You may look at this message, blog,
comments or whatever you may call it, and say “this is too long, I don’t have
time to read it, or I am not interested in all this technical and scientific
information so why bother.” Whatever you reasons for not reading it are,
I encourage you to take a little time to read it anyway. If you read it with an
open mind and hear what is stated with your heart and your mind, I think you
will understand the point of why I inundated you with a multitude of facts and
why they are important.
The information listed below is
from reliable sources on the Internet such as the Smithsonian Institute,
Audubon Society, Georgetown University, the FactMonster web site, and the University of Oxford. Scripture references are from
the Bible and archeological findings.
It is my hope and prayer that
unbelievers will begin to acknowledge that there must be a Creator and that
they will start looking at Jesus after reading this article.
Page 1………..SECTION 1……….MY BACKGROUND
Page 3…….….SECTION 2………. SECULAR AND SCIENTIFIC FACTS
Page 16….…...SECTION 3……… PROBLEMS WITH EVOLUTION
Page 17….….. SECTION 4………
THE SPIRITUAL ASPECTS OF CREATION AND SECULAR PROOF THAT SHOWS THERE IS A
CREATOR
Page 25…….....SECTION 5 WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THIS INFORMATION
Page 26……….SECTION 6………NOW WHAT?
SECTION 1
MY BACKGROUND AND WHY I BELIEVE
It is my hope and prayer that they
will begin to acknowledge that there must be a Creator and that they will start
looking at Jesus.
As a child I was not exposed to
God, Jesus, religion or any spiritual deity or way of life. As a teenager I was
taken to church but was not really given solid teaching of the God we were
worshiping or supposedly loved. What I did learn was that in church there was
blatant hypocrisy and no one talked about it (except to infer hypocrisy is
wrong when others do it).
I was also baptized as a teenager
but don’t really recall that I knew what I was doing or that I knew what was
expected of me. After service one Wednesday night I was talking to the
preacher’s daughter (my age) and stated I would like to be baptized some day.
The next thing I knew I was taken to the baptismal and dunked by her father! I
continued to go to church (but the only recollection I have is of the girls in
my Sunday school class) until I got my driver’s license and then it was “good-
bye” to that stage of my life.
I did not need God for the next
five years and don’t remember talking to Him or having any type of relationship
with Him. Then at 21 years of age (I had been married for three years) while I
was training to be a Police Officer my wife decided she wanted to be single and
left me and gave me custody of our 2-year-old son. That was devastating! I
wanted to be married and have a happy home life (something I did not have
growing up in my very dysfunctional family) and children! Without notice
or warning she was gone! Then, because I needed something from Him, I
remembered God . I prayed and prayed. God, “I want my wife back, I want to have
a happy family, I want, I want...”
Well, God did not answer my prayers
the way I wanted and anger toward God crept into my heart. I wanted good things
(for myself) and that meant He should answer my prayers and give me what I ask
for. Then, to make matters worse between God and me, working as a Police
Officer I saw kids (my own son’s age) being tortured, raped and murdered. I
spoke to God. “Why are you allowing things like this to happen to these little
ones? You are allowing terrible, vicious and unthinkable things to happen
to helpless children. Well if this is who you are I want to have no part of
You. You are not a God I want to follow!” I made these assumptions even though
I had never taken the time to get to know God, why Jesus really came to earth
or what being the Creator/Savior really meant. I judged and judged harshly with
out any of the facts surrounding who He was and the explanation of why He does
what He does.
The next 15 years were dark for me
(although in my own mind I thought they were great.) I made many mistakes, poor
selfish decisions and bad judgments without thinking anything about the
repercussions of my actions and who they were hurting. I really did not care.
God did not care about me, did not answer my prayers when I needed Him and
allowed many bad things to happen to good people and children. He is definitely
not my kind of God.
As I look back, even though I had
given up on God, He had not given up on me. He saved me many times, both
physically and mentally but I did not realize where the rescue came from. I
even some times made good decisions and choices as a Police Officer that I
normally would not have made. (I realize now it was the Holy Spirit working
with me even though I did not know it.)
However, as scripture tells us we
are responsible for our actions and the consequences, both good and bad, that
come with our decisions. Many of my consequences were bad. I did not raise my
son properly. I was mainly interested in my life and doing what made me happy.
The consequences were a division between us. He rebelled and got into trouble
with the law. And for me, there was loneliness because of the shallow
relationships I created and the distance I kept between myself and the women I
dated. I would not allow commitment on my part even when I thought I wanted to
commit. These things haunted me for many years and kept me from forgiving
myself and eventually thinking God would not forgive me either. I messed up my
life and God only knows how many other lives were affected by my selfish
actions. If only I had taken the time to know the true God!
In my mid to late thirties someone
introduced me to the real God, not by preaching to me or telling me how much I
messed up. I was introduced to Jesus by means of loving kindness, compassion,
honesty, unconditional support in times of need and by that person being the
kind of Christ follower He wanted them to be. That began my journey to
accepting the true living God.
My personal belief in Jesus is not
based on statistics, historical facts (which there are many), blind faith or
weakness on my part that searches for a crutch that I can lean on when I am
feeling sorry for myself. It is based on my belief (after thorough examination)
that scripture is true; eye witnesses to His presence and all He did; total
faith that God will keep (and has kept) His promises; and that this beautiful
and wonderful world I am blessed to live in was created by God and no one or
nothing else. As far as statistics, history, logic, etc. go, they just
add more proof to the fact that God is real. Jesus did come to earth as Man and
God, and all the prophecies that were pronounced did come true.
Aside from my personal experiences
with Jesus and His life-changing power, I am going to list some practical,
logical, statistical facts that may help the unbelievers in Jesus take notice
that this world and all its living things and creation on the whole may not
have happened via evolution. It’s seems logical to think evolution could not
have created the following living things and the way they operate. Adaptation
to one’s surroundings is possible but to create from scratch these living
things and instill in them their extremely technical attributes is impossible.
It follows that there must be a creator.
SECTION 2 SECULAR AND SCIENTIFIC FACTS
Consider...
That there are 950,000
insects today.
Interesting facts about insects:
There are more than 12,000 species
of ants all over the world. An ant can lift 20 times its own body weight. If a
second grader was as strong as an ant, she would be able to pick up a car! Some
queen ants can live for many years and have millions of babies! Next to
humans, leafcutter ants form the largest and most complex animal society on
Earth!
There are 1,200 different
types of beetles in Panama
alone.
There are actually 4,500
species of cockroaches in the world.
Were 950,000 insects and their
complexities formed by chance or were they CREATED?
6,199 amphibians;
Interesting facts about amphibians:
A group of salamanders known as the
plethodontids have no lungs. The plethodontids, also called
"lungless salamanders" must absorb oxygen through their skin and
mouth to breath since they lack lungs. Of all salamanders, the plethodontids
are the most diverse group, with about 376 species. They inhabit regions of
North America, Central America, South America, southern Europe, Sardinia, and Korea.
There are between 5,000 and 6,000
species of known amphibians alive today. There are estimates that there are
about 6,000 known species of frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians. Other
sources place the estimated number of amphibian species at about 5,000. Of the
three groups of amphibians, frogs and toads are the most diverse, with about 29
families and 4,380 species. Newts and salamanders are the second most diverse group
of amphibians, with about 10 families and 470 species. There are only 3
families of caecilians and 170 species.
