The Evolution
of a
Creationist
6 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
AND
THE DAYS OF THE
CREATION
WEEK
in
1971, two students had the courage to politely challenge one of
their
professors (me) to defend his position on the origin of all
things. That
seemed to be a fairly easy job since I was convinced that huge
volumes
of factual scientific evidence proved evolution (over billions
of years)
to be true. By 1972, this professor's stomach was churning with
frustration! The evidence for an old universe promoted as proven
fact by
evolutionists was nowhere to be found. This is not to say that
there is
lack of writing on the subject of evolution, but that there is
no true
scientific evidence that is not based on assumptions (refer back
to the
beginning of Chapter 2, "seven basic assumptions").
It was obvious to me back in
the early
70's that evolution needed long periods of time. Couldn't those
days of
Genesis 1 be a billion years each? If we can somehow impose long
periods
of time onto the text of Genesis 1, evolution and the Bible
quite nicely
harmonize with each other. Or so I thought.
24-HOUR DAYS OR AEONS OF
TIME?
Those days of Genesis are 24-hour days! If we
believe the
Bible, they cannot be one billion years each. Even the logic in
the Ten
Commandments demands 24-hour days [It wouldn't hurt any of us to
review
the Ten Commandments], so let's make some observations from
Exodus
20:1-20:
1. And God spake all
these
words, saying,
2. I
am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
3. Thou shalt have
no other
gods before me.
4.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any
likeness
of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth:
5. Thou shalt not
bow down
thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a
jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the
third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6. And showing
mercy
unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my
commandments.
7.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;
for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in
vain.
8.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9. Six
days shalt
thou labour, and do all thy work:
10.
But the seventh
day is the
sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy
cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
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.
12.
Honour thy
father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land
which the
Lord thy God giveth thee.
13. Thou shalt not
kill.
14.
Thou
shalt not commit adultery.
15. Thou shalt not
steal.
16.
Thou
shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
17. Thou shalt not
covet thy
neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife,
nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
any thing
that is thy neighbour's.
18.
And all the people
saw the
thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet,
and the
mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they
removed,
and stood
afar off.
19.
And they said unto
Moses,
Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with
us,
lest we die.
20.
And Moses said
unto the
people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his
fear may be
before your faces, that ye sin not.
Did you notice that man's work week is parallel
to God's
work week (Exodus 20:9-11)? Thus, if man works six 24-hour days,
then
the logic of Exodus 20:11 requires that God worked six 24-hour
days and
rested during the seventh day as man is to rest one day a
week.
Hebrew scholars universally agree that the days
(the
Hebrew word "yom") of Genesis 1, are 24-hour days. These
scholars may
not necessarily believe that God has the ability to create
everything in
six normal days, or they may not even believe that the Bible is
God's
inspired Word, but they do believe the Hebrew word, yom, means
24-hour
day. Liberal scholars have tried to claim that some primitive
writer who
had no knowledge of science and geology wrote down a brief
account of
the origin of man in overly simplistic terms. Many scholars say
that it
does not matter what the words say, but simply that it is the
meaning or
the message behind these "word-symbols" that is important.
However, if
that is true, then we might as well throw out the Hebrew and
Greek
lexicons (dictionaries). Every word in Genesis 1, is in the
Hebrew
lexicon. Every word has a definite meaning and we can look up
what that
meaning is. It is not some nebulous "word-symbol" that is
limited in
meaning only by the extent of the imagination of the
reader.
More than ninety-eight percent of the time that
yom (day)
is used in the Old Testament (over 2,500 times), it means
24-hour day or
the daylight part of a standard day. The rest of the time it
refers to
such things as the "Day of the Lord", which scholars argue could
be
anywhere from a 24-hour day to 1,000 plus years to eternity. The
fact is
that Genesis 1, uses yom with clarifiers such as day one, day
two, etc.
Everywhere else in the Bible that yom is used with clarifiers
(numbers
one, two, three, etc.) it unquestionably indicates a 24-hour
day.
EACH
DAY IS HALF
LIGHT AND HALF DARK
God used every word He possibly could to show us
He is
referring to one rotation of the earth in front of its source of
light
or 24-hour "yoms" in Genesis 1. He literally says, "...There was
evening
and there was morning, day one; ...there was evening and there
was
morning, day two"; etc. Each day had an evening and each day had
a
morning. In Genesis l:5, God says, "And God called the light
Day
(yom), and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the
morning
were the first day."
