Category: Science

Posted on

An Important Question (pt. 2)

Continued from last week, we’re getting pretty close to the requirement of faith.

To acknowledge that 356 prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus is one thing. But to say that a man – a human being – is God? That’s a tough pill to swallow! But let’s continue.

Since 356 prophecies were fulfilled in one person, we now have to ask the question: How did all those people (prophets) know what to write? It’s impossible for several people over a span of 1200 years (not including any New Testament writer) to agree with each other in knowing exactly what will happen to a single individual hundreds of years later. There had to be a mastermind to share the information with them.

And that mastermind had to be alive for the duration of human existence so there would be no mistake in telling these people what to write. But no human in the history of the world – including before the flood in Noah’s time – lived longer than 969 years.

This reveals that the existence of the mastermind started before the beginning of the human race and shared knowledge of the future with various people. Since only God can do that, I have no recourse but to accept what the Bible says about him.

John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Verse 14 tells us that the Word became flesh. Therefore, we know that the Word was Jesus; and Jesus was and is God.

So far I’ve related what the Bible said about God and Jesus, and we know that everything said about them came true. Therefore, since it verifies that Jesus is God, I have no problem believing whatever the Bible authors said about Him.

The Bible says Jesus raised people from the dead. Can God do that? Of course, He can. He created life in the first place; He can certainly restore life.

The Bible says Jesus turned water into wine. Can God do that? Yes, of course. He created vegetation and water out of nothing, so he can change water into fermented grape juice.

The Bible says Jesus died, was buried, and raised from the dead three days later. Can God do that? Again, yes. God created rocks, planets, stars, galaxies, vegetation, animals, and humans – all out of nothing. Therefore, it is no big deal for God to prevent the body that He lived for 33 or so years from decomposing, and to re-inhabit it. Not only that, the guards at the tomb were eye-witnesses, but were paid to lie about it (Matthew 28:11-15).

Now, where were we? Oh, yes …

If humanistic evolution were true, dissolved inorganic rock material would have to be transformed into organic material. That is a physical impossibility. Therefore, it would still require the miraculous power of a Creator – Almighty God. Only God can do the impossible. Therefore, since the Creator would still be necessary, He wouldn’t need billions of years to create and establish life: He could do it within days if he wanted to.

Did the Bible authors tell us that God or Jesus did something They couldn’t do? Did the Bible authors tell us that God or Jesus did something They didn’t do?

No. In fact, the last verse in the Gospel of John says, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books.”

I asked my dad once how that could be true. Dad responded with, “Do you know all that Jesus, as God, did throughout the history of the universe? How did Jesus make rocks? How did he make flowers? How did he make a star? How many stars did he make? How many galaxies did he make? How did he make people? And the questions continue.”

Obviously, I don’t know how many books it would take to record every single thing Jesus/God did throughout the history of the universe, so I will believe the verse. That is faith. Faith is believing what we cannot prove.

There are many detractors – including theologians, scholars, and scientists – who deny the truth in the Bible. There were even people back in the first century who outright lied about Jesus and about what took place. But remember my comment last week: “…to explicitly affirm what God and Jesus actually said and did would require eyewitnesses.” And there were many eyewitnesses who wrote down what they saw and heard.

We serve an amazingly, almighty God who can do anything He can imagine, and He has a great imagination. Looking through a microscope and a telescope reveals the glory of God and the magnificence of His imagination.

Posted on

An Important Question (pt. 1)

I enjoyed a question a reader asked because it prompted me to critically and logically think about my faith and my understanding about God.

Question: How do you determine the difference between 1) what God and Jesus actually said and did, versus 2) what the Bible authors merely reported that God and Jesus said and did?

To affirm what God and Jesus said and did would require eyewitnesses. Therefore, I will not start with faith; I’ll start with what many scholars believe to be fact.

Literary scholars of various religious and non-religious persuasions determined that portions of the Old Testament may have been written as early as 3500 BC, and I think they are on the right track. Why do I agree with them?

According to Genesis chapter three, God had personal interaction with Adam. Therefore, Adam learned about the creation events from God, and most likely wrote about it. And since Adam lived well into Methuselah’s lifetime, he passed the knowledge regarding creation and the beginning of human history to Enoch and his son, Methuselah; and they could have started formally documenting the history of mankind. Since Methuselah died about a week before the flood began, he had time to document what Noah was doing.

God gave Noah a 120-year warning that the flood was to happen, so Noah wasn’t in a hurry and would have taken all the writings that Methuselah gave him onto the Ark. Noah and Shem may have added more info to the writings.

