What Is Gravity?

        The most powerful, yet the gentlest force we can know is what science calls "gravity." The earth is gently held in the gravitational field of our sun, making an annual trip around the sun at precisely the perfect distance from the sun. Closer, and temperatures on the earth would be so hot all green things would burn up, water would boil and evaporate, and no life could survive. Further away, and all the water of the earth would freeze; no life could be sustained.

        Is it merely the result of blind chance that our earth is held in the powerful, yet gentle, gravitational field of our sun?

        The moon is in turn held in the gentle gravitational embrace of the earth. The moon's gravity, which is weaker than that of the earth, nevertheless powerfully affects the tides and ocean currents, and therefore life on earth.

        The weather patterns on earth are the result of the tilting of the earth on its annual journey. When the northern latitudes are tilted away from the sun, the sun's rays are not only required to travel greater distances, but are diffused by the earth's atmosphere. Winter is the result. When the earth tilts back toward the sun, the rays are shorter, and summer arrives.

        Like an incredibly complex machine, like a living thing, the earth and moon continually orbit our sun, sustaining life on earth.

        Each day, when you awaken, you have traveled approximately eight thousand miles. At a rotational speed of approximately one thousand miles per hour, if you slept for eight hours, you are eight thousand miles distant, relative to the moon and the sun, than you were when you went to sleep.

        When you arise, you immediately feel the gentle effects of gravity. How many times do we feel aches and pains? How many times do people say, "I was so tired I could hardly get out of bed this morning"? That feeling of resistance, the feeling of having to lift yourself up against some gentle but constant force, is gravity.

        To see an immediate and humorous effect of gravity, go to your mirror, cock your head completely to the side, just as if you were laying your head on your own shoulder, and look at your cheeks and nose. They will sag toward the floor. You will look strange to yourself, as you are not accustomed to seeing gravity pull upon the fleshy parts of your face.

        When you walk, you are feeling the resistance of gravity. When you drive, run, lift objects, fly in an airplane, play a round of golf, cast a fishing plug, throw a baseball, or accidentally drop something, you are seeing the effects of gravity.

        Most of us live our lives completely oblivious to the powerful laws and forces working all about us. We speak of "sunset," as if the sun were "going down" (very common language), when in fact we are seeing "earth roll." The earth is slowly rolling in a general easterly direction relative to the sun, and, when the sun disappears over our westerly horizon, we say the sun has "set," when in fact it has done nothing of the kind; it has remained stationary, and the earth has rolled away from it.

        We speak in many terms which are incorrect, and which indicate our tendency to act as if we lived on a flat earth, even though we know better. Terms like "up," which should be "out" or "away." "Down" should be "within" or "through." Most of us are unconscious of the fact that eight thousand miles straight through the mantle and the core of the earth from us are countless millions of humans who are held by gravity's velvet force completely upside down relative to our position on the earth.

        No scientist can explain the how and why of gravity. Gravity is the term used to describe the pull of earth's gravity on objects on earth, while "gravitation" is the term used to describe how the entire universe is held together.

        Gravitation is a powerful force, or action, being exerted across millions of miles of empty space. There are no strands, ropes, lines, or hooks sunk into the earth which keep it at precisely the perfect distance from the sun so life can survive and flourish.

        What is this powerful, yet gentle, force?

        Science does not know. Attempts have been made, of course, to define and explain what it is, how it acts. But why it is, and what causes it to act in such a predictable, law-abiding way, science simply does not know.

        Any student of physics knows that in 1687 Sir Isaac Newton stated there was a universal law of gravitation.

        He said "all objects attract each other, and the force of their attraction depends on the masses of the objects and on the distance between them. The attraction increases in proportion to the masses of their bodies. The greater the masses, the greater the force."

        Newton discovered that the weight of bodies on the earth would be completely different if on the moon or another planet. His law referred to mass instead of weight because the weight of a body on earth is the particular strength of earth's gravity on that body. Even though having identical mass, the weight of the same body would be different on a different planet.

        You and I weigh six times as much here on earth as we would if we were on the moon.

        Newton did not know the cause of gravitation. Nor did Albert Einstein, with his theory of relativity and "curved space."

        A professor of the University of California, E. P. Lewis, said, "We do not know, nor can we ever expect to know, the mechanism of gravitation."

        But instead of seeing the hand of a divine Being who created, and who sustains these powerful laws and forces, evolutionists create buffers in their minds, and simply ignore causal factors.

