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A logical question that comes up about
Noah’s flood is where is all of that water that covered this entire planet,
including its mountains? (Ge 7:20).
Fundamentalists go to Ge 2:6, take the
word “mist”, change it to “cloud vapor” and force it into the Creation in Ge 1 to get the following:
Then they say this belt of cloud vapor,
which they think was miles thick, protected the earth from harmful solar
radiation, kept the earth’s climate mild, and mists from this huge belt of
cloud vapor came down from the sky and watered the earth. But
this is so close to being rain, which also falls from above, that others
say the “cloud vapor/mist” caused a “dew” that watered
the earth. And one day God caused this huge belt of cloud vapor to collapse and
flood the earth. After the flood most of the water seeped into the center of the
earth, and the clouds we have today are but a leftover token of the huge belt
of cloud vapor that once was.
This is widely taught and believed today
by people who know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. It is not in
the Bible and it contradicts what the Bible does say. (It also would mean
everyone from Adam to Noah lived under a permanent, dark overcast, never saw
the sun and moon rise and set, never saw the stars, and were therefore unable
to put those heavenly bodies to the use for which they were intended according
to Ge 1:14-18.)
Notice, for example, that while this
theory says the mist that watered the earth came down from the sky, Ge 2:6 says it actually went up from the
earth to water the surface of the earth.
Now carefully notice the implications of
the wording in Ge 8:3. If the “mists”
above the earth collapsed, flooded the earth, and then soaked into the earth,
then they did not “return from off the earth” like the Bible
says. And if this absurd theory is true and there really was a “vapor belt” then,
there should be one now because the Bible says the waters returned to
where they came from. And today, even if all the clouds rained and the polar
ice melted, there would be very little flooding. These theories just do not
hold water.
What is the answer? It’s in the Book:
Ge
1:1: God created the earth.
Ge
1:2: Not surprisingly, “the deep” is also called
“the waters.”
Ge 1:6-10: When you draw the
picture from these verses it still looks like the usual fundamentalist view.
But notice in the above picture something is missing;
we have stopped short of a very necessary and telling ingredient: The
universe. Let’s go back to the Bible:
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Ge
1:14-17: Here carefully pay
attention to God’s description of His creation. He put lights in the
firmament. These lights are the sun, the moon, and the stars. That info
makes a big difference:
What we learn from this is, since the firmament contains
the sun, moon, and stars, the waters above the firmament surround the
universe! The universe is not infinite – but the space above the upper
waters (the deep) is infinite. And since the sun, moon, and stars are
what God used to establish time (Ge 1:14-18),
the area above the upper waters is timeless – it is eternity. Therefore only
those with everlasting life can go there. Mortality is a slave to time;
therefore mortal beings are restricted to this universe.
Let’s remember the info in Ge
1:7,8 as we look at Noah’s flood in Ge 7:10-12: The windows of heaven were opened.
Because of Ge 1:8,9,17 we
can use the words heaven and firmament interchangeably. So for
clarity let’s say: The windows of the firmament were opened so the
fountains of the great deep could rain down upon the earth and flood it
completely. And now that the earth is flooded, let’s use the interchangeability
of words in Ge 1:2 to make Ge
7:18
say: “…and the ark went upon the face of the deep”
in order to stress where the floodwaters came from.
This
would not contradict Ge
8:2,3 because our scenario says: The deep, which
had rained down through the windows of the firmament of heaven, stopped and
later returned from off the earth to whence it came.
Our
universe is contained in a huge bubble of water the Bible calls the deep.
That doesn’t come from modern science; it comes from God’s word.
Let’s take a brief look at “dark matter” in
order to see how a Bible believer might use discernment when he reads the daily
newspaper. The Big Bang theory so popular with scientists says a ball of matter
exploded, driving the matter outward. But the outward-traveling bits of matter
did not continue to expand and get farther away from each other. Instead, some
of them got close enough so gravitational attraction could pull them into
swirling galaxies. All stars are in galaxies. The galaxies are far away from
each other. So far, in fact, that all the stars we see at
night are in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
In between galaxies science always thought there was nothing – no stars, “no
nothing;” just the void and vacuum of outer space.