Those writings (on clay, parchment, paper, or whatever the medium), were passed down to Abraham and eventually reached Moses. All that information was the basis for the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

The information presented in Genesis 12 through 50 was most likely documented by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and several others while they were in Egypt, and given to Moses. If the writings started around 3500 BC, and we apply the genealogy given us in the Bible, we can see how the actions and words of God – and of Jesus – were documented by eyewitnesses. It takes many guesses out of the equation.

Add to the equation: the Bible is the oldest history book in the world, and much of it has been verified by archeology and other scientific endeavors.

Hundreds of prophecies have been spoken throughout the OT time frame. A few of the prophecies were spoken by seemingly wild-eyed hermits, while many, if not most, were spoken by kings, priests, farmers, shepherds, merchantmen, and other socially accepted people. Most of them have already come true, such as: approximately 356 prophecies in the OT about the coming Messiah have been fulfilled in Jesus.

Quoting from https://www.learnreligions.com/prophecies-of-jesus-fulfilled-700159, Learn Religions – Old Testament Prophecies of Jesus, we read: “In the book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman discuss the statistical improbability of one man, whether accidentally or deliberately, fulfilling just eight of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled. The chance of this happening, they say, is 1 in 1017 power.”

10 to the 17th power is 10 with 17 zeros after it. Go figure the number.

But there were not 8 prophecies about Jesus that were fulfilled – there were approximately 356. For this, I don’t know how many zeros would be required, the result equals to an impossibility.

But all that deals only with prophecies about Jesus. There were hundreds of other prophecies throughout the 1200 years of writing Genesis through Malachi. They were about people, politics, events, and they were fulfilled, also. If there is no one who knows everything that will ever happen in the course of mankind, this is a staggering impossibility.

Many of those 356 prophecies that were fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus point to the fact that Jesus would be the Messiah, and others pointed to the fact that Jesus would be God in human form.

Now, switch to what is called the New Testament.

What we call the “Church Age” did not begin until the Day of Pentecost. That’s why we say the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are actually a continuation of the Old Testament. That would change the 1200 years of writing to almost 1600 years. Those four books reveal the life of Jesus and show how Jesus fulfilled many prophecies in the OT.

John, the Gospel writer, was possibly the final Old Testament prophet. Remember, he didn’t die until somewhere around 100 AD – about 60 years after Jesus was crucified. And with everything said about the coming Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus, John informs us in John 1:1 that the Messiah, who had originally been predicted in Genesis 3:15, was and is God.

Let’s continue next week.

Posted on

God’s Foresight, Love, and Protection

Several years ago, Carol and I visited Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We settled in, and decided to get our laundry washed before the rest of the crowd in the Gettysburg RV Campground figured out where the laundry room was. It was dark and we were getting ready to fold the clean clothes when I got sight of the half-moon out the window.

“Precious, wait a minute. I’ve got to get a picture of the moon.” The moon, planets, sun, and stars have intrigued me all my life. I have hundreds of pictures of the moon, many of the sun, and a few of Mars. But my pictures won’t hold a candle to the collection David Cater has. Mr. Cater writes articles on humankind’s astronomical frontier and star-gazing for numerous newspapers, and I greatly enjoy it.

As I walked outside, I thought of his columns.

Outside the laundry room, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I saw two smaller dots: one at the two o’clock position from the moon, and a dimmer dot at the 10:30 position.

Doing a quick check on Google, I discovered what Mr. Cater could have easily told me: the brighter dot was Jupiter, approximately 484 million miles distant at that time, and the dimmer dot was Saturn, approximately 920 million miles from earth at that time. However, the internet isn’t always correct but Mr. Cater would know.

The reports also said that these gas planets wouldn’t reach this position relative to the moon and our visual perspective again for another 20 years.

I went back into the laundry room to keep my promise to my Precious: I helped fold the clothes. But Carol became curious about my excitement, and she stepped outside to peer at the night sky. Several other campers walking by looked up when I was describing these two satellites of the sun and one of the earth, and they became awestruck.

One said, “I never knew we could see other planets without a telescope.”

Another quipped, “How do you know which one is what?” “Look it up on Google.” “Oh, yeah. I should have known that.”

Jupiter is the largest of our 8 (or 9) planets. How big is it? Its diameter is about 87,000 miles, it takes 12 earth-years to orbit the sun, and it might have 79 moons – several of which are larger than our moon. It’s possible that Jupiter has a solid core that is at least 12 times the mass of our earth, but Jupiter as a whole has a mass of about 318 times that of earth. Most of the “atmosphere” is comprised of hydrogen and helium. Since its gravitational pull is powerful, it is a primary protector of the earth by attracting and capturing dangerous comets and asteroids that might imperil the earth.

