Often the secular world will accuse Christians of being exclusionary – “Jesus can’t be the only way.” (Oprah Winfrey) What about that? Is He the only way?
Yes !
In reality, there have always been two Books. The Bible, and Creation. Creation has been around for 2,500 years before the Bible was given.
The outdoor book speaks to man about God through natural revelation. Every person born on this earth, is witness to God’s eternal power and Godhead, through nature. Common sense tells man that there is beauty, order, intelligence, and design.
Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth. Isaiah 40:26
Are the heathen accountable? Yes.
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1: 19-21
If the individual responds positively to the truth that is revealed in nature, God, who knows our very thoughts, will raise up a missionary to give that person the truth in the written Word.
For example, when Paul and Silas wanted to go to a certain area in Asia, they were “forbidden of the Holy Ghost” – Acts 16:6,7.
Instead, God sent them to Western Europe, where He knew they were waiting to receive the Word. If people do not respond to the outdoor Book – they are still responsible for rejecting it – even if they never hear the Written Word.
Rejecting the truth of Creation will eventually cause individuals, as well as entire nations to become perverted. It makes no difference if the person is living in a hut in a third world country, or a penthouse in a fabulous city – it still applies.
Even children learn that plants and animals depend on one another. Plants release oxygen for animals to breathe, and plants make food—mostly sugar—for animals to eat. In turn, animals produce carbon dioxide so plants can grow using sunlight. This ecological interdependence shows enough divine design to inspire any honest thinker to consider a Creator, but a recently discovered interaction between pitcher plants and bats shows even more.1
Pitcher plants in tropical Borneo, the largest island in Asia, attract a particular species of bat to roost right inside their pitchers. The plants absorb nitrogen from the bat waste that drops to the bottom of the pitchers, and the bats enjoy comfy digs. Researchers already knew that pitcher plants in South American jungles grow flowers that attract bats for pollination, but the Asian version is unique. They give bats a safe place to roost during daylight hours. How do bats discern these preferred pitcher plants from the surrounding dense jungle foliage, and does the answer to that question help explain how this all might have evolved?
German specialists worked with biologists from Brunei, Borneo to track down the specifics on how pitcher plants attract bats. They published their results in Current Biology.2 The pitcher plants present concave reflectors that attract their bat buddies. Bats’ high-pitched sound waves bounce off the reflector, so it stands out against the drab-sounding jungle background. The pitcher’s sonic reflector has three other precise design features.
1. The plant’s reflector is situated just above the pitcher’s opening. To the bat, the reflector sounds very loud, but the opening below absorbs sound. The bats easily pick out this distinct contrast.
2. The area containing the reflector is larger than related pitcher plants that attract insects, increasing its sonic signal.
3. It reflects distinct sonic patterns on either side so that the bats can detect it from many angles.
The plant reflector’s size and side-reflecting patterns only work when a certain range of sound frequencies strike it. Of course, these exactly match the vocal range of these local bats, which happen to hold the record for highest frequencies of all bats so far measured. For more about animal sonar, watch our short video here.
How did all this interdependent fine-tuning happen? For a pitcher plant to construct the right size and shape reflector in the right place, it needs just the right building instructions in its DNA. And no number of high-pitched bat calls can somehow reach into plant-seed DNA and write new reflector construction code.
The Current Biology study authors wrote, “In the Neotropics, a few bat-pollinated plants found an efficient solution to attract bats by developing floral ultrasound reflectors, which enabled them to exploit the bats’ echolocation system.”2 But when is the last time a plant, animal, or any non-person willfully changed its DNA to solve an environmental challenge? Plus, how would these plants ever “know” about the benefits of bat guano’s nitrogen until after they already had fully formed bat homes to attract it?
The plants found no solution, developed no reflectors, and exploited no echolocation. People alone can perform these kinds of creative tasks, and the best example is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible.”3
Pitcher plant reflectors reflect creation—His creation—and this interdependent pitcher plant-bat system showcases the ingenious design within that creation.
References
Also, all animals either directly or indirectly get their necessary sugar energy from plants. See Demick, D. 2000. The Unselfish Green Gene. Acts & Facts. 29 (7): i-iv.
Schoner, M. G. et al. 2015. Bats Are Acoustically Attracted to Mutualistic Carnivorous Plants. Current Biology. 25 (14): 1911-1916.
Colossians 1:16a.
*Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
In the Bible, bats are considered “night birds.” They are mentioned as being unclean to eat, and are also mentioned as part of the end-times judgment. Bats are fascinating creatures in God’s creation. They testify of His wonders, and may we never tire of learning about Him.
Leviticus 11: 13And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; 15Every raven after his kind; 16And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 17And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, 18And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, 19And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.
