Nature

Nature – Vernal Pools

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Vernal pools, also called ephemeral pools, are temporary pools of water that support a unique ecosystem of plants and animals. They can vary in size from large puddles to small lakes and occur in a variety of habitats, such as forests, prairies, and even deserts. Vernal pools are usually filled with water by rainfall or snowmelt during the winter and spring and go dry during the hot dry weather of summer. In some drought years they may not fill at all, and during really wet years they may not go dry. The underlying soils of vernal pools are a fundamental part of the habitat and usually consist of a hardpan layer or bedrock, which causes retention of the water in the pools.

Vernal pools, because of periodic drying, do not support breeding populations of fish. For this reason many species of amphibians, Odonates (dragonflies and damselflies), and crustaceans have evolved to use vernal pools as part of their life-cycles. These species are referred to as obligate vernal pool species, because they will only breed in temporary pools of water where there are no fish to eat their eggs and young.

The hydroperiod is the length of time that surface water inundates the pools and determines which species will be present. Fewer species are able to exist in pools that dry up relatively rapidly as compared to pools that keep their water longer. Toad larvae mature about the fastest of all amphibians, and they can breed successfully in the smallest of puddles, requiring just a few days to mature. They usually breed in pools that are in open sunny areas so that the extra warmth will help their larvae grow faster.

In North America, many species of mole salamanders, frogs, and toads use vernal pools for breeding. Some lay their eggs in the fall, and some lay their eggs in late winter through spring. All are capable of maturing into adults in just a few weeks before the pools go dry. Numerous aquatic insects and other invertebrates live and breed in these ponds and provide food for the growing salamander larvae. Odonate larvae are ferocious predators which feed on the larvae of other insects. The larger larvae of the dragonflies will even take small tadpoles. Fairy shrimps and various types of microscopic crustaceans live and complete their whole life-cycles in vernal pools. Their eggs are capable of surviving the dry spells and hatch when the pools flood again. Various types of algae and annual plants grow here as well and provide food for tadpoles, crustaceans, and insect larvae.

“Earth’s cisterns will often be emptied, its pools become dry; but in Christ there is a living spring from which we may continually draw. However much we draw and give to others, an abundance will remain. There is no danger of exhausting the supply; for Christ is the inexhaustible well-spring of truth. He has been the fountain of living water ever since the fall of Adam. He says, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ And ‘whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’ ” The Signs of the Times, April 22, 1897.

“He who drinks of the living water becomes a fountain of life. The receiver becomes a giver. The grace of Christ in the soul is like a spring in the desert, welling up to refresh all, and making those who are ready to perish eager to drink of the water of life.” God’s Amazing Grace, 119.

David Arbour writes from his home in De Queen, Arkansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: landmarks@stepstolife.org.

Nature – The Hercules’ Club Tree

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The Hercules’ Club tree (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis), also known as toothache tree, tickle-tongue, pepperwood, and Southern prickly ash, is a spiny tree or shrub in the citrus family, native to the southeastern United States. Rarely reaching over 30 feet in height, the tree gets its name from the odd spiny, warty projections on the bark of older trees, which is said to resemble the spiny club of Hercules. The leaves are pinnately compound with a citrus scent, and the spring blooming flowers are greenish yellow and produced in clusters located on the tips of the branches. The tree has a preference to grow on well-drained, light, sandy soil and is often found growing on river bluffs, woodland edges, and fencerows.

It is best known for the numbness it produces when the leaves or bark are chewed, similar to the effects of novocaine. Indians and early settlers both used it for toothaches, hence its other name, toothache tree, as well as for other medicinal uses such as sore throats, itches, ulcers, chest ailments, and venereal disease. More modern medicinal uses for the tree include poor circulation, varicose veins, chronic rheumatism, typhoid, blood impurities, skin diseases, and resistant staphylococcus. It also stimulates the lymphatic system and mucous membranes.

The tree is very valuable to wildlife. The blossoms are very attractive to bees and other pollinators, which in turn attract insect eating birds. The leaves are browsed by deer and used by a number of insect species including as a host for the larvae of the giant swallowtail butterfly. The fruits are eaten by a multitude of birds that help to disperse the seeds, which are also scarified by the birds as they pass through their digestive tract, which in turn helps them to germinate.

