Order

In October 2022 a bird with the code name B6 set a new world record. Over the course of 11 days, B6, a young Bar-tailed Godwit, flew from its hatching ground in Alaska to its wintering ground in Tasmania, covering 8,425 miles without taking a single break. For comparison, there is only one commercial aircraft that can fly that far nonstop, a Boeing 777 with a 213-foot wingspan and one of the most powerful jet engines in the world.

During its journey, B6—an animal that could perch comfortably on your shoulder—did not land, did not eat, did not drink, and did not stop flapping, sustaining an average ground speed of 30 miles per hour 24 hours a day as it winged its way to the other end of the world.

Many factors contributed to this astonishing feat of athleticism—muscle power, a high metabolic rate, and a physiological tolerance for elevated cortisol levels, among other things. B6’s odyssey is also a triumph of the remarkable mechanical properties of feathers. Feathers kept B6 warm overnight while it flew above the Pacific Ocean. Feathers repelled rain along the way. Feathers formed the flight surfaces of the wings that kept B6 aloft and drove the bird forward for nearly 250 hours without failing.

Research shows that feather shape is largely optimized to allow the feather to twist and bend in sophisticated ways that greatly enhance flight performance. Merely being anatomically asymmetrical doesn’t mean much. What matters is that the feather is aerodynamically asymmetrical. That is, the trailing blade needs to be three times wider than the leading one. Below this ratio, the feather twists in a destabilizing rather than stabilizing way during flight.

Editor’s Note: This small bird is one example of the creative wisdom of God. This article goes on to attribute the marvel of the flight in this bird to evolution. However, the Bible says that all of creation shows the glory of intelligent design by God for those who are willing to see it (Ps. 19:1-6; Rom. 1:18-25).

For decades, scientist Sir Fred Hoyle pioneered research in astrophysics. He started his scientific career as a staunch atheist who saw no evidence of design in the universe. In his early years, he said, “Religion is but a desperate attempt to find an escape from the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves.”

But as his career went on, he discovered something that would rock his atheism—physicists call it “fine tuning.” Fine tuning refers to the discovery that many properties of the universe fall within extremely narrow and improbable ranges that turn out to be absolutely necessary for complex forms of life, or for any life at all. Hoyle’s contribution to the discovery of fine tuning began in the 1950s.

Eventually, Hoyle became convinced that some intelligence had orchestrated the precise balance of forces and factors in nature, to make the universe life permitting. He was overwhelmed by what he called “Cosmic coincidences.” As he put it in 1981:

A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces we're speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion, almost beyond question.”

Brett McCracken writes in his book, The Wisdom Pyramid:

I live in Southern California, where climate-controlled houses and air-conditioned cars give us a measure of mastery over summer's triple-digit temperatures or winter's atmospheric river storms. But we can't escape nature completely. A mudslide washes away parts of Highway 1, making it impassable. The Santa Ana winds will blow, causing us to cough on the air that "tastes like a stubbed-out cigarette" as the poet Dana Gioia (aptly) says. Months of no rain crisp the Sonoran landscape, making it ripe for autumn wildfires. The weather doesn't ask for our opinion. Nature reminds us there is a world bigger than the one we've made.

A headline in the Los Angeles Times that sums it up well: "We may live in a post-truth era, but nature does not." Perhaps that's one of the reasons I've always loved nature—God's beautiful and terrifying creation. In a world where man thinks he is the measure of all things, nature begs to differ. There is a givenness to nature that is sanity in an insane world. It is there to sustain our lives, to be enjoyed, but also to challenge us, to put us in our place, and to impart to us wisdom—if we are willing to listen.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture is our supreme and only infallible source of knowledge of God. But Scripture itself tells us that wisdom can be found in God's creation (Psa. 19:1-6; Rom. 1:19-20). Nature’s glory is not an end unto itself. It’s not a god to worship. It’s a prism and amplifier of God’s glory. It’s a theater, a canvas, a cathedral, but God is always at center stage.

University of Oxford professor of astrophysics Pedro Ferreira is puzzled, as most physicists are, about the origins and basic elements of the universe.

