Staggering Truth Only the Children Can Know (The Genesis Series, Part 4)

Fear not, child of faith! Your confidence will not be disappointed.  All the carnal, bold talk is turned on its ungodly ear, time after miserable time, but like Goliath of old, they step forth daily to mock the God of creation.  You’ll find these two sentences lifted from the May 2023 issue of Scientific American interesting:

A cave wall discovery originally identified as a 550-million-year-old fossilized Dickinsonia sea creature is actually residue from a present-day beehive, researchers say.  The finding revives debate about nearby formations’ geological history. 

Oops; just some modern honey, not a half-a-billion-year-old fossil—a mistake anyone could make. 

The world is awash in bold talk and blasphemies against the God of creation and His Christ, but in a mere snap of the fingers, this vapor called life evaporates and the antagonist will stand before an angry God to give an account.  There is one way of escape from an event of such unparalleled terror, and that way is Jesus Christ only, but dread the very thought in the halls of the world’s academics!  Surely, it’s true: God’s Word is true and righteous altogether, even every jot and tittle. 

Dear visitor, have you yet to make your decision for Jesus Christ?  Have you been BORN AGAIN—born a literal second time, this time of the Spirit of God—even as Jesus declares in John 3:3?

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  

In just a few moments, I will invite you to follow me in a simple prompt, and if you follow from your heart, you will be BORN AGAIN.  Today, every sin and its consequent shame will be washed away by Christ’s cleansing blood.  You will become a brand new creature.  Today, all of Satan’s bondages in your life will be broken, no matter how big the chains.  You will be free, completely free. Today, your eternal soul is in your very own hands.  Will you choose eternal life in Christ Jesus?  Your next decision is serious business.  Here is the prompt I promised: Click onto Further with Jesus for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  Make your choice. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Genesis 1:9-13:

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

GOD SAID, 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.

GOD SAID, Job 38:30:

The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

MAN SAID: I used to say I was ‘trying to find myself,’ but not anymore!  My science professor (and you know, I follow the science)  told me the secret: I come from basically nothing—just a quantum accident, that’s me!  I am an animal with no eternal, overarching purpose but to do nothing, and when I die, I will end up just where I started—in nothing!  Isn’t it cool?!  I found myself, and I’m nothing!  Quite liberating, don’t you think?  Now that I know the secret, I’m free to grapple with more fundamental things, like if I’m a boy or a girl, which sport I should play, which bathroom I should use.  The big questions, you know?

Now THE RECORD:  Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 1224 that will once again contend for the faith.  All of these God-centered features are archived here in text and streaming audio for the edification of the redeemed and to be used in the soul-winning efforts of the saints.  Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. 

Thank you for visiting.  Psalm 118:24:

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.  

Welcome to the GodSaidManSaid “Genesis Series;” this is Part 4.  Each of these features begins with the following information from the first feature:

According to a 2006 issue of Discover magazine concerning the deceased Carl Sagan: “Sagan approaches religion like any phenomenon.  He isn’t on a quest for life’s meaning, for a comforting philosophy, or even a guide to how we should treat the neighbors.  Sagan seeks truth of a demonstrable kind.  As a puckish example, he wonders why the book of Genesis didn’t include God-inspired truths…” [End of quote]

I recently reviewed an advertisement from a magazine called Free Inquiry that also has a problem with the God of Creation and the first book of the Bible, called Genesis.  Under the heading “Is God Big Enough for the Universe,” Free Inquiry writes:

The authors of Genesis proclaim that God made the heavens and earth in less than a week.  This feat must have amazed these Bronze Age authors, even though they thought the heavens extended only so far as the sky above them.  Of course, they did not know what stars, planets, or galaxies were.  We now know that the universe is so much bigger and so much more complex. [End of quote]

The BORN AGAIN scratch their heads in bewilderment.  Did these folks actually read the book of Genesis? I suppose they did, but God’s revelation is only revealed to the humbled hearts of the children of faith.  This GodSaidManSaid series will be called “The Genesis Series.”  It is our intention to travel through the entire book of Genesis and publish one major God-inspired truth after another.  We will be pulling from previous GodSaidManSaid features and adding the latest information as we go.

