In this sermon, the speaker marvels at the wonders of the human body and the intricate design of the world we live in. He highlights the miracle of sight and hearing, emphasizing the gratitude we should have for these abilities. The speaker also shares a personal story of a missionary who lost his hearing overnight, highlighting the fragility of these gifts. He then goes on to discuss the complexity of the human body, with its billions of parts working together as a team. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the divine creation of planet Earth and the perfect arrangement of its distance from the sun, its tilt, and rotation, allowing for the existence of water and the four seasons.

Shall we turn in our Bibles this morning to Psalm 19, the 19th Psalm, beginning in verse 1. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end, and there's nothing hidden from its heat. Last night we were speaking on the subject, what will heaven be like? And we mentioned that the central fact of heaven is that the Lord Jesus Christ is there. The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land. We talked about other residents of heaven, the angelic host, the church of the firstborn ones registered in heaven, the Old Testament saints, God the judge of all, and we also mentioned that the central wonder of heaven will be, as we just sung, that we will be there. And we mentioned that heaven will be a place of tremendous progress. We're not going to be inactive there. We're not going to be sitting under palm trees strumming a guitar. Or anything of the sort. It's going to be a place of wonderful progress, where God is going to be putting us through an eternal school that we'll really love. He's going to be revealing to us some of the wonders of the Word of God. The Bible we hold in our hand is an infinite book. The treasures in it are inexhaustible. And what a wonderful thing it will be to be sitting at the feet of Jesus and having him expound to us in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And then as we closed last night, we were thinking about how God is going to be revealing to us the wonders of his natural creation. And it is a sad thing that we go through life and we're so occupied with things and activities that we fail to look around us and realize what a wonderful creation there is. God's going to be putting us through his school and there's a marvelous course there. Wouldn't it be wonderful, for instance, to sit in a course on anatomy and it's taught by the Creator himself? I think that's great. The anatomy, the human body, the wonder of the human body. And it is wonderful, too. If you still have your Bible open or any book open and see the small letter I, you'll see a little dot over that I, won't you? A dotted I. Well, that was about the size of our beginning in the journey of life. And in that little ovum was computerized everything we were going to be. That's wonderful, isn't it? The shape of our chin. The color of our eyes. Our bony structure. Color of our hair. And an individualism like no one else who has ever lived or will ever live. And it's all there in that little speck. What a wonderful God we have. The body has billions of parts and they all work together as a team. 206 bones and 639 muscles enabling the body to move with incredible speed. Split second timing. Enabling a man in a crisis situation to lift up a car when his son is impaled under it. Imagine it. A tremendous burst of energy. The body all working together and achieving this. It enables us to run, to sing, to remember, to create and achieve myriads of other phenomenal tasks that we just take for granted day after day. God's going to be telling us all about it. I think back to that day when the Lord Jesus gave sight to a man who had been born blind. The miracle of sight. Dear friends, if you're born blind you need new optic nerves. And it's wonderful to think that the creator was there that day and he created new optic nerves for that man. Now it would take a few volumes to describe all that's involved in creating optic nerves. And that's why I take literally the words of John's gospel that of all the things Jesus did when he was here on earth were written in books. The world itself would not be able to contain them. Absolutely true. If you can accept the Bible literally, accept it literally. And you can accept that absolutely literal. Have you thanked God recently for the miracle of sight? What a marvelous thing that we look out and I don't know how it operates, but the light comes through our eyes and there must be a projector in there somewhere. And there must be a screen and there's the image. The tapestry comes right out on the screen. Have you thanked God for the miracle of hearing lately? And what a miracle it is and how we realize it when we're robbed of it. One of our young missionaries in Spain, Grant Ferrer, he