Saturn circles the sun once every 29 earth years, and has a diameter of about 72,400 miles, but the diameter of its spectacular rings is about 170,000 miles. Saturn is the second-largest planet in our solar system. It probably has a solid core, but we’re not sure of its makeup. It could be rock and iron, ice made of water, ammonia, or helium, or possibly fluid metallic hydrogen. It’s atmosphere is primarily of hydrogen and helium. Saturn is about 95 times the earth’s mass, has 82 known moons with probably many more hiding in the rings. Saturn, also, is a protector of earth due to its gravitational pull.

But with all the admiration and attention we bestow on these two giants that we can see without a telescope, let’s not forget two more protectors. Many of the dangerous astronomical bullets (meteors, asteroids, comets) that escape the gas bullies are caught by the moon. The comets (mostly water ice) that enter our atmosphere evaporate and add to our water supply, and most of the meteorites and asteroids that enter our atmosphere are pulverized and turned to dust. Over all, the earth could be gaining over 30,000 tons of water and dust a year due to these astronomical visitors.

God’s foresight in assembling the solar system amazes me! God created man for fellowship. He redeems fallen man through relationship with Jesus Who died for us but rose from the dead. And He protects humanity so that those who cooperate with Him can fulfill His heavenly plan. God’s foresight, love, and protection reveals what an awesome God we have!

Posted on

Part 3: What was the Star of Bethlehem?

Let’s check into a proven historical resource: the Bible. Please read Matthew 2:1–9. And I thank Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for helping me think through this issue. (Dr. Kennedy passed away September 5, 2007.)

The phrase “we have seen” denotes an academic observation, and the phrase “in the East” (“…For we have seen His star in the East.…”) literally means “in its rising,” which in turn could denote a physical direction or pointing of the “star.” Therefore, the wording in verse two “we have seen his star in its rising” implies a meticulous scrutiny of a portion of the night sky rather than a casual observation.

The zodiac is divided into twelve constellations, and at that time in history each constellation was assigned to a specific world empire. The common thought back then was whenever a king or prince was born, a “sign” (comet? super-nova? conjunction of several planets?) would be found in that empire’s constellation.

Dr. Kennedy said the Persians believed whenever a comet entered a constellation, if the comet’s tail pointed downward a king had just died, but if the tail pointed upward a king was born. It was also understood that God (or “the gods”) controlled the heavens. Psalm 19:1 agrees by saying, “The heavens declare God’s glory; the sky displays His handiwork.”

Therefore, the wise men (Magi, astronomers, scholars, nobility) may have been studying the sky and discovered a new comet in Israel’s constellation with its tail pointing upward, and correctly understood it to mean that a new king was born in or near Israel’s capital: Jerusalem. In this sense, these royal ambassadors did not follow the star as one would follow a slow hotair balloon. Rather, they followed the directions obtained from Israel’s constellation and went to Jerusalem.

But what is it about the “star” that led them to the specific house? Matthew 2:9 says, “… and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was.” A comet, possibly as close as 3,000,000 miles away, cannot “stand over” a planet, let alone stand over a house. The moon, 240,000 miles away, cannot “stand over” a particular house. Therefore, even a small star the size of our sun (with a diameter of approximately 860,000 miles, and 93,000,000 miles away) cannot get close enough to “stand over” a house.

So we need to consider another act of God – that of possibly assigning a messenger – to further direct the royal ambassadors. Here is a brief explanation of my theory.

After seeing a comet within Israel’s constellation which prompted the magi to start on their journey and directed them to Jerusalem, and being advised by the palace scholars to go to Bethlehem, an angel could have taken the physical position of “standing” or hovering over the house as the Magi approached Bethlehem. However, the angel would have started high in the sky and slowly descended to the house as the visitors approached. Therefore, the angel was not recognized for who he was. This, my theory, fits the biblical parameters while taking into consideration history and culture. I hope this helps you in formulating your ideas.

Someone asked me if I could prove that Jesus is God. No, I cannot. But the Bible says that He is. And because the Bible has been proven correct so many times, I accept the Bible as authoritative proof. What many folks do not understand is this: believing that Jesus is God is a matter of faith, but disbelieving is also a matter of faith.

Scripture attributes characteristics and titles to Jesus that can be true only of God, and Jesus is often called God. Example: “Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13; NCV). Jesus is presented as being self-existent (John 1:1, 14:6); omnipresent (Matthew 18:20, 28:20); omniscient (John 4:16–18, 6:64, Matthew 17:22–27); omnipotent (Revelation 1:8, Luke 4:39– 55, 7:14–15, Matthew 8:26–27); and possessing eternal life (John 1:4, 1 John 5:11–12, 20).

