Seeing the Invisible World

Did you know that the longest list of questions found in the Bible is made up of questions asked by God? In Job chapters 38 and 39, God poses query after query to His servant Job, who has daily begged for answers to some tough, heart-wrenching questions of his own.

The U.S. Commerce Department says about 4 million people are caught shoplifting each year, but for every person caught, an estimated 35 go undetected. If these statistics are accurate, it means that 140 million shoplifting incidents occur each year in a nation of 260 million people.

A woman who had just returned from a trip to Mexico frantically called the Los Angeles Police Department to report that a live rattlesnake had been placed in her overnight bag. Police went rushing to the scene with sirens screaming. They slowly approached the menacing bag, which the woman had heaved out of a window onto the sidewalk. Cautiously they scattered the contents of the bag-only to trace the rattling sound to ...

It's the answer everyone wants to know. How do you move from death into life? Uncover the secret in Ezekiel's prophecy, when dry bones are brought to life.

The coconut tree is sometimes called the tree of life because of its amazing versatility. My father, who was a World War II pilot, says that when planes went down in the Pacific Islands, the stranded pilots sometimes survived for many months on little more than coconuts.

While under the influence of a light hypnotic trance, a man who submitted to a scientific hypnosis experiment was ordered to pick up a glass from the table. Although he was a strong, athletic type, the man could not budge the glass from its position. His most strenuous exertions could not lift the glass that was light enough for any child to remove.

It is estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 people die from snakebites each year, 75 percent of whom live in densely populated India. The most deadly snakes in India are the cobra, Russell's viper, saw-scaled cobra, Indian krait, and Ceylon krait.

The Sun is a fantastically hot cosmic-radiation powerhouse, with a surface temperature of about 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Its interior temperature is estimated as high as 18 million degrees Fahrenheit. The pressure at the center of the sun is about 700 million tons per square inch.

Gordius was a Greek peasant who became king of Phrygia simply because he was the first man to drive into town after an oracle had commanded his countrymen to 'select as ruler the first person who would drive into the public square in a wagon.' In gratitude, Gordius dedicated his wagon to the god Zeus and securely tied the tongue of the wagon in the temple grove with a thick, strong rope.

In Asia lives a remarkable little spider that has its home under the water. This water spider spins a tiny web in the shape of a bell and attaches it to stems of water weeds and plants just below the pond surface. All spiders must breathe air, so the water spider takes its air along like a skin diver.

Eidetic memory is rare in man and is cause for awe and admiration. Eidetic memory, also called photographic memory, is marked by an extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall of visual images with the ability to re-project and thus 'visually' recall material.

Houdini, born Erich Weiss on March 24, 1874, is perhaps America's most famous magician and escape artist. While visiting a psychiatrist friend in Nova Scotia in 1896, Houdini saw his first strait jacket. Instead of shock, he was inspired to create an act around escaping from it.

When King Humbert of Italy came to the throne, Naples was on the verge of insurrection against the monarchy. Politicians were urging violent measures to force the stubborn city into submission, but King Humbert would not allow this. Then there was a sudden outbreak of cholera and the dreaded disease raged with deadly fury in the city of Naples.

One hour of sleep deprivation increases the number of highway accidents by eight percent and an hour of extra sleep decreases them by eight percent! It's true-it happens twice a year during the daylight savings time adjustments. Your efficiency driving after you have been awake for 18 hours is about the same as driving after drinking two alcoholic drinks.

On the Big Island of Hawaii rest the ancient ruins of Pu`uhonua: 'A vast enclosure whose stone walls were 20 feet thick at the base and 15 or 20 feet high; an oblong square, 1,040 feet one way, and a fraction under 700 the other,' wrote Mark Twain in his July 1866 'Letters from Hawaii.'

The fall of 1999 promises to reveal a kaleidoscope of human behavior. Millions of people are apprehensive regarding the Y2K, or 'Millennial Bug,' situation. Most people already know that because of a serious date programming problem, many computer experts are anticipating varying degrees of computer system freezes and malfunctions between Sept. 9, 1999, and Feb. 28, 2000.

