AND GOD SAID

AND GOD SAID These words, as you know, are associated with the story of creation in the book of Genesis. In essence, God said something before it happened. For example, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). The same sequence is found in vss. 6, 8, 11, 14, 20, 24, and 26. This simple statement of fact may be more significant than we first realize.

For many centuries the teaching of Aristotle reigned supreme. He argued that a “vacuum,” where there is no matter, is impossible. At the risk of over simplification, he believed that the material universe was eternal. Before the 1920s the scientific community agreed with Aristotle. Then Edwin Hubble discovered that stars and galaxies were moving away from one another at a high rate of speed. This led scientists to “believe” that the universe did have a beginning and is now in the process of expanding. This is known as “The Big Bang Theory”. The internet states: “According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure.”

Thomas Nagel is an atheist, yet dares to question materialistic evolution. The shocking subtitle of his book, Mind and Cosmos, is Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Nagel argues that the “materialist” version of evolutionary biology is unable to account for the existence of the “non material” such as mind and consciousness. It is therefore at best, incomplete. Naturally his book has met with scorn in the evolutionary community.

Nagel’s thoughts, however, help us to focus on the subject of origins. It is a fact that both “mind” and “matter” exist. The question is, which came first? Charles Darwin “believed” that matter came first but lamented: “But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” Would you trust a computer constructed by accident? Then why trust your mind?

The Scriptures are clear that mind came before matter. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (Jn. 1:1-3). That’s why it is significant that “God said” something before it came to pass. Like a quarterback on a football team, God calls the play and nature responds. It is interesting to note that when God created most things He spoke into a vacuum. When He created man, however, He spoke to Jesus and the Holy Spirit saying: “Let us make man in our image image and in our likeness” (Gen. 1:26).

A “word” is a vehicle of communication. A “word” is a way that one mind can communicate with another mind. Therefore “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). No one has ever seen God, but Jesus came to earth to make Him known (Jn. 1:18).

After her husband’s death in 1881, Sarah Winchester inherited $20.5 million. (Equivalent to over $500 million today). In addition to the death of her husband her infant daughter also died. She became convinced that she was being cursed by the ghosts of thousands killed by her husband’s Winchester rifle. In 1884 she began building a house in the Santa Clara Valley in California believing that as long as the building continued the spirits would be appeased. It is said that carpenters worked without a plan on the house day and night for 38 years. There are roughly 161 rooms, 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 panes of glass, 17 chimneys, and 3 elevators. Because there was no plan, however, there are doors and stairs that go nowhere, and windows that merely open into other rooms. It is called the Winchester Mystery House because nothing in it makes sense.

Information is non material. A page with 3,000 random letters weighs the same as a page with 3.,000 letters spelling out scientific data. Atheist Richard Dawkins admits by his own calculation that a single human cell contains enough information to fill 4,000 books with 500 pages each. This vast reservoir of information did not happen by accident. “God said” it first and then it came to be!

When God speaks to you, there is no limit to the transformation that can occur in your life!