In fact, we’re at a complete loss at how to explain some of the most fundamental but baffling observations of how our Universe behaves. There is a tremendous, even cosmic, chasm between the physics we know and love, and some of the phenomena that we observe, but simply can’t make head nor tail of. We have no idea how to bridge this chasm – yet we are proceeding, to construct ever more expensive experiments and observatories in the hope that we will.

I’ve spent most of my adult life staring at the cosmic chasm – the abyss between what we know and what we don’t. And while our knowledge of the Universe has improved dramatically in that time, our ignorance has become only more focused. We’re no closer to answering the big questions about dark matter, dark energy and the origins of the Universe than when I started out. This isn’t for lack of trying, and a titanic effort is now underway to try and figure out all these mysterious aspects of the Universe. But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed, and we might end up never really grasping how the Universe works.

Every bird is covered with feathers, and almost every feather on an individual bird is different, specialized in length, shape and structure to match whatever function is needed at that position. Feathers around the head are all quite specialized, with tiny feathers around the eyes, feathers modified into bristles at the base of the bill, and longer feathers on the throat.

Among the most specialized are the feathers that cover the ear opening. These must allow sound to pass through but also protect against debris and create a streamlined surface over the ear for air to flow across as smoothly and quietly as possible.

Small songbirds generally have about two thousand feathers, fewer in summer and more in winter. Larger birds like crows mostly have larger feathers, not more.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Think of it, 2,000 feathers on a bird and nearly every feather designed by God with a purpose in mind. With such a display of purpose in a single bird feather, is there any doubt that God has a purpose in mind for his people.

When the lines and wait times at the local drive-through coronavirus vaccine clinic became unbearable, local officials sought out the experts. Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie said, "When I heard about it, I called Jerry and asked if he would come help us out.” The man in question was Jerry Walkowiak, manager of the local Chick-Fil-A restaurant, a chain known for serving large numbers of drive-through orders.

Mayor Haynie explained how things got sorted out. "After he looked it over, he said, 'There's your problem right there. It's backed up because you have one person checking people in.' Then he showed us how to do it right." Walkowiak mobilized a bunch of volunteers from the local Rotary Club, and before long, the hour-long wait had been trimmed to a more manageable fifteen minutes.

Walkowiak is only the latest in a long trend of professionals from adjacent fields being asked to help facilitate large-scale vaccination efforts. The Associated Press reported that health officials in Massachusetts have tapped Dave McGillivray, director of the Boston Marathon, to run mass vaccinations at Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When God gives you a talent, you never know how that talent might be used to bless the community around you. Don’t look down on your abilities just because they’re not explicitly meant for use inside the church; rather, look for every opportunity to bless your community as you do your work as unto the Lord.

In her book, Rebecca McLaughlin writes:

Describing the congruence he sees between science and his Christian faith, Nobel Prize–winning physicist William Phillips says:

“I see an orderly, beautiful universe in which nearly all physical phenomena can be understood from a few simple mathematical equations. I see a universe that, had it been constructed slightly differently, would never have given birth to stars and planets, let alone bacteria and people. And there is no good scientific reason for why the universe should not have been different. Many good scientists have concluded from these observations that an intelligent God must have chosen to create the universe with such beautiful, simple, and life-giving properties. Many other equally good scientists are nevertheless atheists. Both conclusions are positions of faith.”

Physicist Sean Carroll is a professor at the California Institute of Technology. In an interview on NPR, he marvels at the breathtaking number of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and the 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. What amazes him more is that at the theoretical Big Bang, everything had to be just right. Just a few atoms out of place and there would have been no birth to the known universe. “It's a delicate arrangement. It's a clue that the early universe is not chosen randomly. There is something that made it that way. We would like to know what.”

Notice how Carroll can’t help implying that the universe looks like it was created. But Carroll is an atheist, so how does he explain the appearance of creation? He basically says, Yes, the universe looks really fine-tuned. As a matter of fact, it looks too fine-tuned and orderly. So it must not have been created. Here are his exact words:

There's something called the teleological argument (that intelligent design argues for the existence of a supernatural creator). This says that features of our universe, if they were very different, wouldn't have allowed for us human beings to exist. But (in) the early universe … the problem is not just it was quite orderly, but it was really way more orderly than it needed to be for us to be here … If you really want to make this argument that the universe is set up to allow for the existence of life or humanity or something like that, the early universe is overkill.

