The Seven Days of Creation (Day 4)
Notes
Transcript
05 - The Seven Days of Creation Pt. 2
Saturday, December 31, 2016
9:36 AM’
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 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. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 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. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
We have been looking the last couple of weeks at the creation story. We have seen how great God is to speak and things happen, to create, and how his ultimate purpose was redemption and salvation. He wanted a creation to better by himself. Made in his image.
Max Anteby writes, "On April 12, 1961, a young Russian cosmonaut stepped in front of the cameras, as he was about to board his spacecraft, Vostok l, for what was going to be man's first voyage into outer space. Yuri Gagarin announced, 'Now I go to meet nature face to face in an unprecedented encounter.'
For the next several hours, Gagarin encountered nature in a way that no man had done before, far beyond the reaches of the clouds, to a place bordering on the infinite. He had an awesome responsibility to chronicle for mankind what existed outside the Earth's realm and man's control.
Upon his return to earth he remarked, 'Now I know that God does not exist, because I was there and I didn't see him.'
Less than one year later, John H. Glenn entered his spacecraft, Freedom 7, in America's attempt to beat the Russians in the race to space. He brought a Bible along with him. As he peered through the small window of his capsule, he looked out on the enormity of the universe and on the delicate fragility of our own Earth. He felt the presence of the 'Hand of Almighty God' as he recited from the first chapter of Genesis."[2]
Calvin points out in the introduction to his commentary on Genesis, our eyes are not "sufficiently clearsighted to discern what the fabric of heaven and earth represents," and therefore we need the Scriptures to view creation rightly. "If the mute instruction of the heaven and the earth were sufficient, the teaching of Moses would have been superfluous." [3]
Last week we looked at the first three days of creation. Now I do not want to stir up strife, but I went back and listened to Dr. Kent Hovind's Creation Seminar - which I would highly recommend they are now free on youtube and other sites online. He is a staunch young earth creationist and you have to admit the evidence he provides is extremely convincing.
He makes mention of how the emphasis on verse five the Bible is very clear when it says, "and the evening and morning were the FIRST DAY!" He goes on to ask the question, "How many ‘the first days’ are there in history? One.[1]
And what about Exodus 20:11 "For in SIX days the Lord made HEAVEN AND EARTH, THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IN THEM IS, and rested the seventh day…" This wasn't the writings of a half senile old man dreaming about a promised land flowing with milk and honey, this was inscribed with the fiery finger of God upon the granite tables that contained the law of God.
A reminder even from God that he made everything in six days and he rested the seventh, with no explanation to time.
Someone brought up perhaps time was different back then, and it is still very possible, but I tend to take God literally at his word. Dr. Henry Morris a very brilliant scientist and creationist once wrote on the subject of the fourth day that we will discuss in a moment that the sun, moon, and stars were to be for signs and seasons "Since the heavenly bodies were to be used to denote the "seasons" (as well as "days and years"), it is obvious that there were to be distinct seasons through the year, and this implies that the earth's axis was inclined as it is at present. Although the vapor canopy maintained a warm climate everywhere, there would still have been slight seasonal changes in temperature…."[4]
Jesus said: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9) That's the daylight portion of the day.
You might also check out the book, "In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientist Choose to believe in Creation" by John F. Ashton
There is also the issue of Satan, which we will discuss when we get to the Fall at the end of chapter two, hopefully next session, we are told in Ezekiel 28:13,15 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God… till iniquity was found in thee." It sounds like Satan fell in the Garden too. Gen. 2:7,8 as there could be no evil or sin, or death before the fall. Not even between verse 1 and 2
Now we looked at
Day 1 - God created the heavens and earth and light (Exodus 20:11)Day 2 - God created a firmament - I feel like last week I didn't quite explain the firmament issue real well - I like what Eugene Merrill wrote, it simplifies it for me a little clearer and hopefully will for you as well, "On the second day the "firmament" was created (vv. 6-8). This Elizabethan term translates a Hebrew word meaning "something hammered out." To the ancient observer, the sky appeared to be a bowl-like covering for the earth through which the heavenly bodies shone. The actual meaning is that of space, expanse, or even atmosphere. The idea is that God created an atmosphere that, among its other functions, was to "divide the waters from the waters." This strange language can only suggest that, in the earliest period of earth's history, there was a body of water above the earth as well as the seas on the earth. Exactly what form this super-terrestrial water took is a mystery, but the most reasonable assumption is that it consisted of a kind of canopy of vapor, translucent enough to let in the light of the sun, but opaque enough to prevent many agents in outer space from entering the lower atmosphere. The atmosphere is called heaven, meaning in this context not the dwelling place of God but simply any height above the surface of the earth itself. [5]
Heaven seems to be split into threeFirst heaven - The sky (down in verse 20 where the birds fly)Second Heaven - Where the sun, moon and stars are (Gen. 1:14,16)Third Heaven - Is only mentioned one time in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 12:2. as Hovind put it, "This is where the Apostle Paul is telling the story about the time he got rocked to sleep, I mean stoned to death." [6] And was caught up to the third heaven.
