HOW IS IT WHAT BE--PART II: ANIMALS AND FIG WASPS AGAIN

     In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was  God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the

world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-14)

As we have been and will continue looking at Creation, we need to remember that when God said “Let there be” this was the Word of God. The Word of God created all things and the Word was Christ. The Old Testament is as much about Jesus as is the New Testament. There is no Old Testament God nor New Testament God. There is but one God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. (1 Corinthians 8:6)

Jesus, The Word, is the alpha and omega, there in the beginning and there at the end of this world as we in Revelation 21:11-13: 

He was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. (Revelation 21:11-12)

We left off in the last chapter on Day Four of Creation, when God made the sun and moon. On Day One God said “Let there be light”, but there was no sun until day four. How could that be? It be because God is the light. God will eventually do away with the sun and moon and the stars when He creates the new earth and heavens. Even though in the new creation there will not be any sun, there will be light and there will never be darkness.

And the city [Jerusalem] had no need of the sun, neither of the

moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the  light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. (Revelation 21:23-25)

Let us now move on to Day 5 of Creation, but reflect on the logic so far.

Day One the planet and light so it could be seen, and the rotation so we had 24 hour days going forward.

Day Two climate.

Day Three, the appearance of dry land separated from the seas. Then covering the dry land with vegetation. Now you had the appearance of food for what would soon be coming.

Day Four the creation of the Sun and moon to create time for humans, but also photosynthesis that provides food for the plants, carbon dioxide and water.

Day Five God called for birds of the air and the sea life in the seas.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.  And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Genesis 1:20-23

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing Darwinthat creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24-25

On Day Six He made the land animals, including the creeping things such as bugs, and even those teeny tiny microscopic cells we can’t see with the naked eye, such as germs, and the great beasts, such as dinosaurs and all the animals in between, all after their  kind. 

Such as dinosaurs?

Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. (Job 40:15-18)

And what determines their kind? Is it evolution as a random selection? Or is it an intelligent design coded into each thing, something we now call DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)?

Darwinism says it was random chance.

In the 1850s, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace

developed what would be published as On The Origins of Species in 1859. Darwin followed this publication with The Descent of Man. His theories became pretty universally accepted and thus we ended up with the nonsense that human beings evolved from apes.

I was taught in public school that all the creatures came from one sea animal, which at some point crawled onto the land, developed legs and turned into an amphibian, such as a salamander that became a gecko, which turned into a dog or something.

Even as a young person I had problems with evolution. I had fished as a boy and I knew what happened when you pulled a Sunfish out of the water and put it on land. It flip-flopped about a bit and died. It wasn’t going to survives the thousands of years the evolutionists required for it to grow legs and lungs.

I have read that Evolutionists are in trouble today and they need a deep rethink of the theory. Why? Because Darwin and Wallace knew knowing of genes, let alone DNA. So, don’t be shocked when I tell you I believe in evolution. I do because I understand the mechanics required for evolution as put forth by todays scientists, and these mechanics are still going on and don’t take millions of years to do what they do.

1. Mutation.  I have blue eyes. Blue eyes are a mutation, at least according to scientists. At one time everybody had brown eyes.
   
   Somewhere one of my ancestors had a mutant in their gene that caused blue eyes. Again according to scientists, everybody who has blue eyes are related to one single person somewhere in history, the  one who got that mutant gene. Blue eyes proved to be dominant, so that ancestor gave birth to a child or children and they carried the mutant gene and they had blue eyes. Both my parents had blue eyes, as did their parents, thus both my wife and I have blue eyes. Guess what color eyes my three kids have? Blue, they had no choice; and blue eyes became more common in the population once they first appear as a mutation.

2. Migration: If you suddenly have a population of long-horned
   
   beetles integrated into a  population of short-horned beetles, it would make genes for long-horns more prevalent in the short-horn population than before. Scientists don’t really know how long-horned beetles came about. I would guess either a mutant gene or they have just always been here. 

3. Genetic Drift: Suppose on a prairie there are a herd of Buffalo
   
   and a herd of  Cattle. Both herds are of equal number. The Cattle have several calves that survive, but Wild Bill Cody rides through and kills a lot of the buffalo. (By the way, Cody got the metal of Honor for killing the buffalo.) The next generation of these animals would have more cattle than Buffalo. This is genetic Drift. 
5. Natural Selection.  Polar Bears came from mutant genes in the Irish Brown  Bear. Because of mutation and migration a large number of Polar Bears developed in the group. Probably a
   
   bunch of Brown Bears traveled north and adapted to both the snowy environment and the available food source, seals. Hunters came and the Brown Bears were more visual against the snowy background that the White Bears and the hunters killed a lot more of the brown bears. Now there survived many more white bears in the region, which further adapted to the climate, and got called Polar Bears. This is Natural Selection.

