Let There Be Light

By Gary Overholt

"Let There Be light" is an advanced daily devotional, not intentionally exhaustive or academic but inquisitive, suggestive and unconventional in its theological approach and encourages advanced study by its readers. LTBL directly and indirectly encounters controversial issues concerning creation, evolution, philosophy, history, chronology, prophecy and eschatology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CrossLink Publishing
• Release date: Feb 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386232520

Gary Overholt

Gary Overholt– is Associate Pastor of Men and Marrieds at Inland Hills Church in Chino, California, a graduate of Kings Seminary and a Certified Pastoral Counselor with the Board of Christian Professional and Pastoral Counselors. Gary and his wife Fran have mentored hundreds of couples, trained teachers and marriage mentors and taught marriage classes together for over 20 years.

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Let There Be Light

Let There Be Light

n

AN ENHANCED DAILY DEVOTIONAL

ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS

Gary Overholt

NEW HARBOR PRESS

Rapid City, SD

Copyright © 2018 by Gary Overholt.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Overholt/New Harbor Press

1601 Mt. Rushmore Rd, Ste 3288

Rapid City, SD 57701

www.newharborpress.com

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the address above.

Let There Be Light/ Overholt. —1st ed.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ISV are taken from The Holy Bible: International Standard Version. Release 2.0, Build 2015.02.09. Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Start

Relational God

Passive Gap

Spirit

Living Water

Dry Ground

Perpetual Creation

Earth-Light Time Zone

Leviathan

A Box of Rocks

Let Us

Imago Dei

God’s Unit

Adapt and Overcome

Seven-Day Week

Recap

Real or Symbolic

The Test

Assembly Line

First Surgery

Naked and Afraid

Snake Aversion

The One Commandment

Did God Really Say?

Wind of the Day

Falling for It

The Gospel

The Woman Curse

The Man Curse

The Covering

Response to Day-Age Belief

The Walking Dead

Angels of Fire

What Happened to the Garden of Eden

Firstborn?

End of Days

Man-made Religions

First or Second Degree

Crime and Punishment

Breaking Bad

The Godly Line

New Writer

Image Revisited

Longevity

The End of the Spear

Rest

Sons of God

120 Years

Anthropopatheia

Generations of Noah

My Three Sons

Violence

Built to Last

Animal Death

Clean Animals

Nike Theology

Seven-Day Warning

Calendar Headaches

Fountains of

the Great Deep

Champions of Faith

Shut In

He Remembers

Sent a Wind

God’s Timing

Flood Chronology

Fear and Dread

Implications

The Altar

Armageddon

Predictability

Fear and Dread Part 2

Bloodthirsty

Death Penalty

Increase, Multiply,

and Fill

Berith

Rainbow Covenant

Epic Fail

Anti-Love

Canaan

Race

Nimrod

Out of Egypt

Peleg

The Seventy

Language

Scattered Abroad

Came Down

Communication

Journeyman

Bless and Curse

Appeared

Egypt

The First Egyptian Plagues

Relax

Grains of Dust

Altars of Worship

Famous Fairy Tale

State of the Union

Melchizedek

Spoils of War

Fear Not

How?

Four Hundred Years

Iniquity

Easier Said

God Sees

Perfection

Everlasting Covenant

Abraham Meets Jesus

Too Old

Opinionated

The Outcry

Righteous Judgment

Quandary

Heart for God

Hard to Fathom

Prayer

Perplexing

The Visit

No Laughing Matter

Agreement

Godly Ishmael?