went to bed one night. Absolutely normal. Absolutely well. And he woke up in the morning and he had lost the hearing of his right ear and will not get it back in this life. I said to him, Grant, what is the technical name for what happened to you? He said, are you ready for this? I said, I think so. He said, sudden deafness. But it's a marvelous thing really to be able to hear the vocal cords, the model of the vocal cords. Isn't that wonderful? I was sitting here in the prayer meeting this morning and I was listening to the brothers. I could tell who was praying. If I knew them, I could tell when Dave Hall prayed. I knew it was Dave. I could tell when Eric Shorkin prayed. It's not hard to identify Brother Nicholson. He has so much heather in his voice. I love it. You turn on the radio and you hear a man sing. You say, oh, that's Beverly Shane. There's only one Beverly Shane. Isn't it marvelous that God could so create the vocal cords, he never repeats himself. He's infinite in variety. The ear has 24,000 hair cells that convert vibrations and enable us to hear. What a wonder it all is. And then I think this is wonderful to operate this marvelous mechanism, which many people call God's masterpiece of creation. We have to take in about three and a half pounds of food every day. And that food is masticated by 32 teeth, your own or. And then there are these salivary glands and they produce the saliva. It goes down into your system and there's acid there. That's marvelous, isn't it? You know, that acid would take the varnish off your table. But if you just have the right amount there, you're a healthy person. And the food is being digested. Absolutely marvelous. Isn't that marvelous? The skin, do you ever think about your skin? It won't let the water in, but it will let water out. That's a good thing. It won't let it in. You drown. But in the hot weather, it will let let the water out and cool you up. Marvelous. I know so little. We see through a glass darkly. But I'll tell you then face to face and it'll be marvelous when God tells us all the fuck he went to to provide for us, to provide body for us and to care for us in such an infinite number of ways. Imagine the heart pumping a hundred thousand times a day and sometimes for a hundred years. I had a stepmother who lived over a hundred years. And think of that heart pumping faithfully all of those years. Hundred thousand times a day of circulating the blood through the system. Oxygen carrying away waste from tissues and organs and regulating the body temperature. The marvel of the human body. And every bit of it says that it's that the hand that made it is divine. I tell you, it takes a lot of credulity to think that that all happened by chance, doesn't it? Not faith, credulity. The DNA, the lifeblood, the DNA is so compacted that all the genes in the human body could go into about the size of an ice cube. And yet, if the DNA were unwound and joined together end to end. Are you ready for this? The strand would stretch from the earth to the sun and back more than 400 times. You didn't know you had such a wonderful body, did you? Just think of that. Let me say that again. I'm just going to read. This is from the book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Brandon Yancey. It says the DNA is so narrow and compacted that all the genes in all the body cells would fit into an ice cube. Yet, if the DNA were unwound and joined together end to end, the strand could stretch from the earth to the sun and back more than 400 times. That boggles my mind. My brain stretched against the side of my skull when I think of something like that. Now, that's not technically right, but you know what I mean. The marvel of the human brain. You know, the very fact that we're able to think about our thinking. It's really tremendous. Man shares certain sensory information with animals, but the fact that man has the capacity to think differentiates him from other animals. And the brain is an incredibly complex structure which makes thinking possible. I don't understand it, but there it is. I'm going to read you some things written by evolutionists. And I mentioned this last night, but just let me give you the exact words. This is Oxford professor Roger Penrose. He's the author of the book The Emperor's New Mind. He cautions against stating that the human brain is just a complex computer, or that a computer will ever be able to think that is artificial intelligence. The very fact that the mind leads us to truths that are not computable convinces me that a computer can never duplicate the mind. And Isaac Asimov, another evolutionist, says that man, in man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most orderly and complex arrangement of matter in the universe. Just think of that. The most orderly and complex arrangement of matter in the universe, the human brain. And to think