Genesis Chapter 1:1-12

The word Genesis means "beginning" and we read "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Gen.1:1). Now the question arises, How long ago was that?  It is obvious that the Bible does not give us a clear distinct answer.

The word created, as used in the first verse of chapter I, is the Hebrew word "bara". It is only used three times in the entire Bible and it is that capacity of creating something out of nothing. It is a capacity that is exclusively God's. There are two other words, "asah" and "yasar", that are translated, made or formed; which are the Hebrew words used for the assembling of existing materials. You may say someone created a television set, but they have only assembled existing parts. It's not like saying, "Television be" and suddenly there was a television. Creating out of non-existing materials is something only God has the power in the Hebrew word, bara.

It is interesting that in this account of creation the word "bara" is used in the first verse and then God made and God formed afterward. Once God had created the heaven and the earth, He used existing materials and assembled things together out of those materials.

The Book of Genesis goes back to the beginning of creation, the material universe, the beginning of time. Time is related always to the material. There is a dimension in which time does not exist, which is the Eternal. Our finite minds are not programmed to think in that dimension. To us everything has a start and a finish; a beginning and an end. We can't conceive timelessness or the eternal.

Just how long ago, in our time, was the creation of the universe? You see, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" but, before He created them God thought about you. Christ was crucified before the foundations of the earth. Before God even created a material universe, He thought about you and loved you and planned for your redemption. It's hard to conceive but this is what the Scripture teaches.

There are those scientists, today, who are taking a literal look and saying it was only around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago that the physical universe was created. They are beginning to offer a lot of evidence to support their claims. Dr. Henry Morris has written several books on Cosmology regarding the beginnings and creation of the earth and his views are highly respected.

There has come a system of thought that has dominated our educational system. It has been so prevalent that it is hard for us to divorce ourselves from the pseudoscience of Evolution. It is not a true science and doesn't deal with empirical facts. It deals only with theories and hypotheses, which change day by day with the changing evidence.

Remember when the lunar module landed on the moon? Some scientists were saying that it would probably be swallowed up in the moon dust. They hypothesized that the moon must be at least six billion years old. Having no atmosphere, those meteorites that come into the moon and explode are turned into dust. There were those that predicted that the moon dust would be somewhere between seventeen and thirty-five feet deep. A lot of expense was given to the preparation of the lunar landing module to counteract this moon dust. They expected it to be swallowed up by this dust. It was a major concern of the scientists, but as Television showed the walk on the moon, the moon dust was less than an inch thick. The men who had hypothesized this ancient moon were very silent about the lack of moon dust actually found on the moon.

There are a lot of other interesting evidences that you can use to show that the earth is probably much younger than the necessary twelve billion years for the evolution of the single cell into the complex human form. The only reason we have postulated an extremely old earth and universe is to accommodate a theory that is built upon hypotheses and no actual facts or truth. Yet, it is so accepted by the intellectual community that no one dares to say that perhaps the evolutionary concepts are wrong.

It reminds me of the story of the King who wanted a new suit. The tailors came and said, "We are going to sew you the most beautiful suit in the world. We are going to use invisible thread and only the most intelligent will be able to see it. Those who are not intelligent will not be able to see the suit." They measured the King and fit the suit to him and asked his counselors how they liked the fit of the coat. None wanted to appear ignorant, so, they commented to the King about how wonderful the coat fit and looked. Finally the King dressed in his new suit went out among his subjects, but alas some poor fool standing on the corner said, "The King is naked."

It is the same concept with this theory of evolution. They have the idea that if you are extremely wise and intelligent, you will believe the Evolutionary Concept. Only a fool could believe that God created man! Thank God, there are some wise men among the scientists, who are admitting that there isn't any real evidence to prove the Evolutionary Theory. A book called "Earth’s In Upheaval" absolutely destroys the idea of uniformitarianism, the basic theory upon which evolution is built. More and more scientists are coming out and exposing a lot of these problems of embracing the Evolutionary Theory. Accommodating this theory is the only reason why anyone would want to create an earth of several billion years old.