Beersheba

Jehovah Immeku

The Test

Ram or Lamb

Angel of the Lord

Names, Names, Names

Hebron

Ephron

Fierce Dependence

Nameless

The Thigh Oath

Crossing Paths

Convincing Wealth

The Proposal

Symbolic Isaac

Enough

Twelve Princes

Predestined

Desperate Housewives

Birther Controversy

Seeing Red

Chronological Adjustment

Like Father, Like Son

The Blessing

Reassurance

Sabbath

Disappointing Faith

What We Know

Superstition

Build an Altar

Spoken Words

Dew of Heaven

Translate

Wrong Righted

Real Blessing

Esau

Jacob’s Ladder

Heaven’s Gate

Pillow Talk

Reunion Well

Communications 101

Details

Uncle Laban

Leah and Rachel

The Deception

Baby Wars

The Twelve Tribes

Crazy Timeline

Nation Building

The New Deal

Fast One

Animal Husbandry

Show and Tell

Blind Spot

Dreamers

The Vow

Powerless

Stolen Gods

Forty Years

Basically Good?

The Heap

Jehovah Sabaoth

Mahanaim

Jacob’s Prayer

Camel Rides

Appeasement

The Wrestling Match

Humbled

Enough

El Elohe Israel

Defiled

The Dowry

Intermarriage

Silent

Warriors

Revenge

Strange Gods

Where’s Mom?

Low Point

Son of Sorrow

Esau’s Wives

Strangers

The Edomite King

Amazing Jethro

Favoritism

The Dreams

Timelines

Clueless

The Coverup

Grace

Mercy Killing

Double Standard

Scarlet Thread

Blessings and Curses

Mrs. Potiphar

History

Imhotep

Pharaoh’s Whims

Dream Whisperer

Troubling

Hebrew

East Wind

Power Grab

Zaphenath-Paneah

Information and Influence

Thirty Years Old

Smile!

Supply and Demand

Sweet Revenge

The Fear of God Is the Beginning of Wisdom

Dilemma

Transcript

Ro-Sham-Bo

Your God

Abomination

Divination

Guilt

The Jig Is Up

Provision

Adoption

Strange Connection

Leah’s Thirty-Three

The Count

Significant Seventy

Land O Goshen

Jacob’s Blessing

Cost of Power

Jacob’s Song

Like Father, Like Son

The Twelve Tribes

Jacob, the Prophet

Death of a Patriarch

Funeral Procession

Abel-Mizraim

Repentance

Forgiveness

Positive Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to my brother, Walt Overholt, a godly theologian in his own right, who spent tireless hours reviewing my manuscript and providing insight into my writing style, content, and mechanics. I would also like to give special thanks to Christy Phillippe for helping me edit this work.

Introduction

This book is designed to function as a daily study journal for individual or group use. Each section includes a daily passage of scripture to read (note that some passages are to be read more than once), a title of interest, personal commentary, a daily Bible verse, followed by a pithy statement or other quotes and insights. Its purpose is to invoke thought, discussion, insight, and further personal study into this amazing book of beginnings.

This devotional is not necessarily intended to be academic or exhaustive in nature but if it inspires you to go deeper it has accomplished its purpose. It is not intended to replace God’s spiritual illumination in your life but if God’s Spirit uses it to inspire your life in some way it has accomplished its purpose. If you disagree with my insights but it causes you to develop your own it has accomplished its purpose. If it provides you a tool for the daily study of God’s Word and time spent with God it has accomplished its purpose. To God be the glory!

Start

Read Genesis 1:1–5.

Where do we start? I have been asked the following question on different occasions: How do you raise your kids to follow Christ? My answer is to start with creation. From the time they are born, your children should be inundated with the message that God created everything. God created them. God created their parents. God created the sun, the moon, and the stars. God created their puppy, their cat, the animals at the zoo, and the trees in their front yard. Everything we see should be viewed in the realm of God as Creator. If they understand that God is their Creator, then they will eventually have to deal with all of the theological questions that follow their worldview. If children are taught that they are products of random chance, they may grow up without ever facing their need to know the God of Creation. They will struggle with morality, relationships, and the search for meaning and significance.

It is impossible to reasonably teach morality without a focus on purposeful creation, and it is hard to make arguments for any form of government, social values, or familial influence without understanding the God of creation: a God who has provided a revealed purpose for His creation. True faith begins with creation: If you believe the first verse in the Bible, you can believe all that God wants you to hold true. If you start somewhere else, your ending point will not be true faith.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 (NKJV)

Start here.