Just as the Hercules’ Club causes the mouth to go numb when partaken of, so our senses have been numbed by partaking of worldly amusements and sin: “A terrible picture of the condition of the world has been presented before me. Immorality abounds everywhere. Licentiousness is the special sin of this age. Never did vice lift its deformed head with such boldness as now. The people seem to be benumbed, and the lovers of virtue and true goodness are nearly discouraged by its boldness, strength, and prevalence. The iniquity which abounds is not merely confined to the unbeliever and the scoffer. Would that this were the case, but it is not. Many men and women who profess the religion of Christ are guilty. Even some who profess to be looking for His appearing are no more prepared for that event than Satan himself. They are not cleansing themselves from all pollution. They have so long served their lust that it is natural for their thoughts to be impure and their imaginations corrupt. It is as impossible to cause their minds to dwell upon pure and holy things as it would be to turn the course of Niagara and send its waters pouring up the falls. … Every Christian will have to learn to restrain his passions and be controlled by principle. Unless he does this, he is unworthy of the Christian name.” The Adventist Home, 328. “I tell you the truth. We are far behind our holy religion in our conception of duty. Oh, if those who have been blessed with such grand and solemn truth would arise and shake off the spell that has benumbed their senses and caused them to withhold from God their true service, what would not their well-organized efforts accomplish for the salvation of souls!” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 395.

David Arbour writes from his home in De Queen, Arkansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: landmarks@stepstolife.org.

Nature – The Northern Flicker

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Northern Flickers are large, brown woodpeckers with handsome black-scalloped plumage. Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to spend much time on the ground finding its food. A portion of its diet consists of ants and beetles, and it can often be found in open, sandy areas that are heavily populated by ant colonies.

Approaching the ant mound, the flicker vigorously disturbs the doorway of the ant colony. The “doorway” tunnels underground and branches into many chambers. The ants, protective of their larvae, respond to the threat of intrusion viciously attacking insects and worms, inflicting fatal bites killing their formidable enemies. Instinctively aware of the ants’ response, the flicker disrupts the colony, drawing the ants out of their confines. Its long, blade-like tongue, coated with a special, sticky fluid and impervious to the bite of the ant, is inserted into the ant hole and, being mistaken for an intruding worm, is attacked. The sticky coating entangles the ants and the tongue is quickly removed, and the flicker devours the succulent insects and then reinserts the tongue into the tunnel. With no way for ants to escape, the flicker is able to annihilate an entire ant colony or inflict such damage to the population that tremendous effort is required for the ants to recover.

This woodpecker is able to extend its probing, sticky tongue up to three inches beyond its beak. This allows it to collect and consume huge quantities of ants in a short period of time. Besides ants, the Northern Flicker eats a variety of insects such as crickets, beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars that are found on the ground, under debris. It also eats a variety of fruits, vegetables and berries.

The female determines the final location of their nest. If no available hollow is found, the paired flickers choose a decayed, deciduous tree, chipping and cleaning a suitable site. Carefully they remove the chips and deposit them a considerable distance from the nest to avoid it being exposed. Both the male and female share the responsibility of construction, incubation and also the feeding of the hatchlings. As they mature, survival skills are taught by hiding food for them to retrieve.

Every living thing participates in God’s divine plan, depending on Him for survival. From the least creature to God’s crowning act—Man, who was created in the image of God—all are to do His bidding in his own unique way. Instinctively birds obey, filling the air with music, fertilizing the ground, sometimes pollinating plants and at other times spreading seeds, clothing the earth in green. God said of His people, “This people I have formed for Myself; They shall declare My praise.” Isaiah 43:21.

“God has given you brain power to use. The wants of the believers and the necessities of unbelievers are to be carefully studied, and your labors are to meet their necessities. … You are a servant of the living God.” Evangelism, 650.

Nature – The Whistling Swan

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After the cold months of winter pass and the northern lakes begin to thaw as the snow melts and the ice breaks apart, flocks of birds gather in preparation for their flight to their northern breeding grounds. Tundra Swans have high-pitched honking calls and sound similar to a black goose (Branta). They are particularly vocal when foraging in flocks on their wintering grounds; any arriving or leaving of other birds will elicit a bout of loud excited calling from its fellows while busily preening their feathers. They eat heavily to store layers of fat in preparation for their long migration flight to the northern Polar Regions.