        No evolutionist begins at the true beginning of all things, for if he did, he should have to admit the existence of a Creator God, and the sustaining of God's immutable laws by divine fiat. Fiat means "an authoritative order or command."

        If gravity were to suddenly be suspended, even for an instant, all the humans and animals on earth would go flying out into space. The universe could come apart. Stars and planets would wander in chaotic manner. All the seas would empty, wobbling about in billions of droplets. Complete chaos would reign.

        Thus, the continual action of gravitation and gravity, the daily sustaining of these forces, is absolute proof that God Almighty is not an "absentee Landlord," but a living Creator who continues "upholding all things by the word of His power"(Hebrews 1:3).

        Any in-depth study into gravitation and gravity would require a very long time. Along the way, one would encounter the "laws governing falling bodies," and things like "ballistics," "attraction," "force," "relativity," "torsion balance," "weight," and "pendulum."

        To one who believes in God and who knows God exists, gravitation and the travel of light and radio waves through the universe present no problem, for the believer knows that God created these wondrous powers and forces, and that He continues to uphold them. To one who rejects the knowledge of God, all these miraculous laws of "nature" present a fathomless mystery the conundrum of all time.

Why Did God Create the World?

        But why all these laws which act upon matter? Is there a purpose for creation, for human life?

        Evolutionists are doomed to wander aimlessly through empty pagan philosophies about life; ever searching for meaning, for purpose, for the why of it all.

        To an evolutionist, there is no great Lawgiver who has set certain inexorable laws in motion, and who has the power to exact penalties for breaking His laws. Although every scientist, no matter what his specialty, from medical science to nuclear physics, knows he is working within myriad laws which direct his efforts, he blinds his mind to the cause or the origin of those laws. They are there, and that's that.

        To admit there is a Lawgiver who set all law in motion and who presently sustains them would be to admit the God of the Bible exists. But to do that would make one accountable to that God, and agnostics, evolutionists, and "theistic evolutionists" would never do that. Instead, they frantically search for "scientific evidence" that life came from or "evolved" from lower life forms. In recent years, scientists have proposed incredible scenarios. They had said life came from "cracks in rocks," or from "polka-dotted air bubbles in the sea," or from "extreme heat," or from "extreme cold." They had said life came from "brown scum," or "green slime"!

        With each incredible, ridiculous pronouncement, the liberal media rushes to interview each one of the scientists, then trumpets the latest "scientific discovery." Each time another ancient bone is found, paleontologists tell us life began much earlier than they had previously supposed. Every one of these scientists, no matter in which specialized field, works with the laws that govern the universe; laws which have to do with gravitation, temperature, pressure, energy, atomic structure, electricity, entropy; absolute, immutable laws that are utterly dependable and act upon everything that exists.

        Yet, the very laws with which scientists work present irrefutable proof that God exists. God says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold [hold back, or suppress: Greek] the truth in unrighteousness: Because that which may be known of God is manifest [evident] to them; for God hath shewed it unto them; For the invisible things of [about] Him from the creation of the world [by observing the creation; the universe, our solar system, our earth, all matter] are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made [matter!], even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:18-20).

        God says, "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God " (Psalm 14:1). Yet, this world stands in awe of "science," believing that the most intelligent, the most educated, the most erudite of all humans are those who have devoted their lives to the various sciences. "Science" means "knowledge," after all.

        Millions of laymen stand in awe of highly educated scientists; geneticists, physicists, engineers, medical specialists; people with great knowledge and education. Yet, these very people are better equipped to understand the truth about God as Creator, and have less excuse than anyone else!

        Many theologians are in the same category. They simply do not know why God has created the universe, or placed man on this earth.

        Yet, the Bible reveals why God created all things, why mankind was placed on this earth. Only a very few have truly understood it, and yet it is plain to human understanding. God's Word is the handbook from the Creator of all things to His creation, telling us how He created, and why.

In the Beginning God Created...

        God's Word says, "In the beginning God [Elohim, a plural name] created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:1,2). There is absolutely no conflict between God's Word and the geologic record. It is not necessary to imagine that the "days" of creation are one thousand years in duration, or aeons; it is not necessary to imagine that God used evolution as His "process of creation."

