UP A RIVER WITHOUT A PADDLE

 

Psalm 139:13, 14  “For thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb.  I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well.”

When I’m at my cottage in the summer I like to take my boat down the Channel to  “Ed’s Channel Stop”.  Ed always has a great assortment of ice cream that tastes so good on a hot summer afternoon.

The trip is easy.  I get in my boat, start the engine, steer the craft under the bridge and into the narrow channel, follow the channel to Ed’s, pull up to his dock, enter the Channel Stop and go about my business of getting ice cream.

Simple….right?

 

But let’s take that trip again and make it random.  Let’s take that trip where there is no intelligence guiding the steps.

 

First I have to find myself in a vehicle that is going to do the job.  Okay, so I’m sitting a boat.  I float aimlessly away from the dock.  I float aimlessly because my boat doesn’t have any means of propulsion.

 

A motor appears on the back of the boat.  It starts up.  Now I no longer float aimlessly.  Now I move aimlessly at a much faster pace.  The motor swings back and forth and so do I.

 

A steering device appears.  Now I can control the boat as it moves all around the lake.  But there is no knowledge of where Ed’s Channel Stop is so I keep passing the channel.  I get a great view of the lake.  I just don’t get any ice cream.

 

Somehow I learn that Ed’s is up the channel and I make a conscious choice to steer into the channel.  And I motor on down the channel…… right on past Ed’s place because I have no idea what Ed’s place looks like.

 

Somehow I learn to recognize Ed’s place, pull over, and dock.  I get out and enter The Channel Stop and am rewarded with a two scoop chocolate almond and cherry vanilla cone.

 

Without intelligent input this seemingly easy trip becomes a lot more complex.   If any one of those steps is missing I miss out on my ice cream.

 

Having any one of the steps missing leads to a failed excursion.  That is what is  called “irreducible complexity”.

 

So let’s take another trip.  This is the trip of sexual reproduction.  This is another trip of irreducible complexity.

 

Each cell in our body is a combination of 23 pairs of chromosomes.  We get half of those chromosomes from our mother and half from our father.

 

We need to start our trip with the correct cell.  When (almost) every cell in your body reproduces itself it reproduces all 23 pairs of chromosomes.  So there are 46 pairs of chromosomes.  Then the cell splits in two, each cell having the necessary 23 pairs.  That’s called “mitosis” and is an incredible wonder.

But that “boat” won’t float because combining two of those cells (which is what happens in sexual reproduction) would give us 46 pairs.  We need a different boat.  We need a boat with 23 single chromosomes.  That is the miracle of a process called “meiosis”.  Somehow our sex cells “know” not to double their chromosomes, so when they split to form sperm and eggs they only have 23 single chromosomes.

 

A sperm cell is deposited in the uterus.  It would float around like my motor-less boat except that another miracle has occurred.  It HAS a motor.  It’s the one cell in our body that has a motor that we call flagella……  which in itself is more complex than the hospital complex in which this baby is going to be delivered.

Now it motors aimlessly around the uterus.  But it doesn’t because another miracle has occurred.  Somehow the sperm “knows” to swim up the channel we call the fallopian tube because that is where the egg is hanging out.

 

It goes up the fallopian tube and motors right on past the egg.  But it doesn’t because yet another miracle occurs.  It “recognizes” the egg and millions of sperm swarm the egg membrane in hopes of being the lucky guy that gets in.

 

But here is where the analogy breaks down.  Ed wants all the business he can get.  So when I enter he keeps the door open.  The more customers the better.

 

No so for the egg.  23 chromosomes in the sperm and 23 in the egg make the necessary 46.  One more sperm getting through will foul the “ice cream” and the cell will die.

But wouldn’t you know it, another lucky miracle is in place.  When the first sperm cell enters the egg the “door” is shut.  The membrane is immediately rendered impenetrable to any more sperm.  How does it happen?  Well the egg cell just  “knows”.

Any one of these steps that is not present and you have no birth of an organism.  And each one is so complex as to shatter the imagination.

 

Evolutionists will try to tell you that as each of these steps evolves the “save” button is pressed and you start from that point the next time.  Not so.  Without a live birth no incremental adaptation gets saved at all.  You start over from scratch.  You don’t press the “save” button.  You press the “delete” button.

 

You are not here because of some random process.

 

Scripture says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

 

You most certainly are!