Are these formed by chance or
CREATED?
Birds. Interesting fact about
birds;
10,000 to 16,000, birds;
In a British education special Dr.
Alex Taylor set up an eight-step puzzle to try to stump one of the smartest
crows he's seen in captivity. They describe the puzzle as "one of the most
complex tests of the animal mind ever."
This isn't the first time the
crow’s intelligence has been tested, either. Along with being problem solvers,
these animals have an eerie tendency towards complex human-like memory skills.
Through several different studies, we've learned that crows can recognize faces,
communicate details of an event to each other and even avoid places they
recognize as dangerous.
Crows are crafty critters. They
fashion tools from twigs, feathers and other bits of debris to snare food from
hard-to-reach places. A crow named Betty uses a straight wire she bent into a
hook to retrieve food from a tube. The birds are born with a tool-making ethic,
but they hone their craft by watching their elders, a sign of higher
intelligence. Ravens, a type of crow, have even been shown to manipulate the
outcomes of their social interactions for added protection and more food.
Woodpeckers: Woodpeckers tap an
estimated 8,000-12,000 times per day. Woodpeckers have bristle-like
feathers over their nostrils help to keep wood particles from being inhaled.
Variety and intelligence formed by
chance or CREATED?
30,000 fish.
Interesting facts about fish:
Are octopi, squids and cuttlefish
smart? That's a matter of scientific intrigue, but such cephalopods are
certainly among the brainiest invertebrates in the sea. The cephalopod brain
surrounds the esophagus, but shares with the human brain features of complexity
such as folded lobes and distinct regions for processing visual and tactile
information. The ‘how-smart’ debate swirls around deciphering observations that
the creatures have a seemingly irrepressible curiosity, a disdain for boredom,
an ability to learn and the capacity to use tools.
Sea creatures get bored: chance or
CREATED?
5,416 mammals.
Interesting facts about mammals:
Chimps make and use tools, hunt in
organized groups and engage in acts of violence. Wild troops have distinct
behaviors and customs. Field observations and lab experiments show chimps are
capable of empathy, altruism and self-awareness. In memory experiments chimps
performed better than humans on a number memory test.
A dolphin in Australia uses
a sponge to protect her snout when foraging on the seafloor, a tool-use
behavior that is passed on from mother to daughter. Scientists say that's just
one sign of dolphin smarts. Other signs include distinct whistles and clicks
that may serve as dolphin names, perhaps used in a type of language. A famous
1960s experiment found that a pair of dolphins entered a tizzy of creativity
once they figured out their novel behaviors were rewarded with fish. Frustrated
human test subjects just let out a sigh of relief when they caught on to the
idea.
Elephants: The sheer size of their
brains suggests that elephants must know a thing or two about the ways of the
world. They have been seen consoling family members, helping other species in
times of need, playing in water and communicating with one another via vibrations
sensed in their feet. A crowning achievement, some researchers say, was when a
female Asian elephant named Happy recognized herself in the mirror.
Can a squirrel plot deception?
Perhaps. Researchers recently reported that the rodents put on elaborate shows
of deceptive caching to thwart would-be thieves. The behavior increased in a
lab experiment after squirrels observed humans stealing their peanuts. The
researchers called the finding a sign that squirrels can interpret intentions
of others, though it could just be a case of learned behavior. Other studies
have shown the critters make three-dimensional maps to recall where they cache
their nuts. And squirrels in California
will cover their fur in the scent of rattlesnakes to mask their own scent from
predators.
This from the University of Vienna:
Are dogs intelligent or just really good at basic obedience? They can learn to
sit, lie down and fetch, for example, but can they read their owner's
intentions? Research suggests they can at least find food in response to
non-verbal cues, a type of understanding that scientists think may be akin to
the human ability to understand someone else's point of view. The dog in a
experiment accurately discriminated between photos of dogs and photos of
landscapes — an indication the dog was able to form the concept of
"dog."
Here's the dirt on pigs: They are
perhaps the smartest, cleanest domestic animals known - more so than cats and
dogs, according to some experts. But pigs don't have sweat glands, so they roll
around in the mud to stay cool. A sign of their cleverness came from
experiments in the 1990s. Pigs were trained to move a cursor on a video screen
with their snouts and used the cursor to distinguish between scribbles they
knew and those they were seeing for the first time. They learned the task as
quickly as chimpanzees.
There is a jelly fish with 16 foot
tentacles that could be killed by a parasite the size of a flea. Fortunately it
is saved by a three inch crab that attaches itself to the jelly fish and digs
out the parasite!
Then there is the Rocky Mountain
Big Horn Sheep. When the males are fighting they crash their horns together
with such a force that it would kill a human instantly. They can do this
without getting hurt because they have a double walled skull protecting their
brain.
Intelligence, rationalization,
solving problems, being deceptive, and adaptation of survival skills without
training are things possessed by mammals. Are these wonders that boggle the
human mind created by chance or CREATED?
8,240 reptiles.
Interesting facts:
Frogs can breathe not only with
their lungs, but also through their skin. A frog's skin is thin and contains
many mucous glands that keep it moist. Oxygen can be absorbed through this
thin, damp skin.
A crocodile's digestive juices are
so strong that it can digest a steel nail.
The tuatara lizard's metabolism is
so slow they only have to breathe once an hour.
The gastric frog is known to give
birth to its young one through their mouth.
A chameleon can move its eyes in any two separate directions at the same time.
Reptiles that breathe through their
skin, crocodiles that can digest nails, giving birth through your mouth, and
eyes that move in different directions at the same time. All created by chance
or CREATED?
81,000 mollusks.
Interesting facts:
Mollusks include all animals with
or without soft shells, such as various types of snails, shellfish, and squid
and their relatives. Mollusks are the second largest phylum in the animal
kingdom after the phylum Arthropoda. Currently there are an estimated 75
thousand species, plus 35 thousand species in the fossil record. Mollusks live
in marine, freshwater, brackish, and terrestrial waters.
There are 80,000 species of
mollusks alive. There are more than 35,000 known fossil species.
Extreme variety and complexity
numbers of species. Created by chance or CREATED?
40,000 crustaceans.
Interesting facts:
All crustaceans have hard skin,
gills, and two pairs of antennae.
Crustaceans don’t have a skeleton;
their hard exoskeleton protects their body and supports them.
A lobsters teeth are in its
stomach, an area called the ‘gastric mill’
Skeletons on the outside of a body,
teeth in a stomach, chance or CREATED?
2,175 types of coral.
Coral reefs are some of the most
diverse ecosystems in the world, housing tens of thousands of marine species.
About one-third of all marine fish species live part of their lives on coral
reefs.
Housing developments for sea life.
Evolution knew to create it by chance or was it CREATED?
130,000 others (invertebrates).
Not going to discuss this one, too
much for my little brain to comprehend but again; were they formed by chance or
CREATED?
INTERESTING
FACTS ON THE EYE
According to scientist, eyes
evolved around four hundred and fifty million years ago (so scientists say) as
simple light detecting organs. Today, vision is the most important sense for
many animals, humans included, and they have became incredibly varied and
complex. Take a look at some of the strangest and most incredible eyes in the
animal kingdom. This complexity evolved?
