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Old Testament 3 Creation Stage 3 Liberty Home Bible Institute HL Willmington
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In this lecture, the speaker discusses the second method of creation called theistic evolution. They argue that this method contradicts certain principles, such as God's purpose of redemption and the creation of Adam and Eve. They also mention the second law of thermodynamics, which suggests that evolution goes against the idea of things being built up and instead supports the idea of things running down. The speaker suggests that it would have taken a greater miracle for God to constantly change DNA structures for evolution to occur. They argue that the first few chapters of Genesis should be taken literally, supporting the idea of special creation. They also discuss the interpretation of the word "day" in Genesis, arguing that it should be understood as a 24-hour period. The speaker mentions the proposed gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, suggesting that mysterious events may have occurred during this time. This is number 3 in a series of 80 Old Testament lectures. We're discussing now the second method of creation, which is called theistic evolution. We've already seen that even though some fine Christians may believe this, that it would seem to contradict certain principles. That is to say that God would use the method of evolution in creating all things. For example, it would contradict God's overall purpose of redemption. Then it would seem to reduce Adam to a spiritually transformed ape, where God would simply put his hand upon some already existing male subhuman creature, and then transforming him over to Adam. This would definitely be refuted by Moses and by Jesus, who says that he made man, God did, and woman, male and female, at the beginning. And it would certainly be in direct contradiction to the creation of Eve, because theistic evolution says both men and women proceeded from a common one-celled creature, while the Bible records Eve came from Adam. And then this implies, this theistic evolution concept implies, that we can only know the why and the who of creation from Moses, but we must depend upon Darwin for the how and the when of the matter. But I really don't think we have to do that at all. Our Lord Jesus said in John chapter 3, verse 12, to Nicodemus, who had come to him by night for salvation, he said, If I have told you earthly things and you believe it not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And so I think it's best to keep this in mind, that although the Bible is not a scientific textbook, yet it does contain scientific statements, and they are to be taken literally just like the spiritual statements. You could also say that although the Bible is basically a spiritual textbook and not a historical textbook, yet the historical statements must be taken as literally as the statements in John 3.16 and some of the other great principles in the Word of God. And then another thing to consider in this theistic evolution, it would seem to contradict, or at least to say, it could not harmonize two great laws in physics. One is the second law of thermodynamics, and this is the law of energy deterioration. Remember, perhaps from your study in physics in high school or even college, the first law of thermodynamics says that energy can change forms. You take a sheet of paper and burn it, and you change it from the paper into gases and carbon, but it cannot be either created or destroyed, and therefore the sum total remains constant. That's the first law. The second law says that although you can change, it cannot be destroyed or created, and when you do change it, the second law says that you lose some of the available energy. That is to say that some of this is turned into heat energy, and it cannot be converted back into useful forms. In other words, the second law says that this universe may be looked upon as sort of a wound-up clock that is slowly running down, and this process is called entropy, and it's referring to a system turning in upon itself. And so because of this, you see, it seems to contradict evolution because evolution says things can be built up, but the second law of thermodynamics says, no, that's not true, things are not being built up, but things are running down. In other words, the second law seems to prohibit the building up of any earthly system by its own bootstraps. Now, to illustrate this, I think we can all agree with this, a neglected plot of weeds and briars and thorns will never turn into a beautiful green lawn if left by itself, but a neglected beautiful green lawn will always turn into a plot of weeds and briars and thorns. And if you have a little boy like we do, you know how the second law can be demonstrated in his bedroom. There seems to be perfect order one day and then utter chaos, entropy, total entropy the next day. There are two attempts to get around this law of thermodynamics, the second law, and one says that this, they claim that our world in some respects is not governed by the second law, for they say it receives the necessary energy from the sun to account for evolution. They say, well, it's true, the sun may be running down, but our earth gets its energy from the sun and therefore it can be used to build up through evolution. But the complexity of life calls for more than a source of energy. It also demands a purposeful direction of that energy. For example, a builder might expose bricks and sand and nails and paint and wires and wood and other building material to the heat and energy of the sun and