It’s comforting to know that the Creator of all the Universe takes care of us.
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| EPrata photo |
Category: creation
The Pillars of Creation
Phil Johnson’s sermon “Why I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (text: Romans 1:19-20) is a brilliant and majestic exploration of the Creation. Pastor Johnson said,
“…the most obvious truth we learn about God from nature: He is glorious. Every molecule of the universe unveils and declares God’s glory. You can see amazing, majestic displays of incomprehensible glory from any conceivable perspective. The glory of God is on display in vivid, intense, and graphic detail no matter where you turn your eyes. Look in the most powerful telescope at the outer edges of the current technology’s ability to see, and what you will observe is breathtaking glory.”
NASA re-oriented its Hubble telescope and took another photo of the Pillars of Creation, its most famous photo, taken in 1995. In the 20th anniversary of the iconic space picture, we see an even more startling clarity than we’ve ever seen before. This morning in looking at the newly released Hubble telescope’s “Pillars of Creation”, I was pondering the Creator and His glory. What a joy that Johnson’s latest sermon is on this topic. He unfolded a most beautiful and cohesive explanation of why the likeliest most important verse in the bible is:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Why did AW Tozer claim that verse as the most important? Even though ALL scripture is profitable? Because all else flows from there. In dogmatic, simple fashion, God made a statement that answers the basic questions all humans ask. Where did we come from? Is this all there is? Why is man different from the animals? and has a conscience? and can think? As Johnson said,
This text lays the necessary foundation for a truly biblical worldview. It tells us an essential truth, and it’s the very first of all the inspired biblical dogmas.
This photo takes my breath away. God is tremendous.
When you look at this photo remember that God made all those stars.
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. (Ps 147:4).
Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.” (Isaiah 40:26).
Please listen to the sermon linked above. It will expand your thinking on Romans 1:19-20, and it will re-affirm your humility, as it did Job’s, under the sovereignty of such a Creator.
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| Pillars of Creation. NASA |
Star Trek-like force field protects earth from killer electrons
I was raised an atheist. My father was in love with science, Darwin, and everything related to evolution. In our house, Darwin was God. Creationism was dismissed with a sneer and “Science” was worshiped.
In some ways I am grateful for the heavy emphasis on science, because I have an enduring love for it now. I enjoy the scientific process, scientific advances, and the interplay between ivory tower discoveries and boots on the ground impact to societies.
However, the bible is the truth, and in Romans 1 we learn that the glory of God has been revealed to all people. It has been made plain to us in His creation. Growing up, I would try to balance what I’d been taught about the Big Bang theory and evolution and other ‘science’, with what I was actually seeing about the creation.
What was I seeing? A glorious earth, mysterious, complex, delicate but sturdy. I’d see the march of the tides, regular and dependable. I’d see the stars, meteor showers, northern lights, moon phases, and occasional comets and I’d wonder how they all got there and why it was so orderly. And so beautiful.
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| Polar Lights. The Graphics Fairy |
I was born in 1960 and I vividly remember the old black and white television set showing ticker tape parades for the early astronauts who went into space and returned alive to tell the tale. The first moon landing…I’d muse about my grandmother, born around 1900 and died around 1980. She was born when man was earth-bound and she watched us as a species leave the ground through flight and eventually leave earth and hurl ourselves into space. The twentieth century was an amazing time to be growing up.
I’d wonder, what is it about man that makes him restless, and wanting to know more, pursue frontiers, go into the dangerous and enticing starry deep?
Bob Ballard was huge too. His pursuit of knowledge from another frontier, deep ocean, captivated me. In the 1970s and 1980s he and Jacques Cousteau kept my interest with reports of yet another ‘previous unknown species’ from the deep. Who were these creatures? Why don’t we know about them? How many more are there? What’s going on down at the deepest levels of the ocean?
My childhood home in RI was not far from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and the University of RI offered a solid course in oceanography. RI is called “The Ocean State”. Ocean stuff was all around. Therefore, I was curious about the discovery of the deepest ocean mysteries, the hydrothermal vents, discovered in 1977 by Dr Ballard in his submersible Alvin. WHOI explains,
In 1977, scientists diving in the submersible Alvin made a stunning discovery on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean: vents pouring hot, mineral-rich fluids from beneath the seafloor. In addition, they also found the vents were inhabited by previously unknown organisms that thrived in the absence of sunlight. These discoveries forever changed our understanding of Earth and life on it.