Isaiah 2: 17And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 18And the idols he shall utterly abolish. 19And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. 20In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; 21To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
The Scriptural use of bats relates to the spiritual darkness of man in the world. They fly only at night, which is the same domain of the spiritually lost. The light of the world is Jesus Christ, the god of this world is Satan, and there is no light in him. Lucifer is the false light. The light that the evil one emits, can be likened to the light given off by electric bug zappers. The insects fly towards the light, which deceives them into thinking it is the moon. But, the false light of the bug zapper, only leads to their destruction, just as the false light of Lucifer leads to man’s destruction.
Jesus is the Light of the World. As believers, we reflect His glorious light to a lost and dying world.
2 Corinthians 4:3-5
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29: 11
Does this look familiar? It is still being presented in children’s textbooks – despite the fact that ALL of the ancestral forms have been proven fraudulent. All of them.
Piltdown Man was “discovered” in 1912, and kept in textbooks until as late as 1967, even though it was proven to be a hoax in 1953. It consisted of the lower jaw bone of an ape, combined with a fully formed human skull, having teeth filed down, and stained to give the appearance of age. This was the “hopeful monster” presented to school children for 70 years.
Nebraska Man was formed from a single tooth in 1922. Henry Fairfield Osborn, of the American Museum of Natural History .
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon Man was not primitive, had larger skull capacity than modern man has, made and played musical instruments, and buried their dead.
Peking Man apparently disappeared in China, with not a single bone preserved. Interestingly, one of the Peking Man “discoverers” was Teilhard De Chardin, implicated in the Piltdown hoax. Hmmm.
Java Man consists of a skull-cap and femur, which the discoverer, Dr. Eugene Dubois, later recanted and assigned the skull cap to a giant ape.
Heidelberg Man entire fossil consists of a lower jaw with teeth, plus a great deal of imagination.
Lucy has all the fossil bones of an extinct pygmy chimp, with the exception of the knee joint – which discoverer Donald Johanson admits was found over a mile away from the rest of the bones. ???
H.P. Yockey stated, “The current accepted … (evolutionist origin of life) … scenarios are untenable and the solution to the problem will not be found by continuing to flagellate these conclusions” (H. Yockey, 1992, Information theory and molecular biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, GB. P. 289).
Nancy Touchette sums the current status of abiogenesis saying, “So far, none of the current theories have been substantiated or proven by experiment, and no consensus exists about which, if any, of these theories is correct. Solving the mystery may indeed take longer than the origin of life itself” (Nancy Touchette. 1993. Evolutions: Origin of Life. J of NIH Research 5:95).
A Reader’s Digest book – The Last Two Million Years , p. 12, is the typical story being presented to the public:
In Darwin’s time, there was little evidence to support his theory; but since then a whole chain of ‘missing links’ has been established by study of fossil bones at prehistoric sites.
Where is the “whole chain of missing links”? Where? Dates of 40 million years are tossed about without the least concern for proving anything scientifically.
“The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that ‘a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein’.”
Sir Fred Hoyle (English astronomer, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University), as quoted in “Hoyle on Evolution”. Nature, vol. 294, 12 Nov. 1981, p. 105
The purveyors of human evolution have this goal in mind – to disprove the God of the Bible, and the Genesis account of creation. It is the work of Satan. . .
26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1: 26-28
Who is the “Our” in the above Scripture? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Just a few quick facts relating to six, the number of man:
There are approximately six quarts of blood in the human body.
That blood travels approximately 12,000 miles ( 2,000 x 6) in one day.
The average lung weighs about six hundred grams, and has capacity of six liters.
There are six hundred muscles in the human body.
There are six senses – seeing, hearing, smelling. tasting, touching, and equilibrium.
There are six primary systems in the body – skeletal, circulatory, muscular, nervous, digestive, and reproductive.
There are six major members – head, torso, arms, and legs. (The Quest for Truth, Michael Dedivionai, p. 88)
Man is the crown jewel of God’s creation. Out of all creation, only man has language, reasoning, and logic. Only man can appreciate beauty, and only man was created to have a relationship with his Creator. Man is not just a little above the apes – man was made in the image of God.
I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.” (Dr. Edwin Conkin, biologist, Princeton University)
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 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. And God blessed them, saying Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Genesis 1:20-23
Let’s examine a few of the incredible creatures created on the fifth day. This is a nudibranch, an animal with an unusual diet. Its primary food is sea anemones – which are covered with stinging cells, that usually explode at the slightest touch.
The nudibranch tears the anemones apart and swallows the stingers without exploding a single cell – but- they are not digested!! There are tiny tubes linking the nudibranch’s stomach to the waving spurs on its back. The stinging cells move from the stomach, through the tubes to the tips of the spurs. It can shoot them at anything that attacks. Logic question – How could this ability have been acquired gradually? All the animals would have been killed before “passing down” the mechanisms to make this stolen defense possible.
