 And, Genesis, what caused them to shift over here from where it should have been? Okay. The original Hebrew text does not have punctuation in it. So you've got to figure out where the colons go, the commas go, the periods go, the question marks. And that all gets into our English translation, but the original doesn't have that. So when you look at what it says in creation day three, it says, let the land produce desheh. That's a Hebrew word which means vegetation. Generic. Anything that's photosynthetic comes under that category. So even unicellular photosynthetic life forms would be under that category. Now, I believe that if you were to translate it correctly, let the land produce desheh colon. Here are three examples. And it mentions three Hebrew words that are typically translated, trees, fruit and seeds. Now, it's also important to realize that in the original Hebrew words for trees, fruit and seed, they're way more generic than the English equivalents. So when we see the word trees, fruit and seed, we think apricots. However, if you look at the original Hebrew, the word for tree can refer to any vegetation material that's got some level of stiffness to it. So for example, a long line of cells that are joined together that have some stiffness in it, that falls under the category of trees. It doesn't come under our category of trees. We think oak trees, furs, apricots, but a stalk of celery, for example, would qualify as a tree based on that term. As I said, even a long line of cells that have some measure of stiffness to it would qualify. Like the word for seed basically refers to embryo. Well, guess what? Every plant species has an embryo. And likewise, the word for fruit refers to the food that the seed uses to germinate. Well, once again, that's a generic term that would refer to all vegetative material. But I think it's important to realize when it says, let the land produce to chef. Here are three examples. It's not meant to be exhaustive. You say, why does it pick those three? Those are the three that people who are not aware of a fossil record would be familiar with. And so given that this is designed to communicate to Christians that are reading the biblical texts over a span of 3,500 years, put yourself back 3,500 years ago, would people be aware of cryptogamic crusts? Living in Israel? Probably not, unless they went up to some of the higher mountains. Or would they be aware of sulfate-reducing bacteria? Probably not. Or microbes? I mean, those weren't discovered until 300 years ago. So it's using terms that people at that time would be familiar with, but what impresses me, even in that context, it uses much more generic words than the English equivalent. People always ask me, how come does people speak English that have all these fights over what the Bible teaches about creation? Well, it's because English you have the greatest challenge in translation. You're taking one of the world's smallest vocabulary languages, namely Biblical Hebrew, and translating it into the biggest vocabulary language that has ever existed. So you've got the two extremes. A vocabulary that if you don't count the names of people in cities has only 3,000 words. Into a vocabulary that has 4 million words. So we would expect that there will be some translation issues. But the good news is, English is where you've got the greatest number of translations. I mean, if you're familiar with Bible Gateway, that's a website, it gives you access, I think at current count, it's a little over 40 different English translations of the Bible. And they give them all to you for free. So you can read all 40 for free. I use that with my phone because, you know, one translation will pick up one aspect of the Hebrew, another will pick up a different one. You say, well, which one's which? When you pick up your Bible, always read the preface. The preface will tell you the biases that they use in translation. And so, you know, like the New American Standard Bible will say, what we're trying to do is go for a word for word translation. And yeah, we pick one of the words. And they make the whole point, because we're going from a tiny vocabulary to a large vocabulary, they may have picked the wrong word, but they try to be word for word. Some translations actually try to be literal with the grammar. They want to copy the same grammar that's in the original Hebrew into English. Even if the grammar isn't very comfortable for us reading in English, because they want to communicate that. The Living Bible, if you read their preface says, we want to communicate the emotion that's being communicated in the text. So for example, when I want to show my sons all the humor that's in the Old Testament, I'll probably use the Living Bible, because it does a really good job on translating the humor. New American Standard Bible forget trying to get any humor out of it. It's just not there. So, you know, when people say, boy, this is really dull, well, hey, you know, read it in a couple of other translations, and you'll get the full sense of what's going on. But I'm also saying it's not exhaustive. It's three examples out of hundreds of examples that could have been chosen. And that's why I'm saying, why did it pick those three words? Well, in terms of the words yet available in biblical Hebrew, those are the words that people living 3,500 years ago would have some idea what you're talking about. So, and you say, well, wouldn't it be more accurate if it actually told us exactly what these things were? Well, back then people didn't have a clue. And so you're using terms like sulfate-reducing bacteria. It wouldn't be much help to people living in Moses' generation. The word Disha is very broad, right? Our examples, three specific examples out of many. And so that's the problem. The reason why