Daily Devotional – December 27

Anatomy

We are still discovering new capabilities and features of the human body. It has long been assumed that humans cannot hear ultrasonic sound because the mechanisms within our ear do not respond to sound wavelengths that small. Yet, Dr. Patrick Flanagan was issued two patents in 1958 for his invention of a device he called the Neurophone,TM which coverts normal sound into ultrasonic signals. He showed that the human brain was able to “hear” and interpret these signals. It has taken almost 50 years to explain this capability.

Dr. Martin Lenhardt of the University of Virginia recently discovered that a tiny organ in our inner ear (that is normally associated with balance) is also responsible for our ability to sense ultrasonic sound. This organ, called the saccule, is capable of responding to ultrasonic sound and sending the signals to the human brain. Lenhardt discovered that nerves from the peasized saccule are distributed throughout the brain - some going to the area of the brain that computes sound while others are distributed into areas concerned with long-term memory.

In an age where some would have us believe almost all discoveries of science have already been made, there is much yet to be learned about the creation – including the design of our own bodies!

There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.

~ 1 Samuel 2:2

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

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – December 9

Anatomy

Have you ever heard of the term “brainwaves”? Before the 1900s, nobody had ever considered the possibility that such a thing existed, let alone that these waves could be detected or measured. But in 1933, a scientist named Alfred Loomis attached electrodes to his own and other family members’ heads and invented a machine to magnify and record the electrical signals that he detected coming from the brain. This discovery was the basis for the invention of the electroencephalograph (EEG), an instrument still used today to detect abnormalities related to electrical activity of the brain.

Loomis discovered that there were different patterns of electrical activity when we are sleeping, dreaming, awake, or emotionally excited. He also discovered that the mind responds to words and sounds even when deeply asleep. Our brain’s pattern of electrical signals repeats in a very periodic, wavelike pattern. This observation solved a mystery that had been noted for centuries. Why could some people look at a clock before going to sleep, decide to wake up at a given time, and then wake up within seconds of that time without an alarm clock?

Since our sleeping brain produces waves in a perfectly repeatable, periodic pattern, it literally can act as a clock to wake us at the exact moment desired by keeping track of the number of waves that pass from the moment it drops into subconscious sleep! The human brain is truly a marvelous organ, which we have barely begun to understand - even 80 years after the invention of the EEG.

yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night.

- Ecclesiastes 2:23

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

Daily Devotional – November 19

Anatomy

Try the following three movements:

1. Rotate your wrist in a 360 degree circle.
   2. Move your extended arm at the elbow straight up and down like a hinge on a door.
   3. Swing your arm in a circle at the shoulder.

Your arm is designed with three completely different types of joints to allow an amazing range of movement - from throwing a baseball to picking up a pebble and placing it overhead into a cup. Without all three of these very differently designed joints, this range of movements would be impossible.

Guess what engineers have discovered as they have worked to design robots used for everything from painting cars on an assembly line to the robotic arm on the space shuttle? They need to use exactly the same three types of joints! Every robotic arm has some combination of a rotational joint (similar to our wrist), a hinge joint (similar to our elbow) and a universal joint (similar to our shoulder). Yet, the manmade joints are crude, cumbersome, and wear out far quicker than those designed for our bodies. Isn’t it obvious the designer of our bodies was the greatest engineer of all?

Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

~ Isaiah 53:1

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 – August 18

Anatomy

The evolutionary idea of vestigial (or useless) organs, as leftovers from our evolutionary past, has produced tragic consequences. For many years, the thyroid gland (which has no duct to release secretions) mystified doctors. So when people had an enlarged thyroid (goiter), it was simply removed. In the 1870s, Dr. Theodore Kocker noticed some of his patients were going insane a few years after their operation. Through examining his surgical notes, he found that if he had left any thyroid behind, the patients did not go mad. However, the operations continued, and it was another 30 years before the function of thyroxine (the secretion from this gland) was discovered.