that just about, just came about by chance. It's like setting up a screen and throwing globs of paint at it and producing the Mona Lisa. Just about the same chance. Dr. Michael Denton wrote a book recently called Evolution, A Theory in Crisis. He's an unbeliever, but he sees some flaws in evolution. And he wrote this book. He won't acknowledge God, of course. He says it would take an eternity for engineers to assemble an object even remotely resembling the human brain using the most sophisticated engineering technique. It's marvelous, isn't it, how they come right to the edge and you think of the next breath they're going to acknowledge the Lord as the creator. But they back away. Two of the men in the Institute for Creation Research wrote, Our brain is the greatest concentration of chemoneurological order and complexity in the physical universe. It's a video camera and library, a computer and communication system all in one. And the more the brain is used, the better it becomes. That's a challenge. The more it's used, the better it becomes. A detailed picture of the human brain is slowly emerging, the origin of which seems entirely beyond comprehension from a naturalistic point of view. We see marvelous purpose and interdependence within the brain. Every part works for the benefit of the whole. Such features are not totally understood. The brain is unable fully to understand itself. So we can't understand the intricate details. But I tell you, it would be wonderful to be there with the Lord Jesus, the one who made it all, and to bow at his feet. Edmund Bolles called the brain the most complicated structure in the known universe. No wonder God asked Job, Who put wisdom in the mind? I think that was a marvelous question to ask. I mean, Job had been questioning God, questioning God's dealings in his life. Who put wisdom in your mind? Good question, Lord. One scientist estimated that our brain processes over 10,000 thoughts and concepts every day, and some people a much greater number. Some people have called the brain an enchanted loom. It takes shifting electrical signals from 252 million rods and cones in the eyes, moment by moment, with these tiny snippets of information, and the image appears. You tell me how it works. Most people in the world are able to recognize at least 4,000 distinct odors. Hot, buttered popcorn. Get it? And flavors. Hot, fudge, sundae. Vegetarian? And think of the gift of memory. Which for some of us is what we forget with, I'm afraid. I think of Robert Dick Wilson, a famous biblical scholar. He knew well over 13 languages. Imagine. Well over 13 languages. The marvels of the human brain. We go so wide we don't even think about it. We use our brains. We don't think about the wonder of them. And seldom do we lift our hearts in thanksgiving to the Lord for them. I think the Lord is the most unsanct person in the universe, don't you? I was sitting in the cafeteria this morning and a couple opposite me bowed their head and gave thanks for the food, and I had to get up and go over and tell them how good it looked to see them giving thanks for the food. We had a nice conversation together. The starry heavens. Hmm. There's no science that is designed to show man his insignificance more than the science of astronomy. I often think of this universe we live in. Is it an ocean without shores? Are there any limits to it? And if so, what lies beyond the limits? It's too much. Makes me think of a dear sister in Marietta, Georgia one night. She came to me after the meeting. I was talking along this line about Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God as a firm in maturity. She said, Brother MacDonald, you make my brains tired. If it cost a penny, get this, if it cost a penny to travel a thousand miles, you could take a trip to the moon for $2.38. But if you wanted to go to the sun, the one-way ticket would cost $930. And a trip to the nearest star would be, hold your hat, $260,000,000. Penny for a thousand miles. Trip to the nearest star would be $260,000,000. With the naked eye, we can see about 5,000 stars. With the Palomar telescope, we can see billions and billions. So James Jean said that it is likely, and incidentally, Sagan says this in his book on the cosmos as well. It is likely that there are as many stars in the heavens as there are grains of sand on all the seashores of the world. Why did he do that? Why did the Lord make so many? Well, he made them for his glory, didn't he? He made them to give you and me a tremendous insight into the greatness of God. For his pleasure, they were created. I tell you, that boughs me in worship. Astronomers can see objects at least 10 billion light years away. Light years away. The distance light travels in a year, which is 6 trillion miles. When we look into the heavens at night, we're not seeing current events. We're seeing history. We're seeing