An interesting paper was written by Dr. Barnes of the University of West Texas in El Paso, on the electro magnetic fields. Dr. Barnes points out that 142 years ago a Dutch Scientist measured the level of the electro magnetic field around the earth and in each subsequent year there have been measurements taken. We find that this field is gradually decaying at a very constant, predictable rate and in the 140 some years of measurements there has not been one variance in the rate of decay of the electro magnetic field. This field around the earth does have a protective kind of aspect, in that, it does cause many of the cosmic rays to be repelled as they enter the atmosphere or bounce away without hitting the earth.

We realize that much of the mutation and age processes are caused by cosmic rays. Those rays, such as, gamma rays and other various rays which are bombarding our earth, are going through our bodies and causing mutation of cells and the aging process. We know if we shield milk from the cosmic rays that milk will keep fresh for months without refrigeration; but, otherwise, there is that deterioration that takes place.

There was the moisture blanket, before the flood, that God put around the earth; that also was a shield against much of the cosmic rays. We realize that the Ozone blanket also shields us from the radiation, especially the ultra violet rays from the sun. With the deterioration of the Ozone blanket, as a result of our use of floral carbons in aerosol cans and the detonating of missiles in our atmosphere; we are now receiving a heavier bombardment of the ultra violet rays from the sun. This exposure to the sun's rays is causing skin cancers to be extremely common in our world today. The sun used to be good for our health but since we have begun damaging the Ozone Layer, it has become a very harmful thing to our bodies. We are constantly being warned by the specialists who deal with these skin maladies.

In Dr. Barnes paper on the electro magnetic field, he talks about the decay of the magnetic force in these electro magnetic fields. Assuming it has decayed in the last 140 years at the constant rate, he then turns it around and figures how strong the force was 25,000 years ago. If the electro magnetic field force around the earth has been in constant decay for 25,000 years and we turn it backwards, we find that 25,000 years ago the force would have been so strong that it would have heated up the surface of the earth to about 240 degrees. This would result in there being no moisture on the earth as it would have all evaporated into the atmosphere. As far back as a 100,000 years, if the decay were constant, there would have been so much heat that the earth would have been in a molten state. So, feeding that to the Evolutionists, who need several billion years for their theory of evolution; their answer is that the force dies down and is recharged every 10,000 years or so. Oh! Who recharges it? What kind of system is used to recharge it?

I have a cast of a footprint taken from the Piluxi River in Texas. This footprint was found along side the footprints of a dinosaur. Hundreds of them have been found intermixed with the dinosaur tracks, crossing the dinosaur tracks and even within the dinosaur tracks. This is a tremendous difficulty for the Evolutionists, who have the dinosaurs living a hundred million years ago and man coming on the scene about three million years ago. Here in the Piluxi River is proof that they, at one time, coexisted upon the earth. The Scientists brought to examine the footprint could not define it as a human footprint, because it was found in the footprint of a dinosaur. It led these scientists to conclude, "Well, it certainly appears to be a human footprint. There is a possibility, but we know it can't be."

I'm not a scientist, but I know a footprint when I see one.
There are scholars today, and the number is growing day by day, who are declaring that the Theory of Evolution can no longer adequately explain the existence of man or the universe. Dr. Wildersmith, author of many books on Creation versus Evolution, writes in a very clever style. He points out the truth of what Genesis declares, "Everything after its kind," and that there can be no real transformation or revolutionary process within a closed system. He declares how very important that is to our whole life style. If you could have dramatic changes within a closed system, it would be interesting every time you opened a can of peaches to find out what you had inside.
In the beginning God created and here it declares that the universe was a creation of God.

One further note on the Evolution Theory, Darwin, of course, postulated that man evolved through a long chain of processes, which are known as "Fortuitous Occurrences of Accidental Circumstances." He postulated that man evolved from the simple cell. That was before we developed the electron microscope and before the discovery of the protein DNA molecules, the chromosomes and the Genes, etc. Suddenly you realize it is not a simple cell but probably the most complex thing in the whole universe. This one little cell is far from simple with all the codes within it and all that is to be formed from it. The interesting thing is that the cell, which is found in a frog is far more complex than the one in man. If you're in an upward movement, then your next move would be toward the frog; because its cell is far more complex than that found in a human being.

