—Genesis Chapter 1 Continued!DO 269510/90

—Bible Classtime with Grandpa!

Size of the Universe!

1. This is kind of a science lesson, Bible Science! For his homework, David has been trying to figure out how far light could travel in 6‚000 years. (David: If somebody was that number of miles away from Planet Earth & they could see our light, would they just be seeing it now‚ or could they even have seen it 6,000 years ago?)

2. In the 6,000 years that we know that light has been in existence, that's how far it has travelled. Now it would have had to travel that far, but of course since the Lord created the stars & He made them all instantly visible, therefore He created the light with the Earth already receiving it. We're not just now seeing it‚ the Earth has been receiving that starlight for 6,000 years. So although the ancients saw it instantly, it kept coming.—And it has kept coming & kept coming in the last 6,000 years—according to science.

3. So having started about 6,000 years ago‚ the fact that we're still seeing the light from distant stars now shows that it may have started a long time ago, 6,000 years ago, & it has travelled this many miles. All that time. (David: Yes!) So the light we're seeing right now may have started travelling how many years ago? (Techi: 6‚000.) It was already travelling, it was already here at Creation‚ but the light we are seeing now could have travelled that far in 6,000 years. (David: You mean the light from the stars?) The light from the stars, yes, from the furthest star.

4. (David: So even though the Lord created the stars instantly visible in the beginning of time, these stars...) They're still shining, right? So the light from one star way out here on this side of the Earth that we see could have been travelling for 6,000 years, & the light from a star on the other side of the Earth could have been travelling for 6,000 years. If the light from that star on one side has been travelling 6,000 years, & the light from that star on the other side has been travelling 6,000 years, that's how many miles it could be to the end of the Universe‚ the width.—12,000 light years. You take the distance from the middle to one end & double that number, multiply it by two.

5. So we calculated the edge of the Universe in each direction, pictured as a great global ball, & out there around it a globe of water. Did you double the number? Did you get seventy *quadrillion? (David: Yes, 70 quadrillion.) (*A quadrillion is a billion millions!—70 quadrillion is 70 followed by 15 zeroes!)

6. (Techi: I don't understand!) Well, excuse us, Honey, while we scientists are involved in a little Bible science. I'm just showing the possibility that that's how big the universe is, since we are still seeing those stars that the Lord created then, & that they had 6,000 years for the light to travel, from those same stars, to get here by now. Get it? (David: Yes!) Therefore, if the furthest stars out there within this globe of water are 6,000 light years away, it's possible that the Universe could be as much as 70 quadrillion miles wide.—From the furthest star we see one way & the furthest star we see in the opposite direction. It could be pretty big! It goes beyond your imagination, really!—But not as big as science says! (Scientists now claim that they've located stellar bodies called quasars over 10 billion light years away‚ making their estimated universe 1.7 million times larger than the size Dad has estimated!—Of course, their estimates change quite frequently!)

7. Since the Earth has only existed about 6,000 years, including the Solar System & the stars, this shows the Universe cannot be as big as science says, even if we were seeing'm for the first time right now!—But since they were seen as soon as they were created, then this was a miracle, unless they're a lot closer than science says!—Which I believe!—My idea is a bit like the old song, "Stars are the windows of Heaven where Angels peek through!"—Ha! "All things are possible to him that believeth."—Mk.9:23.—Amen.

8. Well‚ we may have to refigure our distances, but I'm just saying it could have travelled this far. And the Universe could be that wide.—70 quadrillion miles wide! Some fish-bowl of water! Whatever it is, the Universe is pretty wide!

Lights in the Firmament!

9. All right, enough mathematics. Let's go back to the Scriptures, shall we? Let's go back over the Chapter again to make sure you understood it all. We've dealt enough with Creation, the Beginning, right? And we've covered enough about the Firmament.

10. Now, what about these Lights in the Firmament? Let's make sure you've got every detail of this verse 14. "And God said‚ Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night." That's one thing the lights were made for, to give light, which divides the day from the night. You could even say that's two different things.

