Pressure!

This morning, at the worship service with Wishaw Baptist Church, the young people of the Bible Class presented us with a News Bulletin!  It was, basically, sharing some of what they have been up to in recent times.  However, the script was excellent (better than much of what is delivered as "entertainment" on most TV and Radio broadcasts!), and the gathered congregation was, at times, "in stitches"!

The main part of the presentation concerned the strength of the humble egg.  The pastor was invited to attempt to crush one between his hands.  He could not do so.  We watched a video of the Bible Class themselves attempting to do the same thing.  They could not do so, either.  We saw some of them literally walking on eggs - and not one egg even cracked.  We even saw eggs bear the weight of two crushed cars, without them breaking!

The lesson from all of this fun was, and is, very serious.  It was, surely, no accident that the pastor's message was on the suffering church - and, No, there had not been any previous collusion!  Because of its unique, double-curved, shape an egg is extraordinarily strong.  Yet, it is, simultaneously, extremely fragile!  Disciples of Jesus are like that.  As we put our faith/trust in the Lord Jesus, we have a strength that the world cannot really understand.  How does one explain, in merely human terminology, how 21 young men could kneel on a Libyan beach and, knowing the fate that was about to befall them, die with the Name of Jesus on their lips?  One cannot!  It is not 'natural'!  It was, however, a wonderful testimony to the grace of God at such a time.    Tremendous strength.

However, most of us, including disciples of Jesus, are not immune from the lesser suffering that is common to mankind.  We live in a world that has been tainted, and corrupted, by sin.  We experience illness and disease; financial, and relational, problems; unemployment, and bereavement.  We are fragile beings, with bodies that are subject to decay as we grow older.  Each of us will, until the Rapture, experience physical, mortal, death.  The wonder is that, in Jesus, His strength can overcome our difficulties - not remove them, but see us through them.

One further point was made, this morning.  It was that, in the 'experiments', all of the eggs were facing the same way. There is great strength in unity.  That may be why the anonymous writer of the Letter to Hebrew believers wrote: "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."  (Heb.10:23-25; emphasis added).

That "Day" refers to the glorious coming again of the Lord Jesus, the Christ - not as a helpless Babe in a Bethlehem manger, but as King of kings, and Lord of lords.  Are you ready for that Day?  Will you be among those who will have loved His appearing (see II Tim.4:8)?  I trust that you will and, if I may be of any assistance at a personal level, please feel free to use the e-mail address at the top of the page, to contact me.

Evolution - or adaptation?!

It was a brief newspaper article that informed me that salamanders - those lizard-like amphibians - in the Applachian Mountains of the eastern U.S.of A., have shrunk in size by eight per cent over the past fifty years!  Scientists, it was reported, "... attributed the evolution to the species adapting to climate change." (Minicosm, 26/03/14).

I found that to be a very interesting comment.  In one sentence, it used two words as if they are almost synonymous - without, apparently, realising that they are totally different!   If these creatures had "evolved", they would now be something different.  That, after all, is what evolution is claimed to do.  There would also, especially after such a brief period, be an abundance of intermediate creatures - those that were part of the way between the salamanders of fifty years ago and the creature into which they had evolved.

The other word that was used in the quotation is, of course, much more accurate.  These salamanders have not 'evolved'; they have merely adapted to changes in climate - or other environmental changes that may even be fairly localised!   They are still salamanders!

Even as a non-biologist, I get annoyed at this loose use of the English language that leads those who take such statements at face value to pontificate that, once again, "science has 'proved' evolution"!

There is another thought.  If these salamanders had 'evolved' into a new form of creature in fifty years, that would shoot gigantic holes in the 'old-earth' theory, i.e. the theory that the planet is millions of years old.  These vast time periods are necessary to support the Darwinian Theory of Evolution, as they are required to permit the gradual changes that the theory promotes, and that allowed (to put it simplistically) amoeba to evolve into human beings.   Of course, if that had been the case, as it is often claimed is shown by the fossil record, then there would evidence in that record of those intermediate forms.  Even Darwin accepted that, and is recorded as having stated that, if such fossils were never to be found (and he expected that, in his very near future, they would) it would be a major blow to his theory!

As has been pointed out by many who are much cleverer than I, evolution is not a scientific fact.  It is an anti-God philosophy espoused by humanists and atheists.   True science has two basic requirements before a theory may be accepted as a fact: observation, and repetition.  In other words, I must be able to observe the experiment (or whatever) that I am performing, and I must be able to repeat it.  Obviously, neither of these is possible with regard to the past.

So don't allow the atheistic 'scientists' to fool you.  Often, they can't even differentiate between evolution and adaptation!