Tarsier
The tarsier is a small (about
squirrel sized) nocturnal primate, found in the rainforests of South Eastern
Asia. It’s most remarkable feature; however, are its enormous eyes, the largest
of any mammal, relative to body size. If your eyes were proportionally as big
as those of the tarsier, they would be the size of grapefruits. These enormous
eyes are fixed in the skull, and can’t be turn in their sockets. To compensate
for this, the tarsier has a very flexible neck, and can rotate its head 180
degrees, just like an owl, to scan for potential prey or predators.
With each eye weighing more than
its brain, the tarsier has extremely acute eyesight and superb night vision; it
has even been suggested that they may be able to see ultraviolet light.
Dragonfly
The dragonfly, possibly the most
formidable aerial hunter among insects, also has some of the most amazing eyes
in the animal world. They are so big that they cover almost the entire head,
giving it a helmeted appearance, and a full 360 degree field of vision. These eyes
are made up of 30,000 visual units called ommatidia, each one containing a lens
and a series of light sensitive cells. Their eyesight is superb; they can
detect colors and polarized light, and are particularly sensitive to movement,
allowing them to quickly discover any potential prey or enemy.
Some dragonfly species that hunt at
dusk can see perfectly in low light conditions, when we humans can barely see
anything. Not only that, dragonflies also have three smaller eyes named ocelli
which can detect movement faster than the huge compound eyes can. These ocelli
quickly send visual information to the dragonfly’s motor centers, allowing it
to react in a fraction of a second and perhaps explaining the insect’s
formidable acrobatic skills. Although dragonflies are not the only insects with
ocelli (some wasps and flies have them too), they do have the most developed
ones.
Leaf
tailed gecko
Leaf tailed geckos have pretty
surreal-looking eyes; their pupils are vertical and have a series of “pinholes”
which widen at night, allowing these lizards to pick up as much light as
possible. These eyes also have many more light sensitive cells than human eyes,
giving the animal the ability to detect objects and even to see colors at
night.
To give you an idea of the gecko’s
amazing night vision, let us just say that, while cats and sharks can see six
and ten times better than humans, respectively, the leaf tailed gecko and other
nocturnal gecko species can see up to 350 times better than we can in dim
light!
Leaf tailed geckos also have a series of strange, intricate eye patterns, which
provide camouflage. These lizards lack eyelids; their eyes are protected by a
transparent membrane, and geckos are often seen cleaning this membrane with
their tongue.
Colossal squid
Not to be confused with the better
known, but smaller Giant Squid, the Colossal Squid is the largest invertebrate
known to science; it also has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. Each one
of the Colossal squid’s eyes can be up to 30 cms across, being bigger than a
dinner plate and having a lense the size of an orange. These huge eyes allow
the squid to see in dim light conditions, very useful for an animal that spends
most of its time hunting at 2000 meters below the surface.
It must be mentioned that only sub
adult colossal squid have been captured and studied thus far. Full grown
Colossal squid may grow up to 15 meters long. These giants would have even
bigger eyes. Unlike the Giant Squid, the Colossal squid has stereoscopic
vision, having a greater ability to judge distances. Even more amazing, each
eye has a built-in “headlight”, an organ known as a photophore which can
produce light so that whenever the Colossal squid focuses its eyes to the
front, the photophores produce enough light for the squid to see its prey in
the dark.
Four eyed fish
Found in Mexico
and Central America, as well as Northern South America,
these are small fish measuring up to 32 cm and usually found in fresh or
brackish water (although they have also been seen in marine coasts). They feed
mostly on insects, so they spend most of their time swimming at the surface.
Despite their name, four eyed fish have only two eyes. However, these eyes are
divided by a band of tissue and each half of the eye has a pupil of its own.
This bizarre adaptation allows the four eyed fish to see perfectly (and at the
same time) both above and below the waterline, scanning for both prey and
predators.
The upper half of the eyeball is
adapted to vision in air, while the lower half is adapted to underwater vision.
Although both halves of the eye use the same lens, the thickness and curve of
the lens is different in the upper and lower eye halves, thus correcting for
the different behavior of light in air and water. This means that when the four
eyed fish is completely submerged, the upper halves of the eyes are out of
focus. Fortunately, the fish spends almost its entire life in the surface, and
it only has to dive completely once in a while to prevent the upper halves of
the eyes from dehydrating.
Stalk eyed fly
These small but spectacular
creatures are mostly found in the jungles of South East Asia and Africa, with a
few species also found in Europe and North America.
Male flies usually have much longer stalks than females and it has been
confirmed that females prefer males with long eyestalks. Males during mating
season often stand face to face and measure their eyestalk’s length.The one with
the greatest “eye span” is recognized as the winner.
Male stalk eyed flies also have the
extraordinary ability to enlarge their eyestalks by ingesting air through their
mouth and pumping it through ducts in the head to the eyestalks. They do this
mostly during mating season.
Spookfish
The spookfish is a deep water,
ghostly-looking fish that has some of the most bizarre eye structures known to
science. Each eye has a lateral swelling called a diverticulum, separated from
the main eye by a septum. While the main part of the eye has a lens and
functions in a similar way to other animal eyes, the diverticulum has a curved,
composite mirror composed of many layers of what seem to be guanine crystals.
This “mirror” is superior at gathering light than the normal eye; the
diverticulum reflects light and focuses it onto the retina allowing the fish to
see both up and down at the same time.
The spookfish is the only
vertebrate known to use a mirror eye structure to see, as well as using the
usual lens. Spookfish are found worldwide but are rare to see, since they spend
most of their lives at a depth of 1000-2000 meters. They feed on small
crustaceans and plankton, and measure about 18 cm in length.
Ogre faced
spider
Spiders are popularly known for
having many eyes (although this varies greatly among the different species,
with some having two, four, six or eight eyes). The Ogre-faced spider has six
eyes, but it looks as if it only has two because the middle pair is greatly
enlarged. This is an adaptation for a nocturnal lifestyle.Ogre faced spiders
have superb night vision not only because of their huge eyes, but because of an
extremely light sensitive layer of cells covering them.
This membrane is so sensitive in
fact, that it is destroyed at dawn and a new one is produced every night. Ogre
faced spiders are unusual because they can see perfectly at night even though
they lack tapetum lucidum, a reflective membrane that helps others spiders (and
other predators such as cats) to see in low light conditions. As a matter of
facts, scientists believe that ogre faced spiders have better night vision than
cats, sharks, or even owls (which can see up to 100 times better than humans at
night!).
Mantis shrimp
And finally, we get to the animal
with the weirdest and most amazing eyes in the world. The mantis shrimp is not
actually a shrimp, but a different kind of crustacean from the Stomatopoda
order. Known for its aggressiveness and formidable weaponry (they have an
extremely sharp and powerful claw and can split a human finger in two or even
break a glass aquarium with one single strike), mantis shrimp are voracious
predators found mostly in tropical waters.
Their eyes are compound, like those
of the dragonfly, although they have a far smaller number of ommatidia (about
10,000 per eye). However, in the mantis shrimp each ommatidia row has a
particular function. For example, some of them are used to detect light, others
to detect color, etc.