Remember when Scripture said God created the plants and then the animals it   always said after their kind. These creations did not evolve into some new species not created by God, they simply changed through the mechanics, also created by God. Genes, thus genetics played a large part in this, or how the wolf became all the dogs in the world today. Whether wolf or Jojo, the Dachshund, they are still in the family Canine.

God had developed the rules of Genetic when he created the living things of His world. These were little understood in the past.  Darwin did not know about genes or DNA, nor did Jacob when he made a bargain with his Father-in-law Laban in Genesis 30 and 31. Jacob made a deal that he would take all the speckled, spotted and discolored of Laban’s flocks as his wages and when Jacob departed he left with the majority of the flocks.

31 And he [Laban]said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock. 

32 I will pass through all thy flock today, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.

33 So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.

34 And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word.

35 And he (Jacob) removed that day the he-goats that were ringstraked (had circular stripes) and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

36 And he set three days' journey betwixt himself and Haven: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

That was their agreement. Jacob would take all the marked of the flock. Rickstraked means circular stripes.Most likely when the deal was struck these spotted and discolored animals were the lesser of the flocks. It seemed fair to Laban because he believed he would get  the most when Jacob left. Neither man understood the nature of genes and mutation. 

We actually see that Jacob followed current superstition. Jacob

believed what the ewe’s looked at is what they would conceive. It is like the owner of the Elephant Man told the crowds as to why Joseph Merrick was so deformed which was that his pregnant mother had been frightened by an elephant. But real life doesn’t work this way.

37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.

39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.

41 And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

42 But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.

43 And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.(Genesis 30:31-43)

Genesis 31 King James Version (KJV)

1 And he heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's; and of that which was our father's hath he gotten all this glory.

2 And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before.

3 And the Lord said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.

4 And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his flock,

5 And said unto them, I see your father's countenance, that it is not toward me as before; but the God of my father hath been with me.

6 And ye know that with all my power I have served your father.

7 And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.

8 If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, The ringstraked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstraked.

9 Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me.

In this Jacob was correct. God had taken Laban’s flocks and given them to Jacob, but the outcome had nothing to do with Jacob’s shenanigans; it did have something to do with some husbandry by God.

10 And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I [Jacob] lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled.

11 And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I.

12 And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled, and grisled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee.

13 I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred. (Genesis 31:10-13)

God shows Jacob what he had directed to happen. Only the speckled and spotted and discolored rams impregnated the ewes and the mutated patterns of stripes, spots and colors in the genes did the trick. 

Let’s consider some supposed evolution. I’ll begin with the Fig Wasp, some of you may remember these from a year ago in the lesson, “Figs and Wasps & Foolish Genius”. We saw the necessary and symbiotic relationship between the fruit tree and the insect, neither could reproduce without the other. For these fig trees to reproduce they had to share pollen with another fig tree. There are fig trees with no male organs. These cannot produce the needed pollen, it must be brought into its fig to make the fruit fertile for reproduction. This is where the fig wasp comes into the picture. 

When the female fig wasp enters a fig tree containing both male and female parts, she is prevented by the length of the stylus from laying her eggs. All she can do is collect the pollen and fly off looking for a fig tree with only the female part and in here she can lay eggs within the figs. Getting into the fig and laying her eggs usually results in the female wasp dying from exhaustion, but she still delivers the pollen she carries.  After a while, her eggs hatch . The male wasps then tare tunnels out of the figs for the new born females and they fly off to begin the cycle again. 

Yes, the fertilized fig when it is harvested does contain one or more dead wasp carcasses, but never fear. A fig enzyme called ficin breaks down the dead wasp into protein, making it part of the ripened fruit perfectly safe for us to eat.

Evolutionists say it took millions of years for this system to evolve. I say if it took millions of years for this reproduction cycle to develop, we would have neither figs or fig wasps today.

When I was young and learning zoology for a Boy Scout Badge, the books said the giraffe got their long necks for survival reasons. You see, they said, the giraffes ate these particular tree leaves, but after awhile all the lower leaves were devoured and the giraffe grew longer necks to reach the higher leaves.