This flight would be more hurried than its fall migration, for the whistling swan, the American race of the Tundra Swan,  will want to begin building its nest as early as possible. Its nesting season is short, and if the swans are to have a successful brood, they must lay, hatch and rear their young before the water freezes and winter snow once again begins to fall.

Swans do not usually associate with other birds but fly only with their own species. Their migratory flocks may be as large as five hundred in number. At the proper time the flock slowly lifts into the air with strong, steady beats of their outstretched wings. The large body of the whistling swan lifts steadily into the air as it gradually picks up speed.

This swan is aided in flight by two advantages. First, it can fly so high that it literally becomes invisible from the ground, attaining altitudes of six thousand feet. With this advantage the swan can fly above mountains and turbulent storms. A second and greater advantage is the swan’s ability to fly as a flock in V-formation. Its speed would be drastically reduced were it not for the flock’s ability to fly in this manner. The whistling swan is capable of attaining speeds of up to one hundred miles per hour.

It has been calculated that twenty-five birds flying in V-formation are able to travel seventy percent farther than one swan flying by itself. This tremendous increase in distance is possible because the lead swan “breaks the trail” for the others that follow. Consequently, air resistance is lessened as each swan benefits from the up wash of the widening wake of the one preceding it. Less total lift power is required.

The lead swan has the most difficult task. When it becomes tired, it drops back and a new leader takes over, giving it an opportunity to rest. For some swans the great northerly return flight may be as long as three thousand miles. Because of the initiative of one swan in taking the lead, the swans are able to relieve the pressure from others in the flock and greatly increase the speed at which they travel. Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, Inc., Rand McNally and Company, 1976.

“Workers for God will meet with turmoil, discomfort, and weariness. At times, uncertain and distracted, the heart is almost in despair. When this restless nervousness comes, the worker should stop and rest. Christ invites him, ‘Come … apart, … and rest a while’ (Mark 6:31). ‘He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. … They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint’ (Isaiah 40:29–31).” Lift Him Up, 263.

 

Where the Waters Run

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In the immense universe stretching through the vastness of space is our nearest neighbor the moon. Man has actually walked on its dry dusty face. We now know for certainty it is barren, desolate and devoid of even the simplest forms of life. What a contrast to colorful planet earth, our home—a sphere of striking beauty, green, fresh, fertile and teeming with life in great profusion. A dazzling diversity of life!

What makes the difference between the lifeless moon and the living earth? There is nothing else quite like water in the entire universe. In a surprising variety of ways the peculiar properties of water seem to have been designed expressly to make the world hospitable to life, and the earth has a great abundance of water. It covers about 70 percent of the earth’s surface. That is an estimated 326 million cubic miles of water. If the surface of the earth were perfectly smooth, the waters of the oceans would cover the earth uniformly to a depth of between 8,000 and 9,000 feet. However, only a fraction of one percent of all the water of earth can be called fresh water or water suitable for our personal use.

Most of us tend to regard this remarkable substance as ordinary, but we must not take it for granted, for in reality it is the most extraordinary substance in the universe and one upon which we are totally dependent for life.

The symbol for water, H2O—two atoms of hydrogen, and one atom of oxygen, is rather short as chemical formulas go, but that is water!

Hydrogen itself is a gas, the lightest of all elements and very flammable. Oxygen is also a gas and readily supports combustion.

Think of it—two gases—hydrogen, which is highly combustible, and oxygen which supports combustion. When combined in precisely the right proportion they form water, man’s chief agent for putting out fires.

When you heat water to 212 F it ceases to be a liquid and becomes a gas. When you cool water to 32 F it freezes. Why water reacts precisely as it does can be understood only by examining the structure of the water molecule itself, which looks something like the head of a mouse. The parts that look like the ears of a mouse represent two hydrogen atoms, the larger part represents an oxygen atom.

The two elements are quick to join each other and once together are difficult to separate because of the strong electrical attraction between them much like a magnet.

Given enough time, water will dissolve almost any other substance, for it comes closer to any other liquid to being a universal solvent and plays an important part in erosion. As water erodes, it picks up chemicals and minerals and were it not for the ability of water to dissolve or break down the molecular structure of other substances, plants would not get the nutrients they need.

Water’s force in motion is another factor dramatically evident in its power to erode. Its relentless motion through continuing centuries has helped to shape earth’s surface in rugged artistry. Cutting and chiseling through solid rock, water has sculptured deep canyons of spectacular grandeur.

