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This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

II Peter 3:1-6

The scoffers of verse 4 who in mocking tones ask, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation," are making reference to the basic doctrine of historical geology. This relates to the teaching of uniformitarianism, the foundation upon which evolution rests. Peter recognized it clearly in his day.

Those who accept historical geology and uniformitarianism insist that the present is the key to the past. What is happening now has happened since time began and will continue to happen and at the same rates until time ends. The Lord Jesus Christ, they say, is certainly not coming again, there never was a creative event that changed anything, and no Flood or world cataclysm ever occurred. Present processes and present rates can be taken back into time indefinitely. Ultimately, these can likewise be projected in to the future, so that when we read that our sun will burn out in five billion years, don't worry about it, for man will be far enough along to create his own sun. Peter says of these individuals, "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water." First, they are willingly ignorant of the fact of creation. Second, in verse 6, they are willingly ignorant of the fact that "the world that then was being overflowed with water, perished." Third, they are willingly ignorant of the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 10).

By acceding to the claims of various individuals who say that evolution is a valid law, many people have rejected any consideration of creation. According to these, Peter was a fool. He accepted creation and the account of a Flood, even maintaining that the evidence was so overwhelming that anyone who rejected it was willfully ignorant of the facts. We have already demonstrated what God's Word has to say regarding creation; we must therefore compare the Biblical account to other models in order to determine which position is most consistent with scientific fact.

Let us look first at the evolutionary theory. This model would instruct us that in the beginning life probably developed from a form of matter, such as hydrogen, through numerous processes of blind chance, the meeting together of molecules and electrical sparks (energy). Somehow these various forces joined through purely natural processes, until one day the first cell was formed.

There has never been an adequate explanation for the origin of the solar system--not even for the origin of matter itself. One falls into the trap of having either to make matter eternal or to propose the deification of matter. Or perhaps we could echo G. G. Simpson's approach: make this matter of origins one of the major mysteries of life itself--something we may never understand just because we will never understand it.

The evolutionist explains that life began in some primordial sea. According to the Russian scientist Oparin, life began in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor. Electrical discharges coming through this atmosphere created the first building blocks of life, amino acids. In 1953 Stanley Miller performed the classic experiment in which such a mix of gasses was subjected to an electrical discharge and the products collected. They included amino acids. Though far from being life amino acids are the basic building blocks of living cells, and from them other developments could ultimately produce the first cell. This would be like having a fraction of one brick in the corner of a fifty story building (considering the building as a cell). It is a long way from the whole, but evolutionists insist that it represents a step in our understanding of how life began.

Interestingly, however, the sun's rays penetrating through an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor would destroy any amino acids to a depth of fifteen meters in the ocean. Amino acids formed in the upper atmosphere would quickly disintegrate again. The way to prevent that is to add oxygen to the atmosphere. If there is oxygen in the atmosphere, ozone (O₃) will form; but the ozone filters out the ultraviolet light, which is so lethal that it could kill almost every form of life on the planet, even penetrating as much as 30 feet under the surface of the oceans. With the addition of oxygen the ultraviolet light from the sun is filtered out and amino acids are no longer destroyed.

But note an additional problem: in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, water vapor and oxygen one can generate electrical sparks all day long and never produce any amino acids. With oxygen present they cannot exist. A scientist may demonstrate something within a controlled situation in a laboratory, but in the earth itself he would encounter this interesting paradox. Life could not come about this way.

We frequently hear about experiments creating life in the laboratory. Suppose man develops an apparatus allowing him to duplicate, make, or form life in a laboratory? Does that disprove the Bible? Does it prove evolution to be true? Not at all. It would merely show that it takes intelligence to create life. Man with all of his accumulated scientific knowledge since the beginning of time, man with all his technological advances, man with all his billions of dollars of laboratory equipment would finally have been able to duplicate something that God originated in the beginning. But at the same time that would hardly prove the claim that life could ever come about by chance. The creation of life demands intelligence, design and planning. Neither chance nor matter have these properties. It is totally unreasonable to believe that dead matter is responsible for life and all the complexities we observe today. Yet evolutionists continually speak about life beginning in such a manner.