That turned my perspective upside down. Organisms that live on magnesium and sulfur and acids?? Organisms that do not need the sun nor photosynthesis? How can this be? How does a cludgy and unwieldy theory such as evolution account for such earthly variety?
It doesn’t, as I came to learn when the Lord regenerated my heart.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20).
They are without excuse because they suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18). I understand this personally and dramatically because the more I looked around me at creation, the more it was plain that God must exist.
Here is some news that shows plainly, once again, that God is showing Himself as Creator.
Earth’s Invisible ‘Star Trek’ Force Field Protects You From Killer Electrons
The Earth is surrounded by “killer electrons,” and it turns out one of the only things protecting us from them is an invisible force field of the type usually seen in sci-fi flicks.
These electrons, part of the two Van Allen radiation belts that surround the planet, can knock satellites out of commission and threaten astronauts. But in a new study in the journal Nature, scientists say they’ve discovered that these electrons suddenly stop at about 7,200 miles above the surface of the Earth.
“It’s almost like theses electrons are running into a glass wall in space,” professor Daniel Baker, director of CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and lead author of the study, said in a news release. “Somewhat like the shields created by force fields on ‘Star Trek’ that were used to repel alien weapons, we are seeing an invisible shield blocking these electrons. It’s an extremely puzzling phenomenon.”
LOL, really. Earth is specifically, uniquely, and wonderfully protected by a shield. Here is an artist’s rendition of how the shield may look and how it works.
Caption: “An artist’s rendition of the Van Allen radiation belts as well as the “invisible wall” that blocks electrons from the Earth. | Andy Kale, University of Alberta“.
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Here is how I like to imagine the same scientific scene in spiritual terms. God’s hands personally protecting us, His people, on the planet He created for us to inhabit and work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15).
The scientist said in another article, “Things we thought in the past were true simply are not correct.” (source)
Lol, really.
Science is wonderful and I am for science. Christianity and science are not mutually exclusive. Science has given us penicillin, DNA understanding, X-rays, space travel, even the internet that fuels this laptop.
However I’d like to say two other things also. The bible is not a book of science. It refers to natural history and other scientific processes, but ultimately it is not an apologetic for human science. It is a book which recounts deeds of a mighty Creator.
Secondly, the bible transcends science. It is always true. Time and again, men and women pursuing an understanding of how earth or ocean or space works, find that they must revise or even abandon their theories. While it can be said that a ride on a scientific theory is like hanging on to a tiger by its tail because it changes so often, ultimately, truth is found in God and in His Bible, and that ride is constant. It is always true. It never needs revision.
People who cling to science as exalted highest knowledge eventually become disappointed because ‘Things we thought in the past were true simply are not correct’. Ultimate truth and ultimate resting in that truth is not in science, it is in God. He never changes. (Hebrews 13:8). There is no shadow of turning in Him. (James 1:17).
The worship of Abraham to God and Jeremiah’s and Micah’s and Peter’s and Paul’s and Calvin’s and Spurgeon’s and MacArthur’s and mine is a constant because it’s toward an unchanging God. He is the same. The world around us changes, and our understanding of it lessens and deepens as we see the science advance and retreat in its hurtling through this frontier or that. However, Moses worshiped the same God I do. This is a comfort.
I never need to restlessly pursue this theory or that, only to find the scientists are changing it all again! What joy to see revelations of our Creator through men like Dr Baker who pursue knowledge of how and why our earth works as it does.
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:3)
Butterflies: the Death and Resurrection Theory
I recommend the following one-hour documentary:
Metamorphosis: The Beauty and Power of Intelligent Design, explores compelling evidence for intelligent design as revealed through the life cycle of butterflies.
The transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to adult butterfly defies Darwinian evolution through random variation and small gradual steps. In fact, some evolutionary biologists have called the process of metamorphosis “butterfly magic.” That’s not surprising, given that inside the chrysalis, the cells of the caterpillar break down into a chemical soup. Then new cells – butterfly cells – form from the molecular components. In just a few days, these cells are reassembled into an adult butterfly that has virtually no resemblance to a caterpillar, a process which defies evolution.
I work as a teacher’s aide in a kindergarten in a public school. At age 5 and 6, girls love butterflies. They wear butterfly shirts, have butterfly hair clips, and love to chase after butterflies on the playground when they happen to flutter by.
