Genesis Lecture 36 (Fourth day of the Creation)
Bible passage: Genesis 1:14-19
“14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.”
Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord.
All saints from branch churches, and local sanctuaries. GCN viewers and all children of God who attend the worship online. This is the 36th Lecture on Genesis. From tonight, Let me tell you about the Creation works of the 4th Day. God created the sun, the moon, and stars on the 4th day. In astronomical terminology, God created “our Galaxy” during the 4th day of the Creation. With the exception of the earth, God created all of the celestial bodies of our galaxy on the 4th day of Creation.
I said that before God began the six days of Creation, He had already created the earth. Then, when were the other countless galaxies created in addition to our galaxy? Is there any evidence that the universe was not formed from a massive explosion but that God created it? If any, what is it? Also, it seems that the light of the sun, a large light, is sufficient for life to live on Earth, so why did God create the moon, a small light? What changes occurred on Earth after the sun, moon, and stars were created? From now on, let's go on a journey with me into the vast universe to find the answers to all these questions. Let me show you a picture first so that you can feel the vastness of the universe. It's a bit difficult to go on a journey because math concepts or other things are unfamiliar to you. Please understand. First, let’s look at a photo that gives you a sense of how vast the universe is.
This photo was sent back by the probe Voyager 1, which took pictures of the Earth near Pluto in June 1990. Can you see a dot? It’s said that the Earth is no bigger than a single dot. The Earth is smaller than a point in space. This is a view of the Earth from the solar system. If you look from further space, it will be difficult to find the Earth. When you look at the Earth from Pluto, it is this small. Find out where the Earth is. Can you find it quickly? This small thing is the Earth After launch in September 1977, photos taken from Pluto were sent 12 years and 9 months later. Data was also sent in April 2010, approximately 33 years later. Did you see it ? A circle with a dot. It’ too small to see it. When viewed from Pluto in our solar system, the Earth only looks like a dot. That means the Earth is small. So, if you look at it from space, you can't even see it. What would you see if you looked at the Earth from a universe tens of millions or billions of times larger than our solar system? You can't even see it at all. Can you find Earth in that picture?
This photo is nicknamed ‘Pale Blue Dot.’ n the vast space of space, we can see that the Earth is just a small dot emitting faint light. This is the Earth as seen from the edge of the solar system, about 6.4 billion km from Earth. The solar system is also very vast, with its edges 6.4 billion kilometers away. However, this solar system is just a dot in space. You can see how vast the universe is. When viewed from space, the solar system is just a dot. The solar system is just a ‘small dot’ in the entire universe to which the Earth belongs. And when you look at it from that small point, the Earth is that small. So what lies beyond our solar system? There is a galaxy. The diameter of our galaxy, which Earth belongs to, is the distance it would take about 100,000 years to travel at the speed of light, This means that there are many galaxies that the Earth belongs to the galaxy that the Earth does not belong to.
What is the diameter of our galaxy, where Earth belongs? This means that the diameter is the distance it would take about 100,000 years to travel at the speed of light. The speed of light goes 300,000 km in one second. Light travels around the Earth seven and a half times in one second. At such a fast speed, light has to travel for 100,000 years, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, and 5 years to reach the diameter of the galaxy. You can see how wide our galaxy is. Does your head hurt? You don’t want to imagine it, do you? So, it is said that it is 100,000 light years, which is the distance that must be traveled in 100,000 years at the speed of light. A collection of dozens of such galaxies is called a galaxy group. There are dozens of galaxies with a diameter of 100,000 light years.
Please understand and follow along When hundreds or thousands of galaxy groups gather together, It is called a galaxy cluster. Do you feel a headache? We don't use units above 10 quadrillion even in mathematics. Instead, we use units like ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, ten million, hundred million, billion, ten billion, hundred billion, a hundred billion, two hundred billion, three hundred billion, four hundred billion … nine hundred billion, and trillion. Above trillion, the next unit is 10 quadrillion. I explained galaxy clusters so far. Additionally, a collection of such galaxy clusters is called a supercluster. This is the extent of space classified by astronomers. Just by hearing this, can you imagine its size? It takes about 100,000 years at the speed of light to go from one end of our galaxy to the other, but this distance is actually hard to imagine.