to the refreshing gentle rains, would never by themselves unite and form a house. What we're saying is this, that it would have taken a greater miracle, I think, for God to have constantly stepped in and changed the DNA structure of these various species so they could turn one into another. It would have taken a far more greater miracle for him to do that than for him to originally program all life in six days to remain within the original species. You see, because the third law, there is the first law and the second law, then the third law is called the law of biogenesis. And this simply says that you get puppies from a mother dog and not from a baboon. So the third law was seen to prohibit the transmutation between kinds of life. And a little phrase in the first few chapters of Genesis, after their kind is constantly referred to. God made things and he made them after their kind. And so as we determine the evidence from a scriptural, let alone from a scientific viewpoint, it would seem that the child of God would be far better to accept the statements in Genesis 1 and 2 as literal statements. God created the world and all therein in six days. And this brings us to the third point which actually teaches this and it's called special creation. We discussed atheistic materialism and theistic evolution and now special creation. And this position holds, of course, that the first few chapters of Genesis are to be taken in a literal and natural manner like all other historical accounts in the Bible. Often the question is asked, are the days of Genesis 1 and 2 literal days? For example, could they refer to millions of years? By the way, they would have to do this if theistic evolution is right. Do you know how long each day would have to refer to if they are long periods of time in order to meet the demands of the evolutionists? Well, many evolutionists say that life began during the Cambrian period which is some 750 to 1 billion years ago. Not man now, but life itself. Now, if that's the case, then if we try to twist the scripture and make it fit the theories of science, and there's no proof of this, of course, but the theories of science, then each of the six days would have to stand for approximately 125 million years. Now, to me this seems a bit far-fetched, and very frankly, if God didn't really mean to say what he meant to say, then why didn't he say exactly what was on his mind in Genesis? It would seem to me that he unnecessarily would lead us astray here. I think there's a lot of indication, many indications in the original language itself, that these days are to be taken in a literal, historical format. For example, the Hebrew word for day, there's two Hebrew words. One is the word olam, O-L-A-M, and this sometimes refers to a long period of time. Then there's another 24-hour day, a fixed period of time called a yom, Y-O-M. Now, it is true even today we use the word day in meaning various periods of time. For example, Grandma might say, well, you know, this younger generation, and they're doing this, and they're doing that. In my day, we didn't do it that way. Well, we would know that Grandma is not talking about 24 hours there. She's talking about a generation. But if she said, today I'm going downtown and buy me my pound of Ovaltine and go home and watch as the world turns or as the stomach turns or something, you know, then she would use another Hebrew word, and she would say, well, you know, in my yom, that is to say, she would say, in my olam, O-L-A-M. They didn't do things that way. That would be a generation. But if she wanted to refer to going down and buying the Ovaltine, she would say, yom, Y-O-M, today I'm going to do thus and such. And Dr. John C. Whitcomb writes the following, who is a creation scientist and a fine Hebrew scholar. He says, the use of a numerical adjective with the word day in Genesis 1 limits it to a normal day. In historical narratives, the numerical adjective always limits the word to a 24-hour period. And he points to Numbers chapter 7, he says, for a remarkable parallel. And so the word itself would indicate the word yom instead of olam, that these are indeed 24-hour days. And then apparently Moses believed this on Mount Sinai, as he gives Israel the Ten Commandments. And do you remember one of the commandments? Remember the seventh day, the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For in six days, he said, God created the heavens and earth and rested on the seventh. That is to say that man was to rest 24 hours on the Sabbath, because God rested 24 hours, or that is to say he rested at the end of the week. He was comparing what they were to do with what God once did. So the analogy seems to be very impressive there. And later on, and in your notes class, you will have many of these scriptures, and you're to look them up, and we'll be telling you later on about the assignments. But the Bible definitely, we believe, teaches a literal 24-hour day, six-day week creation period. All right, now, we've already discussed the chronology of creation. We said that there are three heavens mentioned, first heaven, second heaven, and third heaven. Now, I want to call your attention to the proposed gap between Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, and Genesis chapter 1, verse 2. And some believers see some very mysterious things that might have occurred between 1 and 2. In the beginning, the Bible says God created the heaven and the earth, and then in verse 2, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now, I'm not sure if you have heard of the gap theory or not. If you have a Schofield Bible, especially the old Schofield, then