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In Six Days
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:
wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
When I was a young boy, I struggled
with the appearance of the age of the earth and how old the Bible said the
earth was. It was very difficult for me to look at everything around me and
believe that the earth was not billions of years old like I was being taught
in school. The science classes in school were drilling it into my head that
the earth was ancient and had been around for countless eons while my
teachers in the Lord's church were telling me just the opposite. It
was all very confusing to me and in the
end, I accepted the evidence I saw of the apparent age of the earth and for
many many years, I thought that the truth was a mix of what God said in the
6 day creation account and what science says. I drew the conclusion that
the earth really was millions if not billions of years old and that somehow
God slipped some time frames in there somewhere that He just didn't record
for us clearly. I figured we were on a need to know basis and this was
something we just did not need to know. After all, the Bible does indicate
that there are some things which will always remain a mystery to physical
man. I went for many years believing that the earth was much older
than the biblical record in Genesis indicated and I perceived no threat to
myself over this belief. I figured it really made no difference how I
believed on this and that my walk with God didn't depend on an accurate
belief of the creation account in Genesis. In short, I really didn't
think it mattered one way or the other how I believed on this topic.
Was I right to believe like this? Was I wrong? Questions like
this that came up along the way are what compelled me to go to the
scriptures in search of the truth. Hopefully by the end of this
lesson, we will all have some things to consider and maybe, just maybe we'll
learn something along the way. I know I did, and my hope is to share
what I have learned on this subject with you all here and maybe give us all
a fresh perspective on the Genesis account of the Creation.
The belief that God used
evolutionary time periods not recorded in scripture during the creation
process is called "Theistic Evolution". Was the earth really created in 6
literal 24 hour consecutive time periods as we understand this in the
Biblical record or did God bring the entire creation we see today into
existence over vast eons of time by the use of evolutionary processes?
But before we answer that, let's
look at why it's important for us to know this? In Psalms 19, David wrote,
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handywork". When we look around us at the creation, it is hard to take
it in that it was all created in 6 literal consecutive days. But we need to
know that we serve a God who is more powerful than we can imagine. We need
a God this powerful. We need a God that can do what He said He could and
would do, and who we can trust in, put our faith in and be confident that He
is up to the task He has said He would accomplish. We need a God far more powerful
and capable than anything man can create in his own mind. We need a God
that we can set forth to all of mankind who is powerful, glorious,
trustworthy, faithful and true in a way that no other manmade god could ever
compare. And it is just such a God that we serve.
The difference between the God we
serve and the gods men devise for themselves and serve is that our God is
absolute. He is absolutely Holy, he cannot be tempted (James 1:13), He is
absolutely truthful (Titus 1:2), He is absolutely loving (1 John 4:8), he is
absolutely consistent (James 1:17), and He is absolutely powerful (Hebrews
3:4). These are some of the scriptures which denote the nature of the God
we serve. Certainly this is not all of them, but the ones given here will
serve to demonstrate the truthfulness in the biblical account of the literal
6 day creation.
Once we accept in our minds that the
God we serve did not create the universe in the way He said He did it, then
we have opened our minds to other variables as well. And this is an avenue
whereby doubts can creep in. In other words, if God really did not create
the universe like He said He did, then what else is there in the biblical
account that cannot be trusted? God's word is holy and trustworthy. We
have got to be able to take God at His word and implicitly trust whatever He
says without question. If something were found which cannot be trusted,
then the entire sum of God's word could be called into question.
The strongest evidence that
evolutionists claim and use to set forth an old earth is the fossil record
and the geologic column. The geologic column is said to have formed
naturally and uniformly over areas of the earth due to a gradual build-up of
sedimentary material over eons of time. Various layers within this "so
called" geologic column are said to index certain periods in earth's
history.
Evolutionists have divided their
supposed geologic column into a system of divisions called eons, eras,
periods, and epochs. While it has changed and will likely change again,
there are two major eon divisions which are called the Precambrian (590
million to 4.5 billion years ago) and the Phanerozoic (590 million years to
the present). The Phanerozoic is the eon we live in and it is divided into
three eras. These are called the Paleozoic, Mesosoic and the Cenozoic.