I thought this was silly. Again, evolving the longer necks took millions of years or at least many thousands.  If that was the case they would have all died of starvation from not being able to reach the higher leaves. That didn’t seem logical, besides wouldn’t the trees have grown back the lower leaves in the spring?

A number of years ago the scientists changed the story. The giraffes supposedly got their longer necks for necking, that is, sex. Not that the neck was used for sex, but for  fighting over the female. Two giraffes wanted the same mate they had a battle and giraffes fight by swinging there necks and heads into each other until one is battered into submission. Thus, over thousands or millions of years, the male giraffes grew longer and longer necks, because somehow size mattered. 

There are questions. If the giraffes once had small necks, why didn’t they fight by kicking or butting, afterall, they do have horns atop their heads? Also, why did the female giraffes evolve long necks when they didn’t engage in fighting. See they really don’t know why giraffes have these long necks. The latest idea is a combination.  The giraffes started out getting long necks to reach higher food, then after the necks were a certain height the males discovered they could be used for clubbing each other.

Actually, they don’t really know and they keep changing their theory about the giraffe’s long neck. You know what I think? I think God just made them this way.

One thing I have noticed when the experts tell how something has evolved, they always make it sound as if the creature made a conscious choice to do it. You know, “Hey if our necks were longer we’d have a better weapon, so let’s grow longer necks.”

So on that sixth day, “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

Now there was air to breath and water to drink and land to live on. And there was food to eat, but it wasn’t meat, even though the King James translation uses that word. 

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every  thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. (Genesis :30)

That’s right, in the beginning everything was a vegetarian. The word meat used in this verse is just the old English for food. So, all that green stuff was given by God as food to the animals (and to humans as well). There were no steaks, no fried baloney, no hot wings. There was kale. The idea that everything was Vegan, though, is bogus.

Abundance was represented by the term “milk and honey”. God promised to  take the Israelites to a land of milk and honey; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large; unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Exodus 3:8)

After all, it is said in Proverbs 24:13 —“My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste:

We will find, though, that God changed the diet after Adam and Eve fell and sin entered the world. We’ll touch on this later.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25)

Take note that all was created after it’s kind. This did not mean there could not be changes in a kind, but that it would remain a kind and not evolve into something else. A cow through mutation, migration and breeding may become Angus, Holstein, Jersey, Guernsey, and dozen of other types, but never a new kind, each remains a cow, none becomes a horse.

Early on, before all these devisions and breeds it probably was an advantage to Noah when the animals boarded the ark. 

They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. (Genesis 6:14-15)

Then God decided to make one more thing:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:25-31)

A summary overview of Creation is given at the end of Genesis 1. Everything  God made had been declare good, and here it is pronounced very good.  It is a perfect world and there is not yet any sin within it.

So what happened?

HOW IT IS WHAT BE: PART I --LIGHT AND TIME

Let’s look at a story told of Jesus in Matthew 8:23-26 and Mark 4:35-39. (KJV) Jesus has been preaching to a large multitude of people when he decided to cross the Galilee Sea with his Disciples:

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 

And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just

as he was. And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him and other boats were with him. And behold, a great windstorm arose on the sea, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling; so that the boat was being swamped by the waves. 

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they went and woke him, and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”

And he awoke and he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”

Then he rose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41)

What does this story have to do with the beginning of things? I am hoping we will find out as we explore together how we came to be. It has much to do about time.

Lets go back to some of my own genesis. When I was a boy, somewhere around the age of 14, I joined the MYF, that is, the Methodist Youth Fellowship at the Downingtown Methodist Church. Up until then, I had been forced to attend Sunday School there from the Third Grade through Sixth Grade, and I hated it. No one else in the family was going to any church, so why should I? But each Sunday morn I donned my suit and  tie and plopped a wide brim hat upon my head. Looking like a miniaturized Rabbi, I walked a mile down Washington Avenue to the church upon the bonnie banks of the Brandywine, where I stewed in utter boredom for an hour before gladly racing home. (My folks did not force me to stay for worship service.)

When I reached seventh grade and the mature age of 12, I felt defiant enough to refuse any further religious ritual. I didn’t show my face in a church until the summer before ninth grade when I was 14 years old and a budding businessman having my own paper route.

