A MONARCH IS BORN |
Today a great issue of disagreement in the world of science and
humanity is centered in what we call the origin of life. The questions,
"Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we
going? Is there any purpose to life, or is it simply a meaningless
existence?" - all will have quite differing answers depending
on which theory of origins we believe. If one believes in the
theory of evolution, then we are to understand that we are nothing
but an evolved animal of meaningless existence going nowhere,
having no purpose, just animals in the fight for survival - a
result of evolutionary processes.
Now, if one holds to such a naturalistic world view, that persons
will interpret all data within that scheme. But to do so leaves
such followers with what I would like to call absurd conclusions.
Such is my message today. But, before we get down to the basics
behind this conclusion, let's pause again and listen to this…
… Friend, one of the most convincing things about the reality
of a Creator God is what He has written in His magnificent Word.
We read in,
Romans 1:18-20 (Paraphrased) "But God shows his great
displeasure from heaven against all sinful, evil men who close
their eyes to the truth about them. 19 For the truth about God's
creation is known to them instinctively; God has put this knowledge
in their hearts. 20 Since earliest times men have seen the earth
and sky and all God made, and have known of his existence and
great eternal power. So they will have no excuse when they stand
before God at Judgment Throne."
Yes, God says the earth, the sky, the universe all creation shouts
out that everything is the handiwork of an omnipotent loving Creator,
and failure to see and acknowledge it leaves all men, without
excuse! Therefore, let's look at a small seemingly insignificant
portion of the creation and see if these things are true.
To begin I want to examine a tiny creature that most of us pass
by as insignificant. Yet, this tiny creature's existence makes
totally absurd, any idea that all things have evolved. To believe
in evolution in light of just this one of millions of creatures
proves God's point. The Bible says a man is a fool to say there
is no God, to say all things evolved and that nothing was made
by Him who declares Himself in the wonderful Word of God. My case
in point to today is called, the Monarch Butterfly. Now everyone
likes the butterfly. It is a beautiful, gentle and graceful creature
that is harmless to humanity, but always brings joy to see it
flutter and fly across a beautiful summer day. Yet, if one examines
the design features found in the formation and fulfillment of
its life, you will be amazed in wonder.
As I've studied and read about the Monarch butterfly, I've come
to understand there are four stages of development in its life
cycle. They are the egg, the caterpillar (Larva), the pupa (chrysalis),
and finally, the emergence of one of the most beautiful creatures
on earth, the butterfly. For this tiny creature, life begins when
the female butterfly lays a tiny egg underneath a leaf of the
milkweed plant. Inside the tiny egg, the caterpillar begins its
amazing development. After about 3-5 days, the growing caterpillar
eats a hole in this egg case and emerges onto the leaf surface.
I understand this tiny creature is but 1/10 of an inch long and
weighs in at .55 milligrams.
The Monarch butterfly is now far from its final trek in life.
What does it look like? Well it's simply wormlike with a grayish
body consisting of a black head with three pairs of front legs
and claws and five pairs of prolegs extending backwards. At this
stage the creature has a mouth, stomach and a silk gland - all
the parts of a normal caterpillar.
At about 20 days of life, the butterfly's weight increases 2,700
times to 1.5 grams, and measures almost two inches in length.
Like clock work, at this time the tiny caterpillar stops its wild
eating and begins to spin a silk pad on a stiff object attaching
itself by its two rear prolegs. It then hangs upside down in a
J-shaped position and remains silent and unmoving for the next
12 hours.
At the end of this strange cycle, an amazing thing occurs. The
tiny caterpillar begins to violently shake and convulse. In rhythmic
jerks, it breaks off its outer skin and along with it its 16 legs
and head are lost in 60 seconds! This give rise to the second
stage of development called the Pupa or chrysalis stage. Now if
you carefully examined the creature at this point you would find
its outer color would be jade green with 24 metallic looking gold
spots. Additionally, you would notice that the butterfly's loss
of the head also shed its six eyes. Now it is blind and cannot
see. However, now more amazing things happen to this little creature.
Over the next 16 hours the caterpillar's tiny stomach and intestines
and most all of the other internal parts begin to disintegrate.
It appears all that is left is the tiny red heart still beating
at 40 to 60 beats a minute. The bug's outer shell is now almost
transparent. If you looked closely, you would see the faint outline
of the beginning wings, and the pattern lines and position of
the future butterfly's proboscis, first and second pair of legs
and two antennae. These are not permanent because the outer shell
is eventually discarded, but seem to serve as the pattern or guide
for the building process of the finished butterfly.
