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<2021.08> God’s Plan Reflected in the Process of the Creation

Sunday School Teachers Meeting, 2004
God’s Plan Reflected in the Process of the Creation
November 26th, 2004
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.  Romans 1:20
A Shadow of the True Object
 Last time, as we were studying the first day of the creation in the book of Genesis, we found the Bible says, “So the evening and the morning were the first day” (1:5). I said that according to the Jewish calendar, a day begins in the evening and goes through to sunset the following day. Moses wrote this from the perspective of the Israelites.
 You may wonder when time as we know it began. I have already said the light that appeared on the first day of the creation is not necessarily the light from the sun. It was on the fourth day that Moses was able to see clearly the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the earth. Nevertheless, the Bible says, “the evening and the morning were the first day,” so we should think of the day at that time as being the same as a day as we know it now.
In hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.  Titus 1:2
 In this verse in the Korean Bible, it says, “from the time of eternity,” but here, the New King James Version says, “before time began.” The New American Standard Bible says, “long ages ago,” and the King James Version says, “before the world began.” 
 When we read the Bible, we tend to look at everything from our own perspective, and we wonder if the “day” referred to in the Bible is actually one day according to our calculations. As we read the Bible, however, we find that God’s original concept of time existed even before the time with which we are familiar came into being. There was a period of time for God that He describes as one day. God gave us what we call “time” in order to reveal “a day” to man, and man expresses it as twenty-four hours. In other words, it is not that 24 hours are one day, but rather that man has divided into 24 hours the period of time that God has designated as one day. It is by man’s standards that we think of a day as being twenty-four hours.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.  Romans 1:20
 Everything God has made explains the things of God. The sun, for example, that shines continuously upon the earth is a shadow of the true nature of God. The moon, which receives the light of the sun and reflects it on to the earth, is a shadow of Israel in Old Testament times and the church in New Testament times. Then as God made man on the sixth day of the creation, He said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). In Acts chapter 17, it says that God created all these things so that man might grope for God and find Him (see verse 27). All the natural world around us that we sense, touch, and see reflects images of the actual essence of God. All creation is a shadow of the true things of God.
 Let’s turn to Revelation chapter 21 verse 23. This passage talks about the new Jerusalem—the new heaven and new earth that will come down from heaven.
The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 
 Now let’s read chapter 22 verse 5. 
There shall be no night there: they need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.  
 There will be no need for the light of the sun or the moon, and there will be no night. Now, let’s read chapter 22 verses 1 and 2.
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
 There will be no need of light from the sun or the moon, and there will be no night, but it says the tree bore fruit “every month.” This is really strange. There was no need for the light of the sun or the moon, so how could there have been a month?
 We caculate the period of month by observing the sun. The original month was a period of time designated by God. For God, one month is the same period of time as we are aware of on the earth, but that period of time is not expressed through the movements of the sun and the moon. It is because we are able to observe the movements of the sun that we are aware of the period of one month designated by God.
 The period of time that God refers to as “a day” is the same period of time as the 24-hour day that we know, but God does not necessarily calculate a day as twenty-four hours. The time of which we are aware is the time that God originally ordained, and it is simply that we carry watches around with us to calculate this time for us. As we read in the book of Ecclesiastes, it is because man lives under the sun that he needs help to understand the period of one day.
 When we try to understand the Bible from our own perspective, we take the words, “So the evening and the morning were the first day,” and start questioning whether this is in fact one day. Since God said this was “the first day,” the easiest approach is to think of it as one day.
 You may also wonder if perhaps time began on the fourth day, since we express a day in relation to the sun and the moon, but in the Bible, it already says on the first day, “So the evening and the morning were the first day.” Moses would have written this as he observed God showed to him beginning the creation. It is good to believe the Bible just as it stands.
 You may also wonder how the plants and trees that yield seed could have grown first on the third day, when only the sun and the moon were made visible to Moses on the fourth day. In the Bible, however, it does not say the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day. I believe that the sun, the moon, and all the celestial bodies were first formed at the same time as the earth, but they only became clearly visible to Moses on the fourth day.
 If you read the Bible carefully, you will see that the sun and the moon definitely existed from the first day. When God divided the waters below the firmament from the waters above the firmament on the second day, this came about by the force of gravitational pull. The moon must have come into play at that time in order for such a vast quantity of water to have moved. 
 When the Bible talks about light here, too, we should not see it as merely referring to the light of the sun. It is because of invisible light rays that we are able to use the mobile phones that we carry around. The kind of energy that is necessary for seeds and plants to grow was already present in the earth on the first day. It is because this light was there, that when God said on the third day, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth,” and it was so (Genesis 1:11). The source of life that enabled the growth of the herb that yields seed and the fruit tree that yields fruit lay with God. When God commanded that the earth bring forth all this vegetation, and it was so, we must conclude that this came about by some kind of scientific force.
 If the sun had been created on the fourth day, the command given on the third day could not have been fulfilled. Three thousand five hundred years ago, God revealed the six-day process of the creation of the heavens and the earth to the prophet by the name of Moses. The account of the six-day creation found in Genesis was recorded through Moses to show the process of events that he witnessed at that time.
 On the fourth day of the creation, the Bible says, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens” (Genesis 1:14). Perhaps you are wondering how the sun and moon could have been in the firmament when they are located in the second heaven. When Moses received these words from God in the wilderness and wrote them down, he saw all these things from a human perspective. When God showed Moses this image of the fourth day of the creation, Moses came to understand the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the earth.
 If you read this verse carefully, you will see that it says, “the firmament of the heavens.” It does not say, “the firmament of the earth,” it says, “the firmament of the heavens.” The firmament of the earth was formed on the second day of the creation. The firmament of the earth is modeled after the firmament of the heavens. Once again, God showed the process of the creation of the firmament of the earth as a miniature version of the process of the creation of the firmament of the heavens.
 The Bible says, “God made two great lights” (Genesis 1:16). What would have happened if the sun and moon had not been there on the third day, and then God suddenly made them on the fourth day? If that great ball of fire had come hurtling towards the earth from far away on the fourth day, it would have crashed into the earth, and the earth would have been shattered. If the distance between the moon and the earth were even just slightly different, there would probably be
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