We continue today our fascinating study about the intelligent design of created things which proves the existence of a divine Creator. One of the mysteries of nature was described in the Bible long before it was investigated by science. Let's read about it now in Job 38:8-11. "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?"
What beautiful poetic language we find here to describe the creation of the ocean! It speaks of it as being born and coming forth from the womb. God says that the cloud was the garment of it and a thick darkness was a swaddlingband placed around the ocean at its birth. But then God added, "Here ye may come, but no further. Here shall thy proud waves be stayed." And friends, the scientists of this world have been amazed in learning the secrets of tidal actions. They still don't understand all the deep, cataclysmic actions underwater which affect the tides and wave patterns. No naturalist on the face of the earth has figured out all the secrets of the swift tidal waves that move to and fro in their own mysterious ways.
By the way, these tidal movements have been in perfect balance to contribute to man's comfort. I think of the mighty Gulf Stream, for instance. We don't know very much about it as an ordinary thing, but we do know that life in this United States of America would be almost impossible were it not for the tremendous influence of that great stream. The Gulf Stream comes up from the Gulf of Mexico and goes along the eastern seaboard and on up into the northern sections of the world. This stream is just like a river flowing through the midst of the sea. You can see that it has a different color. You can tell exactly where the edge of it is, because the water changes color there. When you look down on it from above you can see just how wide it is in fact, it is about 70 miles wide and about 3,000 feet deep, and it flows along leisurely on its way from the deep south, going up toward the northern clime. The temperature of the water is 86 degrees when it leaves the Gulf of Mexico, and when it gets up by the Carolinas it is still 84 degrees. The warming influence of that water actually makes the coast of North America and Northern Europe to be inhabitable. Otherwise, they would simply be frozen wastelands. People wouldn't be able to live there were it not for the Gulf Stream. The British Isles would be frozen and abandoned. The Maritime Provinces of Canada depend completely upon its warming effect otherwise those places would be left in frozen desolation.
Now, notice what happens as this water flows north. As it comes to the arctic entrance of Baffin Bay, it meets the frigid Polar Stream rushing out to start southward. There is a titanic collision and struggle between the warm Gulf Stream and the frigid Polar Stream. Now what happens? Well, the Gulf Stream wins, so to speak, and the Polar Stream dives down thousands of feet underneath and goes right on flowing southward, coming up in the West Indies during their hottest season, where it cools the terrible tropical heat. It was in God's plan for this to happen. But as a result of this collision the Gulf Stream is deflected across the ocean where it goes up along the British Isles, making those places livable. In fact, some of those northern lands would be locked in eternal winter without the deflection of the Gulf Stream which creates a warmer climate. Now, friends, did all of this happen by chance and accident? Did these great streams of water just sort of come into existence by blind chance? Did the Gulf stream get deflected by some casual happenstance? I don't believe it for a moment! God was behind the entire plan.
Let's take a quick look at the creatures of the sea, and see how intelligence and design came into the picture. Think of the fish for a moment that inhabit the oceans. I only wish I had time for more details! Fish are constantly subject to attack. They have enemies within the waters around them and also on the outside, gulls and other birds, which swoop down to make meals of the marine life forms. Do you know that fish have a specially constructed eyeball that is able to look in any and all directions? He can almost instantaneously see behind, below, on the sides, and above. Furthermore, his eye is designed to take into account the fraction of light. Yes, these fish can see 30% farther than other visual instruments, because God designed the eyeball of the fish to take into consideration the refraction of light. When the oculist manufactures special goggles for divers to wear, they also make them compensate for refraction in the water. We think this is wonderful, of course, but God did it long before. All fish have that kind of eyeball, yet the evolutionists say it just happened. No goggles could come into existence by chance, friends neither could the fish accidentally develop specialized eyeballs.