Mantis shrimp have much better
color vision than humans (their eyes having 12 types of color receptors,
whereas humans have only three), as well as ultraviolet, infrared and polarized
light vision, thus having the most complex eyesight of any animal known. The
eyes are located at the end of stalks, and can be moved independently from each
other, rotating up to 70 degrees. Interestingly, the visual information is
processed by the eyes themselves, not the brain.
Even more bizarre, each of the
mantis shrimp’s eyes is divided in three sections allowing the creature to see
objects with three different parts of the same eye. In other words, each eye
has “trinocular vision” and complete depth perception, meaning that if a mantis
shrimp lost an eye, its remaining eye would still be able to judge depth and
distance as well as a human with his two eyes. Scientists are only starting to
understand the mysteries of Stomatopod vision. For the moment, we can only
imagine what the world really looks like to a mantis shrimp.
The human eye. It is
just as complex (if not more so) as eyes in other species. The human eye
changes light rays into electrical signals, then sends them to the brain, which
interprets these electical signals as visual images. The eyeball is set in a
protective cone-shaped cavity in the skull called the orbit or socket and
measures approximately one inch in diameter. The orbit is surrounded by layers
or soft, fatty tissue which protect the eye and enable it to turn easily. Six
muscles regulate the motion of the eye. Among the more important parts of the
human eye are the iris, cornea, lens, retina, conjunctiva, the macula, and the
optic nerve. There is too much information (and it is too hard for me to
fathom) on the human eye so let’s just stick with the information stated above.
It is hard enough to understand as is!
This information on a few types of
the eye has just scratched the surface of the amazing and incomprehensible
understanding of what is involved with being able to see. While other parts of
the body in all life forms are just as amazing, I will not go into them because
my brain would melt down and neither you nor I have the time to investigate it
all.
With that said (and reported) were
all these complexities created by chance through evolution or were they created
by a CREATOR?
MISCELLANEOUS
FACTS
A microscopic, see-through water
flea is the most complex creature ever studied, genomically speaking. Daphnia pulex is the first crustacean to ever have its genome
sequenced, and it turns out it has about 31,000 genes — 25 percent more than we
humans. The water flea, a shrimp relative, makes for an interesting subject
because it can transform in response to stresses — it can develop spines,
helmets or neck-teeth (really – neck teeth?) in response to predator threats,
according to scientists who participated in the sequencing project.
Dogs are superior to many animals
in their olfactory ability, or their sense of smell. Dogs can smell
100,000 times better than humans. In tests, dogs have been able to detect
a chemical in a solution diluted to 1 to 2 parts per trillion. The
average person has a million smell receptors. The Bloodhound has an
incredible 300 million smell receptors! Dogs can smell things up to 40
feet underground. Dogs can even smell human fingerprints that are a week
old! Dogs can identify people with cancer by smelling the person’s breath or
urine. The person’s breath was used to find lung and breast cancer; urine was
used to detect bladder or prostate cancer. The dogs were accurate 99% of
the time for lung cancer, and 88% of the time for breast cancer! This is
equal or better than high tech techniques such as scans.
Neurons. Your brain consists of
about 100 billion neurons.
Synapses. There are anywhere from
1,000 to 10,000 synapses for each neuron.
No pain. There are no pain
receptors in the brain, so the brain can feel no pain.
There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain.
The first sense to develop while in utero is the sense of touch. The lips and cheeks
can experience touch at about 8 weeks and the rest of the body around 12 weeks.
Wattage. While awake, your brain
generates between 0 and 23 watts of power–or enough energy to power a light bulb.
You can’t tickle yourself because
your brain distinguished between unexpected external touch and your own touch.
While you sleep, your body produces
a hormone that may prevent you from acting out your dreams, leaving you
virtually paralyzed.
What does all this information have
to do with God and creation? To me, everything. If you read the information you
will realize that there are (facts from scientist) 1,268,030.00 types of insects,
mammals, fish, and sea creatures on the earth today (and that does not include
the types that have become extinct and the variety that we have not discovered
yet). Then, if you read about some of the oddities, complexities and the
extreme variations between the species that I have listed the question should
come up in your mind, “could evolution have done all this or is there a
CREATOR?
TYPES OF PLANTS.
(Note: I am not going to get into the specialization and complexities of
plants. They are also mind boggling.)
Mosses: 15,000
Ferns and allies: 13,025
Gymnosperms: 980
Dicotyledons: 199,350
Monocotyledons: 59,300
Green algae: 3,175
Red algae: 5,956
I would like to post one interesting
fact about a plant. There is a flower that only grows in the forest in Nicaragua and
the only way it can be pollinated is by one specific bat. This bat is also only
found in Nicaragua
and it is the only thing that can guarantee the survival of that flower. The
bat is only two and a half inches long but it has a tongue that is three and a
half inches long that goes into the flower to retrieve the nectar. The pollen
that is deposited on the top of the bat’s head is transferred to other flowers
and thus carries out the pollination. The length of the bats tongue is the most
unique ratio of body part to relative size of the body of all species. If a
human had a tongue in relation to that of the bat, the tongue would be nine
feet long. Could evolution have brought about that specific plan of one flower
and one bat depending totally on each other for survival? Or did a
CREATOR plan it and put the process in effect?
With the above information (from
the scientific community) we know that there are 325,635 types of plants (and
this again does not include the extinct plants, the ones we have not discovered
yet, and the number of sub-species many of the plants have). And without
going into detail on the complexity, variation and intricacies of plants we
know their existence is very complex.
WEIRD CREATURES: Created or
evolved?
Star Nosed Mole
Despite being apparently blind these moles have a star
shaped nose that actually helps them to sense things. The nose of these species
act as a powerful sensory organ because they help them to “see”. The
Guinness Book of World Record has stated that these species are in
the list of one of the fastest hunters. It is said that this species hunt and
have their victim so fast that it is almost impossible for even humans to
follow it. The tentacles of these species are six times faster when compared to the human hand. The
blackish brown fur of these species helps them to be warm during winter. This
prevents freezing of their body.
The Dumbo Octopus
Little information is known about
his adorable little octopus that lives deep in the ocean's water. The
Dumbo octopus got its name from its ear-like fins on top of its head-like body
which resemble the ears of Walt Disney's character
Dumbo, the
flying elephant. It is an octopod, meaning it has 8 arms. The arms connect with
each other, close to the tips, by "webbing". It can grow up to 8
inches and has a soft body(semi-gelatinous), allowing it to live in deep
water.
Aye Ayes
Aye-ayes can be found only on the island of Madagascar. Aye-ayes are dark brown or
black and are distinguished by a bushy tail that is larger than their body.
They also feature big eyes, slender fingers, and large, sensitive ears.
Aye-ayes have pointed claws on all their fingers and toes except for their
opposable big toes, which enable them to dangle from branches.
Aye-ayes
spend their lives in rainforest trees and avoid coming down to earth. They
are nocturnal, and spend the day curled up in a ball-like nest of leaves and
branches. The nests appear as closed spheres with single entry holes,
situated in the forks of large trees. While perched aloft, the aye-aye taps on
trees with its long middle finger and listens for wood-boring insect larvae
moving under the bark. It employs the same middle finger to fish them
out. The digit is also useful for scooping the flesh out of coconuts and other
fruits that supplement the animal's insect diet. Many people native
to Madagascar
consider the aye-aye an omen of ill luck. For this reason they often have been
killed on sight. Such hunting, coupled with habitat destruction, have made the
aye-aye critically endangered. Today they are protected by law.