In Berkeley, California, where scientists reportedly created life in a test tube, they took living cells and extracted from them the DNA molecules which contain the coded information of cells. When this DNA was placed in a test tube with an energy-supplying chemical, nothing happened. But when the DNA-producing enzyme from other living cells was added, the DNA was reproduced. But this is like cutting your hand off, sewing it back on again, and saying you created a hand. Actually, all you have done is rearrange life. You may have learned a few things, but you have not created because you began with life and ended with life. Only an experiment beginning exclusively with the molecules would fairly test the hypothesis.

Most evolutionists declare that life somehow began by spontaneous generation from non-living material. Life came from some type of matter. But about the same time that Charles Darwin and Mendel were performing experiments, a gentleman named Louis Pasteur startled the scientific world. One of his experiments concerned spontaneous generation. Until his day it was believed that if one left rags in the corner, mice would appear. Frogs were created spontaneously in pond water. Meat left unrefrigerated would produce maggots. Wheat would generate rats. Experiments by Francisco Redi and others had demonstrated that this did not hold true, but people still believed that on the bacteriological level bacteria were formed spontaneously. Pasteur announced that because of his belief in God he would disprove the idea of spontaneous generation. He accordingly developed a flask with an "S" curve on the end which allowed air to enter but trapped dust and bacteria in the neck of the flask so that the nutrient broth in the bottom remained germ free. He performed the experiment several times. Each time he demonstrated something, scientists set up an objection, but he answered that objection the next time he performed the experiment. Some of these flasks are still in a museum in France, and even after more than 100 years there are no bacteria in the broth. He demonstrated once and for all that life does not come from non-living material. He helped to establish the great law of biogenesis. A sub-law states that life reproduces after its kind. Cats give birth to cats, dogs to dogs; two rabbits never give birth to an elephant. Pasteur helped to establish this law.

One would think that this signaled the death blow to the idea of spontaneous generation. We cannot observe it, we cannot demonstrate it, we cannot prove it, we cannot verify it - and all experiments confirm just the opposite. Yet we find scientists such as George Wald, a recognized evolutionary biologist, asserting that we teach the experiments of Pasteur to our students as if this were a triumph of science over mysticism. He personally believes that life in the beginning did arise by spontaneous generation because the only other alternative is to believe in God, and he regards this as unscientific. We ask in turn, how much science is involved in believing something which is totally negated by all scientific experiments? He holds this position not because of great overwhelming scientific evidence for spontaneous generation, but because of his preconceived ideas, personal prejudice, opinion, and disbelief in God. And he holds that position on faith.

Calculate, if you like, the odds against life ever coming about spontaneously. Take an 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper and put the number "1" in the upper left-hand corner. Type zeros after it, single-spaced, until you fill up the whole page with zeros; turn the sheet over and type additional zeros upon the entire page. Continue filling pages with zeros until you produce a volume three inches thick. Compile enough volumes to spread across the whole United States. Stack volumes until they reach past the moon. That is the number of volumes necessary to contain the number of chances to one that life would ever come about by spontaneous generation. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. To hold that position, one is exercising faith, not upholding evidence which is overwhelmingly in his favor. Such a position is held basically because, as Wald says, one chooses not to believe in God.

The thesis here again is that with infinite time and no creative power life could appear. Yet the Bible maintains that with no time at all and God as absolute power, life came into existence. Recognize that infinite time and zero power can accomplish nothing, but no time at all and infinite power can accomplish anything.

The evolutionist would tell you not only that life by some miracle advanced to that first cell, a medical miracle, but when life evolved to the first one-cell ameba, it was more than halfway to man. That cell which is vastly different from man, that little protozoan, was more than halfway up on the evolutionary scale. We have already observed the complexity required to come up with that first cell itself. Undaunted, however, evolutionists usually begin with the single cell and proceed to tell us how it could diversify. We begin to hear of natural selection and mutations. Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer are famous for their views of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Basically this means that of any given set of animals on the earth, those that are more fit to survive will survive. This is supposed to explain why certain animals exist presently and others are extinct. But that type of explanation still does not account for the existence of the fit. The premise advances a survival of the fittest, natural selection: nature weeds out those that are unfit. But it does not explain how animals got here, and again the law of the biogenesis must be in effect. How do we explain the different species, the different varieties of animals on the earth?

