Daily Devotional – September 20

Biology

The Crucian carp is an amazing fish that can survive for extended periods without oxygen. “Look Ma, no air!” As the deep snow piles up on the frozen Scandinavian lakes, no light is able to penetrate into the lake water deep below the ice. This results in a lack of oxygen in the lake water. In most creatures, including most fish, the lack of oxygen results in the build-up of lactic acid – ultimately resulting in death. The Crucian carp, however, is able to survive. How?

God has designed this fish to slow its heartbeat as the oxygen levels decrease. As oxygen levels continue to drop, an amazing change occurs. The carp changes its metabolic chemistry, so it does not need oxygen. Meanwhile, it starts transforming the deadly lactic acids into sugars to create energy without needing oxygen. How do evolutionists explain this? Did carp get together with their chemistry sets and decide they needed to create a new way of surviving without oxygen? How would they know what to do? The carp needed this builtin ability from the beginning in order to survive harsh Scandinavian winters. The creativity of Jesus is revealed in the design of these carp!

I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?

~ Psalm 77:12-13

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 19

Botany

When we think of plants, we think of photosynthesis and sunlight. But what if they receive too much UV-B light? UV-B is ultraviolet light that burns biological tissues. It is the reason we put on sunscreen to protect our skin from the Sun’s damaging wavelengths.

When UV-B reaches damaging levels the leaves, plants make their own sunscreen chemicals! Plants have special photoreceptors that detect high levels of UV-B light. These switch on genes to make the plant’s sunscreen. These chemicals are then deposited in the leaf tissues, ready to absorb the high levels of UV-B. This protects the cells below. At the same time, if any of the cells are found to be damaged, enzymes go into action repairing the damaged DNA. This keeps the photosynthetic machinery humming along.

How did this incredible system of detection, protection and repair come about? By accident and chance? How could plants exist before sunscreen? We have man-made sunscreen to protect ourselves while plants have God-made sunscreen.

For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth:

~ James 1:11

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 18

Anatomy

Our teeth not only show amazing design but reveal His signature at a microscopic level. Enamel is the bright white exposed part of the tooth. It is the hardest living tissue in the human body. This is why long after the bones of buried animals have disintegrated the teeth often remain. This hard enamel shell protects the tooth’s life support system – the blood vessels and nerves. It is the design of enamel that allows us to bite, tear, and chew our food.

But, perhaps, the most stunning thing about our teeth is buried within the enamel. The enamel is designed using fish-shaped rods on a microscopic level. This shape interlocks the enamel crystals giving them incredible strength – like nuts threaded onto a bolt. It’s very curious that the cross-sections of these structures are fish-shaped. From the earliest historical times, the symbol that Christians used to identify themselves with Jesus Christ was the symbol of a fish. Jesus Christ called us to be “fishers of men” and our very teeth are made from “rods” that look like “fish!” Could this be coincidence, or was it God’s design? I’ll let you be the judge!

And he saith unto them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

~ Matthew 4:19

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 17

Christian Truth

It is often AFTER the children leave home that parents wonder why their children have ditched the faith. One blogging mother, Natasha Crain, proposed a discerning question to determine whether your child is headed for the exit door or not.

Is your child asking you questions about Christianity? If they are not, they are headed for trouble!

• Just because they are not asking questions doesn’t mean they have answers to faith questions.
• They may have never been shown why Christianity is so radically different (and more logical) than other religious beliefs - including humanism and atheism.
• They may have already made the shift away from Christianity because of science indoctrination. Youngsters of Christian families experience real inner turmoil when experts sources contradict the Bible. Christian students believe and trust their teachers, as they should; however, we need to help them understand why the teacher has to teach from a non-biblical perspective.

If they are not asking questions about their faith, then when they leave home, they have a good chance of ditching the faith. Statistics find that around 2/3 of children who grew up in Christian homes are leaving the church.

Parents must be the first, at a young age, to challenge them on why they believe what they believe--why they did not evolve from green slime-- then you will know where they stand in their faith walk. Many parents are lulled into a false belief that their children are toeing the line until they leave home. Are your children asking questions about Christianity? If not, challenge them.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

~ 3 John 4

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 16

Biology

Some of the most interesting examples of design are found in animals that help each other survive (symbiosis). An example found in most tropical seas is between the blind shrimp and goby fish. The blind shrimp digs a hole and uses its front claws like a bulldozer to keep the entrance clear of debris. The blind shrimp, however, is blind. That’s where the goby fish comes in - it guards the entrance to the shrimp’s home. The blind shrimp always keeps a feeler (antenna) touching the fish. When danger approaches, the fish signals the shrimp with a flick of its tail and both dive into the hole.

Whenever you see a blind shrimp, there will always be goby fish nearby! The blind shrimp is protected from trouble while the goby fish is given a spot to hide. How does evolution explain this partnership? They say, “Since the partnership is useful it must have evolved.” This explains nothing about how these instincts could have evolved slowly over time. This type of partnership had to have been programmed into them from the beginning - by their Creator God.

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.

