Posted on 11/15/2003 10:50:03 PM PST by bondserv
Part One of a Series:
Why Six Days?
by Chuck Missler
The Book of Genesis presents a disturbing problem for many Bible-believing Christians. Did God really create the heaven and the earth in just six 24-hour days? How does a serious student of the Torah - the five books of Moses - reconcile the Genesis account with the "billions of years" encountered in the dictums of astronomy, geology, et al?
Many continue to attempt to circumvent the problem by assuming that the six days represent "geological eras," or that the traditional text is simply a rhetorical "framework" for a literary summary of the creative process. Various forms of "theistic evolution" have been contrived in attempts to reconcile the Biblical text with the various theories and conjectures which dominate our evolution-based society.
However, the sincere student cannot escape the confrontations which result from the straightforward reading of the text with the ostensible declarations of "science." How can we deal with these fundamental issues?
Why Is It So Critical?
There are four basic questions that confront all of us: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going when I die?
And your eternal destiny will be determined by your "world view" in addressing these issues. And there are really only two world-views: either everything - including you - is the result of some kind of cosmic accident, or this is all the result of a deliberate design by a Designer.
This issue could not be more fundamental to everything. It comes as a shock to many to discover that every major theme and doctrine in the Bible has its roots in this "Book of Beginnings": sovereign election; salvation, justification by faith, believer's security, separation, disciplinary chastisement, the Divine Incarnation, the "rapture" of the church, death and resurrection, the priesthoods (both Aaronic and Melchizedekian), the Antichrist, and even the Palestinian Covenant that is being challenged by the continuing tensions throughout the world today all have their roots in this critical foundational book of the Bible. And each of these issues also has its consummation in the Book of (the) Revelation. (Like every good textbook, the answers are always in the back!)
Who Really Wrote the Torah?
There are those who have suggested the books of Moses were actually compilations by a number of redactors over the years - the common "Documentary Hypothesis" being one of the most prevalent theories. Fortunately, these previously popular notions have been thoroughly shredded by competent scholarship. But allow me to save you many hours of boring library research. I know who wrote the Books of Moses: Moses did. How do I know? Jesus Christ Himself said so! Many times.1
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? - John 5:45-47
Jesus quotes from each of the books of the Torah and attributes them each to Moses. The New Testament includes 165 direct quotes (and over 200 allusions) to the Book of Genesis, and over 100 of these are from the first 11 chapters. These include the Creator and the creation, 2 (and allusions3), creation of man and woman,4 the fall of man,5 the Flood of Noah,6 etc. So if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have no problem as to who wrote the Book of Genesis. (And if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you have much bigger problems than the authorship of Genesis!)
But "Six Days"?
The account of the creation of the universe in six days still is a "bone in the throat" to many Christians. Many point out that the word for "day" is yom
, and is translated to 54 other words; however, 1181 of 1480 occurrences it is "day," and when used with a number it is always a literal day. But the real problem isn't the account in Genesis. It is in Exodus. In the middle of the Ten Commandments, the Creator Himself wrote it with His own finger in stone!
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. - Exodus 20:11
It is undeniable that God intended us to understand that it was, indeed, six literal days. So how do we deal with the common understanding that "billions of years" was involved? How do we deal with the astronomical distances of millions of "light years" between the galaxies of the universe? Can anyone familiar with the discoveries of modern science take the Genesis account seriously?
It may come as a pleasant surprise to discover that the more you know about modern science - the real physics, not the mythology and conjectures that masquerade as "science" - the more you can take the Biblical text seriously. The Lord always rewards the diligent. (A recent book includes articles by fifty top scientists - from many different fields of specialization - who declare why they believe in a literal six-day creation. 7)
The Nature of Time
One of the many advantages that 20th century science has given us is that, thanks to Dr. Albert Einstein's brilliant discoveries, we now know that time is a physical property and is subject to mass, acceleration, and gravity. We have come to realize that we live in a four-dimensional continuum properly known as "space-time." (This is what Paul seems to imply in his letter to the Ephesians!8) It is interesting that when one takes the apparent 1012 expansion factor involved in the theories of the "expanding universe," that an assumed 16 billion years reduce to six days!