people fought over that text, they think those three words exhaustively describe the range of what happened on Creation Day 3. There are three examples of the Disha. And a lot of people reading in English don't even figure out, you know, let the land produce vegetation. They go straight to trees, fruit, and seed. So they miss that word Disha, which actually comes first. And so I think in that context, you know, there is no reason to fight over this text or to think it any way conflicts what we know from the fossil record of plant life. The word seed, I mean, again, you only got the one Hebrew word that refers to that item that allows the plant to reproduce. A better translation in my opinion would be embryo. Okay. And all vegetation has some kind of embryo. Well, because if you were to use the word embryo to someone who lived 3,500 years ago, they would say, what are you talking about? Seed, they understand. So and keep in mind, you only got that one word. See, in English, we got all kinds of words for different kinds of embryos. But in Hebrew, biblical Hebrew, you just got that one word. But yeah, it would be more accurate, in my opinion, to translate it as embryo, because that would communicate how generic that Hebrew word is. However, I think the reason why translators use the word seed, that's how people 3,500 years ago would understand it. They wouldn't understand the word embryo. And the principle is this. The Bible is designed to communicate to humans living across 40 different generations, 100 different generations for that matter. And so you want to translate the Bible the way that would have some meaning for people living across all generations. So for example, nowhere in the Bible where you see a reference to neutrons, even though there are places where you say, you know, that'd be really the right term to put in here. But since people 3,000 years ago wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about, it uses something more generic. In fact, we'll see that in one of the texts we're studying this morning. Yes. Yeah, and in support of what you're saying, back 3,000 years ago when the Bible was written, there were ferns. Ferns are higher plants, but they do not have seeds. They only have spores. And they had them in, so they would have used that same word for the spores to shock the word. Well, the word that's translated seed, think of the exact same as zera. Zera is the word for seed, and that would include spores. Right. And they knew about ferns. They certainly did, and they would have called them, they would have used that same word. Well, I'm guessing, too, they knew about seeds where you have just one component as opposed to one that's split into two. So, yeah, I mean, but again, in English, we actually have separate words for all these different kinds of seeds, spores, and embryos. In Biblical Hebrew, you've got one catch-all term. The problem is when you translate into English, you can't pick a catch-all term. Same thing, the word fruit basically refers to any kind of food supply that sustains the embryo long enough that it can become an adult plant. And again, that's, I mean, again, in English, we think of all peaches and apricots, but the truth is there's a food supply for the spore of a fungus that enables it to become a full-grown mold. There's a hand over here, yeah. I've heard it's over 30. There's over 30 different kinds of snow. Well, I've met some Inuit and what they tell me is, don't try to make an igloo with the wrong kind of snow. It won't work. The reason why they have all these different words for snow is they use these different kinds of snow for different purposes. But they actually have a word for the kind of snow that's optimal for making an igloo. And yeah, if you watch them make an igloo, within an hour, the igloo is completely built. You can do it that fast if they got the right kind of snow. And they basically wait for that kind of snow to form before they make igloos. But where I lived, whenever it snowed, it was useless for making igloos. It was just too wet. If it's too dry or too wet, you can't make igloos out of it. And it's got to set for a period of time before it's actually going to be cut into blocks that have got some strength. There was a question back here somewhere? No? Yeah. Yeah, you do. Well, what I remember is when you're doing cross-country skiing, they talk about different kinds of snow, how you actually wax your skis for those different kinds. And they actually have different words. We actually do have words for different kinds of snow. But for those of us who don't do cross-country skiing and don't build igloos, it's just snow. Right? Here in California, how many of you have even seen snow? Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, I keep remembering how we would entertain these students from South Asia. And they had never seen snow before. It was always a real treat in wintertime to take them up to Mount Baldy where they'd get to see snow for the first time. Just what a wonder it was for them. And I think there's something important about that. In fact, that's in one of our verses in Isaiah about creation. That every bit of it should cause us to be awestruck by what we see. And yeah, I mean, we take snow for granted. I remember looking at the faces of these students from Southeast Asia. And when they saw that snow coming down from the sky, you'd think that they were looking at the seven wonders of the world. Because it was just such an awesome thing that they were watching. This white stuff coming down. How it actually, you could taste it and it would refresh you. Okay. All right. No more questions. Let's jump into our Isaiah text. Okay. Okay. These are the different texts that pertain to God creating the universe. That's question one on our sheet here. