Manuscript by Dee Richardson,
Voice of the Dove
In The Beginning…
God created the universe, and everything in it. Everything visible and invisible was created by God. The world is not a product of evolution, blind chance, and probability. God created it, all of it. The Bible not only tells us that God created the world; more importantly, it tells us who this God is. The Bible reveals God’s deepest desire to relate to and fellowship with the people He created. Come with me on this fascinating and exciting journey into the world of the God who created the universe.
More than 230 million years ago, dinosaurs inhabited the earth. Fossil remains have been found dating back to that time and there are museums housing the bones of their remains. At some point the dinosaurs became extinct. We’ll get into that in more detail, in just a bit.
Based on that data, I believe the oldest known dinosaurs inhabited the earth for at least 164 million years before becoming extinct by an asteroid that slammed into the earth, instantly killing 80% of all species of plants and animals inhabiting the earth at that time.
The Bible speaks of a creature called Behemoth in the 40th chapter of Job. God said that He created Behemoth and perfectly describes a dinosaur called T-Rex.
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| Carlos Papolio, Artist Reconstruction |
Job 40:15-19 (New Century Version)
Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you. It eats grass like an ox.
Look at the strength it has in its body; the stomach muscles are powerful. Its
tail is like a cedar tree; the muscles of its thighs are woven together. Its
bones are like tubes of bronze; its legs are like bars of iron. It is one of
the first of God's works, but its Maker can destroy it.
Behemoth was one of the first of God’s works, that He created millions of years ago. God is describing this extinct dinosaur to Job, as He reveals His omnipotence to him, but Behemoth had long ago become extinct and has never existed since God created Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
In the very next chapter of Job, God speaks of another creature called Leviathan, which I believe could have also existed in the dinosaur age. He was definitely a monstrous sea creature for sure.
Job 41:1-11 (New Century Version) Can
you catch Leviathan on a fishhook or tie its tongue down with a rope? Can you
put a cord through its nose or a hook in its jaw? Will it keep begging you for
mercy and speak to you with gentle words? Will it make an agreement with you
and let you take it as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of Leviathan as
you would a bird or put it on a leash for your girls? Will traders try to
bargain with you for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? Can you
stick darts all over its skin or fill its head with fishing spears? If you put
one hand on it, you will never forget the battle, and you will never do it
again! There is no hope of defeating it; just seeing it overwhelms people. No
one is brave enough to make it angry, so who would be able to stand up against Me?
No one has ever given Me anything that I must pay back, because everything
under the sky belongs to Me.
God describes the hugeness and strength of Leviathan, and then compares Himself to it by saying, “No one is brave enough to make it angry, so who would be able to stand up against Me? Ironically, the Bible does speak of the dinosaur age, but many misunderstand it and attribute it to the time of Adam and Eve’s creation.
Psalm 104:24-25 (NKJV) O LORD, how
manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is
full of Your possessions — this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable
teeming things, living things both small and great.
Prior to the creation of dinosaurs, God created heaven and earth, then He created those creatures to inhabit the earth. The account in Job 40 about Behemoth says that he ate grass like an ox. Even though these creatures were enormous, and looked vicious, I don’t think they attacked one another, and they ate the vegetation that God put here for them. Psalm 147:9 says that God gives the beast its food. Everything God created in the Genesis 1 account, He saw that it was good. I believe He did the same in the creation era of the dinosaurs. He saw that it was good, and they had adequate food to eat. Also in the Genesis 2 account, the Bible says there was no man to till the ground and it did not rain from the sky during prehistoric times. There was a mist that came up from the earth and watered it.
Genesis 2:4-6 (NKJV) This is the
history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the
day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, before any
plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had
grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no
man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the
whole face of the ground.
That in the beginning era when the Lord God made heaven and earth, was long before Adam and Eve took place in the story. It was created millions of years ago and something happened that caused it to become without form and void in Gen. 1:2.
Genesis 1:1-2 (NKJV) In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering
over the face of the waters.
In Genesis 1:2 it says that the earth was without form and void. If you align this with the rest of the creation story, it does not describe God’s creationary methods. On each day that God created things, He saw that it was good. He never left anything formless and empty. In prehistoric times when the Lord God completed the creation of earth and the heavens, He saw that it was good. So… how on earth did it become formless and empty with Holy Spirit hovering over the face of the waters?
John 1:1-3 (NKJV) In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing
was made that was made.
Before Jesus became a human, He existed as God, the Word. The Word is Jesus, pre-incarnate. He is part of the Triune God, and now is also God’s Son; in Him lives all the fullness of the Godhead in a human body. Jesus said in Luke 10:18, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” That is what caused the earth to become without form and void, Satan and a third of the heavenly angels slammed into it and caused great calamity.