It is even more difficult to imagine the size of galaxy groups and galaxy clusters. It is very difficult to calculate the distance of a galaxy cluster even if it runs with light. The space I just mentioned is only a part of the fleshly world, that is, the first heaven. Besides this vast First Heaven, there are other heavens. They are the 2nd, the 3rd, and the 4th heavens that belong to the spiritual realm. God governs and reigns over all these heavens. Originally, these heavens were one, and it was called ‘the Original Heaven.’ God the Origin existed in the original space as in the form of light that contained the sound. At one point of time, God the Origin cohered at the vertex of the spiritual realm for the human cultivation. Due to this, 4 spaces came to exist with different brightness of spiritual light and different density of the spirit. The intensity and density of spiritual light is higher the closer you are to the peak of the spiritual world. The original space which was originally one now became 4. God called these 4 spaces the 1st heaven, the 2nd heaven, the 3rd heaven, and the 4th heaven respectively. What we call ‘the space” where we live is the 1st heaven.
I said the 1st heaven is too vast for a man to imagine. Dear brothers and sisters. This vastness of the 1st heaven, which is the ‘fleshly world’, is very small when compared to the spiritual realm. The first heaven, which is so vast that it cannot be calculated, and this physical world, are very small compared to the size of the spiritual world. There’s a parable to help you clearly feel the size of the fleshly world and the spiritual world Say, you gave an ant an island which is as big as Hawaii. The ant cannot comprehend how big the island is. If it could rationalize, it may just think that it is too big to travel. However, Hawaii takes only a tiny space on the surface of the earth. Hawaii is very small compared to the rest of the Earth. Therefore, even if you tell the ant the size of the earth, the ant cannot imagine the size at all. Here, the ant is comparable to us as human beings. ‘Hawaii’ is then comparable to the 1st heaven, which is the fleshly world. On Earth, only Hawaii is like the physical world, and the rest is like the spiritual world.
Do you understand? Listen carefully. If you have other distracting thoughts, you will miss it. Then, you can imagine how vast the spiritual realm is! Of course, the proportion of the fleshly world to the spiritual realm is not exactly the proportion of Hawaii to the earth. I just compared them to help you understand the difference. At a point in the physical world, which is very small compared to the spiritual world, God first created the earth for human cultivation. And on the fourth day of creation, he created the sun and the other planets and satellites of the solar system. He also created the stars of our galaxy. Then, when were the countless stars outside of our galaxy, and the entirety of other celestial bodies created? When you listen to scientific content like this, listen with faith rather than study.
God has unfolded and created such vast things, so how much infinite power and ability can He give us? So when were the countless stars outside our galaxy, that is, all the other celestial bodies, created? The answer is; they were created before the Creation. Before the original space was divided into 4 spaces, there were countless stars. In the empty vastness of space, God, the light that contained the sound, was not alone. God the Origin already created countless stars before the Creation, and put them in the original space. And then, the original space was divided into 4 spaces. Those stars which were in the first heaven by that time are the stars outside of our galaxy now. Therefore, there were countless stars already in the 2nd, the 3rd, and the 4th heavens. Even before the 1st heaven was created, countless stars already existed, and God created the earth, the sun, the moon, and stars in a certain part of the 1st heaven. The universe was not formed from ‘Big Bang’ just as scientists propose. Everyone, think about it.