Day 3 - The waters were gathered together - this is where God created the continents or let the dry land appear. He moved water back and seemed to put it under the earth's crust although Exodus does mention that the seas were created during this time as well seemingly some type of ocean. We are told in verse 29 that herbs and plants were over all the earth, not quite that way today when 70% of the earth is covered in water. Pre-flood it was probably a lot less. According to one scholar, "there is enough water in the oceans, that if you smoothed out the earth, it would cover the earth a mile and a half deep." [7]
Not only did the dry land appear, but God also made the plants. Now I want to make a correction - according to the scriptures, the life is in the blood, plants do not have blood, so therefore they are not the same "living" as we are, otherwise you would have death before the fall in the Garden of Eden, as they were all vegetarians.
Tonight I want us to notice that all of the habitable places God has made, will now be filled up with things for the sustenance of mankind.
Day Four - 14-19 The Creation of Luminaries -Dr. Henry Morris writes, "On the first day of creation, God created and energized the entire universe, the infinite sphere of divine activity and purpose. On the second day, He made the primeval hydrosphere and atmosphere for the terrestrial sphere. On the third day, He made the earth's lithosphere and plant biosphere. Finally, on the fourth day, He made the astrosphere, the "celestial sphere" of the stars and planets surrounding and illuminating the terrestrial sphere."[8]
On THE FIRST DAY - God said "let there be light" "Actually light is the only item created by fiat alone. Everything else in Genesis 1 is created by fiat (spoken command) plus some divinely instigated type of activity. "[9] Now God is creating luminaries in the sky. The difference being Light is energy, it travels, a luminary only reflects or channels that light. I think the easiest way to look at this is to begin again at God's first recorded verbal command on day one, "LET THERE BE LIGHT." on day four God says, "Let there be lights or light-givers" [12]Separation of Light and Dark - On the first day God divides the light from the dark - What does that mean? There was a light source, that was not the sun, or the moon, or the stars and yet it was able to be divided.It must have been all mixed together somehow, maybe light was chaotic and all over, and then God separated or divided the light from the darkness. "It was, as it were a chaos of light, scattered and confused;"[10] God then called it together separating it from the darkness, and today he places the light, or channels the light through these luminaries or lamps.The reason I keep using this word "luminaries" and "lamps" is because that is the word the Bible uses. It goes out of it's way to say that these lights that are placed in the sky are not their own source of light, but rather an avenue of light. Why they were called this - (Find notes on to keep people from worshipping them - they were not named sun, moon, and stars in this instance, they were named something else. There is a problem with this though - that is the problem of "the computation of the light years."[12] It is a unit of measurement where the distance between earth and stars, planets, or even the sun and moon can be measured. If God on day one creates light, and day four puts the moon and stars in place, how did their source of light arrive on planet earth in time to keep the plants in the photosynthesis business? Now I believe that we have to answer questions honestly, not just what we want to think, so either the earth is a lot older than what I would like to think, or the speed of light fluctuates, or the earth and the light were much closer at one point. There was an article written last year in November that makes a valid claim that the speed of light can be relative. Einstien's measurement was conducted by timing light in a vaccum. The article goes on to say;
"Scientists have measured the speed of light in a vacuum, placing the value at just under 300,000 km per second (186,000 miles per second).
But the speed of light slows when it travels through different mediums, such as glass, water and even air.