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| Maine butterfly. EPrata photo |
As adults, we often stop what we are doing and watch a butterfly alight on a flower. We might not stop to smell the roses, lol, but we usually stop to admire a butterfly. There’s something magical about this little insect, something colorful and worth pausing in our day to wonder about.
Butterflies exist on every continent, except Antarctica. The come in all colors, some quite vivid, and some, transparent as glass.
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| Source |
We know that the moth is mentioned in the bible, moths come out at night, and destroy in secret. God likened Himself to a moth once. In Hosea 5:12 God said “But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah“. Barnes Notes says of the verse,
“Therefore I will be unto Ephraim a moth – Literally, “and I as a moth.” This form of speaking expresses what God was doing, while Ephraim was “willingly following” sin. “And I” was all the while “as a moth.” The moth in a garment, and the decay in wood, corrode and prey upon the substance, in which they lie hid, slowly, imperceptibly, but, at the last, effectually.”
But what of the butterfly? It specifically is not mentioned in the bible, but a similar kind of transformation is.
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| Vintage butterfly drawing: The Graphics Fairy |
We all know from first grade science, that a caterpillar is born from an egg. It is “very hungry.” It munches its way through a couple of weeks of leaf eating, and then spins a chrysalis. It tucks itself into the chrysalis, and unseen by human eyes, it transforms itself into a butterfly, emerging in fully winged glory two weeks later.
Until recently, scientists did not know exactly what went on inside the chrysalis. Now that they do, they are astounded, and scrambling to defend evolution. Even if scientists find a way to defend evolution, they have to come up with theories that have amazing twists and turns to explain this process. Why?
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| “Metamorphosis” Pixabay Free pics |
Evolution does not support that an animal completely disintegrates, where every cell commits suicide in an orderly fashion as it were, and then re-forms to emerge as a new animal. Survival of the fittest says that if the caterpillar had turned into cellular soup once, the animal would have died out. Its caterpillar brain did not say, “Oh, let’s commit suicide because I know that I’ll re-form into different cells later!” To put it simply.
So scientists are asking,
Are Butterflies Two Different Animals in One? The Death And Resurrection Theory
Here’s a dangerous, crazy thought from an otherwise sober (and very eminent) biologist, Bernd Heinrich. He’s thinking about moths and butterflies, and how they radically change shape as they grow, from little wormy, caterpillar critters to airborne beauties. Why, he wondered, do these flying animals begin their lives as wingless, crawling worms? Baby ducks have wings. Baby bats have wings. Why not baby butterflies?
His answer — and I’m quoting him here — knocked me silly.
“[T]he radical change that occurs,” he says, “does indeed arguably involve death followed by reincarnation.
What he’s saying is, while a moth appears to be one animal, with a wormy start and a flying finish, it’s actually two animals — two in one! We start with a baby caterpillar that lives a full life and then dies, dissolves. There’s a pause. Then a new animal, the moth, springs to life, from the same cells, reincarnated.
Now…here’s a question. Why is it a ‘crazy, dangerous thought’? Christians know it is dangerous for the unsaved to ask this because the unsaved already know that God is real in creation, for He has made it plain to them. (Romans 1:18-19). To allow one’s mind to drift into holy territory is dangerous to them because to them it is enemy territory. So satan causes them to suppress that thought.
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| Dangerous thoughts: poster outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco. EPrata photo |
One does not usually see them express creation thoughts in print on liberal websites. But this is how powerful the butterfly’s transformation is. It pushes through the chemical fog in the unsaved’s brain to pop up unwanted and uninvited.
Yet look how hard satan pushes back. The scientist who sees plainly that the butterfly defies evolution, came up with a theory as to why. You see, according to science, the explanation is that two different animals mated in the distant past. From the same article:
According to this theory, long, long ago, two very different animals, one destined to be wormy, the other destined to take wing, accidentally mated, and somehow their genes learned to live side-by-side in their descendants. But their genes never really integrated. They are sharing a DNA molecule like two folks sharing a car, except half way through the trip, one driver dissolves and up pops his totally different successor. Driver No. 2 emerges from the body of driver No. 1.
Um…okaaaay. Or, God.
The migration of the Monarch Butterfly is another wonder.
