Creation in Christian preaching highlights God's wisdom, power, and purposeful design evident in the natural world, affirming His role as the Creator. Illustrations often use vivid images from nature—such as seeds, animals, and intricate patterns—to reveal God's invisible presence and providential care (Romans 1:20, Psalm 19:1). This subject underscores that creation testifies to God's existence and plan, encouraging faith in His divine plan.
Even spiders respond to music, showing God’s design in creation’s sensitivity to sound.
While a gentleman was watching some spiders it occurred to him to try what effect a tuning-fork would have on the insects. He suspected that they would regard the sound just as they were in the habit of regarding the sound made by a fly. And sure enough they did. He selected a large, ugly spider that had been feasting on flies for two months. The spider was at one edge of its web. Sounding the fork, he touched a thread at the other side of the web and watched the result. Mr. Spider had the buzzing sound conveyed to him over his telephone wires, but how was he to know on which particular wire the sound was traveling? He ran to the center of the web very quickly, and felt all around until he touched the thread against the other end of which the fork was sounding; and taking another thread along, just as a man would take an extra piece of rope, he ran out to the fork and sprang upon it. Then he retreated a little way and looked at the fork. He was puzzled. He had expected to find a buzzing fly. He got on the fork again and danced with delight. He had caught the sound of the fly and it was music to him. It is said that spiders are so fond of music that they will stop their spinning to listen, and a man once said that when he retired to his room for quiet before dinner and played the flute, large spiders would come onto the table and remain quite still, “running away as fast as their legs could carry them” directly he had finished--_Electrical Review._
Nature's phenomena like the aurora borealis are believed to produce mysterious sounds.
The Innuits, or Eskimos, of Smith Sound, Greenland, the most northerly people in the world, believe that the aurora borealis has a singing noise; and the inhabitants of the Orkneys, of Finmarken, and those in the region of Hudson Bay believe, with many competent observers, that a peculiar sound like the rustling of silk always accompanies it. The Lapps liken this sound to the cracking in the joints of moving reindeer. (Text.)
Animals' pain responses differ from humans, showing less sensitivity and different survival reactions.
In dealing with animals it is necessary to consider carefully what signs may be depended upon as proofs of their suffering. Certainly their struggles and cries are not always true indications. All wild animals struggle under restraint. With many, cries indicate fear rather than pain. A hare when shot rarely cries; when closely pursued by dogs it often does. Animals when trapped rarely cry until some one approaches the trap. Frogs will cry out loudly on the appearance of anything at all resembling a snake; when injured with stones or cut by the scythe in mowing they rarely do so. Every gamekeeper knows that it is a common thing for a rat or rabbit, when caught by the leg in one of the ordinary steel-traps, to gnaw off its limb and so escape, while other animals when kept short of food will readily eat their own tails. Another proof that animals are less sensitive to pain than man is their comparative freedom from shock after severe injuries. When a man meets with a severe injury of any kind, a train of symptoms follow which are collectively known by the name of shock. A striking pallor takes the place of the natural color, the skin becomes covered with a clammy moisture, the eye loses its natural luster, and the extremities become deadly cold, and while the ear may detect the fluttering action of the heart, the pulse at the wrist is often quite imperceptible. All these symptoms point to a great disturbance of the nervous system, whereas the lower animals often sustain the severest injuries without exhibiting any of the symptoms of shock.--W. COLLIER, _Nineteenth Century_.
Even humble creatures have ancient, noble origins showing God's creative design.
Shells keeping their form and delicate color and delicate wings of insects are preserved in stone, embedded there ages ago, “Trees waved, butterflies flitted on brilliant wings and hosts of creatures basked in the sunlight long before human foot trod the earth,” says Edith Carrington in “Ages Ago.” Some pique themselves in being able to trace descent through a few centuries. But there is a humble creature haunting our back-yards counting his pedigree by millions of years. The common wood-louse, tho shy and modest, might boast if he liked--the scion of an ancient and noble family, the trilobites, once the monarchs of the world and the most numerous and highly organized creatures in it. (Text.)
Some creatures survive through ages, others vanish, illustrating life's transience.
“The first lizard possest the snout of a dolphin, the head of a lizard, the teeth and jaws of a crocodile, the backbone of a fish, paddles like those of a whale and the trunk and tail of a quadruped--a very monarch of the early seas. Kill or be killed must have been the rule of his life,” says the great French novelist Currie. But it would seem the coat of mail worn by the tortoises and turtles was a better protection than the powerful claws and jaws of the fish-lizard, which was short-lived. The former are alive and flourishing to this day--the latter have altogether vanished. On the grave of John Keats are the words, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” (Text.)
God’s design is evident even in the earliest human beings' physical and mental traits.
