This Tuesday (the 29th) is World Heart Day. How will you celebrate? The World Heart Federation has some recommendations, such as being active, saying “no” to tobacco, living your best life, and fulfilling your dreams. As for me, I thought I would celebrate by reminding my friends (and the rest of you) how incredibly our hearts were designed!

What is one amazing feature of the human heart?
It pumps blood through arteries under the skin, covering about twelve thousand miles per day, enough to wrap around Earth every two days.

Think about that! If you sat in a boat at the Prime Meridian in the Gulf of Guinea, a little south of Ghana or Togo in Africa, and I said, “Ready, set, go!” and you travelled by boat, train, car, bus, or whatever means necessary, and arrived in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, some 2000 miles east of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Sea, you would have travelled approximately the same number of miles as your blood travels throughout your body in one day. (This “visual” might be more incredible if you were holding a globe, but even if you pull out an atlas or find an interactive map online, I think you would be pretty amazed by this!)

God designed your heart to support your body in fascinating ways! Here are some more quick facts about that ticker you were given:

• To protect your hard-working, blood-pumping muscle and keep it in place in your body, God double-bagged it: first, in a serous pericardium, which is a sac that is attached tightly to your heart; and then in a fibrous pericardium which anchors your heart to your diaphragm. Together, these make up the pericardial sac.
• Your blood is always flowing through two separate circuits: one to bring the blood to the lungs to filter out carbon dioxide, and one to transport the blood from your lungs to the rest of your body. That means your amazing heart actually has two pumps in one!
• God built a regulator into your heart that keeps it beating both continuously and consistently. Your heart beats without you telling it to because it is part of your autonomic nervous system. If your heart stopped beating, or if it beat too slow or too fast, the consequences could be just as deadly as having no heart at all. So, in the right atrium of your heart, God built in some very special muscle tissue called the “sinoatrial node,” which sends electric signals to cause your heart to contract as it should.

Wow! It’s no wonder David wrote in Psalm 139:14, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well” (NKJV).

For me, the science of the heart is fascinating, especially when considering the Designer Who created it with such irreducible complexity. But I’ve gotta tell you, the whole time I’ve been studying the resources and writing this article, I keep singing the hymn “Since Jesus Came into My Heart,” lyrics by Rufus H. McDaniel (1914):

What a Wonderful change in my life has been wrought
Since Jesus came into my heart;
I have light in my soul for which long I had sought,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
Since Jesus came into my heart,
Since Jesus came into my heart;
Floods of joy o’er my soul like the sea billows roll,
Since Jesus came into my heart.

Is Jesus in your heart today? Have you surrendered your life to Him? If not, it would be a great day to visit this website to learn how to make that a reality! This is the very best heart-healthy choice you will ever make in your whole life.

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/humanBody/heart.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

Today is the start of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Jewish New Year, or the Feast of Trumpets. Did you know there are many Christians, especially Messianic Jews (Jewish people who believe in Jesus as the Messiah), who are inclined to believe that the Rapture will coincide with the blowing of the shofar (trumpet) at this holiday? There are a lot of interesting aspects to this belief, but I am not a theologian and am not going to attempt to weigh in on that, one way or another.
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This I do know: Jesus, Who came once to die for all men (and women), will be coming back to claim those who have believed on Him. And I also know there will be a judgment day, and it would be a terrible thing to arrive at that day without having your name written in the book of life. Or, as Hebrews 10:31 puts it, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” (HCSB).

Of all of my 49 Fun Facts, I think the answer to this one may have been just about the hardest one for my students to memorize, and yet, I have one student who, to this day—four years later—can recite this Fun Fact word for word. And to be honest, if he couldn’t recite any of the other 48, I am blessed to know I at least impressed this particularly important one on him:

Who is Jesus?
Fully God and fully man, Jesus is the Creator incarnate Who stepped down into creation to die on a cross to redeem us for eternity. His New Testament words repeatedly confirm the Creation account as told in Genesis.

When discussing or debating on the topic of origins, Creation apologists often point out the difference between observational science and historical science. Truth be told, there is no person on the planet who was around to see (observe) the forming of our universe, planet, or the first human beings. So, we rely on historical data to make determinations. For Christians, we know that there actually was Someone Who did observe the beginning: the Creator Himself. This is why His own words in verses such as Mark 10:6, which says “But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female” (HCSB), are so key to seeing that Jesus—fully God—confirmed the veracity of the historical account of Genesis. And this is why this Fun Fact is included in the set of 49.

But it wasn’t just Jesus’ words that confirmed Genesis. All throughout the Bible (God’s Word, inspired by Him), the writers had an obvious belief of the events of Genesis. They believed them to be historical, and that their impact was ongoing, with spiritual and theological consequences. In Psalm 8:3-4, David wrote, “When I observe Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You set in place, what is man that You remember him, the son of man that You look after him?” (HCSB). In Proverbs 3:19-20, Solomon wrote, “The Lord founded the earth by wisdom and established the heavens by understanding. By His knowledge the watery depths broke open, and the clouds dripped with dew” (HCSB). In Amos 4:13, Amos wrote, “He is here: the One who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals His thoughts to man, the One who makes the dawn out of darkness and strides on the heights of the earth. Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name” (HCSB). And John starts his gospel with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created” (John 1:1-3 HCSB).