Have you ever wondered why water forms into a drop or bead, how it holds itself together? Again, the explanation is found in the molecule. Once formed, water molecules join to each other in a sort of liquid latticework. In the liquid state, the negative side of one molecule is attracted or joined to the positive side of another. These attractions or bonds are formed and broken at random. At the surface where the liquid stops, the surface molecules cling to the ones below and to the sides. This cohesion creates a sort of skin that holds the water together, providing what is called surface tension. A drop of water takes the shape of a sphere. The skin of the molecule holds the sphere together. A water strider can walk on water, for the skin provides a surface.

Water skin is also illustrated in the old saying “like water off a duck’s back.” It is surface tension, which causes water to bead and roll off the bird’s back. Actually, due to surface tension these coots (swimming or diving birds) are sealed in an envelope of air as they dive, but perhaps the greatest work of surface tension in supporting life is cohesion or capillarity. Capillarity is the force that causes water to rise in a constricted space; the greater the constriction, the greater the rise. To further illustrate this principle, split the stem of a white carnation and place the parted stems in containers of colored water and you will find the different colors rise through the stem changing the color of the flower.

As water goes up the trunks of trees, capillary action is again at work. Without the ability of water to creep upward against the pull of gravity, the chemicals and minerals needed by plants to manufacture food would remain in the ground. Cohesion or capillarity is a phenomenon of water necessary to sustain life on earth.

In its solid state, water exhibits another phenomenon essential to life. In the days when the milkman delivered his product in a glass bottle, and it was left outside with the temperature below freezing, the milk would expand popping the bottle cap. Milk is 87 percent water. It was the water in the milk that froze and expanded. Almost any other substance, whether liquid, solid or gas will shrink in volume as its temperature goes down and as it shrinks it becomes more dense.

Water also shrinks during most of the temperature drop toward the freezing point, but below 40 degrees something amazingly different happens; it expands and gets less dense. As it freezes into a solid, it becomes still less dense until it has finally gained about nine percent in volume.

Why does ice float? This is because ice occupies more space than liquid water without weighing more. Since ice floats on the surface it acts as a layer of insulation, which protects the water beneath from further freezing. If water, like other liquids, were to become more dense when frozen, ice would sink and more ice would be formed at the surface. In the wintertime the rivers and streams would freeze and stop flowing, lakes would freeze solid and even the oceans might become a solid mass of ice. In the summer the sun’s heat would only melt a thin layer on the surface forming a shallow slush and life would have little chance for survival.

But God created the earth so it would sustain life, therefore the molecule of water had to be different than the molecule of all other substances. With the warmer temperatures of spring, ice readily melts. The melting liquid flows from higher elevations to lower elevations forming bodies of water. The heat of the sun and the water lifts water vapor up. The sun, air and the force of gravity all work together, as they have for centuries, to keep the hydrologic or water cycle going. Warm wet air is lighter than cold dry air, which causes it to rise. The clouds began as rising currents of warm air laden with moisture. Borne by prevailing winds the moist air cools as it rises higher and higher up steep mountain slopes and contracts as it cools literally squeezing out most of the moisture as refreshing rain. Raindrops wash the air absorbing carbon dioxide as they fall, returning to the soil as carbonic acid vital to plants and providing pure fresh water for animal and human life.

Three thousand years before the principles involved were discovered by modern science, the Bible described the water cycle with amazing accuracy. “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” Ecclesiastes 1:7.

More energy is expended in the water cycle in one day than man has been able to generate throughout the course of history. This alone should make us stand in awe at the power of our God.

God’s power can also be seen in the conversion of salt water to fresh. Man has long sought for a simple inexpensive way to remove salt from seawater. Survival kits employ solar stills. They operate through a process of evaporation and condensation, a process that God has been utilizing for thousands of years. The process is referred to as desalination or desalting. These solar stills successfully make the conversion providing fresh drinking water from the undrinkable ocean.

Huge plants have been developed for converting larger amounts, but so far the cost of converting enough fresh water for even one city is comparatively expensive. However, desalination could well become our prime source of fresh water. Yet from the very beginning God has converted billions of tons of salt water to fresh every day.

We’ve considered many different things about water and its unique properties. All the evidence indicates that water possesses precise properties that make life possible. These properties were not acquired through a process of random change, but were designed into water from the very beginning by the master Designer, God Himself.