11. "And let them be for signs." What kind of signs? (David: Like in the Endtime there are signs in the sky.) But we've had signs ever since they were created—astrological signs! (David: Oh yes! Sun signs!) Right! "And for seasons." What seasons did the Lord say the Earth would have? The answer's found in Gen.8:22: "Seedtime (Spring) & harvest (Fall), cold & heat‚ & Summer & Winter."

12. "And for days." What heavenly body divides the days‚ by which we count the days? (Kids: The Moon!) No‚ no, no! What one do we see every day? (Kids: The Sun!) Right! The Sun divides the days‚ at least in appearance to people in those days. Actually, it's the rotation of the Earth on its axis as it goes around the Sun that gives us time of day. Every time the Earth goes around 24 hours that's how long? (Techi: One day!) Right!

13. "And years." See, we know now that the ancients knew more about astronomy than we thought they did! What is a year? (David: 365 days.) Yes, but I mean what decides that? (Techi: The Moon?) No, Honey, the Moon decides a season of time which is named after the Moon. (Techi: A month?) Yes‚ good for you!

14. But what makes a year? (David: Twelve months.) Twelve months, yes. (Techi: Days, the Sun?) The Sun in a way, yes. But actually it is the rotation of the Earth. You've never learned this? I started teaching you astronomy once before, but I don't think we got this far. (See "Psalm 91, Part 2!", ML#2391‚ GN433, Page 11.)

15. What is astronomically one year? (Techi: When the Earth goes around 365 days.) Don't give me days & don't give me months. It is one revolution of what around what? (Techi: Of the Earth around the Sun.) Right! One revolution of the Earth around the Sun. Therefore the Sun actually gives us the years. We could count it out in days, one revolution of the Earth on its axis, right? But by the time it travels completely around the Sun one full circuit—for example, from the first of March around back to the first of March again—that's one revolution, right? (David: Yes.)

16. So you were going to try to tell me three things that these lights are in the sky for. How many can we count now?: Light, & to divide the day from the darkness‚ that's two. Signs. Seasons. Days. Years. He could have even said months, but He skipped over that. (Techi: So that would be seven.) There are seven reasons! Three of them, days‚ months & years, have to do with time. And one of them, signs, has to do with personalities of people, astrological signs. I don't believe they necessarily predict the future‚ but some people believe they do, & in some cases they seem to have. For example, Caesar was warned by an astrologer, "Beware the Ides of March!" Now what are "Ides"? (Techi: The middle?) Yes, it meant the middle of the month in the Roman calendar.

17. But in chemistry, any chemical ending in "ide" is a poison. (Techi: Oh yes, like fluoride.) We're learning a lot, even me! (Techi: I was told that "ides" meant the middle.)—To the Romans it did, but let's take it from the suffix which means a poison. It was certainly the poisons of March that Caesar ran into, right?—The poisons of his friends as well‚ because it was his friends who killed him. They all agreed together that they were going to assassinate him, & they did. Well‚ anyhow, so much for the Ides of March.

18. So we find that the lights were given for seven different purposes. That's pretty good! That's God's number! Can you remember them? Let's start with the simplest. (David: To give light upon the Earth, signs, seasons, days & years. That's five.) To divide the light from darkness. (David: Oh yes, that's six.) And months. Because we know, of course, that the Moon determines the month. I don't know why they happened to skip that here, but you can't expect poor Moses to remember everything! Who wrote this Book? (David: Moses!) Right! Thank God he did or we'd still be in the dark!

19. (Techi: How did Moses know that?) Well, he learned it from God. (Techi: God just told him?) Yes. (Techi: On the mountain?) Well‚ possibly. We don't know exactly where he wrote'm. (Techi: So it wasn't passed down from Cain to his sons & daughters?) Moses wrote'm down, or he had a secretary, or a scribe‚ as they called it then, to write it down, & they were written on paper. The Egyptians had invented a sort of paper by that time called papyrus, so he, or his scribe, wrote all of these things down at his dictation.—All five Books! How about that?