Furthermore, the astronomical timetables now seem to be entirely overturned with the reluctant acknowledgments that the speed of light is not longer regarded as the constant that the high priests of physics had been previously convinced of.
The Nature of Light
Not only have recent scientific articles highlighted the discoveries that the speed of light has changed over the centuries (something that Barry Setterfield has been declaring for decades) the very nature of light has ripped open the entire world of quantum physics that has shattered our concepts of reality itself.
The changes in the velocity of light not only impacts our understanding of the astronomical distances and properties, it affects the atomic behavior involved in the red shift of spectra, the reliability of radiological dating, etc. It is the peculiar properties of photons themselves that continue to astonish the quantum physicists wrestling with the very nature of our physical existence. It is now recognized that subatomic particles lack a property known as "locality." All subatomic particles are now understood to be immediately connected. There is a simultaneity - a "non-locality" - among all photons that has been confirmed in the laboratory. It now appears that our entire universe may actually be a gigantic hologram of some kind. 9
The Fabric of Space
Most of us assume that space is simply an empty vacuum with nothing "in it." However, it is increasingly evident that even empty space has astonishing properties that have yet to be fully understood. We now know that this "firmament,"(raqia) which the Scripture presents, possesses electromagnetic properties including dielectric permittivity, magnetic permeability, an intrinsic impedance,10 and has an astonishing "zero-point" energy sufficient to keep all the electrons in the entire universe in their orbits.11 The term "stretching the heavens" appears at least 17 times in the Scriptures.12
According to the Scriptures, the heavens can be "torn,"13 "worn out" like a garment,14 "shaken,"15 "burnt up,"16 "split apart" like a scroll,17 rolled up" like a mantle 18 or a scroll.19
The concept of being "rolled up" carries some additional insights. There must be some dimension in which space is "thin." If space can be "bent," there must be a direction it can be bent toward. Thus, this tells us that there must be additional dimensions beyond those of space itself. It is now understood that we live in even more than four dimensions: ten dimensions is the current estimate (which is precisely what Nachmonides concluded in his commentary on Genesis back in the 13th century!) The more we understand from the current perspectives of modern physics, the more comfortable we are with the chronicle in Genesis One.
The Architecture of the Solar System
The more we study our solar system, the more questions get raised. Here, too, the prevailing assumptions that are broadly taught are totally specious. The "Nebular Hypothesis," that the planets were somehow thrown off by the sun, is mathematically untenable. There is no plausible explanation that would support a solar origin of the planets. The sun contains 99.86% of all the mass of the solar system, and yet contains only 1.9% of the angular momentum. The nine planets contain 98.1%. Furthermore, the outer planets are far larger than the inner ones. (Jupiter is 5,750 times as massive as mercury, 2,958 times as massive as Mars, etc.)
There are many other provocative enigmas concerning our planetary history:
o There are three pairs of rapid-spin rates among our planets: Mars and Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, and Neptune and Uranus, are each within 3% of each other. Why?
o Earth and Mars have virtually identical spin axis tilts (about 23.5°). Why? (From angular momentum and orbital calculations, it would seem that the three pairs of these planets may have been brought here from elsewhere.)
o Why does Mars have 93% of its craters in one hemisphere and only 7% in the other? It would appear that over 80% occurred within a single half-hour!
It's almost as if God designed it to challenge any naturalistic hypotheses!
"Evening" and "Morning"?
The Hebrew terms, Erev,and Boker, now refer to "evening" and "morning" but their origins remain obscure. Erev
designates obscuration, mixture (increasing entropy). The time when encroaching darkness begins to deny the ability to discern forms, shapes, and identities; thus, it becomes a term for twilight or evening.20 This also marks the duration of impurity, when a ceremonially unclean person became clean again,21 and thus, the beginning of the Hebrew day.
Boker is a designation for becoming discernible, distinguishable, visible; perception of order; relief of obscurity (decreasing entropy). It thus is associated with being able to begin to discern forms, shapes, and distinct identities; breaking forth of light; revealing; hence, denotatively, dawn, morning. (As traditional designations for the Hebrew day, technically it would seem to only designate the nighttime hours, but it is used connotatively for the entire calendar day.)