These
creatures are so unique, unusual and one of a kind, could they have been
created by evolution? Or are they so unique they could only have been created
by a CREATOR?
I don’t know if you read all the
information I have listed concerning all the different types of plants,
animals, reptiles, fishes, and so on and so on, and in a way I hope you did
not! I hope you, like me, were overwhelmed at the extreme numbers of species of
plants, animals, fish and others, the extreme complexity of their make up, the
extreme differences that make them all unique and the complexity of how they
are all different but in some way all relate and/or rely on each other.
I have heard, but can’t confirm but
believe, that the people that study percentages and odds state that the
percentages/odds of there being a Creator far out weigh the percentages/odds of
life happening by chance or evolution. Just learning about what I have listed
about life is far more than I can comprehend and I only scratched the surface.
I have not even mentioned the complexities of fresh/salt water, earth (dirt),
sand, minerals, poisons and the list could go on and on.
And as the evolutionists state,
“All that we are and our surroundings were created by chance and cause and
effect which gives us evolution.”
The information I have presented
(listed above) on different types life and their complexities is factual,
scientific and mostly comes from secular people and organizations. The facts
and realities of the complex nature of life are astounding and mind-blowing to
me.
With all that said, I am with the
odds-makers. I believe there is a CREATOR and that CREATOR is God.
SECTION 3 PROBLEMS WITH EVOLUTION
Now, if you remove religion from
the equation and just study the above mention facts (from the non-creator
scientific view point from which this information was obtained) you can see
that life, both plant and living creatures, are extremely complex and rely on a
specialized form of characteristics that must be in place for them to survive.
And if you go back a step further most of these rules will apply to their
‘beginning’ from the evolution.
Now that we have talked about the
physical make up and the oddities that plants, animals and the like
possess lets take a step further into what makes some of them very unique. Some
are things such a intuition, emotions (fear – happiness – sadness – remorse –
anger – shy – embarrassment etc.), will to survive, reason, logic and the list
can go on regarding thoughts coming from our brain. These responses have no
physical ties to our (and other living creatures) bodies and as such can’t be
seen or touched and have no physical attributes, just thoughts and emotions.
(Another question could be is that do they come from our brain or our heart?)
For the sake of argument let’s say
man did evolve from an amoeba coming out of a pond somewhere and evolved into a
man. Adaptation to his environment would tell him to make coverings for his
body if it was cold. That is a physical necessity for his survival and logical.
However, how do we explain and where did his emotion process come from? It is
not a necessity or a physical attribute for him to have compassion on another
person that is also cold. Or if his neighbor steals his food and he becomes
angry, or he sees something that makes him laugh, where did these emotions come
from?
Another very important point to
bring up is sexuality and the desire to reproduce. Sexual activity is a natural
act and without it man would have die off. So how did evolution jump from a
physical activity in creation of the species to create mental thought,
reasoning and logic that would tell us to have a sexual act and that it would
produce another human being? And we also can’t leave out the fact that we find
the sexual act pleasurable. How did that one act split into two different
emotional needs (to produce offspring and for pleasure)?
Questioning further into the human
experience is to bring up questions such as how did the first mother know to
pick up the first baby off the ground when it was delivered, clean it up, cover
it for protection, take it to her breast to nurse it, and so on. I guess we
could say that it was instinct, but then again, where did the emotion/thought
of instinct come from?
Other aspects of our existence that
have to be perfect and remain so or our existence would disappear (and
evolution can’t explain how this order came to be for us to survive) are: if
the earth was a little closer to the sun it would burn up, if a little further away
it would be an ice ball. If we did not have ozone light, oxygen would not be
available for us. If we did not have trees our air would not be purified
(through leaves - photosynthesis).
If the earth, moon, sun and planets did not revolve in order we could not exist
and as usual the list of questions could go on and on. Was this perfect and
orderly design created by chance or was it created by a CREATOR?
The list of questions on the
subject of our evolutionary creation is endless which to me, makes it even more
reasonable to reject the notion that all things were developed by evolution.
Even without the possibility of a personal creator the statistics concerning that
we were developed by an evolutionary process is astronomical and
incomprehensible to me. When I look at life (all types) in all its glory,
uniqueness, complexity, and beauty and how all life works in harmony I don’t
understand how evolution could work and I see a creator being involved - God.
One last thing, I wonder if
evolution created us and all that is in this world then why did evolution stop?
Why isn’t man, plants, animals and such still evolving? Where is the
evolutionary proof (things that are in the midst of change and would be readily
noticeable) in our world today?
SECTION
4 THE SPIRITUAL ASPECTS OF CREATION
AND SECULAR PROOF THAT SHOWS THERE IS A CREATOR
Now, I will list another set of
facts, some from the secular community and some from the religious community.
They both have one thing in common. They are factual accounts of things that
happened in our history. To me, these facts back up my premise that there is a
creator and it was God. That Jesus was sent to earth to personally tell and
show us His glory and to save us from eternal damnation, if we so desire.
Let’s start with the Bible.
Unique among all books ever
written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events (in detail) many years,
sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2500 prophecies appear in
the pages of the Bible, about 2000 of which already have been fulfilled to the
letter—with no errors.
Since the probability for any one
of these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance averages less than one in
ten (figured very conservatively) and since the prophecies are for the most
part independent of one another, the odds for all these prophecies having been
fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 102000 (that is 1 with 2000 zeros written
after it)! (A mathematician put together these numbers. This is too far above
my brain to figure it out!)
There are over 350 prophecies in
scripture that tell of the coming of Jesus and the way He would die and they
were all fulfilled. For example Isaiah 7:14 speaks of a virgin birth and a baby
named Immanuel (translated “God with us”). And this was 700 years before the
birth of Jesus.
There are 103 Old Testament
prophecies concerning the life of Jesus and they were fulfilled. God is not the
only one, however, who uses forecasts of future events to get people's
attention. Satan does, too. Through clairvoyants (such as Jeanne Dixon and
Edgar Cayce), mediums, spiritists, and others, come remarkable predictions,
though rarely with more than about 60 percent accuracy, never with total
accuracy. Messages from Satan, furthermore, fail to match the detail of Bible
prophecies, nor do they include a call to repentance.
The acid test for identifying a
prophet of God is recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. According to this
Bible passage (and others), God's prophets, as distinct from Satan's spokesmen,
are 100 percent accurate in their predictions. There is no room for error.
Dead Sea Scrolls
The discovery of the first Dead Sea
Scrolls in a remote Judean
Desert cave in 1947 is widely
considered the greatest archaeological event of the twentieth century. Bedouin
treasure hunters and archaeologists ultimately found the remains of hundreds of
ancient scrolls. (Technically a shepherd was the first to discover them but he
did not know what he had and sold them.) These fragile pieces of parchment and
papyrus, including the oldest existing copies of the Hebrew Bible, were
preserved for two thousand years by the hot, dry desert climate and the
darkness of the caves where they were placed. The scrolls provide an
unprecedented picture of the diverse religious beliefs of ancient Judaism, and
of daily life during the turbulent Second
Temple period when Jesus
lived and preached.
