like melanin have been found in the scales of the dinosaur. Experiments have suggested that the lifespan of melanin is only thousands of years. Yet, this dinosaur is not the only discovery in which such melanin has been found, even though there is no scientific mechanism by which such pigments could last the millions of years required.

 These dinosaur finds are troubling to evolutionists. But they are fully consistent with a biblical worldview, confirming as they do the Bible�s timescale for Creation and the Flood.

Your word, O Lord, is always true. We thank You that You have graciously provided evidences consistent with Your word. We pray that we might trust You completely because we believe what You have said. Amen.

 

 

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CREATION MOMENTS: 1.17.18

BEAR NECESSITIES

Genesis 8:22

“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
A recent science article in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper suggested that grizzly bears may have dropped their carnivorous ways in favor of a life of eating berries. Apparently, the streams and rivers on Alaska’s Kodiak Island are replete with salmon. Normally, 75% of these salmon are killed by grizzlies, but in recent years, the salmon have remained untouched, while bears stay in the hills eating elderberries. This change in behavior, which is billed as a form of evolution, is said to have occurred because elderberries are said to be ripening earlier every year. The normal diet of the grizzly bear would involve eating salmon at the end of summer and early fall, followed by gorging on the high-energy berries in order to fatten up for the winter hibernation. But the berries are ripening early, so the bears are missing out on the salmon in order to consume high energy berries. The Telegraph’s article thinks that it knows the culprit for this situation, which it sees as problematic. Early berry ripening has been caused by our old friend climate change.

 Apparently, this will affect the ecosystems of the rivers. Bears do not consume the whole salmon. The discarded carcasses rot and enrich the soil in the riparian region. Worried scientists suggest that bears will have completely given up on salmon by 2070.

 There has, of course, been frequent warming and cooling of environments before. More to the point, the Bible reminds us that “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22)

Thank You, Father, that we can rely on You, even in the midst of weather turmoil. Amen.

 

DON’T TAKE THIS LITERALLY

2 Timothy 3:16-17

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
The Bible’s authority is constantly questioned, and so-called scholars constantly attempt to undermine it. As I write this, a new attempt is being made to undermine people’s trust in God’s word.

 Interest has recently been shown in a 100-page document in Latin, written by the fourth-century Italian bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia. Dr. Hugh Houghton of the University of Bormingham has translated the work and reports that it provides an allegorical interpretation of the Gospels. Houghton says, “There's been an assumption that [the Bible is] a literal record of truth... But for people teaching the Bible in the fourth century, it's not the literal meaning which is important, it's how it's read allegorically.”

 Houghton’s claim is that, because the document dates back to the fourth century, it should carry more weight about methods of interpreting the Bible than, for example, the works of Augustine. But is the antiquity of the document any evidence for its authority?

 The answer to that question must be a resounding “No”. It should be a surprise to nobody that there were people in the early post-apostolic church who were already casting doubt on the authenticity of New Testament books. After all, the first record we have of someone casting doubt on the authority of God’s word is recorded in the Bible itself, when the serpent, in Genesis 3, does exactly that. There are many scholars who have shown that many post-apostolic writers accepted the authority of the entire Bible, and the New Testament documents themselves are self-authenticating – such as Peter’s acknowledgment of the Scriptural authority of Paul’s letters in 2 Peter 3:16.



Your Word, Lord, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Help us always to be guided by Your word. Amen.
 ARE LIZARDS IN BRAZIL EVOLVING?

Genesis 1:25

�And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.�


There was a certain hydroelectric dam built in Brazil. This involved the flooding of a region of countryside, which left some populations of geckos isolated. Gradually, the populations of other lizards in the area died out. After about 15 years, it was noticed that the geckos in the area had �developed� larger mouths in order to eat large insects that would formerly have been eaten by larger lizards. Is this evolution?

 One is being led to believe that the ability to have bigger mouths is a brand new piece of genetic information in the geckos, causing it better to survive. This is not the case. The information to produce these large mouths was already present. There would, previously, have been the occasional gecko hatched with a big mouth. But it would have had no survival advantage, and possibly some disadvantage, so would not be able preferentially to breed. However, in the new circumstances, supplies of bigger insects were more readily available, so the big-mouthed geckos would find it easier to survive, compared to their small-mouthed relatives. Therefore, the big-mouths would be preferentially selected. It is important to notice that no new genetic information was created in this process. This is an example of adaptation. The evolutionist, however, likes to refer to this process as microevolution so that they can claim that Darwinian macroevolution is simply a step up in complexity. This deliberate attempt to use the same term for two different phenomena is known as �bait and switch� and is a recognized logical fallacy.