It is noteworthy that neither of these are recorded on the seventh day, and thus their original significance may have been to designate the increments of creation.
Other Issues
There are other questions that arise from the Genesis narrative. When was the earth created? It seems to have preceded the rest of the universe. Surprisingly, there are some cosmologists that are (again) beginning to suspect that the universe may be geocentric after all! How did plants (3rd day) flourish without the sun's photosynthesis (4th day)? When were the angels created? (They apparently witnessed the events of Genesis 1.) 22 When did Satan fall? He had apparently already fallen by Chapter 3.
As we explore these, and other, enigmas that emerge from the Biblical text, let us not confuse the precision of the text with conjectures and mythology that pervades our pagan culture and uninformed classrooms. (It's tragic that we can't insist on evidence-based education for our children rather than the foolishness and dogma that continues to strip them of their God-fearing heritage.)
But the more acquainted you become with the amazing discoveries and insights from the frontiers of science - and are able to dismiss the nonsense that prevails among the uninformed - the more comfortable the Genesis text becomes! We plan to continue this series of articles in the unmitigated aspiration of stimulating you to dig ever deeper into God's inerrant Word!
Notes:
Maybe he could look instead at the absolutely uncanny way the ancient document parallels, in a way that everyone can understand, what we know today about the sequence of events.
When I was in elementary school, one of the subjects we were supposed to be studying was transportation (second grade). For that segment of the morning, our teacher had us draw horses every single day for the entire year, except for the last week, when we drew pictures of chariots.
Same principle. It's a teaching method, one that puts things in their proper time perspective, or something close to it, in a way that you can never forget. Just as we need to remember for how short a time we had the wheel, much less the motor vehicle, we need to remember how short a time we have been here in the grand scheme of things. Imagine how confused people must have been before Genesis was written.
And how did the writer know this? Uncanny wisdom.
No need to postulate about light traveling at different speeds back then, for pete's sake.
http://www.creationevidence.org/
My friend, when we see each other in heaven, enabled so by our common Lord Jesus Christ, we'll have a good laugh about this. At least one of us is wrong---and perhaps both. But it will hardly matter to either of us then.
Not any that I know. Your statement is total codswallop.
According to Douglas Adams, the big questions are:
How are we born? Why are we born?...and Where shall we have lunch?
What does it say? What is the believer supposed to gather from it? Did it or did it not take 6 days? Personally I don't know and I will never know until reaching Heaven. God's ways are not our ways. But I do know that He did create it. I didn't come from a monkey, an amoeba, or a slug.
Ping for a few. Didn't know if y'all were here yet
When you deny the plain teaching of what Scripture says, you are playing with the same technique that Satan used when he tempted Eve, saying, Yea, Hath God Said...?
WHAT DOES GOD SAY?
EXODUS 20:11"For in ______ ___________ the LORD _____________ heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is."
Why do some people say that these 6 days were really ages?
Evolutionary scientists BELIEVE that life in its present form (including men, monkeys, giraffes, kangaroos, birds, fish, plants and all life as we know it today) is the product of an evolutionary process that has lasted about 4 BILLION YEARS (more or less, depending on the latest theories)! That is a very long time!
For the evolutionists it would be appropriate like to RE-WRITE Exodus 20:11 as follows:
"For in 4,000,000,000 years there evolved the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is."
How many DAYS is 4,000,000,000 years? How many days are there in one year? __________ DAYS
4,000,000,000 YEARS (the time needed for evolution)
X 365 DAYS (number of days in a year)
________________________________ 1,460,000,000,000 DAYS
or 1 TRILLION, 460 BILLION DAYS!!!
