Perfect Puffer Fish Creation Points to a Perfect Creator
The inconspicuous, boring looking little Puffer Fish is perhaps nature’s greatest artist. “To grab a female's attention," reports BBC Earth, "he creates something that almost defies belief.”
With only his fins as tools, he “plows the sand” on the ocean floor with “mathematical perfection,” creating an artistic masterpiece to entice and impress potential mates.
BBC Earth concludes, "Nowhere else in nature does an animal create something as complex and perfect as this. If this doesn't get him noticed, nothing will."
Click here to watch a video of this awe-inspiring artistry.
Complexity and perfection in nature shouldn’t "defy belief," as this narrator suggests. Rather these marks of "mathematical perfection," intellegence, and design should drive us to an unequivocal belief in the Creator behind all this beauty, complexity, and perfection.
Truly, how can one see this and NOT see God?! To paraphrase the words of the narrator, "If this doesn't get God noticed, nothing will."
Yet people look at the amazing creation all around them, refusing to see God in it. In so doing, the book of Romans condemns them as “supressing the truth in unrighteousness."
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" (Romans 1:18-20, NIV).
This is true throughout all of creation.
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world" (Psalm 19:1-4, NIV).
Don't slience the voice of all creation ... Worship and serve the Creator!
Intervention
Our kids sure can try our patience, can't they? When your kids disobey you, how many chances should you give them? How many times should you forgive them?
If you’ve ever had a disobedient child, you know how God feels. When your child is defiant, do you start counting down how many chances they have left? Are you like, “Okay, you have 489 chances left. 488. 487.” And then a couple of years later, or for some of your kids, a couple of hours later, you tell them, “Okay, this is your last chance! You’ve used up 489 chances, so this is it! After this, I’m cutting you off!” Do you say that?
Maybe. You probably don’t count down from 490, but at some point, you may have to cut them off. I mean, that’s what an intervention is, isn’t it?
In the most extreme interventions, out of love for the person, if a person is so addicted to drugs, alcohol, or something else, everyone who cares for that person comes together to let them know that they have to choose either drugs or them. To the person struggling with addiction, this seems like wrath. It seems like hate. But it’s truly done out of love so that they would repent and change. But if they don’t choose life, then they’ve chosen to be cut off.
As C.S. Lewis wrote: “The doors of hell are locked on the inside.”
God did an intervention with Israel, and they chose to be cut off. But because they chose to be cut off, God invited the nations to fill the void and to make Israel jealous. God says in Isaiah 65:1, “I was found by those who were not looking for me.” That’s us! That’s the Gentiles. We were going our own way, doing our own thing, and out of His abundant love and mercy, He showed us grace.
And yet, even after an intervention, you would still love your child, and you would still invite your child to change. And you would never give up on them. God says of Israel, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and defiant people.” (Romans 10:21, quoting Isaiah 65:2)
God still holds His hands out to them. And He holds His hands out to you. Maybe you’ve been grasping onto a particular sin, and it’s getting in the way of your relationship with God. You know it’s wrong, but you just haven’t been able to let it go. God is holding His hands out to you even now, inviting you to let go of all that’s truly harming you, and to rest in His love for you.
"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?' 22 Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!'" (Matthew 18:21-22, Berean Study Bible).
Signs of the Times
Since the summer of 2021, the debauched online “dating” site, OkCupid, has been plastering NYC subway cars and buses with advertising posters and signs which, just a few short years ago, would have been labeled pornographic, and thus illegal to publicly display.
Targeting those who practice “unconventional” lifestyles, the ads are intended to appeal to non-monogamists, swingers, sadomasochists, non-binaries, transsexuals, pansexuals, fetishists, and the like. They have literally nothing to do with “dating” and everything to do with promiscuity and lurid, bizarre, fantastical, sexual encounters.
Overtly depicting threesomes, orgies, even sexual encounters with inanimate objects or animals, the ads are intended to simultaneously titillate potential “customers” and shock, anger, and agitate detractors. Pictures of the ads are much too inappropriate to post in this illustration. But you can follow the link to the source above “if” you feel you can stomach viewing them.
They are prominently displayed, not on the walls of sleazy, backroom brothels, but on the walls of public transportation which carry businessmen and barmaids, stockbrokers and students, nannies, and grannies, tourists, and toddlers.
In fact, the bright colors and “fun” looking flare of these have some wondering if they aren’t actually intended to purposely grab the attention of young children. “Insane to me that OkCupid, a dating app company, has put up a bunch of ads in the NYC subway that seem like they’re marketed at 5-year-olds,” said one commuter.
Another, who has no choice but to ride public transit to and from work commented, “Ok Cupid’s ads make me into a nonconsensual participant in the sex lives of strangers twice a day, every day. It just skeeves me out.”
One such commuter was recently attempted to tear down the posters. A video of her “vandalism” went viral, prompting a spokesperson for NYC MTA to say, “Customers are free to express their disdain with subway advertisements, but they are not permitted to destroy them. Riders who violate that basic principle are subject to prosecution.”
The ads seemed to have disappeared for a short while but have begun showing up again, this time behind protective glass to prevent further vandalism.
Such posters are indeed signs of our times. Our culture is not content to simply engage in debauched behavior. Rather, it seems determined to “advertise” it, promote it, normalize it, and shame anyone who does not applaud it. These are signs that God has turned our world over to the self-destructive lusts and passions of the last days.
"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error" (Romans 1:24-27, ESV).