Hugo DeVries introduced the idea of mutations - random changes in the generic structure. What this really means is that some freak accident or change takes place in the organism. Huxley, a leading evolutionist, proposed that 99 out of 100 mutations are lethal or harmful, and Dobzhansky raised that figure to 999 out of 1000. Dr. Walter Lammerts, a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, producer of sixteen prize-winning American roses and former director of research for the German Seed Company, states that all mutations are lethal or harmful or at least neutral. He speaks with authority, for he obtained his rose varieties by exposing them to neutron radiation and other influences in order to induce them to grow differently. From his college studies he was under the impression that one could take a rose and continue to improve on it by artificial selection until one produced a rose with petals six to eight inches long. But he found certain limits. He was able in one generation to increase the growth and gain a petal one-quarter inch longer, the second generation another one-eighth inch -- but then the process reached a point where increased petal length was no longer produced. It had evidently come to the potential of that particular plant. One thing he learned for certain: he was never able to change one species of plant into another species of plant.

Dr. Lammerts also refers to the experiments performed on the fruit fly. Scientists have taken this fly and bombarded it with gamma rays, X-rays, and the like, producing numerous mutant forms of flies. They have developed a little fruit fly with no wings, with wrinkled legs, with half wings, with eight legs, with six legs, with red eyes, black eyes, no eyes. But they have never turned a fruit fly into a mosquito or anything else. The experiment began with fruit flies and ended with weaker forms of fruit flies. In the experiments most of the mutations were lethal. Causing a mutation is like trying to improve your television by throwing rocks at it with the hope that one out of 1000 rocks will improve it and change a black and white set into a color set. What is not considered in mutations is that 999 steps are in the wrong direction. One could walk from America to China by taking one step forward and 999 steps backwards. He may get there, but he will be going in the wrong direction. That is not progress. Mutations always take away. In fact, no single favorable mutation has ever been found.

In biology one learns about Kettlewell's research with moths and reads that this is "'an excellent evidence of evolution." Here we are supposed to have an example of evolution in progress. There are dark moths and white moths. At the beginning of Kettlewell's research he found that in England there were more white moths than dark moths. The trees in the area were light-colored; the white moths blended into the trees very well, whereas the darker ones were easily seen by the birds who picked them up for food. Because of the Industrial Revolution smoke and soot began to fill the trees, and now the dark moths blended in better and the birds found the white moths. After a while he noticed that there were more dark moths than white moths. He reported that he had observed evolution. To the contrary, he had white moths and dark moths in the beginning and white moths and dark moths in the end. He had perhaps demonstrated survival of the fittest -- that one is a little more fit to survive because it blends in with the protective environment -- but he had not demonstrated evolution because the moths had not really changed.

Scientists speak about the fly becoming resistant to DDT as an evidence of evolution. However the fly was a fly before and is a fly now. No one has ever demonstrated or proved that a fly more resistant to DDT has evolved. All that can really be said is that a number of flies were sprayed, and those not resistant to DDT died. Are we observing evolution when we take a fly that is now supposedly resistant to DDT and note that it produces fewer offspring and its life span is shorter than flies that were not sprayed? Is that favorable to the fly as a whole? He has adapted, perhaps, but the process does not explain how flies could change into mosquitoes or whatever is higher than flies for it was a fly before and remains a fly after.

Mutations do not explain anything new appearing, but instead show degeneration. They merely tell us that if there were a time on earth when nothing lived but fish, by mutations alone one could never find anything but different forms of fish. Horses could never be produced because horses have characteristics that fish do not.

Evolutionists would tell us that things are getting better and better. We are going from the simple to the complex. We are working on a system which progresses from a one-celled animal to multi-celled organisms such as man. How do we know we are going from simple to complex? "Because given enough time, it works out." Given a little time, the impossible becomes possible. Given a little more time, the possible becomes probable; given enough time, the probable becomes virtually certain. Time is the hero. Given enough time, things can evolve from the simple to the complex. Even though we cannot observe the process, even though we cannot demonstrate it, even though we cannot prove or verify it, what we need is time.

All of this is interesting because there happens to be a law of science, the first law of thermodynamics, which states that in every physical process there is a conservation of matter and energy. Matter is converted into energy, energy into matter; matter-energy cannot really be created or destroyed. This law asserts that the energy-conversion processes of the present have no relation to creation or innovation, but only to conservation.