At about 10-14 days, the caterpillar emerges rapidly from this
second chrysalis stage in about 15-30 seconds. And, all of sudden
it extends a very fragile pair of wings by pumping fluid from
its abdomen into the wings tiny veins. Upon completion of this,
the tiny butterfly is ready for its first flight in no more than
15 minutes.
However, before the butterfly is ready for its newly emerged life,
it takes about two hours for the new wings to dry and for the
fully grown creature to have been transformed into an entirely
different creature from the caterpillar. Now this butterfly has
only six legs rather than sixteen, and four beautiful orange wings,
never had before. The wingspan is a full four inches, its main
body is 1.3 inches long and weighs in at almost a half a gram.
Its six eyes lost now show two brand new compound eyes that amazingly
have, would you believe this, 6000 lenses which are sensitive
to all the colors of the rainbow and even ultra-violet light.
These eyes are so intricate that they can see objects as small
as a pin-head. It's new brain formed after the loss of its entire
head is so complex that it can decipher 72,000 nerve fiber electrical
impulses coming from the two eyes, into meaningful images.
Now I must stop here and comment. The very idea that such a creature's
eyes could evolve into such an intricate and complex system in
a period less than two months, is absolutely absurd and preposterous!
Why evolutionists today say it took millions of years for creatures
to evolve in much less and more simple forms, but 60 days for
this creature to grow new eyes and an entirely new body? Come
on! … Well, let's get back to the Monarch butterfly.
Now more amazing things happen. We all know something about how
this beautifully metamorphic creature lives. For once air born
the creature's flight plans are amazing. Monarch butterfly's are
known to fly with their tiny wings, thousands of miles every year
to their wintering locations. Some Monarch butterflies log a flight
plan from the far northern regions of Canada to the Neovolcanic
Mountains of Mexico. This friend is a distance of more than 3000
miles!
Now in the United States we have two groups of Monarchs - there
is the Eastern group and the Western group. We'll talk only about
the Eastern group today. This group ( east of the Rockies) migrates
southwest for two months to the Neovolcanic Mountains of Mexico.
There they ascend in altitude, to cluster in the trees from 9000
to 11,000 feet for four months of the year. In this elevated and
freezing climate they hibernate, conserving energy thus enabling
them to live up to a full year of life.
Now, when early spring arrives, somehow a mysterious signal is
given and the entire population begins its northern migration
from Mexico northeastward towards the Unites States. Most actually
return to the place of their birth. The others fly to parts of
Texas or the lower southern states, living and dying in just six
short weeks. But before they die, the female butterfly lays its
eggs which then amazingly a second generation of butterflies emerge
in approximately 45 days, who continue their parents flight plan
further north, taking as many as four generations to fly as far
north as Ontario, Canada.
The last generation does not develop its reproductive organs until
it returns in autumn to the mountains of Mexico its great, great,
great grandparents began their journey earlier in the spring.
Amazingly, the Monarch butterfly is the only insect on the earth
to migrate annually over continental distances, and it is estimated
that more than 300 million of these beautiful creatures migrate
to Mexico every year. Imagine their intricate navigational systems
direct them 3000 miles to a wintering site they have never seen,
and then are guided in the spring to different parts of the US
and Canada
Now what are thinking people to conclude from all this? Well,
only one thing! The Psalmist summed it up! He said,
Psalms 8 (NIV) "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your
name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens…
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man
that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for
him? …. 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet: …. 9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
Yes, with the Psalmist of old we must declare that even the lowly
butterfly shows the "work of God's hand." The metamorphous
of this tiny bug into one of nature's most beautiful and graceful
creatures, along with the unbelievable design features of its
life, all point back to a intelligent and mindful Creator ! All
its actions from the start of its lowly life to the glorious finishing
of it, reveal some type of implanted foreknowledge in its very
being. And, that foreknowledge is proof of a Creator over all.
Interestingly, we should make note the Bible tells us God has
given some kind of foreknowledge to all of His creatures in the
Creation including you and me! Did you know that? Listen to what
God says He has planted in you and me and every human being in
His Creation.
Romans 2:13-16 (Paraphrased) God's laws are written within
men's hearts; When they sin against God's laws their own conscience
accuses them, or sometimes excuses them… 16 But the day will
surely come, when at God's command Jesus Christ will judge the
secret lives of everyone, their inmost thoughts and motives; this
is all part of God's great plan..."
Acts 17:24-31 (Paraphrased) "God made the world and
everything in it and … He himself gives all men life and
breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation
of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined
the times set for them and the exact places where they should
live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach
out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of
us… 30 Now in the past God overlooked failure to seek Him,
but now with His final revelation of Jesus Christ, He commands
all people everywhere to change their minds about independence
from Him, and submit to His rightful ownership of their lives.
