6 days and why it matters ------------------------- (Chris Perver - chris.planb@dnet.co.uk) There are many Christians today that believe in evolution. Who wouldn't? After all, from an early age our children are indoctrinated through school, and books, and television, to believe that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago. Ask any four year old and they will happily explain to you how we came from monkeys. In this age of technology we think we have all the answers. Or so our scientists tell us, and we believe them. I guess that's what the scientists told us when they believed the world was flat. But compared to God we know next door to NOTHING, Job 5:13 says, 'He taketh the wise in their own craftiness'. Many Christians have absolutely no problems believing God took billions of years to create the world. In fact, many Christians will go on believing God used evolution, even after the scientists themselves have stopped believing it! Why is it that when man says one thing, and God says another, man is exalted for his wisdom and God ignored? Though there are other Christians who, when the scientists throw out the theory of evolution or the 'big bang' (Which should have been thrown out decades ago) will happily reinterpret Genesis accordingly. When man's continually changing theories change again, why is it that it is always God's unchanging Word that gets edited? Men impose these great theories and ideas on Genesis, like 'what if the days were millions of years?', and 'what if there is a gap between such-and-such a verse and'...You get the picture. Yet what they fail to realize is that God's Word is for all to understand. Why would God write a book that only scientists could read? 2Cor 11:3 says, 'But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ' Even a child can understand, from the plainest reading of Scripture, that God created the heavens and earth in only 6 ordinary days. Yet even a scientist, who has knowledge far beyond that of the child, fails to understand it because of its simplicity. When a progressive creationist gets to heaven, he will probably ask the Creator, 'How many days did you take to create the world?'. 'Haven't ye read?', God would ask. 'I know what it says', he would argue, 'but what does it mean?'. 'It means what it says', would be God's mirthful answer. So here are some of the problems theistic evolutionists and progressive creationsts will encounter if they believe the gap theory, or the days of Genesis were long periods of time, etc... (Sometimes I speak from the view point of theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists). o Denying, first of all the literal meaning of the text. The word day in Hebrew is 'yom', and when followed by a number and 'evening and morning', it always means a normal 24 hour day. There is not a professor of Hebrew at any leading university in the world which believes the author of Genesis intended to convey to the reader that God took more than 6 ordinary days in creating the world. o Accepting death before Adam's sin. Which makes God a liar when He said to Adam, 'for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die', Gen 2:17, Rom 5:12, 1Cor 15. The punishment for Adam's sin was spiritual AND physical death, which can be seen by the fact that so Adam should not live forever in his fallen state, God bars him from the tree of life (Gen 3:22-23). The wages of sin is also made no longer death (Rom 6:23), as death existed before sin. Which also conflicts with Ezek 18:4, 'The soul that sinneth it shall die'. o Denying the good nature and omnipotence of God. God saw His creation at the end of every day as 'good', 'very good' and 'perfect'. What sort of a God would see billions of years of meaningless death and bloodshed as good? What sort of power does a God hold that needs to rely on the natural process He created in order to create the heavens and earth? If He IS God, why can't He demonstrate His power and glory by creating the heavens and earth miraculously, and not relying on those natural processes? He did create the earth miraculously, and that is why it says in Psalm 19:1, 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork'. o Rejecting the doctrine of marriage. The reason we have marriage is because God created a man and a woman 'in the beginning', Gen 2:24, Mark 10:6-9. If God did not originally create a man and woman in the beginning, a man or women is free to marry which ever sex they choose. This also proves God really created man and woman 'in the beginning of creation', and not billions of years later after they evolved. o Rejecting the doctrine of the 7 day week. The reason why God created the earth in 6 days was for as a pattern for man. (Ex 20:9-11). If you say a day in Genesis is an indefinate amount of time, then it would be silly to assume here that God is asking us to work for 6 indefinate amounts of time, and rest for 1 indefinate amount of time. Although some people tell me that's what work seems like :). o Accepting Adam died before the beginning of day 7, before God even finished His creation. o Accepting God made us out of chimps, and not the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7). When God cursed man, He said, 'Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return', Gen 3:19. He did NOT say, 'Monkeys thou art, and to monkeys shalt thou return'. When a person dies, they don't degenerate to an ape. o Accepting we are made in the image of chimps, and not God Himself (Gen 1:26). o Denying God created Eve out of Adam's rib (Gen 2:21-24). How can the human race have evolved and reproduced if women didn't exist before Adam? It didn't. Also, obviously God created Eve at a time when Adam was fully formed, not when he was a chimp, as he is able to name Eve himself (Gen 2:23). o Rejecting the order God used in creation, which is opposite to the 'big bang'. God created everything without any available material. God created light on day 1, and the sun on day 4. God created the earth in the beginning, and the rest of the universe on day 4. God created birds on day 5, before He created land animals on day 6, which is opposite to evolution. Evolutionists will have you believe birds evolved from dinosaurs! And God created man and dinosaurs (Yes, ALL land animals) on day 6, He didn't create man millions of years after dinosaurs had all died out. God also made Adam's nostrils before he could breathe (Gen 2:7). o Denying Adam was able to name ALL the animals.