John N Clayton Archives - Page 109 of 113

June 18, 2020June 17, 2020

Design of Evergreen Trees

We take for granted that the simple things around us are just the way they are without realizing the wisdom and design they display. A classic example is the design of evergreen trees such as pines, spruces, and firs. Why are these conifers shaped differently from deciduous trees such as oaks and maples? The answer is that the design of evergreen trees is an example of incredible planning and wisdom. Their design gives these northern trees some built-in characteristics that allow them to exist.

The shape of the conifers is pyramidal, which is unique among plants. That shape allows sunlight to reach all of the tree’s branches. Since those trees often grow in cold areas, the shape also prevents excessive amounts of snow from building up on the top branches causing them to break. Evergreen trees tend to have a shallower root structure than deciduous trees, and wind resistance on the upper part of the tree would tend to topple it. The pyramid shape reduces wind resistance.

Instead of having leaves, the design of evergreen trees means they have narrow needles, which also reduce wind resistance compared to broad leaves. The branches are layered with space between the layers allowing wind to pass through. Since those trees often grow in northern areas where the angle of sunlight is low, the layered branches also allow the sunlight to reach into all of the branches. The needles reduce water loss compared to leaves so that the trees can survive in dry areas.

An evolutionist is constrained to believe that adaptations like this are lucky accidents. But as we understand the complex system of the world around us, the models that depend on luck become less believable. In the words of Romans 1:18-20, we can know there is a God through the things He has made. The Bible presents trees as God’s tools to sustain human life in the past, present, and future. (See Genesis 1:8-9 and Revelation 22:1-2.)

June 17, 2020June 16, 2020

Lessons from a Prism

It seems that God has built into the natural world all kinds of reminders about the nature of our relationship with Him. We repeatedly talk about how intelligence, order, and design are a natural part of the creation around us. One of the best examples of that is what we call lessons from a prism.

If you take sunlight and shine it on a prism (a solid triangular chunk of glass), the sunlight is broken up into all the colors of the rainbow. Each of those colors has a specific function In living things due to their different energies. Red has the lowest energy of visible light, and violet has the highest. The other colors have energies in between from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to violet. Green has the highest energy of light that makes it through the Earth’s atmosphere to reach us. Plants are green to reflect that highest energy, thus protecting the plants. Higher energies of light are scattered away from the Earth’s surface, making our sky blue.

The parallel to Jesus is astounding. In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” This idea is repeated over and over. (See John 1:4-5; 1 John 1:5-7.) Like natural light, the “light of the world” is made up of many things – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. We see all of those things in the lives of the followers of Jesus. The most energetic of these is love. That is why 1 Corinthians 13 is devoted to describing the unique power of the kind of love Jesus brings to the world. The Greek word used in that passage is “agape,” the most unique form of the five types of love the Greek language describes.

The lessons from a prism do not end with visible light. In the spectrum of physical light, some frequencies are not visible to our eyes. There are ultraviolet, Xrays, and gamma rays, all of which have incredible power beyond that of visible light. In the “light of the world” we have the operation of the Holy Spirit, who has power beyond anything we can imagine. He can make changes in each of us not only now, but also when time has ended.

On the other end of the physical spectrum, we have less energetic forms of light beyond red. These include infrared and all kinds of radio waves. Jesus came to the Earth to bring a special kind of light to all people. The problem with this part of the “light of the world” is that it involves words and the written page. People could and did reject what Jesus taught. Today people not only reject it but misinterpret and misrepresent what Jesus wants us to do. This light is less effective because humans are involved in making it work.

The ultimate future of the cosmos is that all light will be made into one. Second Peter 3:10-13 tells us that the elements will melt with fervent heat, and everything physical will be dissolved. We see confirmation of this in the equation E =mc^2. Peter goes on to say that this will lead to a New Heaven and a New Earth. Revelation chapters 21 and 22 describe some of the properties of this new spiritual existence. Paul had a vision of it in 2 Corinthians 12:3-5 and said that any words to describe it would be unspeakable.

Lessons from a prism remind us that we are the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14-16). Understanding the magnificence of the spiritual spectrum seen in Christ Jesus gives us the tools to carry that light to those in darkness.