No one forced me back to church this time; I went voluntarily. It wasn’t some   grand conversion. You might even say “The Devil made me do it”. Like Eve and that low hanging fruit, I was enticed back to church out of a gluttonous desire for something deliciously tempting. I wasn’t pursuing God; I was pursuing a good hamburger with fries.

A friend named Jakie Ax (left) played the role of chief enticer and Jimmy Dawson (right)backed him up.

It was a time of joining for me, who had never been much of a joiner. I went out for Babe Ruth Baseball and I became a Boy Scout. Jakie Ax and Jimmy Dawson were not only classmates at Downingtown Junior

High, they were also in the same Boys Scout troop as I; in fact, in the same Beaver Patrol. They also went to the Downingtown Methodist Church. You might say they were good Christian boys, certainly better than I who at this same time was stealing “girlie” magazines from the local newsstand and engaging in other socially unacceptable behavior, which caused the local gendarmes to threaten me with reform school..

When we went on camping trips in the tent at night, Jimmy

was always  on me to accept Christ. He would give me tracts and these little cards I was supposed to fill out. One had a blank line  after the question, “If you should die tonight, would you be in H_______ tomorrow? 

I never actually filled in the blank, but I told Jimmy I guessed I’d be in Heaven, because I was a pretty good kid (shoplifting aside). Anyway, I went to MYF this one Sunday evening because Jakie said they were going to Dick Thomases’ Brick Oven after the meeting.

I loved Dick Thomases’ hamburgers and Bar-B-Ques; french fries and milk shakes, too. (Ah, the lure of Dick Thomases’ Dusty Miller Sundaes!) I would never miss an opportunity to eat there, even if it meant enduring some kind of dull church meeting.

But after that first Sunday, I kept going back every week, even without the bribe of food, because I found I really enjoyed being there. I didn’t take the religious stuff very seriously, though, and I was always questioning the Pastor. The minister was very good with us kids. He was easy to talk to and his wife made great cookies and hot chocolate. His name was Tom Ogden and you can still see him as he looked back in the ‘fifties if you get a chance to see the movie, “The Blob” starring Steve McQueen. Reverend Ogden (right) played the role of the fire chief in that film.

So what is all this leading to? It happened that one warm autumn evening we met on his porch and he talked about how God had created everything. When he was done, I asked, “If everything was created by God, who created God?”

Boy, I thought I was so smart, like nobody had ever asked that question before. I didn’t find his answer very satisfying either. I don’t know, it kind fell into a generalization, like with God all things are possible. I went home feeling pretty smug with myself. I felt I had stumped him.

So lets examine that first sentence of the Bible, Genesis 1:1 and find out if I was so smart or not.

“Beresheet  bara Elohim, et ha shamanism et ha Eretzin” in Herbew means “Beginning God created heaven and land” or as generally translated .in English: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

A Dr.Chuck Missler gives some further information into the Hebrew  Beresheet is what became the name of the book, Genesis (Beginning), which is what the word means. Bara means to form out of nothing. Elohim is one of the names of God and the Hebrew here is plural, like Seraphim is the plural of Seraph, giving our first hint of the Trinity. The Hebrew singular for God is elowahh (eloah)

In the beginning who created?

God created, but here my question to my minister still hung in the air. Who created God?

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,  from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2)

The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)

No one created God. He simply always existed. I know that seems impossible, but stop and think about the fact that we exist and the planet exists and the universe exists and all that exists is also impossible. How can you explain there being anything at all because such a thing is obviously impossible. Yet at the same time there being nothing is also impossible.

How can what exists not have a beginning or an end? Isn’t that just as impossible? Our human mind believes everything must have a beginning and an end.

Yet God doesn’t have a beginning or end. He just is, exactly as he told Moses:

God said to Moses, “I Am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”(Exodus 3:14)

Scientists had a hard time excepting that idea, so they imagined up a beginning called “The Big Bang Theory”. (Their names were Sheldon and Leonard. Kidding!) They said there was what they refer to as A Singularity, even though this broke a long-standing Philosophic belief that became a prevailing scientific one, as well as a quite logical one to the human mind:  ex nihilism nihil fit  or out of nothing comes nothing. And scientists do insist before this “singularity” there was nothing, not even space. So in fact, there wasn’t even nothing.

Here is what scientists admit they do not know about this “singularity”

   The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space?

   

   They don't know.

   

   They don't know where it came from, why it's here, or even where it is at the moment.  All they really claim to know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn't exist and neither did we.