God God says in Exodus 20:11 that it took _____________ DAYS to create the world and all of its life forms. |
EVOLUTIONISTS Evolutionists say in their science books that it took ___________________________ DAYS for life to evolve to its present form. |
WHAT A DIFFERENCE! It is amazing and wonderful what our GREAT GOD can do in just six days! It is sad and pitiful that the god of the evolutionists (the god of chance) needs so much time to get his work done! But the evolutionists believe that if you have enough TIME, anything is possible! They believe in this simple formula:
PLENTY OF TIME + PLENTY OF CHANCE (lots of luck!) = AMAZING RESULTS (plants, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, people, etc.) |
Lets see if this is really true:
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If you were to carefully drop the blocks out of an airplane, do you think they would fall on the ground in just the right way to spell your name? If you repeated this experiment 50 times each day, do you think the blocks would ever fall in the right way and in the right order? If we depend on luck and chance, do things normally fall into order or into disorder? ____________________
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The evolutionists admit that evolution seems impossible and that the chances against it ever happening are great, but they claim that if you have enough TIME, anything is possible:
"The odds against the right molecules being in the right place at the right time (to form the first living cell) are staggering. Yet, as science measures it, so is the TIME SCALE on which nature works. Indeed, what seems an impossible occurrence at any one moment would, given untold eons (ages), become a certainty." (National Geographic Magazine, September 1976, page 390)
With time all things are possible! And the evolutionists believe that 4,000,000,00 years is enough time for all life on this planet to reach its present form, and all by chance!
GOD SAYS: |
EVOLUTIONISTS SAY: |
? ë Whom will you believe? ì ?
Lets think about this. If each of these "AGES" were of equal length, then how long would each "day-age" be?
4,000,000,000 years
divided by 6 days
= 666,666,666 years (in each "day-age")
Each "DAY-AGE" would be more than 666 MILLION YEARS! That is a very long day!
Were the days of creation really long periods of time? Were these days really AGES?
Before we answer this, we must first realize that the word "DAY" is sometimes used to describe a long period of time. Here are some examples:
(TIME = 1 YEAR) + (TIMES = 2 YEARS) + (½TIME = ½YEAR)
which makes a total of ___________ years
From these examples we see that it is possible to use the word "day" to describe a long period of time. The word "day" can also be used to describe a 12 hour period of time: "The sky was clear and the sun was shining all day!" Most of the time, however, we use the word "day" to describe a 24 hour period (scientifically defined as the time that the earth spins once on its axis). We might say, "There are seven days in every week." Here we are obviously referring to normal 24 hour days. The important question for us to ask is this: How is the word "day" used in Genesis Chapter 1?
God has carefully defined the word "day" by the expression "evening and morning." "And the _______________________ and the ________________________ were the first ________" (Genesis 1:5 and see verses 8,13,19,23,31).
There is something that every day contains: AN EVENING AND A MORNING!! How many days are represented below? E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M
_________ DAYS
Daniel 8:14 (according to the Hebrew text) says "Unto 2,300 evenings and mornings; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." How many days is this? _________ DAYS. See also Daniel 8:26.
Every 24 hour day has an evening and a morning. Does an AGE have an evening and a morning? _______ (a long period of time would have many, many evenings and mornings!) An age may have a beginning and an ending, but it does not have just one evening and morning!!
God also defines the word "day" by putting a NUMBER before it: "And the evening and the morning were the ______________ day" (Genesis 1:5). God tells us exactly what day it was. It was the FIRST DAY. See also Genesis 1:8,13,19,23,31 and Exodus 20:11 ("SIX days").
When a number comes before the word "day," it almost always refers to a literal 24 hour day. Compare Numbers 7:12,18,24,30,36,42,48, etc. Let us consider these examples:
In Genesis 1:5 God has told us what happened on "the ___________ _______." What kind of a day was this first day? Was it an age? In verse 5 God has said that this first day was made up of a period of light called ________ and a period of darkness called ______________. So we know that this first day was a day-night period. DAY 1 of the CREATION WEEK was a period of 12 HOURS OF LIGHT and 12 HOURS OF DARKNESS.
DAY (LIGHT) |
NIGHT (DARKNESS) |
12 Hours |
12 Hours |
24 TOTAL HOURS = THE FIRST DAY! |
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How many days are represented above? ________
Every 24 hour day has a DAY (period of light) and a NIGHT (period of darkness). Does an AGE have a DAY and a NIGHT? _________ (An age has many, many days and nights!)