In the waters of Malaya lives a fish with bifocal lens built right into his eyes. This little sardine-sized fish is especially prized for food by seagulls. They are always swooping down and gobbling up this little fish if they can. So the little fish has to watch carefully for the approaching danger of the gulls. He must have good distance vision, but since he feeds on the microscopic larvae found in the water, he must have very good near vision as well. Do you know that the Creator provided a little membrane that comes halfway up his eye, giving him bifocal vision? He can look up and see the gulls coming he looks down and can see near at hand the little bits of life that he feeds on. We think it is wonderful that skilled optometrists and oculists can perfect glasses that permit us to see near and far away yet, here is a fish that's been around for hundreds of years, which God made that way from the beginning. It did not just develop blindly. Intelligent design was behind its creation.
Now let's examine two Pacific coast water birds. I can find no stronger evidence of design in nature than I find in one of these birds called the Ousel. It is a very friendly little bird that lives near mountain streams, and is usually found where the water is very swift-flowing and splashy. It can be seen floating buoyantly along on the surface of the water, apparently weightless then suddenly, this bird will sink to the bottom like a piece of lead. I mean that it will just suddenly drop down to the bottom of the stream and begin to walk around, picking up bits of food from the bed of the stream. That's where he gets most of his food supply. But the mystery is that after he has taken his fill, he walks over to the bank, shakes himself, and glides off on the surface again like a bit of fluff. It has been discovered that this strange bird has some special equipment, a muscular apparatus which can instantly exhaust every bit of air from his body. He drops down like a piece of lead to the bottom, but then when he walks out, he can breathe in air again and float off on the surface. Now, friends, that is special creation, isn't it? The evolutionists would say, "Well, he needed to have this bit of apparatus and so nature provided it." They don't say what "nature" is, friends. They maintain that it just grew by some accidental development. The truth is that God provided it. He made this particular bird as He did because He saw that it needed this for survival.
Another Pacific coast bird lives on a diet of large worms, which he finds in holes in the sand. Because this worm is down at the very bottom of the hole, the bird must go down into the hole to get the worm out. It so happens that his beak is just exactly the right size to reach down into the hole, but when he gets into the hole, his beak is squeezed in there, and he can't open it to pick up the worm. Now it would be a pretty bad predicament for the bird to see a luscious worm, put his beak down, but not be able to pick the worm up! Do you know what God arranged for this particular bird? He created a tiny flap, similar to a surgeon's forceps, at the bottom of the beak. With this special organ he can easily pick up the worm, pull his beak up, and gobble down his meal.
Isn't it wonderful that God thought of a little bird and made something special so that it could get food conveniently? Yet men say God didn't have anything to do with it it just grew that way because he needed it. "Nature" came along and made some forceps. No, God had everything to do with that development, friends. Isn't it wonderful that we have a God like that? And if He loves the little birds, and provided the necessities for their existence and comfort, don't you think He is willing to provide everything that WE might need? He knows when a sparrow falls, but He loves us even more!
Some years ago, a clever biologist who did not believe in evolution wrote an article on his findings, titled, "Evolution Goes to Pieces on a Bee's Knees." The author reviewed the fact that evolution teaches that when a need for a certain organ develops in any creature, the organ is produced in response to the need. Nature itself or some blind chance supposedly comes along and produces the necessary organ in order that the creature might survive. Well, he cited the example of the bees. When bees crawl into the pollen-filled blossoms, they get all stopped up with pollen. In fact, their breathing apparatus becomes so completely clogged that they can't even breathe while they are inside gathering the pollen. Now, it so happens that every bee has special brushes located on his knees, stiff brushes, which he uses to clean out his breathing apparatus when he comes out of the blossom so that he doesn't suffocate. This biologist noted that if it were true that creatures develop special body parts in response to a need, the very first bee to exist did not have them. Since he did not have any brushes on his knees, he would have suffocated when he went into the flower, and the whole bee family would have become extinct right then and there. Instead of these brushes developing slowly through the ages in response to a need, God made them on the bee so that the very first bee would survive. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing any busy little bees flying around.
Well, the conclusion is that God anticipated the needs of His creatures, and made them with all the necessary apparatus. How thankful we ought to be that God can supply all our needs in advance! The Bible says the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. Only a God of love and power could have made these living creatures as we see them about us. And if He cares for the tiny animal world, he cares for us too. He loves us as much as He loves that little bird out on the west coast, and He wants to save us, friends. He wants to take us at last to a place where nature will be in perfect balance again and where all the curse of sin will be forever removed.