  Doodle do do, doodle do do!  A little Twilight Zone music, please.

In 2012, Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were awarded the

Nobel prize for  their theoretical predictions (think sci-fi) on the idea that there exists a particle that would create matter and this created the Big Bang. This theory took the name Higgs Bosom.(Higgs is the one on the right.) 

Stephen Hawking then rolled into the picture warning that Higgs Bosom would ultimately lead to the destruction of the whole universe. I admired Hawking since he somehow managed to live 54 years with ALS, yet I sorrow for him because as far as I know he never accepted Christ or God. Hawking was not the only physicist to believe in the Higgs Bosom Doomsday. Many scientists jumped on Hawking’s bandwagon . .Hawking’s said “ that a quantum fluctuation creates a vacuum bubble that expands through space and wipes out the universe.”

I would not get too concerned about this because as Isaiah says of God: 

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

Measured heaven with a span

And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

Weighed the mountains in scales

And the hills in a balance? Isaiah 40:12

I put my trust and belief in God’s bosom, not Higgs.

You who laid the foundations of the earth,

So that it should not be moved forever,

You covered it with the deep as with a garment;

The waters stood above the mountains.

At Your rebuke they fled;

At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away.

They went up over the mountains;

They went down into the valleys,

To the place which You founded for them.

You have set a boundary that they may not pass over,

That they may not return to cover the earth. (Psalm 104:5-9)

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;

By understanding He established the heavens;

By His knowledge the depths were broken up,

And clouds drop down the dew. (Proverbs 3:19-20)

Although the official name is Higgs Bosom, it became more well known as the God Particle. Higgs, and several other physicists, hate this name, God Particle, especially Peter Higgs who is a staunch Atheist. 

I say, no mater how you slice it, everything always comes back to God.

Much of so-called Science today is based on mathematical calculations and here is their problem. In Algebra we learn about equations; 1 + 3 = 4. The two sides always have to balance. Often we have a missing part, but because an equation must balance, we can find what is missing, so 1+ 3+X = 6, we can solve for X. X = 6-4; therefore X is 2 . If we leave anything out of our equation, then we get a wrong answer because we force the sides to balance when they don’t.  If we leave the 3 out of the above equation we are left with 1+X =6, and to force the balance, we say that X = 6 -, which is 5, when X is really two. Our answer is wrong and can lead to dire circumstance. Scientists routinely leave God out of their equations., so…

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (KJV)

You will find other theories concerning this beginning to try and explain away things we can’t explain.  One popular one is the “Gap Theory”. It looks at a more literal translation of the Hebrew and concludes that God created the Earth and then some sort of disaster occurred, perhaps the upheaval with Satan. This resulted in the wasting of the original Earth and God restructuring this wasteland without form and void into a new Earth. This is how “The Gap” Theorists translate the first two verses.

In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth -the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters, (Genesis 1:-1-2 YLV)

They then suggest that God created the Earth because something went wrong and He had to rebuild it. I am not going to make any judgment on that, except I don’t buy it. You can make your own determination, but here are my reasons for not believing the Gap Theory”.

One, I think if there was a disaster and a rebuild the Bible would have mentioned it. Two, it would indicate that God really didn’t have complete control and Three, I believe “The Gap” is a way for those embarrassed about the briefness of the Creation to come alongside the secularists and their billions of years claim.

“Oh, a gap, that explains the age put upon the creation. A disaster and reformat, oh sure, that explains the existence of dinosaurs and cavemen. All those fossils were left over from the first Earth that God destroyed.”

I think it is a cop out by those who can’t easily explain some things and I have never felt we needed to find a natural explanation for the miracles of God. That isn’t faith in God; it is reliance on man.

   (We’ll get more into God and time later.)

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5.)

It is interesting that God  began by creating light for an Earth described as without form, void and dark. If you think science and religion can’t agree on anything, well, yes they can. Here they do. The description here is exactly what the Big Bang Theorists say.

After the Big Bang the earth is referred to as a soup. a unformed and void creation, which for a long time was in total darkness and unseeable. That’s right. The Earth was created, came into existence, but if the scientists or us had been around, we wouldn’t have been able to see it because there was no such thing as light. Then “free electrons”, magically coming from somewhere, began to scatter and light appeared. I’m not even going to attempt to describe either electrons or what it means by them being free, but physicists say these just popped up after the Big Bang. Perhaps popped-up is not quite right, because, of course, they say it took hundreds of thousands of years for them to do this scattering before light appeared, while the Bible simply says God declared, “let there be light and there was light”. We will find that the main disagreements the Bible has with scientists is they leave God out of their equation and leave everything to chance and time.  I believe when God commanded light to appear it happened pretty much on the spot. 