Indeed, the writers of the Scriptures knew and confirmed the Creation account of Genesis. They knew that God was there at the beginning and will be at the end. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Almighty One. He is the Advocate, the Bread of Life, the Deliverer, the Good Shepherd, the Great High Priest, Faithful and True, the King of Kings, the Lamb of God, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Redeemer, the Rock, the Son of the Most High, Yeshua, the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He is truth. And He is love.
That’s who Jesus is. But why do we need Him?

Those last two attributes for Him (truth and love) have a way of confounding people. Last week, in my post, “The Value of a Man,” I mentioned the culture we are living in, and how the message of the world tells us we can make all our own choices now: choose your own ethnicity, your own gender, your own age, your own value. But the sad truth is that message hasn’t just fallen on the ears of people who have never believed in God. It has fallen on the ears of many professing Christians. A message wrapped in a bow of love. Jesus is love. And love covers it all. You be you, love is love, and Jesus will love you no matter what. Jesus will love you no matter what, but the Bible also tells us that God will not be mocked. Paul says in Galatians 6:7, “Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap” (HCSB).  One way that we mock God is by knowingly or intentionally sinning, taking advantage of His promise of forgiveness. 1

Although the writers of the Old Testament confirmed the Creation account of Genesis and foretold the coming of the Messiah, many of the people around the time of Jesus’ birth misunderstood the prophecies. They were looking for a strong king and mighty warrior to save them. Many confused His second coming for His first and overlooked the humble Jewish Carpenter.
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In the same way, many people today are overlooking the fact that Jesus is not just love. He is truth. Not only is He truth, but He taught truth. In Matthew 5-7, Jesus delivered the famous Sermon on the Mount, a collection of instructions not just for the people of that day, but for all His followers from that day until He comes again. He taught us how to pray, how to love, how to give. He told us of the promises of blessings. He told us how He had come to fulfill the Old Testament law. But He also taught against hatred, against murder, against lust, and against sexual immorality. And He ended by describing those who listened to His words: anyone who acts on them He described as “a sensible man,” and anyone who doesn’t as a “foolish man” (Matthew 7:24-26).

Jesus came because of His great love for us, and, as Paul said in Romans 5:8, “God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (HCSB). But Jesus was more than love. He didn’t accept us as sinners, condemned for all eternity. He didn’t condone our sin, and He still doesn’t today. He loved us enough to save us from our sin, from the terrible wrath of God, and from eternal damnation.

This is a story that started in Genesis. Death did not exist before Adam sinned. Romans 5:12 says, that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned” (HCSB). God’s holiness and justness demanded a consequence for sin, and only Jesus could be that sacrifice. He was blameless, without sin. But just as importantly, He was a human, in the flesh, who could be our Kinsman Redeemer. That’s why it had to be Jesus. Love was the atonement for our sin, the substitution for our death penalty.

Love was not a license to sin. Let’s not misunderstand, lest we overlook His return, whether it coincides with Rosh Hashanah this year, another year, or not at all. Eventually, He will be coming, and no man knows the hour. The apostle Peter tells us “the Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 HCSB).

If you are a Christian who has wandered down the path of the world’s wisdom and bought into the compromise of sin, take heart. Like the church in Ephesus, repent: “You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first” (Revelation 2:4b-5a HCSB).

And if you have never placed your faith in the one true living God, today is the best day to do it. You can visit this website for step-by-step instructions and information to get you started on your relationship with Him.

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/people/jesus.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

1 In the Bible mockery is a behavior and attitude shown by the fool (Psalm 74:22), the wicked (Psalm 1:1), the enemy (Psalm 74:10), the hater of knowledge (Proverbs 1:22; 13:1), the proud (Psalm 119:51; Isaiah 37:17), and the unteachable (Proverbs 15:12). A mocker goes beyond mere lack of judgment to making a conscious decision for evil. Mockers are without a spirit of obedience, teachability, discernment, wisdom, worship, or faith. 1
  https://www.gotquestions.org/God-is-not-mocked.html

Today marks the nineteenth anniversary of one of the top-five deadliest events in American History: the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Those of us old enough to remember where we were when we heard the news are probably also able to remember the great American spirit that it fueled and the wave of compassion and concern that swept our nation as a result. I remember, too, the messages pouring in from other nations of the world, offering their deep condolences and heartfelt sympathy. At that time—and for a little while after—the value of a man was understood. The value of a man was cherished. The value of a man was precious.

But why? After all, the prevailing wisdom of textbook science would say that we all originated from stardust and that human beings are the result of millions of years of evolution, the result of random, chance combinations of chemicals, just slightly more evolved than apes and other animals. If that is true, man has no intrinsic value. Man has no soul. But what if the sentiment that followed the tragedy of those terrorist attacks was actually evidence of Romans 1:20, a Fun Fact I introduced to you several weeks ago? In Romans 1:20, Paul tells us that everyone, in their heart of hearts, knows there is a God.

If Romans 1:20 is true, then it would logically flow that we know we also answer to God. And we know we were made by God. In fact, we were made in a very special way and for a very special purpose by God. Check out my Genesis 2:7 Fun Fact:
After God spoke everything else into existence, how does the Bible describe the uniqueness of man?
Genesis 2:7 says that “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (NKJV).

Do you know that scientists estimate there are over one billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy alone, and that there are over one billion galaxies in the universe, each with its own collection of millions to trillions of stars? No human could ever count them.

