Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20090726.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Exodus: God's Forming The Nation Israel For His Abrahamic Covenant
Part I: God's Deliverance Of Israel From Egypt, Exodus 1:1-15:21
H. God's Glorifying Himself By Egypt's Plagues, Exodus 7:14-12:36
9. God's Exalting Himself As Supreme Lord By The Plague Of Darkness
(Exodus 10:21-29)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    One of the biggest challenges Christians like us face in holding to the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 is the alleged problem of starlight and time. We explain as follows:

    (1) Dr. Jason Lisle, who holds a Ph. D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, in his Answers in Genesis web site article, "Does Distant Starlight Prove the Universe Is Old?", claims that critics of interpreting Genesis 1 literally sometimes argue that since we can see light from galaxies billions of light years away, they must have existed billions of years ago so that the universe is many times older than the 6,000 years indicated by the literal reading of Scripture. (www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-starlight-prove& . . .)

    (2) Some Christians try to answer this challenge by claiming that God made the beams of light "already on their way to earth", or "in-transit," but this fails to explain why we see some stars explode. Many exploding stars are billions of light years away, so suggesting that God made their light "in-transit" means these stars never existed, that God created false illusions of stars! (Ibid.) However, that leaves God misrepresenting the facts as a God Who deceives in contrast to Romans 3:4 that claims God is not a liar!

    (3) This test of "starlight and time" has bothered some believers I know, for in the last several months, some in our body have asked me either in private or in our Adult School Class how to answer critics of the pure creation view on this very subject!

    (4) Even more of a concern, some of the strongest supporters of billions of years of starlight are Christians like Dr. Hugh Ross: he has led an apologetics group to declare "'holy war'" against Dr. Russell Humphrey's book, Starlight and Time, that holds to the young universe model produced by the literal interpretation of Genesis 1! (www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4389starlight10-10-2000.asp)

    (5) Now, we cannot ignore this challenge, for Peter charged us in 1 Peter 3:15 to "sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."



    Thus, we today must answer the question: "If much of the starlight we see is many billions of light years away, how can we support Scripture's view that the cosmos is only 6,000 years old?!"

    Need: "If we can see starlight from billions of light years away, how can the Bible literally claim the universe is only 6,000 years old?!"



  1. In the Exodus 10:21-29 plague of darkness, God taught He was the SUPREME CREATOR Who RULES over LIGHT and DARKNESS:
    1. To urge Pharaoh to let Israel go, God sent a plague of darkness over Egypt that was so deep, it could figuratively be "felt," Exodus 10:21.
    2. This critiqued Egypt's "supreme god, the sun-god Ra," (Russell Grigg, "The Ten Plagues of Egypt," Creation (vol. 27, no. 1), p. 37). Ra was "father of all creation", so this event countered Egypt's head Creator god! (www.student.britannica.com/comptons/article-9341243/Ra)
    3. Pharaoh thus told Moses to take Israel and leave if they went without their animals, a move designed to impel Israel to return, Ex. 10:24.
    4. Moses refused this compromise, noting Israel had to take her animals to sacrifice to the Lord. Pharaoh thus angrily drove Moses from his presence, warning him not to return again lest he die, Ex. 10:25-28.
    5. Moses replied he would not appear before Pharaoh again, Ex. 10:29. Moses later saw Pharaoh when he called for him (Ex. 12:31-32), so Moses meant he would never of his own initiative return to Pharaoh!
  2. [Greta Hort's view that many evangelicals have adopted (Ibid., p. 34) offers a natural explanation for this plague versus belief that it was a miracle, but scientific facts and Scripture counter her view:
    1. Ms. Hort claimed that a desert sandstorm dried out the red algae of the first plague, blowing it aloft to create this darkness, Ibid., p. 36.
    2. However, scientific facts and Scripture reveal this view to be in error:
      1. Israel had light in Goshen all three days that the rest of Egypt was in darkness (Ex. 10:22-23), something a sandstorm could not do!
      2. A natural event would not make Pharaoh let Israel go (Ex. 10:24)!]
  3. This plague then APPLIES to the ALLEGED Genesis 1 "problem of starlight and time", effectively SOLVING it (as follows):
    1. The plague of darkness critiqued Egypt's chief pagan creator god, so its lesson applies to God's claim to be the True Creator of Genesis 1!
    2. Thus, how Scripture DESCRIBES this plague reveals God as the true Genesis 1 Creator miraculously rules light and darkness:
      1. The plague of darkness was a miraculous event, not a natural one:
        1. It was not a solar eclipse, for it lasted for three days, far longer than any normal eclipse, Exodus 10:22-23.
        2. Some hold the plague was really a plague of blindness, but Dorothy Hermann's book, Helen Keller, p. 162, notes that two scientists who were sighted until they lost it as teens claim "'a world of darkness'" does not exist for the blind: (1) those with retina sensitivity discern light and darkness, and (2) those who lack it do not discern either one. (3) The Egyptians discerned darkness, so they were not blind! (4) Also, Israel had light in her "dwelling-places" (moshav , B. D. B., Hebr. and Engl. Lex. of the O. T., p. 444), so the plague was a detectable darkness in a specific location according to eyewitness , Moses!
      2. Thus, God MIRACULOUSLY overrode the natural laws of light and darkness in the Exodus 10 plague of darkness to show He was the TRUE, SUPREME GENESIS 1 CREATOR GOD!
    3. Accordingly, this plague verifies the literal interpretation of Genesis 1, effectively overcoming the problem of "starlight and time":
      1. The literal view of Genesis 1:3-19 claims that God made day and night miraculously three SOLAR days before the stellar bodies!
      2. Since we established that God intended to display Himself as the Genesis 1 Creator BY the Exodus 10 miraculous plague, the three literal Genesis 1:3-19 SOLAR days MUST MATCH IN TIME the three INDISPUTABLY SOLAR days of God's miraculous rule over light and darkness in the Exodus 10:22-23 plague!
      3. Thus, the Exodus 10:22-23 plague VERIFIES the LITERAL INTERPRETATION of Genesis 1:3-19, and thus the pure creationist view that the universe is young, about 6,000 years old!
      4. Thus, the way distant starlight arrived on earth in Genesis 1 was by supernatural means. [Einstein's theory of relativity holds time is affected by motion and gravity, so the rapid, miraculous expansion of the universe in Genesis 1:6-7 explains how we see galaxies billions of light years away though they look young, a youthfulness that is a big problem to evolutionary theory, Ibid. (See conclusion)]
Application: May we (1) trust in Jesus Christ as Savior to receive eternal life, John 3:16. (2) Then, may we (a) TRUST that God MIRACULOUSLY created THROUGHOUT the Genesis 1 events, and (b) testify of evidences of His young stellar universe to critics!