I need to know it’s true.  This Book, the Holy Bible and its instructions, separate me from the common bond of this carnal world, even from society at large.  I am instructed to believe upon Jesus Christ and to follow Him.  I am instructed to be separate from sinners.  That means:

✖ NO unbelief;
✖ NO fear;
✖ NO lust;
✖ NO booze;
✖ NO dope;
✖ NO slothfulness;
✖ NO hatred;
✖ NO covetousness.

It also means saying:

✔ YES to faith in God’s Christ;
✔ YES to the Bible;
✔ YES to attending church;
✔ YES to tithing; and
✔ YES to becoming what Romans 12:1 calls “a living sacrifice.”

The BORN AGAIN are separate from the common rank and file.  I need to know it’s true, and I need to be aware that the world’s contradictions begin at the very first verse, of the very first chapter of Genesis, the very first book of the Bible.  But, what did you expect? 

Genesis 1:9-12:

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Yes, you have arrived at the GodSaidManSaid “Genesis Series” where you will discover one God-inspired truth after another. 

Day three of creation begins with God separating the water from the dry land.  On day two, God had separated the earth’s water into two layers.  One layer covered the entire earth.  Above the water-covered earth was the firmament, which God named heaven, which is basically the space around us and the sky.  The second layer of water was above the first firmament, and above this water canopy was another firmament in which you find the sun, moon, and stars.  There are three heavens, and the Apostle Paul speaks of them in II Corinthians 12:2-4:

2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.

3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)

4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

On day three, the dry land appears.  1,656 years later, the water canopy, created on day two and which was above the firmament as just described, comes pouring down as the global flood in the days of Noah.  This event is described in Genesis 7:11-12 and 17-20:

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah''s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

Critics of the Bible practically jump out of their seats to challenge, “if this were true, then where’s all the water?!” Three simple points force them back into their chairs in defeat:

1. If the earth were smooth like a ball, the water would sit at a depth of two miles above the ground. 

2. Geologists know that the world’s oceans are 400’ higher than they were in ancient days.  That’s some of the water.

3. So, where is the rest?  Consider this excerpt from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Geologists Floored by Water Rock:”

The headline in the AFP press release reads, “Earth has a secret reservoir of water, say scientists.”  Excerpts follow:

A hundred and fifty years ago, in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, French science-fiction writer Jules Verne pictured a vast sea that lay deep under our planet’s surface. 

Today, that strange and haunting image has found an unexpected echo in a scientific paper. 

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists on Wednesday said they had found an elusive mineral pointing to the existence of a vast reservoir deep in Earth’s mantle, 400-600 kilometers (250-375 miles) beneath our feet. 

It may hold as much water as all the planet’s oceans combined, they believe. 

The evidence comes from a water-loving mineral called ringwoodite that came from the so-called transition zone sandwiched between the upper and lower layers of Earth’s mantle, they said. 

Analysis shows that a whopping 1.5 percent of the rock comprises molecules of water. 

The find backs once-contested theories that the transition zone, or at least significant parts of it, is water-rich, the investigators said. 

“This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth in this area,” said Graham Pearson of Canada’s University of Alberta, who led the research. 

“That particular zone in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world’s oceans put together.” 

Ringwoodite is named after Australian geologist Ted Ringwood, who theorized that a special mineral was bound to be created in the transition zone because of the ultra-high pressures and temperatures there. 

A piece of this mineral has been a long-sought goal.  It would resolve a long-running debate about whether the poorly-understood transition zone is bone-dry or water-rich.

Hans Keppler, a geologist at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, cautioned against extrapolating the size of the subterranean water find from a single sample of ringwoodite. 

And he also said the water was likely to be locked up in specific rocks, in a molecular form called hydroxyl. 

