Transcript Understanding the Creation – Chapter 1

UNDERSTANDING THE
CREATION
The First Day
Creation of the Heavens
and the Earth – the
Foundation of it All
Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth. Now the earth was formless and
empty, darkness was over the surface of the
deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,”
and there was light. God saw that the light
was good, and he separated the light from the
darkness. God called the light “day”, and the
darkness he called “night”. And there was
evening, and there was morning – the first
day.
CREATION is a Big Word!
• The Hebrew word for “create” is “bara.”
• “bara”, used eleven times in the Book of Genesis, always
refers to divine, never human, activity
• It is “ex-nihilo” meaning “out of nothing.”
The Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters
• Creator, God, was
100% involved in the
developing creation.
• “Hovering” in Hebrew
brings an image of a
hen brooding over her
chicks.
• God started the light
and dispelled the void
of darkness.
• The Big Bang is looking more supernatural all the time. About 20
years ago, the late Carl Sagan famously said that Big bang
science would eventually show that the universe was created
without any creator. Since then, the picture has changed quite a
bit, one reason why, in the years before his 1996 death, Sagan
himself began to advocate science-and-religion studies.
• The leading contemporary development in Big Bang thinking is a
theory called “cosmic inflation”, which holds that the universe
popped out of a point with no content and no dimensions,
essentially expanding instantaneously to cosmological size.
Now being taught at Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and other top schools, this explanation of the
beginning of the universe bears haunting similarity to the
traditional theological notion of creation ex nihilo, “out of
nothing.”
• “Science and Religion: Academics Ponder the Ties Between Faith
and Fact,” Los Angeles Times, 14 March 1999
The Earth is Round Floats in Space
• Isaiah 40:22 He sits
enthroned above
the circle of the
earth, its people
are like
grasshoppers.
• Job 26:7 – He
suspends the earth
over nothing.
“But God made the
earth by his power;
he founded the
world by his
wisdom –”
Jeremiah 10:12
What Keeps Things Going?
• The Second Law of
Thermodynamics says
that energy for useful
work is always
decreasing with time.
• What keeps the earth,
planets & moon moving
year after year at the
same constant speed
and velocity?
Our One of a Kind Earth
Earth’s radius = 4,025
miles
0-25 mi. = solid crust
26-1,825 mi.= solid
mantle with some fluid
regions
1,826-3,225 mi. = liquid
outer core
3,226-4025 mi. = solid
inner core (12,600 F.)
The First Day Summary
• 1. He created energy & time – in the beginning
• 2. He created space, extended to the heavens
• 3. He created matter, his prime accomplishment
being the creation of the Earth
“And there was evening, and there was
morning – the first day” Genesis 1:5
And thus the Bible implies the length of day we
are now familiar with – twenty four hours.