All throughout the Word of God we see references to stars and their importance in creation. In Job 38, God paints a picture of the morning stars singing while He was creating. In Genesis 15, God used the stars as a comparison to the number of offspring Abraham would have. Of course, we know from Matthew 2 about the very bright star that marked the place where the baby was born. And the psalmist tells us in several locations that the stars praise the Lord (e.g., Psalm 19:1, Psalm 148:3).

But the best thing we know about the stars is that God has numbered them and knows each of them by name! (Psalm 147:4, Isaiah 40:26) Yet, even then, with all the detail and explanation of the Creation account in Genesis 1, the creation of this myriad of celestial beings is summed up in five words: “He made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16 KJV).
In Psalm 8, when David stood in awe of creation and the work of God’s fingers, he said, “What is man, that You are mindful of him?” (v. 4 ) God spoke the stars into existence, but later formed man, “crowned him with glory and honor” (v. 5), and gave him dominion over all creation (v. 6 NKJV).

We were made for a very special purpose: for the glory of God. (Isaiah 43:7)

This is something, as a young adult, I dismissed for a time in my life. I was taken in by the culture of the day. I was convinced that I was just a cog in a wheel. How could my actions bear any impact on the world? And how could a busy God be noticing whether I followed His Word or not? I forgot the value of a man (or a woman). I forgot my value. And I used that as a license to do what I wanted, to justify sin, and to rationalize my own version of morality.

Here we are in 2020, and we look around and see a mess. We see the world trying to define the value of a man: some too low and some too high. The world is telling people that their happiness in this life is all that matters, and their value does not extend beyond the grave, so live it up! Do what makes you happy! Be true to yourself and be whomever, whatever, whichever you want to be. Oddly enough, in this message, the world is also promoting the value of a man to be equal to or higher than God. You get to determine what makes you happy. You get to determine not just your actions and character, but even your DNA. Choose your own ethnicity. Choose your own gender. Choose your own age. Choose your own value.

But guess what?! God didn’t just create Adam in His own image and then let nature take its course. Down through the ages, every human being that has ever been conceived has been known by God. Has been created by God. Has been loved by God. God made you, He formed you in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), and even before the foundations of the world, He knew you (Ephesians 1:4). All human beings are equally made in the image of God, and, as such, they have dignity and deserve respect. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (NASB).

It is a treacherous time we are living in, but one thing we can still be certain of is what Paul tells us in Philippians 1:6: “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (NASB). In fact, Isaiah compares us to potter’s clay (64:8). With God as our Potter we have two options: we can remember our value to our Maker and submit ourselves to Him, pliable and moldable on the Master’s wheel. Or, we can be unyielding, hardened in heart, deceived by the world into choosing our own destinies but ultimately crumble under the Master’s hand.

If you have forgotten your value to the Lord, today is a good day to remember it. He has not forgotten. Psalm 103:14-18 is a good place to be reminded:
     For He Himself knows our frame;
     He is mindful that we are but dust.
     As for man, his days are like grass;
     As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
     When the wind has passed over it, it is no more.
     And its place acknowledges it no longer.
     But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,
     And His righteousness to children’s children,
     To those who keep His covenant
     And remember His precepts to do them (NASB).
 
Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/bibleVerses/genesis27.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

Wait. I haven’t written this article yet. Wait. Don’t read it yet. … Okay, now you can! Are you a procrastinator? I know I tend to be. And sometimes I feel like I have good reasons or excuses to be, but then I’m reminded that being a procrastinator is nothing unique. Whether for good reasons or not, it is the way of many. In fact, I have three proverbs on a sticky note on my computer:

• Procrastination is the thief of time.
• The road of by-and-by leads to the house of never.
• The way to hell is paved with good intentions.

And I often recall one that a friend of mine told me years ago: “If it wasn’t for the last minute, I’d never get anything done.”

Well, if you can relate to any of these statements—or if you feel convicted by any of them—this Sunday’s “weird holiday” will be an assurance to you that you are not alone! It’s called “Fight Procrastination Day,” and I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce you to my Fun Fact about the specialness of the human brain.

What is special about the human brain?
Consisting of billions of neurons that connect with each other via trillions of synapses, just one human brain is far more complex and designed much better than all the computers in the world combined.

Boy, that’s a lot of syllables! Let’s break down that first half. Neurons are the cells in your brain that control the flow of information you take in from the world around you and the flow of information that you send out to your muscles and more for how to respond. You have billions (nine zeroes) of them! Synapses are like the wires that connect the neurons with each other and with other types of cells. You have trillions (twelve zeroes) of them!

Now then, if I took you to a computer store and we browsed the latest and greatest models of PCs and Macs, you’d be pretty impressed with some of the marvelous features: the high-speed processors, the large-capacity hard drives, the super-quality video cards, and the impressive built-in memories. Especially if we did a little historical comparison to computers of the past such as the Eniac, a Tandy, or a Commodore 64. What if I stood there in that store and tried to convince you that those original machines not only came to exist as a random chance accident of a combination of chemical elements, but that every computer from that time until now slowly evolved on its own into a newer and better machine? Pretty silly, huh? We know that behind all the computers—from the very first to the ones we have today—there were engineers and other smarty-pants people who were designing them. In fact, many of them were implementing something called “biomimicry,” which is a way that humans model patterns in nature when designing materials and structures. Many of the world’s computers have been modeled after the brain, which even to this day is still more complex and designed much better than all the computers in the world combined. How silly would it be for someone to try to convince us that that computer—the true “supercomputer”—had no Designer?