Thank You, Lord, for making everything well. Thank You for putting variation into the genetics of so many creatures to help them survive. We pray, Lord, that You will make us to be good stewards of the portion of creation for which we are responsible. Amen.
HE WALKS ON WATER

Matthew 14:25

�And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.�
What happens if a man tries to walk on water? The answer is that his feet would sink into the water.

 Of course, it is possible for people to float. This is because of the buoyancy produced by the force of the displaced water. But if you tried to set your feet on the surface of a body of water, the pressure produced by the weight of your body, through the small surface area of the soles of your feet, is too great for the buoyancy to counteract it.

 So, scientifically speaking, Jesus could not walk on water. But Matthew�s Gospel reports in chapter 14 that He did just that. At the beginning of John�s Gospel, we are reminded that all things were made for Jesus, by Jesus and through Jesus. Jesus is, therefore, the One who invented gravity and buoyancy. As the Creator of these forces, He could do what He likes with them, even subverting them, if He so chose.

 It is interesting that most Christians can accept that Jesus had control over gravity. And yet, so many Christians still fail to believe that God made the world the way He said that He did in Genesis 1. Why is it so difficult to believe that the One who could walk on water, in defiance of what modern scientists say, could create a universe and inform us in His word of exactly how He did it?

We praise You, Lord, that You made all things well. When we look at all that You made, we just have to stand in awe at Your Holy Name. Amen.
 PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN THE GARDEN

Matthew 6:28-29

�And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.�
The purpose of an advertising billboard would be to grab the attention of the passerby � or, in today�s world, the person driving by. One way of attracting the attention of prospective customers might be to use bright colors. Suppose that the more brightly colored paint was more expensive. The increased business would be mitigated against by a greater cost involved in getting the necessary paint or ink.

 This is the sort of situation faced by a flowering plant. The flowers are the organs of the plant used for reproduction. The plant needs some sort of mediator to transfer male pollen cells from one flower to the stamen of another. The mediator is a pollinator and would typically be an insect or occasionally a mammal or a bird. The flower has to attract the pollinator, who does not visit the plant out of the goodness of his heart. Therefore, the petals of the flower become advertising billboards. Different shades and brightness of hue will attract different insects.

 However, what is not often considered is the amount of energy expended by the plant to produce such a colorful display. Consider that, in the early supposed evolution of a flowering plant, the plant would have had to use up a lot of energy to attract a pollinator. What if it hadn�t worked? The weakened plant would have wasted energy without any reproductive advantage. That clearly would not have occurred. In fact, from whatever angle you examine this, there is no evolutionary mechanism for the brightness of flowers. Instead, this is a clear design feature, illustrating the greatness of our Creator.

We are humbled and grateful, Lord, by Your great and wise provision for us because You consider us more important than the beautiful flowers of the field. Amen

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CREATION MOMENTS: 2.10.18

SINE OF THE TIMES

Genesis 6:15-16

“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. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.”
Mostly, I liked math (or maths, as we called it) when I was at high school. But one aspect of math was tedious. This was when special numbers had to be looked up in boring books called log tables. These books contained not only logarithms but also the trigonometric functions – sines, cosines and tangents. Today’s students simply press a button on their scientific calculators, but we had to look with painstaking concentration through page after page of figures until we had worked out the value required.

 A clay tablet, called Plimpton 322, was discovered in the early 1900s in the area where Babylon must have been. This mysterious tablet, with four columns and 15 rows of numbers, has remained an enigma until recently. Researchers at the University of New South Wales have discovered that the numbers are in base 60 rather than the base 10 that we use. In addition, they are trigonometric tables like those sine, cosine and tangent tables that I remember from my youth. It has been known for a very long time that the Babylonians used base 60. This is the source of our idea that an hour contains 60 minutes, and a minute 60 seconds.

 Ancient civilizations were far from primitive. It is likely that the earliest post-Flood civilizations, such as Babylon, retained some of the pre-Flood knowledge passed down through the generations. No wonder their inhabitants wanted to keep central control of such knowledge, before God scattered the people across the face of the Earth.