Notice that each day was part light and part
darkness.
This eliminates theistic evolution and day-age theories, since
each day
(one billion years?) would be half light and half dark! You
cannot
evolve anything in 500 million years of darkness or, for that
matter, in
500 million-year stretches of unrelenting sunlight.
We might ask, "How old was Adam when he died?"
Genesis 5:5
reads: "And all the
days that
Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died."
If one
single Genesis 1 day equals one billion years as evolution
demands, and
Adam lived through at least half of day six, all of day seven
and 0
more years, then how old was Adam when he died? Was he, let's
say, 1
billion 500 million 0 years old? Or did he die at the age of
0? You
can't have both!
You can't
have long periods of time (day-age, theistic evolution,
progressive
creation) and the Bible. Either Adam was 0 years old when he
died, or
you can throw out Genesis 1:1 through 5:5!!
DAYS, YEARS AND
SEASONS
God had words that He could have used if He had
wanted us
to understand those days of Genesis, Chapter 1, to be longer
than 24
hours. One of these Hebrew words is "olam". Olam means a long
period of
time and can even mean everlasting. God put all the necessary
words into
the Hebrew text to make it unmistakably clear to the reader --
these are
24-hour days.
Look at Genesis 1:14:
"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".
God here differentiates between days and seasons
and
years. How can anyone stretch a Genesis 1 day into a billion
years and
then make any sense at all of Genesis 1:14? If a day is a
billion years,
then how long is a season or a year? Is a Biblical year 365
billion
years? Even the most radical evolutionists claim the universe is
not
much older than twenty-billion years! God lines up all these
time words
for us in one verse to prove that He means 24-hour days. You
can't make
any sense at all of Genesis 1:14, if you insist on the theistic
evolution or day-age or progressive creation views. (Don't
forget -- we
do not subject the Bible to science, we subject science to the
Bible.)
If "science" tells us we must have long geologic ages to explain
the
existence of all things, but the Bible says God did it all in
six normal
days, then we must believe the Bible by faith and know that
science has
some more research to do to catch up with the Bible.
The Ten Commandments in the
Bible are
one of the root causes of belief in the evolution model.
Scientifically
credentialed people closely examine God's creation. What they
see is the
handiwork of God (Romans 1 and Psalm 19), but they nevertheless
choose
to believe the lie of evolution because they do not want to
acknowledge
their sin, as recorded in the Ten Commandments. To accept belief
in God,
who wrote those Ten Commandments with His own finger, becomes
unthinkable. Belief would place man in a position of submission
and
obedience to his Creator. Furthermore, this position of
submission and
obedience demands responsibility before this holy God and
ultimately,
the certainty of judgment -- realities that people do not like
to think
about. We know we are sinners. We cannot even live up to our own
standards, let alone God's righteous standards. It is easier to
live in
the fantasy-land of evolution than in reality when we are
separated from
our Creator by our own unholiness and pride. Life appears to be
less
complicated and more comfortable as we believe the lie of
evolution.
No rational person would argue that God's Ten
Commandments
are invalid or inaccurate or harmful to society. If obeyed by
everyone,
we would have a near-perfect, crime-free and pollution-free
world.
Did you notice that the
seven-day
creation week is mentioned in the Ten Commandments (Exodus
20:11)? Is
this not fascinating? In view of all the many things the Creator
could
have mentioned to be preserved forever, He chose, in the midst
of His
Ten Commandments, to call attention to the original seven-day
week of
creation.
There is no question about the English
translation of the
Ten Commandments. What we read is precisely what God said. He
said, "For in six days the Lord
made
heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is..."