31 For God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice
by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all
men by raising that Man, Jesus Christ from the dead.."
Oh my friend, you and I and everyone else can say, "I
don't believe in a Creator God, I don't believe in the origin
of Creation. I prefer to believe all things evolved." That
is your right, but know this, God warns everyone they will be
without excuse because coded into the conscience of all humanity
is what is called conscience. When we do not seek God, to know
Him, to worship Him, to surrender to Him, our inner hearts or
minds plague us with "guilt."
Every human being has this in differing forms. In place of seeking
God many seek the glory of self indulgence, or self aggrandizement.
Others heavily suffering from this guilt of failure to seek the
one true God, devise all forms of appeasing their guilt with righteous
works and devotion such as the variety of religion today which
are simply substitute forms of allegiance and worship.
Yes, religion, in fact all religion, including even the false
and pseudo-Christian religions we have today called liberalism,
and cultism - all are man's sinful substitutes for true devotion,
surrender, and worship, which desires and needs were implanted
foreknowledge in us, that says we must seek our Creator God!
So the question I have for you is this? `Have you sought the one
true God who alone is revealed in the pages of the Christian Scriptures?
Have you found Him, that is Jesus Christ? I know that for 29 years
of my early life I knew in my heart there was a creator, but I
didn't really know where to find Him. I went to church, but sadly
it was not presented clearly to me who He was, and what He wanted
of me. Till one day - a preacher on the radio began declaring
God's Word from the Bible and pointing my heart and soul to find
my solace and rest in Jesus Christ. Well, the rest is history
and when I cried out to God to save me from my sins and wretched
empty heart, God heard my cry and came into my life and has lived
with me these 24 years.
Oh friend, it is my desire that you too find Him who brings peace
and rest to every seeking soul. And, also the greater promise
that on the coming day of judgment, your sins will be forgiven
and your joy and future metamorphous will bring you and every
believer into a new life that will live forever. Yes, like the
Monarch butterfly, our future form and existence is yet to come.
The Bible says in "a twinkling of an eye," when
Jesus comes for His Church in what we call the Rapture of the
Saints, God says "we shall all be changed!"
Our bodies, soul and spirit will be transformed into a new living
creature that will have a perfect, sinless body, mind, soul and
spirit. A body totally unlike our present one, a resurrected and
living body that will last forever and ever. It will never grow
old, never become sick or injured, a body that will live on the
life principle of God's eternal life. For as long as God shall
live so shall all those who are His by faith in His Son Jesus
Christ.
Friend I'm no Monarch butterfly, but one things I know. I too
shall be changed, into the new life that awaits me as a child
of the King. May God so grant you the same promise of metamorphous
coming, and may you be found on that day when God signals its
occurrence, as one who is changed by the glory of God's power
and grace. To Him alone be all power, majesty, grace and love
through our God and Creator Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to the Institute for Creation Research, whose materials
gave me the idea to share with you these wonderful facts about
the life of the Monarch butterfly. However, this is just one of
many, many examples of life around us that declares a Creator!
Let us not be without excuse. If you do not know Jesus Christ
as your personal Savior and Lord, today is the day of salvation,
now is the accepted time to turn your life over to Him.
Wherever you are, in your car, boat, home or at work, listening
by radio or recorded tape - will you right now look up into the
face of the heavens and cry out to God to forgive you all your
sins? Will you ask Jesus Christ to come into your life and take
control now and forevermore and grant you His life eternal and
promise of heaven to come? If you do, God promises to answer every
sinner, no matter how deep the sin, no matter how heinous it is
before His eyes -- for God loves sinners, and the Bible tells
us He died for us on a cross to pay our sin penalty for all eternity.
Trust Him today, and become that soon to be metamorphosed life
that awaits the most beautiful existence ever to behold. I believe
God has given us the Monarch butterfly as an illustration and
divine picture of things to come. Let us take its rightful lesson
to our hearts today. Amen.
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RESOURCES:
The World, the Word & You! Broadcast is a non-denominational ministry based on the historic fundamental evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures.A copy of our doctrinal statement is available upon request.These weekly radio commentaries can be heard in selected areas around the nation. Dennis Finnan has been the speaker for 16 years, and serves as General Director. These transcripts are available free of charge to all who desire them. Also available are radio cassette tapes and printed booklets of each message. A free listing of all messages is available upon request also.
For further information, reprints, or a listing of all topics, please write to our speaker,
Dennis L. Finnan(wwyfin@sparc.isl.net), or visit our webpage at [ http://www.isl.net/wwyweb.html ].