Gecko Feet
Stealing God’s Amazing Design
“Great are the works of the LORD;
They are studied by all who delight in them.”
Psalm 111:2
Hi Men:
I pray you all had an enjoyable 4th of July. Since we had all the grandkids here, Jane and I had our 4th of July party (skipped it last year). God was indeed gracious, we didn’t have our normal extreme temps (only a high of 102°) with a light breeze and partially overcast (you can tell I like weather 😎). Leading up to the 4th of July, we had the normal mishaps. Here are a few of them:
- The microwave died – amazing how dependent you become on that thing
- Jane’s truck batteries died – as reported last week
- Three times our well pump stopped working – fortunately it was the VDF (variable frequency drive. Those words in the morning from my wife are still scary, “Dan, we don’t have any water”
- But the BIG ONE was: OUR SEWAGE EJECTOR PUMP. See Below: IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD…..
Regardless, we need to always come back to Romans 8:28 & 1 Thess 5:18. Our son and daughter-in-law arrive back from Jakarta later today. These past 2 weeks, I have averaged 13,000 steps per day, trying to keep up with the grandkids…… whew! Jane & I are tired, but it has been non-stop delight. Here are a few of the pics. Click on image to enlarge.
PHOTO ABOVE
I was looking though the book, “Made in HEAVEN” co-authored by Ray Comfort and Jeffrey Seto — Man’s Indiscriminate Stealing of God’s Amazing Design. In the middle of the book, it talks about the Gecko’s feet. I really hadn’t looked in detail about the feet of the Gecko. Now I’m blown-away. Check this out…….
Gecko Feet — God’s Amazing Design
- A gecko can run up walls, across glass, and upside down on ceilings without glue, suction cups, slime, Velcro, or magnets.
- Its toes have flexible ridges called lamellae.
- Those ridges are covered with tiny hair-like structures called setae, much thinner than a human hair.
- Each seta branches into even smaller tips called spatulae — and one gecko has about two billion of them.
- Each spatula contributes only a tiny amount of grip, but together they create enough force for the gecko to cling to a ceiling.
- In fact, a gecko can dangle from just one toe.
- The grip works through Van der Waals forces – tiny atomic-level attractions between ordinary molecules.
- The gecko sticks by placing its toes at just the right angle, then releases by changing the angle and peeling the foot away.
- The system is powerful, instant, reversible, dry, residue-free, and self-cleaning.
- Engineers have copied this design for gecko-inspired tape, robotic grippers, and even NASA space technology.
- Man calls it innovation. Scripture calls it the works of the LORD.
NASA and many others, are not inventing what God forgot. They are studying what God already made. The Gecko’s feet are like a silent sermon.
You have to Watch This Video on the “Gecko Grip” — Amazing!
YouTube (3:44 min)
Make sure you listen to the Van der Waals force @1:47 – Mind-boggling!!
IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD
I’m sure some of you have heard the folk song “Honeydipper Dan.”
Well, on July 3rd, the day before our 4th of July party, our sewage ejector pump in the basement decided to die and tripped a breaker without us knowing it. The 40-gallon tank inside the basement, where our son and two grandkids were staying, filled right to the top before we discovered it – narrowly avoiding a major catastrophe. Yikes.
I called several plumbers, but none of them knew how to empty it (before it could be fixed). Then I found Las Vegas Septic Service, and they said they could handle it. They showed up with a 300-foot hose that reached across our lawn, down the patio stairs, and across the basement floor.
My son John dubbed me “Honeydipper Dan” after watching the video I took. What started as a major concern turned into one of the funniest days of the week.
Here Is The Updated Video of Honeydipper Dan. Be prepared to see reality in action:
The Best Part
After the crew successfully cleaned out the tank and rolled the hose back up, I met them in the backyard to pay them. I also had my gospel materials ready: Steps to Peace with God, The Million Dollar Gospel of John, Are You a Good Person?, and some million-dollar World Cup bills.
The amazing part was that we were standing under the very tree where I surrendered my life to Christ in 1991. So I shared that with them. I told them what happened to me there, explained what it means to be born again, and gave them my testimony.