(Exodus 20:11)
That means exactly what it says. In a literal six days, the Lord
made
everything that exists, whether it exists in the heavens or on
the earth
or in the seas. He made it functionally mature and
with the
appearance of age. That would include the entirety of the
macrouniverse (stars, planets, sun, moon, comets, asteroids,
angels,
etc.) and the microuniverse (the molecules, atoms and quarks, of
elephants, beetles and sharks). A six-day creation leaves no
room at all
for theistic evolution and its billions of years, or for a "gap"
between
Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Some of the early twentieth century Bible
scholars
came to believe in a "gap theory" due to the influence of
evolutionary
"science". These godly men believed that science had established
great
geologic ages and "prehistoric" man to be a proven fact. They
went to
the early Chapters of Genesis and attempted to subject the Bible
to
science by postulating a "gap" between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. But
the sun,
stars, heat, light, atmosphere and universe were not yet
created.
Nothing existed nor could it exist in the supposed "gap" between
Genesis
1:1 and 1:2. There was no "pre-Adamic" race of wicked people
living in
the "gap". Not only could they have not existed without light,
but sin
and wickedness did not enter the universe until the fall of
Adam.
Romans 5:12 teaches:
"Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered
into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for
that all
have sinned."
A sobering result of Adam's sin was death, but
before
Adam's sin there was no death. If there was no death
before Adam
(the very clear statement of God's word), then it would be
impossible to
have "pre-Adamic" people dying.
Actually, the entire creation was affected by
Adam's sin
and it still "groans" with thorns, thistles and entropy as it
awaits its
redemption. Romans 8:22-23 states:
"For we know that the whole creation groaneth
and
travaileth in pain together until now.
And not
only they,
but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
even we
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to
wit, the
redemption of our body."
Holding to the "gap" position not only demands
death
before the Fall, but it also forces changes in the Biblical
text.
Genesis 1:2 must be changed from "And the earth was
without
form and void" to "and the earth became without form
and
void." God uses the very same word for "was" in Genesis 2:25 and
3:1.
Genesis 2:25 says: "And they
were both naked..." Adam and Eve were not created
with
clothes and then "became" naked. The same can be said for the
serpent in
3:1. It is not that he "became" crafty after not being crafty;
he
was crafty from the beginning. The Gap theory
necessitates
changes in other Biblical texts also. For a comprehensive study
of
problems with the Gap theory please read Dr. John
Whitcomb's book The Early Earth: Revised Edition. We do
not need
to accommodate Scripture to what we might believe to be factual
science
-- the geological ages -- by imposing a gap between Genesis 1:1
and 1:2
or by stretching the 24-hour days of Genesis 1 into long ages of
geologic time. Men who have done this, most probably in all
innocence,
violate a basic rule: The Bible must never be subjected to
science, but
science must always be subjected to the Bible.
My position, quite frankly, is of one who
committed his
life to the Lord Jesus Christ later in life than most (age 27)
and who
endured a gut-wrenching five-year struggle with this issue. When
I came
to faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I became a
theistic
evolutionist. I then saw, as many men and women have seen (when
exposed
to the true truth of the Bible), the total "rightness"
and
reality of God's six-day creation. The science I studied showed
the
incredible complexity of every plant, animal and insect and yet
had no
sane answer to the "why" and "how" of this complexity except to
say, "no
one plus nothing equals everything" or "all that 'is' results
from the
impersonal plus chance plus time." Our God, the Almighty
Creator, does
not need time. He is above time. The Creator, the Lord Jesus,
displayed
His supernatural ability to act without time restraints through
His
miracles. When we believe Genesis 1 as it is written, we bow in
worship
and in submissive trust of our awesome, infinite Creator. As Job
said:
"I know that Thou canst do every thing, and that
no
thought can be withholden from thee."
"I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear:
but now
my eye seeth thee."
"Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent
in dust
and ashes." (Job 42:2, 5, 6)
Earlier, we mentioned (Scott Huse,
The Collapse of Evolution, and Walter Brown, In the
Beginning) the documentation showing that the details of
evolution
and the specifics of Genesis 1 do not match up. For example,
evolution
says reptiles developed first and then birds evolved out of
reptiles,
but the Bible says birds came first (Genesis 1:20-23) and then
reptiles
(Genesis 1:24-26). If we again go back to thinking about the
days of
Genesis, then certain things are not logical when we hold to
long
periods of time. For example, God made plants on the third day
(Genesis
1:12, 13), but He created insects on the sixth day. Many plants
need
insects to pollinate them. How could they survive more than two
billion
years, while waiting for insects to "evolve"?
