Tuesday, July 1, 2008

50 million years???

In our Bible study last night they were watching a video of John Hagee. Personally, I do not agree with everything he says. He took Genesis 1:1 and said that in the original language there were 28 letters in the sentance. the number 28 breaks down to 4 and 7. with 7 being the number for completion and 4 being the number for the earth. He also said that the amount of time between Genesis chapter one and chapter two could be up to 50 million years.

I do not agree with this teaching. I believe in the young earth of about 6000 to 8000 years. It is biblical and archeologically it still fits. I do not believe in evolution as it does not make sense that God can create all things with just His spoken Word, and yet those things need millions of years to improve. We were created perfectly! As were the animals!

By the way, Hagee is also the one who believes that Jews will automatically go to heaven even if they do not claim Jesus as Lord and Savior!

What are your thoughts?

13 comments:

Dawg said...

Hagee can get a little 'out there' sometimes and say some things that are just not biblical.

50 million years huh?

I'm with you Brian on the 6-8000 years...at the most 8-10,000.

Ken Ham has done a excellent job disproving the millions of years nonsense that many Christians have just accepted as truth because science said so.

Keep up the good work.

Question of Identity said...

Many people do not believe in a literal understanding of Genesis 1-2 stating that the genre hear is poetry. They are wrong!

When Moses is given the ten commandments GOD HIMSELF declares:"For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them". We can not believe in evolution and believe God at the same time - one has to be wrong - my vote is that God is right every time - He should know he was there!

As for Jews not needing Jesus:
"All (including Jews!)have sinned and fall short of God's glory"; "The penalty of sin (for everyone - because God is just!)is death" "but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus".

This gospel is for Jews and gentiles alike for "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" otherwise why would Paul bother trying to win them over for salvation: "to the Jews I became like a Jew to WIN the Jews"?

Hagee should try telling the organisation "Jews for Jesus" that Jews don't need a Saviour!

pastorbrianculver said...

very good points Neil,
the video we were watching was one from the beginning of 2007. And he was saying that the year 2007 was going to be a huge year for Israel. He tried to convince people that every 490 years has been significant. but in order to do that, he had to squirm a little bit on some dates in order for it to fit. The thing is, no one in his church questions what he says! There are some things that he says so very fast that it goes right over their heads. that's the nice thing about DVD players, you can rewind and listen to the fast (sly) parts!

pastorbrianculver said...

thanks Wayne!
I mentioned Ken Hamm last night at Bible study but it seemed to go without notice! He has done an awesome job to counter what science claims to be truth.

Anonymous said...

Guys, can you get me a link or something to Ken Ham, 50 million years is a long time to sit around and essentially do nothing.

pastorbrianculver said...

Here you go Chris!

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

Thoughts From Jeff said...

I am not 100% sure if I were honest.

However, I am fine with Luther's words:

He [Moses] calls 'a spade a spade,' i.e., he employs the terms 'day' and 'evening' without Allegory, just as we customarily do we assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e., that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read. If we do not comprehend the reason for this, let us remain pupils and leave the job of teacher to the Holy Spirit.”

Thus, there is no doubt in my mind that God could create the world and everything in it - in 6 days. It is also not beyond Him that He could do it in 6 days and MAKE it look like 50 million years old.

BUT .... to me, my faith would not be shattered if it did not occur in 6 days and I know that some can not grasp that.

pastorbrianculver said...

I agree,
I guess the thing is not so much that HE makes it look like it is 50 million years old, because man can not possibly comprehend what 50 millions years would actually look like. It is man who is capable of error, not God and His Word. So I put my faith in His Word over man's word any day!

The real message needs to be WHO do we place our trust and faith in?
WHO do we follow?
WHO do we call LORD?

Anonymous said...

this is an excerpt from "I have a Friend who is Jewish"