Thank You, Lord, that You are in control of all the sciences, even mathematics. Thank You for the wonder of creation that we even see through historic math documents. Amen.

 

 

TEMPLE OF PI

1 Kings 7:23

“And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.”
In 1 Kings 7:23, there is an unusual account of how Solomon had the sea of bronze made. We read that is was “ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference”.

 Many atheists and skeptics have used this verse to criticize the Bible. They suggest that the inaccuracy suggested by the dimensions given is inconsistent with a Book claiming to be without error. They suggest that a diameter of 10 cubits and circumference of 30 cubits is impossible, as the relationship between these two values is governed by a value called pi (π).

 Now, pi, the famous mathematical constant, is found by dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter. So, if Solomon had made the sea ten cubits across, then surely the circumference would have to be about 31½ cubits.

 What the skeptics fail to notice is that verse 26 informs us that there was a rim, with a width of a handsbreadth. A cubit is about 18 inches, while a handsbreadth is 4 inches. So the circumference is 540 inches. The rim-to-rim distance is 180 inches, but we need to subtract two handsbreadths to find the diameter of the vessel, which will be 172 inches. 540 divided by 172 is 3.1395, which is extremely close to the recognized value of 3.1416, giving a tiny experimental error of just 0.07% – well within the accuracy of any measuring device used at the time.

 This little math lesson is, as expected, consistent with our presupposition of the Bible’s trustworthiness.

Thank You, Lord, that we can trust Your word to be true in even the tiniest, least significant details. Help us to trust Your word for all the big events of our lives. Amen.

 

DRINK COFFEE AND LIVE LONG

James 1:17

�Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.�
James says that �every good and perfect gift is from above...� Perhaps I am twisting Scripture a little by including coffee in this category. I have to confess � I love coffee. So I was delighted to read on the Science Daily website recently that the intake of coffee could contribute to longer life! If that is so, I could be looking forward to living as long as Methuselah!

 Now, we have discussed coffee, or rather caffeine, before in these Creation Moments programs. It isn�t my purpose today to extol the virtues or otherwise of this honey-colored liquid. I simply want to note that a recent study has linked drinking four cups of coffee a day with a long and healthy life. 337 participants were studied over a ten-year period and were found to have a 64% lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who never or almost never consumed coffee. All participants lived in Spain or other Mediterranean areas. The researchers noted that previous studies on coffee consumption had not been carried out around the Mediterranean.

 The study also notes that previous studies had sometimes shown that there was a deleterious effect to the over-consumption of coffee or other caffeinated drinks. There are, after all, many people who suggest that drinking coffee could be bad for one�s health. The fact that another study is now suggesting an opposite conclusion simply underlines how volatile the professional opinion of scientists can be. The idea of scientific consensus turns out to be a myth and not an argument of authority. Our only absolute authority is what God says in His word.

Thank You, Father, for the truth of Your word. Amidst all the changing opinions of the world, Your word remains the same. Amen.

ROOSTING DINOSAURS

Genesis 1:20

�And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.�
Current evolutionary thought suggests, as most people are aware, that birds evolved from therapod dinosaurs. Therefore, evolutionary scientists must find their evidence, not only for the evolution of the skeletal structure of birds and features such as feathers, but many other behavioral characteristics. As someone who keeps chickens, I am well aware of the desire among these birds to roost together at night, lending each other protection.

 Scientists at Canada�s University of Alberta have been examining a fossil from the Mongolian desert. The fossil shows three oviraptors, said to be juvenile. Two of the raptors are more or less complete. They are said to be preserved in a sleeping posture �so close, that they would have been touching in life�.

 One of the best uses of evidence is to demonstrate the inconsistency of thought on the part of evolutionists. For example, creationists interpret many fossils, including the famous archaeopteryx fossil, as having been preserved suddenly in a death-throe posture. Evolutionists are critical of this interpretation, not able to accept that fossilization can be sudden.

 But in the case of these oviraptors, Alberta scientists have to assume that these dinosaurs were fossilized suddenly in a sleeping posture. If this were true, then it undermines the evolutionary position on the formation of other fossils. But if the Alberta scientists have interpreted the fossil dinosaurs� posture incorrectly, then the entire usefulness of the fossil, as evidence for the evolution of birds, is negated. Either way, evolutionists have nothing to celebrate.

 The Bible makes clear that birds were created on the fifth day of the creation week, while dinosaurs, being land animals, were created the day after birds, not millions of years before them.

