God has given your body incredible powers of healing and repair, and you could almost say that we carry our very own doctor and pharmacy inside us.

When testing new medicines, one group of patients get the medicine and another group get a placebo. The placebo does nothing but no one knows who gets it. However, doctors have known for years that a "placebo effect" sometimes takes place. For example, if the body thinks it is getting aspirin for a headache but is actually getting a placebo, the body expects the medicine to work and the headache will often disappear. Studies over recent years have shown that the body does produce its own painkillers. It has been found that one of these pain-killing chemicals made by the body can reduce pain as effectively as 8 milligrams of morphine or 80 milligrams of Demerol!

Studies on the body's built-in pharmacy have, so far, confirmed that the body is also able to treat coughs, anxiety, high blood pressure, depression, asthma, colds, arthritis, ulcers, high cholesterol, and even warts. Often, the medicines we take simply give the body "permission" to do its own healing by giving us the belief we are going to get better.

Medicine is often the study of how the body solves problems - in other words, a study of the work of the Great Physician Himself!

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, You made us and You are the great Healer of both body and soul. I thank you for the wonderful abilities You have given my body to take care of itself. But without You, my soul has no healing. I trust in Your atonement for my sin. Amen.

References: Boyce Rensberger, "Faith makes placebos act like real thing," Minneapolis Star Tribune, Monday/October 9/1989, pp. 1E, 5E.

No matter where you live, it is likely that a wondrous creature is, right now, at work in or near your lawn. This creature has more ability to sense the things going on around him than a sophisticated space probe. It can even hear earthworms chewing beneath the ground.

This wondrous and misunderstood creature is the mole. But let's start by dismissing the myth that the mole is blind or that he is crippled. Although his eyes are tiny he is not blind, and his front feet have specialized claws for digging; this causes him to walk on his knuckles.

The mole's nose and tail have vibration sensors that are more heat sensitive than any that man's science has been able to make. These sensors are composed of thousands of parts, and allow the mole to hear and locate the grubs chewing on the roots of your lawn -- even through several feet of soil! In one year's time a mole can eat almost 60 pounds of grubs - more than enough grubs to kill a fair-sized lawn.

Every one of God's creatures has a purpose, whether we the understand it or not. Although you might not like the little trails that moles leave in your lawn, the trails are quite harmless. The thing to remember is that there is a mole on patrol in your yard.

Prayer: Dear Lord, I understand so little but You know and understand all things. Help me to learn more about Your wisdom and purposes in the creation, and to be strengthened when life brings things that seem to have no purpose. Amen.

References: Bob Devine, Uncle Bob's Animal Stories (Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1986), pp. 109-112.

In many of our Creation Moments programs we have shown that animal intelligence is not a result of evolution but God's gift to His creatures. While animals are limited to a much smaller area of specialty, some can perform feats of intelligence that even man cannot accomplish.

For example, at the Japanese Deer Park in California, pigeons have been trained to sort electrical parts. They can do this with greater efficiency and accuracy than humans. People usually quickly become bored with such work and lose their concentration.

But then there is the mystery of migration. The Golden Plover bird migrates between Alaska and Hawaii. Yet the parents never teach their youngsters the route. When migration time comes, the young are usually old enough to fend for themselves, but too young to fly the thousands of miles, non-stop, required by the route. So the parents leave them in Alaska and head for Hawaii. A little later when they are stronger, the young plovers follow the same route without error, even though they have no guide.

Intelligence is not the result of mindless natural forces, for how could mindlessness produce intelligence or even genius? Christians should not be surprised, as evolutionists are, to find many examples of intelligence in the animal world because intelligence is the gift of God, the Creator, to His creatures.

Prayer: Dear Lord, I thank You for the gift of intelligence. Help me to be a good steward of the intelligence You have given me. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

References:

Space probes have now reached the farthest points of our solar system, and we have learned more about the outer planets in 24 hours than astronomers learned in the past century.

For example, we have learned that all four of the outer planets are surrounded by rings. Apart from being quite beautiful, planetary rings are truly a wonder. The rings are only inches thick and comprised of dust and ice in neat bands; it is a very unlikely and unstable structure. Every astronomer knows that the forces of the solar wind, of gravity, and the unavoidable laws of physics should have destroyed a planetary ring in less than a million years. But at the same time astronomers believe that the solar system is billions of years old. How can this be?

To save the situation, astronomers have theorized that there must be small "shepherding satellites" which help hold the rings together for long periods of time. They have found satellites around Saturn and believe they may be the shepherding satellites. But now an exhaustive study of Voyager 2's data from Uranus has shown perfect rings without any "shepherding satellites." This is held to be a real mystery.