Truly a miracle of design, the hummingbird surpasses almost everything in the sky. The hummer is the only bird that can fly backwards, sideways, and hover. Their wings beat 80 strokes per second, their heart beats 1,000 times a minute. Here is the evolutionary conundrum – the hummer has no rods in its retina for night vision. What to do? Sleep, of course. But the hummer doesn’t sleep at night. It hibernates every single night, except when the female is nesting. It is true hibernation – with the body temperature dropping to conserve energy.
Even the most advanced military helicopters cannot match the hummingbird’s complex flight formation – which originates from the hummer’s shoulder. Question – how did the hummer’s beak, tongue, and wings develop simultaneously, without the birds starving to death first? In over 300 different species of hummer – at the same time?
THE VERY SIZE OF HUMMINGBIRDS MAKES THEIR SURVIVAL AN EVEN BIGGER ADVENTURE. HUMMINGBIRDS MUST EAT MORE THAN THEIR WEIGHT IN FOOD EACH DAY, AND THEY FULFILL THIS NEED BY EATING OFTEN. BECAUSE THEIR SURVIVAL DEPENDS CRITICALLY ON EATING FREQUENTLY MORE THAN ANY OTHER ANIMAL – THEY CONTINUALLY FACE THE DANGER OF STARVING. (HUMMINGBIRDS.NET)
Impossible. How could the hummer evolve its wings, tongue, and bill, (all at the same time) which are necessary to eat – while taking millions of years to form – if it has to eat its weight every day?
We have all been victims of science classes, where artist’s conceptions have been presented in the form of : 1. the geologic column (which exists nowhere in the world) 2. Haeckel’s Embryos (proven fraudulent) and 3. whatever hopeful monster your particular generation is presented with. Likely you were also taught that coral reefs took millions of years to develop.
“Little has been discovered of the growth rate of reefs by direct measurement. Shuiter found that a new reef established in Krakatoa after the eruption of 1883 had grown to a thickness of 20cm, in five years, or 4cm per year. Other investigators have estimated reef growth at 0.1 to 5 cm per year.” (Juenen,P.H. Marine Geology, p. 421)
As evolutionary theory slides further and further down the slippery slope – a new crop of “thinkers,” has cropped up. Those, like Richard Dawkins, who believe that the earth was “seeded” by intelligent life from somewhere else in the universe. Knowing now, that even a leaf is too complicated to have evolved , they find that hopeless idea more palatable than the truth.
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” Revelation 4:11
For centuries the understanding of the first day of creation has caused mass confusion. In my first post in this series, I demonstrated that the “light,” created by God that first day was the electromagnetic field – not the sun. As we follow along chronologically, the second day the waters were divided and the firmament installed, the third day the seas and land were separated and vegetation appeared. And here is where day-age theorists run into trouble.
If the plants were created on the third day – how did they photosynthesize for 1,000 years or more until the sun was created on the fourth “day?”
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so. 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.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:13-19
Just some quick facts for evolutionists to ponder. If the planets and their 72 known moons evolved from the same materials – should they not share similar characteristics?
All planets should spin in the same direction, but Venus, Uranus, and Pluto spin backwards.
All 72 moons in our solar system should orbit their planets in the same fashion, but 8 are known to orbit backwards.
The orbits of these 72 moons should lie in the equatorial plane of the planet they are orbiting, but there are many that have inclined orbits, including our own moon.
Our sun is about 98% hydrogen or helium. If Big Bang and planetary evolution are true – the closest planets to the Sun, Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury should share the same composition, but they don’t. The four closest planets to the Sun are less than 1% helium or hydrogen.
More from the Bible – “As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David My servant, and the Levites that minister unto Me.” Jeremiah 33:22 This was written at a time when only 5,000 stars were visible to the human eye. Since the invention of the telescope in the 17th century, today astronomers estimate there are at least ten thousand billion trillion stars.
God knows how many stars there are – “He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.” Psalm 147:4
Until the 16th century, geocentricity was the widely held belief, but 3,000 years ago it was written in the Word that. . .
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 6 His (the sun’s) going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit ( the sun’s) unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. Psalm 19:4-6
Each star is unique –
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. 1 Corinthians 15:41
Water, water everywhere. And quite a bit of it is drinkable. It is necessary for life, for even the most simple bacteria require water molecules within their Periplasmic space to function. Something to consider also – just as nothing living can survive without water, so nothing Spiritual can survive without Living Water. Water can exist in three states simultaneously, solid, liquid, gas, and Living Water exists in Three states simultaneously, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Genesis 1: 6-8
What is the firmament? Mentioned five times in this passage – it should not be overlooked. If we think about modern insulated windows, which trap inert gases, such as Argon, between the panes, it should not be too hard to understand.
