… He Made the Stars Also (The Genesis Series, Part 5)

GodSaidManSaid is engaged in the global battle for the lost sons and daughters of Adam.  All of us who are BORN AGAIN were once where they are.  It’s true:  We understand their vacuous thoughts because we once thought them, too.  It’s true:  We understand their various bondages because we were also once bound.  We understand their every argument, because we once made those arguments, too.  But then something bizarre and marvelous happened to us, at a place Jesus Christ calls BORN AGAIN.  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.

What a day!  What a marvelous day! 

Dear visitor, have you yet to be BORN AGAIN—born a second time, this time of the Spirit 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 surely begin to understand.  You will surely see the Light.  Presently, you are currently spiritually dead.  This is because you were spiritually stillborn.  Ephesians 2:1:

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins: 

Much of what I am saying is hard for you to fathom, I’m certain.  You are at GodSaidManSaid by divine design.  Your visit is not a matter of happenstance.  You have been drawn by the Holy Ghost into the valley of decision.  Joel 3:14:

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

For you, “the day of the LORD” is near.  Your eternal soul is in your very own hands.  Will you choose BORN AGAIN and eternal life in Christ Jesus, or will it be the walking death of this carnal experience and a final, eternal damnation?  There are only two options.  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 1:14-19:

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:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

GOD SAID, Psalm 147:4-5:

4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

GOD SAID, Isaiah 66:1:

Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

MAN SAID: Look, the whole world can’t be wrong.  So, I’ll take my chances.  If there’s a God of the Bible and His Jesus Christ—and that’s a mighty big IF!—then, when I show up at the Great White Throne Judgment (if that’s real), well, They’ll just love me!  I think I remember that maybe the Bible said, “God is love,” right?  A well-reasoned plan, wouldn’t you say?

Now THE RECORD: Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 1225 that will once again certify the bonafides of the beautiful Book, the majority-text Holy Bible.   All of these faith-building features are archived here in text and streaming audio for your edification and to be used as a platform from which to convince the gainsayers.  Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. 

Thank you for visiting.  May God’s face shine upon you with Light and Truth.   

Genesis 1:14-19:

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:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Welcome to the GodSaidManSaid “Genesis Series;” this is Part 5  Each of these features begins with the following foundation 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.

A special note to the children of faith:  The skeptics are looking, with eyes closed shut, for “God-inspired truths.”  This is the fifth feature in the GodSaidManSaid “Genesis Series” and we are still in Genesis Chapter 1 with quite a way to go before we get to Chapter 2!  The book of Genesis ends at the 26th verse of Chapter 50.  Be of good cheer, child of God, the Truth is with us! 

The first sentence of the challenge posed by The Free Inquiry reads, “The authors of Genesis proclaim that God made the heavens and earth in less than a week.” 

The book of Genesis is part of the Pentateuch, which is the name given to the first five books of the Bible. Though these books were penned by Moses, the author, however, was God.  Seven times, Moses is instructed by God to write.  The book of Genesis was not something handed down from generation to generation that Moses just got around to putting to paper.  The book of Genesis was (and is) an eyewitness, hands-on account of the events of Creation given by the Creator of all things, whose recall is perfect.  The self-defined unbelievers at this magazine are unaware that all Holy Scripture in the Bible is given by the inerrant God; they are not the contrivances of mere men! II Timothy 3:15-17:

15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Jesus Christ, whose name is “The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13), declares the supernatural primacy of the Word of God in Mark 13:31:

Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.  

We are commanded not to add to or subtract from God’s Words.  Deuteronomy 4:2:

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

Revelation 22:18-19:

18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

Those who reject the adding and subtracting clause should consider Proverbs 30:6:

Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

If you would like to know whom God respects amongst the sons and daughters of men, consider Isaiah 66:1-2:

1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

The Words in the majority-text Holy Bible were penned by holy men, but authored by God.

The magazine Free Inquiry went on with their critique, remarking: “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]

First, they erroneously attribute authorship to men, and then go on to claim that the Bible is ignorant in regard to stars, planets, galaxies, and the universe as a whole.  Is their challenge true?  

The stars are mentioned numerous times in the Scriptures, and we are particularly told that we do not have the ability to number them, though God can and has even named each star.  When Abrahm (who would become the Bible’s Abraham, the father of all who walk in faith) spoke to God regarding his lack of children, God made this promise to him in Genesis 15:5:

And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

Several other examples of the stars mentioned in the Scriptures include:

✭ Genesis 22:17-18:

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

✭ Psalm 147:4-5:

4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

✭ Jeremiah 33:22:

As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.

Centuries ago, the skeptics would have railed on the Bible’s claim that “the host of heaven cannot be numbered.”  According to 15^th Century astronomer Ulugh Beg, there were 994 stars in the heavens; he had catalogued heaven’s inventory by counting the stars he could see from his observatory in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.  Today, cosmologists understand that the stars actually cannot be numbered and estimate that there are approximately 200 sextillion stars.  From the start, God has been telling us that the stars cannot be numbered by man. 

Flavious Josephus, the most renowned of all ancient historians, made the following report concerning the heavens and Seth, the son of Adam, the father of all living humans:

Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues.  All these proved to be of good dispositions.  They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them, till they died.  They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.  And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars; the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them.  Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.  [End of quote]

Ken Ham of the Answers in Genesis Ministry (home of the replica of Noah’s Ark), wrote the following about stars in his book, Creation to Babel:

Along with the sun and the moon, we are told God made the stars on day four.  I love how the King James Bible translation states it in Genesis 1:16:

He made the stars also.

How many stars are in the universe?  No one knows, but some scientists estimate there are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone and then 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in the universe.  To try to count them would be like trying to count the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.  The point is, the number of stars is so great we can’t even comprehend it.  But think about this:  He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.  (Psalm 147:4)  So God knows the number of stars and has a name for each one.  Once again, we get a little inkling of what it means that God is the infinite Creator.

God even tells us we can’t count the number of stars or the number of grains of sand.  This reminds us of how finite we are compared to God:

As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. (Jer. 33:22)

And when I think about the fact that all we’re told is “He made the stars also,” I think it’s almost as if God is saying , “Oh, by the way, you see all those stars you can’t count?  I made them, too.”  And when you think about how powerful just our one star (the sun) in our solar system is, I can’t’ even imagine the power it took to create all these stars, and many of them so much bigger than our sun!  So why did God create so many stars?

Well, the Bible tells us why God made the stars:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.  There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.  Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, (Psalm 19:1-4)

God made the stars to declare His glory!  And as we consider the number of stars and the energy they produce and the vastness of space, we start to again get a tiny understanding of what it means that God is infinite in power.  [End of quote]

Numerous verses deal with the structure of the earth and the heavens, beginning in Genesis and continuing through Revelation. A few examples include:

✭ Job 9:9-10

✭ Job 26:13

✭ Job 38:31-33

✭ Psalm 115:16

✭ Isaiah  13:9-10

✭ Isaiah 40:26

✭ Isaiah 45:18

✭ Isaiah 66:1

✭ Jeremiah 33:22

✭ Amos 5:8