Yet, there is no mystery if the Bible is an accurate history of the entire creation, starting at the beginning, not billions but only thousands of years ago.

Prayer: Dear Father, in Your wisdom You have left man no place in the creation where he can look and not see Your work. But man needs more than this, he needs Your grace which only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Help me to use Your Word to help the world know of Your Love to us in Christ. In His Name. Amen.

References: J. Eberhart, "Sustaining the Uranian rings," Science News, December 24&31, 1988, p. 407.

All toads are not fat and ugly. The golden toad, which lives only in a few square miles of the cloud forest of Costa Rica, is a trim and slim toad with garishly bright, orange coloring.

The golden toad offers even more surprises. After the first heavy rain of the year, as many as 20 to 30 males congregate around a pool of water. They sit motionless, waiting for the first female to arrive. Before long, the females begin to arrive, and a week or so later the entire population of golden toads, now numbering in the thousands, disappears back into the jungle to remain almost invisible for another year.

This breeding strategy shows a great deal of wisdom and understanding and ensures that there are plenty of golden toads in the next generation. Toads have many enemies in the jungle but by all getting together at the same time they can produce far more young than their predators can victimize in a single week.

You don't have to be a college graduate to know that toads are incapable of the kind of planning and ability to change their physical natures necessary to carry out this strategy. Evolutionists would say that no one thought of this strategy. But the clear answer is that there is a Creator and He cares about all of His creatures.

Prayer: Dear Father, not a sparrow drops from the sky without Your knowledge and purpose. Not even toads lack Your care. Help me to remember Your care when I am anxious about the cares of living. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

References: Discover - May 1985, p. 48.

If there was a great world wide Flood, as described in Genesis, such a catastrophe certainly should have left obvious evidence of itself all over the world. Scientists who believe in creation say that we are surrounded by these evidences. Many of them also believe that some of the features associated with glaciers can be better explained by a catastrophic flood. While evolutionary scientists scoff at the biblical account of the Flood, they continue to run across evidences of what they take to be huge floods. Now further evidence has been reported of a continental flood.

The September 1989, issue of Geology, a scientific professional journal, carried an article about drumlins in northern Saskatchewan. Drumlins are hills that are traditionally associated with glacial activity. When viewed from the air, they resemble eggs lying on their sides, all pointing in the same direction.

Over the last few years some scientists have proposed that drumlins were formed by large quantities of water running in the same direction. The article in Geology offers yet more evidence for large quantities of water moving over the continental land surfaces. One of the scientists remarked that, "There's nothing in recorded history that matches the size of these floods."

If we consider Genesis to be recorded history, rather than ancient and ignorant myth, there certainly is an historical record of a huge Flood!

Prayer: Dear Lord, in our age of unbelief, so many don't even feel they need to apologize for rejecting Your Word as ancient myths. Help me, along with all of Your people, to be bright, shining lights for Your truth in this dark world. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

References: R. Monastersky, "Hills point to catastrophic Ice Age floods," Science News, September 30, 1989, p. 213.

Many animals love to eat frog tadpoles. If that situation was not difficult enough for the frog, some frogs live in areas where their pond is dry most of the time, preventing them from ever laying eggs.

The African foam-nesting frog has been given a unique solution to these obstacles by the Creator. During the mating season a group of female frogs will climb to a branch that overhangs their pond. They then secrete a mucus on the branch. As many as forty of them will join in kicking madly until they have worked the gooey stuff into a foam that sticks to the branch. Once the foam nest is complete, the frogs lay their eggs in it and return to their pond. The nest not only hides the developing young, but as it hardens on the outside, it seals moisture in with them.

These young frogs hatch quickly and after only three or four days, the young frogs are already wiggling their way through the shell of the nest and drop into the pond below.

The intelligent strategy of this arrangement shows us how the Creator cares for the needs of His creatures. To explain this amazing survival behavior by evolution really takes a huge leap of faith. On the other hand, what frog would be clever enough to think of such an ingenious plan?

Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to have a more clear understanding of my need to depend on You and trust that You will supply my needs. Remind me that Your wisdom and plans are immeasurably greater than my wisdom and power. Amen.

References: Discover - May 1985, pp. 51-52.

The idea of fish with lungs sounds about as strange as elephants with wings. The difference is there really are fish with lungs.

In fact, there are many varieties of lungfish found in Australia, Africa, and South America. In Australia, they live in quiet pools of water that become stagnant in the summer. Because there isn't much oxygen dissolved in the water, these fish need lungs in order to breathe air just as we do. Lungfish in the South American swamps spend their time resting in burrows when the swamps dry up in the summer. In a similar way, the lungfish in Africa spends the dry season burrowed in the mud with a breathing tube to the surface.