June 14, 2020June 12, 2020

COVID-19 and Church Closings

A major issue in America today is COVID-19 and church closings. The problem was highlighted recently when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ordered churches to remain closed while shopping malls and bars were opened. Many politicians are trying to get votes by advocating that churches be opened even though they haven’t been in a church of any kind for a very long time.

We have pointed out that the biblical concept of the Church is not a huge building with massive numbers of people meeting together. The Church is people (1 Corinthians 3:16), and we need for worship is two people, “gathering together in the name of Jesus” (Matthew 18:20). Is it valid to compare bars and churches?

In The Week magazine for June 5, 2020 (page 6), mentioned several cases where Churches have spread the Covid-19 virus. In a choir practice, one singer infected 52 of 61 choir members, and two of them died. In Arkansas, an infected singer passed the virus to 35 members of the choir who, in turn, infected 21 in the community, and three died. In Frankfort, Germany, a church service infected 107 people, even though social distancing was in place.

In this time of COVID-19 and church closings, we must find ways of worshiping together without exposing others to the virus. We can do this by meeting outside, by having services on YouTube, Facebook, Zoom, or by meeting in small groups. Endangering our congregations’ vulnerable members to a potentially lethal virus is not a way to worship God.

June 13, 2020June 12, 2020

Reflections on the Existence of God

Now and then, we come across a book that is so unique and useful that we want to share it with our friends. We publish a review of such books in our quarterly journal. Just recently, we found a book titled Reflections on the Existence of God by Richard Simmons III.

Simmons is exceptionally well-read and has accumulated a massive number of stellar quotes from people in various disciplines on the existence of God. Well documented and credited, these quotations are incredibly useful. If you are like me, you frequently know someone has said what you are trying to say, but they have said it better. A classic example in Simmon’s book is a quote of Henry Bosch from the Encyclopedia of 7,700 illustrations:

“Socrates taught for 40 years, Plato for 50, Aristotle for 40, and Jesus for only three. Yet the influence of Christ’s three-year ministry infinitely transcends the impact left by the combined 130 years of teaching from these men who are among the greatest philosophers of all antiquity. Jesus painted no pictures, yet some of the finest paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci received their inspiration from Him. Jesus wrote no poetry, but Dante, Milton, and scores of the world’s greatest poets were inspired by Him. Jesus composed no music, still, Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, and Mendelsohn reached their highest perfection of melody in the hymns, symphonies, and oratories they composed in His praise. Every sphere of human greatness has been enriched by this humble carpenter of Nazareth.”

An author like Simmons brings things to us that we would otherwise have missed. As we ponder the words of great writers, our faith in Jesus grows. We are fed and encouraged by the words of those whose creativity of expression is greater than ours.

Reflections on the Existence of God is available from Amazon. We have used other quotes from this book HERE and HERE.

June 8, 2020June 7, 2020

What Christians Can Eat

The COVID-19 virus has raised many new issues for Christians. There seems to be no question that the virus came to humans from animals. Specifically, it appears that bats are the primary source of many of the viruses that have plagued humans. So there is a question of what Christians can eat.

The Old Testament dietary laws did not allow the Israelites to eat certain foods. Genesis 9:2-4 says not to eat meat that “has its lifeblood in it.” Leviticus 11:1-47 and Deuteronomy 14 spell out a wide range of dietary restrictions. Today we know why those restrictions were put in place because the animals the Israelites were forbidden to eat were carriers of viruses infectious to humans.

In the New Testament, the picture changes. The early Church leaders met to determine what actions they should abstain from and what Christians can eat (Acts 15:28-29). They decided that Christ’s followers should avoid all trappings of idolatry, including licentiousness, drunkenness, and fornication. They should also avoid eating blood; specifically, animals strangled so that the lifeblood was still in the meat.

Colossians 2:14-16 tells us that Jesus nailed the legalistic rules of the Old Testament to His cross. The passage is clear that Paul is talking about “religious festivals, New Moon celebrations, and Sabbath Days.” Jesus did not do away with the lifestyle choices referred to in Acts 15, but with the Old Law’s legalistic demands that were difficult for the people to keep.

The other passage that deals with what we can eat is Acts 10:9-16. God gave Peter a vision in which he saw a sheet full of animals lowered to him, and a voice told him to kill and eat. What we tend to miss is that Peter identifies two kinds of foods he had never eaten. Verse 14 quotes Peter as saying, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten that which is COMMON (Greek word koinoo) or UNCLEAN (Greek word akathartos).”