In the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons lies a famous skull. Discovered at Gibraltar many years ago, it has been agreed to be that of a human being of prehistoric times. Professor A. Keith, curator of the museum, has compared the skull minutely with those of the people of all nations to-day, and has set it side by side with all other available prehistoric relics. “The skull, I have little doubt, is that of a woman,” he said. “From the size of her brain she must have been shrewd--probably a woman, too, of considerable spirit. One can reckon pretty accurately also the time at which she lived. It must have been at least 600,000 years ago. From the jaws and the fact that the muscles of mastication were remarkably strong it is possible to deduce what this prehistoric woman ate. Nuts and roots probably entered very largely into her diet. She was in the habit of eating things which required a great amount of mastication before much nourishment could be derived from them, hence the unusual development of the jaw muscles.”
Animals show reasoning and memory beyond instinct, as seen in a rat’s behavior.
As throwing light upon the question of the intelligence of the animal creation, in the exhibition of memory and reasoning power, beyond the mere pale of recognized instinct, I wish to give a brief account of an interesting incident of which I was the witness. On a very warm day in early summer I happened to be standing near a chicken-coop in a back yard when I noticed the head of a very gray and grizzled rat thrust from a neighboring rat-hole, and concluded to watch the movements of the veteran. After a careful survey of the surroundings, our old rodent seemed to be satisfied that all was right, and made a cautious exit from the home retreat. A fresh pan of water had been recently placed before the chicken-coop for the use of Mother “Chick” and her interesting brood. These all seemed to have satisfied their thirst, and the water looked a friendly invitation to the thirsty old rat, which immediately started toward it. The rat had not reached the pan before five half-grown young ones rushed ahead and tried to be first at the water. The old rat thereupon immediately made a leap like a kangaroo, and was at the edge of the dish in advance of the foremost of her litter. Then ensued a most remarkable occurrence. The mother rat raised herself on her haunches and bit and scratched her offspring so severely, whenever they attempted to reach the water, that they all finally scudded away, evidently very much astonished and also frightened at the strange and unaccountable behavior of their mother. I was as much astonished as they, and waited with renewed interest the outcome of this remarkable performance. When the little ones were at a safe distance, the reason for her extraordinary behavior began to be revealed at once in the intelligent actions of the old mother rat. She first wet her whiskers in the water, looked suspiciously about her, then very cautiously and carefully took a dainty little sip of the liquid. She tasted it as tentatively and critically as a professional tea-taster, and when she was satisfied that it contained no poisonous or other deleterious matter, she gave a couple of squeaks, which quickly brought her young and thirsty brood to her side, and all fearlessly drank to their fill. Now, this old mother rat was experienced, had evidently learned her lesson in that school thoroughly, and so she would not allow her young and untaught litter to taste water which might have contained rat-poison, or what not, until she had satisfied herself that the liquid was harmless. As I witnessed this little scene in lowly animal life the thought would keep coming, does not this look very like reason?--F. CROLL BAUM, _American Naturalist_.
Scientific instruments reveal God's creation far beyond human senses' natural limits.
“The inferiority of the human sense organ to the instruments of science is pointed out by Dr. Carl Snyder,” says _The American Inventor_. “He says that whereas the human eye can see but little more than 3,000 stars in the heaven on the clearest of nights, the photographic plate and the telescope can discover countless millions. It is difficult for the eye to distinguish divisions of the inch if smaller than 1-200 of that unit of measure, yet a powerful microscope will make an object 1-1,000 of an inch in diameter look comparatively large. It would be a delicate ear which could hear the tramp of a fly, yet the microphone magnifies this sound until it sounds like the tramp of cavalry. The most sensitive skin can not detect a change in temperature less than 1-5 of a degree, but the bolometer will register on a scale an increase or decrease of temperature of 1-1,000,000 of a degree and can easily note the difference in temperature caused in a room when a match is lighted one mile away.”
Science reveals beauty and order in what appears as dirt or chaos to the untrained eye.
Where the untrained eye will see nothing but mire and dirt (says Sir John Lubbock), science will often reveal exquisite possibilities. The mud we tread under our feet in the street is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot and water. Separate the sand, however, as Ruskin observes--let the atoms arrange themselves in peace according to their nature--and you have the opal. Separate the clay and it becomes a white earth, for the finest porcelain; or if it still further purifies itself you have a sapphire. Take the soot, and if properly treated it will give you a diamond. While, lastly, the water purified and distilled, will become a dew-drop or crystallize into a lovely star. Or, again, you may see in a shallow pool either the mud lying at the bottom or the image of the sky above.--_Public Opinion._
The sky sets the tone and life for nature’s beauty and perspective.