Lesson: In the plague of darkness, God revealed that HE ALONE is the SUPREME CREATOR GOD Who RULES LIGHT and DARKNESS, and Who is to be REVERED and HEEDED as such!



Conclusion :

(1) In his article on the alleged "problem of starlight and time" astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle, Ph. D., calls creationists to "remember the body of evidence that is consistent with the youth of the universe."

He listed some evidences: "We see rotating spiral galaxies that cannot last multiple billions of years because they would be twisted-up beyond recognition. We see multitudes of hot blue stars, which even secular astronomers would agree cannot last billions of years. In our own solar system we see disintegrating comets and decaying magnetic fields that cannot last billions of years, and there is evidence that other solar systems have these things as well." (Ibid., Lisle)

(2) Dr. Ron Samec, Ph. D. in physics from Clemson University and a professional astronomer, noted in his article, "The Heavens Declare . . . a Young Solar System," in the January-March, 2008 issue of Answers magazine, p. 32-33 that our moon that evolutionists hold to have been volcanically inactive for 3 billion years is still quite active.

"As early as March 1787, William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus and an ardent lunar observer, reported, 'I perceive three volcanoes in different places of the dark side of the moon. Two of them are either extinct, or otherwise in a state of going to break out . . . The third shows an actual eruption of fire, or luminous matter.'

The next night he continued, 'The volcano burns with greater violence than last night. I believe the diameter . . . to be about three miles.'" Dr. Samec added: "More that 300 TLP's have been seen in the Aristarchus region alone." (Ibid., p. 33) [A TLP is a "Transient Lunar Phenomena" of "bright and colored spots and streaks, clouds, hazes, veils and other phenomena", Ibid., p. 32.] He added: "From 1900 to 1960, many of these observations were dismissed and ignored because the prevailing belief was that the moon was 4.5 billion years old and has been geologically dead for the last 3 billion years . . . But the number of TLP observations became so overwhelming that mainline publications began to discuss them. In 1968, NASA published the Chronological Catalog of Reported Lunar Events." (Ibid., p. 32)

The moon is not 4.5 billion years old, for it is still active!

Our God IS the SUPERNATURAL CREATOR and LORD of LIGHT Who CAN and HAS MIRACULOUSLY CONTROLLED it as the SUPREME CREATOR LORD of ALL. May we worship Him and heed Him as such, and witness about Him to others!