We know, Lord, that the world outside does not want to accept Your word on how things were made. Keep Your people faithful to Your word. Thank You that all that we discover is consistent with what You told us in Your inspired word. Amen.

 

 EVERYBODY LOVES PANDAS

Genesis 1:24

�And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so�
Everybody loves pandas, don�t they? We must love them because we are trying to save them from extinction, with some success; pandas have been downgraded from endangered to vulnerable. Apparently, their habitat in China is expanding, so that the likelihood of those adorable black-and-white icons of world wildlife may not disappear after all.

 However, I recall one British comedian poking ironic fun at the mission to save the pandas by saying that we could do without them. After all, he opined, they seem determined to commit species suicide, so why not just let them go where the dinosaurs and mammoths went?

 A Christian position is more logical � less sentimental, but more compassionate. If pandas had already gone extinct, then we could clearly live without them. However, given that humanity has a mandate from Genesis 1 of stewardship of the Earth and its resources; it is certainly admirable to attempt to preserve what we have in the way of panda populations.

 The concept of panda extinction is inconsistent for evolutionists. A hard-line evolutionist should want them to die out because, in the survival of the fittest stakes, pandas have proved themselves less fit. Yet most people, while holding evolutionary philosophy, would rather try to take steps to preserve the cuddly looking giants.

 It is only those taking a biblical worldview who can view the subject with any degree of rationality. Animals are only animals. When they die, their souls return to the ground. Yet, the survival of pandas has only occurred because of massive human effort � effort that is not wrong and can indeed be justified from Scripture.

Thank You, Lord, for the beauty of Your creation. Thank You for the varied creatures that You have placed in it, of which pandas must be among the most beautiful. Help us to know how and why and what we should preserve, as part of our stewardship of Your creation. Amen.

 

 

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CREATION MOMENTS: 2.3.18

EVOLVING COMPUTER CODE

Genesis 11:1

“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.”
Some years ago, a major international software company took out some commercials on British television. The theme of the commercials was that their software was now better than it had ever been because it had evolved. The commercials showed images of dinosaurs and so-called primitive animals as they evolved into more modern, up-to-date varieties. As I said, the object of the commercials was to convince the public that the software applications they were selling were better and more sophisticated than their products had been previously.

 Darwin’s theory of evolution, and its neo-Darwinian variants, suggests that organisms have gradually got more complex by the spontaneous appearance of new DNA code. There is, of course, an analogy between computer programming code and the arrangement of information in DNA – except that DNA information is a great deal more complex than a computer app.

 If I had been one of the programmers of these software apps, I think I might have felt a little insulted. Granted, the new software versions were much better than the previous generations, having more and more useful routines. But each of these sophisticated features had been designed, planned and coded by software engineers. No information was introduced randomly by blind evolution. All new information was the result of highly intelligent design.

 This reasoning, incidentally, is just one of many reasons why evolution is impossible. New DNA code has even less chance of appearing by itself than a new programmed feature has of appearing in these software applications.

Every item of code in DNA is important, Lord – just like the code in a computer program. Thank You for the wonder of Your creation.

SOLAR ECLIPSE

Genesis 1:16

“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
Many of us in the United States watched the total eclipse of the Sun in 2017. I was at my place of work in the state of Washington, where the eclipse was 98%.

 An eclipse happens when the Sun, Moon and Earth are perfectly lined up, with the Moon casting a shadow on to the Earth. You might think that such an arrangement would happen every month, but it does not because the Moon’s orbit is at an angle to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Nevertheless, total eclipses are not that rare and there is likely to be one somewhere in the world every couple of years.

 We are so used to seeing the Sun and the Moon that we forget some important but simple concepts. First, we forget that these objects are entirely different. The Sun produces its own light by nuclear fusion, but the Moon – a solid lump of rock – simply reflects sunlight.

 Also, we forget that the apparent size of these objects in the sky is the same. The Sun is many times bigger than the Moon but is also a lot farther away. The coincidence of their relative sizes means that the Moon can exactly fit over the Sun, enabling us to see phenomena such as the Sun’s promontories, looking like large flames. As Christians, we believe that this “coincidence” is actually a design feature. Eclipses in history can accurately be dated, enabling us to calculate the dates of many historical events. This is one of the reasons that God has designed this spectacular phenomenon.