20. (Techi: Did God reveal it to him like a prophecy?—Or was it passed down from Cain to his sons & daughters & all of that?) I think he got it direct from the Lord. (David: Maybe when he went up on the mountain one time?) It could have been, he was up there for a long time! (Techi: Forty days, wasn't it?) He was up there twice for 40 days‚ so that's 80 days, almost three months! OK! Let's move on, shall we? Is that enough, all we can get out of all of that? I think that was quite a bit! (For some fun studies on astronomy, see WND 259, Page 5, "Space Probe Records God's Voice"; WND 326, Page 2‚ "Astronomy: The Oldest Science"; WND 352, Page 5, "The Spaceship Moon!")

The Fifth Day!

21. So, Verse 20, God said on the 5th day, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life." Now today they make a lot of distinctions identifying all types of moving creatures‚ everything from barnacles with shells, all the shellfish & the crustaceans. Do you know what crustaceans are? It sounds kind of crunchy, doesn't it? Those are the hard-shelled fish like crabs & shrimp &... (Techi: Starfish?) Well, I think that's another type. (David: Lobsters!) Yes, all those fish with actual shells & a hard exterior are crustaceans. There are different classes of creatures, so no wonder the Lord said "moving creatures," because there are so many different kinds!

22. But in Verse 21 He especially singled out the whales.—And they are actually not a fish! They're a mammal, as far as we're concerned. Of course they are fish, in a sense‚ since they live in the sea. But the whales & the dolphins are mammals. Do you know another name for dolphin? (David: Porpoise!)—Right! They give birth to their young & they nurse them, like human beings‚ so that's why they are classed along with mammals. All animals & fish & human beings who give birth to their young & then suckle them, nurse them, are called "mammals" as a general class. The word "mammal" comes from the mammary glands that give milk.

23. Well, anyhow, there were certainly a variety of creatures. And then the most shocking thing of all, the birds came from the waters! (Techi: That is pretty amazing!) They were created out of the water. (Techi: And fish have fins‚ like the wings & tails of birds!) Yes, fish swim sort of like birds. They've got little wings & tails & they fly through the water. Right? So that's really interesting when you think of all these things that the Lord made‚ including "every winged fowl after his kind."

"After Their Kind!"

24. And notice this, in Verse 21, this is important: "Which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind." There are all different kinds‚ right? Was one kind to ever drift into another kind? (Techi: No.) Never! When God set the limits of the kinds, that was it! There may be a variety of types of dogs—sizes, colours, shapes—but they are still all one kind of creature. What's that? (David: Dogs.) A dog is a dog & a cat is a cat & a cow is a cow, & a sheep is a sheep, & they just don't mix!

25. There's no such thing as crossing them, except‚ of course, by crossing horses & donkeys to get a mule. They cross a female horse with a male donkey. But you can tell they're of the same species, right? They're all a type of beast of burden. So the Lord's made it possible to cross a horse with an ass & get a mule, but mules cannot multiply after their kind. So when the Lord said "after their kind," that's that! And that knocks out Evolution completely, because Evolution teaches that creatures can evolve from one kind to another kind to another kind to another kind, blah blah blah, & that we came from monkeys! So, forget it!

The Sixth Day!

26. Then on the 6th day God said, "Let the Earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, & creeping things." (Verse 24) Can you think of any creeping things? (Techi: Snakes.) Well, in a way they're creeping things. I always think of bugs. But did you know that the Bible allows you to eat any bug that has six legs? (Lev. 11:21,22) (Techi: Oooh!) Yes. Spiders usually have eight legs, but locusts have six legs!

27. I can remember seeing a Palestinian locust in this old lady's house, the kind John the Baptist ate. She had a cabinet in the parlor with all kinds of souvenirs, bric-a-brac, everything you could possibly think of that you'd bring home from some foreign country, little statues & just all kinds of souvenirs, etc. And she had come back from Israel with a dried locust of the kind that dear Brother John ate when he ate "locusts & honey"! (Mat.3:4) He must have smeared the honey on the locusts, I guess, in order to be able to eat it. But they were that big!—About six inches long! (Techi: Oh my!) I mean they were a meal! (Techi: I always thought they were the size of those little tiny grasshoppers, ha!)