Air in cavity between glass panes of insulated glass is usually dried by desiccant filled inside space bars prior to sealing. As insulated glass technology develops, Instead of air, dry nitrogen is used to further improve thermal conductivity. Nowadays, less conductive and slower-moving inert gases such as argon and krypton are extensively used instead. Inert gas moves or transfers hot or cold through the space at a much slower rate than air. These inert gases provide optimum insulation performances. They further reduce heat and sound transfer from one side of the double glazed unit to the other. http://xinology.com:888/Glass-Processing-Equipments-Supplies-Consumables/glass-insulating/inert-gas-filling-system/introduction.html
It is known that Venus and Saturn’s moon – Titus, both have dense canopies. Various scientists have made postulations worthy of considering in the light of Scripture. It won’t serve to detail them all here, but they all share one common theme. At a point in earth’s history – there was a dense layer of water surrounding the earth – nothing like the atmosphere we have now – but something like what we see in modern window and greenhouse applications. This firmament, with billions and billions of tons of water, trapped between the layers, would have made the earth’s entire climate much like a tropical greenhouse, with consistent temperature globally.
Besides the obvious benefit of consistent warm temperature, there are some other things to ponder about God’s “very good” creation. Just these few qualities would be a boon to all life:
increased air pressure
stronger magnetic field
slightly higher carbon dioxide and oxygen
warmer soil
warmer water
And the results of these ideal conditions?
longer life spans
minimal disease
increased stamina
gigantic plant and animal specimens of some plant and animal species that continue to grow for their entire life span
A patient receives treatment in a state-of-the-art Sechrist Monoplace Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber
Used to treat burn, stroke, MS, cerebral palsy. . .
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 4: 14
For an in depth and scholarly study of the term – firmament – or in the Hebrew – raqia – see here.
16For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him:
17 And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. Colossians 1: 16-17
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said Let there be light and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1: 1-5
The Book of Genesis contains the Creative acts of God. In the Hebrew, the word create – is bara, which means – to make out of nothing. Bara is used three times in the first chapter of Genesis. The light that God created in verses 1-5 was not sunlight, but rather – it was energy. As advanced as our scientists are – they have only scratched the surface of understanding light –and itspower. Interacting electric and magnetic fields, quantum mechanics – there are countless new things to be discovered about light energy. In the past few years, researchers have been amazed to discover, that pigeons have their own GPS abilities, due to neurons which encode the direction and intensity of earth’s magnetic field. Read more here.
Why does the first day begin with night? Because God began with nothing, and silence. In the Hebrew, the word day – is Yahm. Unless there is a different use specified in the text – Yahm always signifies a literal day.
Some Bible students decide to force the Bible to say what makes them comfortable. Making claims for day-age theories, the literal days turn into thousands, even millions of years.
Dr. Thomas Barnes discovered that the electromagnetic field of the earth is decreasing exponentially – losing 1/2 its energy every 1,400 years. Calculated backwards, 2,800 years ago, the field was four times stronger than it is now. Going back just ten thousand years, the electromagnetic field of the earth would have been, so powerful , life would not be able to exist.
Going back 15,000 years [ a drop in the evolutionary bucket] the magnetic field would be the strength of a magnetic star.
The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath He established the heavens. Proverbs 3:19
God is the only Infinite and Eternal Being – having no beginning and no end – the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
The Bible nowhere attempts to prove or argue the existence of God. God’s existence is a fact taken for granted by the writers of both the old and new testaments.
The Bible opens by announcing the sublime fact of God and His eternal existence – “In the beginning God,” Gen. 1:1
Universal belief in God comes from within mankind. It is an innate belief, sourced from rational intuition.
The cause and effect argument – Everything that began owes its existence to a cause – we have a watch – we must have a watchmaker. The Creation could not have come into being without a creator, no more than a book can be produced from the alphabet without an author.
Via anthropology – man’s moral and intellectual nature argues for a moral and intellectual creator.
The Bible and the Christ it reveals – His Virgin birth, sinless life, vicarious death and bodily resurrection, and documented miracles – all argue for the existence of God.
Man is natural and cannot know God by wisdom. The Bible argues for our faith in God – not His existence. It says in multiple places that those who do not believe in the existence of God are fools, because He is so obvious.
Job 11:7
King James Version (KJV)
Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
Hebrews 11:6
King James Version (KJV)
But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
The phrase highlighted in red above is pivotal. “he that cometh to God must believe that He is,” is imperative. This is the free will that He gave to us – we must decide, and then choose Him.
The Vine Vigil 