you'll read a very lengthy footnote on the proposed gap between Genesis 1, 1 and Genesis 1, 2. Let me just tell you what the gap theory teaches. The gap theory says that this original world was created beautiful and perfect. And we read about that in the first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then it says that God committed this earth to Satan to administer, or Lucifer, before he became Satan. And then Satan rebelled, and he and his whole kingdom came under God's judgment, and the earth became without form and void. And the argument here, this would be waste and chaotic. And then the remaining six days of the subsequent work, rather, of the six days, was a work of recreation. Let me give you my own illustration of this. Here is a potter, and this is what the gap theory would teach. Here is a potter that has just molded a very beautiful vessel. And he shaped it and formed it until it's perfect, and he's painted it, and it becomes the apple of his eye, the best thing that he's ever done. And so he places it on a table, and during the night an enemy breaks in and takes this vessel and smashes it to the ground and then escapes. The next morning, the potter awakes, and he sees what has been done, and he could go back to his little workshop and build another, construct another vessel, but he loved that one so much that he gets a little divine Elmer's glue out, as it were, and he carefully glues the pieces back together of this beautiful vessel that he once made in perfection and that his enemy broke. And they would say that God created this vessel perfect, in verse 1, and then the remaining verses in chapter 1 and 2 simply gives us the story of God re-piecing them and gluing them together after Satan smashed it to the ground. Now, traces of this theory can be traced back to Christian writings as early as the 4th century A.D., so it's not exactly something new. It should be said that it was not until the ministries of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, which is a Scottish scholar, and then George H. Pember in 1876 that the theory really caught on. And then in 1917, C.I. Schofield included it in his notes, and the popularity of the gap theory was assured. And I think these last two dates are significant, 1876 and especially by 1917, the reason being that in 1880, Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of the Species, was universally accepted by the scientific world. Remember Darwin, who wrote the book in 1859, and in this he proposed that the world was not created by God, it evolved, and it certainly did not evolve in six days, but it evolved through millions of years. And life itself was evolved during that time, and so supposedly this had all been proven, which of course it had not. So many of the Christians now, especially the Christian theologian, was confronted by a serious problem. How could all this be reconciled with Genesis 1? Well, an answer was found. Uncounted millions of years could be conveniently tucked into that bottomless hole, which was said to exist between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2. And they said, all right, Mr. Darwin, you need all this time, maybe life did begin during the Cambrian period, which is 750 million years ago. No problem, we'll just put it in this little gap between, or this chasm, I should say, between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2. I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that the gap theory may be viewed in part as an attempt by the Christian theologian to appease the non-Christian evolutionist. Believe me, you'll have to give up far more than that if you're going to appease the agnostic, because he's not going to be satisfied with that. You're going to have to give up all the miracles in the Old Testament. You're going to have to give up the virgin birth of Christ. You're going to have to give up the vicarious or the sinless life and the vicarious death, the bodily resurrection, the physical ascension, and the literal second appearing. You're going to have to give all those things up if you're going to attempt to make the Bible reconcile with the minds of some scientists. It simply cannot be done. Now, there are various arguments, however, in favor of the gap theory, and some of these, I think, are very impressive. For example, they say the verb translated was, in Genesis 1.2, it says, the earth was without form and void. That really should be translated, the world became without form and void. And thus the idea of a profound change in the earth's condition is permitted. That's the first argument. I'll go through and give these arguments, and then we'll come back and try to refute them. Then they say another argument, the phrase waste and void. The world became, the earth became without form and void, which is waste and void. In the Hebrew, it's tahu wabahu, and that appears only in Isaiah 34, verse 11, and in Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 23, the Hebrew phrase tahu wabahu. And the context here, when it appears in Isaiah and Jeremiah, these passages speak clearly of judgment and destruction. And so they say when you find the little couplet, waste and void, somewhere else in the Bible, it does refer to judgment, and so therefore it must refer to judgment here. That's another argument for the gap theory. And then the third argument, they say it is highly improbable that God, the author of light, would have originally created the world in darkness, which is generally used in scripture as a symbol of evil. For example, here it says that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, God is the author of