The word “common” means ordinary, like everyone else. The word “unclean” means defiled, impure. God’s response to Peter was, “What God has cleansed don’t you call COMMON.” “Defiled” would mean what is referred to in Genesis 9:2-4 – having its lifeblood in it. “Common” would mean the things the Gentiles ate that were not defiled. Peter is about to convert a Gentile, a major change in his life. God makes it clear that he can participate in Gentile foods, but this passage does not approve drinking blood or any other impure foods.

What Christians can eat is virtually anything, but they need to avoid those foods that are dangerous for human consumption. By their diet, early Christians could be protected from diseases that were common in the pagan world around them.

June 7, 2020June 2, 2020

Fire Chaser Beetles

It seems that God has created creatures to fill every possible need that can occur in nature. One of the most interesting of these is a beetle that is actually attracted to fires. According to the American Museum of Natural History, the beetle is of the genus Melanophila. People who live in areas where wildfires are frequent refer to them as “fire chaser beetles.”

When a fire occurs, the beetles sense its presence and fly toward it. They will lay their eggs in forest material that is still smoldering, or in material that has been recently burned. The biological explanation is that their eggs are safer from predators than they would be in an area that has not been burned, but how would they know that.

If you think about it, this beetle is a significant factor in the recovery of a burned area. One problem after wildfires is that much of the food for birds and mammals has been destroyed. The whole ecosystem has to be reset, and the eggs and baby beetles of Melanophila are at the bottom of the food chain. The fire chaser beetles’ ability to locate the fires involves an infrared detection system. Instead of flying away from the fire, as you would expect, they fly toward it.

How such a system could develop by natural selection is an interesting question. It seems that fire chaser beetles are part of God’s design to assist the recovery of burned-over areas.

Reference: Reader’s Digest, June 2020, page 36.

June 5, 2020June 12, 2020

Sex as a Commodity

In the world of today, young people treat sex as a commodity. Liberal feminist Naomi Wolf put it this way: “We have raised a generation of young women, and men, who don’t understand sexual ethics. They don’t see sex as sacred or even very important anymore. Sex has been commodified and drained of its deeper meaning.”

In his book The End of Sex: Erotic Love after the Sexual Revolution, George Lenard says, “I have finally come to see that every game has a rule, and sex has rules. Unless you play by the rules, you’ll find sex can create a depth of loneliness that nothing else can.” The National Survey of Counseling Directors recently surveyed 6500 sexually active teenage girls. They found that sexually active teenagers are three times more likely to attempt suicide than young women who are not sexually active.

On October 2 of 2017, the New York Times printed an article by Dr. Gail Bolan, Director of the Division of Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control. The data quoted in that article said that there were 110 million sexually transmitted infections in the United States. Bolan called that an epidemic.

What are the effects of treating sex as a commodity? J.D. Unwin, in his book titled Sex and Culture, reported on 86 civilizations. Unwin was not a believer, but his conclusion is, “In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a completely new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on pre-nuptial sexual restraint.”

Christian author Philip Yancey commented on Unwin’s book by saying, “Unwin preached a message that few people want to hear. Without realizing it, though, Unwin may have subtly edged toward a Christian view of sexuality from which modern society has badly strayed. For the Christian, sex is not an end in itself, but rather a gift from God. Like such gifts, it must be stewarded according to God’s rules, not ours.”

These quotations are from Reflections on the Existence of God by Richard E. Simmons III, available on Amazon.

June 4, 2020June 4, 2020

Moral Dilemma of Atheism

One of the difficulties of atheism is that when you deny God’s existence, you leave yourself with no real basis for making moral decisions. Norman Geisler, in the book The Intellectuals Speak Out About God, tells a wonderful story about a philosophy student and his professor that illustrates the moral dilemma of atheism.

“The student wrote a research paper arguing that there is no God; consequently, he went on to argue, there can be no objective or absolute moral principles. Judged by the paper’s research, scholarship, and argumentation, most would have agreed it was easily an A paper. The professor, however, wrote these words on the paper: F – I do not like this blue folder.

The student stormed into the professor’s office, waving his paper, protesting, ‘This is not fair! This is totally unjust! Why should I be graded on the color of the folder? It should have been graded on its contents, not its color!’