The greatest scientists of the United States, Russia and Europe were brought together by a science symposium that was held in Europe. The purpose was to determine the possibility of extraterrestrial communication from outer space. (Intelligent beings out there in space trying to communicate with the planet earth.) The symposium was reported in a book edited by Carl Sagan, one of the leading exponents of the Evolutionary Theory, and published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975. The book was entitled "Extraterrestrial Communication."

The first paper was offered by a group of scientists from the United States. They put together all of the chance factors of bringing the cells together, in a random choice kind of a selection, to determine what is the chance factor for the first protein molecule to develop by this "Fortuitous Occurrence of Accidental Circumstances." It turned out that it would take 10 to the 28th power of these circumstances to create the first cell.
That is a pretty big number, because if you assume that they are correct in the twelve billion year life of the universe, there has only been 10 to the 17th power seconds in the twelve billion years. You are assuming then that there are trillions of these chance factors going on all over the universe at the same time. In fact you have 10 to the 25th power of grains of dust upon the entire earth. They would have to be interacting billions of time every second over the twelve billion years and still there isn't enough time for them to come together in an accidental form to form the first protein molecule. The only solution, according to the evolutionists, is that the earth must be 25 billion years old. Given enough time anything can happen.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." That takes less faith to believe than to swallow the Evolutionary Theory. I have no problem believing that an intelligent, powerful, infinite God called a universe into existence. The universe that He would call into existence would demonstrate His intelligence. That form of life that He would put upon the earth would be a demonstration of His intelligence.

You can take the creation model and study the geological column, which does not exist, its only a hypothesis. There is nowhere on earth that you can go and dig down the side of a cliff and find a geological column from each period progressing upward. Sometimes all layers of older formations are on top of younger formations for miles. The Evolutionists have a theory for this too, about the overlaying crust. There are many good books to read on this subject. Some of the authors, I'll mention, are Dr. Gish, John Lighthead, and Dr. Morris, who have done a lot of research. You need to read both sides of the argument to get the proper prospective.

Now, just when God did create the heaven and the earth, we do not know. I do not believe that the Bible, necessarily, would cause us to believe that it is just 10,000 years old. It would indicate, perhaps, that there is a gap of time between verse one and verse two in Genesis. In verse two we read, "And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved..." (hovered) "...upon the face of the waters." (Gen.1:2). The earth being without form and void does not sound like God's creation, for in subsequent verses God saw that his creation was good.

Before God laid the foundations of the earth or maybe after He laid the foundations of the original earth, He created other beings that are not human. He created divine beings that we call "angels." They are in a different dimension than we are. They, also, were created in God's image and after the likeness of God, for they were created self-determinate beings. God desired to receive and have fellowship with them as well as He desired to receive and have fellowship with man. Thus He created the angels as self-determinate beings.
One of the angels decided to rebel against the authority of God and advance himself into the god state to be worshiped as God. He is known by many names, such as: Lucifer, Satan, The Devil, and The Dragon, to name a few. He was, at one time, in a position of great honor. He was one of the anointed cherubs. Ezekiel tells us that he was perfect in beauty and wisdom and perfect in all of his ways until the day that he rebelled and iniquity was found in him. At that point, he was cast out of his position. Isaiah tells us in chapter 14, that he said, "I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High." It was his will against the authority and government of God.

The Book of Revelation indicates that as many as one third of the angels followed Lucifer in his rebellion. Satan and his angels make up a second kingdom in the universe, the kingdom of death and darkness. It is opposed to the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of light and life, but, God has allowed this second kingdom to exist. When was Satan and the angels created? Where was the Eden that he inhabited? When did this take place? No doubt, sometime in the prehistoric period, before God ever appeared to man; because, Satan appeared to man very early in the Garden in a fallen form.