28. (David: No wonder they could wipe out a whole farm!) They count those as scourges, like the pestilences of Egypt‚ etc. They come & they just cover the ground completely, crawling all over each other, & they eat up every blade of grass!—Farm crops, leaves off the trees, everything green!

Grandmother's Scripture Capsules!

29. We went through Oklahoma once after they had just had a plague of locusts. They'd already had the Dust Bowl*, that was bad enough, which blew away most of the topsoil. Then along came these locusts & ate every blade of grass, every leaf on the trees, vegetables‚ all the farmers' crops, everything! (*Dust Bowl: Destructive wind & dust storms that struck the U.S. during the 1930s.)

30. One funny thing happened, I think I told you this before. (See ML#2161:96-99, Vol.17.) We stopped at a filling station for gas & this guy was telling my Mother all his troubles & woes & how they'd had this scourge, a plague of locusts, & the place was just absolutely bare. There wasn't a green thing anywhere! And this poor old guy almost had my Mother in tears!

31. She used to carry these little pill capsules that you take apart, with Scripture verses rolled up inside of them. So she reached in her purse & she pulled out this capsule & handed it to the fellow. She said‚ "Well, my dear friend, here is something that will encourage you."—One of her Scripture Promises‚ she thought. She used to give'm out in her meetings.

32. She also used to give them out in nutshells! They'd take a walnut apart‚ put a Scripture Verse inside, glue it back together & then paint them all gold! And she had a sermon that went along with that: "The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow!" She'd get one of these big iron pots, like the "pot of gold" & fill it full of these nuts. It really looked pretty! And then she had a painted rainbow on paper on the wall. (Techi: Oh, that's sweet.)—And she gave a "gold nugget" to each person.

33. Well‚ anyhow, she gave this capsule to this guy & said, "Here, dear Brother, this will encourage you." And everything went fine until we got to the next filling station when she looked in her purse for one of her capsules of soap that she used to carry in her purse! Ha! Oh, we just roared & roared, but she was just practically in tears. She said‚ "Oh, I gave that poor guy a capsule of powdered soap!" I said, "Well, look at it this way. Maybe he figures, 'Why did that lady give me this soap?'" See, it hadn't rained for a long time either! "That's to encourage you, that you're going to get some water so you can wash your hands!" (Techi: Ha! That's cute, Grandpa!)

The Sixth Day!—Animals & Man!

34. So let's see if we can finish this first Chapter on these special things. "Creeping things," that includes the insects & all kinds of things.—Everything alive besides the beasts & the cattle & animals. You can say on the 6th day, the main things, in two general terms‚ were animals & Man. But it actually goes beyond that, it also includes insects!

35. Then for Verse 28, I asked you the question: Name me at least three things that God told Man to do. (Techi: Be fruitful.) Be fruitful, multiply.—That's two. Replenish the Earth. That's three. Subdue it. That's four. Have dominion over it. That's five things‚ really, & I only asked for three. You did pretty good on that too, didn't you?

Plant Life!

36. Oh, we skipped over the plants! They're clear back in verses 11 & 12, grass & herbs. Now, what are herbs? (Techi: Plants, everything plants.) That actually would include the vegetables, wouldn't it? And medicinal herbs too, & fruit. So the plant life—vegetarian life‚ as they call it—would include three main classifications: Grass, which is important, because most animals & birds eat grass. And we know how important herbs are, all the vegetables we eat, & fruit!

37. Verse 29, God said, "I have given you every herb bearing seed." Do all the herbs bear seeds? (Kids: Yes!) They've all got some kind of seed in them, every one of them! And if you remove it & bury it, it'll grow more of the same thing. Do you know where the seeds are in a carrot? What part of the carrot can you bury? (Techi: The top.) Yes, you don't have to plant all of that weedy stuff, the greenery, you just cut off the top of the carrot with that little stem in it & that'll grow more carrots!

38. —But all after their kinds, they don't go from one kind to another! So Evolution is a big lie!—Which of course we know it is anyhow. (Techi: Yes, "after their kind," that was repeated about 20 times!) Time & time & time again!