Evolutionists have suggested that the lungfish is left over from the time when sea creatures were adapting to life on land. But their theory doesn't hold water, so to speak. Lungfish show little interest in moving to land. Besides, they lack important biological features that would make that move possible. What's more, the lungfish we find in the fossil record are exactly the same as those living today. There is absolutely no evidence of evolution here.

While the lungfish is an unusual creature, it is a testimony to the creativity and wisdom of the Creator, and offers no support at all for evolutionary speculations.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus Christ, I thank You that as the Instrument of creation, You make the excellence and wisdom of God evident to man, just as You have made God's desire for a relationship with me evident through Your incarnation. Amen.

References:

Tsi-zun-hau-kau was a nineteenth-century Winnebago chief. A portrait of him painted in the last century shows him posing proudly with a stick in his hand. That stick is now at Michigan's Cranbrook Institute of Science where its carved markings have been under study.

The carvings on the four-and-a-half-foot stick are now known to be a record of the waxing and waning of the moon over a two-year period. Scientists have learned that Winnebago astronomers knew that the number of days in a lunar year turned out to be eleven days shorter than a solar year - and they knew this even before they ever saw the white man's calendar. To correct their lunar calendar so that it would match the solar calendar, the Winnebagos added an extra month every three years. As sophisticated as this calendar is, its structure shows that it is related to prehistoric calendars of the Mayas, Incas, and some of the ancient Siberian cultures.

Man's need to measure time, which predates other written records, shows that man is very different from the animals. The accurate and sophisticated calendars of the ancients deliver a fatal blow to those who picture ancient man as a simple, unintelligent brute who was halfway between animal and modern man. And this higher view of man fits perfectly with what the Bible tells us about man.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus Christ, I ask that Your people would become more skillful in showing the clear evidences that You created man above the animals. Help us to do this in such a way that will help more people seek a relationship with You. Amen.

References: Discover - May 1985, p. 7.

The relationship between the beaded lacewing larvae and the California termite poses a real problem for those who believe there is no Creator.

The lacewing larvae enter termite nests in order to finish their growth cycle. Later, they leave as adults. The problem is, termites are often still at home when the larvae enter the nest. The termites, 30 times the size of the larvae, pose a serious threat to the larvae. But if you watch the larvae enter the nest, they wave their abdomen to an approaching termite and the targeted termite immediately falls over. Upon further study, scientists have learned that the tiny larva releases a chemical that totally paralyzes the termite. Studies have also shown that the chemical works only on this particular species of termite.

The evolutionary explanation is that for millions of years lacewing larvae crawled up to every sort of insect madly waving their abdomens at them -- and were promptly eaten! One wonders how the larvae survived at all and why it was that their chemical protection just happened to work on those termites that made nice safe tunnels for them to grow in.

To believe that the lacewing's defense developed just by chance is nothing more than blind faith. It's not science. And it is a very opposite kind of faith from those who believe in a Creator!

Prayer: Dear Father, Your fingerprints can be seen everywhere in the creation. Give me keener sight so that I may see more of Your workmanship, and so be led to praise You more. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

References:

In our previous program we heard how two creationists had scaled Mount Ararat and had filmed an object projecting from the ice near the summit. That object looked very much like Noah's Ark. The year was 1989 and other creationists at the time could have reported with great fanfare that Noah's Ark had indeed been discovered.

But that's not how science works. Confirmation of the discovery was necessary and the following year other creationists using a helicopter found that the object was simply a rock formation. Some Christians think that confirmation of Noah's Ark will cause millions to come to Christ. However, this is unlikely to be the case. We are reminded of the rich man in hell who asked that Lazarus be sent back from the grave to warn his brothers about the judgment. Jesus said, "Even though the dead be raised, still they will not believe!"

There is something else: Confirmation of the Ark, resting too high on the mountain to be explained by a local flood, would instantly make thousands of liberal theology books good for nothing more than heating fuel. Even liberal scholars would be forced to accept what they now consider to be ignorant myths of a pre-scientific age. They would be forced to deal with our message that the Word of God is true in every subject that it mentions!

Prayer: Dear Father, Your Word is true and can be trusted. Help that fact move me to spend more time with You in Your Word, reading it, studying it, and inwardly digesting it. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

References:

As they rose toward the 15,000-foot plateau on the west side of Mount Ararat, they spotted a familiar looking dark form. It looked almost like the drawing of Noah's Ark developed from the descriptions provided by others who had seen what they thought was the Ark in this area. The year was 1989.