Well, I don’t buy that, and hopefully you can use your brain to realize your brain isn’t the result of random chance combinations and millions of years of evolution. But what else are you going to use your brain for today? More intentionally, how are you going to use your mind today? Do you realize there is a difference between the two? Your brain is a part of your physical body, but your mind is a part of your soul and spirit. Did you know you can use your mind to control and repair your brain? Some time you might like to do a little research into the study of neuroplasticity. I’ve only read a little about it myself and am even less of an expert about the topic than I am about any topic, so I’ll just encourage you to do your own research.

But here’s something I do know: God gave us instructions all throughout His Word for how to use our minds! For example, when we consider the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, how many of them directly instruct us how to behave with our minds? The first is “You shall have no other gods before Me” (v. 3 NKJV). Considering something to be a “god” comes from the mind. When we worship, we worship with our minds. Commandment number four says to “remember the Sabbath day” (v. 8). And Commandment number ten tells us, “You shall not covet . . .” (v. 17). Coveting is an action of the mind, isn’t it?

In the New Testament we see countless exhortations about what to do with our minds as well. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 not to “be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (NKJV). Again, he says in Ephesians to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (4:23 NKJV). James warns us not to be “double-minded” (James 1:7-8). And Peter tells us to be “sober-minded” in 1 Peter 5:8 (ESV).

There are many, many more examples, but this brings us to the most important one for this week: In 1 Corinthians 10:5, Paul exhorts us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (NKJV). Every thought. Not the thoughts you’ll have in an hour or in a day. But every thought. That means the thoughts you are having right now. Don’t let them wander. Don’t let them stray. Don’t let them go to waste. Use them! Take them captive and focus them on obeying Christ. Be productive.

God designed us each with a supercomputer built right into our bodies which enables our minds to obey Him, serve Him, and glorify Him. So, what are you waiting for? Go get to it—don’t delay!

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/humanBody/brain.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

August 24 marked the 1,941st anniversary of the world-famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius, making the annual date “Vesuvius Day.” Even to date, this was one of the largest volcanic explosions in recorded history, wiping out the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. Creation scientists would argue that the actual largest volcanic eruptions happened about four millennia prior to Vesuvius, when the earth was rocked by the cataclysmic event of Noah’s Flood. We’ll discuss that a little more in a few weeks, but this week I wanted to point out the common effects of both a worldwide flood and a large single-volcano eruption, namely in the way we can learn from the sedimentary rock formed in the aftermath of each type of event.

What is sedimentary rock?
Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth.

To tell you more about sedimentary rock, I reached out to my friend Russ Miller, the Off Grid Creationist, for a short interview. Russ has lots of experience at the Grand Canyon and Grand Staircase, as he has been leading Christian-based tours since 2004 and has been teaching on the topic since 2001. He’s taken several thousand people on his tours and has even rafted the entire length of the Canyon a dozen times, including a nine-day trip with a group of ten geologists. Although nobody can really know the whole Grand Canyon, his extensive experience and biblical perspective helped clear some things up for me. I hope you will enjoy reading his answers to my questions too!
 
TK: How was the Grand Canyon formed?
Russ Miller: The region’s geology could be described as being convoluted. Missing layers, layers interspersed with massive lava flows, and even layers with a mix of sandstone and limestone pose a lot of questions. But considering the massive amounts of stratified sediments that have been removed, combined with the lack of evidence as to where the missing sediments have been deposited, the Global Flood from the days of Noah best explains the formation of the Grand Canyon and the Grand Staircase.

Even then, there are several viable options as to how the Canyon formed. One holds that retreating flood waters removed the missing strata, more than a mile deep in some areas, leaving behind the Grand Staircase, just prior to the formation of the Kaibab Upwarp. Then the upwarp acted as a huge earthen dam that trapped some of the late floodwaters. Later, the dam collected runoff from the Colorado Plateau until the waters it held breached the upwarp and cascaded through, eroding Grand Canyon in a matter of days. Another theory holds that retreating flood waters removed the missing mile-plus of strata from the Grand Staircase region, and as the waters began to dissipate, a water channel formed which cut into the Colorado Plateau and carved Grand Canyon through the upwarp at the end of the global flood. There are other viable hypotheses as well, and ongoing research is trying to determine which option is the most likely to have occurred.
 
TK: How do modern day volcanic eruptions help us understand the sedimentary rock that was the result of Noah’s Flood?

Russ Miller: For one, in volcanic eruptions and their aftermath, we’ve been able to observe several events that created finely stratified sedimentary layers in a matter of minutes. Old-earth beliefs, which have provided the foundation for Darwinism, Naturalism, Humanism, and the various compromised positions held in Christian circles today, are all based on the belief that the earth’s crustal sedimentary layers formed slowly over millions of years of time rather than quickly during the Global Flood. Thus, such a flood destroys all death-before-Adam beliefs.
Also, the radiometric dating failures on lava flows and rock, observed to have formed as a result of recent volcanic activity, bring into serious question the ancient ages assigned to the sedimentary layers via the Geologic Time Scale. This opens the door for the correct starting paradigm regarding the formation of the earth’s sedimentary layers: the Global Flood that occurred during the days of Noah.
 
TK: So now we understand that the majority of the Grand Canyon is made up of sedimentary rock that was laid down by waters of Noah’s Flood, but what is under the sedimentary rock?