Today, we know that the thyroid gland is vitally important for making and storing hormones that help regulate such things as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and growth rate. If we do not have enough of this hormone, we can feel overly tired, cold, or otherwise low in energy. If we have too much of this hormone, it is like a car idling too fast - we are likely to become overly nervous/irritated, have trouble concentrating, have trouble sleeping, and so on. The thyroid gland is hardly a useless, leftover organ! The more scientists study the body, the more they become convinced that the body did not happen by accident and chance but was designed by someone of great intelligence; that someone is God.

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

~ Isaiah 64:8

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

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – July 19

Anatomy

Teeth are surprisingly tough; we can bite and chew food for decades without cracking. A tooth’s dentine is covered with tooth enamel. How can enamel, which by itself is brittle like glass, survive our chewing and biting process without cracking? Researchers have found that the design of the tooth enamel prevents cracks in three ways:

1. Tufts are crack-like flaws deep within the tooth where the enamel and dentine meet. Under the stress of biting or chewing, these tufts distribute the stress - suppressing the growth of cracks.
2. Enamel is made up of rods that criss-cross each other like basket weave. This hinders cracks from spreading.
3. If a crack expands, the tooth fills in the space with material extended from the tufts - which glues the cracked walls and stops further expansion.

Our teeth are extremely tough structures built from brittle materials - yet, they are able to withstand a lifetime of biting and chewing because of their design. When we see a design, we know there must be a designer. The tooth’s designer is Jesus.

Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep .…

~ Song of Solomon 6:6

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

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – June 18

Anatomy

In the late 1800s, after Darwin proposed his theory of life’s slow evolutionary development, nearly 200 organs were considered “useless” – that is, unnecessary leftovers from our evolutionary past. The gallbladder was considered one of these “useless” leftovers. Does the gallbladder have a necessary function?

Recently, my husband had a terrible pain in his side. An ultra-sound test identified the cause of the pain to be gallstones blocking the exit duct from his gallbladder. The gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ on the right side just beneath the liver. This human organ stores bile, which is made in the liver. One job of the gallbladder is to release this bile, into the small intestine as needed. This bile is used for the breakdown and absorption of fatty foods. If the gallbladder is removed, the bile oozes continually into the intestines. If an overly fatty meal is eaten, not enough bile will be released, causing incomplete digestion - resulting in gas, bloating, and diarrhea.

It is possible to adjust our diet such that we can function without the gallbladder, but it is far better to keep it. A person without a gallbladder needs to be a little more careful in the consumption of fatty food. But that hardly implies the organ is a worthless evolutionary leftover. Isn’t it interesting how our wise Creator God knew we would have problems with our deteriorating bodies and designed them to cope with a wide variety of dietary circumstances? God doesn’t make “useless” parts; the gallbladder is needed.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us,.…

~ Psalm 100:3

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

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – June 1

Anatomy

What do the Eiffel Tower and the thigh bone have in common? The 1889 World’s Fair was coming up, and Mr. Eiffel wanted to win the architect’s contest by designing the most daring structure. The winning design would commemorate this great event.

Gustave Eiffel went to an unusual source for his design idea: the human thigh bone. The thigh bone connects to the hip and extends sideways, causing the body’s weight to be moved off-center. When the thigh bone’s head was examined internally, it was found to have beautifully curving lines from the head, while other bone fibers crossed over it. This bony crisscross pattern is like a diagram showing the lines of stress within the loaded structure. In other words, the thigh bone was strengthened in exactly the manner and direction in which the strength was required.

Mr. Eiffel simply copied the thigh bone structure using wrought iron in place of bone and designed the now famous, flared tower. Even though Mr. Eiffel won the contest, the competing architects scoffed and predicted the tower would collapse under its own weight. It still stands today, a century later. But of course it would; Mr. Eiffel just copied what has been allowing us to stand all these years, our thigh bone. Maybe we should rename this famous structure the “Thigh Tower” … or better yet – “God’s Tower”. After all, the Eiffel Tower is really His design.

Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about

~ Job 10:8

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

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – April 19

Anatomy

The world’s first artificial stomach was recently developed in Britain at a cost of $1.8 million dollars. It even vomits! The shiny, high-tech box is made of plastics and metal and is built to withstand the corrosive acids and enzymes found inside a real stomach. The two-part model is just a little larger than a desktop computer. Food, stomach acids, and digestive enzymes are poured into the stomach, which mixes them in the first chamber. The artificial stomach attempts to copy real muscle contractions to mix everything up. Software regulates how long food remains in the chamber. Yet, scientists really don’t know how well this lab bench simulator stomach replicates the real thing. A scientist involved with this project admits, “Our knowledge of what actually happens in the gut is still very rudimentary.”

Nevertheless, food companies are interested; one company wants to test its biscuits to see when a particular nutrient is released, and another is interested in how quickly glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream. Even though this stomach took millions of dollars and hundreds of hours to design and build, it still cannot accomplish what our own stomach can do. If it took intelligence to make this artificial stomach, imagine the immense intelligence it took to make our own stomach! Evolutionists would have us believe that our stomach happened by accident and chance. Did this artificial stomach, which is not even as good as our own stomach, happen by accident and chance? I just can’t stomach that idea! When we see a stomach, we know there must be a stomachmaker and that stomach-maker is God!

And Jesus said, “Are ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly...”

~ Matthew 15:16-17

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

References for this devotional.

Daily Devotional – February 29

Anatomy

Incredible complexity shows up in every area of the human body. The study of any one of our organs (our heart, liver, stomach, lungs, eyes, ears, and dozens of others) is enough to totally discredit the belief in slow evolutionary development. Doctors spend a lifetime specializing in understanding the operation of just one specific human organ and understand that even tiny variations in one of a thousand different specifically designed parts of the organ wreaks havoc with the human body. To believe that even one of the complex systems listed below developed itself is to believe in pure fantasy.1

In his chapter “Purposeful Design,” Geoffrey Simmons, M.D. lists 81 facts that he believes point to design rather than chance as postulated in Darwin’s theory of evolution.2 Simmons points out that Darwin had little knowledge of genetics, physiology, and conception. So how could his theory still be accepted as valid?

• Every significant change in a human male reproductive system as he evolved from a less-than-human ancestor had to have been matched at exactly the same time with a reciprocal change in the female reproductive system (or vice versa).
• The egg has to know when it’s time to ovulate, how to pop out of the ovary, how to travel through the fallopian tube, how to receive a single sperm and immediately shut out other sperm, and how to eventually implant itself into the uterus.
• A cell resembles a miniature industrial complex more complicated than a General Motors or Boeing manufacturing plant.
• The brain can store between 100 trillion and 280 quintillion bits (1 followed by 20 zeros) of information in a mere three pounds of matter. By comparison, the largest computer array designed to date by IBM3 can store 120 million gigabytes of information (1 followed by 15 zeros) in a building the size of a large house. Thus, the human brain is capable of storing 100,000 times more bits of information than mankind’s largest computer in a much smaller space.
• Eyes are to the brain like an antenna is to a television. Millions of cells lining the interior of each eye function as photochemical receivers, converting light waves into a myriad of electrical impulses that are forwarded at 200 miles per hour to the brain. There the impulses are sorted, organized, and analyzed in a process more complex than the creation and viewing of a three dimensional holograph image. All of this is accomplished in milliseconds.
• Our hormones work in both parallel and tandem. Some require multiple hormones to perform their function and others only work in sequential order within a cell. Many have double and triple functions.
• Every movement of our bodies involves a complex array of interacting nerves, muscles, ligaments, tendons, joints, soft tissues, blood vessels, and bones. Millions to billions of cells work in unison to accomplish this.

Incredible complexity shows up in every part of the body, and then it has to be integrated with the other parts in order to work together. Happen by accident and chance? Hardly! We are fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:  marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

~ Psalm 139:13-14

“I have found nature to be a conserver. Nothing is wasted or permanently lost in nature. Things change their form but never cease to exist. After I leave this world I do not believe I am through. God would be a bigger fool than even a man if He did not conserve the most important thing He has yet done in the universe.”

~ George Washington Carver, scientist and inventor

“If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain…Christ [is] risen from the dead…the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he has put all things under his feet.”

~ 1 Corinthians 15:17, 20, 26,27a

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

References for this devotional.