But
that didn’t sit well with scientists because if the Big Bang did happen, all of
that outward-traveling matter would not have collected into galaxies
with nothing in between. In fact, it is stretching it to say that even 10% of
the matter would have randomly collected into galaxies. That leaves 90% of the
matter in the universe missing out there somewhere. And that makes the theory
look pretty weak.
But
along comes the C.O.B.E. Project, which you probably read in the news provided
“confirming evidence” of the Big Bang theory. In essence, scientists aimed
sensitive radiation-detecting equipment out in space between galaxies in an
effort to see if anything is really there in the void. (In
other words, looking for the missing 90% of the Big Bang theory.)
They
used radiation-detecting equipment because all matter emits radiation – heat
radiation, since nothing exists at a temperature of absolute zero. And out in
the “void” or “vacuum” of space between galaxies they recorded a faint wavy
line. (A flat line would mean nothing was there.)
So
the big news, they say, is the missing 90% of the universe has been found.
Since they cannot see the matter they call it dark matter. And that dark
matter is believed to validate the Big Bang theory. And from their Reasonable
scientific perspective you and I can see how they’d think they are on the right
track. And their error doesn’t bother us at all; they can bark at the moon all
they want. But you and I have an advantage over scientists because you and I
are not prohibited by the rules of philosophy from letting the Bible guide our
thoughts.
Think
of a fish bowl or a birdcage, for example: Everything in it – fish or birds –
has detectable radiation. And even if we can’t see the water or the air
they still emit radiation because there is something there. So we don’t
say the space between the fish and birds is a void or vacuum,
because that space is not nothing; it is
something. And we don’t call that radiation-emitting-but-invisible stuff dark
matter, because we’ve already called it air and water.
OK,
what’s the point? The point is you and I knew all of this stuff about the
universe long before the Big Bang theory and the C.O.B.E. Project:
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God
made the fish and the birds. So they really exist – they aren’t nothing, a void, or a vacuum. And God made the water and the
air. So they also really exist. Why do they exist? Because
God created them. What did God do with the birds and the fish? He
put them in the invisible air and water.
God
also made the sun, the moon, and the stars. So they really exist – they aren’t nothing, a void, or a vacuum. And God made the firmament.
So it also really exists. Why does it exist? Because God created
it. What did God do with the sun, moon, and stars? He put them in the
invisible firmament (Ge 1:17). So all these years
while scientists have been barking at the moon and telling us the sun, moon,
and stars were in nothing, a vacuum, a void, you and I just rolled our eyes and
thought, “Will they ever learn?” And when the C.O.B.E. Project
“discovered” that the sun, moon, and, stars really are in something after all,
you and I just rolled our eyes in disgust because they called it dark matter
instead of the firmament, and because they thought it validated the Big
Bang instead of the Bible.
Then scientists launched
the Gravity Probe B Project, which further proved the sun, moon, and stars are not in a void – they are actually “in”
something…just like the KJV’s Ge 1:17 has been saying
all along. (Modern Bible version committees (like the NIV, NASV, and the
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ NWT), thinking scientists were right about the “void” of
space, changed the word “firmament” to “expanse.”) Gravity Probe B discovered
that as heavenly bodies move and rotate they warp and drag space and time as if
space-time is something like an invisible air or liquid! And when scientists
explained this mind-boggling phenomenon in layman’s terms were they smart
enough to call it the “firmament”? No, they called it “honey”! “Imagine the
Earth as if it were immersed in an actual substance – such as honey,” they
said. “We now know that as the planets rotate they cause
the ‘honey’ around them to swirl and to distort both space and time.” In other
words, just as birds and fish cause the air and water that God put them in to
swirl when they move, so do heavenly bodies cause the firmament that God put
them in to swirl when they move. Scientists, theologians, and other unbelievers
have always been wrong when they foolishly dared to disregard the literal truth
of Thus saith
the Lord.