Biblical scroll fragments
of every book of the Hebrew Bible (except the Book of Esther) were found in the
Qumran caves, the most famous of the Dead Sea
Scrolls sites. Remarkably, some of these ancient copies are identical to the
traditional text of the Hebrew Bible that is used today. Other copies preserve
differences in the text, which was in the process of standardization.
Why don’t we have more historical
information concerning Jesus? It is also important to recognize that in A.D.
70, the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem
and most of Israel,
slaughtering its inhabitants. Entire cities were literally burned to the
ground. We should not be surprised, then, if much evidence of Jesus' existence
was destroyed. Many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus would have been killed. These
facts likely limited the amount of surviving eyewitness testimony of Jesus.
However, what we do have is a
surprising amount of information about Jesus, considering that Jesus' ministry
was largely confined to a relatively unimportant area in a small corner of the Roman Empire, from secular historical sources. Some of
the more important historical evidences of Jesus include the following.
Some of the historians that mention the person called Jesus or the Christ in
their writings are Roman historians such as Cornelius; Secular Greek historians
including Thallus, Phlegon, and Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Also, the
first-century Roman Tacitus, who is considered one of the more accurate
historians of the ancient world, mentioned superstitious “Christians” (from Christus,
which is Latin for Christ), who suffered under Pontius Pilate during the reign
of Tiberius. Suetonius, chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian, wrote that there
was a man named Chrestus (or Christ) who lived during the first century (Annals
15.44).
Flavius Josephus is the most famous Jewish historian. In his Antiquities
he refers to James, “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” There is a
controversial version that says, “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise
man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising
feats....He was [the] Christ...he appeared to them alive again the third day,
as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful
things concerning him.” One version reads, “At this time there was a wise man
named Jesus. His conduct was good and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many
people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate
condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who became his disciples
did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them
three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was
perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.”
Julius Africanus quotes the historian Thallus in a discussion of the darkness
which followed the crucifixion of Christ (Extant Writings, 18).
Pliny the Younger, in Letters 10:96, recorded early Christian worship
practices including the fact that Christians worshiped Jesus as God and were
very ethical, and he includes a reference to the love feast and Lord’s Supper.
The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a) confirms Jesus' crucifixion on the
eve of Passover and the accusations against Christ of practicing sorcery and
encouraging Jewish apostasy.
Lucian of Samosata was a second-century Greek writer who admits that Jesus was
worshiped by Christians, introduced new teachings, and was crucified for them.
He said that Jesus' teachings included the brotherhood of believers, the
importance of conversion, and the importance of denying other gods. Christians
lived according to Jesus’ laws, believed themselves to be immortal, and were
characterized by contempt for death, voluntary self-devotion, and renunciation
of material goods.
Mara Bar-Serapion confirms that Jesus was thought to be a wise and virtuous
man, was considered by many to be the king of Israel, was put to death by the
Jews, and lived on in the teachings of His followers.
Then we have all the Gnostic writings (The Gospel of Truth, The Apocryphon of
John, The Gospel of Thomas, The Treatise on Resurrection, etc.) that all
mention Jesus.
In fact, we can almost reconstruct the gospel just from early non-Christian
sources: Jesus was called the Christ (Josephus), did “magic,” led Israel into new teachings, and was hanged on Passover
for them (Babylonian Talmud) in Judea
(Tacitus), but claimed to be God and would return (Eliezar), which his
followers believed, worshipping Him as God (Pliny the Younger).
There is overwhelming evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, both in secular
and biblical history. Perhaps the greatest evidence that Jesus did exist is the
fact that hundreds saw Him after His resurrection and literally thousands of
Christians in the first century A.D., including the twelve apostles, were
willing to give their lives as martyrs for Jesus Christ. People will die for
what they believe to be true, but no one will die for what they know to be a
lie.
Prophecies
that came to pass (100% accurate). Interesting prophecies:
(1) Some time before 500 B.C. the
prophet Daniel proclaimed that Israel's long-awaited Messiah would begin his
public ministry 483 years after the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25-26). He further predicted that the Messiah would be
"cut off," killed, and that this event would take place prior to a
second destruction of Jerusalem.
Abundant documentation shows that these prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in
the life (and crucifixion) of Jesus Christ. The decree regarding the
restoration of Jerusalem was issued by Persia's King Artaxerxes to the Hebrew
priest Ezra in 458 B.C., 483 years later the ministry of Jesus Christ began in
Galilee. (Remember that due to calendar changes, the date for the start of
Christ's ministry is set by most historians at about 26 A.D. Also note that
from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. is just one year.) Jesus' crucifixion occurred only a few
years later, and about four decades later, in 70 A.D. came the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 105.)*
(2) In approximately 700 B.C. the
prophet Micah named the tiny village of Bethlehem
as the birthplace of Israel's
Messiah (Micah 5:2). The fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Christ is
one of the most widely known and widely celebrated facts in history.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 105.)
(3) In the fifth century B.C. a
prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the
price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that
this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem's poor foreigners
(Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty
pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and
they indicate that the money went to purchase a "potter's field,"
used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 1011.)
(4) Some 400 years before
crucifixion was invented, both Israel's
King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah's death in words
that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body
would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to
customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah
12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment:
Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death
eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into
his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 1013.)
(5) The prophet Isaiah foretold
that a conqueror named Cyrus would destroy seemingly impregnable Babylon and subdue Egypt along with most of the rest
of the known world. This same man, wrote Isaiah, would decide to let the Jewish
exiles in his territory go free without any payment of ransom (Isaiah 44:28;
45:1; and 45:13). Isaiah made this prophecy 150 years before Cyrus was born,
180 years before Cyrus performed any of these feats (and he did, eventually,
perform them all), and 80 years before the Jews were taken into exile.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 1015.)
(6) Mighty Babylon, 196 miles
square, was enclosed not only by a moat, but also by a double wall 330 feet
high, each part 90 feet thick. It was said by unanimous popular opinion to be
indestructible, yet two Bible prophets declared its doom. These prophets
further claimed that the ruins would be avoided by travelers, that the city
would never again be inhabited, and that its stones would not even be moved for
use as building material (Isaiah 13:17-22 and Jeremiah 51:26, 43). Their
description is, in fact, the well-documented history of the famous citadel.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 109.)
(7) The exact location and
construction sequence of Jerusalem's
nine suburbs was predicted by Jeremiah about 2600 years ago. He referred to the
time of this building project as "the last days," that is, the time
period of Israel's second rebirth as a nation in the land of Palestine
(Jeremiah 31:38-40). This rebirth became history in 1948, and the construction
of the nine suburbs has gone forward precisely in the locations and in the
sequence predicted.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 1018.)
(8) The prophet Moses foretold
(with some additions by Jeremiah and Jesus) that the ancient Jewish nation
would be conquered twice and that the people would be carried off as slaves
each time, first by the Babylonians (for a period of 70 years), and then by a
fourth world kingdom (which we know as Rome). The second conqueror, Moses said,
would take the Jews captive to Egypt
in ships, selling them or giving them away as slaves to all parts of the world.
