84 Sermon Illustrations on Creation Theology

William Jennings Bryan got more than refreshment from a piece of watermelon: "I was eating a piece of watermelon some months ago when I was struck with its beauty. I took some of the seeds and dried them and weighed them, and found that it would require some 5,000 seeds to weigh a pound; and then I applied mathematics to that 40-pound melon. "One of these seeds, put into the ground, when warmed by the sun and moistened by the rain, takes off its coat and goes to work; it gathers from somewhere two hundred thousand times its own weight, and forcing this raw material through a tiny stem, constructs a watermelon. It ornaments the outside with a covering of green; inside the green it puts a layer of white, and within the white a core of red, and all through the red it scatters seeds, each one capable of continuing the work of reproduction. "Who drew the plan by which that little seed works? Where does it get its tremendous strength? Where does it find its coloring matter? How does it collect its flavoring extract? How does it develop a watermelon? "Until you can explain a watermelon, do not be too sure that you can set limits to the power of the Almighty and say just what He would do or how He would do it."

Imagine a family of mice who live all their lives in a large piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the mu sic-invisible to them-yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see. Then one day a daring young mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer believe in the Unseen Player. Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But the Pianist continued to play.

An example from the animal world shows how God makes provision for stability in the most difficult circumstances. In bold defiance of gravity, the mountain goats that live from the Northwest United States through Canada into Alaska demonstrate incredible stability in the most difficult of terrains. They leap surefootedly from ledge to ledge and scamper around steep, rugged mountainsides with the utmost confidence. Unusually flexible, the two toes of the goat's hoof can spread apart wider than the hoof is long to distribute the animal's grip. Or they can draw together to grasp a knob of rock. The goat also has a rough, pliable traction pad on the bottom of each toe which makes them skid-resistant on ice. Dewclaws projecting from the rear of the ankles provide additional traction on steep, downhill routes. Just as God makes provision in the animal world for creatures to stand with stability in the most difficult terrain, He will surely make provision for His redeemed children to stand in the most difficult spiritual circumstances. He can and will stabilize you in the midst of insuperable difficulty.

A few years ago, Joseph M. Stowell and his wife had the joy of teaching the Word of God in Hawaii. It was February, which happens to be when the humpback whales arrive. Humpback whales are about 40 feet long at maturity and weigh about one ton per foot. They carry a thousand pounds of barnacles, and when they jump, or "breach," they extend themselves totally in the air, and then free-fall back into the ocean. You can see the splash five miles away. During the Stowell's stay, they went out on a whale-watching boat. As they watched the whales jump and play almost within reach, the guide told them that the whales come down from Alaska every year to calve in the warm Hawaiian waters. Year after year, each family comes back to the very same place around the island. When the calves are born (they weight about five tons), they are born breech-or tail first. If they were born head first, these air-breathing mammals would drown during the birth process. As a baby whale is born, another humpback whale comes alongside and pushes it up to the surface to help the baby take his first breath of air. The guide also said that the humpback whale sings a "song" that can be heard more than 50 miles away under water. Every one of these whales sings the same song. Each year, the song changes slightly, and every humpback whale in the world will sing that year's song. Amazing! Incredible! What a display of the wonderful creative power of our God!

A Christian was invited to admire a great skyscraper. After looking at its majestic height, he called his host's attention to a little flower that he had on his lapel, saying, "True, this building speaks of man's achievement, but this flower with its life speaks of God's creation. I can see God more clearly in the flower than in the skyscraper." A Doctor's Testimony Here is the testimony of a medical doctor: "In an anatomy room, a dead body meant nothing to me. I could not visualize the man or woman it might have been. Life left few records on the immobile face. For weeks I worked, and each day the wonder grew. Then one day I was working on an arm and hand, studying the perfect mechanical arrangements of the muscles and tendons, how the sheaths of certain muscles are split to let tendons of other muscles through, so that the hand may be delicate, small and yet powerful. I was all alone in the laboratory when the overwhelming belief came: a thing like this is not just chance but a part of a plan, a plan so big that only God could have conceived it. Religion had been to me a matter of form, a thing without conviction, but now everything was an evidence of God-the tendons of the hand, the patterns of the little butterfly's wings-all are a part of God's wonderful design."