Relational God

Read Genesis 1:1–5.

God created the universe—including, time, space, and matter—in unpredictable and artful ways. He crafted it all for man, the center of His creation. He could have spoken it all into existence in one micro-moment, but instead He chose to fashion it through an unexpected number of solar days. The Hebrew word, bereshit, meaning in the beginning, has embedded in its root rosh, or head. As the head of all things, God is moving in His creation. He is not merely releasing His power, but He is emanating it, He has been intimately involved with His creation from the very beginning, and He continues His involvement today. Consider how Jesus healed the man who was blind from birth (John 9:6–7). Jesus, the Light of the world, interacted with His creation. He could have just released His power and healed the man, but for no apparent reason, He mixed and applied the clay to the man’s eyes in this healing miracle. Nothing has changed; at the head of all things is God interacting with His creation in unexpected ways.

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 (NKJV)

Jewish tradition has given the first book of the Torah the title, Bereshit, or Sefer Bershit, the Book of Beginnings.

Passive Gap

Read Genesis 1:1–5.

Did God create the world and everything in it as recorded in the first verse of Genesis, and then re-create it in the second verse? It would be less than honest to say that the matter is settled by the proper translation of the original Hebrew text alone. It is possible to translate the first two verses in several different ways without being subjectively in error. The earth was either created unformed and unfilled (tohu wabohu), or it became wasted and empty or possibly wild. Either way, the text only allows us to say that either God formed all matter on day one of creation when He began forming it; or He created matter (heaven and earth) at some unspecified time (in the beginning) and then began His creative work later. If there is a gap in the narrative, it can only be positively identified as a passive gap, with no understanding of anything but what the Scriptures clearly record.

Years of death and destruction, as implied by a pre-human dinosaur era, before the six days of creation does not seem to fit the entire biblical perspective. Adam introduced sin into the world (Romans 5:12). A long pre-adamic struggle between good and evil, though possible, does not seem to fit God’s revelation to man and the great culmination of the gospel message we have received (Romans 8:19). Life occurred on days three through six, and the insertion of some unrecorded life forms and the paradigms that must have accompanied such life, in an unspecified gap, is likely a corruption of God’s complete revelation of Himself to us and ultimately a corruption of our understanding of Christ’s work in creation.

Now, the earth, had become waste and wild, and, darkness, was on the face of the roaring deep—but, the Spirit of God, was brooding on the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 (EBR)

The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 (NKJV)

Science is not truth but merely the fallible search for it!

Spirit

Read Genesis 1:1–10.

God’s Spirit has always been involved in the affairs of men, particularly in the creation of our living environment. His Spirit, who is known for moving and directing, brought order to matter and light out of darkness. What is light? It is really hard to know for certain, but Newton did discover that white light was actually a spectrum of color. We could say that light comes from our sun. However, Jesus, in somewhat symbolic fashion, proclaimed that He was the light in a dark world. What is darkness? Darkness is merely the absence of light. Therefore, Jesus’ proclamation might not have been symbolic at all. God clearly tells us that light existed before the explosions of heat and light, which are now identified as our sun. According to God’s revelation, His Spirit sustains light in a sinless world, and that Spirit light, in turn, is literally capable of sustaining biological life. This is a mystery, but it is a mystery in the order and scope of those surrounding nuclear energy and the conversion of mass into energy.

The sun, moon, and stars were created to help us measure time and give off solar light, a dimmer symbolic substitute for the Shekinah glory light of God (Exodus 33:18–23, 34:29–35). This glory light, present on day one of creation, was a sign that this new world would be the dwelling place of God with man. In fact, this light represented the Spirit of Christ Himself (John 1:1–10). God is our loving, glorious, and unsearchable Creator and the Sustainer of our universe. There is really no need for a burning star to provide light when He is present (Revelation 21:23–24).

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 (NKJV)

Without God’s Spirit, our world is a dark place.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. —Plato

Living Water

Read Genesis 1:1–10.

