Bible Study Course

Book of Genesis

Part 2

Chapter 7

Genesis 1:17-18 (continued)

#1—God made the sun, moon, and stars to give light upon the earth.

#2—God made the SUN, and coupled with the rotation speed of the earth, this provides us the length of time for our DAYS.

1. Genesis 1:14 says, “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 ________, and __________.”

God had already given the earth a rotation speed of 24 hours to make a complete cycle

(we talked about this matter in the section on Genesis 1:4-5).

2. Luke 4:40 says, “Now when the ______ was ______________, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.”

The sun sets gradually—not suddenly, because the earth is rotating in front of the light of the sun.

Note:  Take a globe of the world and a flashlight, and go to a darkened room.  Hold the flashlight about 24 inches from the globe, and point it at it.  Stand over the top of the globe, and rotate it slowly, watching the light gradually lighten some countries, and on the opposite side, watching the countries gradually darken. 

The earth is said to measure 24,000+ miles around at the equator.  To factor the speed at which the earth is rotating, we would divide 24,000 (the miles around the earth) by 24 (the amount of hours in a day), and that equals 1,000.  This means that the earth, at the equator, is spinning about 1,000 miles per hour.  As you go toward the North and South Poles, the speed decreases, because the circumference of the earth grows smaller and smaller as you get closer to the Poles.

The earth rotating in front of the sun and its light, gives us a measurement for our days—24 hours.

#1—God made the sun, moon, and stars to give light upon the earth.

#2—God made the SUN, and coupled with the rotation speed of the earth, this provides us the length of time for our DAYS.

#3—God made the MOON to provide us with a measurement for our MONTHS and our SEASONS.

1.  1 Samuel 20:5 says, “And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, to morrow is the ______ moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even.”

2. Psalms 104:19 says, “He appointed the ________ for ______________: the sun knoweth his going down.”

Note:  The new moon is not visible to our eyes; but as the nights progress in the month, there will come a sliver of light on the right side of the moon.  Each night, that portion of light on the right side of the moon will grow larger—until the entire moon is lit at night, which is called a full moon.

Then, as the nights progress, the light will keep moving toward the left side of the moon, and the right side will become more and more dark, until only a sliver of light is left on the left side of the moon.  Then, the process starts over again with a new moon.

This cycle of the moon takes about 30 days to complete, so it gives us 12 time periods in a year (12 months).

#1—God made the sun, moon, and stars to give light upon the earth.

#2—God made the SUN, and coupled with the rotation speed of the earth, this provides us the length of time for our DAYS.

#3—God made the MOON to provide us with a measurement for our

         MONTHS and our SEASONS.

#4—God also made the STARS to provide us with a measurement for our SEASONS.

Note:  The stars and their constellations show the different seasons of the year.  The word constellation means, “pattern, arrangement” (Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary).

As we look up into the sky at night, certain configurations of stars have been given names.  Different constellations of stars appear in the four seasons of the year (spring, summer, fall, and winter).  So the season of the year can be told by the star constellation that is in view.  Pegasus and Andromeda can be seen in the Fall.  Orion can be seen in the Winter.  Leo and Virgo can be seen in the Spring.  Sagittarius and Hercules can be seen in the Summer (Ask An Astronomer, http://curious.astro.cornell.edu).  The Bible mentions some of the constellations by name.

1. In Job 9:8-9, Job was speaking of God and mentioned some of the constellations that He had made, “Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.  Which maketh ________________, __________, and ________________, and the chambers of the south.”

2. God mentions some of these constellations, and more, when He answers Job in Job 38:31-33, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of ________________, or loose the bands of __________?   Canst thou bring forth __________________ in his ____________? or canst thou guide ________________ with his sons?  Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?”

Notice, there, how it mentions a certain constellation “in his SEASON.”

God created these alignments of stars to mark the seasons.

3. Amos 5:8 says, “Seek him that ____________ the seven stars and __________, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The ________ is his name.”

God wants you prepared for the coming seasons, just like He wants you prepared for eternity.

Do you know what is coming for you?

Note:  Are you seeking the Lord?  He is the One who made all these constellations of stars, so that man might tell what season is coming.

Have you ever noticed how common it is for people to talk about the weather and about the seasons—but not to talk about GOD and ETERNITY?