where those stars were, in some cases, many, many years ago. Regal, 540 years ago. It's taken light that long to reach the earth. The immensity of the universe we live in. And the galaxies seem to be galloping away from us at enormous speeds. And if they're going at the speed of light, too bad, we'll never see them. If there are some traveling away from us at the speed of light, we'll never see them. That's why I say that the earth on which we live is a speck of cosmic dust. That's what really bows our hearts in adoration that it was to this little planet. The Son of God came 2,000 years ago and went to the cross of Calvary and offered himself up as a sacrifice for our sins. Planet Earth. The earth on which we live. Just the proper distance from the sun. Did that happen by chance? That the planet earth should be just the proper distance from the sun. And should have just the proper tilt. And just the proper rotation. So that we have 24 hours of the day and so that we have the four seasons of the year. I'll tell you a wonderful arrangement by our glorious creator. The very fact that we have water on this planet. Very important, isn't it? Evidence of God's planning and foresight. No other planet is known to have a permanent supply of liquid water. The earth is 93 million miles from the sun. Just the right distance to sustain life. The earth itself is just exactly the right size. If it was bigger or smaller, the atmospheric blanket around it would be too dense or too thin. But this is too much for me. I mean, such thoughts are too great for me. But they won't be in that day because I think we'll have enlarged capacities for taking it in, don't you? I think of other wonders of God in creation. And incidentally, God brought this out to Job when he talked to him. The migratory instinct of birds. There's a bird called the lesser white-throat warbler. It summers in Germany and then heads south for a warmer climate for the winter. But when it goes south, it seems to be guilty of parental neglect. Because it leaves its little ones behind. Not to worry. A few weeks later, the little ones take off and fly south and rejoin their parents. They've never been there before. What a navigational system. What radar, or what do they use? They fly thousands of miles over unfamiliar territory to catch up with the parent birds. They have a built-in navigational system that takes account of longitude, latitude, and the stellar heavens. And they arrive just at the right place, just at the right time. Warblers can do more than warble. You know, the migratory instinct of birds is enough to stagger the imagination. The birds know their proper destinations, the right place for them to nest, feed, and winter. One type of sandpiper travels 9900 miles to get to its winter home. There are land birds that travel thousands of miles over water. They cannot stop. They cannot rest. They fly thousands of miles over water. How do they do it? Well, they feed until they build up just the right amount of fat in their system. And when they have just the right amount of fat for fuel, they take off. They seem to conserve energy. They have to, they mustn't fly too fast, and they mustn't fly too slow. And sometimes to conserve energy, they will have to take account of wind, adverse wind, and sometimes they fly in V formation, not by accident. It would be fatal for them to drift off course, but they don't drift off course. They constantly adjust for adverse wind. And you know, men have repeatedly tried to disorient them. They put them in boxes, and they turn the boxes around, and they cover it over so they can't see the stars and all the rest. Doesn't make a bit of difference. I hope God will tell us about these birds. I think he will. He didn't create things in such a marvelous way just to let them pass unnoticed, and we don't know about them in this life, do we? There's another warbler called the Black Pole warbler, and it lives up in Nova Scotia. And it flies 2,400 miles from Nova Scotia to South America in four days and nights. In the process, it loses half its weight. Let's just think of the fuel efficiency. If your car were that efficient, it could travel 720,000 miles on a gallon of gasoline. When I told this to John Rosenthal here, he said, I know, he said, um, it's like going in and buying a new car, and as you're leaving the sales room, the salesman said, oh, here's a cup of gasoline. It'll do you for the life of your car. That's the fuel efficiency of the Black Pole warbler. The monarch butterfly. Monarch butterfly comes north, lays its eggs on milkweed, and the eggs hatch out. And, uh, an incredible thing happens. The butterflies that are born fly back to Mexico and roost there the next winter, and they've never been there before. Never been there before. What could be more ordinary than a seagull? But I've always had a special regard for seagulls, because