What Mysterious Cloud Over St. Louis Turned Out to Be
A mysterious cloud that appeared on weather radar over southern Illinois and Central Missouri last week turned out to be a swarm of monarch butterflies. Meteorologists from the National Weather Service analyzed the shape-shifting cloud that was moving toward Mexico to figure out what exactly it could be. “We think these targets are Monarch butterflies.,” the National Weather Service said in a Facebook post. “A Monarch in flight would look oblate to the radar, and flapping wings would account for the changing shape!” With the mystery solved, the fine folks at the NWS wished the butterflies “good luck and a safe journey” on their trip south for the autumn and winter.
What a delight to ponder our God as Creator. He is magnificent and powerful.
With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. (Jeremiah 27:5)
The Beach, The Sea, The Ocean
This is a holiday week where many people take a vacation at the beach. I grew up in “The Ocean State”, the beach was never far. Nor the Bay, or the Cove, or the Inlet. I was always at some beach or other. I grew to detect and love the ocean’s moods, the weather in all its forms. The beach is such a relaxing vacation. The ocean is beautiful, mysterious, dangerous, life-sustaining, and at sunset, the beach displays the Creator’s artistry in the sky for its backdrop.
So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. (Genesis 1:21-23)
When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed. (Acts 21:5)
There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board. Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea. (Acts 27:6, 8)
For he takes up the drops from the sea; he sends them through his mist as rain (Job 36:27)
Our mighty God has created all that we see and all that we don’t see. He is our Creator, and as for the sea, what a wondrous gift it is.
How many stars are there in the Milky Way?
Space.com has an interesting discussion about how many stars there may be in the Milky Way galaxy. They wrote that it is “surprisingly difficult” to determine an answer to the question. The short article describes the counting methods and the problems with each method. In the end, the article concludes,
So is there any way to figure out how many stars are for sure? In the end, it comes down to an estimate. In one calculation, the Milky Way has a mass of about 100 billion solar masses, so it is easiest to translate that to 100 billion stars. This accounts for the stars that would be bigger or smaller than our sun, and averages them out. Other mass estimates bring the number up to 400 billion. The caveat, Kornreich said, is that these numbers are approximations. More advanced models can make the approximation more accurate, but it would be very difficult to count the stars one by one and tell you for sure how many are in the galaxy.
Below, Night sky photographer Amit Ashok Kamble captured this amazing panorama of the Milky Way over Pakiri Beach, New Zealand by stitching 10 images together into a complete mosaic. credit: Amit Ashok Kamble:
Universe Today writes about how many stars there could be in the entire universe, “And so, if you multiply the number of stars in our galaxy by the number of galaxies in the Universe, you get approximately 1024 stars. That’s a 1 followed by twenty-four zeros. That’s a septillion stars. But there could be more than that.”
If we go with the septillion number, Adam Ford, AKA Adam 4D has this free-to-use graphic to ponder:
Let’s take a moment to give praise and honor to our Creator! He made the stars. He numbered the stars. He named the stars. What man cannot comprehend, God did in a day. He is high and lifted up!
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. (Psalm 147:4)
To him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever; (Psalm 136:7)
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)
Indeed, in all His awesome majesty, He created Man, to have a relationship with. God loves us, Jesus is praying for us and the Spirit is helping us.
This great God who stretched out His hand and created a septillion stars by the power of His will, also loves each and every one of His called sheep. He loves you, nurtures you, protects you, disciplines you. Our great Yahweh, the One True God, Creator and Sustainer…
… Father.
Major eruption in southern hemisphere at Sangeang Api
Some Geo-news:
Explosive Eruption at Sangeang Api in Indonesia, “New reports from Indonesia tell of an sizable explosive eruption that occurred today yesterday at Sangeang Api.”
Ash cloud chaos may go on for days with volcano still erupting
FLIGHTS across Australia may be affected by a vast ash cloud from an Indonesian volcano, which has shut down Darwin airport and affected services to Bali. Three separate plumes are billowing from Sangeang Api, which is now erupting continuously after an initial blast yesterday afternoon. The cloud is now sweeping southeast over the west side of the Northern Territory as far south as Alice Springs, according to Tim Birch, a meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in Darwin.
Here is some information about the volcano:
Sangeang Api is an active complex volcano on the island of Sangeang in Indonesia. It consists of two volcanic cones, Doro Api at 6,394 ft, and Doro Mantoi 5,889 ft. Sangeang Api is one of the most active volcanoes in the Lesser Sunda Islands. It erupted in 1988 and the island’s inhabitants were evacuated. Between its first recorded eruption in 1512 and 1989 it erupted 17 times. It erupted again during December 2012 and May 2014.