light, and he would not create anything in darkness, and that's another argument. And then they say there seems to be a definite distinction in the first chapter of Genesis between created and made. For example, it says that God created the heavens and the earth, and that's a certain Hebrew word that means out of nothing. And then later on it says he made this and he made that, which simply means to reconstruct. So these are four or five arguments attempted that are promoted by those that believe in the gap theory to prove what they believe. Okay, now let's examine some of these arguments, and perhaps I believe we can refute some of them. I think I should say at the beginning here that one graduate student of a university some time ago questioned 20 of the leading Hebrew scholars of America concerning the exegetical evidence for a gap in Genesis 1. And these schools unanimously replied that in the Hebrew, and a lot of them were unsaved scholars and they weren't concerned about the theology, but as far as the Hebrew language itself, the structure, the philosophy of the Hebrew language, there was no such evidence. And so this would certainly cause one maybe to begin to doubt the gap theory. Now, one of the arguments, as we said already, was that the verb translated was in Genesis 1, 2, now the earth was without form and void, should be translated the earth became. Well, the Hebrew word that's translated was here is found 264 times in the Pentateuch, the first five books in the Bible, and of these in 258 occasions, the word is translated was correctly. Now, it is true there are six instances where the verb is translated became, but the Hebrew word, and I'll spell down the English that we have for was here, is h-a-y-e-t-h-a, that's haitha, and that's found 258 times, and it's found 264 times. And of the 264 times, 258 times, that verb haitha should be translated exactly the way it is here in Genesis, because the word, or the earth, was. And so it didn't become anything, it always, or it was. So that doesn't seem to be a very strong argument. Now, there's another argument, and that says that the words, tahu wabahu, waste and void, or without form and void, it pictures judgment and destruction. Now, that's not always the case. Sometimes the word tahu, t-o-h-u, it does not always refer to something evil, but it simply may mean, on occasion, empty space. For example, in the book of Job, chapter 26, verse 7, it speaks of God stretching out the earth over the north, places over the empty space. So it has nothing to do, in the book of Job, with something evil, but it simply says space. And here it might mean the same thing. And then also the word tahu and bahu, and other passages, would indicate that this does not always mean destruction. You'll have this in detail form in your notes. Then argument number three. The argument says this, that since darkness in Scripture is a symbol of evil, it is unlikely that God, the author of light, should create the world in darkness. But again, by way of refutation, physical darkness is not necessarily inherently evil, or a sign of judgment. For example, in Psalm 104, it speaks of the creatures by day, the birds and the rest, giving thanks to God for the light that he has given them, and the creatures by night, giving thanks for the darkness. In other words, the furry creatures that scramble around by night, and the owl and everything, giving in their own way, giving thanks to God who maketh the night. And so night and darkness is not inherently evil in the Bible. And we're not even sure what darkness is. Apparently it's simply the absence of light. Then the next argument that says there is a distinction between the verbs created and the verbs made. And that's simply not true. Because in Genesis 1, it does say that God created, and that's the word bara, B-A-R-A, he created the heavens and the earth. But it also says in verse 21 that he created, he bara, the great sea monsters. And then in Genesis 1, chapter 1, verse 26, it says that he made man in his own image. And then in verse 27, he created man. So the terms are used interchangeably. You can't say that Genesis 1, on the basis of the Hebrew, the first verse speaks of a special creation, and then the next few verses simply speak of a remaking of the special creation, because it simply does not hold water as far as the Hebrew is concerned. Now, let me just tell you what I think took place, and many Bible students would see it this way also, that Genesis 1-1 is simply a summary statement. In other words, God is saying, for anybody that's interested, I'm going to tell you what I did. And here's what I did. In the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth. Now, after I've told you what I did, I'm going to tell you how I did it. Here's how I did what I did. The first day I did this. The second day I did this. The third day I did this, etc. So, he tells us what he did. That's a summarized statement. Often the Hebrew would do this in his writing. Then he says, now let me give you the details of how I did this mighty act of creation. Dr. John Whitcomb of Gray Theological Seminary has summarized the subject of the gap theory as follows. He says this. He says, the differences between the gap theory and the traditional view of a comparatively recent creation of the earth within six literal days are quite profound. In the first place, the gap theory must redefine the very good of Genesis 1, verse 31, where it says, God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. He says, for Adam would have been placed, if the gap theory is true, as a very late arrival in a world that had just been destroyed through