(Gen 2:18-20). After all, there would have been many animals which died out long before Adam, that he never even knew about. o Rejecting the geneologies of the Bible, and ultimately the geneology of Christ (Luke 3:23-38), which all trace from a literal Adam, and don't go back further than Adam, as Adam truly was the first man. o Denying Adam was the first man (1Cor 15:45) and Eve was the first woman. Evolution takes a lot of time, and there is no way you can suddenly achieve a man from an ape. There would have been men that existed before Adam was born. Didn't Adam have a father? Didn't Eve have a mother? Not so, after all Eve was named Eve because she was the mother of ALL LIVING, not just some of the people living (Gen 3:20). o Accepting Adam had a father, which conflicts with Luke 3:38 which specifically says Adam was a son of God, and not a man. o Denying the heavens and the earth were finished at the end of day 6 (Gen 2:1), but believing they are continually evolving. o Denying God made life to reproduce 'after its kind', Gen 1:21,25, but believing an amoeba can evolve into a man, and snails into whales and quails, and cats into rats and bats and gnats, and fleas into pekenese. o Destroy the first Adam, and you inevitably destroy the last Adam (1Cor 15:45). Evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. If there was no literal garden, in which a literal Adam and a literal Eve ate a literal forbidden fruit, and as a result were cursed with the literal punishment of death, then there can be no literal sacrafice on a literal cross by a literal Saviour to pay the literal penaulty for a literal curse, as there was no literal curse and no original paradise to begin with. o Denying God created man and beast on day 6 (Genesis 1:24-27), but believeing dinosaurs existed and died out millions of years before man. Job 40:15 confirms this. God is describing a dinosaur-like animal to Job called Behemoth (Which lived at the same time as Job, proving dinosaurs didn't die out millions of years ago). God says 'Behold now Behemoth which I made with thee'. God made man at the same time He made this wonderful creature. o Denying animals were originally created to eat herbs, and not meat (Gen 1:29-30), as before Adam sinned, there could be no death. This is not inconceivable, as the giant panda has sharp teeth and claws, yet eats bamboo. And the fruit bat has sharp teeth. Yet evolutionists would tell you these animals evolved sharp teeth to eat meat, so now they can eat herbs! We are told in the Bible one day this order of things will be restored. Even the lion will eat straw like the ox (Isa 11:7), which have been known to eat grass when meat isn't available. o Denying Jesus Christ created all things (All means all), and without Him nothing would be made that is made (John 1:3). Theistic evolution/progressive creation lets God sleep for a few billion years while evolution takes care of things. Zzzzzzz... o Denying Noah's flood ever occured, or believing it was a local event (Even though Gen 7:20 says the water rose 15 cubits above the highest mountains), as if it was global it would wipe out the fossil record. As evolutionists don't believe the fossil record is a grim reminder of God's punishment on a fallen world, but the result of millions of years of death and struggle. If God said He would never again DESTROY the WORLD with a flood, if Noah's flood was local and not global, then God lied, as there have been many terrible floods since (Gen 9:11-17). God also lied when He said ALL life on earth was destroyed except that which was in the ark (Gen 7:21-23). o Denying God will restore the earth back to the way it was before the flood (Acts 3:21), and eventually back to the way it was before the fall, when He creates the new heavens and earth (Rev 21). If there was no original paradise, there can be no future one. Would God restore things to the way they were, with death, struggle and bloodshed? And also, if God used evolution to create this world, how will He use it to create the new one, when John specifically says 'There was no more death', Rev 21:4. And if you believe God will create the new earth without using evolution, could He not have also created this earth without it? o Denying we will get our new incorruptable bodies 'in the twinkling of an eye', 1Cor 15:51-56. If God used millions of years of evolution to create our fleshly bodies, it will take Him an absolute eternity for us to evolve into our new incorruptable bodies. How long did it take Christ to receive His new body? He had it in at least 3 days after dieing. So if God can give us new bodies instantly, could it not be possible that He also created our fleshly bodies quickly too? So. Are you impressed with a God that takes zillions of years to get the job done? In court, a witness' testimony is accepted regardless of what any evidence to a crime there is. Even if creation is a better theory scientifically than evolution (It's true), since only God was there when He created the world, should we not accept His word, regardless of what the 'evidence' shows? Let's believe the Bible.