Water, like blood, has always been associated with biological life, along with the bread of life spoken of in the Bible. Jesus identified Himself as the One with living water, bread to nourish and blood poured out to sustain our life. It is interesting that the earth, like you and me, was born out of water. Space exploration scientists get excited about even remote evidence of water in our solar system and beyond. Why? Because where there is water, the potential for life exists. It takes more than water, however, to create and sustain life. It takes God’s Spirit hovering and creating, not only life, but also the environments that sustain it.

The waters of the earth’s birth were evidently separated by sky, both above and below. What does that mean? It appears to be more than just a few passing clouds. Apparently, the earth at one time had a water barrier protecting it from the harmful ultraviolet radiation of the sun, which threatens life. The waters in the heavens, placed there by His Spirit at the command of His voice, must have created a very mild pressure-cooking effect when the solar system was complete. This helped the Garden of Eden to flourish and protected the entire face of the earth. Life, very well, could have thrived forever. God has currently revealed that life can, in fact, go on forever. Just add water, living water (John 4:14).

Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. Genesis 1:7–8 (NKJV)

Earth is the final frontier!

Dry Ground

Read Genesis 1:1–13.

When God, with the help of His Spirit, formed our natural environment, dubbed earth, the dry ground appeared out of a watery sphere described as the deep. Talk about volcanic action! This fantastic ball of dirt and water is no more humanity’s mother than the house you grew up in is your mother. The earth was nothing and incapable of creating anything; without a Creator and a Designer and Builder, it would still be sitting here today as a deep watery blob, lifeless and useless and not even visible. What! You say a planet with abundant water might have existed without life? That’s right, without God said and It was so, there wouldn’t be anything, not even dry ground to walk on. It is also possible that the land and the seas were once much more uniform in their appearance as far as how they blended together. They were less cataclysmic-looking and more design-oriented in their presentation. Yet even in its current distressed and haphazard state, the beauty of the earth speaks volumes to our souls about the magnificence of our Creator.

And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:10 (NKJV)

Syncopated earth!

Perpetual Creation

Read Genesis 1:1–13.

God not only created all plant life on the third day, He also created perpetual plant life with the reproductive ability needed to continuously fill the dry land, being watered and nourished by the environment previously created. In fact, all of His living creations would be designed to perpetually fill the earth. God fills the earth with good things, and sin and evil destroy and take it away. God gives, and evil takes away. God gave us every sort of pleasing food in unlimited supply. Sin and evil and the serpent (Satan) gave us weeds and famine. God gave us pleasing and fulfilling work for our hands, and evil gave us labor and toil. God gave us perpetual life and health, while sin and evil gave us death and disease. God gave us a perpetual creation designed without end, and evil gave us decay, entropy, and ultimately an apocalypse. God gave us an answer to sin and the ultimate apocalypse in Jesus Christ. Sin and evil want to take that away. If people matter, then we need to lead them away from sin and the destroyer and toward Christ, the perpetual Creator.

And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:12 (NKJV)

No hunger, no disease: God’s ultimate blueprint for man.

Earth-Light Time Zone

Read Genesis 1:10–14.

We know that light existed within space and time before the creation of our known solar system, because God Himself is an unapproachable light. God created space, time, and matter on day one of the creation week, and He had already predetermined what time was and how it would be measured. We could call this God’s earth-light time zone. Notice that seasons, days, and years predated the lights in the expanse of our solar system and the universe of stars. God created the solar system for us to measure time, which He had previously created. The solar system is a pocket watch that God created for us, and time is matter moving through space defined by light. I would argue that this is evidence that God created the heavens and the earth in six literal twenty-four-hour days. Irrespective of the time period, we should not fail to notice the astonishing mystery that the very Light of the world existed before creation and that He not only was revealed on day one of creation but He also stepped down into darkness in the fullness of time to offer Himself for His creation (Galatians 4:4).

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years. Genesis 1:14 (NKJV)

Our time is His time.

Leviathan

Read Genesis 1:15–21.