Now one of the difficulties which I have with Dr. Morris's literal ten thousand year earth or less is, that I feel, it doesn't give room for the creation of the angels and the fall of Satan. I believe that there probably is a gap of time. This doesn't necessarily explain the fossil records, which I believe can be better explained by the flood. Again, I recommend the book "Earth’s in Upheaval" which gives an account of caves where bones of animals, which are natural enemies, are found together crushed and broken as if by some violent force. It speaks of a violent upheaval, which is better explained by the great flood of Noah. Where do you find fossils being formed at tremendous rates today? Not on the ocean floor! They actually deteriorate and dissolve without being fossilized. Fossils were formed by some convulsion of nature where there was the death of the animal or breaking off of the plant and then the covering with sediment causing it to be fossilized by tremendous pressure.

Oh, you can find fossils and you can create fossils. I had a friend who was a scientist. He told me about a hoax he played at a national convention of scientists one time. He decided to have some fun, so, he created a cast of a skull that did not look human, but more like a humanoid or like the missing link. He took it to the silicate springs up near Bakersfield, California. If you put a bone in these springs, it will fossilize in six hours. He left it there for twenty-four hours and then went back to the convention with a story of digging in a cave and coming across this fossil. The scientists at the convention were dating the skull some 90,000 years old and saying that it must be the missing link. It was the talk of the convention until he confessed his hoax and it nearly got him dismissed from the Academy of Scientists.

When I went through the Oregon Caves, it was explained how many millions of years it takes for those stalactites (a calcium deposit, resembling an icicle, hanging from the roof or sides of a cavern) and stalagmites (a deposit of calcium carbonate like an inverted stalactite formed on the floor of a cave by the drip of calcareous water) to form.  And how they were able to date the caves by the length of these stalactites and stalagmites. It was a very common mark of dating until they found stalactites five feet long under the Washington Monument, which was, only, built in 1924. Pop goes the Weasel! The King is naked once again.

If Genesis One deals with the original creation of the material universe, it does not really deal with the beginning. The Gospel of John goes back before this, before the universe existed God existed. (John 1:1-2) says, "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," that's going back even before the material universe. And now he comes to Genesis One, the creation of God, "All things were made by Him..." (John 1:3a). How long did God exist? He has existed from Eternity. Again our minds can not deal with timelessness. "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." (Gen.1:2a). The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and so, we see an earth without form and void and darkness over the earth. Here in verse two, we find the first mention of the Spirit of God.

"And God said," (Gen.1:3a). The word God in the Hebrew is Elohim, which is plural. God, singular, is El; the Hebrew has a duo and that word for God is Elahh. In the beginning God (Elohim) created. Even there we have the indication of the trinity or the triunity of God: Father, Son and Spirit. The Spirit shows up in verse two and the Son is actually there in verse one. John says in his gospel, chapter one, verse three, "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." So, when you read, "He created the heaven and the earth..." you have the Son involved. The Son, according to John, is the creator: the agent of creation.

"And 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." (Gen.1:3-4). The idea of God dividing the light from the darkness is interesting, because light is divided on the spectrum. We can divide light with a spectroscope. There is light even in the darkness but it is dark light. The infra-red, when you get down to that dimension, is no longer visible to the eye but it still exists.

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." (Gen.1:5). This creates a problem in the minds of many people, in that, we do not read of God creating the sun and the moon. In verse sixteen we read, "And 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." Notice though that God "made"; that is assembled (Asah), not created (Bara). "The earth was covered with darkness." Perhaps it was covered with dark clouds in a dark nebula. This could be one of many possibilities. It began to emerge and there was light, but still covered by darkness with the first rays of light just starting to penetrate through the cloud covering, it was possible to note that it was evening or that it was morning. How could you have the evening and the morning unless the earth was rotating on its axis? The sun is out there in its position and the light holders and light of the sun is allowed to come through to the earth on the fourth day of creation.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And 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. And the evening and the morning were the second day." (Gen.1:6-8). So, God created the atmosphere. The Bible refers to three heavens. The first heaven is that atmosphere that surrounds the earth. The second heaven is the stellar heaven, the universe itself. The third heaven is the dwelling place of God, wherever that may be, and I do not believe that it is way out in the Andromeda Galaxy. I believe that the third heaven is very close to the earth but in a whole different molecular structure.

