Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Earth Day - Part 2

Tuesday, June 7, 2016
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Genesis 1:1(NLT)
One of the questions which dominate any discussion of creation is the length of time it took God to arrange this universe.  Was it six twenty-four hour days, or are they six periods of time, maybe millions or billions of years; or maybe just nanoseconds? 
In order to properly answer that question you have to be God.  I do believe, however, that there is more evidence on the side of one calendar week for the creation account. 
Is that possible?  Can God really do that?  After all, that's a lot of creating. 
I read recently that on a given acre of land, say in North Carolina, there are some 125 million living critters.  Included are 50,000 vertebrates (toads, turtles, snakes, etc.)  In addition there are invertebrates like "...28 million collembolans, 662,000 ants, 388,000 millipedes, 372,000 spiders, 90,000 earthworms, 45,000 termites, 19,000 snails, and a large number of various other crawling things, not including protozoa."[2]   
Wow!  Makes you want to go camping and sleep on the ground! 
Could God really make all those species, not to mention the earth and heavens on and under which they live?  And could He do that in a week?  Psalm 90 tells us that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. 
Well, Scripture tells us that nothing is too difficult for God.  Even the name of God (Elohim) means strength.  
God is omnipotent – all powerful.  He is omniscient – all knowing.  He is supreme in the universe, having perfect will and understanding.  So I would suggest to you that you put away your calendars and almanacs when considering this matter of creation's time frame. 
If ultimate, unhindered power and wisdom chose to do so, He could create everything that exists within six 24-hour periods, or eons of time.[3]  It is simply a matter of what
God chose to do.
On the other hand, simple logic tells us that current scientific hypothesis of how the earth and all matter began sharply disagrees with the Biblical account. 
Indeed, how can they be reconciled?  It is not possible. 
Fossils presuppose death; often cataclysmic, violent death on a large scale.  But, according to Scripture, death came by man.[4]  The Biblical account and modern scientific thought both indicate humans did not arrive until the final act in creation’s drama.  If all those dinosaurs, pre-historic man, fish, fowl and other life lived and died long before Adam and Eve, then the Bible would be wrong when it says that death (all death) came through the sin of Adam.  God's character precludes that!  God is unique, all powerful and all knowing.
If, as the Apostle Paul told his protégé, Timothy, all Scripture is inspired by God[5], the evidence is greater for a shorter creation, in which no person or animal died until humans chose sin.  Death, in God’s scenario does not pre-date man’s choice.

For You Today

With public opinion turning away from Scripture as God’s Word, and towards man’s version of how we got here, it’s something of an against the tide swim to be a creationist thinker.
But then, serving God in faith never promised it would be anything easy.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: By NASA/ GSFC/ NOAA/ USGS [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
[2]Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale, (New York, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980),        146-47
[3]Ibid, Morgan, 16
[4] Romans 5:12
[5] 2 Timothy 3:16

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