This tiny galaxy alone has a diameter of 100,000 light years. But how could a galaxy like this be created in a big explosion and form such a huge galaxy? Would a big explosion cause stars to fly hundreds of thousands of light years away and settle down? Does this make sense? Scientists, professors and doctors, does this make sense? Are you saying that the stars spread out across this vast universe continued to fly away in a big explosion, flying at the speed of light to hundreds of millions of light years and taking their places? This is absolutely impossible, but it makes no sense to claim that it was caused by a big explosion. That's why God the Father explained it to us through Genesis. The existence of dinosaurs and the formation of the universe are different from what scientists claim.
Scientists who propose the Big Bang theory have grounds in their own way. As scientific technology developed, they came to know that the universe is not stagnant, but that it keeps expanding. As they observed other galaxies from the earth, other galaxies were found to keep receding from the earth. Based on this fact, scientists proposed a theory. Since the universe is currently expanding, it may have been expanding in the past as well. How many years has the universe been expanding? Also, how long have scientists known this? Also, if the universe had expanded, how much would it have expanded? Scientists' theories keep changing over years or decades. When I was in elementary school, I learned that there were 300 million stars. There are countless stars, but when I was young, science said there were 300 million stars. However, as time passes, science continues to develop and eventually different results are announced. Science says that as we trace back to remote time, the universe must have been much smaller than now. At a certain time point in the past, the universe must have been as small as a speck.
For some reason, there was a big bang in such a small universe, and it continued to expand to become a universe as it is now.” This is the famous “Big Bang Theory.” As this Big Bang theory was established, many scientists received Nobel prizes in this field. When examined based on the given fact only, the Big Bang theory seems to be well established theory with firm evidence. However, the Big Bang theory is still incomplete. Since it was first proposed, it has been corrected many times, and it can be corrected any time depending on the result of future observation. Besides, no matter how highly scientific technology develops, there is one thing that man can never explain. The fact is that the Big Bang theory does not explain the first moment of the Big Bang.
The Big Bang theory doesn’t explain the very initial Big bang; it rather explains some time after the moment of the initial massive explosion. In other words, we can provide a theoretical explanation for the aftermath of the Big Bang by mobilizing all of mathematics and physics. If the Big Bang theory were true, however, it should be able to explain not the aftereffect of the big bang, but the moment of the big bang itself. So far, not a single scientist has ever succeeded in explaining the moment of the big bang. Moreover, scientists agree that it is the field that no future scientific technology will be able to explain. It is because there is a limit to what can be explained with the fleshly knowledge. No fleshly theory can explain the work of God’s Creation. Science cannot explain how humans appear. Science cannot prove why we humans are the only ones looking for God when there are so many animals and birds.
But you know the answer: why are only people seeking God? However, no matter how clever the monkey is, educate the animal for 10 or 20 years until it dies. Does it know about God? It doesn’t know God. Even children will understand if you teach them about God at a very young age. Therefore, the work of God's creation can never be explained with fleshly theories. Now, you may have a question. It is a fact that the universe is expanding based on the scientific observation, but why is that? Why did God create the universe of the 1st heaven as an expanding space, not as a stagnant space? The reason is to make a purifying action take place through the expanding of this fleshly space. It’s a purifying action. The seas that are two thirds of the earth is indeed stagnant water in a big vessel called ‘earth.’ It may decay as time goes by, but why don’t the sea waters decay? First, it is due to salt contained in the sea waters. Another important reason is that the sea waters keep moving due to the ebb and flow and thus they don’t decay.
Earth's seawater is also purified by the moon. Because the moon is in that position, the Earth's oceans have low tide and high tide, so the salt in the ocean moves instead of sinking, and it plays a role in preventing the water from rotting. Tides also create wind, which circulates the Earth's air. Temperature and humidity are regulated by the wind. When the tide comes in, the wind comes too. When you stand at the beach when the tide comes in, then the cool wind blows. So this means that because the sea water moves, it does not rot. By the same token, the 1st heaven should not stagnate, but it should keep on moving. If you stay quite long in a place where ventilation is bad, the air becomes stuffy. To the eyes of God, who governs all the heavens, the 1st heaven is comparably a small space.
