Hi all,
Are we alone? How old is the universe?
Years ago I really wanted to know how old is the universe and are we alone? Is it 14 billion years or just a few thousand years? I had read many books from Christians who debated the age of the earth and universe, leaving me with no definitive answer. So I set my heart to sit outside each night to look at the stars and pray, asking the Father.
It took nearly 2 weeks of nightly going outside around 9pm (21.00) for 30 to 60 minutes at a time, laying back on a lounge chair praying and thinking and talking to the Father, and staring at the stars. My mind would wander and then I’d reign in my thoughts to worship or pray again, then wander off and then bring them back again.
I’d settle in to just look at the stars, the satellites passing quickly overhead, the lights from a passing airliner and wondering where they were going…and back to the Father: “Are we alone? You know I’m not going anywhere. I’ll keep this up as long as I can, I figure until the seasons change and it gets below freezing.” (I’m honest with Him since He knows my heart anyway, so what’s the point in making empty threats, lol).
To day one
Finally, about 2 weeks into my routine the Father spoke as I lay on my back staring up at a star filled night:
“What you see out there (He said with emphasis) in the universe is creation to day one (up to day one). All you see before you is what was done up to day one. Then I stopped and turned my creative attention to the earth to complete it. But there will come a time when I will once again turn my creative attention to the rest of the universe to complete it. But what you see out there now, is creation to day one.”
I lay there for a minute thinking. All those stars, all those galaxies, are just “to (up to) day one”. Incomplete, primitive, the most basic building blocks of the universe in place, but on hold awaiting a time when He will turn His attention back to them.
Wow. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” of Genesis 1:1 sets the order, that the stars came first, then the planets – science agrees. But ‘in the beginning’ was before day 1 starts as we read Genesis, for the focus in that first verse is the stars, then leads to the earth, then continues the focus on earth’s creation. How long was ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and earth’ before He turned His attention to earth to complete it?
(I still love the stars, I even have a teaching series on the ‘Gospel in the Stars’ for the signs of the zodiac in ancient times told the story of salvation, from Virgo the virgin who gives birth to a son, to Leo the lion of the tribe of Judah showing the return of Messiah, to Gemini who were originally a groom and his bride, and so on).
That He said it was ‘to day one’ tells me there is a huge time gap between the creation of the stars and earth and the ‘day one’ starting earth’s completion. There could be billions of earth years between the creation of the universe and God starting His focus on earth to complete it. We don’t know, the rest is speculation.
The ‘ages to come’ in which He will continue to show us His love and kindness mentioned in Ephesians 2:7, have to do with His plans for us and the rest of the universe.
Starlight and Time, by Dr. Russell Humphreys
His book is available in Kindle format as well as paperback, and for me, generally solved the question of how old the universe and earth are. His main point is that Einstein said time would go faster the further it got from a gravity source. This was proven correct with the placement of 2 identical atomic clocks, one in Greenwich, England near sea level, and one in Boulder, Colorado, more than a mile (1.6km) above sea level. The clock further away from the core of the earth which is the source of earth’s gravity, runs 5 microseconds (.000005) faster than the one at sea level.
This proves Einstein correct, time moves more quickly the further from a gravity source. According to Dr. Humphreys’ calculations, that means (because Genesis was written from the perspective of earth) the stars would be about 14 billion years old while the earth would be a few thousands of years old. Both ages are correct, it is time that changes with distance from a gravity source, which is the earth’s gravity in this context. Interesting to consider…
2 floods
Genesis opens with the earth as a water planet in darkness, stating the earth was ‘formless and void and darkness was on the face of the deep’. That is a dark water planet. But how did it get that way?
The phrase in Hebrew stating the earth was, “formless and void” is used only 1 other place in scripture, which is Jeremiah 4:23. There he speaks of the judgment on Judah, saying the earth was ‘formless and void’ and dark in judgement. It would seem therefore the earth in Genesis 1 became formless and void due to judgment by flood.
When I read Peter saying the next destruction of the planet will be by fire*, I can’t help wondering if the first judgment was the Genesis 1 flood, then Noah’s flood was the 2nd, and the 3rd time will be by fire? *II Peter 3:7
Some food for thought, we won’t really know the answer this side of heaven
If that is the case it suggests it happened when Lucifer was thrown out of heaven, stripped of his authority and responsibilities, and cast down to earth. The spiritual war in heaven had a physical manifestation on the planet; his world being judged by a world-wide flood.
A planet flooded in judgement as Genesis opens would not only explain why Satan had already fallen from heaven when he later speaks to Adam and Eve in the Garden, it would explain why he was thrown down to earth in the first place, as opposed to say, sending him to Mars or Jupiter.
Ezekiel 28:13-19 and Isaiah 14: 12-17 state Lucifer had authority and made the world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities, among other destructions he did upon the earth. Most take that to mean in our day Satan is active on the planet, but what if it is speaking of an earlier creation that was flooded over in judgement?
What if there was a creation long before Adam and Eve, modern man, that a good Lucifer ruled? Maybe he ruled the earth as a good king until he wanted more? He wanted to control heaven and took the battle there as The Revelation 12: 7-10 states, and was stripped of his authority and thrown back down to earth. Maybe that is why he has been trying to rule the planet in his fallen condition ever since?
What is clear is that there have been 2 floods on the earth that we are told about. If that first flood was in judgment similar to the later flood that came in Noah’s time, it means there was ancient life on the planet before the modern man and woman of Adam and Eve and before modern life forms like mammals and higher plants.
That would explain so much about ancient sea life coexisting with modern sea life, fish found in fossils also discovered alive today, and so much more. And that’s where we will pick it up next, and also cover the question of dinosaurs.
Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