We think of space as
three dimensional, so its
being distorted doesn’t seem as fantastic as the fact that Time itself (and
thereby mortality) is linked to and
distorted along with the firmament. This physical dark universe inside the Deep
requires the artificial lights that God put into the firmament. And the physical life we have inside the Deep is
mortal because it is not only tied to
Time, but – we now know – to the firmament…which only exists inside the
Deep. And if mortals leave the firmament
by going beyond the Deep into the realm of eternity, they perish…just as fish
die without water and as birds die without air. When this earth is consumed by
fire (2 Pe 3:7,10-12), will the firmament – and therefore time – be
consumed, too? If the firmament/time passes away this fiery universe inside the
Deep will become part of eternity – which the Bible calls the lake of fire.
Outside of the Deep/firmament/time is eternity, where the Lord is preparing the
new earth.
Could it be that God
hath chosen the firmament that scientists dismissed as foolishness to be the
very thing to confound them? And if the firmament is part of
time/mortality/physical life, when you consider that flesh and blood mortals
cannot see or enter the spiritual Kingdom of God (Jn 3:3,5; 1 Co 15:50), and when you consider the blindness that the
Bible says is linked with mortality/carnality (Ro 8:7,8; 1 Co 2:14),
could it be that the firmament has
something to do with carnal blindness
to truth – just as spiritual immortality
has something to do with being able to see
truth?
Just
like there is a seeming empty space between the stars and galaxies, there
appears to be empty space between atoms and even between the elements that make
up atoms such as the electrons. But wait, they even think the electrons would
prove to be mostly “empty space” if they could ever see stuff that small.
Therefore they no longer think, because there seems to be empty – rather than
solid – space between galaxies, between stars, between planets, between
molecules, between atoms, between electrons, and between whatever makes up
electrons, etc., etc., etc., that solid matter – or any matter – is solid.
They
have been able to measure a wavy line of radiation energy coming from between
the galaxies. And even though they can’t yet measure between the parts of atoms
and electrons, they do note the amazing consistency of creation and therefore,
since everything radiates wavy lines of energy, they now think
everything is made up of an energy. They call this
wavy line energy a “warp in time-space.” They’ve never been able to see the
energy itself because it is apparently invisible, but they can measure its
presence. So everything they thought was solid they now think is made up of a,
or even the, fundamental building block
of the physical universe, an invisible wavy-lined energy called a warp in
time-space similar to a sound wave.
A
sound wave is invisible and can pass through things as if they weren’t there.
But a sound wave can also behave like a “solid” by making an eardrum move or by
breaking glass. The energy that makes up the universe, however, is more
versatile than sound waves because it can be both visible and invisible; we can
see rocks and planets but we can’t see air or the firmament (dark matter).
God
is called the Word (Jn 1:1). He spoke the universe into
existence (He 11:3), and by Him all things consist (Co 1:16,17).
Since
the Word spoke the words by which the entire universe came into existence, it
would logically follow that all things behave according to the pattern by which
they were made. And since all things in existence are made up of energy, sound
waves, warps in time-space, or whatever you want to call the spoken word of
God, it’s not surprising that those things behave like waves, sound waves:
Ocean waves; amber waves of grain; waving flags; ups and downs; biorhythms;
shock waves; ripples on sand dunes; detectable waves of energy coming from the
firmament of outer space; etc. In other words, scientists are only now
beginning to figure out something Bible believers have known for many centuries
– the words God spoke are the very fabric of the universe.
It is therefore still reasonable
(reasoning together with God) in the twenty-first century for someone who has
faith in God and His word to look at the evidence of things not seen and
conclude that all things really are made up of the words God spoke.
All
of this is meant to edify and exhort the brethren and help them see that God
Almighty really has given us His word, and we really
can believe and act on everything in it. The Bible always has been, is now, and
always will be way ahead of science.
What
a Creator! What a Book!