Russ Miller: There are ten primary sedimentary layers that make up the walls of Grand Canyon and below them, in certain areas, are the Grand Canyon Super Group strata. Below the stratified layers seen in the walls of the Grand Canyon are non-stratified igneous and metamorphic rocks which include various schists and granites. For the sake of discussion, let’s focus on where the Tapeats Sandstone, the lowest of the ten primary layers, sits atop the non-stratified basement rock in the lower regions of the Canyon.
I believe the flood waters eroded sediments and that the moving waters separated those sediments by grain size, weight and density before depositing them to form the sedimentary layers that make up the crust of the earth today. Non-stratified rocks reveal where the erosional event ended, leaving behind what was there prior to the Global Flood: original creation rock.
At Grand Canyon, the Tapeats Sandstone sits atop non-stratified creation rock and reveals where creation physically met with God’s judgement. In fact, I can take you to where you can put your thumb on creation rock and your fingers on flood layers. Powerful proof in favor of the truth of God and His Word.
 
TK: Can you tell us a little more about your ministry?

Russ Miller: Our ministry is basically my wife, Joanna, and I. We went into fulltime creation ministry back in 2000, and since then God has allowed me to share thousands of church service messages; author five creation-oriented books, including COSΤ; write and illustrate two kids’ coloring books; develop twenty PowerPoint seminars, our Grand Canyon & Grand Staircase tours, and “Off Grid Creationist” videos; and more. I’ve shared on college campuses and at national conferences, and I’ve appeared on many worldwide Christian television programs: always encouraging people to believe the Bible—word for word and cover to cover.
Though raised in a Christian home, I strayed from God during college (I have over 170 college credits), where I was an all-division baseball player. I was on my “road to Damascus” when, at the age of thirty, I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to return to Him and I started attending church again. Ten years passed, and I became a church Trustee, though still believing that God had used “millions of years leading to evolution” to develop His creation. During this time, I also spent eighteen years developing a nationwide management firm while building houses “on the side.” Then I obtained video tapes of several creation speakers and God used them to light a fire in me to study the creation-evolution issues, obtaining knowledge from creation speakers, scientists, and even the die-hard Darwinian faithful.
I felt God’s calling to do something more important than making money, and in late 2000, I gave my business to a valuable co-worker and began Creation, Evolution & Science Ministries.
 
TK: Thank you, Russ Miller, for taking the time to answer my questions!
 
If you’re looking for a way to avoid being sedentary, a visit to the Grand Canyon could be just what you need! And you could even let Russ give you an up-close tour of the sedimentary layers. Find out more at creationministries.org.
 
Don’t just take our word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/geology/sedimentary.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

Happy Senior Citizen’s Day! Did you know that President Ronald Reagan declared this a national holiday in 1988, and two years later the United Nations made it a world holiday, to be observed on August 21 each year? The day is to help raise awareness of issues that affect the older and (usually) wiser generations. You can celebrate the day by taking some time to bring cheer to your own aged relatives or find some others who need it. In 2020, although the opportunity for physical contact might be less, the need to cheer these folks is undoubtedly greater.

While you may want to refrain from calling them such names as “fogie” or “fossil,” I, nevertheless, thought it would be a good week to introduce my Fun Fact about the fossil record:

What is the fossil record?
The fossil record is a “recording” of history found in sedimentary layers and made of fossils, which are the remains or traces of plants and animals found in rocks.

As I mentioned in my first blog, posted on June 10, these Fun Facts I’m introducing to you are “evidence” or “science” -based. But it’s important for us to understand that there is another perspective to Creation apologetics: presuppositional. The best way to explain the difference is that we all—believers and unbelievers—live on the same planet and have access to the same evidence. How we interpret that evidence depends on our worldview (which is a network of our pre-assumed beliefs). It’s kind of like the prescription of the glasses you wear which makes your view of things a little (or sometimes a lot) different than other people’s views. The fossil record is probably the best Fun Fact I have to illustrate this.

The fossil record is a “recording” of fossils, and that is undeniable. But your worldview will determine how you view that recording, and even how you view those fossils. It happens to be through the lens of Scripture and a biblical view of origins that we are able to explain the fossil record more clearly and with fewer unanswered questions.

I’ve known some Christians who believe that an evolutionary approach to explaining the origins of the world is incongruent with the Bible, but they’ve never taken time to learn of the confidence we have in the evidence which actually supports the biblical account. Instead, they try to dismiss whole truths and categories of science because they assume that evolutionists have “created” them to support their humanistic ideas. It’s so important to be able to know the difference between real science, real evidence, and faulty interpretations. One example is natural selection. Many people have often attributed natural selection to Charles Darwin, suggesting he made up that idea and it is the equivalent of evolution. However, natural selection is a scientific process that was discovered long before Charles Darwin.  In reality, it is just the predetermined variability within a kind allowed by a creatures DNA code. He just manipulated it to try to prove his erroneous ideas. We’ll talk more about that later when we discuss other Fun Facts.

The fossil record is another example of this, though. Some Christians don’t understand that fossils do exist and that there actually is a recording of them. They assume that evolutionists have made up their existence. Fossils and fossil layers do exist. It’s our worldview that determines how we explain their existence.

So here are some highlighted findings for you to keep in mind about the fossil record, in terms of how it actually supports the biblical accounts of Creation and the global Flood:

• What Makes up the Fossil Record: More specifically, the fossil record is made up of large horizontal layers, deposited by moving fluid. The layers, or strata, are classified vertically by primary material deposited in them, which has distinct colors and textures that differentiate layer from layer. The layers were deposited on a continental scale, so that we see the same layers in the Grand Canyon as we see in the eastern states and other locations across North America. Additionally, we find comparable layers on other continents all over the world. Not all layers exist in all places, but where the sedimentary layers do exist, the layers are always in the same order.
  