One evening when Napoleon was returning to France from the expedition to Egypt, a group of French officers entered into a discussion concerning the existence of God. They were on the deck of the vessel that bore them over the Mediterranean Sea. Thoroughly imbued with the skeptical and atheistical spirit of the times, they were unanimous in their denial of God. It was decided to ask the opinion of Napoleon, who was standing alone wrapped in silent thought. On hearing the question, "Is there a God?" he raised his hand and pointing to the starry firmament simply responded, "Gentlemen, who made all that?" The Wonderful Recreation John Ruskin was walking along the streets of London one rainy day when he noticed the great quantities of mud at his feet. The thought occurred to him that it would be interesting to have the mud analyzed to find out exactly what inorganic elements were in it. This was accordingly done, and it was found that London mud consisted of sand, clay, soot, and water. He was struck by the fact that these are the very substances from which our precious jewels and gems are formed. From the sand come the onyx, agate, beryl, jasper, amethyst; from the clay come the sapphire, ruby, emerald, topaz; and from the soot, the diamond. London mud composed of precious jewels! Man cannot transform the mud into those glittering points of light, but God transforms and recreates the mud-poor, sinful, wayward humanity-into redeemed souls who sing a new song and carry with them glad tidings of great joy!

Existing things are not the result of chance. No one ever saw a rude heap of bricks dumped from a cart onto the ground arrange themselves into the walls, rooms, and chimneys of a house. The dust filings on a brassfounder's table have never been known to form themselves into the wheels and mechanism of a watch. The types loosely flung from the founder's mold never yet fell into the form of a poem, such as Homer, or Dante, or Milton would have constructed. Only an illogical person could believe that nature's magnificent temple was built without an architect, her flowers of glorious beauty were colored without a painter, and her intricate, complicated, but perfect machinery constructed without an intelligent mind. That man gave the atheist a crushing answer, who told him that the very feather with which he penned the words, "There is no God," refuted the audacious lie. It takes logic to come to the conclusion that there must have been a lógos, an intelligence behind what we see.

As Napolean was blazing his trail to the throne, he sought to conquer Egypt. Along with him as assistants he had some of the best engineers and scientists of France. It was natural they should talk about the land of the Nile and the part religion had played in its history. They agreed that religion had colored and carved the history of Egypt, but that all religion was only legend and humbug. It couldn't be otherwise, seeing that even God was a myth. So they talked beneath the starry heavens, these thinkers of France. They were atheists, as indeed so many of their fellow countrymen were at that time. Napolean listened and contributed nothing to the conversation, but as he rose to leave he lifted his hand and pointed to the silent stars that shone so brilliantly through the deep black sky. "Very ingenious, Messieurs," he said, "but who made all that?" The Challenged Atheist An atheist who had just finished lecturing to a great audience invited any who had questions to come to the platform. After a short interval, a man who had been well-known in the town as a hopeless drunkard but who had lately been converted, stepped forward. Taking an orange, he turned to the lecturer and asked him if it was a sweet one. Very angrily the man said, "Idiot, how can I know whether it is sweet or sour, when I haven't tasted it?" To this the converted drunkard retorted, "And how can you know anything about Christ if you have not tried Him?" The Atheist Persuaded A young preacher once called upon an old atheist who was constantly arguing against the existence of God. He found him sitting in his sawmill just over the lever that lifts as the saw leaves the log. As the old man began to denounce the Deity, that lever sprang, catching him under the heels and flinging him backward and down into the stream. As he plunged, however, he shrieked as loudly as he could, "God have mercy!" The preacher ran around, waded into the water, and drew the struggling man ashore. Said the pastor, "I thought that you did not believe in a God." As soon as the atheist stopped struggling he said in a subdued voice, "Well, if there is not a God, there ought to be one, to help a man when he can't help himself!" Who Made It? One of the greatest atheists of the past was Robert G. Ingersoll. In spite of his atheism, he had for a friend the famous preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. In the preacher's study was an elaborate celestial globe which had been sent him with the compliments of some manufacturer. On the surface in delicate workmanship were raised figures of the constellations and stars which composed them. The globe struck Ingersoll's fancy one day when he was visiting the preacher. He turned it around and around with admiration. "That is just what I want," he said, "Who made it?" "Who made it, do you say, Colonel?" repeated Beecher. "Who made this globe? Why nobody, of course. It just happened." Well, we all know better than that. We know that things don't just happen but they have a cause, and there must be a First Cause of all things. That is as far as the mind of man will take him. The logical conclusion-there must be God, the Creator.

"Like Phidias, who in his image carved his own name, there is God engraven upon every creature." Not in characters of human writing is it written, but in the character of the work. Phidias needed not to have written the word PHIDIAS in so many letters, for the master's hand had a cunning of its own which none could counterfeit. An instructed person had only to look at a statue and say at once, "Phidias did this, for no other hand could have chiselled such a countenance"; and believers have only to look either at creation, providence, or the divine word, and they will cry instinctively, "This is the finger of God." Yet, alas, man has great powers of wilful blindness, and these are aided by the powers of darkness, so that, being both blind and in the dark, man is unable to see his God, though his presence is as clear as that of the sun in the heavens.