Both of these predictions were fulfilled to the letter, the first in 607 B.C.
and the second in 70 A.D. God's spokesmen said, further, that the Jews would
remain scattered throughout the entire world for many generations, but without
becoming assimilated by the peoples or of other nations, and that the Jews
would one day return to the land of Palestine to re-establish for a second time
their nation (Deuteronomy 29; Isaiah 11:11-13; Jeremiah 25:11; Hosea 3:4-5 and
Luke 21:23-24).
This prophetic statement sweeps
across 3500 years of history to its complete fulfillment—in our lifetime.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 120.)
(9) Jeremiah predicted that despite
its fertility and despite the accessibility of its water supply, the land of Edom
(today a part of Jordan)
would become a barren, uninhabited wasteland (Jeremiah 49:15-20; Ezekiel
25:12-14). His description accurately tells the history of that now bleak
region.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 105.)
(10) Joshua prophesied that Jericho would be rebuilt
by one man. He also said that the man's eldest son would die when the
reconstruction began and that his youngest son would die when the work reached
completion (Joshua 6:26). About five centuries later this prophecy found its
fulfillment in the life and family of a man named Hiel (1 Kings 16:33-34).
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 107).
(11) The day of Elijah's
supernatural departure from Earth was predicted unanimously—and accurately,
according to the eye-witness account—by a group of fifty prophets (2 Kings
2:3-11).
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 109).
(12) Jahaziel prophesied that King
Jehoshaphat and a tiny band of men would defeat an enormous, well-equipped,
well-trained army without even having to fight. Just as predicted, the King and
his troops stood looking on as their foes were supernaturally destroyed to the
last man (2 Chronicles 20).
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 108).
(13) One prophet of God (unnamed,
but probably Shemiah) said that a future king of Judah, named Josiah, would
take the bones of all the occultic priests (priests of the "high
places") of Israel's King Jeroboam and burn them on Jeroboam's altar (1
Kings 13:2 and 2 Kings 23:15-18). This event occurred approximately 300 years
after it was foretold.
(Probability of chance fulfillment
= 1 in 1013).
Since these thirteen prophecies
cover mostly separate and independent events, the probability of chance
occurrence for all thirteen is about 1 in 10138
(138 equals the sum of all the exponents of 10 in the probability estimates
above). For the sake of putting the figure into perspective, this probability
can be compared to the statistical chance that the second law of thermodynamics
will be reversed in a given situation (for example, that a gasoline engine will
refrigerate itself during its combustion cycle or that heat will flow from a
cold body to a hot body)—that chance = 1 in 1080.
Stating it simply, based on these thirteen prophecies alone, the Bible record
may be said to be vastly more reliable than the second law of thermodynamics.
Each reader should feel free to make his own reasonable estimates of
probability for the chance fulfillment of the prophecies cited here. In any
case, the probabilities deduced still will be absurdly remote. Given that the
Bible proves so reliable a document, there is every reason to expect that the
remaining 500 prophecies, those slated for the "time of the end,"
also will be fulfilled to the last letter. Who can afford to ignore
these coming events, much less miss out on the immeasurable blessings offered
to anyone and everyone who submits to the control of the Bible's author, the
Lord Jesus Christ? Would a reasonable person take lightly God's warning of
judgment for those who reject what they know to be true about Jesus Christ and
the Bible, or who reject Jesus' claim on their lives?
Specific
prophecies;
Isaiah foreshadowed the virgin
birth of Jesus, Bible prophecy: Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will
give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son,
and will call him Immanuel. Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC, Prophecy
fulfilled: About 5 BC
The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem; Bible
prophecy: Micah 5:1-2 Prophecy written: Sometime between 750-686 BC, Prophecy
fulfilled: About 5 BC.
The Messiah would come from the
tribe of Judah,
Bible prophecy: Genesis 49:10, Prophecy written: As early as 1400 BC, Prophecy
fulfilled: About 5 BC.
The Messiah would be a descendant
of King David, Bible prophecy: Jeremiah 23:5, Prophecy written: Sometime
between 626-586 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: By the birth of Jesus about 2000 years
ago, Jeremiah 23:5:
The Messiah would be preceded by a
messenger, Bible prophecy: Isaiah 40:1-5,9, Prophecy written: Between 701-681
BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 27 AD
The Messiah would perform miracles,
Bible prophecy: Isaiah 35:4-6,Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC, Prophecy
fulfilled: About 27-31 AD.
God promised another prophet like
Moses, Bible prophecy: Deuteronomy 18:15-18, Prophecy written: As early as 1400
BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 5 BC to 31 AD.
The Messiah would enter Jerusalem while riding on
a donkey, Bible prophecy: Zechariah 9:9, Prophecy written: Between 520 and 518
BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD.
Jesus proclaims that he is the
Messiah, Bible prophecy: John 4:19-26, Prophecy written: During the first
century, Prophecy fulfilled: Since the time of Jesus.
There would be a son called God,
Bible prophecy: Isaiah 9:6-7, Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC,
Prophecy fulfilled: About 5 BC
The Messiah would be rejected,
Bible prophecy: Isaiah 53:1-3, Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC, Prophecy
fulfilled: About 31 AD
Daniel predicted when an anointed
one would be rejected, Bible prophecy: Daniel 9:24-26, Prophecy written: About
530 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
The prophet Daniel was Jewish exile
who lived during the time of the Babylonian Captivity, about 500 years before
the birth of Jesus. During Daniel's lifetime, the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple
and had taken many Jews as captives to Babylon.
Daniel, while in Babylon,
delivered a prophecy of what would happen during the centuries that followed.
Here is our summary of Daniel 9:24-26:
1. There would be a decree to rebuild Jerusalem.
2. Jerusalem and the Temple would be rebuilt.
3. Then an anointed one (Messiah) would be "cut off" (an idiom for
"rejected" or "killed").
4. Then Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed again.
All of these events later happened, in the same order in which they are
described in Daniel 9:24-26:
Jesus was betrayed by a friend, Bible prophecy: Psalm 41:9, Prophecy written:
About 1000 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
Zechariah foreshadowed the betrayal
of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, Bible prophecy: Zechariah 11:12-13, Prophecy
written: Between 520 and 518 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
Jesus was spat upon and beaten,
Bible prophecy: Isaiah 50:6, Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC, Prophecy
fulfilled: About 31 AD
God's servant would be silent
before his accusers, Bible prophecy: Isaiah 53:7, Prophecy written: Between
701-681 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
God's servant would die for our
sins, Bible prophecy: Isaiah 53:4-6, Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC,
Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
Zechariah foreshadowed the
crucifixion of Jesus, Bible prophecy: Zechariah 12:10
Prophecy written: Between 520 and 518 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
God's servant would be
"numbered with the transgressors" Bible prophecy: Isaiah 53:12,
Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
God's servant would be buried in a
rich man's tomb, Bible prophecy: Isaiah 53:9, Prophecy written: Between 701-681
BC, Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD
Note: Biblical information was
taken from the Bible, Biblical research sites, and personal information I have
gleaned from various pastors I have listened to over the past 35 years (and
verified).
All the information and assorted
facts I have presented are from the secular and religious arenas may seem to be
an overload of information to many. If you feel that way, then I have
accomplished one of the things I set out to do. What I have presented in way of
information concerning the different types of life (plant and living creatures)
and the complexity of the things around us is just a minute sampling of what is
out there from an untrained eye (mine). Concerning the facts around the life of
Jesus and the countless prophecies that have been predicted and come 100% true,
they are also a sampling of the information and proof that Jesus did live and
He was who He said He was as did the scriptures. That information was retrieved
by a layperson without any professional training (me) and was discovered by
reading, studying and searching documents.