Most of Jesus’ followers were devout Jews who believed in one true God. They were uncompromisingly monotheistic, yet they recognized Jesus as God incarnate. Because of his extensive training as a Pharisee and a rabbi, the Apostle Paul would be even less likely to attribute deity to Jesus. Yet he did (Acts 9:1–5, 20:28). These were not blind, mushy-minded, easy to deceive simpletons. They were devout Jews who were proud of their Jewish heritage. Yet they became followers of Jesus Christ because they believed what their Scriptures prophesied about Him.

Did Jesus claim to be God? In a confrontation with Satan, Jesus said, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only” (Matthew 4:10–11, NASB). Yet Jesus purposely received honor and worship that He, as God, had a right to receive (Matthew 14:33, 28:9). The Jewish leaders told Him: “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God” (John 10:33; NASB). Thus, the Jewish leaders agreed that Jesus claimed to be God. So, it is safe to believe that Jesus Christ is God, but is eternally dangerous not to believe.

This Jesus is the one who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was killed on the cross because the Jewish leaders were afraid of Him, who raised to life after three days in the tomb, and re-ascended to heaven forty days after his resurrection. He is God. You do not need to be afraid of Him because He came to save us and grant us eternal life. He loves you and is waiting for you to respond to Him.

Posted on

Who’s the Designer?

I’ve been driving cars for over 59 years, but that doesn’t make me an auto mechanic. I’ve been using computers for 33 years, but that doesn’t make me a computer programmer. In like manner, a person who has a Ph.D. and works in a scientific laboratory doesn’t mean he or she knows much about creation, the origination of the cosmos, or of life.

But please listen: just because I’m a dedicated Christian doesn’t mean I know everything about creation or of the origination of life, either. If we are honest, we admit that we all base our lives on faith to some degree.

While I openly admit that my knowledge is limited, others who oppose my views get upset or frustrated if I declare their knowledge to be limited.

Let’s look at a few ideas logically and scientifically.

To start, faith is required to believe in what has not been proven. For example, I had faith that this chair would support me. I sat on it to test my theory. Wonderful! It is now proven that the chair will support me, so faith is no longer required. Let’s continue.

In September of 2000, Alan Dershowitz, an agnostic, debated Alan Keys, a Roman Catholic. In defending his main thesis that “what is right cannot be known,” Dershowitz said, “We know what evil is. We have seen it.” He mentioned events such as the holocaust and the crusades. He then raised his voice and emphatically declared, “I don’t know what’s right. I only know what’s wrong!” (From the book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek; page 179.)

But Dershowitz was definitely and defiantly wrong.

We cannot know what is incorrect or wrong unless we have a standard of what is correct to judge it against. To know what’s wrong, we must know what is right. Therefore, since we know it is evil to murder, we instinctively understand the intrinsic value of life. Since we know that lying is wrong, we intuitively understand the moral value of truth. The principle of right and wrong is imbedded in everyone’s conscience. Therefore, we have proof that we can know what is right.

How about the concept of truth? Some people emphatically declare that since everything is relative, there is no absolute truth. But is that statement correct? Think now: Is it absolutely true that there are no absolute truths?

Some people affirm that Biblical Creation is not true, and claim that the mythical and unprovable Big Bang created the well-organized cosmos with logical and scientific precision with no intellect or mind to guide anything. But I don’t care how it’s explained, it is scientifically and physically impossible for matter to self-generate out of nothingness. The Big Bang hypothesis is science fiction. I might add, though, It is an intriguing concept.

I’ve never received an intelligent answer to this question: If evolution were true, how did rock particles turn into living organisms?

By the way, have you ever looked through a microscope at a one-celled amoeba? I have. Those critters are very complex. And if you ever stop and think about it, there’s no intelligent rationale as to how amoebas evolved into other life-forms. In reality, evolution is not scientific. It’s a hypothesis, it’s called a theory, and taught as fact. But that’s not science. At best, it is an unprovable concept that is based on faith.

We in the scientific arena understand that nothing (neither material nor energetic substance) can be created out of nothing. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Yet matter – stars, planets, gas – does exist.

To believe billions of galaxies came into existence due to an explosion of absolutely nothing takes more faith than to believe our Creator – God – spoke the cosmos into being.