The bodies of animals hold in their constitution and properties a great and important relation to the elements by which they are surrounded. The wings of birds bear a relation to air, and the fins of fishes to water.

Throughout the universe there is a wonderful proportioning of one thing to another. The size of animals, of man especially, when considered with respect to other animals, or to the plants which grow around him, is such as a regard to his conveniency would have pointed out. A giant or a pygmy could not have milked goats, reaped corn, or mowed grass; a giant could not have rode a horse, trained a vine, or shorn a sheep, with the same bodily case as we do, if at all. A pygmy would have been lost amongst rushes, or carried off by birds of prey.

It may be observed, likewise, that the model and the materials of the human body being what they are, a much greater bulk would have broken down by its own weight. The persons of men who much exceed the ordinary stature betray this tendency.

How close is the suitableness of the earth and sea to their several inhabitants, and of these inhabitants to the places of their appointed residence!

Take the earth as it is; and consider the correspondence of the powers of its inhabitants with the properties and condition of the soil which they tread. Take the inhabitants as they are: and consider the substances which the earth yields for their use. They can open its surface; and its surface supplies all which they want. Such is the length of their faculties, and such the constitution of the globe, that this is sufficient for all their occasions.

When we pass from the earth to the sea, from land to water, we pass through a great change; but an adequate change accompanies us of animal forms and functions, of animal capacities and wants. The earth in its nature is very different from the sea, and the sea from the earth; but one accords with its inhabitants as exactly as the other; and the correspondence instituted by Divine Wisdom pervades and harmonizes the whole. Paley.

Table of. "Gentlemen," said old Tea-kettle, that lay in the corner of a shed in which some worn-out locomotives had been stowed away, — "gentlemen, I am sorry to see you in this place; I wasn't brought here till I had more than once lost my spout and handle, and been patched and soldered till very little of my original was left. I conclude, therefore, that, like me, you have seen your best days, and are to be laid aside as useless."

The locomotives frowned at one another, but didn't answer.

"Well, gentlemen and brothers," cried the kettle again, "don't be down-hearted: we have played busy and useful parts in our day, and may comfort ourselves now in thinking over the things we have respectively achieved. As for me, the remembrance of the domestic delight and refreshment that I have been the means of affording affects me deeply."

"What is that little old tin whistle about up in the corner?" asked one of the locomotives of his companion. "Who are his brothers?"

"Hey-day! is that it?" cried the kettle, all alive with indignation. "So you don't own the relationship? Let me tell you, with all your pitiful pride, that, though you won't own me as a brother, I am father and mother to you; for who would ever have heard of a steam-engine if it hadn't been for a tea-kettle?"

— Leisure Hours

The phenomena of solutions afford some of the most obvious illustrations of complete change produced in bodies without causing their annihilation. If a piece of silver be immersed in diluted nitre, its specific gravity, all the characteristics which distinguish it as a metal which, a few minutes before, was immersed in the mixture, are apparently annihilated. The liquid, however, remains as limpid as before; it presents no difference in appearance to indicate a change. What, then, has become of the solid piece of silver which was placed in the liquid? Must we conclude that it is annihilated? Put some pieces of copper into the solution, and the silver will re-appear, and fall to the bottom of the glass in small brilliant metallic crystals. Though solution is one of the simplest processes of nature, the limited faculties of man will not permit him to comprehend the mode in which it operates.

Whoever considers the study of anatomy, I believe, will never be an athiest; the frame of man's body, and the cohesion of its parts, being so strange and paradoxical, that I hold it to be the greatest miracle of nature. Lord Herbert.

Galen, it is said, was converted from atheism by seeing and examining a human skeleton; and afterward he said he would give any one a hundred years' time to see if he could find a more commodious situation for any one member of the body. Bowes.

