Creation Devotional January 26 - Cosmology
Daily Devotional - January 26
Cosmology
The best preserved meteorite impact crater on earth can be found near Flagstaff, Arizona. This impressive hole in the ground is almost a mile across and 570 feet deep. Yet, it took over 150 years to acknowledge that it was indeed caused by the impact of a meteor on the earth. From its discovery in the early 1800’s, until 1960, it was thought to be the result of volcanic activity.
Grove Gilbert first studied the crater for the US geological survey in 1891, but he found no evidence of an iron meteorite or any magnetic anomaly in the area that would testify to the presence of an underground meteorite. Therefore, he concluded the crater was the result of a volcanic steam explosion. Undeterred, a mining engineer named Daniel Barringer did not believe the report and spent 27 years, from 1903 -1930, looking for “an estimated 200 billion pounds of iron” that he believed must have been buried by the iron meteorite. He found nothing. It wasn’t until the rock compressions from similar craters and craters formed from nuclear testing were compared with the Barringer crater that scientists finally realized that the Barringer crater formed almost instantly by a rapid catastrophic impact.
The meteorite that caused the crater is estimated to have weighed 600 million pounds (not 200 billion), and it instantly vaporized upon impact leaving only traces of iron deep underneath the crater. This event would have happened after Noah’s Flood of about 4400 years ago, for the crater goes through several of the top sedimentary layers laid down by the Flood. Our entire solar system was apparently pummeled with meteors. Just look at all the meteorite impacts on the moon’s surface! The moon’s craters could have happened either during its formation or during the Flood of Noah. If the meteors pummeled our solar system during the Flood, perhaps the thousands of feet of water covering the earth’s surface during this time explain why there aren’t more meteorite craters apparent around the globe. The meteor to hit Arizona’s Barringer Crater was one of the last stragglers to hit the earth - long after the Flood ended.
The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.
~ Job 26:11
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 25 - Biblical Accuracy
Daily Devotional - January 25
Biblical Accuracy
Is the Bible true? Again and again, archeology confirms that the Scriptures are true.
Here a few discoveries archeologists have made.
- The Bible tells of Israelites being attacked by Moabites. Guess what they dug up in 1869? The Moabite stone which records the Moabites attacking Israel.
- The Bible tells of Jerusalem being attacked by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC (2 Kings 24:10). Guess what was found? In southern Israel, in the 1930s, the Lachish letters showing that Nebuchadnezzar did attack Jerusalem.
- The Bible speaks about Abraham and Isaac, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Guess what they dug up in northern Syria in the 1970’s? The Ebla Tablets mentioned these two people groups and these two cities.
- The Bible mentions the city of Jericho and how the Israelites marched around the city’s mighty walls once a day for six days. On the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times with the priests blowing their trumpets and the people shouting, and then the walls fell down (Joshua 6). So what have archeologists find in 1997? Evidence that “the wall fell beneath itself.”
- The Bible mentions slings and stones being used as deadly weapons. David used them when he killed Goliath (1 Samuel 17), and 700 Benjamites used slings and stones and never missed (Judges 20:16). So what have we discovered? Archeologists now recognize that the ancient armies’ most important weapon was the sling!
Archeology continues to show that God’s word is true!
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss.
~ Judges 20:16
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 24 - Biology
Daily Devotional - January 24
Biology
Have you considered how a one-humped dromedary camel survives a harsh, hot, dry climate? The camel’s hump is like a fatty backpack - not a hollow water storage reservoir. This fat is actually food stored for
later use. When food is not available, nourishment is provided by the stored fat in the hump. When nourishment is taken out of the hump and not replenished over a long period of time, the hump actually shrinks and flops over. When food becomes more plentiful, the hump swells to become a fatty backpack again.
Most mammals distribute fat all over their bodies (including humans – much to our displeasure)! However, fat is a great insulator, and if camels stored fat all over their bodies, the heat would be held in - not a desirable design in extremely hot desert climates. A camel’s design allows it to store energy for future use without becoming overheated. In addition, the design of the camel’s hump protects the vital organs below from the heat of the sun beating down on the topside of the camel. Dromedaries thrive in extremely hot, dry climates because of this ingenious fat storage design. How would a camel know it needed to store the fat in one place and not over all its body? How would it get all its fat cells together in one place in its hump? Dromedaries are wonderfully designed to live in hot, dry deserts, and their hump is just one of many parts which testify to the genius of their Creator.
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
~ Psalm 55:22
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 23 - Design
Daily Devotional - January 23
Design
Our frontline troops need night vision goggles, but often times, these goggles had a limited field of vision - seeing only 30-40 degrees. What was needed was a greater field of vision AND to be smaller and lighter. The engineers at BAE Systems looked to a tiny parasitic fly’s eyes (Xenos peckii). This parasitic fly’s compound eyes are different from other insect eyes; instead of thousands of tiny lenses, this fly has 50 lenses in each eye. Researchers were able to achieve the same imaging effect using only nine lenses.