Evolutionary theory does not have the answers
for how we
got here. Evolution forces us to throw out the clearly written
and
easily understood words of Genesis 1-11, since the two are not
compatible. Do we believe the Bible or have we placed our trust
in the
foolish speculations of men, based on the foundation of the
scientifically unprovable assumptions of so-called science (see
the
beginning of Chapter 2, "seven basic assumptions")?
Since origins are scientifically unverifiable
for either
evolution or creation, then we are dealing with "faith". No
human was
there to verify the "Big Bang" and no person was there to
witness the
Creation.
Many of us easily profess to believe in Jesus
Christ as
the virgin-born Son of the one true God and in His resurrection
from the
dead. We accept this truth, without flinching, but we limit God
to a
"Trial and Error" entity not capable of "speaking the Creation
into
existence", but rather relying on billions of years and an
evolutionary
process to finally "get it right".
It is my contention that the main reason for
rejecting a
creationist view (especially in light of the statements by
evolutionists
which give the creationist position credence) is mankind's basic
pride
and rebellion. Evolution allows us to be independent of God so
that we
do not feel any accountability to God. Evolution takes some
pressure off
our conscience!
The current, pervasive New Age teaching that "we
each have
within ourselves the god consciousness and can achieve godhood
by our
own strength as we learn to look within ourselves and develop
our full
potential" further fans the flames of self-sufficiency,
selfishness and
independence from any power greater than ourselves. This New Age
teaching promotes evolution and is deadly deception. It is the
way of
death as it leads people to reject the Lord Jesus Christ as
their
personal Savior. New Age evolutionary thinking also convinces
people
that they cannot believe the first eleven chapters of
Genesis to
be the literal Word of God.
FLOOD WATERS COVERED THE
EARTH
Included early in Genesis is the account of Noah
and the
flood. If evolution is true, then a global flood taking place
about 5
thousand years ago is impossible! Evolution demands millions of
years,
not just a few thousand, for creatures and ecosystems to evolve.
We
sometimes hear this historical event referred to as the flood of
Noah.
It was not Noah's flood. It was God's flood! The flood was God's
judgment on the sin which had spread to cover the earth. Genesis
6:5-14a
describes God's heartbreak at the sinfulness of mankind and His
recognition of Noah as the only righteous man on the face of the
earth.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only
evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had made
man on
the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.
And the Lord
said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both
man,and
beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it
repenteth me that I have made them.
But Noah found grace in
the eyes
of the Lord.
These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a
just man,
and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
And
Noah
begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
The earth also was
corrupt
before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God
looked
upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had
corrupted
his way upon the earth.
And God said to Noah, The end of all
flesh is
come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through
them; and,
behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Make thee an ark
of
gopher wood...."
THE
DESTRUCTION
OF ALL
LAND-BASED
FLESH
What has God told us was His purpose in sending
the global
flood? Genesis 6:5 records that God saw the great wickedness and
evil in
mankind. Genesis 6:17 states the actual purpose of the flood: "... to destroy all
flesh." The
types of life to be destroyed are more specifically listed in
Genesis
7:21-23:
"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth,
both of
fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing
that
creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
All in whose nostrils
was the
breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
And
every
living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the
ground,
both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and to fowl of
the
heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only
remained
alive, and they that were with him in the
ark."
The purpose of this great judgment by water was
to destroy
all dry-land life. Dry-land life extended well beyond the Tigris
and
Euphrates valley! The flood was not designed to destroy marine
life
although many water creatures were destroyed by the flood as is
seen in
the fossil record.
Peter tells us (II Peter 3:5-13) that there are
three
heaven and earth systems in God's eternal plan. The first system
was
totally destroyed by the water of the flood which was the
judgment of
God in Noah's day. Remember it was the violence (Gen.
6:11) that
moved God to judgment! (What is the content of the movies and
cartoons
that you and your family are watching? Have you noticed the
geometric
increases in violence?)
The second heaven and earth system (our present
system, II
Peter 3:7) will be destroyed by fire so hot as to destroy even
the
foundational molecules of the earth and sky (II Peter 3:10). The
root of
sin, wickedness and violence will finally be burned out of
existence.
So, how are you investing your resources (time, money, talents)?
Only
three things will not be burned up -- God; God's Word, the
Bible; and
people. Are you investing eternally in God's Word and
people?