Therefore, by making this space keep expanding, God made it possible for it to be able to purify itself. So, the Earth performs various functions as it rotates and orbits. However, once human cultivation is completed, this first heaven will close. Regarding this, Revelation 21:1 says, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” It said, “There was no more sea.” Here, “the first heaven and the first earth” refers to the space of the 1st heaven where we live. Once the human cultivation is over, and the Final Judgment comes to an end, the 1st heaven is no longer necessary. However, the 1st heaven, a fleshly space was divided from the original space, so it doesn’t become completely extinct. God just closes the gate to the 1st heaven. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Tonight’s scripture mentions “the expanse of the heavens” a couple of times. God let the great lights, which are the sun and the moon, be in the ‘expanse of the heavens,’ and God also created stars and let them be in the ‘expanse of the heavens.’ Why did God call it ‘the expanse of the heavens,’ not just ‘heaven’ or ‘expanse’?
It is to show that the sun, the moon, stars are not close to the earth, but they are far from the earth. Today, you know how far the sun, the moon, and stars are from the earth thanks to the highly developed science. However, the ancient people didn’t how far the sun, the moon, and stars were, and how big they were. If God called it just ‘heaven’ or ‘expanse,’ people might think they are floating in the sky at a close distance. God uses the name “expanse of the heavens “to express that they are located in a different space than the sky. “The expanse of the heavens” refers to the outer space beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. God put the precise meanings even in a single word, and recorded it in the Bible. There is one more you should pray extra close attention to. It is the explanation about the size of the sun and the moon. God calls the sun, “the greater light,” and the moon “the lesser light.” When seen from the earth, the size of the sun and of the moon is almost identical. When it is in ‘full moon’, the moon looks even bigger than the sun.
If a child who is short of knowledge is asked which of the two is bigger, the sun or the moon, then the child will answer according to how it is seen. It was the same to the ancient people who lived in the days of not-so developed science. If it were to show the brightness of the sun and the moon was different, God would say the sun was the brighter light, and the moon was the lesser bright light. However, God called the sun, “the greater light,” and the moon “the lesser light.” Even these words contain the exact meaning of God. God could call the sun a bright light, but he didn't do that. He accurately expressed the difference in not only the brightness but also the size of the sun and moon to help people understand them. So how much bigger is the sun than the moon? When we see them with the naked eye, they seem similar in size. So is the sun 10, 20, 30 times bigger than the moon?
Don't be surprised. Is the sun about 1000 times bigger than the Earth? sorry, I'm sure you all have been educated and learned enough, but there are many of you who have graduated from school a long time ago and have forgotten the science content, so I would like to remind you. The sun is about 1.3 million times bigger than the Earth, Not a thousand times, ten thousand times, or 100,000 times, but about 1.3 million times. This means that the sun is that much bigger than the Earth. The moon is said to be about 1/50th the size of the Earth. The moon is so tiny compared to the earth. The sun is about 65 million times the size of the moon. When we see it with our eyes, it looks similar, but because the sun is so far away, we see less of it. Though the size difference between the sun and the moon is so great, they look the same in size because the moon is much closer to the earth than the sun. Genesis 1:14 says, “Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.” By creating the sun and moon on the fourth day of creation, God divided day and night.
However, God already separated the light from the darkness, and called the light day, and the darkness night. And thus, the day was separated from the night already from the 1st day of Creation. But after creating the sun and moon on the fourth day of creation, why did God again say, “Let the day be divided into nights?” When God said “Let there be light” on the 1st day of the Creation, the original light surrounded the earth. During the day as the light surrounded the earth, God manifested the works of the Creation. And He withdrew the light for the length of the day, and gave the rest of the time to the forces of the darkness. From the 1st day to the 3rd day of the Creation, when God surrounded the earth with the original light, it was the day, and when God withdrew the light, it was the night. Therefore, for the 3 days, even though the earth didn’t rotate, there were days and nights. However, after God created the sun, the moon, and stars on the 4th day of the Creation, the earth began rotation and revolution. As the earth rotates, the surface of the earth that faces the sun becomes the day, and the other part becomes the night.