Our bodies are at all times like the fire which was shown to the hero of "The Pilgrim's Progress," in Interpreter's house, which had water poured on it on one side of the wall against which it blazed, and oil on the other. Here one tissue is burning like fuel, and there another is becoming the depository of combustible matter. We have, as it were, millions of microscopic wind-furnaces, converting into carbonic acid, water, vapor, and other products of combustion, all the combustible elements of the body; and millions of blast-furnaces reducing the starch and sugar of the food, and the sulphates and phosphates of the body, into inflammable oils and other fuels, which are finally transferred to the wind-furnaces, and burned there. Burning, and what we must call, in contradistinction, unburning, thus proceed together; the flame of life, like a blow-pipe flame, exhibiting an oxidizing and a reducing action, at points not far distant from each other. Such is the human body, ever changing, ever abiding; a temple always complete, and yet always under repair; a mansion which quite contents its possessor, and yet has its plans and materials altered each moment; a machine which never stops working, and yet is taken to pieces in the twinkling of an eye, and put together in the other; a cloth-of-gold, to which the needle is ever adding on one side of a line, and from which the scissors are ever cutting away on the other. Yes; life, like Penelope of old, is ever weaving and unweaving the same web, whilst her grim suitors, Disease and Death, watch for her halting; only for her there is no Ulysses who will one day in triumph return. Dr. G. Wilson.

A gentleman who had discarded the thought of Deity from his mind, while travelling in Australia was led in a remarkable way to a belief in his existence. His own account of it is as follows: "Journeying on a day as close and sultry as can well be imagined, I became, after some hours' travel, so weary, that at length I cast myself down beneath the most shady tree I could find, unable to hold out any longer, and determined to await the cool of the evening. As I lay thus, after some time I saw the seedstem of a little plant, close before me, move in the slightest degree several times, each time accompanying the motion with a single low, sharp sound like the tick of a watch. Interested to discover the connection between the motion and the sound, I leaned over and examined it. It was a small plant, with a short and more than proportionably thick flowerstem, having a single seed-pod at the extremity. The seed-pod was an oblate spheroid, not much larger than a garden-pea; but it was composed of a number of sections, which, shrinking as it ripened, separated themselves from one another; and finally each section detached itself at the bottom of the stalk, which ran right through to the upper side, and sprang out, nearly straightening itself; so that eventually, when all the sections had extended themselves, it would be something like an open umbrella. But to the extremity of each of these sections, before it sprang out, on the inside was attached a single small round seed, which was cast, by the spring of the section to which it belonged, to a considerable distance. I struck the stem lightly, and thus artificially expedited the process of disjunction, and found that the seeds were thrown out upwards of two feet. On paying close attention to the plant itself, I observed that its stem was so stiff, that the wind could have no power to sway it to and fro, and thus scatter the seed; so low, likewise, that, amidst the surrounding grass, the wind would scarcely ever reach it in force sufficient to carry the seed away; and, lastly, that it was placed in the midst of leaves all spreading upwards and outwards in a funnel-form from the root, so that, if the seed were not cast beyond them, they would catch and carry it back again to the bosom of the plant itself. The disadvantage, then, was threefold, and so complete in the whole as to bar this little fraction of Nature from the performance of one of its grand generic offices, — that of properly depositing its seeds. Nothing could relieve it but some mechanical contrivance; and here was that mechanical contrivance; and not only was it a contrivance in itself, but there was design and adaptation in fixing the very juncture of its operations. The seed should not be thrown off till it was ripe; and, till it was so ripe that its very reservoir began to separate into fragments, this mechanical contrivance could not act. The completion of the ripening process was the condition on which the contrivance for scattering the seed depended for coming into action. It was an instance of design and contrivance so indisputable, that there was no leaving it to be accounted for in any way but by the agency of a God. Dr. Leifchild.

What are the few worlds which sweep with us about the same source of life and light? Massive, ponderous in themselves; some of them immensely larger than our own, running wider revolutions, and drawing after them brighter trains. But even this one solar family, recognizing and claiming members in the outskirts of space, — it is as nothing to what the eye can command, nothing to the visible. What constellations are thrown over the firmament in all the profusion of beauty and magnificence! And when the unaided sense has roamed to its utmost ken, and gazed to its utmost strength, it may call the instruments of science to its assistance; and it shall look out on ampler territories, and take hold of larger notices. Now we leave our nook. We speak in no terms of exaggeration when we describe what we see as beds and floors and clouds of stars. As we pierce the awful altitudes, we ascend to new wonders. Apertures constantly open, and we are just suffered a glimpse into them. Heaven spreads above heaven; new arrangements stand revealed; and celestial bodies, in shapes hitherto undeveloped, flame as at the portal of the eternal throne to guard its access and proclaim its terribleness. Yet, even there, are proofs that discovery has not closed its researches: still avenue verges from avenue, and height rises into height. And, after all, this is but the outer court of "His high and holy place."

Creation is the work of God: "without him was not any thing made that was made." He only can create. The architect can rear a cathedral, the sculptor can cut forms of symmetry and grace from marble, the painter can depict life on his canvas, the machinist can construct engines that shall serve the nations; but not one of them can create. They work with materials already in existence. They bring existing things into new combinations: this is all. God alone can create. Dr. Thomas.