I believe, as some scientists do postulate, there is a possibility of two earth’s existing at the same time, the same place, passing through each other, each oblivious to the existence of the other; because, they are made up of a different molecular structure. The interesting thing about the material structure, as we know it, is that there is much more space then solid matter in material things. If you had a molecule of hydrogen and you blew up the nucleus of the hydrogen (the proton) to the size of a basketball; the little electron that is revolving around it would be 3,000 miles away. There is that much space in the hydrogen atom. Actually if you would reduce all of the atoms in your body to just the solid material, if there were no space in the atoms that make up your body, you'd need a microscope to see yourself. You're just expanded molecules, but that little microscopic piece of dust would weigh the same as you weigh expanded.

Regarding the matter of density, we know that there are stars in space that have a greater density than does the sun or the planets in our solar system. In the Dog Star, which is a double star, it is estimated that the density is so great that a square inch would weigh 1,750 pounds. The atoms are more tightly compacted. Imagine seeing a meteorite that fell from the Dog Star and you decided to kick it out of your way, you think its just a little thing, or you may try to pick it up. Ouch! 1,750 pounds. So, in the molecular structure, it is possible that heaven is much closer to earth. There are two worlds coexisting. The Spirit world and the material world, passing through each other. I believe that the Spirit world is aware of our existence, but we, for the most part, are not aware of theirs. I believe that the scripture teaches this theory.

In the creating of the firmament, God, originally, placed a tremendous volume of water in the atmosphere and suspended it. We do know that water can be suspended in the atmosphere. Sometimes when the clouds come over and are cooled too quickly that volume of water falls on a particular area and we have tremendous floods.
God's whole system is so marvelous, for instance, the rain cycle or water cycle. Think of the Engineering processes that God figured out in creating, first of all, the gases that make the water. Both Hydrogen and Oxygen are lighter gases then our atmosphere which is 79 parts of nitrogen and 20 parts of oxygen and 1 part made up of other gases such as neon, freon, etc. It is basically a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.
Oxygen and Hydrogen, in their pure forms, are lighter than the atmosphere itself. As the sun hits the ocean, water evaporates into the gases, hydrogen/oxygen; then is carried by the clouds and the winds down from the North or across the Pacific. As they move inland, they cool and begin to drop their water on the land creating the snow in the mountains. The snow is stored in the mountains and in the Summer it begins to melt and run into the streams bringing us fresh water as they flow back into the sea. Then the whole cycle begins again. A marvel of God's engineering that God designed by creating the balance of the earth and the sea to two thirds water and one third earth. You'd be living in a marsh land if there were more water and less land and if it were reversed with more land and less water surface then you'd be living in a vast arid desert. The land would be uninhabitable. As science would declare, the whole balance or design of God is just a marvelous "fortuitous occurrence of accidental circumstances" and that made the whole thing possible!

The original water canopy filtered out many of the cosmic rays so that the body being marvelously constructed and made by God recreated itself over and over. In the beginning, while there was this protective blanket, life's physical powers and abilities would continue for almost a thousand years without being abated; because, there weren't the mutations that are created by the bombardment of the cosmic rays. They were being shielded by the water canopy around the earth. So, we have found fifty foot tall asparagus ferns in fossils. This was an ideal growing situation with the moisture blanket covering the whole earth. You didn't have the polar regions, because they were also beautiful tropical areas as is shown by charcoal deposits found at the South Pole some two hundred feet under ice. It is further demonstrated by the Mammoths found encased in ice in the areas of Siberia with tropic vegetation in their digestive tracts.