        Too many laymen are intimidated by the flood of "scientific" information which inundates them each year. The newest fossil find, the newest discovery from the Hubbell space telescope, the newest breakthrough in genetic engineering, and millions of laymen who believe in God stand in open-mouthed awe of "science." How do they reconcile these completely conflicting concepts?

        Many believe in God as a "First Cause," who might have "created" billions or trillions of years ago, and then left the creation to itself. Not having intelligent answers to the age of dinosaurs, or the clear evidence from fossils that creatures that have long since become extinct once roamed the earth in their billions, they assume the creation account in Genesis is either pure myth or must be interpreted in terms of thousands, or millions, of years.

        A simple reading of Genesis 1 makes such an idea untenable. God's Word says the grasses, trees, and herbs were created on the third day. If the "day" was one thousand years in length, or a million, then the sun did not shine upon the green, living things, for a thousand years. Which means it could not have lived.

        Is the first chapter of Genesis understandable in the light of scientific and paleontological data?

        Yes, it certainly is! The Hebrew word for "was" can be translated "became." The second verse should read, "And the earth became without form, empty, waste, chaotic, and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:2).

        The Hebrew words for "without form" and "void," are tohu and bohu. These identical words are used in Isaiah 45:18, which says, "For thus saith the Eternal that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it, He hath established it, He created it not in vain [tohu], He formed it to be inhabited I am the Eternal; there is none else."

        The key is the word was in Genesis 1:2. Had it been translated "became," all the difficulties would have been solved.

        One of the most eminent Bible commentaries is the Critical and Experimental Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown. Serious students of the Bible know that science writers whose articles appear in newspapers and many narrators in the modern liberal media are in complete error, if not deliberately misleading the public, when they infer that "creationists" insist the earth is only 6,000 years old.

        Writing about the age of the earth, the Critical and Experimental Commentary says, "for anything that the inspired narrative says [Genesis], ten thousands of years, nay, millions of ages, may have elapsed since the first portions of matter were created in various parts of the universe. No limit is set to the time which may have intervened between the period when the elementary materials of our world were created and the time when it began to be reduced to that state of order and beauty in which we behold it. We are left to consider the period referred to in this verse [Genesis 1:2] to be as remote as science may lead us to interpret the evidence furnished by the book of nature [i.e., geology and paleontology]; and thus the word of God will be found concurring, with beautiful harmony, with the works of God in bearing one and the same testimony" (ibid., vol. 1, p. 2, emphasis mine).

        In their commentary on the Hebrew words tohu and bohu, they say, "it may signify, according to the second acceptation in which the words are used, that the world, which had formerly been a scene of material beauty and order, was by some great convulsion plunged into a state of chaos or widespread disorder and desolation. Hence some eminent critics who take this view, render the clause thus: But [or afterwards] the earth became waste and desolate'...Dr. McCaul has shown that the verb [was] is, in some twenty places in this chapter, used as equivalent to became,' and that elsewhere it has the same signification...That the earth was not originally desolate seems also to be implied in Isa. xlv.18 He created not the earth in vain' Hebrew, A desolation'" (ibid., p. 3).

        When God created the earth, He created a perfect environment for His masterpiece of all creation, mankind. The world was made to be inhabited, to become the home for the only creatures God ever made in His own image. The physical creation is proof of the existence of God.

        Evolutionists point to prehistoric fossils in the rocks, such as dinosaurs, and assign vast aeons of time to each supposed "age" of the past. Of course, if man were tens of thousands, or millions, of years old, as evolutionists claim, then the account of the recreation of the earth in Genesis 1 would be rendered myth.

        Could the world be billions of years old? Was there life on this earth millions of years before the creation of Adam? Yes, there was. The fossil record proves it.

        Not so many years ago, creationists gave themselves a bad name by claiming the earth was no more than about six thousand years old. Some even purported that fossils were deliberately put into the rocks by God Himself, as if a quirk of nature; a test of mankind, to see if he would believe in God or attempt to find another explanation for fossils.

        Actually, there is no contradiction between the Bible and the true physical sciences. As was just explained, there was an earlier perfect creation prior to the time when the earth was "empty, vain, and waste." There were billions of creatures, who may have roamed this earth for thousands, or millions of years, prior to being buried and preserved as fossils.

        Our vast coal deposits and crude oil reserves present proof of a lush, verdant earth with different weather patterns than those we experience today; a world that teemed with life; a world that experienced catastrophes which uprooted and buried those life forms, just as huge herds of many different species of animals were killed within minutes or hours in Siberia, often quick-frozen where they stood!