In order for people (agnostics, atheists, higher critics, skeptics, non-believers) to persuade me that God did not create all of nature, they should give me a viable alternative. But they can’t. Their arguments break down due to physical impossibilities, built-in inconsistencies of logic, ignorance of obvious truth, and lack of substantiation. That’s why many who believed in (had faith in) evolution have gravitated toward the Intelligent Design concept.

But they still have a problem: if there’s no God, who is the intelligent designer?

Understanding that ALL concepts of creation are intrinsically religious, the only logical approach is Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God….”

God is the designer of it all.

Posted on

Starting From Scratch ……

I read that Carl Sagan, American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences, once said, “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.”

That sums up much of Carl’s worldview. And, indeed, he did believe in a lot of what is only imaginary. Nevertheless, God gifted Carl with a great scientific mind. If you knew Carl and me, you would know that he and I disagree on some major issues, but I admired him.

Another of his statements was, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” That’s quite insightful, and I agree with Carl on that one. But that statement seems to differ with his overall understanding of life – his understanding of the cosmos. Why? Keep reading.

As I said, I agree with the “start-from-scratch” statement, because without the universe, we would have no apples, therefore, no pies.

However, he believed in the hypothetical Big Bang – the concept that all of the cosmos, billions of galaxies and any and all life in them, spontaneously self-created out of an infinitesimally small speck of matter, which, in turn, was created out of nothing – or which might have been a residue of a previous big bang cycle. One scientist in New Mexico told me we might be in the 4th or 5th big bang cycle, but don’t believe it.

Back to Sagan’s apple pie comment.

To make an apple pie, we have to have apples, which requires a tree, which requires a seed. Someone would need to create the seed with life in it, and program into the seed what the tree needed to look like, and how to make both leaves and fruit. We need dirt to plant it in, we need nutrients in the dirt, water to help tree roots dissolve the dirt and absorb the nutrients. It would take a book to describe what the seed had to do, and the impossibility of it happening spontaneously.

We need an atmosphere with the right mix of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases. Someone had to make the gases.

We need a star that emits the correct spectrum of light. The planet needs to be the correct distance from the star. We need a home, called a galaxy, where our star can reside. But we have a problem here. Without a star with gravity to cause gas to condense into a solid ball, the gas from the bang would continue to expand and never condense into a solid. The laws of physics would prevent expanding gas from turning on itself and becoming a solid. Even the astrophysicists don’t know how the first stars formed from expanding gas. Anyone can guess, but hypothetical (unproven) guesses are not scientific.

Oh, yes, we need someone to make a glass or metal container to make the pie in because the big bang couldn’t make them. We need someone to invent and plant all the other ingredients so we can mix them with the apples in the pie and make the crust. So people had to be invented. Someone had to figure out how to design and put together chromosomes and genes, and create deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA) … all at the same time.

But we have to go deeper.

Someone had to figure out how to transform the dissolved rocks into 382,000 kinds of plant life. Someone also had to teach the dissolved rocks how to morph into living gelatinous amoebas, and teach them to eat other dissolved rocks. And someone had to teach the amoebas how to mutate and grow into 2.13 million species of animals.

And all of this had to happen in an exceedingly short period of time. Tossing in a few more million or billion years is imaginative, but it is not scientific and it accomplishes nothing. Organic life forms – whether they evolved or were created – had to happen fully functional within a day.

 I helped build the Boeing 727s, 747s, 757s, and the B-1B. I worked on the space shuttle program. The parts to these machines cannot self-materialize even with all the basic materials – iron, aluminum, titanium, plastic, glass, etc. – already created. And these machines cannot spontaneously self-assemble no matter how many millions of years we tumble their parts together. And the concept of all matter – from an electron to multi-billions of galaxies – self-materializing out of nothing and self-assembling into well-developed solar systems and galaxies, is non-scientific. Believe it you want to, but it is not a matter of science. It is a non-verifiable belief system.

God, the eternal I Am, the eternal Master Mind of the cosmos, created everything from scratch. He’s the only one who can do that. What I mean is, God, who lives outside time and space, is the only one who could create anything and everything out of absolutely nothing.

Back to Carl Sagan’s apple pie comment.

I thank God every time my precious wife makes apple pies (my favorite), pumpkin pies, cookies, Thanksgiving Day meals, and anything else we want to eat. God created life and the universe, and we use and enjoy what God has created.

Keep studying, but understand that God is not only the engineering, creative force in the universe, but He also came in the form of Jesus to rescue us from our sin nature.

Posted on

Historical Global Climate Change

We’ve been told: “Mankind and modern technology are creating greenhouse gases which are responsible for melting glaciers and polar ice caps, and warming the oceans. Therefore, our technology will cause massive coastal flooding within a hundred years.” The question is: Is that true?