Even more pertinent is a second law of thermodynamics, which states that in any experiment or in any use of energy, an amount of energy is lost for future experimentation. In other words, things are running down. When we burn wood, chemical energy is converted into heat; this can be used in an engine to do work, but a certain amount of energy is never available again -- not destroyed, but degraded into non-usable heat energy. Essential to an understanding of the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy: the irreversible tendency of any system toward disorder. This is why man dies, why things grow old. If you leave your car out in damp air, it never has a tendency to gain more chrome, but to rust. Any machine must eventually wear out; the human body constantly pursues a state of decay. Ultimately, the entire universe is like a giant clock which is running down. How can one explain a building-up world with a running down clock?

Because evolution clearly violates three well known laws of science, its validity must be urgently questioned. First, it negates the law of biogenesis, which states that life comes only from living organisms. Second, any attempt to explain the origin of matter and energy without a Creator violates the first law of thermodynamics. Third, evolution declares that things are building up from simple to complex, whereas the second law of thermodynamics insists that everything is moving from complex to simple--the wrong direction for evolution.

Now we come to the creationist's position. Paul says in Romans 1:20, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

The power of God - how can this be seen? Very definitely in the laws of thermodynamics. Psalm 19:6 tells us "there is nothing hid from the heart thereof." Thermodynamics basically deals with heat energy. Ask any evolutionist how long the first law of thermodynamics has been in effect, how long matter and energy have been consistent in quantity. He will tell you, "Forever." To his knowledge the present is the key to the past; present processes dictate the past. Thus the first law has been in effect forever. What about the second law? How long have things been running down? "Forever." If everything has been running down forever, if everything is totally down, then obviously no further processes such as life and solar radiation can take place. If matter and energy have been quantitatively constant forever, the universe by the second law has been running down forever and no further change can occur. Obviously there is still a high system of order in the universe. Obviously ordered things are here - man, sun, universe - and thus everything has not run down. What does this mean? It means that sometime in the past things were more highly ordered than they are now. If they have been running down, then some time in the past they were in a state of higher order; matter and energy were in their maximum state of order. In other words, some time in the past the universe had to be created, put together in a higher order than its present state, everything more perfect than it is now.

God says in the first chapter of Genesis that He finished all His work of creating and making. From this point on, matter would be neither created nor destroyed. At the end of the sixth day He was finished with the laws utilized in creating and making. The universe was to maintain itself in perfect order until man fell into sin and ruined God's creation. At that point man began to die, animals began to die, the universe started to run down. Sin would no run rampant until the last days. With man's sin at the fall entered the degenerative effect of the second law of thermodynamics.

The Bible is consistent with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. It is likewise consistent with the law of biogenesis--that life came from life. The Bible says that life in the beginning was created by God, the great Intelligence, the great Life. He alone was responsible for life. God created two of every kind - cattle, creeping things, crawling things, fowl, fish, plant life - these to reproduce after their kind. The Bible does not say that God created every species of animal but that he created kinds. One can begin with two dogs, for instance, and develop varieties within that kind. But one cannot develop chimpanzees from rabbits or horses from cows. It should also be remembered that the species classifications are man-made categories which have carried and are varying with time and with different classifiers. Of one thing we can be certain: the Bible is consistent with the law of biogenesis.

The Bible is also in accord with what we know of mutations, for it says that every animal and Adam and Eve were created perfect. In fact, the whole universe was perfect until man fell into sin. Now all began to die. Life spans were shortened. The Bible says that before the Flood man lived to an average age of 911 years - after the Flood about 400 years. Age kept decreasing to where Abraham and Sarah at 90 were too old to have a child. At present the life span is about 70. In the last few years medical technology has allowed us to raise the average life span in the United States because fewer children die, but in India the average life span is closer to 35 partly because they continue to have a high infant mortality rate.

At man's fall man and animals began to die. Two perfect animals after the fall began to have offspring, and just as man produced offspring in bondage to sin, animals now produced fewer perfect offspring. In a few generations an animal might be found which was not as fit as the parents. When mutations occurred, as might be expected - because the Bible is true - they were in a downward direction. In accord with Darwin's proposition concerning the survival of the fittest, the Bible explains how the fit got here and clarifies that the world cursed with sin would be less fit as time went on because of the second law of thermodynamics. Some animals would even go into extinction as the result of Adam's sin. Adam's one act of disobedience had tremendous implications when we consider to what extent the whole universe was affected. As Paul says in Romans 8:22, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" because of Adam's disobedience. All people and animals were to die because of his act - a sin-cursed world propagated because he insisted on satisfying his own appetites in opposition to God's mandate.