Chuck Aaron and Bob Garbe, both seasoned creationists, estimated that the visible portion of the dark object was about 60 feet wide, 30 feet high, with about 225 feet of it extending out of the ice and snow. The next morning they returned to the site and shot more video and photographs. With a storm moving in, working time was limited.

The following year other researchers returned to the site in a helicopter. While they could not land, they were able to get much closer to the site to get better pictures. From their vantage point, they concluded that the object was simply an unusual rock formation - a typical story in the search for Noah's Ark.

It's a good thing that our faith in the truth of God's Word does not depend on physical evidence. Many creationists feel that even if the Ark were discovered and moved to Times Square in New York, unbelievers would eventually concoct their own explanation to discredit the story of God's judgment in the Flood.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, You sent the Flood as a judgment upon a willfully disobedient generation. Our generation, too, wishes to deny their moral accountability by denying that You acted as Judge of the whole world in the Flood. Help me to take comfort in the fact that, like Noah, I shall be saved by grace through faith. Amen.

References:

Why do giraffes have long necks or kangaroos have pouches? Evolutionists answer that natural selection has favored the development of certain characteristics while discouraging and eliminating other features. But if this is what happened, we who believe in creation, have a few questions.

Giraffes have long necks, say evolutionists, because conditions favored the development of long-necked creatures that could feed on higher parts of the tree. But then, many other grazing animals live side by side with giraffes and manage to get by. The horse, according to evolutionary explanations, has crowned teeth in order to survive in its environment. And yet the cow, with its uncrowned teeth, survives quite well in the same environment.

Some evolutionists say that plants developed berries so that their seeds, inside the berries, would be carried far and wide by hungry birds, thus ensuring the plants' survival. Why then did some plants develop poisonous berries? And if the maternal instinct evolved to preserve the next generation, why do creatures like the stickleback fish, sea horse, and midwife toad to name a few, leave total care of the young to the male?

The truth is that natural selection does not offer a clear and consistent explanation for the living world. The diversity of the created world does not bear witness to evolutionary principles, but to the artistry of our Creator God.

Prayer: Dear Father, You confound those who are wise in their own hearts and give wisdom and clear vision to those Whom You have made pure through the blood of Christ. Let the wisdom and vision I seek be that which You provide. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

References: R.L. Wysong, D.V.M., The Creation — Evolution Controversy (Inquiry Press, Midland Michigan), pp. 332-333.

The French philosopher René Descartes argued that anything that cannot be investigated by human reason must be assumed not to exist. He applied this to animals calling them "automata" and, while he was careful not to say so, the argument also applies to the human soul and the existence of God. Over three centuries later, science makes no bones about dismissing the human soul. We are told that human beings come into the world as a blank slate upon which experience writes. This thinking has led to the idea that language, for example, is no more than simply sounds without inherent value. On the other hand, Scripture teaches that language is God-given and universal to man. New research is supporting the biblical view.

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle studied the response of six-month-old infants to certain sounds. The infants were trained to look for a reward when they heard vowel or consonant sounds that are part of human speech. The researchers discovered that infants do recognize and categorize basic human vowel and consonant sounds, as well as their variations, right from the start.

These findings have no evolutionary explanation but do support the Bible's claim that we have a soul passed on to us by our parents while the original soul in Adam was created by God who is referred to as the "Word."

Prayer: Dear Lord, You are the Word through Whom I, and everything else, was created, and through Whom I am saved from my sin. Let the written Word, the Holy Bible, be my guide and instructor, that I may know You better and love You more. Amen.

References: "Infants show keen ear for speech sounds" Science News, July 15, 1989, p. 37.

Should we ever find ourselves in his environment, the Great White shark is the most dangerous man-eating creature on earth.

The Australians call the Great White shark the "white death." Its favorite food is not necessarily man, but any mammal it finds in the water. It has been recorded up to 21 feet in length and can weigh over 5,000 pounds.

The Great White shark's mode of attack is different from other sharks. Instead of swimming around its prey and poking it, the Great White shark spots its prey and darts straight toward it. As it reaches its prey, it rolls its eyes backward, opens its mouth, and takes a bite. The attack can last less than a second. Then it moves away and waits for its victim to bleed to death. This last habit has saved more than one diver who was rescued by companions while a Great White shark was waiting for him to die.

God has given all of us a will to live and a sense that death is our enemy. But Christians also know that even death has been conquered by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He rose victorious over death so that all who would come to Him may have that victory too. In Christ, we have been saved from the jaws of death for a new life!

Prayer: Dear Lord, I thank You that You endured the consequences of my sin and the pain of death in my place. Because of what You have done for me, make me more willing to tell others about it so that they, too, may be snatched from the jaws of eternal death. Amen.

References: "Special Report," Discover / July 1985, pp. 30-52.