this Lucifer flood here, so that Adam was literally walking upon a graveyard of billions of creatures, including dinosaurs, over which he would never exercise dominion. But, of course, in Genesis 1, verse 26, God told him to have dominion over all creation. Furthermore, Whitcomb says, this very good world would already have become the domain of a fallen and wicked being who is described elsewhere in scripture as the god of this world. So that's the first argument he gives. And then Whitcomb goes on to say, secondly, the gap theory assumes that carnivorous and other animals were living and dying not only millions of years before Adam, but even before the fall of Satan. But could death have prevailed in the animal kingdom in a sinless world? Does not the Bible indicate that the groaning and travailing in pain of the animal kingdom is a result of the Edenic curse which came after Adam's fall? And, of course, in Romans 8 it does definitely say that. It was neither nature nor Satan, but man who was created to be the king of the earth, in Psalm 8 and Hebrews chapter 2. And not until man deliberately rejected the known will of God did death make its first appearance on this planet, or did animals fall under the bondage of corruption. Thus, he says, the gap theory seriously compromises the biblical doctrine of man's original dominion and the doctrine of the Edenic curse which a holy God inflicted upon the earth because of man's rebellion. In other words, he's saying here that if this be the case, that Adam, then this statement would have not been true in the book of Romans where Paul says that death came by man's sin. Because if the gap theory were true, then man would have been a latecomer and Paul would have been mixed up here. So I think, and you'll have other, again, notes in your textbook that I think will amplify this theory. I'd like to just say it is our position here, the Liberty Home Bible Institute and the Thomas Road Bible Institute and the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and the college itself, the professors, that the gap theory is not a scriptural theory. We certainly do not have any plans to break fellowship with those who believe in it. But we do not think it to be scientifically or scripturally feasible to believe either in theistic evolution or in the gap theory. Well, enough for all that. Now, let's go into the work of these first six literal days. Notice what God does, and here we need to have you read during your study period the entire first chapter of Genesis. Notice what God does the first day. He creates the light. And he separates the light from the darkness. The Holy Spirit now moves or he vibrates upon this earth. And from this omnipotent vibrating energy source becomes to flow out energy waves, waves of heat and sound and the rest. And so during the first day, the Spirit of God now creates and separates the light from darkness. By the way, many Christians erroneously believe that the Holy Spirit first came at Pentecost and he'll leave at the rapture. But you notice here that the Spirit of God is mentioned in the second verse in the Bible. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The Holy Spirit has been here all through the Old Testament. He was working very busy, and he'll continue through the tribulation and the millennium. Because it is impossible, apparently, for God's work to be done on earth apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That's what God did the first day. Now the second day in chapter 1, verses 6 to 8, the separating of the waters. The importance of this, I think, in regards to the longevity of man should be noted. Notice verse 6 and 8, and perhaps we'll read these. And God said, "...let there be a firmament," and that means an expanse or a space, "...in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Notice there's a space in the heavens between two bodies of water. Many people believe that at the original creation, this world would resemble a sort of opaque hothouse, where there was perhaps hundreds of times more water vapor in the heavenlies as there is today. And this might help us later on to explain not only the flood, but also to explain the longevity of man prior to the flood. All right, in verse 7, "...and God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament," now this would be earth, "...from the waters which were above the firmament," this would be the upper atmosphere, "...and it was so. And God called the firmament," or the space, "...heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day." So this is what God did on the second day. Now, on the third day, we read in Genesis 9-13, that he creates plant life. Now, evolution says that life began in the sea. But God declares it was on the dry land during the third day of his creation, week. And so this in itself would refute the doctrine of evolution, what God did on the third day, in creating plant life. The first life to exist was plant life. Notice on the fourth day now, the Bible says that he created the sun, moon, and stars. Now, wait a minute, Dean Wilmington, we have a problem here. He created the plant life, you say, on the third day, but you mean to say he did not create the sun and moon and stars until the fourth day? No, I don't mean to say that at all, but that's what the Bible says. He created the earth on the first day, but he created the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Now, why did he create the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day rather than on the first? Now, one possible explanation is that in this way, God is emphasizing the supreme importance of the earth. He