  
• Evidence for Rapid Burial: Evolutionists would suggest that the fossil record was laid down slowly, over millions of years. However, in order for fossilization of a living organism to occur, it has to happen rapidly. In fact, most organisms that die do not fossilize. Instead, they are eaten, scavenged, or recycled back into their environment. So, a fossil is only formed when the organism dies and is buried rapidly, such as would have occurred during Noah’s Flood. In fact, evidence of rapid burial includes fossils of animals who were in the middle of a fight, animals in the process of eating other animals, and even animals giving birth! What’s more, some animals fossilized so swiftly that their soft parts still remain. We especially see this in the discoveries of dinosaur soft tissue with red blood cells. Soft tissue cannot last more than a few thousand years, which means there is no way the sedimentary rock layers containing them can be millions of years old. (We’ll talk about this more at a later date this year too.)
  
  
• More Rapid Burial Evidence in Trackways: Trackways are the evidence of movement, like footprints, of animals. Scientists have found that when examining the fossil record layers from bottom to top, as new layers introduce the fossils of new animal kinds, the first layers contain those animals’ trackways. That means that in one layer, an animal’s footprints—not its hard parts—are fossilized. Then, in the layer above it, the animal’s hard parts are fossilized. There is no way that there could have been a long period of time between the fossilization of an animal’s trackways and its hard parts. That had to have happened rapidly. What’s more, in many of the trackway fossils, scientists have found evidence in the heel-and-toe patterns that the animals were walking or climbing (or running) away from the direction the water current was carrying them. (This is particularly noteworthy in higher layers that were supposedly “desert deposits” laid down with little to no water. There was clearly a strong current carrying these animals.)
  
  
• Order Within the Layers: Evolutionary geologists make claims that the layers of the fossil record resemble ages, suggesting the fossils contained in them are those of organisms that died over specific and progressing time periods. However, if the fossil record had been formed rapidly during a global flood, what we would expect to find is that the lower layers contain the fossils of marine life (shells, clams, trilobites, worms, etc.). The higher you go up the layers, you would expect to find a mix of marine and terrestrial organisms with a greater percentage of terrestrial animals the higher the layer. Guess what the fossil record contains? Lower layers that contain the fossils of marine life with higher layers that contain a mix of sea and terrestrial animals. Instead of each layer representing eras of time of elongated history, it is more likely that each layer represents a stage of the Genesis Flood, and even a geographical location of the types of organisms that were living in and then rapidly buried during each stage.
  
  
• No Transitional Fossils: Finally, for Darwinian evolution to be true, the fossil record should have evidence of transitional fossils. However, there are no transitional fossils. The fossils always show that chickens produce chickens, zebras produce zebras, turtles produce turtles. Animals reproduce after their own kind, just as God ordered them to do in the Bible. No transitional fossils.

Scientific models are based on good, testable hypotheses. When it comes down to it, the fossil record is much more congruent with the hypotheses scientists make based on the historical narrative of the Bible rather than on the fictional alternative of naturalistic evolutionary processes.

Next week, we’ll cover the topic of sedimentary rock. I had a health coach who was also a science teacher and seemed to be confused between the terms “sedimentary” and “sedentary.” Every week she encouraged me not to be sedimentary. Today, I’m encouraging you to visit a senior citizen dear to you and help keep them from becoming too sedentary.
 

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/geology/fossilRecord.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

Happy “World Lizard Day” to you! As you spend today celebrating, you might like to visit your nearest zoo, animal park, or even aquarium, assuming you can find one open. Otherwise, you might like to look online to read some fun and interesting facts about how God has built special features into different species of these little reptiles.
One that is my favorite is the chuckwalla lizard who lives in the desert. Besides the fact that he has a color-changing feature in his skin and he can expand his body to keep him protected in clefts and crevices of rocks, God has also equipped him with a special desalination factory right inside his nose!
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How does a chuckwalla lizard process its over-salty food?
The chuckwalla lizard sneezes salt crystals out of its nose.

His desert diet generally leads to high salt content in his blood, and not enough water to flush it out. But God designed a system for him to reroute his blood into his nose, where the salt is filtered out. Then, as needed, the chuckwalla sneezes out pure salt crystals to get rid of it. Pure salt crystals! How amazing is that?!
Here’s just one more example of irreducible complexity—the all-or-nothing design by a creative Engineer Who blesses us each day.

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/animals/chuckwalla.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

I chose to feature this week’s Fun Fact in memory of this Sunday’s (August 8th) 101st anniversary of the death of Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist, philosopher, naturalist, and more. Some of you might not be familiar with Dr. Haeckel. After all, his name is not nearly as widely used as that of Charles Darwin. In fact, you might even wonder how to pronounce it. Here’s an easy way to remember: it is a homonym for the action of a person (heckler) who harasses a public speaker or performer with distracting and often abusive or insulting remarks. It’s actually quite fitting that the two are homonyms because Ernst Haeckel essentially heckled the Creator of the universe, providing distractions away from God and His message to us contained in the Bible.