Genesis 1:15-19 describes the fourth day of creation. In these verses the word "day" or "days" is used 5 times. Please match the following:
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The seventh day was a 24 hour day also (Genesis 2:1-3). On what day were Adam and Eve created (Genesis 1:26-31)? ____________________ Did God curse the earth on the seventh day, the day which He blessed (see Genesis 3:17-19 and Genesis 2:3)? ____ Did Adam and Eve live beyond the seventh day? _______ How old was Adam when he died (Genesis 5:4-5)? __________________ The seventh day was not a long age lasting thousands or millions of years. It was a 24 hour day just like the first six days. CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
The fourth commandment is found in Exodus 20:8-11 and in these verses the word "day" or "days" is used 6 times. To see how the word "day(s)" is used in these verses, please do the matching problem found at the top of page 35:
EXODUS 20
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Notice in Exodus 20:11 that the number _______ is placed before the word "days" (see pages 32-33). Your friend might say to you, "I worked on a paper for school and it took me six days to finish!" Do you think your friend meant days or ages? ______ (When you are doing schoolwork, it may seem like ages but it is really only days!) How long did it take God to finish His work of creation (Exodus 20:11)? _____________________ Do you think these were 24 hour days? ________
In these verses we learn that Gods WORKING AND RESTING was to serve as a pattern for Israels WORKING AND RESTING. God told the children of Israel that He wanted them to work six days (Sunday through Friday) and rest on the seventh day (Saturday) because this was exactly what God did when He created the heavens and earth (Exodus 20:11).
If the days of creation were ages, then the WORK DAYS for the children of Israel must also be ages (if we are to be consistent). Can you imagine a hard working Israeli man coming home after a days work and collapsing in his wifes arms, saying, "My dear wife, what a long and hard day of work I had! Today I worked 500 million years and I am really tired!! I cant wait for the Sabbath to come so that I can rest!"
Of course, this would be ridiculous! This is what happens when a person tries to make DAYS mean AGES. It becomes silly. On the following page we will learn that DAYS (PLURAL) can never be ages.
In Exodus 20:11 we are told that the LORD made everything in six days. The word "DAYS" is plural. When the word "day" is used in the plural (DAYS), it almost always refers to literal 24 hour days. The word "day" (singular) can be used of a period of time that is longer than 24 hours: "the day of the LORD" "The day of grace" "the day of trouble" "the day of modern science" etc. (see pages 31-32), but the moment a person speaks about DAYS (plural), he is talking about 24 hour days. Consider these examples:
We have already seen that the word "day" can be used to describe a 12 hour period of light (Genesis 1:5,14,16,18). The word "day" can also be used of a longer period of time (2 Peter 3:8-10; Jeremiah 30:7). But most of the time when we use the word "day" we are speaking of a 24 hour day. This is the normal and basic meaning of the word "day."
When we study the Bible we always should understand a word in its literal, normal, natural and basic meaning unless this meaning does not make sense. Here is our ruleIf the basic sense makes good sense, then seek no other sense, lest it result in nonsense.
Here are some examples:
Note: Roman Catholics have misunderstood this verse because they wrongly understand "blood" according to its basic meaning, and thus when they take the MASS they believe that the juice of the grape becomes the actual blood of Christ. Compare John 6:54 with John 6:40 where we see that eating His flesh and drinking His blood is equivalent to believing on Him.
Should we understand the days of creation to be literal 24 hour days (this is the basic meaning of the word)? Does this make good sense or does this make nonsense? Consider these questions:
The only reason some people think they need to make the six days of creation long periods of time (ages) is because they feel they need to give the "god" of the evolutionists enough time to do his work. The god of chance needs plenty of time (see page 30)! He could never have done it in six days! In fact it is doubtful that he could have done it even if he had 6 quadrillion days (6,000,000,000,000,000)!
Moses was the man God used to write the book of Genesis (Luke 24:27,44). Whenever you study the Bible you must ask yourself this important question: How did the original writer (in this case Moses) and the original listeners (the children of Israel) understand what was written?
Do you think Moses understood the days of creation to be long ages of time? Would the people who lived in the time of Moses have thought of these days as normal 24 hour days? Did they have any reason to think of these days as ages?