Thank You again, Lord, for the wonder of Your creation. We stand in awe at the way that it works, and we are amazed at the wisdom of Your plans. Amen.

 

 JUST SO

Romans 1:25

�Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.�
I used to love it when my elementary school teacher read stories to the class. She had some favorite stories. One of her favorite collections was Rudyard Kipling�s Just So Stories. The idea of each story was to give a fictional account of how certain features of various animals came to be. Of course, Kipling was not presenting a scientific thesis. He expected his stories to be received as works of imagination. So in his �The Elephant Child�, we learn about a button-nosed young elephant who was bothering a crocodile. The crocodile caught the Elephant Child by his nose and pulled, and his nose stretched into the long trunk we have today.

 What has always struck me since I became a Christian is how similar many evolutionary ideas are to Kipling�s imagination. For example, there are those zoologists who maintain that giraffes developed gradually longer necks in order to be able to get food from higher branches of trees. The idea is that of a multi-generational �Just So� story, and it does not account for the many extra features found in a giraffe�s neck and anatomy � not just the neck�s length.

 A recent academic account has suggested that flight developed in therapod dinosaurs by the creatures flapping their arms, and that is how their arms eventually became wings as they evolved into birds.

 Of course, the evolutionary articles are much more sophisticated than I have suggested here. But, in kind, they are really not much more than clever �Just So� stories. We do not need such stories because the Bible explains clearly how God put life on this Earth.

We pray, Father, for freedom from the need to believe Just So stories. Instead, Lord, we pray that people will give You the honor You deserve for all that You have done. Amen.

Ref: Kipling, R. (Candlewick edition 2004), Just So Stories. Image: Public Domain.

 

THE MINERS� CAR

Psalm 75:2-3

�When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah. �
Three people went out to dig for rock. The rocks in their claim were rich in minerals, such as malachite � the principle ore of copper.

 Historically, copper has been used as an alloy, being mixed with tin to form bronze. Today, copper is used in the printed circuits of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. Copper is relatively easy to extract from its ore, requiring not too much heating of the ore, with a reducing agent such as carbon.

 One morning, the three miners drove to their claim, as normal. They parked their car and walked a mile or so to their claim in order to dig for ore. Their mine was in the heart of the Cascade Range in the state of Washington, close to the volcano known as Mount St Helens. Donald and Natalie Parker, and their nephew Richard signed waivers at the edge of the �blue zone� in order to gain permission to the area, access to which was being restricted because of the possibility of an eruption. The next morning, Sunday May 18, 1980, the mountain blew and the Parkers� cabin was destroyed by the blast. All three miners died of asphyxiation. Their car was thrown 60 feet and landed where it remains to this day as a macabre tourist sight.

 We do not know what tomorrow may bring. This is why the Bible reminds us that today is the day of salvation. It is important to get right with our Creator today.

We thank You, Lord, for our health and for the life You have given us. We pray that we will not take You for granted but give every day to You to serve You for Your honor and glory. Amen.

 

 YEARS OF DARKNESS

Isaiah 60:2

�For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.�
You must have heard the evolutionary idea that dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid hitting the Earth about 66 million years ago � probably on Mexico�s Yucatan Peninsula. Recently, this idea has come under criticism from evolutionists as well as from creationists. Other models for the extinction of the dinosaurs have been explored.

 Recently, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have been revisiting the idea of the asteroid strike and have suggested that dust and soot, flying into the air after the impact, would have caused about two years of darkness over the entire world. The researchers suggest that this would have shut down all the photosynthesis across the world, resulting in mass extinctions and reducing the global temperature. This darkness, therefore, would have caused the demise of the dinosaurs.

 The word �dinosaur� was originally coined to give a label to types of animals which do not really have much in common, other than the fact that they are extinct. It seems odd to spend so much time wondering how a class of animals became extinct, whose nomenclature was only created to state that they were indeed extinct. Many animals have become extinct. In a biblical worldview, we can see that some animals, following the Flood, might have had difficulty adapting to new climatic conditions. In any case, it seems more logical to attribute the death of dinosaurs to climatic conditions following a known worldwide catastrophe (the Flood) rather than a similar change caused by the speculation about an unknown worldwide catastrophe � the years of Darkness.



Father, we thank You for Your word and for the fact that we can trust it. We pray that Your people will be increasingly dependent on the truth found in the Bible rather than chasing after idle speculations. Amen.

 

 

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