Possible Preaching Angles: If you’re determined not to believe in a Creator God, you can always find a reason to reject him.

In his book Star Struck: Seeing the Wonder of the Creator in the Cosmos, astronomy professor and committed Christian, David Hart Bradstreet writes:

Is God calling you to be a scientist? That's not for me to say. Just make sure you don't let anyone tell you that all scientists are "godless scientists." Godly scientists are everywhere, as a survey by the American Association for the Advancement of Science shows.

AAAS found that nearly 36 percent of scientists have no doubts about God's existence, 18 percent of scientists attended weekly religious services (compared with 20 percent of the rest of us), and 15 percent of scientists consider themselves very religious (compared with 19 percent of the general population).

Dr. Joel Primack is an American astrophysicist who co-developed what's called "the cold dark matter theory" (which seeks to understand the formation and structure of the universe). When asked about the alleged rift between science and religion, Primack said, "In the last few years astronomy has come together so that we're now able to tell a coherent story of how the universe came together. This story does not contradict God, but instead enlarges the idea of God."

A poll conducted by the BBC that surveyed the 100 most prominent physicists, James Clerk Maxwell was voted the third greatest physicist of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein. On the centenary of Maxwell's birthday, Einstein described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton." Maxwell, in his famous equations, found a single description for electricity and magnetism, a remarkable feat. But he also showed that his equations predicted waves that traveled at the speed of light, showing that visible light, radio waves, microwaves, and X-rays, were also all part of the same phenomenon. Surely this was one of the most wonder-inducing Eureka moments in the history of human thought.

What was Maxwell's response? Maxwell was a devout Christian, who wrote frequently about his faith. In one letter, he wrote, "I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable." For Maxwell, the beauty of the natural world that he observed and the fact that he could discover it filled him with wonder, and it gave credence to the idea that there is a Creator who created an ordered universe and created us to inhabit and explore it.

Since it's opening in 1874 the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England has been the place where many extraordinary discoveries in physics have taken place. Its history of innovation is great. Cavendish professors have completely changed our understanding of the physical world. They discovered the first electron. The same was true of the neutron. The lab laid the foundations for the discovery of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. It also was instrumental in laying the groundwork that led to the determination of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule by Francis Crick and James Watson in the 1950's.

Of course those are just some of the highlights of the discoveries of that great lab. What's interesting is that at the entrance to the old Cavendish lab the words of Psalm 111 stand above the great oak door—"The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." The words are carved in Latin. The verse was put there at the instigation of the first Cavendish Professor, James Clark Maxwell. That's not surprising because 140 years ago the Bible and Christianity were held in high esteem in Britain. But what is surprising is that they are also over the entrance to the new lab that was opened in 1973. Andrew Briggs, a PhD student at the time, was so impressed with the words above the old lab that he suggested that the words be put above the new entrance, only that this time they be inscribed in English. Cavendish Professor A. B. Pippard put the proposal to the Policy Committee. He was sure they would veto the suggestion but to his surprise, they approved it.

Possible Preaching Angles: Despite the skepticism in our society, there are some scientists who still recognize that God created all things and that by studying these things we are thinking God's thoughts after him.

In his book Star Struck, Christian astronomer Dr. David H. Bradstreet writes:

Our planet is home to some 10 to 14 million species of living things. Consider the lowly dandelion. Found on all the Earth's continents, these tenacious plants seem to flourish anywhere and everywhere (particularly where fussy gardeners wish they wouldn't). Dandelion flower heads are perfectly designed for maximum seed creation and dispersal. Each yellow, flowering head can disperse 50 to 175 seeds to the winds. One single dandelion plant can create more than two thousand seeds.

Or consider the power of plants. A column in the New York Times hailed them for being "as close to biological miracles as a scientist could dare admit." As Douglas Tallamy writes, "After all, they allow us to eat sunlight … and plants also produce oxygen, build topsoil and hold it in place, prevent floods, sequester carbon dioxide, buffer extreme weather and clean our water."