Approximately 66 million years ago, during the Dinosaur Age, a huge asteroid collided with earth and killed 80% of all the plants and animals that inhabited the earth at that time. Earlier we spoke of the Maker destroying Behemoth (Job 40:19). I believe this asteroid was visible, and it contained Satan and a third of the heavenly angels that existed at that time. Angels are spirits that we cannot see, but when God cast these angels out of heaven, He contained them in a visible asteroid soaring through outer space that entered earth’s atmosphere and crashed into the earth. Jesus compared it to lightning from heaven. The impact site is believed to be the Yucatan Peninsula in southeast Mexico.
Revelation 12:7-9 (NKJV) War broke out
in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and
his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in
heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old,
called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
The impact of the asteroid created a crater where the Yucatan meets the Gulf of Mexico. The blast ignited trees and plants setting them on fire, which was then put out by tsunami waves. Some researchers say the instantly lit fires could have spanned thousands of miles and that tsunami waves may have reached as far inland as the state of Illinois in the US.
The area around the crater where the impact occurred is full of rocks rich in sulfur. The impact of the asteroid vaporized the sulfur in the rocks and released hundreds of billions of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere. Once in the air the sulfuric gas reflected sunlight back into space, producing a worldwide blackout and global freezing temperatures which persisted for at least a decade, and killed the other 20% of earth’s inhabitants that did not die in the asteroid collision.
Revelation 9:2 (NKJV) And he opened
the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great
furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.
I believe the impact of the asteroid created the entrance to the bottomless pit. Mass extinction of the earth’s inhabitants occurred. The earth became without form and void (empty), and Satan and the fallen angels were contained in the bottomless pit and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. Darkness was upon the face of the deep as the sun was hidden by the mass of sulfuric gas in the atmosphere. I believe the bottomless pit exists somewhere inside planet earth. The asteroid collided, opening the entrance to the bottomless pit and it will one day be the place of eternal condemnation.
The apostle John saw a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1). Those inheriting eternal life will dwell in a newly created heaven and earth. The apostle Peter said, “We look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). In Isaiah 65:17, the Lord says, “I will create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things of life shall not be remembered nor come to mind.”
The Lord God gave the prophet Jeremiah a vision of the asteroid collision’s aftermath.
Jeremiah 4:23-28 (NKJV) I beheld the
earth, and indeed it was without form, and void; and the heavens, they
had no light. I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, and all the
hills moved back and forth. I beheld, and indeed there was no man, and all the
birds of the heavens had fled. I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a
wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, by
His fierce anger. For thus says the LORD: "The whole land shall be desolate;
yet I will not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the
heavens above be black, because I have spoken. I have purposed and will not
relent, nor will I turn back from it.
I found the Lord’s last statement very interesting, “I have purposed and will not relent.” He had a purpose, and He wasn’t going to give up on it. Jeremiah said the fierce anger of the Lord sent the catastrophe that caused earth to become without form and void… Jeremiah called it desolate. In the aftermath of the asteroid collision, the earth lay in ruins and the Lord said, “The whole land shall be desolate, yet I will not make a full end” (Jer. 4:27). So now here comes His reconstruction in Gen. 1:3.
Genesis 1:3-5 (NKJV) Then God said,
"Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light,
that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the
light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning
were the first day.
God said, “Let there be light” and all the sulfuric gas disappeared from the atmosphere, and light appeared. He divided the light and the darkness establishing Day and Night. The reconstruction of the sun, moon and stars occurred on Day 4, but on Day 1, God re-established Day and Night on planet earth, and time resumed. It is also my opinion that on Day 1 the spherical damage that made the mountains and hills sway back and forth was repaired and the earth was round once again, and revolving on its axis causing Day and Night to occur. Then God began the process of reconstructing the earth’s damage that occurred by the asteroid’s collision.
Water already existed, as we see in Gen. 1:2, that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. In the sky there are clouds which contain water. On the earth there are oceans and seas, and there are great pools of water beneath the earth’s surface. God gathered the waters and caused dry land to appear. He replenished the earth’s vegetation of grass, herbs and trees.
God restored the function of the sun, moon and stars so we could mark days, months, years and seasons. So now, not only was there light on earth, but there was also light in the sky, for God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens” (Gen. 1:14).
Then God created birds to fill the sky, and living creatures to fill the oceans and seas. He made all the living creatures including the cattle, creeping things, and beasts of all kinds (large and small). The earth that had been without form and void was now put back together with hills and mountains in place and vegetation growing from the ground.
Then on Day 6, God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” I find that very interesting. Are angels not created in God’s image and likeness? What made Him clarify Adam in that way? Was it distinguishing him from angelic beings? Was Adam more like God than angelic beings?