The third heaven and earth system is called the
new
heavens and new earth (II Peter 3:13). This eternal, righteous
heaven
and earth system is also referred to in Romans 8:21, Revelation
21:1 and
perhaps Isaiah 65:17. It will last forever. Only those whose
names are
written in the Lamb's Book of Life will inherit the New
Heavens
and New Earth. Have you come to the sacrificial Lamb, the
Creator Jesus,
in faith believing that He alone has the power and right to save
your
soul? Have you committed the rest of your life to Him and to His
service?
The Lord Jesus contrasted the days of Noah and
the flood
judgment to His Second Coming:
"And as it was in the
days of Noah,
so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
They did
eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in
marriage, until
the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the
flood came,
and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:26, 27)
The flood is treated in the Bible as an actual
event. Noah
is not some mythical character. The Lord Jesus and writers of
the Bible
believed and taught about a literal man named Noah and an actual
global
flood. Nowhere in the Bible is the flood characterized as a
local river
overflow as some scholars have hypothesized. The words of
Genesis 6-9
have concrete meanings in the Hebrew lexicons. These are not
symbols
depicting a mythological event recorded by some primitive scribe
whose
concept of the world was limited to the banks of the Euphrates
and
Tigris Rivers. This flood covered "...all the high
hills that
were under the whole heaven..." (Genesis 7:19 Emphasis
added). The
heaven here referred to is the atmospheric heavens surrounding
our earth
where the birds fly (see Genesis 1:20).
THE ARK
OF
NOAH
Would God move Noah to build an ark 437 feet
long, 73 feet
wide and 44 feet deep for a local river overflow? The ark was
big enough
to carry, on one deck, all the kinds of dry land animals needed
to
repopulate the earth. Scientists have estimated that Noah would
have to
take about 35,000 sheep-sized animals on the ark to give us all
the
kinds of creatures we have today. The ark was big enough to
carry
125,000 sheep-sized animals. 35,000 creatures could have been
kept on
one of the three floors in the ark. Noah probably took young
animals
(even baby dinosaurs) since they would eat less and take up less
space.
Noah and his family could have lived on the top deck and he
could have
trapped the insects on the bottom deck.
Would you need an ark to save birds during a
local river
overflow? Have you ever heard of a local river overflow that
lasted
longer than a year? The Genesis flood did. Why
would God give Noah 120 years to build the ark (Genesis 6:3)
when it
would have been much easier to move his family and flocks out of
the
Mesopotamian Valley? In 120 years Noah could have moved quite a
distance
away from the flood if it was just a local river overflow! Dr. John Morris has an excellent video on this
very
subject called The Deluge, filmed on location at Mt.
Ararat in
Turkey. It is produced by I.C.R., P.O. Box 2667 El Cajon,
CA 92021, (619)
448-0900.
Could God have taken care of Noah, his family
and that
ark-load of creatures for a whole year? Genesis 8:1 begins by
saying: "And God remembered Noah,
and every
living thing, and all the cattle that was with him...." That word "remembered"
is a
special word. It has the idea in the text of the Hebrew language
of
intimate care and watchfulness. The concept of knowing needs and
acting
on that knowledge is contained in the word. It was not that Noah
was
stranded in the ark and God had been busy doing other things.
Then God
suddenly looked down and said, "Oh, my! I just remembered Noah."
This
word carries with it the concept of meeting needs.
Some creationists have posited that the process
of
hibernation may have begun during the flood. Perhaps many
animals slept
through most of the ride. Numerous animals that do not normally
hibernate can be made to do so in certain laboratory conditions.
The
ability to hibernate is displayed by such animals as: bats,
skunks,
woodchucks, prairie dogs, badgers, bears, certain mice, humming
birds,
garter snakes, turtles, toads, spiders, beetles, dragonflies,
grasshoppers, garden snails, etc. etc. It is not impossible to
believe
that some, if not many, animals slept a good part of that year.
Many
Bible "scoffers" refer to Noah and the Ark as just a myth or
story and
not an actual historical event. This could be, in part, because
of the
seeming impossibility of so few people caring for that large a
number of
animals. Hibernation of the animals and insects would definitely
have
decreased the time demands for feeding and scooping by the eight
human
ark passengers. No one can say exactly what went on in the
sealed ark,
but God knew and cared and saw to it that the remnant of His
creatures
survived.