But... how can any honest and thinking 21st Century person believe in the Scriptures
that give the account of G-d creating the heavens and the earth in six days? Here’s what science just learned. Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a nuclear physicist with
his doctorate earned at the famous M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
and a cosmologist (the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and
structure of the universe) reveals more scientific evidence that the Bible can be
taken literally1.
It is now widely accepted in scientific circles that there was a “beginning” and a
“creator”. Compared to just 40 years ago when the concept of a six-day creation
was laughed at, the Big Bang is now commonly accepted as fact. A firm confirmation
of this theory came when physicists discovered that the entire earth is
bathing in a faint glow of radiation. Its waves follow the exact pattern of wavelength
expected in a giant explosion. This has been confirmed again and again.
Astronomers have determined that the expansion rate of the universe from the
beginning (Big Bang) is one million squared – that is a one followed by 12 zeroes
(1,000,000,000,000). Remember this number. We’re going to use it later.
With dimensional objects, we take for granted that the farther we are from an
object, the smaller it appears. As an example, the moon appears to be the size of
a quarter. Railroad tracks appear to come together (get smaller) as they get farther
away.
The same thing happens with time. It is as elastic as dimensional objects are.
Einstein’s theory of relativity that: time slows down for bodies in motion, was
proven by flying an atomic clock at a very high rate of speed and comparing it to
another atomic clock left at the airport. The one that was flown at high speed
“lost” time.
Now, as ridiculous as this seems, the six 24 hour days of creation AND the 15
billion years old age of our universe, are in fact, the same time period, depending
upon your perspective. Now stay with me here…
G-d measures time from “His” perspective, in other words from where He started
creation. We on the other hand measure time from here on earth; thus our different
perspectives vastly effect, or stretch time.
Let’s prove this from Einstein’s theory of relativity. The numbers that follow
come from the latest physics books and are used exclusively in physics laboratories
and review journals worldwide. For example, in The Big Bang, by Joseph Silk,
published by W.H. Freeman, or The Principles of Physical Cosmology by P.J.E.
Peeble (both are 100% secular science), we are told that the universe is a million
squared times larger today than at the time of the Big Bang. This means that the
universe has been stretching and stretching. So let’s illustrate this. Let’s say that G-d is sitting at the point of the Big Bang and is having fun with His
new laser gun. He sends out a pulse of light and imprints on it the message “I’m
sending you a pulse of light every second.” The first pulse moves away from Him
at 186,000 miles per second (the speed of light). Then, a second later, G-d fires the
next pulse, and a second later the next, etc.
But as they are traveling away from G-d what is happening to the universe? It is
s t r e t c h i n g outward as time goes
on. Therefore, the space between the pulses is also stretching, and it is taking
longer and longer for the pulses to move through the expanded space. As the
first pulse arrives at our big dish antenna here on earth, we are very excited. But,
from our perspective the next pulse doesn’t arrive a second later, it arrives in
direct proportion to the amount of stretching or expansion the universe has gone
through up until that time. For arguments sake let’s say it takes 25 years for the
second pulse to reach us. Then were the pulses fired a second apart? Yes, from
G-d’s perspective. And are the pulses actually 25 years apart? Yes, from our
perspective.
I know this is a hard concept to understand, so let me say it another way. G-d fired
His laser gun from the point of the Big Bang 5 billion years ago. Let’s say it took
one year for the light to travel across the universe at that time and size. Now, if He
fired it 10 billion years ago, since the universe had more time to expand, wouldn’t
it take longer for the light to travel through the larger universe? Yes, of course it
would. Well, it still only took one second of G-d’s time. But, because the universe
kept expanding, it would appear to have taken longer to reach us, because we
measure time from our already expanded universe perspective. So one second
equals different time periods, depending upon where you are measuring the time.
Well, science says that the universe is about 15 billion years old. The Torah says
G-d created the heavens and the earth in 6 days. Do the math. Divide 15,000,000,000
(the estimated age of the universe) by 1,000,000,000,000 (the rate the universe is
expanding or stretching) = .015. Multiply .015 X 365 days in a year and this equals
approximately 6 (24 hour) days.
I thought this was pretty cool. The information comes from an entire scientific
textbook on the subject that I tried to boil down to a couple of pages. There is a
considerable amount of additional information needed by you, the reader, to
narrow this down further and more accurately. For a complete explanation, if
you’re up to it, read The Science of G-d by Gerald Schroeder1.
The point I am trying to make here is simply to prove that science and the Scriptures
are in agreement. It seems the more we learn, the more we discover how
“smart” our ancient Scriptures really are.

sorry for the length, but I found this to be incredibly interesting as a possible explanation of creation... ultimately, young earth or old, God created it and I will praise the Lord either way!

pastorbrianculver said...

Hi Michelle,
While this is a pretty interesting compilation of information, there are a couple of things that would bother me.

"The Big Bang is commonly accepted as fact." (I would offer that is true only with non-christian scientist)

There are a few problems that i can see with what this person has said...
Our time period does in fact come from the Bible. When God said that something would happen in so many days, it always happened according to our human calendars. His day and night were 24 hour periods of time.

For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. Gen 7:4

Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day [shall be] a feast to the LORD. Exodus 13:7

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Gen 1:5

When the Bible is taken as Truth, we can believe what it says, we do not need to develop new methods of understanding it. I know you believe the Bible to be true. I have read your blog and I can tell by your heart that you believe every word to be true. We live by faith and faith alone. We believe in the resurrected Jesus. We can believe in the literal account of creation too. One day is one day. One week is one week. The only way the formula that was presented would work is if the person knew exactly how far away God was at the time He created everything. The logic of time spreading longer and longer would make each day that we experience to be milleniums at a time. The first day had a night and a day. It was a 24 hour time period. The day we are experiencing today is a 24 hour time period.

It still all comes down to Jesus. From Genesis to Revelation, it talks about a plan of salvation and the judgment to come.

My personal beliefs are to believe the Bible and not a scientist. I respect your contribution Michelle, but I personally would not put too much into what this man says.

I will agree with you on your final statement! God created it all and I will praise Him for it!

Thoughts From Jeff said...

Michelle:

I wish that I had the physicist name on hand - left the book at the car repair shop today ...

But, he was sharing the more and more that he studies and greaks down the DNA - the more and more he sees the fingerprint of God

Now, he is not a 6 day literalist, but he sees the fingerprint of God in all the science he studies

Anonymous said...

I aree with the young earth theory.God speaks things into existance ( and He dosen't speak that slowly ! )
My biggest concern about Hagee however is this dual covenant thing as regards the Jews. To say that they are saved through ethnic origin and /or law-keeping is very dangerous as it ignores the totality of Scripture in favor of a vague and artificial construct.

Bob Hanks
www.bobhanks.wordpress.com

pastorbrianculver said...

it amazes me how many people follow Hagee and think that he is so very spiritual and so very biblical. I have tried taking notes on some of his sermons and find that he spends more time trying to get people to clap that to stay true to the bible. He says many things that are biblical but then he will slide in some teachings that are not biblical, such as the dual covenant aspect that he teaches. It is so important that people read the bible and know what it says as opposed to just blindly following a man!