Understanding the Creator From Creation
Last week I began to just marvel at the complexity of creation. And then in my devotions I read this particular passage (Psalms 19:1-6). Biblical writers tell us we can infer something of the greatness of the creator in the wonders of the creation. I took science and biology just like all of you, but it wasn’t until Bible that I had a teacher who connected it to the Bible. In this message this morning I want to help you turn your science, biology, astronomy textbooks into books that sing the glory of God the creator. I can’t begin to cover the vast examples of this if I had 50 years, but I want to get you thinking in this fashion.
I Look to the Sky to See the Glory of the Creator Psalms 19:1-6
II Look to the Animal Kingdom to See the Glory of the Creator Job 12:7-9
III Look to Man to See the Glory of the Creator Psalms 139:14
I Look to the Sky to See the Glory of the Creator Psalms 19:1-6
★ Light from our own sun takes four and half years to get to the nearest star.
★ Light waves from the sun take about 8 minutes to reach the earth; that means each time you see the sun it is about 8 minutes old.
★ Neptune is the coldest place in the solar system with temperatures dropping to -236°C.
★ Summer on Uranus lasts for 21 years - but so does winter.
★ Unlike any of the other planets, Uranus does not spin at a slight angle. It is tilted right over, and rolls around the Sun like a giant bowling ball. In summer, the Sun does not set for 20 years.
★ Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, and its surface is as barren as any desert on Earth. The build up of carbon dioxide gas in its atmosphere has created a runaway "greenhouses effect", trapping so much of the Sun’s heat that temperatures reach a scorching 470°C.
★ The Sun is a medium-sized star 1,392,000 km across - 100 times the diameter of the Earth.
★ Each day on the Moon lasts 360 hours.
Photosynthesis, process by which green plants and certain other organisms use the energy of light to convert carbon dioxide and water into the simple sugar glucose. In so doing, photosynthesis provides the basic energy source for virtually all organisms. An extremely important byproduct of photosynthesis is oxygen, on which most organisms depend.
The TIDES
Accompanying the vertical rise and fall of water are various horizontal or lateral movements commonly known as tidal currents or tidal streams, which are very different from the common ocean currents (see Ocean and Oceanography). In confined areas, a tidal current flows for about 6 hours, 12 minutes in an upstream or shoreward direction, corresponding to high tide; it then reverses and flows for approximately the same time in the opposite direction, corresponding to low tide.
Astronomy has a long tradition of practical results, such as our current understanding of the stars, day and night, the seasons, and the phases of the Moon.
Seeds after its own kind Genesis 1:11
11Then God said, "Let the land burst forth with every sort of grass and seed-bearing plant. And let there be trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. The seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came." And so it was. 12The land was filled with seed-bearing plants and trees, and their seeds produced plants and trees of like kind. And God saw that it was good.
II Look to the Animal Kingdom to See the Glory of the Creator Job 12:7-9
Job 12:7-9
Job 12: 7"Ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. 8Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you. Let the fish of the sea speak to you. 9They all know that the LORD has done this.
Job 39
A. Honey Bee - Mr Burger
Instinctive behaviors can be extremely complex even in relatively simple animals, for example, the remarkable navigational and communication skills possessed by honey bees. A worker bee may fly a quarter of a mile or more from the hive in search of flowers that are a good source of food. The sun usually serves as an indicator of direction, but the bee can navigate accurately, even in a moderate breeze, when the sun is hidden by a cloud. When it finds a good source of food, the bee has the capacity to calculate a true course back to the hive, allowing for wind and for apparent movement of the sun. Upon returning to the hive, it communicates the location of the food through a “dance” that conveys information about distance and direction. Other bees use this information to go directly to the food.
B. Homing Pigeon, breed of rock pigeon (see Pigeon) that is specially trained to return swiftly to its home. The exact means by which homing pigeons can travel great distances to find their home is not yet fully understood. Research indicates, however, a combination of navigational resources: sensitivity to the earth’s magnetic field, to ultraviolet light patterns in the sky, and to polarized sunlight, as well as recognition of landmarks on the earth’s surface.
C. Many species of salmon are anadromous—they spawn, or lay their eggs, in fresh water; the young migrate to salt water and grow up there; and the fish return to fresh water to breed after they reach maturity. Other populations or species of salmon are landlocked, spending their entire life cycle in fresh water. The migratory instinct of members of the salmon family is remarkably specific, each generation returning to spawn in exactly the same breeding places as the generation before it. Some salmon migrate hundreds or even thousands of miles to reach their spawning grounds. Even those species that do not migrate from fresh water to salt water spawn in the same freshwater streams as did their ancestors.
Or it may require a lifetime to complete, as in various species of Pacific salmon that are born in freshwater streams, travel to ocean waters, and then return to the stream where they were born to breed before dying.
D. How an animal migrates is significant in determining how much energy is needed as well as how much must be stored in the body. Flying, for example, is more physically intensive than walking or swimming, so migratory birds must build up large energy stores before they set off. Just before spring and fall migrations, certain birds increase their body fat—up to nearly 40 percent of body weight in some songbirds. Before migrating, the (4-in-) long ruby-throated hummingbird gains about 2 g (0.07 oz) of fat. This extra fat provides sufficient energy for this tiny migrant to fly (500 mi) from North America, across the Gulf of Mexico, to its winter home in Mexico. Some birds supplement this stored energy source with food along the way. Others make long, nonstop flights—the golden plover may travel (2000 mi) over water without landing.
The monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, is known for its extraordinarily long migrations. During the summer months, monarchs can be found throughout the continental United States and parts of Canada, and they migrate to the California coast and central Mexico for the winter. The longest recorded flight for a tagged adult is (1,800 mi). A large number of monarchs spend their winters in the mountains west of Mexico City. Scientists speculate that the mountainous climate provides a favorable mix of moist air and cool, but not freezing, temperatures. These conditions keep the butterfly from drying out and keep its metabolism low enough to conserve fat stores but high enough to maintain life.
E. Some birds, notably pigeons and sparrows, display the ability to find their destination even if they are taken off course and far from their navigational cues. Recently, scientists have discovered tiny crystals of magnetite—a magnetic substance—in the brains of some animal species. The scientists believe the magnetite enables animals to use the earth’s magnetic fields as a guide. This magnetic compass may explain the strong directional sense of aquatic migrants, such as whales, sharks, trout, and sea turtles, who rarely use the sun or stars for guidance.
For many animals, migration routes are inborn. Monarch butterflies, for example, summer in temperate zones of the United States and southern Canada, and then winter in Mexico. As they head south, the Monarchs fly without guidance or previous experience, relying entirely on innate directional cues. For other species, however, learning is crucial. Young geese learn migration routes in groups, benefiting from the navigational experience of older birds. In addition to learning the route, the geese also learn migratory flying strategies, such as flying in “V” formation. This formation enables the uplift of air from the leader bird’s wings to give the birds following behind an aerodynamic boost.
F. The snowshoe hare uses camouflage to hide from predators. The summer coat of the snowshoe hare provides excellent camouflage among the grasses and shrubs of its summer habitat, while the white winter coat blends in perfectly with the snowy forest.
Sharks adapt to their environment. If you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium in which it lives. Sharks can be 6 inches long and fully mature. But turn them loose in the ocean and they grow to their normal size.
A snail can sleep for 3 years! No wonder it is so slow.
A cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
An ant can lift 50 times its own weight - that is like you lifting a lorry. They may be small yet strong.
A crocodile can survive on a meal for two years; storing all digested meal as fat in its abdomen. It can digest every part of its prey including bones and feathers.
Bears hibernate for six months during which they sleep; they do not eat or drink or pass urine. They live off of the fat they stored earlier underneath their skin.
The queen bee can lay up to 1,000 eggs a day.
A crocodile’s tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth and cannot move it.
The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car. The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant
Snakes have no ears, but sense their prey from sound vibrations on the ground. They also use their tongues to smell with - but only use their eyes when close to as their eyesight are poor.
Elephants live longer than all mammals apart from man, surviving up until the age of 80 in captivity. A housefly lives only 14 days. We ought to be grateful to God for long life.
When ants find food, they lay down a chemical trail, called a pheromone, so that other ants can find their way from the nest to the food source.
III Look to Man to See the Glory of the Creator
Psalms 139:14
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. (KJV)
14Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous--and how well I know it.
15You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.(NLT)
1. The part of your body that grows the quickest until you are five years old is the brain.
2. The muscle that lets your eye blink is the fastest muscle in your body. It allows you to blink 5 times a second. On average, you blink 15000 times a day. Women blink twice as much as men.
3. An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.
4. Your skull is made up of 29 different bones.
5. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
6. The entire length of all the eyelashes shed by a human in their life is over 98 feet
7. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
8. The average human will shed 40 pounds of skin in a lifetime.
9. Every year about 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced.
10. You were born with 300 bones. When you get to be an adult, you have 206.
11. Your mouth produces 1 litre (1.8 pints) of saliva a day.
12. It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop even your heart.
13. We have four basic tastes. The salt and sweet taste buds are at the tip of the tongue, bitter at the base, and sour along the sides.
14. If your entire DNA is stretched out, it would reach to the moon 6,000 times.
15. Because we have two ears, we can detect where a sound is coming from - by the minute differences in loudness between each ear.
16. The average human brain has about 100 billion nerve cells.
17. The length of the finger dictates how fast the fingernail grows. Therefore, the nail on your middle finger grows the fastest, and on average, your toenails grow twice as slow as your fingernails.
18. Hair is made from the same substance as fingernails.
19. The coloured part of the eye is called the iris. Behind the iris is the soft, rubbery lens which focuses the light on to a layer, called the retina, in the back of the eye. The retina contains about 125 million rods and 7 million cones. The rods pick up shades of grey and help us see in dim light. The cones work best in bright light to pick up colors.
20. Every person has a unique tongue print. In every respect, God made you an original. Don’t accept to be a copy.
21. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. We ought to fear the God of creation!
22. 15 million blood cells are destroyed in the human body every second.
23. Human blood travels 60,000 miles per day on its journey through the body.
24. The lungs contain about 300 million air sacs in which oxygen can be absorbed by the blood. The area these sacs would cover if spread out flat is about 100m² - half the size of a tennis court.
Muscle and Skeletal System
Nervous System
Circulatory System
Immune System
Respiratory System
Digestive and Excretory System
Endocrine System
Reproductive System
Skin
Conclusion: Romans 1:19-20
19For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. 20From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.
