WONDERS *of Instinct* REVEAL a Supreme <page-break/> GOD by Benjamin Franklin Allen

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California, U.S.A. · Oct 21, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 41.

WONDERS of Instinct REVEAL a SupremeGOD

By Benjamin Franklin Allen

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ALLEN, A. B., LL. B.

The smallest and most insignificant children of nature, the spiders, the bees, and the wasps, display a remarkable wisdom and practical knowledge that point directly to an all-wise Creator.

Behold the humble water spider, how she builds her nest,—like a tiny drinking cup upside down, and under water! It is well fastened under some stick, log, or rock, hanging straight downward, and full of water, of course. But she performs another wonder of wonders. She takes a tiny bubble of air down to it, letting it rise inside the cup, which she has made air-tight. She keeps this up till all the water is forced down out of the cup. Then she lays her eggs in this dry, snug cell.

Now, who taught her all this? I ask, “Who?” because surely no reasonable person could think she could possibly learn it herself by chance, by accident, or by necessity. If she could, why didn’t she go on learning, and finally build a submarine or dig the Hudson Tunnel? Neither did her parents teach her, because she never sees them do it. But most mysterious of all, who taught her to know in advance, and to rely on it in advance in her building operations, that, though air is lighter than water, yet it will displace water and force it down out of an upside-down cup?

THE FIRST HYDRAULIC ENGINEER

The relative weight of water and air was unknown by man till discovered by Archimedes, the Greek scientist, in the third century before Christ. It was the first law of physics ever discovered, and one of the most far-reaching and important. It is used in modern science extensively. Harry M. Dunn, the inventor of the famous flotation process for separating mineral ores, which has meant billions of dollars to the world, showed me his original copy of his patent. It puts to use the spider’s principle of the behavior of water and air under the same upside-down-cup conditions. This humble spider was the world’s first hydraulic engineer.

A CIVIL ENGINEER

The shell spider lives on dry land, but lifts a shell perhaps a hundred or more times his own weight up on a bush or tree about eighteen inches above ground. He turns it cup down, to shed rain, binds it in place, and there is his happy home. But how does he lift the mighty shell? He spins a web strand between it and the bush. When this dries, it shrinks and pulls the shell ever so little. He repeats this over and over till finally the shell is dragged and then lifted slowly into place.

He is not only a civil engineer of the highest order, but an architect as well. He excels the builders of the temple of Karnak, which contains the largest stones ever moved by man. Some are as large as our largest railroad freight cars, but there is one a little larger still left in the stone quarry about a mile away, too large for them.

How could this shell spider learn, by any possible experience or necessity, the plan, the purpose, and the means of doing his wonders? What room is there here for the popular belief that all things in nature created themselves by self-development? Impossible! Even if this special trick could have been so learned, and even if it could have been passed on to his offspring by heredity (a mystery that is beyond the control of any creature, even man), how could it have been kept separate and not hopelessly jumbled with a lot of other experiences, and thus defeated?

AN INDWELLING MIND

No, there is one Indwelling Mind,—one, and only one, for the whole universe. Pure logic alone and overwhelming scientific evidence demand it. And that Mind was not merely the Maker, at some remote time, of nature and the laws of nature; but this moment, right here, He is not only the life and power of those laws, but even that which keeps nature in existence. “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” “For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.” Colossians 1:17, 19. We worship a God who is closer to us than breath or bone.

BEES ARE SANITARY ENGINEERS

Bees are expert sanitary engineers. If a foolish mouse ventures into a hive, they sting him to death. Being strict vegetarians, they do not eat his body. Unable to drag him out of range of polluting their deliciously pure honey, they seal him up air-tight with a special wax. Not the faintest odor escapes from his decaying body. God teaches them that it is death to dally with corruption, just as He teaches us.

The same Jesus who stamped within this humble bee the highest principles of sanitation and purity, says to us, “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord” (Isaiah 52:11); “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44), and He is as able and willing to accomplish these wonders in us as in these lowly creatures.

INSECT FOOD EXPERT

The ground wasp is a food expert of the first rank, for he knows how to provide not only fresh, but actually living, meat for his young, and that once for all, in storage. To do this, he performs the most rapid and skillful surgical operation known to this extreme age of surgical skill. His victim is the caterpillar, but, being one of the smallest of the wasp family, he is unable to wrestle with him by brute strength. One nip of the worm’s powerful jaws would cut him in two. So he watches his chance. With his stinger he lances one of the nine nerve centers along the body of the worm, and darts away. These nerve centers are so small that a powerful microscope is necessary for us to see them.

When the enraged worm quiets down, the wasp lances each of the other nerve centers, and the worm is paralyzed. He will then drag him and set him, head down, in a cell in the ground that he has laboriously hollowed out to fit, and the female will lay her egg on the tail of the worm. When the grub wasp hatches, he will begin to eat the worm from the tail toward the head, and the meat will be alive till he reaches the head. If he had begun at the head, the worm would have died, and he with it.

ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE OF TIME

The palolo worms live six or eight feet under the surface of the ocean, fastened to the coral rocks around the shores of Samoa and the Fiji Islands. Exactly at midnight, at the third quarter of the October moon each year, they all rise to the surface and play around on the rocks and the beach, going

through a breeding process. At eight the next morning they all break up at the joints and sink again, except the head joint, which dies. Each joint grows during the year to a complete jointed worm again, and exactly a year hence, at the stroke of midnight, they all rise and repeat the whole performance. The natives know their schedule, and are always on hand with baskets to gather all they can, to dry them for food. These worms keep absolutely accurate time, as marked by the rotation of the planets. They don’t depend on changeable human calendars, master clocks, and radio regulation.

WORLD IS WITHOUT EXCUSE

Paul declares that “the invisible things of Him [God] 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: because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Romans 1:20, 21.

There is nothing plainer or more easily read than the divine message as revealed in instinct. I am impressed by how closely instinct resembles direct revelation. Instinct is the mind and wisdom of the Creator implanted and hereditary in the body of the creature, while revelation is the mind and wisdom of the Redeemer revealed openly to the mind and heart of man to be communicated to all men.

Both of these superior qualities, however, can be so completely yielded in love to the Redeemer, to the same Jesus who spoke and still holds the worlds in existence, that He can accomplish wonders in us far beyond what He does in the lowly creatures. All that is needed is for us to fall down and answer the Love that first loved us, to empty ourselves that He might fill us with Himself.

THE INDWELLING CHRIST

This is the new covenant, the doctrine of the indwelling Christ, of substituted will, substituted wisdom, and substituted righteousness. “I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart.” Psalm 40:8. All the prophets set forth this great and precious state of being, and then Jesus, the Author of it, came and showed us how it worked in actual life.

We are all continually appealed to by God’s hand in nature to walk by faith and not by sight. The overwhelming abundance of evidence should so build up our faith that He can come and fill us and be our justification. This is justification by faith. Faith is that belief which, backed by sound and increasing evidence, enables us to yield to the transforming work of God. It places us where He can do for us what He does for the lowly creatures.

WHAT GOD WILL DO FOR MAN

Now, as you read the following most wonderful and wonder-working words of Jesus and His apostles, let your minds dwell upon the wonders that this same Jesus works in the spiders, the wasps, the fish, the bees, and the palolo worms.

1. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you [to nature as well as to man], they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63.

2. “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” John 14:10-12.

3. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Galatians 2:20.

4. “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” 2 Timothy 1:14.

5. “He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” 1 John 3:24.

6. “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:2-4.

7. “He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19.