when I was a boy, we used to go down to Brewster, Massachusetts, Brewster Beach, and the tide there goes out a mile. And, uh, we used to go out and dig sea clams. The sea clams are about this big, about, you know, small saucer. One makes a good chowder. And the seagulls know that. Well, of course, you know, the clam is under the sand, but that seagull is circling up there, and it can tell when the clam is close to the surface. I don't know how. Of course, there's a little geyser. The, uh, clam spouts from time to time. Anyway, that seagull comes down when it sees the clam is close to the surface, under the sand, and it reaches in, and it grasps the clam and goes off with it. But the clam is marvelously packaged. What can a seagull do with that clam? Man couldn't break open that clam with his hands. The seagull goes up, goes up, and goes up. The little calculator going on just knows the height to go to. It drops the clam. The clam comes down, and the seagull just folds its wings and comes right down after it. The clam hits the sand, breaks open. The seagull takes the meat and goes off. Who taught the seagull? And we used to be fascinated to see this taking place before our eyes. Another thing that fascinated me, when we'd cross the Atlantic on a ship, or even the Pacific, and no matter how far you go out into the middle of the ocean, the seagulls are there. Of course, they're following the ship. They want to get some of the garbage that's thrown off the ship. But what do they drink? There's nothing but salt water. If they drank it, what would you, what would happen to you if you drank that salt water? Nothing but salt water. You'd die. But there's nothing else for them to drink. So they take the salt water into their gullet, and the salt water goes through a membrane, a filter membrane. And when it goes through that filter membrane, the fresh water goes down, and the salt comes out like a teardrop from the eye. Who did that? My father did that. My God did that. You say, oh, that's a great discovery. Why don't we do that? Why don't we take the salt water? Here we have a drought in California. Just take all the seawater and make fresh water. Can't do it. Can't do it economically. We can make filter membranes. Can't do it economically. Can't send it out like a teardrop in the eye like the seagull does. What a wonderful God we have. What great thoughts when we think of his marvelous creation. A hunter in South America was attracted one day. He saw a bird. It would carry on in a very unusual way, fluttering around. And this man couldn't understand what was happening. And then he looked closely, and he saw a snake coming toward the tree. And the snake started to climb. There was a nest up there. That's why the bird was agitated. The bird saw the snake coming up toward the nest. All of a sudden, the bird left the tree, went down. There was a bush nearby, and the bird plucked a twig from the bush. And the bird flew back to the nest and just laid the twig across the nest. That twig was deadly poisonous to snakes. The snake went up right toward the nest. And when it detected that twig, it struck back and descended the tree. How did the bird know? The leaf was from a bush that was deadly poison to snakes. The sight and smell of the leaf caused the snake to retreat. God's going to be telling us about things like this, and I'll be fascinated. I don't know about you. I'll be fascinated. I want him to explain gravity to me. You know, people don't understand gravity. The scientists do not understand gravity. So simple, but so complex. Just let me close with one other. One year, I went on a hike up here in the John Muir Trail with Tom Olson. And I'm glad I saw this because I don't think I'd have believed it otherwise. There's a little bird here in the Sierras called the water oozle. And that bird comes along and goes into the stream. And walks along the bottom of the stream. And feeds along the bottom of the stream. And when it gets enough, it comes up out of the water and flies away. The water oozle. You don't believe it, look it up in your dictionary or your encyclopedia. What a great God he is. And one day in heaven, he's going to be revealing to us the marvel of his creation. And we'll sit there dumbstruck, but adoring nonetheless. Shall we pray? Blessed God, your thoughts to us are too wonderful. We cannot take them in. But we look forward to that day when we'll be with you. And all of these things will be brought before us. And our hearts will burst. As we think of all the preparation you made for us and for your creation. All the wisdom, all the order, all the complexity. And we'll worship you as we've never worshipped you before. In the meantime, we pray that we might not be too spiritual to stop and look at a flower. Or a bird or any other created thing. And see your wonderful hand in it all. We pray in Jesus name, amen.