In The Beginning, God

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In The Beginning, God

• The Story of Creation

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Creation of Mankind

• Then God said, Let Us make man in Our Image,
  according to Our likeness and let them rule over
  the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and
  over the cattle and over all the earth, and over
  every crawling thing that creeps on the earth.
• God created man in His own image, in the image of
  God he created them, male and female He created
  them. (Genesis 126-27) NASB

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Creation of Mankind

• Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the
  ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
  of life, and man became a living being. (Genesis
  27)
• The creation of mankind was deliberate, and He
  gave him dominion over the earth.
• We are not evolutionary left over junk.

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The 6 Days of CreationAnd God Said,

• 1 Let there be light
• 2 Let there be an expanse in the midst of the
  waters
• 3 Let the earth sprout vegetation
• 4 Let there be lights in the expanse of the
  heavens, for signs and seasons
• 5 Let the waters teem with living creatures.
• 6 Let the earth bring forth living creatures.
  Let us make man in our own image.

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Let there be Light!
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Creation SummarizedNote the Contrast

• Then the Lord formed man from the ground, and
  breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
  (Genesis 25)
• And God said, Let the earth spout vegetation,
  let the earth bring forth living creatures
• Note the contrast between deliberate creation of
  man and Let the earth ..

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Letting Creation HappenLet To allow, permit
(World Book Dictionary)Let In Hebrew means It
will be

• 1 Then God said, Let (13)
• 2 Then God said, Let.. (16)
• 3 Then God said, Let (19)
• Then God said, Let (114)
• Then God said, Let (120)
• Then God said, Let (124)
• God is powerful enough to accomplish his word by
  letting things happen.

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Billions of Stars
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Then God said,

• In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was
  with God, and the word was God. He was in the
  beginning with God. All things came into being
  through him, and apart from Him nothing came into
  being that came into being. John 11-4)
• Jesus is the Word
• Then God said (Jesus)

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Jesus Created the WorldColossians 115-17

• He is the image of the invisible God, the
  firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things
  were created, both in the heavens and on earth,
  visible and invisible, whether thrones or
  dominions or rulers or authorities all things
  have been created through Him and for Him. He is
  before all things and in Him all things hold
  together

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God Creates AdamWhat is wrong with this picture?
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The 4th DayGenesis 114

• Then God said, Let there be lights in the
  expanse of the heaven to separate the day from
  the night, and let them be for signs and for
  seasons and for days and years.
• There was no way to mark off a day before the 4th
  day the Bible says so
• Creation was 2/3 over when we could mark off a 24
  hour day.

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6 Days Defined asPoetic Style

• Begins with Then God said, Let ..
• Ends with And there was evening and there was
  morning, the day.
• These refrains enclose all 6 creation days.

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How Long is a Day?

• Hebrew days were normally sundown to sundown
• The Old Testament has many other uses of the same
  Hebrew word for day in other places with meanings
  such as
• 24 hours, year, era etc.
• The Genesis account does not say which meaning is
  appropriate.

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Gaseous Streamers Flutter in a Stellar Breeze
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The 7th DayGenesis 22-3

• By the seventh day God completed His work which
  He had done, and He rested on the seventh day
  from all His work which He had done. Then God
  blessed the seventh day and sanctified it,
  because in it He rested from all the work which
  God had created and made.
• There is no recorded end to the 7th day.

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God is Still at Rest

• For 40 years I loathed that generation, and said
  they are a people who err in their hearts, and
  they do not know My ways. Therefore I swore in
  My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My
  rest. (Psalm 9510-11, Hebrews 310-11)

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Entering Gods RestHebrews 4

• Therefore let us fear if, while a promise remains
  of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to
  have come short of it.(41)
• Therefore it remains for some to enter it, and
  those who formerly had good news failed to enter
  because of disobedience.(46)
• The 7th day is an era

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The Creation is Huge

• 100 Billion Galaxies (at least)
• 100 Billion Stars per Galaxy (at least)
• The Milky Way has 100 Billion Stars
• The Universe is at about 14 Billion years old
• This is too big for man to comprehend

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(No Transcript)
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Our Universe

• Exploding apart
• Running out of fuel (In billions of years)
• The Milky Way (or Galaxy) will collide with
  another Galaxy in 2 billion years
• Our sun will explode in a few billion years
• Our sun is slowly heating up will fry us.
• There is no possible future in this universe.

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A Star TearingApart Explosion is 250,000
years old
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Black Holes

• Eating up stars like ours
• Each galaxy has a black hole in the center
• Contains hundreds of millions of stars
• Perhaps 12 miles wide
• Nothing ever escapes from them

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Black Hole dust cloud3,700 light years across.
A light year is 6 trillion miles wide
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Conclusions

• God Lets things happen
• God accomplishes His word anyway
• His creation is huge
• The Creator is bigger than the creation
• His creation is beyond our puny minds
• He cares for us
• We can enter His rest and live forever

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Each gas blob is 100 billion miles wide
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This Worlds FutureII Peter 210-11
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
in which the heavens will pass away with a roar
and the elements will be destroyed with intense
heat, and the earth and its works will be burned
up. Since all these things are to be destroyed
in this way, what sort of people ought you to be
in holy conduct and godliness?
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A New Day

• Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the
  first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
  (Revelation 211)
• But according to his promise we are looking for
  new heavens and a new earth, in which
  righteousness dwells. (II Peter 313)
• You can choose eternal life (rest) or death.