If a man meditate much upon the universal frame of Nature, the earth with man upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, where as some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust.

— Lord Bacon

It is this earth, that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy to man. The body of waters deluge him with rain, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations; the air rushes in storms, prefaces the tempest, or lights up the volcanoes: but the Earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walk with flowers, and his table with plenty; returns with interest every good committed to her care, and, though she supplies the poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly teased, more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet, even to the last, she continues her kind indulgence, and, when life is over, she piously covers his remains in her bosom. Pliny.

FLOOD, Tradition of the Mythology represents a woful, bloody, wicked, iron age, when avarice prevailed, the affections were dethroned, war and slaughter desolated the earth, and the gods abandoned it. At this state of things, Jupiter burned with anger, and called a council of the gods. He addressed them, setting forth the awful condition of things upon the earth, and announced his determination to destroy all its inhabitants, and provide a new race, worthy of life, and true worshippers of the gods. He took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it upon the world to destroy it by fire, when he thought it might enkindle the heavens also. He then resolved to drown it. He made the clouds pour out torrents of rain. He called on Neptune for aid, who unloosed the rivers, and poured the oceans over their shores. Flocks, herds, men, houses, and temples were swept away. Only here and there a hill-top projected above the all-pervading ocean. "The fishes swim among the tree-tops. Where the graceful lambs played but now, unwieldy seacalves gambol. The wolf swims among the sheep, the yellow lions and tigers struggle in the water. The strength of the wild boar serves him not, nor his swiftness the stag. The birds fall with weary wing into the water, having found no land for a resting-place. At length, Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, over-topped the waves; and the Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge,—he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods." Then Jupiter scattered the clouds; and Neptune caused Triton, with his shell, to sound a retreat to the waters, and they returned to their accustomed courses. Deucalion and his wife went to a surviving temple, to worship, and obtain instruction from the gods. They received instruction, which they understood to mean, that they should go forth, casting stones behind them. They did so; and the slimy stones began to grow into the human form, like a block in the hands of the sculptor. Those thrown by the man became men, and those by the woman became women. Thus was the earth repopled with a hardy race, adapted to labor as we find ourselves to be at this day, giving plain indications of our origin.

We have passed from planet to planet, from sun to sun, from system to system; we have reached beyond the limits of this mighty solar cluster with which we are allied; we have found other island universes sweeping through space: the great unfinished problem still remains. — Whence came this universe? Have all these stars which glitter in the heavens been shining from all eternity? Has our globe been rolling round the sun for ceaseless ages? Whence came this magnificent architecture, whose architraves rise in splendor before us in every direction? Is it all the work of chance? I answer, No! It is not the work of chance. Who shall reveal to us the true cosmography of the universe by which we are surrounded? It is the work of an Omnipotent Architect. Around us and above us rise sun and system, cluster and universe; and I doubt not, that, in every region of this vast empire of God, hymns of praise and anthems of glory are rising and reverberating from sun to sun, and from system to system, heard by Omnipotence alone across immensity and through eternity. Prof. Mitchell.

Basil called the world a school, wherein reasonable souls are taught the knowledge of God. In a musical instrument, when we observe divers strings meet in harmony, we conclude that some skilful musician tuned them. When we see thousands of men in a field, marshalled under several colors, all yielding exact obedience, we infer that there is a general, whose commands they are all subject to. In a watch, when we take notice of great and small wheels, all so fitted as to concur to an orderly motion, we acknowledge the skill of an artificer. When we come into a printing-house, and see a great number of different letters so ordered as to make a book, the consideration hereof maketh it evident that there is a composer, by whose art they were brought into such a frame. When we behold a fair building, we conclude it had an architect; a stately ship, well rigged, and safely conducted to the port, that it hath a pilot. So here: the visible world is such an instrument, army, watch, book, building, ship, as undeniably argueth a God, who was and is the tuner, general, and artificer, the composer, architect, and pilot of it. Arrowsmith.

By the aid of the imagination, you may decipher God's image in the works of creation, and syllable forth his name on suns and systems, and through Nature look to Nature's God. By the imagination, you may hear the voice of the Great Father speaking to you in the melody of the grove, in the roaring thunder, in the wild winds, and in the booming sea. By the imagination, you may see the impress of his paternal hand in the vernal bloom, in the painted flower, and in the lighted star.

— R. Roberts

Who taught the parrot his "Welcome"? Who taught the raven, in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a flower in a field to her hive? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she buried in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?

— Lord Bacon