The Australian’s headline is of interest to me. When they write ‘ash cloud chaos’ it bespeaks of man’s illusion that he controls nature. As in, ‘Aw, rats. Just when we had everything organized, this ash cloud is going to interrupt our orderly jet flights, picnics, ball games, and tanning.’ If they think one volcano erupting is ‘chaos’ then I wonder what they will think when all the world’s volcanoes are erupting during the Tribulation?
Here is a headline from the ever excitable UK Daily Mail, but their photos cannot be beat:
That does look quite ominous, doesn’t it? Here is another view, retweeted by Volcano expert Professor Erik Klemetti:
MT @teideano The view of the #Sangeang eruption from the sea. Impressive #eruption column. #volcano #indonesia
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| Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. (Psalms 144:5) |
Whenever God’s power is expressed so visibly, I ponder His attribute as Creator, King over His creation. I also think about what it will be like during the Tribulation, when God UNcreates the earth.
He created the perfect world, (Genesis 1-2); sin came and He cursed the ground, (Genesis 3:17); He judged the world through the flood and mountains came up, (Genesis 6-9); and He will judge the world again and through that judgment, will reverse the curse. Mountains will fall, (Isaiah 34:9-10, Micah 1:4 ); the earth will crack, (Isaiah 24:1, 19, Nahum 1:5); rivers will dry (Revelation 7:2, Revelation 16:12), and more. The LORD controls the earth. If chaos ensues when one volcano erupts the chaos will be incomprehensible when all of them go off. Read about the power of God in His divine Judgment of the Flood, and think about the coming judgment that awaits the unbelieving world left behind after the Bride is taken up to heaven:
The Power of Divine Judgment in the Global Flood
All we know is God split open the earth and blew what amounts to volcanic eruptions all over the planet that created the mountains, created the valleys,…
…[Y]ou can do some reading on the Mount St. Helens explosion back in 1980. The steam explosion released energy equivalent to 20 millions tons of TNT when that mountain blew its lid. It toppled 150 square miles of forest in six minutes. Really, talk about reshaping the surface of the earth.
Well, just imagine that going on all over the planet. Spirit Lake nearby, north of the volcano…created an enormous wave just because of the tremendous explosion. It created what amounted to a tidal wave, and it stripped slopes of trees 850 feet above the lake’s level. Total energy output, according to what I read, was equivalent, listen to this, to 40 million tons of TNT from that one mountain. Or 20,000 Hiroshima A-bombs. And that’s just one volcano. And when God broke up the planet and reshaped it, it would be that multiplied almost an infinite number of times. The face of the land was changed by steam blasts, landslides, water waves, hot pumice ash, mud floes. Six hundred feet of strata was formed in a handful of minutes.
God’s power is incredible. His attribute of Creator is so often overlooked in pondering His equally wonderful attributes of love, healing, restoration, reconciliation, grace, mercy … but we met God in chapter 1, page 1 of His revelation the bible, as Creator. His power is incredible, speaking the worlds into existence with just a word. Speaking all life into existence in just 6 days, all its myriad manifestations as a ready adult, with complicated reproductive systems, eco systems and habitats. He is amazing!
He will crumble it all away, this time through another global judgment, (The Tribulation) and then after the 1000 years Millennial reign is over, by a fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10). In thinking about God’s power in creation and UNcreation, please also think about the people who will endure His wrath.
Though the heavenly abode will be literally flooded with redeemed saints (Revelation 7:9-17), hell will also have to enlarge its mouth to receive the myriads of hell-bound sinners who will die during the UNcration that happens in the Tribulation. Please be sensitive to that fact, and witness with your mouth and your life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by HIM. Proclaim Jesus, be sure to be clear WHICH Jesus you are proclaiming, and stand in awe of His power when you see such events as a volcanic eruption, and earthquake, or any other powerful earth or solar storm.
I’m so glad I know that God is on the throne. When volcanoes explode or earthquakes happen, I don’t have to believe in any such thing as ‘chaos.’ God’s world is orderly, His plan is unfolding in perfect timing. We may not always know why these things happen, but we do know that chaos is not in control. God is in control.
The short, beautiful life of a magnolia blossom
Say “magnolia” and people automatically think of the South. I grew up in New England I know I certainly did. Never once did I think I’d live in the south, and with a magnolia tree across from my front door no less!