From there each one of these is then divided into periods. We live in the
Cenezoic era which is also known as the age of the mammals. The Mesosoic is
the supposed age of the dinosaurs and contains the well known Jurassic
period which was supposed to be when the dinosaurs lived.
Many of us have been taught that the
geologic column “proves” that evolution is true and that the Earth is
extremely old. However, in reality the geologic column provides
extraordinary evidence which demonstrates that evolution is not true and
that the Earth is not ancient but these things are conspicuously left out of
the textbooks for our children and the literature we read. Here are some
interesting facts about the geologic column that we won't read of in the
National Geographic.
Consider the following.
According to the evolutionary
theory, mankind appears at the top of the geologic column being represented
by only about 1/1000 of the record. To an evolutionist it is unthinkable
for evidence of humans to exist in any of the earlier periods of time.
According to the geologic record, earth's massive coal deposits were formed
in the Carboniferous period which is separated from mankind by about 250
million years. Human footprints have been found embedded in the coal veins
of Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and
others. The significance of these findings were dismissed as being
insignificant.
Further, in 1936, a metal hammer
with a wooden handle was dug out of what was supposed to be Cretaceous
limestone (dated by evolutionists at 135 million years old) in an area near
London, Texas. This metal hammer was found in rock, which according to
the geologic timetable, placed someone capable of making a hammer at a period
of time in earth's history when no mammals were present on earth.
The trilobite, a small, marine
arthropod with a hard exoskeleton, is considered so important as to be
classified as an “index fossil” for the earliest period of the Paleozoic
Era, the Cambrian. As an index fossil, anything containing a trilobite
fossil is automatically considered to be from the period of time in the
geologic timetable corresponding to these animals. Trilobites allegedly
flourished a half-billion years before man ever arrived on the scene. On
June 1, 1968, William J. Meister was working near Antelope Springs, Utah,
and made a discovery that upset half a billion years of the supposed
geologic column. He found human footprints with trilobites embedded within
the footprint itself.
A Fossil leather sole imprint, with
a double line of sewed stitches was found in “Triassic” rock estimated to be
225 million years old. A fossil shoe sole imprint with visible sewed thread
was discovered in coal estimated at 15 million years old. Flint carvings
were found on extinct reptile bones estimated to be 180 million years old.
The discoveries listed here are but a scarce sampling of the evidence that
utterly destroys the claim that man was not around in these supposed ancient
periods of time represented in the geologic column.
Polystrate” fossils, meaning “many
layers", refers to fossils that cut through at least two sedimentary-rock
layers. Probably the most widely recognized of the polystrate fossils are
tree trunks that extend vertically through two, three, or more sections of
rock that supposedly were accumulated over periods of time covering millions
of years. However, organic material (such as wood) that is exposed to the
elements will rot, not fossilize. Thus, the entire length of these tree
trunks must have been covered and preserved quickly, which suggests that the
sedimentary layers surrounding them must have accumulated much more rapidly
than what is suggested in the geologic timetable.
Animals’ bodies form polystrate
fossils as well. Probably the most famous is the fossilized skeleton of a
whale discovered in 1976 near Lompoc, California. The whale is covered in
“diatomaceous earth.” Diatoms are microscopic organisms with tiny skeletons.
As they die, their skeletons form deposits over a long period of time. But
the whale, which is more than 75 feet long and standing almost on its tail
at an angle, is completely covered by the skeletons of the diatoms. There
simply is no way a whale could have stood upright for millions of years
while diatoms died and covered it with their skeletons, because it would
have decayed or been eaten by scavengers.
Evolutionists contend that things
happen now just like they happened in the past. This is called
“uniformitarianism.” The catch phrase is: “The present is the key to the
past.” In looking at the Earth around us, some of the numbers that
evolutionists have given us just do not “add up.” Evolutionists proclaim
that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. However, consider these three
simple illustrations.
(1) Niagara Falls is a waterfall
located on the border of New York and Ontario, Canada between Lake Erie and
Lake Ontario. Erosion has been slowly pushing the waterfall upstream,
forming the Niagara Gorge. Before large water-diversion projects were built
in the 1950s and 1960s, the falls were receding at a rate of more than 3
feet per year. It is about 27 miles between the two great lakes and Niagara
Falls is about half way. If the present were the key to the past then at
the present rate of erosion it would take 50,000 years for Niagara Falls to
erode the entire distance between the two lakes. It's only half way now.