That scenario can be confusing because the same people who bemoan human-caused global warming tell us the earth has undergone several ice-ages in the prehistoric past. If they’re right, the earth froze and thawed several times without man’s assistance. So if our technology wasn’t available, what caused the assumed cooling and re-heating cycles?

We have geological evidence that the entire earth was a greenhouse 5 to 8 thousand years ago. We also know that for every effect there is a cause. Therefore, without man to mess with the earth, what caused the earth to cool down? Geological data shows that the earth’s oceans could have been about 300 feet lower than they are now. What raised the ocean levels? Without the human factor, what caused the earth to warm up again?

To compound the problem, I just read that by 2050 the earth might undergo another “mini-ice-age” and the sun will be the culprit.

Mount Kilauea, one of three active volcanos in Hawaii, has a lava lake that is over 520 feet wide, is very deep, and of course it’s fed from the huge magma pool. On April 26, 2015 the “lake” level rose twenty-six feet. The previous week, Chile’s Calbuco volcano erupted again. On May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens erupted. And in April of 2010, Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland erupted which caused substantial disruption to air traffic across Europe. There are about 1,500 potentially active volcanos above water and 500 potentially active underwater. People ignore the fact that these mountains spew heat into the water and atmosphere which affects the climate. Dr. Dan Walker at the University of Hawaii noticed a strong correlation between seismic and volcanic activity in the Pacific Ocean and El Nino cycles over a period of 25 years. Also, sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid are produced by volcanic activity which is carried world-wide on the trade winds. Volcanism produces an average of over 5.5 billion tons of CO2 annually. And man cannot stop any of this.

Does the book containing the oldest available historical record of man say anything about global climate?

It does. Genesis 2:6 says, “The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”

But Genesis 8:22 reports after the world-wide flood, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Then Genesis 9:12-13 says, “And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow [rainbow] in the cloud….”

We find that the earth was a greenhouse with no rain. That infers continuous cloud cover with a more massive atmosphere; and that suggests no direct sunlight reaching the ground. After the flood, Genesis 8:22 mentions “cold and heat, and summer and winter.”

Seasons were introduced which suggests massive geological, atmospheric, and climatological changes. There was a sudden world-wide cool-down with the sudden appearance of what became polar ice caps. Man’s average lifetime was reduced from 912 years (before the flood) to 285 years (as of Abraham’s lifetime). Winter, mountains, deserts, snow, hail, rain, tornados, and hurricanes were gradually introduced to the world.

Matt Cantor wrote an interesting article (May 3, 2015) titled “Ancient Climate Change Could Explain Tibet Mystery.” Matt said that about 4,000 years ago Tibetan climate suddenly became much colder. Of course, man didn’t cause that temperature shift.

With the probable influx of massive amounts of ice from ice comets that slammed onto earth which changed the earth’s astronomical posture, the earth went into geological convulsions and the earth’s crust broke up. And the earth has been ever-so-slowly reverting to its temperate equilibrium ever since. Although mankind should increasingly clean up industrial contamination, man is not able to control earth’s climate. If mankind were removed and the earth was given to the animals, the warm-up would continue. Since God caused it, He is the one who will have to stop it … if and when He wants to.

Posted on

Tornado!

Carol and I were visiting our son, Jeremy, and his family in Oklahoma when my cell phone interrupted us. It was a tornado warning for Siloam Springs. We’ve received tornado warnings in the past and were thankful the storms passed over or around our town. But this time, it was different.

After midnight on October 21, 2019, an EF-2 tornado, accompanied by straight-line winds, hit Siloam Springs and a few other places in northwest Arkansas. An EF-2 can cause major damage.

The next day, our daughter-in-law, Angela, checked the news and found that up to nine tornados hit the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The worst of them was an EF-3. Soon, the topic of windstorms, especially tornados, prompted a discussion among the grandkids.

When one of the granddaughters learned that these circular winds can pick up cars, rip roofs off buildings, topple trucks, and pick up and splinter houses, she asked, “Grandpa, how does a tornado pick up huge things like cars and houses?”

Aha! A teachable moment, and five or six grandkids were close by.

“Gloria, what’s the name of the machine that cleans your carpets?”

“A vacuum.”

“Right. And what does it do?”

“It picks up dirt.”

