Key Verse: Verse 1 - “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Harold Fortescue, a budding newspaper reporter, was sent to cover a local social function. It was his first assignment. He expanded himself and submitted to his editor two dozen pages of typewritten oratory. The editor did not even glance at it, but handed it right back with the words, “Cut it in half.” Crestfallen, Fortescue complied. Again, the editor handed it back with the dry comment, “Cut it in half again.” Grumbling under his breath, the youthful reporter did as he was told. When he handed in the finished article, the editor handed it back once more. “Now, reduce it to a single page,” he said. The horrified reporter ventured a protest. His boss cut him off. “Young man,” he said, “you have evidently overlooked the fact that when the Creator of the universe gives His account of Creation He does so in ten words – ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’”
There it stands in all its naked force, the opening statement of Scripture. No attempt is made to water it down, to apologize to a skeptical age, even to prove that God is. The Holy Spirit simply deems certain truths to be self-evident, the first and foremost that God is. In one sublime statement, He sweeps aside atheism by asserting His existence, polytheism by declaring Himself to be one, and pantheism by separating Himself from matter.
Peter Stoner, a mathematician, lists thirteen steps of creation in Genesis 1. He tabulates those as the creation of the universe (v.1), light (v.3), darkness dispelled from the earth (v.4), the atmosphere established (v. 6), the seas appointed their boundaries (v. 9), the continents raised (v. 10), plant life formed, namely grasses, herbs and fruit trees (v. 11), the sun, moon, and stars appointed to function (v. 14), marine life created (v. 20), fowls created (v. 21), the age of the great whales (v.21), the creation of land vertebrates and “creeping things” (v.24), and man created (v. 26). Those things are not only correctly named and listed in their proper order, but also Moses’ chances of writing Genesis 1 in that way by accident would amount to one chance in 31 sextillion (31 followed by 21 zeros).
Dr. Stoner gives an illustration. He postulates a raffle with that number of tickets. Printing them would call for eight million printing presses, each capable of producing two thousand tickets a minute, running day and night without stopping for five million years! One of the tickets is marked. Our chances of drawing that one ticket on the first try would be the same as Moses’ chance of writing Genesis 1 by accident. Because Moses did not write the facts recorded here by accident and because he had no means of writing Genesis 1 as a result of human reasoning (he wrote contrary to the accepted learning of the day), he had to have written it by divine revelation. In the beginning God did create the heaven and the earth!
Dr. Mike Rouse
What to do:
✞ Remember, if God created the heaven and the earth, He can handle your problems as well.
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