39. So He says in Verse 29: "I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the Earth, & every tree‚ in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat." So what two principal kinds of food did God give Man to eat at first? (Techi: Fruit & vegetables!) Right!

40. Verse 30: "And to every beast of the Earth, & to every fowl of the air, & to every thing that creepeth upon the Earth‚ wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat." "Meat" here does not mean flesh, it means food. "And it was so."

41. So I asked you, "What did God give Man to eat when he first was created?" And every form of life that He created, what did He give them to eat? (Techi: Fruit‚ vegetables & grass.) Right. (Techi: Grass for the animals.) Which is in a sense a vegetable. All right! "For them & for us." Did He give them any flesh to eat? (Kids: No.) No. And we'll study about that later on in the story of the Flood. Verse 31: "And God saw everything that He had made, & behold, it was very good. And the evening & the morning were the sixth day."

Closing Prayer!

42. We ran overtime a little bit since David was late. We'll blame it on that & not on my long-windedness! Ha! (Techi: I was late too.) We shouldn't have wasted so much time on those figures, I'm sorry. All right‚ praise the Lord! Amen! Is it my turn to pray? (Techi: Well, I could pray.) OK, go ahead.

43. (Techi: Amen! Thank You Jesus! Thank You Lord! Thank You for the good class that we had‚ Jesus, & how interesting it was about the Creation. We really pray, Lord, that You'll please help us to learn these things & to study, Jesus, & to be good students. Thank You for Grandpa teaching us, Lord. Please continue to bless & give him wisdom, Lord‚ on how to teach us, & please bless the rest of this night, in Jesus' name. Amen!)

Every Word of God Is True!

44. Amen! Praise the Lord! Let me say one more thing about all of this! The wonderful thing about it is, you don't have to make guesses about what happened or how it happened, or what is right or what is wrong.—If you believe the Bible, you know that that's exactly what it says & therefore what you can exactly believe! Right? (David: Yes, that's right!) (Techi: Right!) And you don't have to wonder & worry about, "Well, did it really happen that way?" Or, "Is that just so much bunk?" We, who know the Lord & believe His Word, believe every Word, right? (Kids: Yes!) And we believe that that's it!

45. When the Bible says that's it‚ that's it!—And there ain't no other! So all these other stupid theories of Man & unbelief & Evolution & all the rest is so much pure bunk!—Along with palaeontology, which dates all the geology according to the bones of fossils. And as I've said, these sciences like Evolution & Palaeontology... Evolution is not even a science! There's not a grain of truth to it, not a grain of evidence to prove it, so how could it be a science? Science is knowledge! Evolution is "science falsely so called!"—1Tim.6:20.

46. All these liars even base their lies on each other! The palaeontologist says, "Well, this rock strata is so old because we've found certain fossils in it which the evolutionists say are that old‚ so therefore these rocks are that old." And the evolutionist says, "Well, we know that these fossils are so old because the geologist says that this rock strata is that old." I mean, they're both lyin'! Neither one of them knows!

"Vas You Dere, Charlie?"

47. I'll never forget the time that I heard one geologist who was lecturing on the lip of the Grand Canyon—I just nearly burst out laughing! He was a Christian. There were several different lecturers, & he got up & he said, "Now folks, I want you to know this. When these guys tell you that this rock is so old & that rock is so old & this was formed this way & that was formed that way, blah blah blah‚ I want you to just come up & say, 'Vas you dere, Charlie?'"—Ha!

48. Well, God was there, so we have His Word for it! "Vas you dere, Charlie?"—That was an old expression that came from the Texaco Program, an old radio program, one of the pioneer radio shows, about Baron Munchausen* (pronounced MUN-chow-zun). This Baron Munchausen was a famous liar & there's a whole book about him & all of his wild stories about horses hanging from steeples & all that stuff. And people would doubt his stories & say‚ "Oh, we can't believe that!" (*Baron Munchausen was the name given to the narrator & central figure in an anonymous booklet of tall tales, "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia." It was first published in England in 1785.)