(Think about that passage I began this lesson with.)

Keep in mind that God is light and the absence of light is darkness. The Spirit of God, which is the third person of the Trinity was “hovering over the face of the waters” and since the Holy Spirit is God it probably brought the light. 

   This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

Nonetheless, we have critics who say how could there be an evening and a morning if God didn’t create the Sun until the fourth day. Well, there was dark, then there was light, just as the Jews always counted a day as first the night and then the day. Besides it is really no different with the Big Bang Theory. Everything was dark and then after a while there was light, and yet there was no sun existing in this beginning either. It was all those free electrons’ work.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:4-5)

How long was this first day? I don’t know. God hadn't created time yet, had he? We have twenty-four hour days because the Earth revolves on it’s axis and the sun shines on different parts at different times until it makes a complete orbit. Thus a day does not depend on the existence of a sun, but the movement of the Earth on its axis. There wasn’t any sun yet, not until the fourth day according to Genesis, and who knows when the sun “evolved” in the Big Bang scenario. So who knows how long those first, second and third days were. I’m going to assume these were normal days, that is twenty-four hours each. The Earth would still turn on its axis at its normal rate whether there was sunshine or not. 

We need to consider that God made the Sun and Moon for a different reason than providing light. He simply applied the light he had already created to their attributes for our convenience.

Light is a thing, you know? It is kind of a scientific mystery made up of photons and waves. And light travels. This fact wasn’t accepted until after 1729 A.D. Before then the consensus of scientists was light did not travel, but was instantaneous.  See Consensus is not science, it is opinion. A man named Olaf Roemer discovered light traveled in 1677, but then had to endure 50 years of being laughed at by his fellow scientists. The laughter and jokes never stopped for him actually for he died in 1710, 19 years before James Bradley proved he was right.

Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. and God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.

I think the word translated at firmament” in most Bibles is a bit confusing. Probably because the word firm is contained within we think of this as solid. It is referring here to the creation of what we call the sky. Clouds are the water above.

It is an ingeniously designed system that was put into place, even though it wasn’t used till much later, for remember there was no rain until the flood came. 

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— Genesis 3:5-7.

There were underground springs and a mist that watered the garden. Even after the fall this was the water source for the land. It wasn’t for hundreds of years before God allowed rain to fall. No wonder there was flood. Imagine how much water was stored in the clouds by then, although I would guess evaporation had not occurred yet either, but it might have because God was refilling the earth's water by mist.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Genesis 8:11-12. 

Yeah, the hydrologic cycle was there for when needed. This is the the waters on the earth’s surface evaporate and become stored in the clouds. After a while these water warehouses empty their stored up property as rain, which in turn refill the waters of the Earth’s surface. This system proved both a blessing and a curse to humankind when you stop and think about it. 

Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:9

One more note, the firmament is more firm than we think of it. 

Who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea; (Job 9:8)

Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great!

You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. (Psalm 194:1-2)

The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him:(Zechariah 12:1)

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. (Jeremiah 10:12)

And a bunch of places in Isaiah: Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12 and 51.13. God stretched out the heavens and formed a dome above his world.

Now after the Earth had been this formless place, just roiling seas, God create the dry land, the grounds formally hidden under the waters. Probably this early world was one big landmass surrounded by water. If you look at the world you can see how all the pieces seem to have fitted together.

Everything that is described in Genesis is exactly how the scientists or evolutionists see the forming of our world. (Oh when animals begin coming on stage some of the scientists do put birds out there earlier than the others, but I don’t buy it.)  Notice the logic of creation as it developed, the planning of an ingenious mind, not just random chance. 

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (Genesis 1:6-19

Now on the fourth day God creates the sun and moon and stars. he imbued them with his light, but the main reason he created these objects was the invention of time for man. God is above time and eventually he will destroy time, but humankind needed some measure for itself. Humankind is bound by a timeline. The past is gone and the future is not yet, we have only the present, but God can see the past, present and future as he wishes from Eternity.

We will deal more with Eternity and Time next lesson as far as why I believe creation took place in six 24-hour days.

I leave you with one more passage about Jesus to ponder concerning time and God:

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:13-21)