What does all this mean to you personally? Think again about how much we use water. Every day we use it in hundreds of ways. In a very personal way water means a great deal. Really it is a matter of life and death. Seventy percent of the average human body is water. You constantly lose this precious body liquid and if it is not replaced, and fairly soon, you will die. It is the water in your blood that carries it through 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and branching capillaries. Water plays a major role in the digestion of food and lubrication of joints. Mucous membranes would dry up without it and without water your eyes would cease to function. Water also regulates body heat. From the beginning of time to the present, water is supporting life on earth, your life! Water with its precise properties is God’s loving provision for our physical lives.

The formula of water is simple but it is also very special and very exact. Man did not create water and cannot change its formula, but he is absolutely dependent on it. Water has no man-made substitute. Where waters run there is life; where they do not, there is desolation and death. The Bible speaks of another kind of life, spiritual life, and reveals another kind of water—Living water. The living water is the Lord Jesus Christ. To a lonely and misunderstood sinful woman long ago Christ said, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” John 4:10 NKJV.

However, just as God’s provision for man’s physical life is precise, so is His provision for man’s spiritual life precise. Just as man did not create physical water, so he cannot create spiritual water. Just as he cannot change the formula for the one, so he cannot change the formula for the other. Just as man will die physically without the one, so he will die spiritually without the other. But just as physical water is abundantly available to man, so the spiritual or living water is also and the formula is simple but the formula is special, exact and precise. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Man is confronted with an awesome alternative; he can receive the spiritual water and live or he can reject it and die. Remember, just as physical water can be yours for the drinking so the spiritual water can be yours for the asking and receiving—free, without cost. Christ’s invitation given centuries ago still stands: “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. … Out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37, 38.

Receive Christ now and you can experience eternal life and your spiritual life will be fully and finally satisfied. “Come … you who are thirsty; accept the water of life, a free gift to all who desire it.” Revelation 22:17 NEB.

A Moody Institute of Science Presentation, Moody Publishers, Chicago, Illinois.

The Mystery of the Three Clocks

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People are born with a remarkable alarm clock in their head. Most people find it difficult to measure the passage of time with a degree of accuracy while awake but when they are asleep it is a different matter.

A great deal of research has been done on the subject of sleep and for many years it was assumed that there was a sleep center located in the brain; a mechanism that puts us to sleep when we need rest. But years of the most painstaking research, has failed to uncover the slightest trace of such a mechanism.

Scientists, in search of finding a sleep center, instead found an arousal center, an awakening mechanism located in the hypothalamus, which is deep in the brain at the top of the brain stem. This leads to the rather startling conclusion that man’s normal state is to be asleep and he is only awake when the alarm clock in his head is ringing. To appreciate this function of the human brain it is helpful to understand just a bit about the fantastically complicated mechanism inside our head.

The human brain is essentially an electrical device. When a piece of electrical equipment is operating, a magnetic or electrical field surrounds it. You can’t see it, or feel it, or hear it, but it is there. A simple coil of wire connected to an amplifier can pick up and amplify the invisible field surrounding the motor.

Science has devised a way to detect and record the delicate impulses of the brain by cementing tiny electrodes to the scalp to record brain activity while asleep. The results of these experiments show that our alarm system is connected to our various senses. Sound from our ears can awaken us as well as light from our eyes and also our other senses. We can be awakened by hunger or pain.

We have become so accustomed to the almost miraculous things accomplished in the human body that nothing seems to surprise us anymore and we just expect great performance from such wonderful beings as we modestly admit we are. Any such attitude we may have had while doing these experiments was dispelled recently when discovering some other living alarm clocks.

Cameramen set up their cameras outside the town of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. As soon as the sun went down the whole countryside started to crawl with strange looking insects. Residents who had lived in the area for many years could not recall any other such visitation.

They all seemed to be climbing upward and soon the clumsy looking insects stopped. Each one seemed to heed some mysterious signal that they had gone far enough. With their grotesque claws they searched for a spot where a firm grip may be obtained, sometimes on the bark of the tree, sometimes on the outermost leaves. Here a mysterious and wonderful thing happened. While this is the most common phenomena in all of nature, it is surprising how few people have actually witnessed the spectacular and awe inspiring event—the drama of insect metamorphosis, the transformation of an earth bound nymph to a beautiful free-flying adult insect.