In landscape-painting the sky, it is said, is the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment; just as the sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything. This led John Constable to say that “the landscape-painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids.” He says he was advised to consider his sky as “a white sheet thrown behind the objects.” He claims that the skies have what he calls a natural history in the changes that they show. As West once told him: “Always remember, sir, that light and shade never stand still,” adding: “In your skies always aim at brightness ... even the darkest effects there should be brightness. Your darks should look like the darks of silver, not of lead or of slate.” It was the fault in the skies that led to the rejection of Constable’s picture, “Flatford Mill,” by the Royal Academy.
How much life depends upon its skies.
Air pollution deposits large amounts of soot, impacting health in urban environments.
The Chicago public laboratories recently made tests to determine the amount of soot and dust deposited from the air in that city. The acreage deposit, as estimated from samples collected at eight different heights during a period of four weeks, was, approximately, at the rate of 8.5 tons per acre per year. On the Board of Trade Building, 110 feet above the street level, the estimated annual deposit was 10.5 tons. On the county building, 160 feet above street level, the amount was 7.8 tons, and on the Reaper Block, 120 feet above street level, 12.6 tons. The situation in Chicago is different only in degree from that prevailing in every large city. It would be interesting (and no doubt appalling) to know how many tons of soot enter the lungs of the inhabitants of our large cities.--_Good Health._
The soul perceives and lives harmoniously within God's created natural order.
The daisy brightening in the shadow of the hedgerow, or strewing the fields as with golden flakes; the trees spreading their whispering roof of tremulous foliage, or holding against the blast their rugged arms, inlocked with a trunk deep-set and rooted; brooks, lapsing or leaping from their summit springs; the ocean, which takes these to itself, without an added ripple on its bays, or an increase of its tides; all sounds, of mirth, or suffering, or fear; the drowsy hum of multitudinous insects; the arrowy song of birds, swifter than wings, aspiring to the skies; all forms and tones of human life; the immeasurable azure which is over us everywhere, brilliant with stars, or flecked with clouds, or made the blue and boundless realm of the victorious sun--all these, and all the visible system which these but partly represent, the soul perceives. It goes out to them, in its observant, inspecting glance. It meets and hears them, if they are vocal, with its attent sense. It apprehends them all, arranges them in their natural and obvious order, assigns to each its place and service, and lives amid them as in a home reared for it and furnitured at the commencement of its being.
— RICHARD S. STORRS
Space is filled with countless tiny bodies, showing God’s intricate creation.
The idea that the vast spaces between the sun and the various planets are void and untenanted now belongs only to the history of science. To-day it is known that these spaces are filled with vast swarms of minute, dust-like bodies, each and every one revolving about the sun in vast ellipses, each one being, in fact, a microscopic planet. These bodies make their presence known not only as meteors or shooting-stars, but also by their power to reflect sunlight, and thus produce the peculiar evening glow of the zodiacal light.--CHARLES LANE POOR, “The Solar System.”
Design in nature shows that speed is achieved by a larger front and slender rear form.
In attacking some evils the best way to sweep them down, is often to use our greatest bulk and energy at the outset; as a ship, according to M. C. L. Meyher, moves fastest when the bow is made larger than the stern.
It should be noted in passing that all creatures that are called upon to move rapidly through a fluid are much slenderer behind than before, and it should be added that forms that are too slender in front are quite unsuited for great speeds. This may easily be demonstrated, but would take us too far from our subject for the moment. We should only say that it is difficult to understand why designers so often persist in giving to vessels forms that are more slender in the bow than in the stern, when the contrary should be the case.--_Revue Generale des Sciences._
Birds' swift flight illustrates God's creative power and design in nature.
The inexperienced gunner will declare emphatically that any old bird can fly at least a mile a second, but science is of the opinion that the swift, the most speedy bird of all, can make but 250 miles an hour. The swallow can cover ninety-two miles in an hour and the eider-duck ninety miles. All birds of prey are necessarily rapid in their flight; the eagle can attain a speed of 140 miles per hour and the hawk 150 miles. The flight of most migratory birds does not exceed fifty miles an hour, and the crow can accomplish but twenty-five.
A falcon belonging to Henry IV of France escaped from Fontainebleau and was found at Malta twenty-four hours later, having covered a distance of at least 1,530 miles. Sir John Ross, on October 6, 1850, dispatched from Assistance Bay two young carrier-pigeons, one of which reached its dove-cote in Ayrshire, Scotland, on the 13th. This was comparatively slow time for the distance, two thousand miles. It is probable that flights which have occasioned astonishment by greatly exceeding the average have been materially assisted by aerial currents moving in the same direction.--_Harper’s Weekly._
Even animals transmit learned behavior, illustrating God's providential order in creation.
See PERISHABLENESS.