They were watching. They watched him roll over as the early morning sun peeked over the horizon and brightened his bedroom. They watched as he climbed out of bed and prepared for the day. They watched him as he led the household in worship, ate his simple breakfast, and as he gave instructions to his chief steward. They watched as he donned his outer robe and strode out to the pasture where his 7,000 sheep were grazing.

There are more than 376 million Visas and MasterCards in circulation. This is up 80 percent from a few years ago when the average family had only two credit cards and $2,340 in outstanding balances. Today they have an average of four cards and owe nearly $4,880.

Science tells us that light is constituted of three primary rays, or groups of wavelengths. Clearly distinct from each other, none of them without the others could be light. Each ray has its own separate function. The first originates, the second illuminates, and the third consummates.

Nazareth of Galilee was situated in one of the loveliest physical settings in all of Palestine. Nestled amid the natural beauty of rolling hills and lush, fruitful vineyards, it would seem to be the perfect place for the Son of God to manifest His sinless life. There, at His mother's knee, Jesus could be exposed to the holy influences of the book of nature as well as the inspired writings of patriarchs and prophets.

In 1967 the city of Long Beach, Calif., bought the Queen Mary from Cunard Lines. Since then $63 million has been spent on its conversion into a tourist spot with a museum, shops, restaurants, and a hotel. Now many in the city of Long Beach look upon the giant ship, docked on the ocean front, as a floating white elephant, and voices are calling for the doughty old liner to be scrapped.

Bumble bees were originally called 'humble bees' because they are generally good natured and very rarely sting. The young children of the early English settlers struggled to say 'humble bees,' and often called them 'bumble bees' instead.

The world's smallest known vertebrate fish, the pygmy goby, is found on coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean, and is only about a quarter of an inch long when full grown. The Latin name of this fish, Nanus comes from a word meaning 'dwarf.' You can understand why the pygmy goby babies can only be seen with a magnifying glass when they first hatch from their teeny, tiny eggs!

Between 1768 and 1775, the famous British explorer James Cook and his crew made two voyages around the world. Cook and his companions charted much of the South Pacific using nothing more than a sextant and a simple compass for navigation!

A man stopped at the bar in the Los Angeles airport to "relax" for a few minutes before catching his plane. Then, realizing he had lost track of time, the man raced out of the bar and quickly asked directions for the departing gate to Oakland. After hurrying through a maze of terminals, he handed the flight attendant his ticket and scurried onto the plane just as it was about to depart.

The European cuckoo bird is known as a 'brood parasite.' The female lays her eggs in the nests of other smaller birds, like the reed warbler. In turn, they unwittingly incubate, feed, and raise the young impostors-usually at the expense of their own genuine offspring!

We were both born and raised in Poland, studied theology, and became ministers. We both left our fatherland and lived and worked in other countries. He went to Italy; I sojourned across the Alps into neighboring Switzerland. Eventually both of us would come to Canada (in the same year, 1989) and live in southern Ontario within an hour's drive of each other.

'Road Rage' is a term that defines an alarming new phenomenon in North America. Angry motorists shoot and kill or deliberately crash their cars into drivers whom they feel have performed some inconsiderate maneuver. This growing problem is so real that the Automobile Association of America is running a series of TV adds to teach drivers how to keep their cool and avoid becoming a victim.

When a hawk is attacked by crows or kingbirds, instead of waging a counterattack, it will circle higher and higher until it is soaring above the altitude range of its tormentors. During the Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers were forced to make what was later called 'the mother of all surrenders.'

In order to draw attention to world peace, in 1973 Patrice Tamao of the Dominican Republic allowed himself to be crucified as thousands watched on TV. Tamao had three six-inch stainless steel nails driven through his hands and feet and intended to stay on the cross for 48 hours. However, after 20 hours he requested to be taken down because he had developed an infection.