It is a stately tree, solid and aristocratic. Kenneth W. Outcalt wrote about the magnolia grandiflora tree, “Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), also called evergreen magnolia, bull-bay, big-laurel, or large-flower magnolia, has large fragrant white flowers and evergreen leaves that make it one of the most splendid of forest trees and a very popular ornamental that has been planted around the world.”
The magnolia flower of the grandiflora is just as grand as its host. The petals are enormous but velvety and have a rich ivory color. I don’t have a sense of smell so I can’t tell you directly. Locals say it smells great. Apparently the scent varies, it can smell like lemons, or violets, or vanilla.
Like the magnolia blossom, we emit a scent also.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2).
“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15)
Magnolia blossoms are blooming now. The trees are so tall, and most of the blossoms are far above my head, making a close inspection difficult. However this year, there was one bloom that was at eye level. With the flowers being so large and beautiful and emblematic of an entire region of the south, and a blossom blooming literally before my eyes, I decided to photograph one blossom each day for its entire life cycle and put it on my other blog as a photo essay.
I began the experiment on May 23. The blossom here is tightly wound, straight as an arrow, and contains no hints of the surprise inside.
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| EPrata photo |
May 24: It looks a little plumper today.
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| EPrata photo |
May 25: It popped open! Revealing more layers! How pretty!
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| EPrata photo |
May 26: Each petal is larger than my entire hand. The color ranges from white to ivory and the entire blossom looks so stately.
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| EPrata photo |
May 27: The petals are turning brown, barely hanging on to the stem, speckled on the edge with more brown. The leaves immediately under the blossom are dead. Bugs were crawling over the petals, looking for a good place to stake a claim to start munching.
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| EPrata photo |
Four days, that is all it took for the bloom to appear in its final form, open, live, and die. I was so surprised. There are many blooms on the tree, and I just assumed that they lasted a while. I’d never tracked just one. Its life is so short, a mere breath.
I was pondering that for a while today. What seemed so strong and beautiful was only a few days later fodder for death, decay, and insects. In addition, what was presented so starkly to me in the story of the magnolia is something that is repeated in our human body and our short lives. Most of us live more than 4 days, but to God, our life is a mere vapor, a mist.
“yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)
“You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.” (Psalm 39:5)
So what are we going to do with the time afforded us on our short time on earth?
“Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16)
The magnolia fruit will continue to dry out, and eventually open, revealing tiny red seeds. These drop to the ground
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| EPrata photo |
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| Mature Magnolia fruit just starting to open, with a few seeds visible. Wikimedia Commons |
One botanist wrote that it hardly seems credible that such a large tree could come from such a small seed.
Paul wrote about how our body is a seed, a mere kernel.
The Resurrection Body
“35But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.”
“42So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:35-49)
When the magnolia seed drops to the ground it is a bare kernel, it looks nothing like what it will become. It is red, the flower is white. It is small, the flower is large. It has no smell, the magnolia scent is lovely. The mature blossom lives a short time, bearing witness to the Creator, who is pleased with its beauty and scent, and then it dies. It endures decay and becomes bug-eaten and eventually, dust. (Ecclesiastes 3:20).
The parallel to people is the same. Our lives are short and ends in decay. While we are living we have a job to do, glorify the Creator and testify to His works. Will we redeem the time? Is our Lord pleased with our aroma? When we awaken to receive our final bodies, will it be to shame and contempt or to everlasting life? (Daniel 12:2).
“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice.” (John 5:28)
I pray you are awakened to eternal life, saved by thegrace of our Lord, working to redeem the time on His behalf. Because, it bears repeating,
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2)
Creation Grace: Dawn and the Sun
The sun comes up to the left of my driveway. As I leave for work and head down the driveway and stop to look left for traffic, I often see the first rays peeking up over the hill. In spring, the sun shines through the blossoming trees, illuminating them so they look like fiery snowflakes.
The Lord made the sun for His own good pleasure and for us as a useful time-marking tool
“And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.” (Genesis 1:14-19)
At one point He made the sun stand still:
“And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.” (Joshua 10:13)
At another point He made the sun go backwards ten steps:
“And Isaiah said, “This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?” And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps.” And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord, and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz.” (2 Kings 20:9-11)
And at a still future point, He will blink out the sun entirely:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken“. (Matthew 24:29)
Our Lord is Lord of Creation! This is who we worship:
“For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:18)
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded"
Scientists have announced another breakthrough. Breakthroughs seems to come fast and furious in some of the scientific disciplines. Some seem to stick and others seem to fade away immediately after the hoopla subsides. Think Missing Link in the field of evolution. And think Higgs Boson in the field of Physics. Or gluon. Or quark. Or dark matter. Or, even, the Big Bang.