Of course this is assuming the waterfall has been there all this time and
that it started at the mouth of Lake Erie. We cannot know this for certain,
but one thing is certain. Niagara Falls has not been around for 4.6 billion
years.
(2) Evolutionists believe that the
Grand Canyon was formed by the Colorado River gradually over a long period
of time. The problem with this theory is that there are over 900 cubic miles
of dirt missing from the end of the river. If the small Colorado River
formed the canyon, what happened to the 900 cubic miles of dirt? Clearly
there was a point in time where a considerable amount of water flowed
through the Grand Canyon and not just the Colorado River we see today. What about the
Great Flood? Do any of the scientists who are so proud of their geologic
time table take that into consideration?
(3) As the Mississippi River flows
down towards the Gulf of Mexico, it picks up dirt and sediment from the
riverbank along the way. Approximately 300 million cubic yards of sediment
is deposited into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River each year. If
the Earth really has been around as long as evolutionists say it has, then
the sediments deposited from the Mississippi River would have filled the
Gulf of Mexico long ago! Mark Twain commented on this type of reasoning in
his book titled "Life on the Mississippi".
Mark Twain wrote, "In the space of one hundred and
seventy six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and
forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per
year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that
in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November,
the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand
miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-pole. And
by the same token, any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years
from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three quarters long,
and Cairo [Illinois] and New Orleans will have joined their streets together
and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of
aldermen." Mark Twain went on to say, "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
It is obvious that when taken all in
all, the geologic timescale prescribed for the Earth does not fit the facts.
Evolutionists frequently appeal to the geologic column in their attempts to
prove an old Earth, and to substantiate their theory of evolution. Of
course they conveniently leave out the evidence that disproves an old earth,
choosing to run all the evidence through their filters of unbelief in God.
The consequences are that we, especially our children, are bombarded by
these facts which support
an ancient earth but never get to see the whole picture. The actual
evidence, taken wholly and honestly, and presented uniformly do not in any
way support either an ancient Earth or an evolutionary process of life on
the Earth. In short, we never get to see the whole picture in our text
books. The consequences for this is that people today either discount the
existence of God outright, or they try and combine evolutionary belief and
Biblical belief which results in the belief of Theistic Evolution.
But when we look around us at the
earth, it looks to be so old. The earth has the outward show of apparent
age, and indeed it does. The Bible says that Adam was created on day 6 of
the creation. How old was Adam 5 minutes after God breathed into Him the
breath of life and he opened his eyes for the first time? He was 5 minutes
old. How old did Adam look 5 minutes after he opened his eyes for the first
time? Adam and Eve and all the animals and all the plant life on the face
of the earth was created mature. Everything had the appearance of age. It
can truly be said of Eve that she did not look her age at all. Adam and Eve
and the animals were created mature, why not the earth as well. One must
make the observation that when Adam opened his eyes for the first time and
saw all the plant life and the earth mature with all the environment in
place at the time that the earth had to have appeared to be much older than
it really was. If God had not have been there to instruct Adam at the
first, then based on the appearance of the earth around him, Adam would have
drawn the conclusion that the earth was much older than it really was
because of it's mature appearance. When God created the heavens and the
earth and all that in them is, they were all created mature and displayed an
apparent age that was much greater than their actual age.
Today, not only do we have the
apparent age that Adam saw in his time, but we have the added influence of
the fossil record. The fossil record and the geologic record support a
young earth much more than they do an old earth, but people are not getting
the whole picture of it. It's being run through the filter of the
evolutionary mindset before it ever reaches the textbooks and the school
books of us and our children. Scientists eager to provide a naturalistic
explanation to the existence of the universe turn a blind eye to the
evidence supporting the contrary. Not only do they deny it themselves, but
they also fail to present all this evidence because it contradicts the
current majority mindset. The fastest way for a scientist today to find him
or herself standing in line at an unemployment office is to proclaim there
must be a god. So in an effort to explain away God, they have devised
evolution and they filter out all evidence that contradicts their theories
and the present them to the public with cherry picked evidence in favor of
their theories.