The day and night now automatically began to change. Before then, God governs the changes of the day and night, but now, God let the sun, the moon, and stars manage it. Let me explain it with this example. Someone made a robot, but this robot couldn’t move by itself. He had to lift an arm of this robot to make the arm be lifted, and he had to move its feet for every step. Only when the master of the robot made the movement-mechanism of the robot, could the robot move. Then, he put clockwork inside the robot; he made the robot move by itself as he winds up the clock. Then, without even touching it, the robot could move by itself. It is the same with the earth. Until the 3rd day of the Creation, the earth was held by the power of God in the space, and the day and night changed by God. But then, as the sun, the moon, and stars were created on the 4th day, according to the law that God set up, the earth began to operate by itself. Here is one more example. A watch has the hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand. Without a battery, if you move the second hand, the hour hand and the minute hand will also move together with it.
And the watch can be operated in this way. If you put battery into the watch, the hands of the watch can move automatically and it tells you the time. From the 1st day till the 3rd day of the Creation, (we can say that) God Himself ‘moved the hands of the watch’ manually, but from the 4th day, the hands began to move automatically. IF you disassemble a watch, you can find that all the big and small saw-toothed wheels work together to tell the precise time. By the same token, God planned so that the earth, the sun, the moon, and stars could operate automatically in harmony. God created them taken into consideration, such as the distance between each object, and the strength of their pulling and pushing, If the sun or the moon were a little bigger or smaller than today, no living things could survive on earth. If the sun were farther away than it is now, we would all freeze to death, and if it were closer, it would be too hot to live on earth. God placed the sun and moon in the correct location. So on Earth, the ebb and flow of tides occurs, temperature and humidity are regulated, and winds blow. This is how God distributed everything, designed it accurately, and did it. How funny is it that this was caused by a big explosion? There are so many stars and the universe, so why is there only life on Earth? Some say there is life like this in other universes besides Earth.
But no. It can't happen. Also, if the size of the sun and moon were just a little bigger or smaller, life would not be able to live on Earth. The same is also true if the distance between each of them were closer or farther. It feels even more absurd to say that the sun, moon, and stars happened to be that size and are in that location in the aftermath of the Big Bang. And in a way, the stars are all very different in size. Some stars are incredibly large beyond imagination. No matter how small a star is, it is hundreds of thousands larger than the Earth, but these stars look the same to us. There are countless evidences that God the Creator, with the highest-degree of wisdom and knowledge, planned and created all things from the beginning. I will explain the evidences of God’s creation contained in the sun, the moon, and stars in the next lecture. Let me conclude it. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Tonight, I explained some of the Creation works of the 4th Day. The earth that we put our feet on is a very tiny planet in the fleshly space of the 1st heaven. It may be compared to one speck among the countless grains of sand of a beach.
If you compare the size of the earth to the size of the entire spiritual realm, you may even safely ignore its existence. If you can understand the vastness of the universe that God created, you cannot but respect and fear God. Psalm 8:3-4 says, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?” God the Father always thinks of human beings who live in the tiny little earth of the vast universe, and He gives them advice of love in various ways. Among the countless celestial bodies of the vast universe, He pays the very special attention only to this earth. Why is that? That is because the true children of God are being born on this earth. He chose this earth and created all the sun, moon, stars, sea, land, grass, birds, flowers, and beasts on it, and then cultivated it with humans.
So He made here everything needed for cultivation. Through the human cultivation, the true children who can understand the deep heart of God the Father, who can fear God from their innermost heart, who can share true love with God forever and ever are being born on the earth. I hope that you can feel the deep love of God in the Creation works that God managed. May you love God from your innermost heart, and also enjoy His love, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray!