The “breakthrough” physicists are excited about is that they say they have found another nugget of information about our universe immediately after it banged open. They believe that everything we see was once smaller than an electron, and something made it bang open. At the bang, there were massive gravitational waves that spread out, and this is what physicists have said they found evidence of. “Inflation” is the term they use to describe the run-up to the bang.The universe got bigger and bigger until it split open in a cataclysmic event. Gravitational waves billions of light years across or something, spread out across an instantly expanding universe. The gravitational waves make a distinctive curl or a swirl, and since the wave has already passed by, supposedly billions of years ago, the only remaining way to detect the wave is the way the light around where it used to be is polarized. A telescope in the Antarctic has discovered the swirly polarized signature of the gravitational Big Bang wave. I’ll let Discovery explain further.
Located in the arid atmospheric conditions of Antarctica, BICEP2 has a very clear view of the cosmos. The instrument has the ability of measuring the polarization of the weak signal from the CMB radiation. On Earth, sunlight can become polarized if it reflects off a mirror or when filtered by polarized sunglasses (thus reducing the glare). The radiation from the ancient CMB can also become polarized and gravitational waves have the ability to manipulate the polarization of the incoming radiation. The specific type of polarization, known as ‘B-mode polarization,’ is what BICEP2 has been looking for. And now, with a high degree of certainty, astronomers have found it.
“The swirly B-mode pattern of polarization is a unique signature of gravitational waves,” said Chao-Lin Kuo, of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, co-leader of the project. “This is the first direct image of gravitational waves across the primordial sky.”
Today’s announcement is being touted as the “discovery of the century,” and although the two papers that were announced today have yet to go to print, the high certainty that backs these results is a huge hint that astronomers may have struck gold. Not only does this finding support the theory of cosmic inflation and the first strong observational evidence of gravitational waves, it could tie in to one of the most perplexing problems in modern quantum physics: What role does gravity play with the quantum world?
Physicists are having a hard time understanding how gravity relates to the Standard Model of physics, a situation that has forced theoretical physicists to pursue increasingly exotic ideas to find an answer.
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The ‘increasingly exotic ideas in order to find an answer’ is where physicist Alexander Unziger comes in. He is a scientist who says that most of what physicists have come up with is bunk and inventions. But first, a review.
The way that most physicists describe the universe is in the Standard Model. Scientists know there are four major components of the universe, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, electromagnetic force, and gravitational force. They think have figured out the first three but for the life of them they can’t figure out gravity. Like where it comes from or how it works. So in the Standard Model they simply ignore it. The Standard Model does not address gravitational force at all. They focus on the first three. That is the first inkling that all is not well in astrophysics.
You might remember the Large Hadron Collider, which conducted an experiment to collide particles to recreate a mini-Big Bang, and see what resulted from the collision. Physicists were looking for the particle that is called Higgs Boson, which would explain the universe’s mass. Back along, they discovered neutrinos, which are particles that have no mass, but what gives the universe mass, the corresponding element to counterbalance the neutrino? They postulated there must exist such a particle, which they dubbed the theoretical Higgs Boson.
Yet that brought them further down the rabbit hole, because if there is a Higgs boson particle, counterbalancing the mass-less neutrino, there still isn’t enough matter in the universe to account for the universe. We’re only up to 4% of the universe. So they invented the theory of dark matter.
“Our current understanding of the universe suggests that the matter we can observe only accounts for about 4 percent of all the matter that must exist. When we look at the movement of galaxies and other celestial bodies, we see that their motions suggest there’s much more matter in the universe than we can detect. Scientists named this undetectable material dark matter. Together, observable matter and dark matter could account for about 25 percent of the universe.” (source)
So they invented the theory of dark energy.
And so on and etcetera.
Back to Dr Unzicker.
Science on Sunday: The Higgs Fake
I’ve just read The Higgs Fake by Alexander Unzicker. He says physicists such as Einstein would have considered the “discovery” of the Higgs boson to be utterly ridiculous. And more. Unzicker really rips into particle physics. Not physics, particle physics, also known as high energy physics or HEP. But note that Unzicker isn’t some anti-science zealot. See the author section on Amazon along with his CV and his arXiv papers. He’s a whistleblower, which is why he’s written this book.