“Right, again. The roller with brushes on it is sometimes called a beater. The roller turns almost 6,500 times a minute. That’s about 108 turns a second. But the machine also has a fan that sucks in air. So, when the roller and brushes vibrate the carpet and shake the dirt loose, the machine pulls loose dirt in with the air. If the vacuum hits a piece of mud, the mud usually breaks apart and the vacuum sucks up the pieces. Small rocks can’t break apart, so the vacuum just swallows them.”

“That gets loud. But how does a tornado pick up cars or houses?”

“I’m getting there. Does your mama have a blender?”

“Yep.”

“When you turn it on, what happens?”

“It chops up food, spins it, and makes it into a liquid.”

“What does it look like as it’s spinning?”

“It pulls the food down in the center and pushes it up on the sides.”

“Right. A tornado does that but upside down. A tornado is like a huge blender but without the blades. The powerful force of the wind and change of air pressure – vacuum – are what tear things apart. Now, let’s put this all together.

Tornados are like a combination of upside-down blenders and right-side-up vacuums. Vacuum heads are only 8-16 inches wide and can pick up dirt, sand, pennies, little rocks, socks, things like that. But a tornado can be as small as 500 feet wide or as large as several miles wide. They create winds as slow as 80-miles-per-hour, or over 300-miles-per-hour. And they can pick up things that weigh several tons.

 “When a tornado hits a car, the car is like a rock and doesn’t break apart. So, the wind moves the car and the vacuum sucks it up. It’ll get banged up, thrown around, and most of the time it’s destroyed. When a tornado hits a house or building, the wind normally tears it apart like a vacuum cleaner breaks up a piece of mud. The tornado sucks up the pieces of buildings and sends them several yards and sometimes miles away. But once in a while, a gentle part of the tornado – that sounds funny – picks up an entire house without shattering it. The house moves sideways for several feet or is turned around without breaking up.”

“But the plumbing and electrical system has to be repaired.”

“You got it. The power of the wind breaks the house loose from the footing, and the upside-down blender suction picks it up and turns it. However, even though the house might look mostly fine, it might have to be rebuilt anyway because of internal damage.”

That brief, over-simplified explanation satisfied the grandkids’ curiosity.

But tornados of other kinds, such as death in the family, loss of job, poor health, breakup of a marriage, can tear up our lives. We might appear to be fine, but we are broken up on the inside, and simple explanations don’t help. A counselor might help us cope, and friends can help us recover; but only God can help us heal.

Don’t be afraid to ask the Lord for help. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (NLT). Jesus gave his life for you. Turn to Him and trust Him in the turbulence of your life.

Posted on

Reaching for Life

I’ve been looking at my pictures of the redwood forest in Northern California. The trees are big! Our pine tree in back yard that is over two and a half feet in diameter looks big; but it is small compared to a relatively small five-foot diameter redwood tree. Amazingly, redwoods that are 10-18 feet in diameter are common, and it staggers the imagination knowing that the diameter of the General Sherman Redwood is over 32 feet!

A typical farmed redwood tree may weigh 50,000 pounds, but some redwoods weigh over 2,000,000 pounds! Interestingly, about half the weight is in the water. The redwood bark may be 2-feet thick, and a huge redwood tree may provide wood to build 30-35 homes.

Water is necessary for life. The redwoods grow to 250-350 feet tall and require over 100 gallons per tree per day. But it rains a lot in these forests, snows in the winter, and fog is prevalent; therefore, they are seldom thirsty. The root systems of redwoods are shallow, and that would mean a heavy wind or flood could topple them easily. But as they reach for life-giving water, a mature tree spreads its roots over 2 to 4 acres; and with 8 to 20 trees per acre, the root systems overlap and intertwine which results in a strong foundation for these top-heavy giants. They effectively support each other in rough times.

Light is also necessary for life. God engineered plants to reach for or aim toward light. This is called phototropism. The same is true of these giant trees. Programmed to be tall anyway, they continue to reach for life – for sunlight. Lone trees out in the open will not be as tall as those in the forest with a thick canopy of foliage; and they are also open to more danger. There is protection among its neighbors.

The mature redwoods are basically fire-resistant. The thick, fibrous bark does not burn easily; and as a protective shell, it insulates the tree which allows it to survive most fires. The thick bark also provides protection of another kind: it has the ability to withstand fungus, disease, and insect attacks. This is why these trees live so long. The oldest known redwoods are about 3,000 years old. Only the bristlecone pines (about 5,000 years old) are known to be older.

Looking at the pictures of these magnificent trees, my mind gravitates toward humanity. I see similarities. No – not about size, but about other features and qualities.

The redwood’s root system covers a wide area which gives it stability in inclement weather. In the same way, our roots in healthy relationships with family, church, and society give us stability during “inclement” situations such as death, job loss, health deterioration, and more. In our many storms of life, we need each other for emotional and physical support. But our strong roots in a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ will help us even more in this life on earth, as well as throughout eternity.

