Facts About Creation

Gen. 1

I.   God has created the entire universe.

A.     John 1:3 - All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 

B.     Hebrews 1:10 - And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 

II.   Why did God create the universe and everything in it?

A.     Proverbs 16:4 - The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

B.     Revelation 4:11 - Thou art worthy, IO Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

III.   The word “beginning” means first, or the beginning.

A.     If this is truly the beginning, then there was nothing before it as far as humans and this creation are concerned.

1.      Genesis 1:1 is not the beginning of God, because God has never had a beginning, nor will he ever have an ending.

2.      God is eternal, while the earth and all the universe is temporary, and material.

B.     Job 38:4-7 - God asks Job where he was when God created the foundations of the earth in the beginning when the morning stars sang for joy.

1.      Rev. 22:16 - Jesus Christ is the morning star.

2.      Indications in Job are that the morning stars (plural) are the angels that God created to praise Him and be His messengers to the earth.

IV.   Why I don’t believe there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.

A.     I don’t know when Satan was created by God, but when he was created, he was very good.  God did not create anything that was bad.  The traditional meaning is that there is millions of years between these two verses, when Satan was cast down from heaven and destroyed the first creation.

1.      If this was so, then death has come from something other than the sin of Adam.

2.      God said that the sin of Adam was what caused death to come to all the creation.

3.      Romans 5:12 - Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 

B.     Genesis 1:31 - God said that all of His creation was very good.

1.      If everything was very good, then Satan was also very good.

2.      He had not yet fallen.

V.   Why did God take six days to create the world?

A.     He could have created it immediately if he had wanted to, but he took six literal 24-hour days.

1.      Exodus 20:8-11 - God intended to use the seven days of creation as a lesson for humankind.

2.      We are supposed to work for six days, then use the seventh day for worship of God.

B.     How long is a day?

1.      Genesis 1:5 - The evening and the morning was the first day.

2.      This is 24 hours long.

VI.   What about dinosaurs?

A.     If there is a gap between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, then the destruction of that world caused by Satan would not only have destroyed the dinosaurs, it would also have destroyed any evidence that dinosaurs existed.

1.      Tom Northstine lives in Alaska, and is presently (March, 2005) emailing me concerning the 6,000 year earth.

2.      He believes in creation by God, but he believes God created this world several million years ago using the Big Bang.

3.      So far he hasn’t said anything about the gap theory, but I imagine that is coming.

B.     It is likely there are still dinosaurs on the earth today.

1.      China has always been renowned for its dragon stories, and dragons have always been prominent on Chinese pottery, embroidery and carvings. England has its story of St. George, who slew a dragon that lived in a cave.

2.      But we are not just referring to stories dating back thousands of years, for even in the tenth century, an Irishman wrote of his encounter with what appears to have been a Stegosaurus.

3.      In the 1500s, a European scientific book, Historia Animalium, listed several animals, which to us are dinosaurs, as still alive.

4.      A well-known naturalist of the time, Ulysses Aldrovandus, recorded an encounter between a peasant named Baptista and a dragon whose description fits that of the dinosaur Tanystropheus. The encounter was on May 13, 1572 near Bologna in Italy, and the peasant killed the dragon.

5.      So the evidence for the existence of dinosaurs during recorded human history is strong.[1]

C.     We also have the description of two beasts that could very well have been such great reptilian creatures still existing in Job's day (Job 40:15, 41:134).

1.      The text records that God was showing Job how great He was as Creator, in causing him to observe some of the most powerful creatures he had made.

a.       Job 40:15 - Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. 16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. 18  His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. 19 He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. 

b.      In many commentaries, behemoth is said to be an elephant or a hippopotamus.

c.       However, this description is unlikely, since behemoth is said to have had a tail like a cedar.

d.      Now if there is one thing an elephant's tiny tail is unlike, it is a cedar tree!

e.       The elephant is quickly eliminated as a possibility for this beast.

f.        In fact, after reading this passage in Job very carefully, one is hard put to find any living creature to fit the description.

g.       The closest that we know could be Brachiosaurus, one of the dinosaurs.

2.      Leviathan (Job 41:1) seems also to have been some form of fire-breathing dragon.

a.       Job 41:19-21 - Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. 20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. 21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. 

b.      Most commentaries say this animal is a crocodile, but is very apparently not so.

c.       For those who wonder about this, remember that the living bombardier beetle can shoot out super-heated gases in its own defense.

d.      Why not leviathan?

D.     Ecclesiastes 3:11 -  He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. 

E.      Hebrews 11:3 – It is by faith that we understand the worlds were framed by the Word of God. 

F.      If you do not believe there is a creator, you have no need of a Saviour, because there is no such thing as sin.  According to I John 3:4, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.  God is the one who gave the law, and if there is no creator, there is no God, there is no law, and there is no sin.  There is no hell, no heaven, nothing.  We might as well act like animals because that is all we are.