Once the student had settled down, the professor asked quietly, ‘Was this the paper which argued that on the basis of the godless universe in which we live, there are no objective moral principles such as fairness and justice? Did you not also argue that everything is a matter of one’s subjective likes and dislikes?’

‘Yes … yes …’ the student replied hesitantly. ‘Well then,’ said the professor, ‘I do not like blue folders. The grade will remain an F.’ Abruptly, the face of the young man changed. It struck him that he really did believe in objective moral principles such as fairness and justice. As the professor changed the grade to an A, the student left with a new understanding of the objective nature of morality. It is easy to proclaim that there is no God, but it is impossible to live consistently and honestly within the resulting atheistic framework.”

The moral dilemma of atheism is only one of the issues discussed in the book, which is a collection of essays by leading philosophers and scientists. It was published by Gateway in 1984 but is still available on Amazon.

June 3, 2020June 2, 2020

Helping Prisoners Restore their Lives and Faith

Today we are doing something different, but we feel this is an area of apologetics that needs attention. In this day and time, Christians getting involved in prison work is an excellent evidence of the existence of God. Atheists are not going to spend time and money helping prisoners restore their lives.

We have over 4,000 students in our “Does God Exist?” correspondence course, and a vast percentage of them are in prison. They tell of losing their faith in God and immersing themselves in activities that landed them in prison. They take our courses in the hope that their faith can be rekindled, and they can rebuild what is left of their lives.

One of the programs that has assisted us is the Kings Crossings Prison Ministries in Corpus Christi, Texas, directed by Buck Griffith. They have a program called “NewLife Behavior Ministries” and a study called Christians Against Substance Abuse (CASA). Substance abuse is a major issue in America today, and many of our students have had substance abuse problems.

Buck Griffith has written a manual titled Loosed and Forgiven which describes how to start and grow a jail ministry. The manual has 151 pages, and it is the best resource we have seen on the mechanics of prison work. Helping prisoners restore their lives, and faith is a great way to demonstrate the love of Christ.

If you are interested in prison work, I recommend that you purchase Buck’s book. The cost is $14.95 plus shipping. For more information, contact NewLife Behavior Ministries, PO Box 270720, Corpus Christi, Texas 78427-0720. Their phone number is 361-855-3372, and their email is nlbcasa@yahoo.com. You can find more information on their website www.nlbm.org.

June 1, 2020May 31, 2020

Body Repair System at Work

Advertisements for food supplements, diet plans, and “miracle cures” on the internet and television, in magazines, and newspapers continuously remind us that things in our environment threaten our existence. We are indeed attacked by human-made toxins, natural toxins, air and water pollution, ultraviolet radiation and x-rays from the Sun, and contaminants in the foods we eat. We have a natural body repair system that takes care of most of those threats.

The chemistry of the human body is an incredibly complex system in which a wide variety of chemicals keep us alive. There are 60-trillion cells in an average human body, and each cell has a chemical signature for what it does. Cells in your pancreas produce insulin and pump it into your bloodstream. Your thyroid produces a chemical that governs your metabolism. Your bone marrow and thymus gland produce antibodies that ward off disease. Those are only a few examples of the body repair system.

Most cells have thousands of chemical reactions going on at any given moment. The facilitators of this chemical system are proteins called enzymes. For every one of the thousands of chemical reactions that go on in each cell of your body, there is one specific protein molecule. It has just the right shape to bring two other molecules together and form bonds. That means there are massive numbers of enzymes to fill that role.

Our DNA contains the blueprints for making the enzymes, and our cells use those blueprints to make the proteins they need. If a cell is damaged, it dies, and another cell replaces it. If the DNA is damaged, then bad information is fed to the cells, and the result can be catastrophic. To avoid that problem, our DNA has segments known as genes. Each of the roughly 80,000 genes in the human body carries the information to assemble one enzyme and control one chemical reaction in the cell. This one enzyme can repair damage in the DNA, so the number of things that can kill a cell is significantly reduced by the body repair system.

Scientists are very interested in repair enzymes and how they keep our DNA functional. God has designed a system that enables us to live. Understanding that design is opening the door for new ways to cure the ills of humanity. Biochemists are researching and designing treatments for various genetic diseases. Reading about this kind of research always brings back the statement of David in Psalms 139:14, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are your works…”