TRANSMISSION
Even among the lower orders of creation, a law of transmission obtains.
A writer in an Australian quarterly for April, 1906, tells of a magpie near Melbourne, which while a captive had been taught to whistle “Merrily danced the Quaker’s wife, merrily danced the Quaker,” and passed the song on to its young, through whom, in a more or less fragmentary way, it was transmitted to subsequent generations, so that there are “many now in the forest who still conclude their beautiful wild notes with the ascending notes which terminate the old air.” (Text.)
All living things share one fundamental structural unit, reflecting God’s unity.
As the glass reflects the face, so the creation reflects the qualities of Him who made it. Among other attributes, It speaks of His unity.
Notwithstanding the wide diversity that presents itself to our view in the countless varieties of living beings, it yet is true that all vegetable and animal tissues without exception, from that of the brightly colored lichen on the rock, to that of the painter who admires or of the botanist who dissects it, are essentially one in composition and in structure. The microscopic fungi clustering by millions within the body of a single fly, the giant pine of California towering to the height of a cathedral-spire, the Indian fig-tree covering acres with its profound shadow, animalcules minute enough to dance in myriads on the point of a needle, and the huge leviathan of the deep, the flower that a girl wears in her hair, and the blood that courses through her veins, are, each and all, smaller or larger multiples or aggregates of one and the same structural unit, and all therefore ultimately resolvable into the same identical elements. That unit is a corpuscle composed of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. Hydrogen, with oxygen, forms water; carbon, with oxygen, carbonic acid; and hydrogen, with nitrogen, ammonia. These three compounds--water, carbonic acid, and ammonia--in like manner, when combined form protoplasm. (Text.)
Scientific discoveries show diverse phenomena are one, supporting theism and unity.
Theism is gradually being reenforced by the discovery that apparently diverse phenomena are really one.
The division of bodies into gaseous, liquid, and solid, and the distinction established for the same substance between the three states, retain a great importance for the applications and usages of daily life, but have long since lost their absolute value from the scientific point of view.
As far as concerns the liquid and gaseous states particularly, the already antiquated researches of Andrews confirmed the ideas of Cagniard de la Tour and established the continuity of the two states.--LUCIEN POINCARE, “The New Physics and Its Evolution.”
Different minds perceive the same mountain in vastly different ways, reflecting their focus.
In a poem, “The Mountain,” Edwin Markham shows how differently a mountain affects different minds:
Each builds his world forever, dark or bright,
And sits within his separate universe.
The shepherd sees in this green mountain top
Place where his sheep may wander and grow fat.
What to the drover is this lilied pool?
A hollow for his swine to wallow in.
Gold-hunters find upon this rocky peak
Nothing but ledges for their ringing picks.
But to the poet all this soaring height
Smokes with the footsteps of the passing God!
Microscopic creatures perceive a vast world of wonders invisible to humans.
The insect must see a whole world of wonders of which we know little or nothing. True, we have microscopes, with which we can see one thing at a time if carefully laid upon the stage; but what is the finest instrument that can be produced compared to that with twenty-five thousand object-glasses, all of them probably achromatic, and each one a living instrument, with its own nerve-branch supplying a separate sensation. To creatures thus endowed with microscopic vision, a cloud of sandy dust must appear like an avalanche of massive rock fragments, and everything else proportionally monstrous.--W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, “Science in Short Chapters.”
All creation is interconnected, each part benefiting others by God’s design.
Faraday, the distinguished chemist, says:
The change produced by respiration so injurious to us (for we can not breathe the air twice over) is the very life and support of plants and vegetables growing on the surface of the ground. These latter absorb carbon--the leaves taking up the carbon of the air to which we have given it in the form of carbonic acid, and grow and prosper. Give them a fine air like ours, and they could not live in it, but carbon and other matters make them grow. All trees and plants get their carbon from the air, which carries off what is bad for us and at the same time good for them--disease to the one is health to the other. So we are made dependents not only on our fellow creatures but on our fellow existers as well, all nature being tied together by the law that makes one part conduce to the good of another. (Text.)
Man's greatness is not physical bulk but his unique qualities under God.
See COMPARATIVE, THE.
SIZE NOT POWER
John Stuart Mill gives us a wonderful contrast between man’s brief day and the enduring ages of Neptune, yet Neptune is a frozen clod, whirling on in eternal ice and darkness. A little ball of ice can not laugh nor love nor sing nor curse nor faint nor die; neither can a big ball of ice named Neptune. It is man alone who is great, as the regent under God. The contrast between the insignificance of man and the greatness of nature is based on the fallacy that bulk is greatness. The truth is that bulk is bulk, and concerns rocks and clods. Size is not power. (Text.)
— N. D. HILLIS
