tHE HUMAN BODY—AN INCREDIBLE MACHINE

Presented by

Justin Stuntz

I have a question for those of you who are listening to me speak: How did you get to this building? I suspect that you came in an automobile of some kind. And what an amazing machine that automobile is! For example, it has a fuel system that converts gasoline into energy—energy that drives the car down the road. A car’s engine has powerful pistons which supply the force that makes the car move. And there is an intricate system of gears that allows the automobile to move effectively at various speeds. Most modern cars also have an on-board computer system, which is the “brain” that provides the instructions to different parts of the car so those parts work smoothly together. The car is indeed a fantastic machine! But did the automobile invent itself? Of course not! It had an intelligent designer. As everyone knows, any machine that shows design must have had an intelligent designer. Common sense alone tells us that.

But today I would like for you to consider a far more complex “machine” than the automobile. Stop and think with me for just a few minutes about the marvelous machine that we know as the human body. Consider some of the ways that this remarkable machine demonstrates intelligent design.

The body is organized on four separate levels—cells, tissues, organs, and systems. The cell is the smallest unit of life. Humans have, on the average, approximately 100 trillion cells in their bodies. Cells come in a variety of sizes and shapes, with different functions and life expectancies. In fact, the human body contains over 200 different types of cells. Some of those cells are so small that 20,000 of them would fit inside the capital “O” on a standard typewriter. And, there are some cells within the human body that are so small that if you placed 6,000 of them end-to-end, that single line of cells would be just one inch long. Yet if all the cells of the human body were placed end-to-end, they would encircle the Earth over 200 times!

Equally impressive is the fact that each of these cells is wondrously designed. For example, the cells in your body contain tiny power plants known as mitochondria—whose function it is to manufacture the energy that your body needs to carry out its daily functions. Cells also contain vacuoles—which are essentially little “garbage dumpsters” within the cell. Their function is to collect and destroy the waste products produced during a cell’s normal operation. In addition, cells also contain a communications network known as the endoplasmic reticulum, which allows them to keep in touch with one another. And, each cell is surrounded by what is known as a cellular membrane. Although this membrane is incredibly thin—being only 4 atoms thick—it allows beneficial items to enter the cell, while keeping most harmful things outside the cell.

Plus, in the center of each cell is the nucleus, which serves as the control center of the cell. Within the nucleus is the genetic machinery of the cell—known as DNA. The DNA carries all of the body’s coded information. If the DNA from a single human cell was removed, it would be approximately six feet long, and would contain three billion biochemical steps! In fact, it has been estimated that if all of the DNA in an adult human were placed end-to-end, it would reach to the Sun and back (186 million miles!) over 400 times miles! It is the DNA that is responsible for every physical characteristic a person has (like blue eyes instead of green, blonde hair instead of brown, tallness versus shortness, and so on). If the code contained in the DNA in a single cell were written out in English, it would fill a 300-volume set of encyclopedias of approximately 2,000 pages each. Yet just as amazing is the fact that all the genetic information needed to produce the entire human population (a little over six billion people) could be placed into a space of about one-eighth of a cubic inch. Considering the incredible complexity of cells, it is evident that they did not “just happen by accident” as a result of evolution. When the psalmist wrote in Psalm 139:14, “I will praise You, O God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well,” he could not have been more correct. God does indeed deserve praise as the intelligent Designer of each of the trillions of tiny cells within our bodies.

However, when cells work together to perform the same job, they are referred to as tissue. For instance, nerve tissue carries messages from the brain to all parts of your body. Skin tissue provides an excellent covering for your internal organs. And even blood is known as a tissue, because it, too, is composed of various kinds of cells (like red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets that help the blood to clot when the body sustains a cut).

When the different kinds of tissues work together for the good of your body, this arrangement is known as an organ. Organs come in many varieties—like the heart (the body’s “blood pump”), the liver (which helps dispose of the waste materials that your body manufactures), the pancreas (which provides insulin to break down sugars and carbohydrates within the body), the eyes (which allow us to see in living color), the ears (which allow us to hear sounds as faint as a pin hitting the floor), and many other such organs. Little wonder that the psalmist wrote that God “planted the ear” and “formed the eye” (Psalm 94:9). Hearing and seeing are not developments of an accidental evolutionary process. Rather, as the writer of the book of Proverbs put it, “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, Jehovah has made even both of them” (Proverbs 20:12).

When organs of the same kind operate together, this is called a system. Did you know that you have ten major systems working together to keep your body living day and night? Think for a moment about just a few of these. The skin system covers your body and protects it. The skeletal system provides a strong, inner framework—much like the steel structure in a modern building. The muscle system contains the “engines” (muscles) that power each of your movements. The nervous system is the “computer network” that gives the body its instructions. The digestive system changes food into the energy that helps a person run fast, study hard, and do numerous other tasks. Men and women even have reproductive systems by which new human beings come into the world. No machine that man has ever invented can do that!

The body could never have come together one system at a time because all of the systems have to exist and work together for the body to be able to survive. Surely every thoughtful person has asked this question: Who organized the human body in such an amazing way? The answer is clear: it took a great and wise “Mind” to do it. The Bible reveals that this intelligent Mind is GOD!

The apostle Paul once wrote, “God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as it pleased Him” (1 Corinthians 12:18). Indeed He did! The human body is no accident. Rather, it is a complex, well-designed “machine” whose very existence testifies to the existence, wisdom, and power of the God Who created it.

The psalmist said, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). Those are strong words, aren’t they? Yet they were not intended to offend. Rather, they were intended as a commentary on the fact that a person would indeed have to be terribly foolish to see all of the evidence that establishes beyond reasonable doubt the existence of God—and then turn and deny that evidence. The Scriptures make it plain that God “did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). This is the Bible’s way of saying that no one will stand before God on that great Judgment Day yet to come, shrug his shoulders with indifference, and say simply, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe in You, but there just wasn’t enough evidence to prove that You actually existed.” The evidence that establishes the case for the existence of God is simply too plentiful and too powerful. If we ignore it, we do so at our own peril—and to the detriment of our soul!