Physicists believe that in the early universe light may have travelled faster in order to reach the outer edges of the visible universe as we see it today.
They claim that it may have travelled faster in the moments after the Big Bang, before slowing to its current speed.
They say that if their calculations can match observations of the cosmic microwave background, then Einstein's theories - which use a constant value for the speed of light - may need to be updated."[13]
Now light from the sun only takes about 8 minutes to travel here, but many of the stars are much farther and it takes longer. I also want to look at a phrase that is found at least 17 times in Scripture. "He stretched out the heavens" Now the galaxy even the moon is traveling farther away from the earth. If you measure back billions of years the moon is actually in the earth, and I don't think that happened. Dr. Henry Morris says, "let it be remembered that it is as easy for God to create waves of light energy as to create generators to produce such waves."[14]
What the light was for - Its main elements consist of a list of functions:
A. to divide the day from the night (14a)
B. for signs, for fixed times, for days and years (14b)
C. to give light on the earth (15)
D. to rule the day (16a) } God made the
D´. to rule the night (16b) } two lights
C´. to give light on the earth (17)
B´. to rule the day and the night (18a)
A´. to divide the light from the darkness (18b)[15]
Created animal life - 20-25Created Human life - 26-31Diet 29-31
Some things I want to speak on at another time
Created in the image of God - what does that mean?Next session we will speak on the fall of manNext Sunday Morning we will talk about the first marriage in the Bible. Also find out I think it is missler who says it, but someone says that the first day of creation was Wed others say Tue, Usher talks about this too. Not sure it is correct. There is one comment to the side under Hovinds.
Tōhū is finding “form,” as outlined in the first three days, and bōhū is finding fulfillment in the fourth through the sixth days. The God of creation is at work. Considerable debate has centered around the days of creation. Are they to be understood as literal days of twenty-four hours set in a literal week, or is there some other explanation of them? There was a time when reverent students of God’s Word were sure that they could tell us when God created the world and even set a date for the creation of man. Archbishop Ussher of Armagh calculated 4004 b.c. as the date of creation and John Lightfoot, the Cambridge scholar, went further and narrowed it down to the week of October 18–24, 4004 b.c. and Adam’s creation at 9 a.m., forty-fifth meridian time, October 23, 4004 b.c.! These conclusions sound quaint and näive to our ears, but we should bear in mind that these men, writing in the early seventeenth century, had no knowledge of the findings of modern geology and cosmology.
Briscoe, D. Stuart ; Ogilvie, Lloyd J.: The Preacher's Commentary Series, Volume 1 : Genesis. Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson Inc, 1987 (The Preacher's Commentary Series 1), S. 27
A few things to remember - Genesis was written after exodus and leviticus probabbly , it was written more to reveal God to a people who God had just spoken to, and to show them that their God was different than any other God.
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[M] From <http://www.wiseoldgoat.com/papers-creation/hovind-seminar_part2a_2007.html> [M] Jim Wilson, Fresh Sermons, WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "Get Creative".[M] James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary – Genesis, Volume 1: Creation and Fall (Genesis 1-11), Paperback ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 81.[M] Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 67.[M] Eugene H. Merrill. An Historical Survey of the Old Testament (Kindle Locations 791-805). Baker Academic. Kindle Edition. [M] From <http://www.wiseoldgoat.com/papers-creation/hovind-seminar_part2a_2007.html>[M] From <http://www.wiseoldgoat.com/papers-creation/hovind-seminar_part2a_2007.html[M] Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 67.[M] Victor P. Hamilton, “Genesis,” in Baker Commentary on the Bible, ed. Walter A. Elwell, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1989), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 11.[M] Joseph Benson Bible Commentary E-Sword (Needs Added to Bibliography)[M] H. C. Leupold: Exposition of Genesis. Joseph Kreifels, S. Ge 1:19[M] Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 67.[M] From <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3978402/Was-Einstein-WRONG-speed-light-New-theory-completely-change-view-universe.html>[M] Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976), WORDsearch CROSS e-book[M] Wenham, Gordon J.: Word Biblical Commentary : Genesis 1-15. Dallas : Word, Incorporated, 2002 (Word Biblical Commentary 1), S. 21