The earth at one time was a much more hospitable place. Without the ice and cold in the areas of the North and South Poles, you wouldn't have the violent storms; but, only the gentle air. You wouldn't have hurricanes or tornadoes. The air movement would be much more gentle because you wouldn't have the large masses of cold air falling into the vacuum created by the rising of the hot air. You would have a beautiful "hot house" kind of an atmosphere around the earth with the plants and man not being destroyed by the bombardment of the cosmic rays, but shielded and protected; they would live to a productive nine hundred years plus. This explains the longevity of the antediluvians, how Adam and his descendants, up until the time of Noah, lived an average of nine hundred years old and were still bearing children.

"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so." (Gen.1:9). It would appear from this scripture that originally the land surfaces were all together. It is possible that the theory that is gaining great popularity, of the continental shift, is a correct theory. That there was a time when there was a drift of the continent. That seems to be a theory embraced by many scientists today that the continents, at one time, were all joined. It indicates in the Book of Genesis, that in the days of Peleg, the earth was divided.

"And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He seas; and God saw that it was good. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind; and God saw that it was good." (Gen.1:10-12). God brought forth the botanical kingdom. Now, the interesting thing is that they bear seed according to their kind. If there were any chance to prove the Evolutionary Theory, you could prove it every year when the farmers plant billions of wheat seed. The day one of those grains of wheat turns into an apricot tree, you have a classic demonstration of a transmutation. Now, mutations take place all the time. You can have all different kinds of apples but they're all apples. The day you plant an apple seed and have an orange tree then you've got a demonstration of Evolution, because now you have a transmutation. You have crossed species from one to another. There are a lot of changes within a specie, such as, different breeds of dogs and cats; but, when you breed your two Samoans and they produce a Persian kitty, you've got transmutation and valid proof for the Evolutionary Theory.

God commanded them to fill the earth. It is always amazing to me to see God's creative engineering genius in the creating of the seed and the different ways by which it propagates itself. There are seeds that are called "exploding seeds" and when the pod dries it explodes and opens with a "pop" to shoot the seeds out. The pine tree has "propeller seeds." It has a little ingenious fin on it and when the cone opens up and the seed drops off this fin starts spinning and rotating. As it spins, it begins to move out from under the pine tree. This enables it to fall, where it can be planted outside of the shade of the tree, where it can grow up on its own. Then you have "umbrella seeds." The little dandelion, which gives you problems in your grass, turns to a seed with a puffy little umbrella on it. When the wind comes, it picks it up and carries it off and propagates itself wherever it falls. How many times have you been out hiking and when you get home you pick all the little hitchhikers off your socks?

These are "foxtails" and there are other seeds that have little hooks that latch onto you as you pass by. When you pull them off and throw them down, you are helping to propagate that noxious weed. There are other seeds that have a little fast drying glue and as you walk by it will glue itself to you. When the glue dries it will fall off and you have given it a ride and propagated it without even knowing it. Then other seeds surround themselves with luscious tasting meat and you take and eat it and blow the seeds, propagating them as you do this. These are your watermelons. The bears eat blackberries and in their elimination processes propagate the blackberry seeds all over the country. God designed many ingenious ways by which the seed should propagate itself.
If you would take a grain of corn and plant it, the following year take the ear of corn that grew from that one grain and plant all of those grains.  Then the following year take all the grains of corn that grew from those and plant them again, in six years you would have enough corn to plant the entire land surface of the earth. Marvelous, the design, which demonstrates the wisdom of the infinite creator.

David, the Psalmist said to the Lord, "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." (Ps.139:14). There are some very fascinating books written by Christian neurologists on the brain and its functions. Upon reading some of these books on the brain and the blood cells, etc.; I realize that David's statement was probably one of the greatest understatements ever made. The design and the whole structure of creation all testify of an infinitely wise God. How marvelous the creation of God, created for the definite purpose of knowing and loving Him. If you don't know God and if you don't love Him, you haven't fulfilled the very purpose of your existence. I would encourage you to know God and thereby love Him, in this you will find the real purpose of life.