And so effective has this been that
now we see a whole generation of people who are buying into this evolution
and apparent age of the earth and we are seeing a decay in the confidence we
hold in the truthfulness and reliability of the Biblical record of the word
of God. In our introductory text, inspiration says, "For in six days the
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the
seventh..." (Exodus 20:11. So let's look a little closer at the actual
creation account as it is recorded in scripture.
Genesis 1:3-5 "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. And God called the light
Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were
the first day." A better translation would be “one day” as we see in
the ASV. The Hebrews measured their days from the evenings to evenings, so
the new days start in the evening. The Hebrews did not have names for their
days of the week like we do today, such as Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc,
etc. They merely referred to their days as “first day”, “second day”, etc.
So where we would say “we were going to meet on Tuesday”, a Hebrew speaker
would say, “we will meet on the third day”, which is “yom sheleeshee” in the
Hebrew language.
The first day of the creation was
described as one single day with one evening and one morning. Interestingly
enough, every single day of the creation was characterized in this same
manner.
Genesis 1:8
"And God called the firmament
Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Genesis 1:13
"And the evening and the morning
were the third day."
Genesis 1:19
"And the evening and the morning
were the fourth day."
Genesis 1:23
"And the evening and the morning
were the fifth day."
Genesis 1:31
"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."
Were these six days six literal
consecutive days? When you take the rest of the language out and just read
the verses which count off the succession of days it looks like literal days
are being counted off. The text says "THE" first, "THE" second, "THE"
third, "THE" fourth, fifth and sixth day. Each creation day was singular.
Each creation day was preceded with the word "THE". It looks for all the
world like inspiration went out of its way to make sure this was not
misunderstood.
The narrative of the creation
account is historical and not symbolical so the obvious understanding is
that all its parts are to be taken in their apparent sense. It is a fact
that the word for "day" is often used in the Greek Scriptures as well as the
Hebrew (as in our common speech) for an epoch, a season or a time. But yet,
this use is always derived from an obvious meaning of such a period of time
as warranted by the context. In the creation account the natural day is the
literal and primary meaning. When understanding any text we go with the
primary meaning unless the context demands we go with the derived meaning.
The meaning of the word day must be
determined (like any other word with several meanings) by the context and
usage of the author. A plain reading of the text, with its recurrent phrase
of evening and morning, indicates a solar day of twenty-four hours. That
would have been clear to Moses and his first readers. The context gives no
suggestion of an era or geological age. Creation is pictured in six familiar
periods followed by a seventh for rest which corresponds perfectly with the
days of the week as Israel knew them. The author of Genesis could not have
produced a more thorough and comprehensive way to express the idea of a
literal "day" than the words that were chosen. There is a complete lack of
indicators from the construction of the text which would suggest anything
different than a regular 24-hour day. And this is further supported, not
only by our introductory text of Exodus 20:11, but also of Exodus 31:1, "It
is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days
the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was
refreshed." The context of both passages in Exodus was of six literal
days and referred directly back to the creation account. Exodus was written
as a historical account by Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses
wrote the creation account and he also wrote Exodus. Both references to the
creation in Exodus were centered around a literal 6 consecutive day workweek
and were thus understood by all Israelite readers in that sense. And it is
vital that we try and determine what the author and audience would have
understood from the usage of the words in the context. What it meant to
them is what it must mean to us. With this in consideration, it is
extremely difficult to conclude that anything other than a twenty-four-hour
day was intended. It is not in anyway the wording of the creation account
that causes people to think otherwise, only the demands of trying to
harmonize it with modern scientific reasoning in support of an ancient
earth.
And finally, we come to a direct
quote in the New Testament by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. On one
occasion when being confronted by the Pharisees intent on tripping Jesus up
over the issue of marriage, divorce and remarriage, Jesus made this
statement.
