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It would have to be a fool who fails to see that only God could make all the creatures that are found in the world. Let's consider one of these.

Most of us have heard how a bat can fly about in total darkness and never hit an object that might be in the way. Experiments have been made, blindfolding these creatures and turning them loose in rooms strung with piano wire, twine and all kinds of things. But the bat just flies all round these objects and never once scrapes a wing against them. God has furnished it with a "radar system" far more sensitive than any man has invented. It can produce a sound with its mouth so high-pitched that humans cannot hear its full range. These sound waves strike objects in the path of flight and send back echoes to the bat's ears. The echoes tell the bat how it must turn in the air to avoid colliding with objects or with one another.

The bat sleeps hanging upside down, but before doing so spends perhaps half an hour cleaning itself. So you see they are not dirty animals as many think.

God has given the bat a sense of approaching scarcity of food as winter draws near, and before this occurs it gorges on food, putting on a nice layer of fat. After this is done some migrate to a warmer climate, up to a thousand miles away. Most, however, retire to a dark place (usually a cave) where they hang by their hind feet and hibernate for three to six months. During this time the fat stored in their bodies sustains them until warm weather returns, when they become active again in finding the insects that also have again become plentiful.

The bat is a rather gruesome-looking creature, but is beneficial to man in destroying large quantities of harmful insects. It has been estimated that they eat half their weight in insects in one night. Altogether, the bats in America probably eat thousands of tons of insects each year that would otherwise harm farmers' crops.

Bats aren't able to reason why they act as they do and could never have developed such wonderful abilities by themselves. God is the One who has created them and He watches over them, providing their skills and caring for them in all their unusual ways.

The bat likes to carry on many of its activities in the dark and is equipped to do so. We, too, by nature, love a form of darkness that shuts us out of God's blessings: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" John 3:19.

When the Lord Jesus came into the world, He became "the Light of the world" and invites everyone to come out of darkness into His marvelous light. When we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, He delights to give us a new title: "Children of light" and as such we have the privilege of shining for Him.

Copied with permission from Messages of God's Love. More articles in The Wonders of God's Creation (Volume 1-4) by Sidney R. Gill, also published by Bible Truth Publishers, Addison, IL 60101.

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