You know this when you’ve read A Zeptospace Odyssey by CERN physicist Gian Giudice, because then you know a few things. Like the Higgs mechanism is “frightfully ad hoc”. Like it’s responsible for only 1% of the mass of matter. Like the Higgs boson isn’t the central particle of the Standard Model. So you know there’s a big difference between the facts and the mystery-of-mass hype. And you know that there’s particle physicists out there who know the facts but keep quiet, whilst others hype the hype and tell fairy tales about cosmic treacle.
So you know Unzicker isn’t talking out of his hat. You know Unzicker is right when he says particle physicists haven’t reduced the number of parameters or incorporated gravity. You know they haven’t explained the fine structure constant. Or the mass of the electron and the proton. Or why the electron and proton and their antiparticles are the only stable massive particles. You know particle physicists haven’t explained spin, or charge, or Beta decay, or any of the other puzzles that bothered Einstein and Bohr and Pauli and Schrödinger and Dirac. You know instead that particle physicists have made things more complicated rather than more elegant, going against the grain of scientific progress. You know that instead of explaining things, particle physicists have invented things. Things like supersymmetry, which is now a dead man walking. Things like isospin and color and hypercharge and strangeness. Things that aren’t explained at all, and things that are swept under the carpet, like quark confinement.
So you smile wryly when Unzicker quotes from The End of Physics by David Lindley, a former editor at Nature: “In the end, the quark model succeeded by the ironical trick of proving that no quark would ever be directly seen by a physicist.
This Alexander Unzicker sounds like my kind of scientist.
So why this whole long science essay? To mention the following three items:
1. When scientists theorize one thing and it doesn’t fit, they have to invent another theory to cover the flaws in the first theory, and then invent another to bring along the first two, and so on. This is a perfect fulfillment of this verse:
always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:7)
Of course the verse mainly means they are always learning about God in some kind of fake religion but for these scientists, science is their God. They want to know about the creation, to them it’s called the universe, and they are always learning and dub their theories “The God Particle” and “Higgsogenesis”, but never actually acknowledge God or know God.
2. Forget muons and gluons and Standard Model and dark matter and dark energy and Higgs boson and Large Hadron Collider and gravitational waves. Here is the Standard Model of the Creation of the Universe:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
That’s it. That is the answer. It is so simple that people think, ‘Oh No, It Cannot Be’. O, but it is. We overcomplicate the Gospel by adding words and law. (Galatians 3:12). We overcomplicate our prayers by adding words and repetitions. (Matthew 6:5, 6:7). And we overcomplicate science by deleting God, the First Cause of the Universe’s Existence and the Sustainer of the the Creation. (Hebrews 1:3)
3. It is all a shame, because though science is interesting, the God of creation has been made plain to them. Plain! It’s obvious! It’s not difficult, people!
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” (Romans 1:19).
The word in Greek is from phaneros, and it means: apparent, disclosed, evident, light, obvious, outward, tell, well known. The verse doesn’t say that He just showed it to them but He has made it plain.
Yet they persist. Famous Physicist Niels Bohr said,
“It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.“
There we have it. man seeks not only to suppress their evident knowledge of God, nor glorify Him, nor give Him thanks, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). They make themselves gods by saying how the universe came to be.
They come up with theories like gravitational waves in the Big Bang, a theory novelist Terry Pratchett poked at in his book Lords and Ladies,
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
Genesis 1:1 is simple but profound. Please listen to Phil Johnson’s wonderful recent sermon called “What Creation Reveals.” Pastor Johnson said,
Of Genesis 1:1, “A. W. Tozer said that’s the single most important verse in all of Scripture, even surpassing John 3:16. Something in me recoils from the idea of trying to rank the relative importance of key Bible verses, because “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable” but (of course) Tozer believed that as well. So I think I understand what he meant when he ranked Genesis 1:1 as the Bible’s most important text. This is the necessary starting-point and foundation for everything else the Bible has to say.There is no text in the whole Bible that contains more or explains more than Genesis 1:1. Literally everything is in this verse. …
If creation is the foundation of all truth, the gospel is the central truth to which all other truth leads, and Christ Himself is the very pinnacle and incarnation of all truth. If you have not yet embraced Him as “the way, and the truth, and the life,” my prayer for you is that God will open your eyes to see, and that your entire life and worldview will be transformed by the truth of Christ.“
the-end-time.org 