created the earth before he created the sun. Among all the huge bodies in the universe, in spite of its comparatively smallness of size, even among the nine planets, the earth is one of the smallest. To say nothing of the stars themselves, it is nonetheless absolutely unique in God's eternal purposes. Maybe that's the reason he created the world on the fourth day, first day, and didn't get around to creating the sun until the fourth day. Because, you see, it was on this planet, not the sun, not Pluto, and not Epsilon, but it was upon this planet, the earth, that God placed man, created in his own image, to exercise dominion and to worship him. And it was to this planet, not to some planet in another galaxy, that God himself came in person some 1900 years ago to become a permanent member of the human race and to die for human sins upon a rugged cross. And, friends, it will be upon this same planet that this same great God and Savior will return again to establish his kingdom. He's coming not to the moon or not to Jupiter, but he's coming to this earth. So this may be one reason God did not get around to creating the sun until the fourth day. Well, someone said, now, wait a minute, if the sun was not created until the fourth day, what happens here the first day, the creation of light? Well, apparently there was some supernatural source of light apart from the sun on the first day. And that light itself could have been sufficient enough to keep the planets alive, I mean, to keep plants alive, I should say, plant life until the fourth day. But at any rate, if we take the Bible literally, he did this on the fourth day. And another possible reason for this order of events, the earth on the first day and the sun on the fourth day, is that God by this means made it clear that the earth and life upon it do not owe their existence to the sun that rules the day, but rather to God himself. In other words, in the Orient, and actually in all ancient cultures, men worshiped the sun. Because you see, it was the sun that provided light and warmth and gave them all that they needed. It was the most noticeable thing of their existence, the sun. And so they'd fall down and worship it. And perhaps God wanted his people to know that they were not to worship the sun, but they were to worship God, because God created the earth before he even got around to creating the sun. He'd already created life. And that might have been one of the reasons why we have these events. All right, now, that's what he did on the fourth day. And then the fifth day. We're told in verses 20 to 23, he creates fish and fowl. And what a size of range this covered. From the tiny airborne hummingbird weighing but an ounce or so to the massive seaborne blue whale attaining a length of 110 feet and a weight of 300,000 pounds. By the way, the blue sperm whale is three or four times as big, and it's living today, of course, than the largest dinosaur that ever lived. Think of that, 300,000 pounds. Now, by comparison, this monster is heavier and longer than the modern Boeing 737 aircraft. That's right. And God created this tiny little hummingbird and this massive whale on the fifth day. Then the sixth day, of course, the creation of the land creatures and man himself. Now, I say the land creatures, and this included all land animals, including the mighty dinosaurs and the brontosaurus. We'll discuss that later, but let me just answer that question right now. We're going to answer the question in the next few lectures. Were there dinosaurs on board the Ark? We'll come to that at a later point. But I'd like to say now that the Bible teaches, unlike the evolutionists that says that the dinosaurs died out during the Tarracic period some 200 million years B.C., the Bible teaches that God created the dinosaurs along with all other land creatures on the sixth day of his creation week. And then, as a crowning point of creation, the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1 and in verse 26, And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And we read that in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26. And also then in chapter 2, we read the same account, worded a little differently here. The Bible says that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed, and out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree. And of course we'll discuss that later on, concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, and all other trees. But on the sixth day, God then created a creature in his own image. We'll discuss that during the next lecture. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? In concluding this, let me just say that Adam, the name of this creature, of course, created in the image of God, was the highlight of God's creation. Albert Einstein once said that the most brilliant genius uses but one-tenth of one percent of his total potential brain ability. Now, this means that Adam was at least a thousand times superior to today's intellectual eggheads. You know, we're probably 97 percent blind to the total color scheme displayed by nature, and probably 98 percent deaf to her many sound patterns. But Adam's five senses were tuned to absolute perfection, because this is a creature made in the very image of God. Let us conclude this by a word of prayer. Father, we ask your blessing upon this, the study of the doctrine of man, as it were, and that we are the product not of some random forces of nature, but from the very hand of God. May we find that hand to be our Savior, to hold our hand. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
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