        In addition, paleontologists have discovered many sites all over the world where the bones of dinosaurs and other creatures lie in jumbled confusion, sometimes intertwined, one specie with another, proving this was no remote place where single, aging animals went to die, but a site where their bodies were tumbled, swept by powerful currents, then deposited to harden into petrified remains, like the rock around them. That many of these ancient bones are of great age presents no difficulty to believers in the Bible. The Bible admits to a vast, indeterminate period of time between an earlier, perfect creation, teeming with life; a massive destruction, or several of them, and then a recreation of earth's surface at the time of Adam.

How Long Has Life Existed On Earth?

        When you and I are given a glimpse of "creation" in the account in Genesis, we are seeing the recreation of the earth, not its actual origin.

        We are given the picture of a world of stygian blackness, with the continents buried beneath the seas, no light penetrating the thick masses of clouds. God said, "Let the dry land appear" (Genesis 1:9), rather than saying "Let the earth be created."

        Geology proves that the highest mountains on earth's continents were at one time covered with water. There are fossil shells found at the highest levels of the Himalayas, the Andes, and the American Rockies. No serious Bible-believing geologist thinks these fossils were buried during the flood of Noah, for it is evident they were buried far earlier, just as the world's crude oil reserves and coal must have been buried long prior to the Noachian deluge.

        There is no contradiction between the truth of God revealed in His word and true science. Geologic evidence is overwhelmingly convincing that the continents were inundated not once, but many times; that massive floods deposited incredibly thick layers of mud in which millions of earth's creatures were carried, to be buried suddenly.

        That there were catastrophes beyond human imagination in the distant past is so amply proved by the billions of tons of evidence. One of the most immediate proofs of this is the great depth at which much of the fossil fuels of earth, especially oil, are found. Coal, while not usually so deep, is nevertheless an obvious demonstration of massive catastrophes. Floods and tidal surges carried tons of vegetation floating masses of it forty, fifty, hundreds of feet thick and deposited it as the water subsided. Within only hours, or a few days at most, as made plain by the perfect prints of delicate ferns in some coal formations, other massive depositions of muds in solution overflowed the vegetation.

        Most of the rocks of our earth were water deposited. One has only to look at the massive sedimentary layers which are exposed to one's view in the Grand Canyon, or in modern highway cuts, to understand that floods beyond our ability to comprehend once carried thick muds and sediments, depositing them over imagination-defying areas. The greatest floods in our times have not remotely approached the scale of the floods which deposited huge layers of sandstone, limestone, and other rocks, twenty, forty, sixty feet thick, so evenly mixed and smoothly consistent they appear to have been mixed in a kitchen blender.

        No human eye saw the gigantic upthrusting and faulting which produced the soaring Himalayas, the Andes, or the American Rocky Mountains. The movement of whole continents, massive earthquakes, volcanic explosions, and the rupturing of the very crust of the earth were required to form the mountains we see today. This is not evidence of "uniformitarianism," of all "things continuing as they were," but evidence of gigantic catastrophes!

        In recent times, paleontologists have been in complete disarray over whether or not the "sudden" (if indeed it was sudden a very relative word in terms of geologic time) disappearance of the dinosaurs was the result of a gigantic meteor smashing into the earth or some other cataclysm of unimaginable proportions.

        The amazing truth is that all fossil life, from pre-Adamic dinosaurs to so-called "Pleistocene" mammoths, can easily be shown to be completely compatible with the Holy Scriptures. The book of Genesis allows for a vast, indeterminate period of time billions of years if such occurred between the time when Lucifer was placed on this earth with his angels and the time of his rebellion against God, and the chaotic destruction of all we can see, or know, in the solar system and the universe itself.

        The Bible also shows that all life, human and animal, was destroyed by a global catastrophe in the Noachian deluge; that vast changes took place; that the age of man dwindled from hundreds of years to a mere average of seventy; that the climate changed during the flood.

        There were mass burials of hundreds of millions of creatures during the flood of Noah, even as there were mass burials of countless animals and billions of tons of vegetation long, long before.

What Are Fossils and How Are They Formed?

        Fossils are the hardened remains of plants, trees, animals, birds, insects, or fish any living matter which lived in the past.