Each lens is about the size of a cell phone camera lens and is arranged on a curved surface. They call it the “Bug Eye.” These new “Bug Eye” night vision goggles gives the wearer a 60 degree field of vision, almost double that of normal goggles. Also, the new “Bug Eyes” are lightweight and compact. Thousands of man hours went into developing this new technology. It would be an insult to tell these engineers that these new “Bug Eye” goggles happened by chance and accident. These engineers were only copying what had already been made by the great Designer, God Himself!
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
~ Psalm 72:18
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 22 - Geology
Daily Devotional - January 22
Geology
The White Cliffs of Dover are an impressive sight. These stark white cliffs, over 1300 feet thick, are made of 98% pure, fine-grained calcium carbonate (commonly known as chalk). This sedimentary layer formed from the cells of microorganisms called foraminifera and common calcareous algae known as coccoliths and rhabdoliths. At today’s accumulation rate, millions of years would be needed to form a sedimentary layer this thick, and this is used as a prime example of why the rock layers of the earth must be millions of years old. But there are several problems with this assumption.
First of all, there is nowhere on earth today where chalk of this purity is forming. As plankton and algae die and slowly settle to the bottom of oceans, their shells become mixed with sediment and the remains of many other creatures. In order to form a pure layer of chalk, a massive amount of organisms would need to die, settle, and be buried extremely rapidly.
Second, the commonly quoted average accumulation rate (½ inch per thousand years) is characteristic of current conditions. Explosive growth of ocean microorganisms would have been common at various times during the Flood of Noah’s time. What typically limits the growth of algae in water are temperature, mixing, carbon dioxide concentration, and nitrogen nutrition sources. At unique locations during the Flood, enormous volumes of warm ocean waters would have been filled with nutrients from decaying vegetation and with massive amounts of CO2 from volcanic activity. All of this would have led to ideal conditions for explosive chalk-forming microorganism blooms. Today we only observe small localized bloom areas; during the Flood, there would have been large regional blooms resulting in the geological features we see today such as the White Cliffs of Dover. These blooms (with the organisms dying, settling to the bottom and being rapidly buried) would have happened in a matter of weeks, not millions of years! The White Cliffs of Dover proclaim that Noah’s Flood did happen, just as Scripture tells us.
Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.
~ Ecclesiastes 8:17
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 21 - Biology
Daily Devotional - January 21
Biology
Orcas, commonly called “killer whales”, are neither whales nor killers of humans. Orcas are the largest mammal of the dolphin family and have a unique herding method more in common with sheepdogs than ocean creatures.
When a pod of orcas find a school of herring, they start a coordinated, circular swimming pattern in order to corral the fish into a tight ball and force them to the surface. The orcas work as a well-orchestrated team to herd the fish upward, using bubbles, clicking calls, flashing their white underside to frighten the fish, and swinging their tails to keep any fish from escaping. The herring become so tightly packed that the surface of the ocean containing the herring ball looks like it is literally boiling. According to cetacean biologist Tiu Simila, “It’s like a ballet, so they have to move in a very coordinated way; and communicate, and make decisions about what to do next.”
While some of the orcas continue to keep the school of fish corralled, others in the pod take turns slapping the underwater ball of herring with their tails, resulting in a few stunned fish dropping out of the school. The herring normally move far too fast for orcas to catch, but by working as a team, the Orcas can take turns eating the stunned fish, one by one.
How can we explain such sophisticated behavior? Believers in naturalism credit it to “evolution” - as if the mere mention of the word explains such complex behavior. Yet, the use of a word actually explains nothing. Such complex, instinctual behaviors have never been explained by evolution. Such coordinated hunting methods are only useful once they exist. So how could pre-orca dolphins, not possessing such behavior, have learned to act in such a coordinated method? If they couldn’t do it from the beginning, they would go hungry!
God created all creatures with the ability to survive and thrive. It is this complex instinctual behavior that shouts “DESIGN.”
[He] doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.
~ Job 9:10
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 20 - Botany
Daily Devotional - January 20
Botany
The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant that grows only in bogs located in a tiny part of the world covering about 700 miles along the coast of North and South Carolina. These humid, sunny bogs lack nutrients that the plant needs, so this plant traps and eats insects! These insects are like vitamin pills for the plant.
How does this plant trap and digest insects?
- First, it has to get the insects to come to it, so it produces a sweet smelling aroma.
- Second, it has to know the insect is there. As the insect moves around on the “open mouth”, it triggers two hairs inside of the plant’s leaves.