God created swarms of creatures to fill the ocean. This included both great and small creatures, from the tiniest eukaryotes to the great and fearsome sea monster, Leviathan (Job 41). There was no slow progression between species as they coexisted from the beginning. Like all of God’s creations, they were each part of their own kind—no progression, no macro evolving, and no symmetrical jumps in development. There can be no doubt that Leviathan was an awesome creature. It ruled the oceans at one time and might have even frequented the land and sky. This creature was not prehistoric, predating man, but it was familiar to Job, so much so that God used it metaphorically to describe Satan. This not-so-mythical fire-breathing dragon was a magnificent creation of God’s without equal and never to be tamed by man, yet it was temporary in its rule and duration. Praise God that we are made in His image and are objects of His affection, children and heirs to the grace of Jesus Christ, the King of all creation both great and small.

So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:21 (NKJV)

Beware of the fire-breathing dragon!

A Box of Rocks

Read Genesis 1:21–25

The earth has brought forth not only vegetation, but also living creatures. This is purely a functional relationship, not a biological one, for God clearly revealed that He is the Creator, and He didn’t just create an environment and launch an evolutionary system. He created everything after its kind, fully formed. There were no transitional states of being, not for creeping insects or rodents, not for herd animals capable of being domesticated and not for wild non-herd type of animals. The earth is the perfect environment for God’s creatures, but it is less than perfect and incapable of creating those creatures without God’s influence. The earth was created for the animals and man, and the animals were specifically created for us, not as a precursor to us.

The earth, created by God, provided the raw materials for God’s creation in regard to all of His creatures. It also provided the fertile soil to nurture an unlimited supply of food sources to sustain those creatures. These food sources being watered by a complex watering system both internal and external of the earth itself would be necessary, not only for the animals, but eventually for man. Notice once again that without God’s divine intervention and act of creation, the earth would still be sitting here empty and lifeless, even with form and structure and complex environmental systems in place. Consequently, if you put dirt, minerals, water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen into a giant fiery cauldron, there is still no catalyst to transform inorganic materials into living, functioning cells. There is no explanation of chirality in amino acids. There is no plausible explanation for the change from molecules to cells, from chemicals to biological life; zip, nada, zero, zilch! It requires faith. Oh! I guess it is a religion of sorts. The mystery of life, however, is no real mystery at all. In Him (Jesus Christ) is life, and this life is the light of men (John 1:4).

And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:25 (NKJV)

Earth is not our mother, but still a perfect place to live!

Let Us

Read Genesis 1:25–26.

God declared, ‘Let Us’ make man in ‘Our’ image. To whom was He referring? This poses a theological question with which we must wrestle. Some would say that it is merely a literary-style component of the passage, in which God, being the equivalent of a royal king or monarch, used pluralisms to describe singular royalties or people of great importance. Others would say that God was referring to the heavenly host of angels, which would mean that God had already created angels in His image, angels being peers of God and so equivalent in nature. Or He could have just been polite in saying us, when He really just meant Me.

If the former view is correct, why did God make such a point of revealing the idea of man created in His image? This view seems unreasonable when you weigh together the whole counsel of God’s Word. Regarding the second argument, the angels (morning stars) may very well have been created on day four of the creation week, followed by the creation of all other creatures and man, man being the cornerstone or foundation of creation, with Jesus Christ ultimately, as a man, becoming the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20).

For this reason, it makes more sense that God was referring to Himself as in the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. After all, we know that God the Father and His Holy Spirit were present at creation, and when we follow the whole counsel of God’s Word, we see that Jesus Christ, the Logos (Word), was also present at creation (John 1:1). He is the same One who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). So, with all three present and accounted for, there was a practical need for plurality in the revelation of the creation narrative. Truly, God has revealed Himself to us in His creation and His Word.

Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Genesis 1:26 (NKJV)

Father, Son, Holy Spirit—hypostatic union.

Imago Dei

Read Genesis 1:25–27.