        As we know, the vast majority of all living things, once it dies, decays, or is eaten by carrion-eaters. A very tiny fraction of life forms becomes fossilized by burial in muds and sands. Fossils can be whole animals, whose hard parts are preserved, but whose soft parts, as they decayed, were gradually replaced by minerals. Petrified wood is an example of a fossil where one is not seeing the original fibre of the tree, but seeing minerals, instead, which gradually replaced the original living matter as it decayed.

        Most fossils are formed by this kind of replacement. Water-borne minerals seep into body cavities and turn to stone. Some fossils are formed by permineralization, where minerals fill up air spaces in bones or shells, yet do not alter the original shape of the object. Sometimes, organic material or soft body parts of living things undergoes carbonization, which leaves a clear record of the shape of the animal or plant, such as a pattern of a leaf, which is wholly replaced by a thin layer of carbon.

        Even footprints are said to be "fossils," for there are many places on earth where footprints of dinosaurs, other animals, birds, or men have been preserved when the print was made in soft mud, when quickly filled in by deposits of other water-borne materials before the print could be eroded away.

        Can bacteria become fossilized? Bacteria must be magnified a thousand times to appear as large as the period at the end of this sentence. When astronomers investigated the rock found in Antarctica, which allegedly was blasted from the surface of Mars countless millions of years ago, they looked at it under the most powerful kinds of electron microscopes available to science.

        A picture of what they saw was presented by the national news media. It appeared as two tiny semi-circular, fan-like shapes which looked for all the world like the beginning formation of a mineral substance of some kind. It did not remotely resemble bacilli, or cocci, or spirilla, three of the groups of the main kind of bacteria.

        There would be a great debate raging among scientists for a long time to come, we were assured, for many do not believe there are fossilized bacteria in that rock, or even evidence of bacteria working on decaying matter that was once alive! Others debate whether the rock came from Mars at all.

        How do they know? NASA's soft landing on Mars took pictures of a desolate, lifeless appearing landscape, littered with broken fragments of what appeared to be volcanic rocks. By analyzing the spectra of the various minerals in the rocks, and utilizing computer enhancement, they come to believe they know of what materials the rocks are composed. Just how exact is this kind of analysis is debated.

        Scientists on earth do not have any "other" rocks from Mars with which to compare the one allegedly found on Antarctica.

        Think of the way in which fossils are formed. How tiny can particles of sand and clay become? Do bacteria survive vulcanism, to become layers of fossilized material in what appears to be volcanic rock? Do bacteria survive floods, and deposition of sedimentary strata, forming molds of their microscopic bodies? A single bacterium, or germ, measures only 1/25,or 400th, of an inch across!

        First, there is no proof whatsoever that the rock over which scientists are in such ecstatic excitement came from Mars. Even if it is the remains of a meteorite, how would such infinitesimally tiny "fossils" such as bacteria survive the white-hot, fiery plunge to earth?

        They claim this rock lay on an ice field for millions of years. Yet, geological and biblical evidence proves the whole world was completely inundated with water not once, but several times; the last time during the flood of Noah, only about four thousand years ago!

        Based upon the faulty "geologic succession of strata" theory, scientists have assigned a date to the rock they found a date millions of years in the past, when in fact the rock may have lain there for only a matter of hundreds, or a few thousand years.

        How amazing it is, the lengths to which scientists will go, and the joyous complicity of the liberal media, to immediately sensationalize the most obscure, improbable "find," so long as they think it disproves the existence of God, and does away with the Bible!

        Now, we may be seeing major allocations of borrowed money up into the many hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in an unmanned mission to Mars, which would bring back rock samples.

        Why? So scientists can crow, "We were originally all Martians'; we did not begin from bacteria on earth, but from bacteria on Mars!" Think of the poverty, squalor, sickness, and disease suffered by so many millions at home and abroad. Think of the millions who live in filth, like pigs or stray dogs. Think of the good that could be done with such massive outlays of borrowed government money!

        Instead, they will spend billions trying to "learn more about man's origins," when the proof of man's origins is all about them: in the rocks of the earth, in the laws that operate upon us, in the solar system, in the universe, and everywhere in the physical sciences.

        The pictures of the surface of Mars, like all the other planets in our solar system, show wreckage lifelessness, utter chaos and destruction.

        God's Word says our earth appeared as completely covered with water black, without light, covered by a thick mantle of clouds that it was in "chaos and confusion."

        But it was not originally created that way!