“In some ways, it is an ocean in Earth’s interior, as visualized by Jules Verne…although not in the form of liquid water,” Keppler said in a commentary also published by Nature. 

The implications of the discovery are profound, Pearson suggested. 

If water exists in huge volumes beneath Earth’s crust, it is bound to have a big impact on the mechanics of volcanoes and the movement of tectonic plates.

“One of the reasons the Earth is such a dynamic planet is the presence of water in its interior.  Water changes everything about the way a planet works,” said Pearson.  [End of quotes]

Geologists are finding exactly what the Scriptures declare.  Psalm 24:1-2:

1 The earth is the LORD''''S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.

Psalm 33:7:

He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses.

Keppler speaks of water that is locked up in specific rocks—even as Job, arguably the oldest book of the Bible, records in chapter 38:30:

The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

Thousands of years before man’s “latest discoveries,” God is already there—a God who knows the end from the beginning. [End of quotes]

The perfect order of God’s creation plan is clear to the students of the Holy Book, those who approach with ear bowed down.  On days one and two, God speaks into existence those foundational things that would be needed to sustain the living organisms He was about to create. 

On day three, the dry land that appears is not just any old dirt.  This dry land is perfect and fertile and contains all the needed minerals and nutrients for the earth’s plant mantle to grow and flourish.  The earth is in itself teeming with life.  It’s been noted that there are more living organisms in a shovel full of dirt than there are humans on this earth.  Day three also has God creating grass, the herb-yielding seed, and the fruit tree.  These three are not only the basis of the earth’s food chain, but are themselves also the creators of that which is necessary for life, like oxygen, as well as being huge contributors to the earth’s amazing hydrologic cycle. 

Dr. Henry M. Morris, founder of the world-renowned Institute for Creation Research, wrote the following regarding the earth and its vegetation along with God’s use of the word “kind” in the commentary of the Henry Morris Study Bible:

The ability of the earth to begin immediately producing abundant plant life everywhere, on the very same day as the forming of the land surfaces, shows that the upper portion of the crust was a rich soil, fertile in chemical nutrients and retaining adequate moisture to sustain the lush vegetation.  This fact illustrates an important principle.  True creation necessarily involves the theory of a “creation of apparent age,” or better, “creation of a functioning maturity.”  That is, the soil did not gradually form over hundreds of years by rock weathering and other modern uniformitarian processes.  It was readied instantaneously by divine command.  The plants did not develop from seeds; rather the herb was formed “yielding seed.”  Similarly, the fruit trees were “yielding fruit,” not requiring several years of preliminary growth as do modern fruit trees.

The “seed” which God designed guaranteed reproduction of each plant “after his kind.”  This phrase, repeated nine more times in Genesis 1 after this first occurrence, obviously precludes transmutation of one kind into another.  The “seed” was programmed for stable reproduction of each kind, through a remarkable system known today as the “genetic code,” the complex information program in the DNA molecule.  This system allows wide “horizontal” variation within the kind, but no “vertical” evolution from one kind into a more complex kind.  It is significant that, despite widespread belief in evolution, no scientist has yet documented a single instance of true vertical evolution occurring today.  The modern equivalent of “kind” is probably broader than the “species” in many cases, since the latter term is an arbitrary manmade category.  That is, the many varieties of dogs are all part of the created “dog kind,” just as all tribes and nations of men constitute one “mankind” (Acts 17:25-26). 

It should also be noted that plant life, in all its forms, was created before animal life, thus contradicting the order postulated by evolutionists.  There are over 20 such contradictions between the order of Creation in Genesis and that in evolutionary paleontology.  [End of quote]

Dr. Jonathan D. Sarfati published the following information concerning the absolute brilliance of God’s plant world in his book, The Genesis Account:

Green plants have a vital role to play in our ecosystems.  They are the basis of the food chain, because they don’t require their own food but make it from water (H₂O) and carbon dioxide (CO₂), energized by sunlight via photosynthesis.  (For one day, the plants could have used the light that God created on Day 1, because God would not make the sun until the day after He made the plants.  Of course, plants can in any case survive one day without sunlight.)  In this process, they also produce oxygen (O₂), which is essential for all air-breathing life.  Photosynthesis is therefore one of the most important chemical reactions on earth.  It is also 97% efficient, in that the energy from photons absorbed by the photosynthetic system is 97% converted to chemical energy. 