4. Matthew 16:1 says, “The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and ________________ desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.”

Note:  These people claimed to be religious people, but they were not saved.

5. Matthew 16:2-3 says, “He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be ________ weather: for the sky is red.  And in the morning, It will be ________ weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye ____________________, ye can discern the ________ of the sky; but can ye not discern the __________ of the times?”

Those people paid attention to the weather (to the sky) to prepare for the next DAY

—but they ignored the multitude of signs that Jesus had already shown to them,

that He was the Messiah, and that they needed to repent and to prepare for ETERNITY.

6. Matthew 16:4 says, “A __________ and ____________________ generation seeketh after a ________; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet __________. And he left them, and departed.”

Note:  The sign of the prophet Jonas (Jonah), was that he was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, and then was delivered.

7. Matthew 12:40 says, “For as __________ was three days and three nights in the ____________ belly; so shall the ______ of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the __________.”

Note: This was prophesying of Jesus’ death on the cross; His burial, and then His resurrection three days later.

8. Matthew 12:41 says, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they ________________ at the __________________ of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”

Note:  Jonah did not perform any miracles or wonders before the people—he simply preached, and they repented. 

Jesus told these people that they were paying attention to the signs that God gives for daily weather, but they were ignoring the warnings that He was giving about eternity.

Do you often talk to people about the weather?  How often do you talk to people about eternity?

God created the stars so accurate in their courses, that they can also be used by navigators

on ships and in airplanes to chart their courses, and to tell exactly where they are at night.

This is how ships and planes navigated at night, when there were no GPS satellites and services.

Note:  Would that be possible if evolution were true?  Many books on evolution taught that matter was once a highly compressed ball, no bigger than a period on a page—and then it exploded.  To illustrate their theory, notice the following diagram.

Imagine that this circle is the evolutionists’ highly compressed ball (although this circle is much bigger than a period on a page).  The lines and arrows illustrate the direction that the pieces are going to take, when the dot explodes.  With two of your fingers, follow two lines next to each other, out and beyond the page (making sure that each finger is following the angle of direction that each line is pointing).  Go out about two feet from the page, and then hold your fingers there.  See how far apart they are now?  Look back just two feet to the page, where your fingers were touching at the dot.  You are only two feet away from the page, and your fingers are now separated by many inches. 

If the theory of evolution were true, then there would be no constellations of stars in the sky for very long,

because the stars would be so rapidly moving away from each other, that they would no longer line up correctly.

Illustration:  Deer hunters know a little about how precise a position must be, to have certain shapes appear.  As the light begins to dawn in the woods, deer hunters sometimes think that they see a deer, because from the angle where they are sitting, branches on a tree line up in such a way that it looks like a deer.  But when the hunter finally stands up, or slowly begins to walk in that direction, the alignment of the branches change, and the hunter quickly sees that it is not a deer at all, but an alignment that make it appear that way—only from that specific position.

If the theory of evolution and its explanation of matter were true, the same thing would happen with the alignment of the stars.  There would be no constellations, because the alignment of the stars would not stay the same long enough to look like anything in particular.  They would be moving too fast away from each other.  It would also be impossible to make accurate charts of the stars to guide airplanes and ships, because the course of the stars would be quickly changing from night-to-night.

There is another big problem for the evolutionists.  If all of the matter

in the entire universe were condensed into a ball the size of a period—would it fit? 

Note:  The size of the planet earth is said to be 260 billion cubic miles in volume (http://www.caroun.com/Geography/General/Earth.html).  Common sense should tell a person that all of that could never fit into a space the size of a period—no matter how much you compact it!

The size of the sun is so large, that NASA says it would take one million planet earths to fill up the interior of the sun (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970518a.html).  Remember, the evolutionist’s dot is supposed to have held the mass of the sun, too.

What about the stars?  It is said that the star Eta Carinae, is about 800 times bigger than our sun (http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question21.html).  And that is only one star—out of the billions and billions of stars in space.

Faith—Or Foolishness?