 A straight tree is stronger than a crooked tree, and its wood is useable in more situations. Likewise, a morally and intellectually straight man is stronger, trustworthy, where an immoral or double-minded man is weak, confuses people, and leads people down the path of destruction.

Trees must reach for the light to survive. In the same manner, man must reach for light – truth – to survive. We cannot survive very long, either societally or spiritually, if we live in spiritual and moral darkness. We cannot mature as morally strong individuals if we resist truth.

As the thick bark protects the trees, living in truth will protect us. Knowing the truth about various aspects of life – food, environment, chemicals, health, morals, physiology, and a lot more – can help us live safely. And purposefully living according to the truths found in the Bible will protect us in many ways most people don’t yet understand.

As the trees depend on water from the sky for life, man depends on guidance from the sky – direction from God – for life. Psalm 1:1-2 tell us not to follow the advice of ungodly people, but to meditate on and live according to the words of the Lord. Psalm 33:11 tells us that God’s plans are good, healthy, and beneficial. And Proverbs 14:11-12 warn us that man’s apparently powerful plans will fail in the end, but God’s seemingly weak plans are actually strong and will stand forever. Trust in Jesus: Reach for Life.

Posted on

Jesus Overruled Physics and Politics

Before Jesus was born, His title was “The Word.” John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Verse 14 tells us that the Word became a human and lived among us. God, the Word, was born under the name of Yehoshua (the Lord is Salvation) and translated into English as Joshua. Translated from Hebrew into Greek, his name is Iesous, and then translated into English is Jesus.

Historical records verify that Jesus was born in Bethlehem; lived in Egypt, Nazareth, and Galilee (and several other places), and His vocation was carpenter and stone mason. Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus was no wimp. Although He had a gentle disposition, He was muscular, physically tough, and had a will of iron. Those who were hurting or oppressed received gentle looks of compassion, but some of His adversaries shriveled under his steely glare!

Jesus had no identity crisis. He knew who He was and knew why He left heaven to live on earth. This was verified in Luke 2:48-49. Joseph and Mary were looking for Jesus and found Him in the temple bewildering the teachers of the law. When Mary asked twelve-year-old Jesus why He didn’t stay with them, Jesus responded, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Jesus never did anything worthy of execution, so why was He crucified?

A sacrifice had to be made to rescue us from the black hole of oblivion called hell so that we could live with God forever in heaven. But to complete this liberating task, the sacrifice could not remain dead. Only God could accomplish this other-worldly task, and that’s why Jesus came.

Historical records verify that multi-thousands of people, including the Roman Emperor, heard that Jesus had risen from the dead, although most folks didn’t want to believe it. When the guards told the leaders of the Sanhedrin that Jesus had left the tomb, the leaders paid them to lie and say that Jesus’ disciples took His body from the tomb while they were sleeping. But that lie was absurd. Any reasonable child understands that we don’t know what’s happening while we’re asleep.

In 1546 AD, John Heywood said, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” That reminds me of the verse in Jeremiah 5:21, “Listen, you foolish and senseless people, with eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear” (NLT). Both Jeremiah and John were speaking to people who refused to believe the obvious: those who closed their eyes and ears to reality. But Jesus was seen by many hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people during the forty days after He left the tomb. Jesus is alive!

Myths and legends have been created by those who refused to accept the fact that Jesus is alive, and I’ve been asked a number of times what happened to Him? The greatest history book in the world – the Bible – answers that question.

In Acts 1:9-11, after Jesus gave parting instructions to the hundreds of people standing with Him on the hill, He left earth under his own power. The verses say, “…as they were watching, He was lifted up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. As He was going, they were looking into the sky. Suddenly, two men wearing white clothes stood beside them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking into the sky? Jesus, whom you saw taken up from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you saw him go’” (NCV).

Not only did innumerable people see Jesus for forty days after He walked out of the tomb, but hundreds of people also watched Jesus overrule gravity and ascend into the sky. As He disappeared into the clouds the angel told them how Jesus would return.

Return? How? Why?

Jesus was not ruled by the laws of physics nor the pressures of politics, and the same will be true at His next appearance. Accompanied by myriads of angels and people, Jesus will come out of the sky under His own power. He will end the prevailing wars and put an end to all evil empires, corrupt democracies, and inadequate kingdoms. Jesus will set up His own Kingdom, and those whom He calls righteous will rule with him.

This is not the end of the story: read the Bible for more.