Scientists have a great problem trying to duplicate photosynthesis, because the object is to break up water molecules and produce reactive products that can then make sugars.  But water molecules are quite strongly held together so that a single light photon energetic enough (which would be ultraviolet) to break the water molecule would also break up all the photosynthetic molecules as well.  This has been a problem for even the most brilliant chemists trying to duplicate this process.

However, plants have an ingenious mechanism, involving a cube of three manganese atoms, one calcium, and four oxygen atoms. This combines the energy of four lower-energy photons, and holds two water molecules in the right place so that the total energy can split them.  This would not work at all unless all the parts were precisely coordinated. [End of quote]

God said, “after his kind,” and He meant what He said.  This clarifying definer is still true and righteous altogether, even after all these years.  Apologetics author Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, home of the Noah’s Ark replica, has something to say about “kind.”  In his book Creation to Babel, you’ll find the following:

So God made plants (and later animals) after their kind, which implies they would reproduce after their own kind. We will discuss the world “kind” in much more detail when we deal with the creation of animals.  But our research shows there can be great variation within a kind, but one kind can never change into a totally different kind.  Now, with animals, we know cats only reproduce cats and horses only reproduce horses.  There can be many different types (varieties) of horses (i.e., zebras, donkeys, miniature ponies, etc.), but they remain horses.  God also made plants in kinds, which each kind being able to reproduce its own kind.  God made different kinds of fruit trees with each kind being able to reproduce variations in fruit, but only within its own kind.  Obviously coconut trees could never produce oranges—they belong to different kinds.

People who believe in evolution think that one kind of animal changed into a totally different kind of animal over millions of years. For instance, they believe that animals like dinosaurs changed into birds, and ape-like creatures evolved into people.

The fact that God uses the phrases “after its kind” or “after their [own] kind,” ten times in Genesis 1 shows that He is emphasizing to us that all the plants and animals He made were all made as separate kinds.  None of them evolved from a different kind.  He created living things so there would be variation within any kind, but they would always stay within their own kind.

So we could say this: God made the original kinds of animals and plants as separate kinds to reproduce after their own kind, so one kind would not change into another kind but there would be variation within a kind—which is why we see all the kinds of organisms (and great variety within each kind) we have today. [End of quote]

Did the critics actually read the book of Genesis?  I suppose they did, but its revelations are only opened to eyes that can see—and they belong to the children of the Book.

GOD SAID, Genesis 1:9-13:

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

GOD SAID, 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.

GOD SAID, Job 38:30:

The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

MAN SAID: I used to say I was ‘trying to find myself,’ but not anymore!  My science professor (and you know, I follow the science)  told me the secret: I come from basically nothing—just a quantum accident, that’s me!  I am an animal with no eternal, overarching purpose but to do what comes natural, and when I die, I will end up just where I started—in nothing!  Isn’t it cool?!  I found myself, and I’m nothing!  Quite liberating, don’t you think?  Now that I know the secret, I’m free to grapple with more fundamental things, like if I’m a boy or a girl, which sport I should play, which bathroom I should use.  The big questions, you know?

 

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Blumner, R., Free Inquiry

GodSaidManSaid, “Geologists Floored by Water Rock”

Ham, K., Creation to Babel, Master Books, 2021

Morris, H., The Henry M. Morris Study Bible, Master Books, 1995

Parshall, A., “Quick Hits,”  Scientific American, May 2023

Sarfati, J., The Genesis Account, Creation Book Publishers, 2015

• Go Further With Christ
• Email To a Friend
• Comments or Questions?