I don’t know what else to add to
this list of secular and religious information (that are both
considered facts) that would make it more clear that evolution is in itself
impossible and that the earth and all matter around us was created by a force
of some kind. Personally, I believe that force is God and I think that the
evidence proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt to me. I believe that He offers
eternal life to all those truly accept Him and that it is never too late
(except after death) for us to ask for forgiveness and then be forgiven.
SECTION 5……...
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THIS INFORMATION
My guess is that there are three things you can
choose to do after reading, pondering and maybe even praying about all you have
read and studied. First, you could say, “I still am not convinced there
is a God and that He created everything” and simply continue life as you always
have. Second, you could still deny the historical facts concerning God, Jesus,
who He was and what He did. You could still believe the complexities of life
and all creation was developed by evolutionary chance and you will continue
life as is. Or third, you could admit that the historical and scientific facts
concerning life are not strong enough to support evolution and that the facts
show that there is in fact a creator, God. I venture to say that even at this time
you could still have a mind set to reject God and not want to accept Him as
your savior. Because, as we know from scripture, God does not force anyone to
accept Him but wants all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4; "For this is good
and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; 4Who will have all men to
be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth"). He has explained
the way to salvation, we just have to take that path.
SECTION
6 NOW WHAT?
After reading all this information from a
scientific, worldly, skeptical point of view and considering the overwhelming
statistics and percentages that show the chances are better to believe there is
a creator than in evolution, if you are a nonbeliever, what do you think?
If you still do not believe there is a God, a
creator, I don’t know what else to say except that I pray that you will
continue to consider the facts that point to a creator and some day come to
believe in God through faith and not facts.
If you have come to the belief that there is a
creator and He is God and that you want to accept Him as your savior,
congratulations! That is the first step you need to take. With that said, this
is what you need to do. You must admit that you are a sinner, you must be
willing to repent to Jesus for your sins, you must believe that Jesus died for
you on the cross to cover those sins, and acknowledge that you want Jesus to
enter your life (Romans 10:13) and that you desire to follow Him. If
these confessions are true in your heart (John 3:16) then Jesus says that you
are now a child of God (John 1:12) and have become a new creation.
You now have a new life and purpose. As a new
creation there will be things that will happen in your life. Some may be
immediate and dramatic while some may be low-keyed and subtle. What should be
immediately evident is the feeling of having Jesus in your heart and wanting to
start a change in your outward life.
Accepting Jesus is a personal thing. Your
confession and acceptance into the faith are between you and then you make a
public confession of your transformation. There is no group to join, no fees,
to pay or things you must do. You are saved by Jesus through grace by faith
(Ephesians 2:8-9).
Again I will say that to receive salvation the
only thing you must do is to believe in Jesus and accept Him as your savior.
With that said, there is nothing you MUST do to have that salvation. But if you
truly in your heart accept Him, then you WILL WANT to do the things He ask us
to do. The key to the truthfulness of your conversion is that you will have the
desire to change and live the life He tells us to. If you accept Christ, there
are conditions you have to follow that will show the sincerity of your
conversion and seal your place in Heaven.
I read in scripture that there are conditions we
need to follow if we are true believers. However, some Christ followers will
tell you that there are no conditions to following Jesus and having eternal
salvation, all you have to do is accept Him. To that I say read the following
scriptures and then decide if there are conditions or not. Matthew 19:24; Again
I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to
enter the kingdom of God.” (This scripture is saying it is
not bad to be rich – it is though when you love money more than you love
Jesus.) Matthew 7:21; “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will
enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father
who is in heaven.” (This scripture is saying there will be people that accept
Jesus as their savior on the outside, but on the inside they do not truly
believe and are not living the life as a Christ follower.) 2 Corinthians
5:17; “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things
have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (This scripture states
that you will start putting away the old sinful self as you grow in your walk
with Him.)
If Christ is really the center of your life you
will also WANT to do good works. They are not a condition of salvation but
proof you believe and follow what Jesus ask us to do. James 2:20-22; 20 “You
foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was
not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his
son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his
actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he
did.”
For me, it is not difficult to know what sin
according to scripture is, although to the new believer it may seem like a lot
of rules to follow. What I have problems with is not sinning. I fall short and
sin but I (we) am covered by the blood of Jesus and have a patient and
forgiving God that allows us time to repent; as stated in 2 Peter 3:9; “The
Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is
longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance.”
There is a lot to learn about God and His will,
Jesus and what He has done for us and The Holy Spirit guides and teaches us. It
cannot be done by reading this or other messages written by people. However,
you can, should and will learn about these things from reading and studying
scripture (The Bible) and being guided by the Holy Spirit. Learning and growing
in these things is what He ask us to do every day of our lives and to live our
life in the will of God. 1 Peter 4:2 (Don’t live for the flesh) “As a
result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires,
but rather for the will of God.”
Jesus has done His part in order for us to have
salvation now it is up to us Christ- followers to do ours. Your journey should
include; (1) PRAYER, talk to God and tell Him everything. (2) STUDY the Bible;
studying includes reading scripture, listening to messages from
Christ-following pastors and other wise people. When listening to other
people’s teachings, make sure what they say about scripture/the Bible is true.
You do this by knowing scripture and by going to scripture to test what is said
with what is actually in scripture as we are told to do in Acts 17:11 “Now
the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in
Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and
examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
(3) Have FELLOWSHIP with other believers; Acts 2:42, “The Fellowship of
the Believers; they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (4) REPENT, when we
sin we are called to repent as stated in 2 Corinthians
7:10; “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation
and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” And (5) WITNESS, as
believers we are called to spread the good news; Mark 16:15; “He said to them,
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” In
addition to verbally spreading His Word we will also spread the Good News by
our actions and the way we live our life. Like it or not, we will be watched
and judged by others.
As I stated before, you will not learn everything
you need to know about being a Christ follower from this or any article because
there is too much to list and in my humanness I caution my accuracy
completeness. And it is not my job, it is up to you to read and learn scripture
and when you do you will know what the will of the Lord is, you will be able to
better resist temptations, you will know how to handle Satan when He attacks
and all other things you need to know concerning being a Christ follower.
To the non believer I pray that this information
was helpful to you on understanding a little more about the problems we Christ
followers have with the notion of being created by evolution and that you have
learned (from archeological and historical facts) about the true story of who
Jesus is and what He has done for us and that He is the Creator and the only
God.
In conclusion I will just ask that you will
consider all that was written in this article with an open mind. Consider the
facts from the evolution side of the debate and consider the facts from the
spiritual side equally. I pray that not just the facts listed here bring you to
accept Jesus, but the understanding of the overwhelming love, grace and desire
for all to be saved; 1 Timothy 2:3-4"For this is good and acceptable in
the sight of God our Saviour; 4Who will have all men to be
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the Truth." Understanding and
accepting this truth is up to you, you have the power to reject it and control
your eternal destiny. I pray that you will choose eternal life with Jesus but
it is your call.
Dennis Smith
Feb.2, 2015
Born again believer, serving Jesus wherever He
sends me.