Mark 10:5-8
"For the hardness of your heart
he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made
them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and
mother, and cleave to his wife"
"But from the beginning of the
creation God made them male and female." "The creation" as it is
used in this context represents all of what we see in the observable
universe. The words, "the creation" here represent everything we see around
it qualified as the creation of God. This building we worship in, the skies
above, the birds flying overhead are all part of "the creation of God". Men
and women came along on the sixth day of the creation of God which is now
roughly 6000 years old according to scriptural chronology. At the time of
Jesus' quote, the creation was about 4000 years old.
Of significance here is that Jesus
Christ, in His own words, placed men and women at the beginning of the
creation we see around us. Jesus obviously believed in the literal 6
consecutive day creation account. And who better would know than the one
who actually did the creating?
Ephesians 3:9
"And to make all men see what is
the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath
been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ"
Colossians 1:16
"For by him [Jesus Christ],
were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or
principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him"
John 1:1-3
"In the beginning was the Word
[Jesus Christ (V14)], 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."
Jesus Christ is uniquely qualified
to make the statement that men and women were around at the beginning of the
creation. He was there, participating in it in a big way. It is not like
He could be simply mistaken in His understanding of Moses' account of the
creation week. Jesus is either right or He is wrong in this statement and
since scripture places Him as the chief participant in the creation, and if
Jesus is wrong about it, He quite simply lied to the Pharisees when He said
men and women were around at the beginning. There is no room in there for
billions and billions of years of evolution to have taken place. If there
were, then men and women were not around at the beginning of the creation.
They in fact came on the scene about 4.6 billion years after the beginning
of the creation if we are to believe the evolutionary time table. I don't
want to be the master of the obvious here, but 4.6 billion years as compared
to 4000 years of biblical history is under no circumstances to be understood
as being in "the beginning of the creation".
Considering this, theistic
evolutionists are now presented with a serious problem. If indeed God used
millions or billions of years to bring about the creation and Jesus Christ
who was the incarnate form of the word of God, and is therefore God Himself,
then God Himself lied in His discourse to the Pharisees. And that lie is
recorded by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the written record of God's
Word.
If Jesus lied then there are some
serious consequences to be considered here for Christians. If Jesus lied,
he was either mistaken or He was not who He claimed to be. If Jesus lied,
then He was not the perfect sinless sacrifice for our transgressions. If
Jesus lied to those Pharisees, then He is therefore disqualified as a
suitable sacrifice for our sins and therefore cannot serve as our savior and
high priest to God. If Jesus lied to those Pharisees then the Holy Spirit
lied to us when He said Jesus was without sin. If Jesus lied to those
Pharisees, then the whole basis for which we hold our hopes in Jesus Christ
begins to unravel and when this consequence is thought out to it's logical
conclusion, we, as Christians are left without a suitable propitiation for
our sin and are therefore without hope.
Another consequence to believing in
theistic evolution is that in light of Jesus' statement about men and women
being present in "the beginning" is that those who believe this are making
Jesus Christ a liar. I know that believers in Jesus do not believe they are
making Jesus a liar by believing in theistic evolution, but that is the
unfortunate consequence of their belief. We cannot claim Jesus as our
savior, and claim to believe Him and to believe in Him if we do not believe
everything He said or taught and Jesus Christ declared to the Pharisees, in
language that is impossible to misunderstand, that men and women were
present at the beginning of the creation.
Based on the facts presented in this
lesson from scripture, I believe in the literal 6 consecutive day account of
the creation. Furthermore, I believe that for Christians to believe
otherwise is to place themselves in a self compromising position. Based on
the facts from scripture, not only should we believe in the literal 6 day
creation, but it suddenly becomes vital to us that God did indeed create the
universe in 6 literal consecutive days, because if He didn't then we are
faced with consequences too horrible to imagine. If God did not create the
universe in 6 days, then we are without a savior. If God did not create the
universe in 6 days, then we are without hope. If God did not create the
universe in 6 days, then we assemble to worship God for naught. If God did
not create the universe in 6 days, then we are living a life of hopeless
dreams for nothing, serving an imposter who is a savior of nobody.
We know better than that. And if
anyone here today holds to the theistic evolution belief, it was not my
intention to offend, but it was my intention to challenge your thinking on
this subject. Please take what has been presented in this lesson and test
it against what thus saith the Lord. I for one, believe that God created
the universe in the way He said He created it, in the time frame He said He
created it in.
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