They were all very respectful and listened carefully. I gave each of them a good tip and thanked them for their excellent service.
The young man and his wife left with the truck, but Richard, the fellow with the beard, stayed behind and talked with me for another 15 minutes.
That morning was the highlight of the whole event.
I am continually amazed at how the Lord takes ordinary, inconvenient, and even messy situations at my house and turns them into opportunities to participate in His plan of salvation.
Praising our Magnificent Creator,
Honeydipper Dan
“But know this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.”
2 Tim 3:1-5
Men:
So, in one sentence Walt would say:
Complaining is a warning light that we’ve lost sight of God’s sovereignty, goodness, and sufficiency, and the cure is gratitude, contentment, and renewed trust in God rather than in our preferred circumstances.
The Human Tendency to Complain – Day 192 Red Book
The purpose of these devotionals is to help you think Biblically
Solomon said, “As a man thinks, so is he”
PDF – Send to you yourself 🤠 and your complaining buddies
Our Brother, Jerry Bangert
Letter from his Board
Read Jerry’s Letter from his board
Men:
This was really good. If you have never heard his sermon, you can find it on YouTube, narrated by Max McLean
From Christian History – Wednesday, July 8
Jonathan Edwards Preached a Hellfire Sermon that Became Famous
HAD YOU BEEN PRESENT, you might have squirmed under the sermon that Jonathan Edwards preached on this day, 8 July 1741. His hearers in the little village of Enfield, Massachusetts (now in Connecticut), did more than squirm.
It was not that Edwards howled them into hell. On the contrary, his dry delivery, uttered as matter-of-factly as a scientific report, increased the certitude of his terrible warnings:
All you that never passed under a great change of heart by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin…you are thus in the hands of an angry God;’tis nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction…The wicked are now walking over the pit of hell on a rotten covering . . . .
The residents of Enfield were terrified by the words of their guest speaker. Some wept so loudly that Edwards had to ask them to hush so he could finish preaching “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It is the only one of his works most people have heard of today.
Edwards believed what he preached and was deeply affected by his own religious meditations—not all of which focused on hell; he also wrote much on the beauty of God. Sometimes a ride through the woods would fill him with joy. At other times he locked himself in his study, groaning before God because of his sins. Even his bubbly and beloved wife, Sarah Pierpont, could not soothe him when he was in this condition.
A close friend of evangelist George Whitefield, Edwards was involved with two revivals of religion in New England in which people behaved in extraordinary ways under the conviction of sin—some crying out, some fainting, two or three even committing suicide, convinced they were damned. When traditional clergymen complained, Edwards wrote books defending these manifestations.
His other writings were extensive. His curiosity ranged from an essay on spiders to a thoughtful analysis of freedom of the will. These books made him the best-known American scholar in Europe.
In his later days, Edwards’s congregation expelled him. He insisted that individuals must satisfy a mild examination to establish their religious conversion before being admitted to Communion, something they would not accept. After serving as a missionary to the Housatonic Indians, Edwards accepted the presidency of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) but died of smallpox a few months later.
—Dan Graves
Here is a link for more information on Johnathan Edwards and Christian History
These Puritan Prayers are amazing
SHOW YOURSELF TO THE NATIONS
Philip Doddridge
Reach out your mighty arm, O Lord God, show your strength in the sight of all the nations.
Spread your salvation on the hearts of multitudes, that they may believe and turn to you.
May the great Savior of Israel be found by those who seek you not, and through the surprising condescension of your grace, show yourself to those who do not inquire of you.
May your ancient people not only be provoked to anger, but awakened to follow the same path, and put in their claim for those blessings which you by your Son have stooped low to offer all the Gentiles.
Amen.
Philip Doddridge was not only a pastor, teacher, and hymn-writer but his devotionals helped awaken William Wilberforce. He was the kind of man who believed doctrine was never meant to sit cold in the mind, but to burn in the heart and then spill out to the nations.
Spurgeon never minced words…..