49. And this old guy in the radio program was called the Texaco Fire Chief. He'd come home with his big fire hat on. There wasn't television yet, but we listeners knew he had a fire hat on because of his picture in the magazines! And they'd express some doubt about his wild stories & he'd say, "Vas you dere‚ Charlie?"—In other words, "I was there!" (Techi: That's what the Lord could say to dear Charles Darwin!) Yes! "Vas you dere, Charlie?" Ha, ha, ha! That was a good one, Honey! That's a good note to end on! Praise the Lord!

ML #2695 Picture captions & fact boxes:

Page 11:

If the Universe is 12,000 light years wide, then you would take that figure of 12,000 & multiply it by the distance light travels in one year, as follows:

12‚000 light years

x 365 days per year

x 24 hours per day

x 60 minutes per hour

x 60 seconds per minute

x 186,000 miles per second

—And that's how you come up with 70 quadrillion as the possible width of the universe!

Page 12:

Ides. In the old Roman calendar, the ides was a day near the middle of each month. It was the 13th of all months except March, May, July, and October, when the ides fell on the 15th. The ides of March‚ on which Caesar was assassinated, was March 15.

Papyrus (pronounced puh PY ruhs) is an Egyptian water plant whose fibers were used by the ancients as a writing material. It served also as a material for mats, sandals, and sailcloth for light skiffs (boats). Many people think the little ark in which the mother of Moses hid her son was made of papyrus. The plant still grows in the valley of the Upper Nile. Its reedlike stems grow 3 to 10 feet (0.9 to 3 meters) high and bear no foliage (leaves).

The Egyptians cut its stems into strips, pressed the strips into sheets, and joined the sheets to form scrolls. Some of the scrolls reached great length. One, called Harris Papyrus 1, is 133 feet (41 meters) long. This scroll is in the British Library.

Papyrus is extremely perishable. Even so, some ancient writings on papyrus have survived. The oldest ones date from about 2700 B.C. Papyrus became the preferred writing material among peoples of the Mediterranean area about 500 B.C., and it remained so until about A.D. 300. The Egyptians used it until the 900's.

Page 13:

Mammal is a vertebrate (backboned animal) that feeds its young on the mother's milk. There are about 4‚000 kinds of mammals, and many of them are among the most familiar of all animals. Cats and dogs are mammals. So are such farm animals as cattle, goats, sheep‚ rabbits, burros, hogs, and horses, etc.—And people, too!

Mammals live almost everywhere. Such mammals as monkeys and elephants dwell in tropical regions. Arctic foxes‚ polar bears, and many other mammals make their home near the North Pole. Such mammals as camels and kangaroo rats live in deserts. Certain others, including seals, dolphins and whales, dwell in the oceans. One group of mammals, the bats, can fly.

The largest mammal—and the largest animal that has ever lived—is the blue whale. It measures up to 100 feet (30 meters) long when fully grown. The Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat of Thailand is one of the smallest mammals. It is about the size of a bumblebee and weighs no more than a large paper clip.

Fish

Amphibian

Reptile

Bird

Mammal

Human

MAJOR DIVISIONS OF LIFE

Page 14:

Locust is a name that can refer to any short-horned grasshopper—that is, a grasshopper with short antennae (feelers). However‚ the name locust is most often given to short–horned grasshoppers that migrate. Most migratory locusts are about 2 inches (5 centimeters) long, with a large head, large eyes, and short antennae. They have long hind legs for jumping, and four wings that fold over their backs when they are not flying. There may be millions of migratory grasshoppers in a locust swarm. The adults may fly long distances. Wherever they land‚ they eat and destroy vegetation. Plagues of crop-destroying locusts have been known since ancient times. One swarm by the Red Sea was believed to cover an area of 2,000 square miles (5,200 square kilometers). Between 1930 and 1940‚ migratory grasshoppers caused damage on the Pacific Coast, in the Southwest United States, and on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. Swarms of migrating locusts are sometimes so large they shut out the sunlight. They interfere with railroad trains and airplanes and make automobile travel dangerous. Swarms have traveled from Saskatchewan, Canada, to Texas. Others have been seen as much as 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) from land.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family