In past blog posts I’ve discussed that many times throughout history we have seen eager evolutionists in pursuit of evolutionary theories with an intent to disprove a Creator God to Whom we are accountable. It might encourage you to know that countless people who have followed similar pursuits have actually come to the realization that the scientific data, when analyzed objectively, points to the validity and accuracy of the Genesis account of origins. Remember that I mentioned in my “Big Bang vs. the Bible” post that science—real science—is actually the friend of the believer. But also you may recall that last week we talked about Romans 1:20, which reminds us that everyone knows God exists. (In reality, the Bible tells us there are no atheists.) However, when we back up just a bit, we read in verses 18-19: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them” (NKJV).

While studying the topic of Creation apologetics (reading numerous articles and books, and watching and listening to numerous presentations), I have often heard leading apologists point out that many people promoting evolutionary theories—theories that posit alternatives to a Creator God—are “compromised” in their beliefs. They have intentionally suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. On the other hand, I’ve also heard a number of Creation scientists demonstrate compassion for some of their evolutionary colleagues, assuming that these people honestly believe what they say they believe and are not intentionally trying to mislead anyone.

What does Romans 1 tell us? Whether consciously or not, everyone--everyone—knows God exists because He has revealed it to them. And those who deny it are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. When it comes to suppressing the truth consciously, there is no better example than Ernst Haeckel.

Who was Ernst Haeckel?
Ernst Haeckel was a German zoologist who promoted evolution by creating fraudulent pictures of human embryos that—although proven to be erroneous—still appear in modern textbooks.

And before you start to thinking that 101 years ago was a very long time, so surely his impact couldn’t still be relative, let me tell you about another comparable number of years: 99. It was 99 years between Ernst Haeckel publishing his fraudulent pictures and the infamous Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed the murder of unborn children.

If you have ever visited a Creation learning center or museum, you may have passed through a hall displaying the deadly effects of evolutionary ideas. None was more deadly than the evolutionary idea of Ernst Haeckel. His ideas about embryonic development were used to so highly convince the U.S. Supreme Court that babies in utero were not actually human beings until a certain point, that they voted to allow the killing of these developing “animals.” This was on the basis of Ernst Haeckel’s infamous “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” theory. Let’s break that down.

Essentially, “ontogeny” is a subdivision of biology that deals with the study of the origin of an organism. To “recapitulate” means to restate or summarize. And “phylogeny” is a subdivision of biology that focuses on evolutionary relationships between groups of organisms. So what Haeckel was saying is that in the womb we literally go through our supposed evolutionary stages, starting out as goo, then becoming fish, and then progressing to human beings.

Can you appreciate the implications of such a theory? How about if it is accompanied by drawings (yes, I said “drawings,” not “photographs”) to support these hypotheses? That’s exactly what Haeckel did. Even though he had a contemporary in the UK, Thomas Henry Huxley, who was doing similar research and discovered this idea to be untrue, Haeckel wanted so badly for it to be true and to support his theory that he created fraudulent pictures, which not only still appear in some modern textbooks, but have influenced our nation’s moral climate for decades and have justified the murder of innocent lives.

Since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, there have been such leaps in scientific and technological advancement that were the case brought back before the U.S. Supreme Court, on scientific merits alone, the judges would have to acknowledge that a human embryo is a human baby from the moment of conception. The sad truth, however, is that because the fraudulent “science” gave socially moral permission for tens of millions of murders, politics and agendas of unrighteous suppression of the truth could still interfere with a decision that honors the Lord.
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Indeed, Ernst Haeckel, the most conniving heckler of all time, has on his hands the blood of over 1.5 billion innocent lives worldwide . . . and counting.

 
Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/people/haeckel.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

Whether you’ve heard of it before or not, this Sunday is the annual “National Mustard Day.” If you didn’t know, don’t feel badly; after all, it’s considered as a “food holiday that might get overlooked.” Yet, there are people all over the country who will celebrate by using their favorite variety of the yellow condiment at lunch and dinner, and perhaps even invite their friends over for a mustard-tasting party. If mustard is your favorite condiment, you might like to know the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin, is taking their annual parade online for 2020, so you can get in on the uber-celebrating too!

Reading about this “holiday” reminded me of an object lesson I once did with my homeschool drama class. It was in the spring semester of 2014 when I directed a Kathie Hill musical called “AmeriKids,” which was the story of the founding of the United States of America. The object lesson was that when we have faith even the size of a mustard seed, great things can happen. (Matthew 17:30; Luke 17:5-6) In this context, we know our founding fathers had a dream and, in faith, planted a seed that has flourished into a great nation. At the start of the semester, I brought a single mustard seed to class and planted it in a pot of soil in front of my students. Every week I carted that little plant to and from class, and every week my students and I marveled at its progress. On the night of our musical I carried that leafy green plant on the stage and introduced it and the musical. The audience was as impressed as we were. But in the gospels, we find that the Lord Himself tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like the mustard seed because even though it’s smaller than the other seeds, it can grow to be larger than the other plants. (Matthew 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:16-19). Isn’t that amazing? Even without a spoken word, we can see in God’s created nature signs and symbols of both His love and His kingdom.

And what about the rocks? Isaiah tells us, “You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided; the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (55:12 HCSB). And Jesus Himself told the Pharisees in Luke 19 that even if the disciples stopped singing His praise the “stones would cry out!” (v. 40 HCSB) Indeed, God has created our world in such a way that if we never read a word of His Word, we could see Him revealed in nature.