God made us—mankind—in His image. What is the image of God? And what does it mean to be made in it? This question has perplexed theologians for hundreds of years. The image is not defined at all in maleness or femaleness, but according to God’s record, being created in His image appears to be distinctive to the human race alone. Though biological similarities exist between men and animals, those similarities are in the physical, earthly body itself and speak more about a common Creator than a biological link. The true distinctions could not be more pronounced and are reflected in our eternal essence as expressed in our thoughts, our self-awareness, our ability to reason, to love, to hate, and to embrace or reject morals. This includes the ability to communicate soundly and distinctly with translated thought, to experience emotional connection in relationships, to not only survive but thrive, and to be dependent on not only physical sustenance, but also spiritual congruence to our Creator. Yes, the distinctions are pronounced, subtle, and as vast as the universe itself. Some have compared our Imago Dei to the nature of the Triune Godhead, being three separate, but non-divisive individual entities, yet one in practical identification and state of being.

We see a similar example in the created universe made up of space, time, and matter: three distinct yet necessarily joined entities that reveal to us the essence of one universe. Our three-in-one image is made up of body, soul, and spirit, spirit being the key. Plants have a living body, but they lack a soul and a spirit. Animals have a body and a soul, but they lack a spirit with which to connect to God. Angels have a soul and a spirit, but they lack a physical body. This heavenly host is distinctive of Jesus Christ Himself, yet angels may have been likewise created. The soul and spirit, of course, are not readily discernible to us and are referred to in the singular, much like God and His Holy Spirit, but they require the quick and powerful Word of God to be divided.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27 (NKJV)

An eternal body is needed for our eternal soul, our spirit, which mirrors God.

God’s Unit

Read Genesis 1:26–28.

Notice that God didn’t just create Adam, put him in charge, and say, Oh, by the way, here is Eve, your helper. He put them in charge together within the context of marriage, being fruitful and multiplying and exercising authority over all of God’s creation. Marriage is God’s main unit of organization, and when we follow His design, we will prosper. When we choose to ignore His creative purposes, we will suffer. God’s world was designed to nurture and feed and sustain every person who would ever be born. It is the introduction of sin into God’s creation that has brought about shortages, famines, and pestilence. Here again, if we follow God’s design for organization and society, that is marriage—one man to one woman—and family, we will prosper. If we ignore God’s design, we will struggle unnecessarily.

You could argue that the modern Western world has in part prospered because of their Judeo-Christian ethic and their views of marriage and family. God’s design upholds human value in general, and as we pull away from these godly values and designs, we openly introduce ourselves to greater poverty, crime, and social injustices. God’s design is perfect and works perfectly whenever it is tried. We should respect that fact and strive to follow God’s design when we organize anything, even within our churches.

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1:28 (NKJV)

Marriage is God’s unit for organization.

Adapt and Overcome

Read Genesis 1:26–30.

Modern scientists object to the notion that all men and animals were at one time vegetarians. Of course, many modern scientists also object to the book of Genesis in general. It seems that ferocious-looking teeth and claws, along with digestive tracts destined for animal flesh, are sufficient evidence to reject the idea that a world at one time followed a total vegetarian lifestyle, at least within the animal kingdom, if not including man. But this dead-end view also denies evolutionary forces. What? Aren’t the folks with vivid imaginations the same ones with faith in Mother Nature and evolution to win out in all situations? The biblical account is more creative and leaves room for a type of evolution, micro-evolution, not macro-evolution. Let me say that again: micro-, not macro-evolution. Micro-evolution basically means that a short-beaked finch can become a long-beaked finch as long as such is already available within the gene code of finches.

The creation story reveals that everything is created and multiplies within a kind. There is no macro-evolution; a finch was never a dinosaur, etc. In other words, if a finch needed a long beak to survive and there was no long beak code in its DNA, the finch would just go extinct. It would not miraculously evolve into a new species. There is no evolutionary force that magically and without fail seems to find a way. If the oxygen in our earth’s atmosphere slowly began turning to methane, there would not be a transitional form of a human being that would eventually lead to a new methane-breathing species, but rather humans would just go extinct, because there is nothing in our DNA that would ever allow us to survive. Humans were designed to breathe air, not methane gas. What we have is a