The soft, moist, pale body of the adult insect frees itself from the dead adolescent shroud. In spite of a beautiful creamy white coloring and large red eyes and jet-black markings on its shoulders, the adult cicada presents quite a bedraggled appearance. Inflation of the wings will change all of this. As they are pumped up, the wings change from useless wrinkled pads to beautiful transparent air-foils capable of flight. One cannot but marvel at the beautiful construction of these wings; a framework of veins for strength, a fragile membrane to provide ample lift for a heavy bodied insect.

Within a few hours the ghostly whiteness of the new adults is changed to a glossy, brownish black. Simultaneously, the soft outer shell hardens to form a strong protective exoskeleton. All of this has happened throughout the course of a single night starting with a nymph climbing a tree and now we have a mature insect outfitted with armor plate, camouflage and wings ready for the serious business of life.

The new day dawns and the hoards of insects struggling up the tree have disappeared, but by mid-morning a new sound breaks the contented buzz of the spring woods, the unique sound of the cicada. What is mystifying is how a little insect can make such a loud noise. Only the male makes the sound. The incessant noise and severed branches on the ground are always associated with the cicada. The male makes the noise but when it comes to the fallen branches, mama cicada is the culprit. The branches of the trees are literally covered with punctures made by her ovipositor or egg placer. The ovipositor is driven into the branch as though the wood was putty and eggs are pumped through the hollow center into the protective fibers of the wood. Removing the outer layer of the wood reveals the cicada eggs laid neatly in double rows. After the female deposits 200 to 600 eggs in this way her life work is complete and she dies.

It doesn’t seem possible that a delicate insect like this, less than an inch in length, could dig deeply into the wood with such ease but it has a secret weapon that makes it possible. The tapered ends of the ovipositor are equipped with saw teeth and, with alternating motions, it literally saws its way into the woody fibers. The consuming zeal with which she goes about her task suggests that this is her ultimate purpose in life.

Within a few weeks the noisy honeymoon is over, life functions have been faithfully completed and one by one the adult cicadas fall to the ground as their flame of life flickers and goes out. As suddenly as they appeared, they depart. The future of the species is all wrapped up in those tiny eggs hidden in the branches of the trees. After six or seven weeks there is a stirring of activity when the newly hatched nymph shakes off the egg shell, drops to the ground and buries into the earth there to remain for seventeen long years.

Over two hundred years of scientific research has revealed that the cicada is the Methuselah of the insect world, living longer than any other insect. The cicada nymph lives alone in an underground passage several feet below the surface of the earth. As the seventeenth year of its existence draws to a close the cicada nymph tunnels up and stops just one quarter of an inch from the surface, there to wait a mysterious inner prompting. As soon as the sun goes down on the appointed day, millions of cicada alarm clocks go off all over the eastern states of the United States. Responding to the signal the cicadas push their way from their dark prison. Exactly seventeen years ago parents of these cicadas were enacting this same role at this very spot.

The time keeping ability of the cicada makes man’s mental alarm clock pretty rusty. We felt we might be on the trail of a significant truth so the investigation was carried one step further. In the field of chemistry some chemical reactions take place instantaneously. Others take time to react. With an accurate knowledge of the conditions involved it is possible to predict not only what will happen when certain chemicals are mixed, but exactly when it will happen.

How can we explain the marvel of these clocks? How do you explain the alarm clock in the human brain? Some believe man is a highly developed creature with a highly developed intelligence but how about the cicada. He is probably smart too. How about the chemicals; are they smart? Obviously that cannot be the answer. As we go from the chemicals through the cicada to man, we are ascending a scale of intelligence. As we ascend the scale of creature intelligence we also descend another scale, that of accuracy and dependability.

Man’s mental clock is much less reliable than the cicadas and even the cicada can’t match the chemicals. The chemicals are completely dependable because they are completely subject to God’s law. Did you ever stop to think what this world would be like if the chemicals were not dependable? I’d hate to walk into a chemistry laboratory and try to perform an experiment if chemical behavior was no more predictable than human behavior. You could not take a drink of water or draw a breath of air without any safety or certainty. We are fortunate indeed that chemicals obey the law of God but how about man? The submission of the chemicals to the law of God is a blind involuntary thing. Man on the other hand has a mind, a will and a God given power of choice. He can submit his will to the will of God or he can choose to defy God and go his own way and defy His laws. But how smart is it for a man to disobey the God who created him? Is it a mark of intelligence? Some seem to feel it is.