At no time in my life was this truth more real to me than later that year. In May we did our musical, and in June my son and I were given an opportunity to travel to Europe and to do some sightseeing. We visited some long-time missionary friends in southern Austria who took us on a day trip to Slovenia and Italy. Just inside the Slovenian border we stopped and walked around a site of a former concentration camp. While the somber reality that we were walking on a ground that once was the foundation of horrible atrocities was gripping, across the street was a metal sculpture by Boris Kobe depicting a prisoner with his arms raised to the heavens, crying out for relief. But on that day what accosted my emotions the most were the giant tree-covered stone mountains that encompassed that little valley. I remembered the verses from Isaiah and Luke and thought not so much about the prisoners but about their captors. Even if those men had never heard the truth of God’s love for all from John 3:16, or the definition of sin from James 4:17, or the wages of sin from Romans 6:23, even so—they had God’s majestic creation surrounding them, crying in chorus with those prisoners, telling them that God is real and that God is in control of this world.

Paul tells us this same thing in Romans 1. In fact, through the ages, philosophers have offered a picture of Paul’s passage of verses 18-23 as humans having been created with a “God-shaped vacuum.” How true this is! God made us for the purpose of knowing and worshiping Him. As humans we crave and desire to do that, and the created world around us points our attention to the Creator Who can fill that vacuum. So that brings us to our first Bible verse Fun Fact:

According to Paul, why is no man excused from knowing God?
In Romans 1:20, Paul says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (NKJV).

Nobody is without excuse. Nobody. God has given us all the ability to know Him.

In the world of creation science and apologetics, this passage pops up a lot. Of course, Darwinian evolution has become so commonplace, and the “accepted science” of the public schools in our country. But as I mentioned briefly in my July 17 post about the incompatibility of the Big Bang and the Bible, the idea of Darwinian evolution is simply that: an idea. It is not scientific fact and doesn’t even fulfill the requirements of being called a scientific theory. We will discuss this more with future Fun Facts, but this week I want to remind you that when it comes down to it, evolution—as a scientific model—was developed to try to find a way to explain origins without a Creator, without a God to Whom each one of us is accountable.

But what does God’s Word say? It says everyone--everyone—knows God exists. And verses 21-22 say, “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools” (NKJV).

Faith the size of a mustard seed is all it takes to fill the God-shaped vacuum you have in your heart, and then you can sing along with the rocks. Don’t forget to mention that to your friends this Sunday as you’re topping your hot dogs, mixing your egg salad, or seasoning your tofu with your favorite yellow condiment!
 
Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/bibleVerses/romans120.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

July 26 is “National All or Nothing Day,” and while the origin of the “holiday” is unclear, the philosophy is “seize the day!” Be all in or be all out. What dream, goal, project, or bucket-list item have you been putting off? This Sunday is the day to commit, make a plan, tell your friends, post it to social media, and get it done!

My goal is to remind my friends, family, and as many others as I can that this world and everything in it is owned by its Creator. (Psalm 24:1)

But the phrase “all or nothing” reminds me of my favorite Fun Fact:
What is irreducible complexity?
Sometimes referred to as “all or nothing,” irreducible complexity is a system of interdependent parts: parts that rely upon each other in order to make the whole function.

In this case, “all or nothing” is about the design of systems that require certain parts that depend on each other in order to function. And, when one or more of those parts are missing, the system cannot operate.

One great example I like goes back to a sermon I heard as a young adult, when my pastor mentioned that an airplane is made up of so many parts—wings, stabilizers, rudders, flaps, engines, etc.—none of which can fly on their own, but when put together, the whole system can transport almost anything you can think of.

God, the creative Engineer, built complex systems too: He designed us, the animals, and most of nature around us, both visible and invisible!

We’ve already discussed some examples of irreducible complexity, such as the giraffe and the bombardier beetle. Both are animals that defy evolution because their complex designs could not have gradually evolved to what they are. In the giraffe, if his heart didn’t beat as powerfully as it does, and if the spongy tissue at the base of his brain was missing, and if the valves didn’t have a pressure-check system, then the supposed ancestor of the giraffe we see today would not have survived long enough to produce offspring to evolve. All those features had to be in place at once. All or nothing.

Similarly, the bombardier beetle, with his gas chambers and his high-pressure nozzle sprayer, could not have evolved one part at a time. From the beginning, the complex system had to be designed just that way. In future weeks, we’ll discuss other amazing examples of irreducible complexity, such as the chuckwalla lizard, the woodpecker, and the human eyes, ears, heart, and brain.

But this week, let’s talk more specifically about irreducible complexity in the cells of living beings. Did you know that the average human body is made up of at least 30-40 trillion cells?! And that within each cell are compartments called “organelles.” These compartments are not only carefully organized, but they are interconnected and networked to move calcium, lipids, proteins, sugars, and more to keep you alive! Scientists are discovering that these organelles cannot function independently. Right from the start they had to be designed to work together. Someone had to design them that way!

There are many more examples of irreducible complexity even outside my Fun Facts. I would encourage you to visit the page on my website for this Fun Fact, and explore the links I have gathered that will take you to articles, videos, and audio clips about the complexity found in human tears, the knee joint, hemoglobin, blood clotting, the electrical design of the nervous system, weedy plants, fungi, and even the long-time debate of the chicken vs. the egg.

In my mind, irreducible complexity is just about the strongest evidence for a Creator. Just like engineers have to design an airplane with all its required parts in order for it to be able to fly, the Engineer had to design our cells, our bodies, and countless systems in animals and nature all over the earth in order for them to function properly. That’s why this is my favorite Fun Fact! And that’s why I wanted to seize the opportunity to tell you about it!

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/humanBody/complexity.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.