God created Adam, and gave him dominion over all the living creatures on land, sea, and sky. He created Eve to be Adam’s companion and told them to replenish the earth. Replenish means that earth had been inhabited prior to Adam and Eve entering it… and the remains of dinosaur bones in the museums confirm that they did exist.
Genesis 1:28 (KJV) And God blessed them (Adam and Eve), and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:31 – 2:2 (NKJV) Then God saw
everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and
the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the
host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He
had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Creation week was now complete. The earth that had been without form and void, was now reconstructed, and inhabited by humans and animals.
Isaiah 45:18 (NKJV) For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.
Psalm 33:6-9 (NKJV) By the word of the
LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His
mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep
in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of
the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded,
and it stood fast.
God created the dinosaur creatures millions of years ago, and Adam was created a little more than 6,000 years ago after the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the reconstruction of heaven and earth. More than 230 million years before Adam, God created the heavens, and formed the earth. When Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven, it destroyed earth and its atmosphere. Then God reconstructed heaven and earth, and made the animals, and Adam and Eve, and they were told to replenish the earth. Using that same wording, Noah, his sons, and the animals on the ark were also told to replenish the earth after the flood had wiped out all the inhabitants except those on the ark.
Genesis 9:1 (KJV) And God blessed Noah
and his sons, and said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth.
Before God made Eve, He had already given Adam complete freedom in the Garden of Eden with the responsibility to enjoy, tend it, and care for it. In the cool of the day, God would come and visit with Adam, fulfilling God’s deepest desire to relate to and fellowship with the people He created. There was one condition that God required of Adam, he was not to eat any fruit that grew on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:15-17 (NKJV) Then the LORD
God took the man (Adam) and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden
you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall
not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Rather than physically preventing Adam from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God gave him the freedom to choose obedience or disobedience, and thus the possibility of making the wrong choice of his own free will. Without this freedom, Adam would have been like a prisoner, and his obedience would have been hollow. God doesn’t force His will on anyone. He lets us decide whether we choose to follow Him and obey Him. There are dire consequences when we choose to reject Him, but He’s not going to make us into robots. We are living with the consequences of Adam’s wrong choice, but we have a Savior that came to correct it and undo the consequences of that choice.
In the case of Adam’s sin, God already had a plan in motion to overcome the effects of Adam’s disobedience. The entire Bible is His story of how that plan unfolds.
1 Peter 1:20 (NKJV) He indeed was
foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you.
God’s methods are not always in harmony with our expectations. That’s why human logic will do us no good. If we’re looking to understand why God made the world, we will not see it through human logic, and it may never make sense from a human perspective. The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7).
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV) “For My thoughts
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My
thoughts than your thoughts.”
When we desire to know God and His ways, and that desire comes out of a heart that is not skeptical about Him, but truly desires to get to know Him out of sincerity, I’m telling you He will open up to those people and flood them with an abundance of Himself… the likes of which no one has ever seen before. As we start the journey of getting to know Him, we begin the most exciting and fulfilling journey imaginable. God’s perspective is unmatched by any other, but if we truly desire a good understanding for the right reasons, He will certainly make it available to us.
Psalm 91:14 (NKJV) “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.”
Psalm 9:10 (NKJV) And those who know
Your name will put their trust in You; for You, LORD, have not forsaken those
who seek You.
Prayer helps us to better understand the mind of God.
Proverbs 2:3 & 5 (NKJV) Yes, if
you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, then you
will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
To understand why God made the world is to go back way beyond Adam and Eve’s existence… even beyond prehistoric times to the origin of creation. Scripture says that Lucifer was perfect in his ways from the day he was created until iniquity was found in him. He became evil and defiled, and found himself being cast out of heaven, and earth became his eternal place of judgment and condemnation.
God will never create robots. Every soul and spirit will choose to serve Him and be in relationship with Him. Because God is Omniscient (all knowing); He’s the Beginning and the End — He already knew what would occur, but He let the angels choose, and He lets us choose whether or not to accept Him, or reject Him… fully aware of the tragic outcomes; but also aware of the wonderful world that awaits those who freely choose Him.
God is love, and those who abide in love abides in God, and God abides in them. He made man in His image and likeness, so that humanity can relate to Him in love and sincerity.
John saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Those that chose to be in relationship, will join the everlasting Father in the new heaven and earth, and live eternally in His presence in a place where no evil exists. First, we must choose to enter the narrow gate to get there. We also have a tree that we must not eat from (so to speak). We have a choice to transgress or to choose life.
Deuteronomy 30:19 (NKJV) I call heaven
and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and
death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and
your descendants may live.