~ Psalm 69:30

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 15

History

If there was an Ice Age ending only about 3500 years ago, shouldn’t the ancient cultures have a remembrance of it? We find just that in the ancient people groups’ legends. They speak of “the Great Cold” or “evil winters.” The Mayans of Central America record in the Popol Vuh that their ancient ancestors had sailed to their land from the east during a time of black rain and constant twilight. This would be consistent with rampant volcanic upheavals during the Ice Age bringing ash in the rain and constant twilight (dense cloud-cover). The ancient Avesta writing coming out of western Russia describe the early Ice Age as “Ten months of winter are there now, two months of summer, and these are cold as to the water, cold as to the earth, cold as to the trees… There all around falls deep snow, that is the direst of plagues.” These are not the only people groups that described this event. Here are some others: Toba Indians in South America, the Incas, the Tarahumara of northern Mexico, the Araucanians of Chile, the Mataco Indians of Argentina and many more. Many of these cultures associate the Flood with the subsequent period of cold, earthquakes, volcanoes, periods of darkness, and continual cloud cover. The Mayan Popol Vuh records that after the Flood there was “much hail, black rain and mist, and indescribable cold.” Another Mayan source says “sunlight did not return till the twenty-sixth year after the flood. These people knew about the Ice Age and wrote of their experiences. All this fits perfectly within the biblical worldview!

Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: and cold out of the north.

~ Job 37:9

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 14

Biology

Have you ever noticed that you cannot see moths’ eyes reflecting back? Moths see well at night, but their eyes have a special built-in anti-glare feature so that light is not reflected to alert predators of their location. Scientists were intrigued by this special anti-glare feature and wanted to copy the moth’s eye so that our TVs, cell phones and other products could have glare-free displays. What they found was an orderly array of tiny bumps on the surface of the moth’s eye. These tiny bumps are so small that the wavelengths of visible light are deflected and absorbed instead of being reflected back. This is very similar to how a sound-proof room is made, except, on a larger scale; ridge-shaped foam lines the room, so the incoming sound waves are deflected into the walls and absorbed. When the moth-eye nanostructure technology was applied to solar cells, the glare was reduced from 35-40 % to only 2%.

When we have a glaring problem, like the reflection of light on solar cells, look to see how God has solved the problem. These scientists simply copied what had already been made, that is, they recognized a good design when they saw it. In the future, your anti-glare cell phone may have moth eyes!

O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

~ Isaiah 25:1

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 13

Paleontology

Trilobites once lived on the ocean floor. We have identified many different species of trilobites; most had two compound eyes, some had no eyes, and others had eyes on stalks like snails. But all trilobite eyes have been found to be unique and complex. Their eyes were not made of living cells, but of a see-through-crystal substance like tiny “rock crystals”. That is why the eyes of these creatures were easily fossilized and we can know so much about them. Each compound eye is made up of many single lenses. The optics of these “rock crystals” allowed the trilobite to see things equally well whether they were far away or close up - at the same time! How trilobites were able to do this is very complicated. Each “rock crystal” was made up of two materials. These two lenses were affixed to each other and so designed that they solved the problem of blurriness or spherical aberration. We did not solve these optics problems until Rene Descartes (1637), Christian Huygen (1690), and others addressed the problem. These scientists had to employ difficult mathematical formulas that allow us to enjoy the optics we use today. Yet, the trilobites’ eyes used these laws of optics for their complex lenses.

Trilobites are mostly found in Cambrian rock. The Cambrian layer is near the bottom of the geological column that evolutionists claim contain the fossilized remains of the simplest creatures. Do trilobite eyes sound simple? Dr. Riccardo Levi-Setti, an expert on trilobites, said that the eyes of a trilobite could qualify for a patent. The design of the trilobite eye makes use of Fermat’s principle, the Abbe sine law, Snell’s laws of refraction, and the optics of birefringent crystals. Of course, the God of the universe, who made the trilobite eye, does not need to patent his invention. He owns everything anyway.

One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.

~ Psalm 145:4

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 12

Biblical Accuracy

Under a thick ice sheet in Greenland, scientists discovered a new “Grand Canyon.” Using airborne radar to see through the two mile thick ice sheets, scientists discovered a huge canyon, similar to the Grand Canyon, that is located in Arizona. This hidden Greenland canyon is about half as deep (2,600 feet deep) but twice as long (almost 600 miles) as the Grand Canyon.

Greenland’s canyon begins in the middle of the country and continues northward to the sea; it is the world’s longest canyon. Scientists were surprised to find the canyon with “the distinctive V-shaped walls” because this means it must be a river valley and not a U-shaped glacier carved valley. The valley must have been carved prior to Greenland being covered with ice. If we put on our biblical glasses, we will understand exactly how this valley was formed. During the closing stages of the global Flood, the fast-moving, sediment-filled, high-energy runoff waters carved canyons at many locations around the world. This happened as the yearlong Flood waters drained off the continents, about 4400 years ago, carving out canyons in the newly-formed land masses. Later, tiny rivers flowed at the bottom of these huge canyons, or in the case of Greenland, a huge canyon to be later covered by miles of ice.

Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

~ 2 Peter 3:6

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – September 11

Biology

Even the poop from baby song-birds reveal the design of God.

Baby song birds are always hungry, and the parent is continually feeding them, but what goes in one end…must come out the other! The nest could easily become a real mess. Imagine the bird nests filling up with bird excrement as the baby birds are pushed closer and closer to the rim by the rising sewage.

The presence of this fecal matter would not only be unhealthy but enable predators to easily detect their location. How does nature solve this problem? Disposable diapers. Each chick’s fecal matter has a mucous membrane that surrounds it. The chick generally defecates within seconds of being fed. The parent then removes this fecal sac and deposits it away from the nest as it flies off to find additional food for the chicks. Shortly before the chicks fledge (fly away from the nest), they stop producing fecal sacs.

When you see tiny baby birds in their nests, think of how God has provided for their cleanliness and safety using the world’s FIRST biodegradable, disposable diapers!

I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

~ Psalm 50:11

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.