Evolutionists reject the account of God creating the heaven and the earth,

because they say that it takes “faith” to believe that.  They say that creation

cannot be explained in “rational” terms.  What is rational about believing

that all of matter came from a highly compressed dot the size of

a period on this page?  That would mean that:

P  The earth, which is 260 billion cubic miles in volume,

P  The sun, which is big enough to hold one million earths,

P  The star Eta Carinae—800 times larger than the sun,

P  And, then, also consider the following:

In 2003-04, the Hubble Telescope orbiting the earth was used to do an Ultra Deep Field scan of the sky.  To understand how small of an area they were scanning, they say it would be like viewing a square less than 1 mm in size, held 1 meter away from your eye. 

Do the test for yourself.  The smallest mark on most rulers is 1/16 of an inch—but that is too big, because that is a little over 1 1/2 mm.  Draw a square on a piece of paper that is less that 1/16 of an inch, and tape it to the end of a yardstick.  Go to the window where you can see the sky, and hold the yardstick about 3-4 inches away from your eye, with the little paper taped to the opposite end (this puts the paper about 1 meter away from your eye).  See the tiny little square on the piece of paper?  Imagine it was cut out.  The amount of sky you could view through that tiny little square, is the size of the sky that the Hubble Telescope was scanning. 

What do you suppose that they saw in that tiny little area of the sky?

One star?  Three stars?  No, they saw 10,000 objects in that tiny little square.

Surprisingly, most of those objects were not single stars—they were whole galaxies!

The earth is in the Milky Way Galaxy.  Look straight up in the sky.  See that white, milky color?  Those are stars—stars that are so far away, and so abundant, that your eye just sees it as a milky color.  In that area are billions and billions of stars—more than you could ever distinguish and count.

So just think—in that tiny square, less than 1 mm, the Hubble Telescope saw thousands and thousands of whole galaxies—which would number trillions and trillions of stars—more than man could ever count.

Now stop and think.  Evolution teaches that all of the matter in the whole universe came from a highly compressed dot, no bigger than a period on this page.  Those trillions and trillions of stars, many of which are hundreds of times larger than the earth—all of them came from one tiny little dot the size of a period on this page?  And they are saying that is rational, scientific thinking? 

Why would any intelligent person ever believe such nonsense?

Because the only other alternative is to accept the fact that there is an intelligent Designer,

GOD, who created the heaven and the earth, with all of the planets, and stars, and galaxies.

To acknowledge God as the Creator, is to also acknowledge then that He has all rights of

ownership over the universe, and that all people must answer to Him one day.

Rather than acknowledge that, many people have chosen to believe

the ridiculous lie of the Big Bang Theory and Evolution.

9. Psalms 24:1 says, “The __________ is the ____________, and the fulness thereof; the world, and ________ that __________ therein.”

Note:  People will believe anything other than creation, no matter how ridiculous it is (like evolution), to get away from the thought of having to answer to God one day. 

This shows the truth, that EVOLUTION is ATHEISM 101.

10. Psalms 14:1 says, “The ________ hath said in his heart, There is ____ God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”

11. Psalm 19:1 says, “The ______________ declare the __________ of ______; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

Note:  The mighty size, beauty, and glory of space, leaves a person without excuse for not believing in God.

12. Psalm 19:2-3 says, “Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth __________________.  There is no ____________ nor ________________, where their voice is not heard.”

Review:

1. The sun sets __________________—not suddenly, because the earth is rotating in front of the light of the sun.

2. The earth, rotating in front of the sun and its light, gives us a length of time for our days, which is ____ hours.

3. The cycle of the moon takes about 30 days to complete, so it gives us 12 time periods in a year (12 ____________).

4. God also made the stars to provide us with a measurement for our ______________.

5. God created the stars so ________________ in their courses, that they can also be used by navigators on ships and in airplanes to chart their courses, and to tell exactly where they are at night.  This is how ships and planes navigated at night, when there were no GPS satellites and services.

6. If the theory of evolution were true, then there would be no constellations of stars in the sky for very long, because the stars would be so rapidly moving ________ from each other, that they would no longer ________ up correctly.

7. There is another big problem for the evolutionists.  If all of the matter in the entire universe were condensed into a ball the size of a period—would it ______? 

8. Evolutionists reject the account of God creating the heaven and the earth, because they say that it takes __________ to believe that.

9. People will believe anything other than creation, no matter how ridiculous it is (like evolution, and the Big Bang Theory), to get away from the thought of having to answer to ______ one day.  This shows the truth, that Evolution IS Atheism.

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