In a criminal society composed of those who defy human law, disobedience of the law is sometimes considered a mark of distinction and obedience a sign of weakness. Today there is a segment of intellectual society that seems to feel that obedience to God’s moral and spiritual law is a sign of weakness and that simple faith and humble submission to His will is somehow intellectually degrading. Yet down through the centuries there comes the quiet voice of One who said, “I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” John 6:38.

In this age when some have almost deified the human intellect there are those who say I will trust nothing but myself, I will follow my own reasoning regardless of where it leads me and again that quiet voice says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12.

Today, man is frantically searching for a solution to his problem, but isn’t the first step a recognition of what the problem really is? Isn’t the problem in the things that we have been considering? Unlike the chemicals, man has a will of his own. He can choose to obey God’s law or defy it. Take two liquids, one water and the other deadly poison. I have the power of choice; I can drink the water or the poison, but right here my power of choice stops. I cannot choose the result. Laws that are immutable and absolute fix the result.

We have another choice, you and I. We can choose to believe God and obey Him or we can go our own way in unbelief, but here again we cannot choose the result, which is fixed by the eternal law of God that says, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36.

A Moody Institute of Science Presentation, Moody Publishers, Chicago, Illinois.

Nature – The Bat

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The prophet Isaiah paints a dismal picture of the awful and awesome events of the end of the world. As one illustration of the change in attitude of the people at that time, he writes that they would cast their idols “ to the bats ” (Isaiah 2:20).

In using this illustration Isaiah could well have had in mind the Egyptian leaf-nosed bats whose incredible numbers made them well known throughout Palestine. They were regarded as loathsome and disquieting creatures whose dung-filled haunts produce an overpowering smell.

The only other mention of bats in the Bible is in the Leviticus and Deuteronomy lists of animals unfit for food. One might wonder if anyone would eat a bat, yet this is common practice even today among many natives of the South Pacific. …

Four Hebrew words are used in the Scriptures for bat. Many scholars accept this as proof that there were several varieties in ancient Palestine. Backing this up is the fact that over 15 different kinds of bats are found there [today, over 30 species are found].

A number of foreign words for bats are descriptive of their mannerisms or physical structure. One Hebrew word, for instance, means “night flier.” The German fledermaus means “flitter mouse”; this is a good description of the bats’ style of flying for most have an uneven fluttering flight. Fledermaus and the term chiroptera from the Greek for “handwing” can be found on the 40-pfennig 1962 stamp of the German Democratic Republic. …

The bat is one of the most marvelous creatures of God’s kingdom. However, more fallacies than truth have spoiled its name. It has been associated with things dark and evil such as the pictures one often sees of Satan with bat’s wings.

The saying “blind as a bat” is misleading, for although small and not too useful in daylight, bats have perfectly good eyes. They also have no interest in getting entangled in a person’s hair and only fly near to catch the mosquitoes that follow people.

More than 1,000 known kinds of bats fall into two main classes: fruit and insect eaters. Fruit-eating bats are generally large and found only in the tropics and subtropics. It is the so-called flying fox and as the largest living bat has a wing span of between four and five feet.

Insect eaters are small bats and are found wherever insects are. They rid the world of millions of insects with some devouring half their weight in insects each night in order to survive. Insect-eating bats live in old buildings, grottoes, and caverns. We can easily imagine that some inhabited the tombs among which the demoniac of Mark 5 lived. …

It is well known that bats hunt almost entirely by sound. In its normal flight a bat will emit from twenty to two hundred ultrasonic cries a second. The frequency of the beeps depends upon the bat’s distance from an obstacle. Ounce for ounce and watt for watt the bat’s sonar is a billion times more sensitive and efficient than any radar or sonar device yet contrived by man.

Ernest N. Wendth, The Youth’s Instructor Magazine, March 21, 1967.

“Satan did not appear to Christ as he is often falsely represented, as an imp with bats’ wings and cloven hoofs. The Scriptures plainly declare that he ‘is transformed into an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14). It was as a heavenly angel that Satan accosted the Son of God [Christ’s temptation in the wilderness].” Pamphlet, 105, 1.