Moses and the people of his day believed that God began His work of creation on Sunday, created man on Friday and rested on Saturday. Do you believe what Moses believed?
Some people believe that if you make the days of creation ages (long periods of time), then Genesis chapter 1 teaches the same as evolution. They believe that the order of events in Genesis 1 is the same order of events as given by the evolutionists. Let us see if this is really true:
But God says the sun was made on DAY ______ and the earth was made on DAY _____. Therefore the earth is _______ days older than the sun! Was there LIGHT even before the sun was made? _______ On what day was this LIGHT created? DAY _____
But God says life in the ocean appeared on DAY _______ and life on land first appeared on DAY ______ (plant life). Thus, life on land appeared _____ DAYS before life appeared in the oceans (marine life).
But God says that birds were made on DAY ______ and land animals (which would included land reptiles) were not made until DAY ______. Birds are _____ DAY older than reptiles! Could birds have evolved from reptiles? ______ Certainly reptiles did not evolve from birds! (Not even the evolutionists would say this!). The Bible says God made the birds and God made the reptiles. Reptiles did not precede birds by hundreds of thousands of years.
"Every thinking person knows that birds were created before reptiles, because that is what God has told us in His Word."
But God says that whales and other great monsters of the sea were created on DAY _____ and land mammals were not made until DAY _____. Which came first, the whale or the pig? _________________ Do you think the whale has evolved from pig-like animals? ________ Therefore whales are ______ DAY older than land mammals! For a land mammal to become a whale he would need to return to the water, lose his hair and grow about 50 times as big! Do you think this really happened? ______ A large elephant (the largest land mammal) weighs about 7 tons! A blue whale (the largest kind of whale) weighs about 150 tons! The whale did not evolve by chance; it was created by God!
But God says that insects (creeping things) were not created until DAY _____ and plant life appeared on DAY ______. This means that plant life appeared _______ DAYS before insects. Do you think plants and flowers could survive for 3 ages without insects? ______ Do you think plants and flowers could survive for 3 days without insects? _____
"I was on time! The all-wise Creator created me at just the right timeon the sixth day of the creation week! Thats when I started making honey!!"
But God says that men and apes were both created on DAY _______.
But God says that life (vegetation) appeared on DAY _____ and the sun was not made until DAY ______. It is possible for life to begin without the sun but can life begin without the CREATOR? ______ Who is the source of life, the sun or the CREATOR (see Acts 17:28)? _______ Life owes its existence not to the SUN but to the SON OF GOD (see John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16).
Please indicate on which DAY of creation the following were made:
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You cannot listen to both God and the evolutionists! They do not teach the same thing! If Genesis chapter 1 is true (and it is!), then evolution is false. If evolution is true, then Genesis chapter 1 is false, and the Bible is filled with errors. But the Lord Jesus said that the Word of God is ___________ (John 17:17) and we know that Gods Word is __________ from the ___________________ (Psalm 119:160). Who should you believe the CREATOR or the evolutionists? Will you put your faith in the false god of the evolutionists who needs billions of years to do his work, or will you put your faith in an Almighty Creator who can create all things in 6 DAYS?
As you observe and study the world around you, you will discover that all the true facts of science and all the true laws of science agree perfectly with the Bible and with the book of Genesis! Do you think it is possible for BOOK 1 (Gods revelation in nature) to contradict BOOK 2 (Gods revelation in His Word)? _______ (see pages 14-21). Who wrote Book 1? __________ Who wrote Book 2? _____________ God is the Author of both! This is why both books say the same thing. And both books point to the greatness of the C________________, who is blessed forever, Amen (see Romans 1:25). Sad to say, the books that the evolutionists write often do not agree with the true facts of science and they certainly do not agree with Gods Word the Bible! CHOOSE you this day! (See Joshua 24:15.) Choose the true God of creation or the false God of the evolutionists (the God of chance)!
The Middletown Bible Church |
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Neither did I. '[A]nd God saw that it was good,' and 'the evening and the morning were the first day.'
The God that created this universe certainly has the power to create it in 6 literal 24 hour days.
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