Because of the systematic gaps in the fossil record and his failure to observe gradual evolutionary change in living populations, an excellent scientist named Goldschmidt proposed a theory to explain evolution by sudden jumps. He proposed that, for example, two reptiles mated and an egg was laid which carried a mutation that changed the relative rates of development of certain parts of the embryo. Only a slight genetic change could result in an adult having large and striking differences from its parents. But this "hopeful monster" supposedly mated within the population to produce offspring inheriting its changes, and these could mate with each other to fix the change in population. Thus Goldschmidt explained the evolution in jumps, He also presented an interesting case against Darwinian gradualism. The neo-Darwinists who accept natural selection and mutation feel that they present an equally good case against Goldschmidt. I tend to disagree with both. The Bible provides an excellent explanation and lacks the inherent problems of the other theories.

A group of evolutionary mathematicians held a symposium at the Wistar Institute, the report of which was published under the title Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. Mathematicians and a group of evolutionary biologists met to make presentations on natural selection and mutations. The mathematicians assumed that only one out of 1000 mutations are favorable. Not considering the effects of the 999 harmful mutations, they still showed it to be mathematically impossible for evolution by mutations and natural selection alone to account for all of the various forms of life living on the earth today, even allowing for six billion years of evolution - or, for that matter, 36 billion years.

Evolution is hopelessly inadequate to explain the many wonders we find in the animal world today. Take as an example the little brachinus beetle, the bombardier beetle. This beetle has two chambers within its body: in one chamber a catalyst and in the other an explosive mixture. When he is about to be attacked, he mixes the catalyst and explosive, blows it through two tubes in his tail, and explodes the mixture in the face of the enemy at a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit. While the enemy is gagging, the beetle runs away. This is only its defense mechanism. Natural selection would say that without this mechanism, the beetle would be exterminated. This is true, but the mechanism has to work the first time he tries it. There is no time for trial and error. And this is the only beetle with such a defense; it is completely unique in nature. What are the chances that such a defense mechanism could evolve? Can you picture the little beetle who tries it the first time and gets a little to much explosive and not enough catalyst? Boom, no beetle. Or what happens to the timid beetle who gets more catalyst and not enough explosive? He shoots it out, the enemy swallows it - and then swallows the beetle, with only a trace of heartburn later. Either way, you have wiped out the beetle.

What about the little water beetle, Stenus bipunctatus? This little beetle has an amazing ability to drop a detergent solution on the water when chased by a water strider or some other enemy. The detergent breaks up the surface tension of the water, creating a large wave that propels the beetle away at about ten times its normal swimming speed, and the pursuing enemy sinks. Calculate the chances of that defense coming into existence by evolution.

Another interesting biological development is the sonar capability of the dolphin, a very intelligent creature which can be trained by man. Compare the sonar of the dolphin to the best sonar man has produced for a submarine and estimate the superiority of the dolphin's. Two, three, ten times better? The dolphin's sonar capability is over 100 million times better than anything man has been able to produce. Yet the dolphin "evolved." Would anyone in his right mind tell you that he could take all the parts and transistors necessary to form sonar, put them in a room shake them out and construct sonar? The dolphin is supposed to have developed it by chance - no purpose or design in his development.

A bat possesses aerial sonar. He sends and receives signals at a fantastic number of cycles per second, never becoming confused by any other bat sending and receiving signals at the same time. Some are almost totally blind, but while hunting in the darkness, can in full flight detect a moth on sonar and swoop down to secure it.

Each little part of a fly's complex eye is a sensor, approximately 300 million times more sensitive to light than our most refined sensors. But take not of man's eye, too, which is supposed to have evolved from one-celled amoebas and things that did not even have eyes. Doctors today tell us that by looking inside the eye and noting the different colorations in the back of it, we can become aware of all the diseases we have had or are suffering from presently.