THE ALTAR, THE
RAINBOW
AND THE DRUNKENNESS
Remember what happened when Noah came out of the
ark?
Three major things come to mind: the altar, the rainbow and the
drunkenness. The first recorded event in the life of Noah after
his
departure from the ark was his worship. He built an altar to the
Lord
and worshipped His Savior. Genesis 8:20-21:
"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and
took of
every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt
offerings
on the altar.
And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the
Lord said in
his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's
sake;
for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;
neither will
I again smite any more every thing living, as I have
done."
As a result, God gave Noah the promise of the
rainbow. Was
the rainbow God's Covenantal sign to man that He would never
again send
a local river overflow? Of course not! If it was a local river
overflow
in the known "world" of the writer's day, then the rainbow as a
covenantal sign means nothing. There have been many local river
overflows in the Middle East since Noah's day. The rainbow means
God
will never again destroy life upon the earth with a
flood.
The account of Noah's drunkenness is also
important in the
study of creationism. There may be several reasons for the
inclusion of
this episode in God's eternal Word, but it could very readily
serve as a
hint that man is no longer living in heaven and earth system #1
now that
the flood is over. The pre-flood environmental and ecological
system
(#1) was destroyed by the flood. The present heaven and earth
system
(#2) is different.
Reading certain selections from II Peter 3
presents to the
reader God's eternal plan, which includes three heaven and earth
systems: The heaven and earth of Adam and Noah (system #1); the
present
heaven and earth (system #2); and the New Heavens and new Earth
of
eternity (system #3).
3. Knowing
this first,
that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after
their own
lusts,
4.
And
saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the
fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of
the
creation.
5.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word
of God
the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water
and in
the water:
6.
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with
water,
perished:
7.
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same
word
are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of
judgment and
perdition of ungodly men.
10.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the
night; in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the
elements
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that
are
therein shall be burned up.
13.
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new
heavens
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (II Peter 3
selections)
It is probable that heaven and earth system #1
had a
heavier atmosphere than our present system (#2). The increased
atmospheric pressure was the result of God taking water off the
surface
of the earth (see Genesis 1:6-8) and putting it above
atmospheric heaven
or, more specifically, the expanse or firmament that the birds
fly in
(see Genesis 1:20). These "waters above" came down in Noah's day
and may
have set up the condition that quite possibly caused Noah's
drunkenness.
Alcohol ferments faster and gets into your blood
and brain
more quickly in system #2 than it did in system #1 because the
atmospheric pressure was reduced by at least one half as the
water came
down as rain. Alcohol fermentation rates are doubled when the
pressure
is cut in half. It appears that Noah was caught by surprise. He
was
God's righteous man. He had not forgotten to make an altar and
sacrifice
in worship of his Lord and Savior. Noah probably made the same
amount of
wine that he made before the flood. But now, in system #2 with
the
atmospheric pressure less than one half of what it was in system
#1 when
Noah entered the ark, the wine would ferment at least twice as
fast and
get into his physical system twice as fast -- catching Noah with
a
surprise inebriation. We have no record that Noah ever got drunk
before
or after this incident. Perhaps one reason our Creator gives us
this sad
account is to hint at the difference between system #1 and
system
#2.
Our present heaven and earth
are
vastly different than the pre-flood heaven and earth of Noah's
day. That
is the reason we do not have dragon flies with a wingspread of
32
inches, or chambered nautilus shells eight feet tall or 300,000
pound
dinosaurs walking the earth today. And yet people lived in
system #1 and
are still thriving in system #2. Only God could have designed
life to
work efficiently in two significantly different systems. There
is no one
like Him!
6.
Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou
art
great, and thy name is great in might.
12. He
hath made the
earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom,
and
hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.
16. The
Lord of
hosts is his name. (Jeremiah
10:6,12,16)
For much
more information about the Flood-judgment of God read: The Genesis Flood by
Henry
Morris and John Whitcomb (Philadelphia:
The
Presbyterian & Reformed Pub. Co., 1961).
TOP NEXT
CHAPTER PREVIOUS
CHAPTER TABLE
OF
CONTENTS