- Third, the plant has to trap the insect. When these two hairs are triggered, the trap snaps shut faster than the blink of an eye. These leaves snap by changing from convex (outward –curving) to concave (inward –curving) - similar to the way a tennis ball cut in half can be quickly flipped inside out.
- Fourth, the plant must “eat” the insect. Trapped inside the imprisoned leaves, the insect is digested in three to ten days – leaving nothing but its exoskeleton. Then the trap reopens – allowing the exoskeleton to be blown away in the breeze.
If you believe in evolution, this trap had to develop over eons of time and thousands of generations. How did the plant, which had no brains, know what aroma to make to lure the insect? How did the plant know to use two hairs to trigger it shut and not just one? How many times did the trap close needlessly until it realized it needed to evolve two hairs to trigger its trap? Once the insect captured, how did the plant know how to develop the correct digestive juices in correct quantity? If it made too much, it could digest itself. The Venus flytrap was made by the Creator from the beginning. He put together a way for this plant to get extra vitamins that the soil lacked. He made the Venus flytrap with the right aroma, the right trapping mechanism, the right amount of digestive juices and much more so that it could survive and thrive in a small niche in this world. A Venus flytrap testifies that there is a Venus flytrap maker, and that maker is God.
O give thanks unto the Lord…who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever.
~ Psalm 136:1,25
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 19 - Anatomy
Daily Devotional - January 19
Anatomy
Have you ever thought about how a scab is made? Do you realize that it takes a 12-step process to form that scab? In order for blood to clot, there must be 12 specific individual chemicals reacting in a domino effect for a clot to form. Think about a row of dominos. If you remove one domino from a perfectly spaced line of dominoes, the dominoes following the gap will not fall. It is exactly the same principle with blood clotting. If one of these chemicals is missing, then a person may bleed to death. If less than the required amount of a specific chemical is present, the person has pain. Too much of the chemical causes a clot in the blood stream, however, and may bring on a heart attack or stroke.
If evolution were true, how did this process happen by accident and chance? How did these chemicals first get placed in the right order, in the right amount, and at the right time? All this had to be correct from the very beginning; otherwise, we would have bled to death. When we see a perfectly spaced row of dominoes, we know there was a designer. God designed the clotting of blood, so we would know of His existence.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
~ Psalm 90:16
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 18 - Christian Truth
Daily Devotional - January 18
Christian Truth
God commanded us to “have dominion over [creation].” The original word translated as “dominion” means to study, understand, and control. This is the essence of science. So do you want to be a science detective? First, let’s define science. There are two broad categories of science: operational and historical.
Operational (or observational) science is the type of science that one might do in a laboratory. It is about experiments that are repeatable. For example, at sea level, water will always boil at the same temperature: 212 degrees F. Operational science builds stuff like rockets, smart phones and other inventions.
Historical science deals with what happened in the past. No scientist has a time machine. No scientist can go back into the past to perform experiments. The past cannot be directly observed or tested, so interpretations are involved. For example, suppose a dinosaur fossil is dug up. How long ago did it live? We don’t know for sure. But Christians have an eye-witness report through which to interpret the present. God is the eye-witness, and He recorded it in the Bible. There was a great Flood, and this flood would have recently buried the dinosaurs that would have rapidly become fossils. But this is still historical science.
So, when you go on vacation to places like Yellowstone National Park, you will see signs such as, “Over the course of 16.5 million years, approximately 15-20 massive eruptions have left immense calderas (craters) to dot the landscape…”, have fun separating interprtation/historical science (millions of years) from observation/operational science (immense calderas). Remember, it is only the observable that can be tested. All else is opinion, based on starting beliefs. Spend your next vacation being a science detective!
…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 1:28b
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
Creation Devotional January 17 - Biology
Daily Devotional - January 17
Biology
How do fish swim in murky water or schools without running into each other? It’s the fish’s lateral line. On either side of the fish, running from the gills to the tail, is a line of small pores that are filled with hairs (neuromasts). These sensory hairs pick up very tiny vibrations and pressure changes traveling through the water and convert them to electrical impulses that are sent to the brain. With a line of many hair clusters (neuromasts) picking up information at different points on the lateral line, the fish has the ability to figure out what is happening around it.
Scientists have successfully copied the fish’s lateral line and hope to install them on submersibles and other underwater vehicles. These scientists used great engineering skills to develop this new technology. It would be an insult to their intelligence to say their artificial lateral line happened by accident and chance. Then why would we say the fish’s lateral line happened by accident and chance? It was created by the Great Engineer Himself, God. So the next time you pick up a fish, look for the lateral line (on some fish it is hard to see) and praise the Great Engineer for His great design.
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
~ Job 12:8-9
Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett
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