The most important sentence that has ever been written is Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

"In the beginning…" – Time
"…God created the heavens…" – Space
"…and the earth." – Mass

The basic structure of Reality. Mass in space bringing time. And it's the Bible's first sentence!

The universe is not eternal. It had a beginning from Someone who is eternal. The universe was "created." Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." The word "created" is "bara"…the word "barak" means "lightning". A sudden flash. Such was creation. There was nothing and then there was "everything". Mass of which God would shape and bring forth life and order.

Adam awakened on the day of his creation to a perfect philosophic scenario. One that every philosopher has sought to re-create through human reason since men began to attempt to reason without God's Word - i.e. "Philosophy". Men have sought since The Fall to find a substitute for God. Something that would give a unity and standard for all the Universe, for man, for right and wrong, for an answer for evil, for salvation, for "how do we know for sure?" and for history and where its going and most of all – for death and hope beyond this life when the veil of darkness descends. How can we know with certainty of what lies beyond that dreaded veil of death?

Adam's vision of God and the Universe was perfect.

The existence of all was from the I Am…the eternal source of all things…thus all things were to glorify Him…and reflect "His invisible attributes…" and most evidently His love and benevolence. Nothing was made because God was needful of anything. All the universe, its order, its unity and benevolence was for the good of the creature and particularly for man. The stars are our nightlights.

Adam was the vice-regent of all creation, made a little lower than the angels…crowned with dignity and honor, all things placed beneath his feet…man - the ruler of all he could see! Perfect!!

And this perspective was innate, self-evident and instinctive. It was not something Adam had to dialectically reason his way unto. It was part of the creative lens by which Adam viewed reality. All was made for man and creation by a "good" God. Adam felt and saw the way a human being in God's image was meant to be. But more important Adam had "special revelation". God could and did reveal to Adam those truths that man could not know without special revelation from God. The particulars of creation and of man. The family. Man's purpose. The means of immortality, the nature of evil, salvation, etc. These are called "upper story" truths. Things reason cannot lay hold of and must be revealed.

So men who are guided by a common sense, an instinctive reason and conscience and an innate sense of divinity there is given The Bible to complete man's longing for a unity of knowledge for all things, those higher things of God and the soul.

Man and all of creation were made for God.

And it was to be easy. Man did not have to have an answer for the relativity of time or whether the earth orbited the sun or the sun orbited the earth or was space curved or was an atom substance or particles and thus its substance mostly space or how physical characteristics were inherited in children. Man could be "childlike" and base his reasoning upon simple sight, cause and effect.

And most of all God did not have to be proven. His unique glory was apprehended within Adam because of all the glory around him. "We find these truths to be self-evident." Man's reasoning need only be 1+1=2. Not E=MC2. He only had to deal with the obvious. There were no ontological problems (being), no problems in epistemology (knowing), and no moral problems (ethics). Man had navigational skills in the lower story and in the upper story (philosophy and theology) because God created him to be able to navigate.

Speaking to this issue, Francis Schaeffer in his book from the 60's commenting on modern man's dislocation named his book "He Is There and He Is Not Silent". And these ideas were foundational to the western worldview from Christ to present.

But in the Enlightenment reason and science became independent from God and the Bible and brought about Modernism where man became the measure of all things and ate again from the forbidden fruit. The failures of man's reason plunged us into the 20th century – Post-Modernism and the exaltation of the amorality and human independent willfulness that produced World Wars and genocide and all the horrors of modern man.

And once man made this break from God he had to find another God who could give a meaning and order to all of life, an answer for evil and right and wrong as well as the solution for death. From the Enlightenment on man has searched for the substitute. Once God was rejected man began to float free into the abyss, his tether broken. The cosmic orphan began his post-Christian odyssey to find meaning on his own. That odyssey has lasted now for over 400 years.

The conservative Christian during that time wonders what the fuss was all about. The conservative Christian continued to move throughout life having no problems in reasonable and moral choices because of their Christian worldview and perspective. The Christian never had to give life a second thought. His first thought was adequate. He could as Sir Isaac Newton said, "Think the thoughts of God after Him." From molecules to Galaxies all made blessed sense.

But while the Christian could glide easily and blessedly (a la Psalm 1) through life he could observe a world that was slowly going mad. From the Enlightenment on man in his loss of confidence in the church and its message coupled with his new found confidence in reason and science slowly set aside his belief in God and His authority and replaced Him with himself. And man's world, nature, mind, morality, the home, government, science and the arts began to progressively fragment and float away until nothing was left but bloody gaping insatiable jaws – consuming all about them until finally consuming themselves.

And so we stand by the flood downstream of human history and watch in shock and awe in horror. As when the Hindenburg caught fire and 36 men and women perished and were engulfed and consumed. The commentator observing it could only say, "O the humanity, the humanity." What horror could consume the nobility of human lives. Such are our words in observing the 20th century.

"O the horror."

How wonderful the Revelation of God. The Bible.

Says who? "Thus saith the Lord."

"It is written."

Child's play.

-Tommy