Everything we are discovering of the complexity of the human cell, the atom, the universe would negate its possibility of coming about by chance. The evidence is not 50% for evolution and 50 % for God -- not "I'll flip a coin to see which I believe." The apostle Paul contends that the creation of the world is clearly seen and man is without excuse. Creation declares not only His eternal power, but the power of the Godhead - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God, the All-knowing One, manifests Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ, and is experienced by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, our universe is really a tri-universe made up of three things - space, mass, and time. Space is the all-encompassing backdrop (the Father) in which everything occurs. It is manifest in matter or motion (the Son) and experienced in time (the Holy Spirit). All things work within this framework so that even the Trinity is seen. Space is a one-dimensional representative of the Father, but it is seen in two dimensions and experienced in three dimensions (length, width, height). The same is true of energy or matter. Energy is the backdrop which is manifest in matter and experienced in the various phenomena in motion. Time is another example of the trinity because it includes past, present, and future. The future is the unseen source of all time being manifest in the present and experienced in the past.

God says that His evidence is clearly seen. He is displaying not only His eternal power but also His eternal Godhead, so that man is without excuse. In considering creation, we find that Peter is well vindicated when he says that the man who denies creation "is without excuse." Refer again to Peter's affirmation quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The man who says the present is the key to the past is willingly ignorant "that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, perished."

There was a Man who was able to convince Peter of such things, and I would like to introduce you to Him. Colossians 1:16-17 states that by Jesus Christ "were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible [thus covering everything we can physically see], whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers [angels, kingdoms, kings]: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things [Jesus Christ existed before that first chapter of Genesis, before time, matter, or space], and by him all things consist." If we are to realize the implications of that last little clause, almost tacked on -- "incidentally, by Jesus Christ all things consist" -- then we can realize why Peter and Paul speak so strongly.

Paul says of Jesus Christ in Colossians 2:3, "In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The root meaning of the word "philosophy" is wisdom; the root meaning in Latin of the word "science" is knowledge. Paul is saying that in Jesus Christ are hid all of the treasures of science and philosophy. In other words, you cannot understand anything about the world in which you live apart from Jesus Christ. You cannot discern the true nature of science apart from Jesus Christ. He is the one who created these things, and by Him these things consist.

In our study of the atom we used to think it was composed simply of electrons, protons, and neutrons. We wondered how positively charged protons could exist in the same atomic nucleus and still hold together. We wondered about the fact that the atom was mostly empty space. Now we find that there are many more components than just those three in the atom. Indeed, four forces exist within that atom. There are both attractive and repulsive forces in the nucleus of the atom and no one truly understands the atom or how it is held together. We know that each atom is a complex miniature universe. Man has only begun to comprehend a universe of the small, the level upon which he lives, and a vast universe, whose limits are yet far beyond knowledge. But the Bible tells me that by Jesus Christ all these things consist; He is the power holding the atom together.

When we read II Peter 3, we understand how Peter can speak with boldness because he knows the day of the Lord will come when Jesus Christ will no longer be concerned with the saving of souls. He will no longer be occupied in displaying His sustaining power and His love to mankind, but will then stand as a Judge. When Jesus Christ comes as a thief in the night,

the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat [an atomic destruction if you wish, because Jesus Christ can say one word and release the power he possesses over the atom], the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

II Peter 3:10-14

Be diligent that He may say of you as He said of Noah (Genesis 6:22), "Thus according to all that God commanded Noah to do, so did he."

"Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness" (II Peter 3:17). Peter admonishes, You, Christian, know the fact of creation, the fact of the Flood. You have met Jesus Christ and know Him who commands all power and has given this promise of judgment. Beware lest you fall into the philosophy, that uniformitarianism, that historical geology which will lead you away by the error of the wicked. He challenges you to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever" (verse 18).

The challenge of Peter's message is profound. The One whose power and dominion has eternally controlled the universe exists today as man's loving and forgiving Saviour. He is eager to enter your life, create within you a spiritual nature, and secure your everlasting future with Him. But one day, when he relinquishes His power as Sustainer of the heavens and earth, He will appear as Judge of all mankind. What a terrible awesome thought: to be finally accountable to the Individual who by His Word created the atom, mankind, the universe. If you do not know Him as Saviour, He will one day, as your Judge, cast you into eternal damnation. If you do know Him and He lives in your life, you have the pleasure of proclaiming His message and anticipating the glory of His presence throughout ages to come.