Or consider the way God has made life thrive even in the deepest and darkest regions of the ocean floor, where no sunshine ever permeates the gloom. Strange plants grow 20,000 feet below the surface, surviving on chemical nutrients emerging from vents in the ocean floor.

It's this kind of mind-blowing biological diversity that I think about when I'm singing "For the Beauty of the Earth," one of my favorite hymns.

Sarah Salviander is research scientist in the field of astrophysics. A lifelong atheist, Sarah became a theist as an undergraduate physics student, when she came to believe that the universe was too elegantly organized to be an accident. She is currently a researcher at the Astronomy Department at the University of Texas at Austin, and a part-time assistant professor in the Physics Department at Southwestern University.

Her parents were socialists and political activists who were also atheists, though they preferred to be called agnostics. In her testimony Sarah wrote:

It's amazing that for the first 25 years of my life, I met only three people who identified as Christian. My view of Christianity was negative from an early age. Looking back, I realized a lot of this was the unconscious absorption of the general hostility toward Christianity that is common in places like Canada and Europe.

So she began to focus on her physics and math studies. She joined campus clubs, started to make friends, and, for the first time in her life, met Christians.

They weren't like [atheists and agnostics I knew]—they were joyous and content. And, they were smart, too. I was astonished to find that my physics professors, whom I admired, were Christian. Their personal example began to have an influence on me, and I found myself growing less hostile to Christianity.

Sarah then joined a group in the Centre for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS) that was researching evidence for the big bang, and that was a turning point in her conversion. She continued: "I started to sense an underlying order to the universe. Without knowing it, I was awakening to what Psalm 19 tells us so clearly: the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."

In his book Up with Authority, Victor Lee Austin uses the analogy of an orchestra to explain why we need human authority. Orchestras need conductors because the musicians don't have a single right answer to questions like, "What should we play at the concert?" or "What should we practice today?" or "How should we interpret this passage?" Each musician might have a perfectly reasonable opinion, but their opinions will inevitably be different and will almost always be incompatible with one another. And it's no good for each musician to do what is right in his or her own ears. It won't do for the brass section to insist on playing a one musical piece if the strings have chosen to play a completely different piece. If the orchestra is to perform coherently, if the musicians want to perform music rather than just make noise, somebody has to have authority to decide.

By submitting to the authority of a conductor, individual musicians attain musical expression they could never realize individually or even as a collection of free-wheeling players. Authority is necessary for classical musicians to bring musical fulfillment to others. In the words of Victor Lee Austin, the conductor's authority yields "a greater degree of human flourishing than we would have from the musicians separately or individually." What is true for orchestras is true for human life in general.

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

—Albert Einstein, (1879-1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate

Generosity may not always be a good thing. Kevin Shelton, nicknamed "Money Man," a wealthy real estate investor in St. Petersburg, Florida, has been trying to prompt others to be generous. A fine idea! The problem came with the execution.

On Saturday, September 13, 2003, Shelton publicized a money giveaway at the BayWalk shopping mall courtyard. He appeared on a balcony with a small silver tube—; his "cash cannon"—that shot wads of $2 bills. Hundreds of people below him waited as he discharged nearly $10,000 in cash over the crowd. Then things got crazy. In the frenzy, a dozen people were injured, half of them going to the hospital. Shelton didn't even realize anyone had been hurt.

A spokeswoman for the mall said they'd have to decide if anything should have been done differently.

Locusts legion, they do not crowd upon each other, so as to throw their columns into confusion. This remarkable fact in natural history shows how thoroughly the Lord has infused the spirit of order into His universe, since the smallest animate creatures are as much controlled by it as are the rolling spheres or the seraphic messengers.

It would be wise for believers to be ruled by the same influence in all their spiritual life. In their Christian graces no one virtue should usurp the sphere of another, or eat out the vitals of the rest for its own support. Affection must not smother honesty, courage must not elbow weakness out of the field, modesty must not jostle energy, and patience must not slaughter resolution.

So also with our duties, one must not interfere with another; public usefulness must not injure private piety; church work must not push family worship into a corner. It is ill to offer God one duty stained with the blood of another. Each thing is beautiful in its season, but not otherwise.