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to blast through it quickly. The passages we've been looking at for the past three or four weeks. And then I'll stop when we get to one we haven't covered yet. Okay. So beginning with Isaiah six, three, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts as glory fills the whole earth. And what we discern from that, this text is telling us that every part of God's creation reveals God's glory. So that would refer to a cockroach. It would refer to some particle of dust in the asteroid belt. Every bit of it communicates God's glory. And it's actually an exhortation. We need to look for that glory in everything we see in creation. You know, it looks ugly. You're not really seeing the glory of God. So get past what you think is ugly. And then Isaiah 1424, the Lord of hosts is sworn, as I have purpose, so will be as I have planned it. So will happen. And our discussion evolved around how this text is telling us there are no accidents or random outcomes in God's creation. Everything's under his control. Every outcome and event has a purpose. A lot of it seems random and chaotic to us. In fact, we talked about how it must seem random and chaotic to us in order for us to even possibly exist. I won't go into the details that took about half the class time. So I can repeat that. Isaiah 1427, the Lord of hosts himself has planned it. Therefore, who can stand in its way? It is his hand that is outstretched, so who can turn it back? And we discern that this text is telling us nothing stands in the way of God's purposes and plans. In Isaiah 3716, the Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim. That's a reference to the higher angels. You are God. You alone of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. Making the point that God is the only agency of creation, there is no other factor. Notice this text is contrasting God with the cherubim. These are the greatest and most powerful of the angels, and it says, no, they don't have the power. I'm the only one that's got the power to create. There is no one else. And no other factor. Here we have physicists speculating today that some impersonal agency did a lot of this stuff. This text is telling us, no, it's God and God alone. Lucifer is not referred to as part of the cherubim. The cherubim are 100% committed to God, so Satan wouldn't be in that category. But Satan is referred to as the most powerful of the angels that God created. We're going to come up with another text that implies not even Satan has the power or the capacity to create. God alone. That's where you're going? Yes. Well, it's important because there's a lot of theology that's crept into the Christian church making the point that God challenged Satan to create. And he messed it up so badly, God said, no, I'm going to take over. The problem with that theology is these texts in Isaiah tell us even Satan doesn't have that power. It's within God alone the capacity to create. Okay, Isaiah 40 verse 5, the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. As many of you realize, this made it into George Handel's Messiah where, again, he chose this text for the Messiah making the point, God's glory is evident to every human being. Every human being has heard. The Lord has spoken it and because God has spoken it so clearly through creation, everyone has the capacity to see God's glory. And you say, well, how come some people claim they've never seen the glory of God? They haven't looked. A lot of us don't look, and especially those of us living in big cities, we don't go outside and look. You won't see it if you just stay in your office. You've got to go outside and take a look, but it's been revealed to everyone, yes. Why is it in a future tense? The glory of the Lord will be revealed. All mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Basically making the point, if you actually expose yourself, you will see it. That's why I was making the point. Yeah, a lot of people claim, hey, but the Bible says it's totally fallacious. I know lots of people who don't see the glory of God. Well, you have to go outside and actually look. And this is a promise. If you go and look, you will see it. But the responsibility is upon us. So basically God is telling us, it says in Romans 1.19, we're all without excuse, because God has clearly revealed himself and his attributes through the creation, but the responsibility is on us to actually read the book of nature. And yeah, thousands of years ago, everybody was reading the book of nature. Today there's lots of people who simply haven't taken advantage of reading that book of nature. Yes, Doug. Right. Well, it's basically making a promise too. The more you look, the more of God's glory you will see. And hopefully when you get exposed to God's glory through the book of nature, it'll get you so excited, you're going to want to see more. That's one of the reasons why our team had reasons to believe, every week puts out a new article. Here's a new discovery from nature that reveals the glory of God. Every day we're seeing more of God's glory revealed in nature. But again, you've got to go out and look. And in some cases, we don't go out and side and look, we read the scientific journals. In the scientific journals, we see people often against their own will revealing the glory of God. Yes. Okay. Big debate over exactly what does this glory mean. People have talked about it. It reveals the majesty of God, the power of God. And so the word glory is kind of a catch-all term for God's great attributes. Some scholars acclaim it also includes God's holiness. Which is why when we look at the book of nature, there is a sense of awe and fear that comes over us when we recognize what I see in nature is a God that is righteous. There is a text that explicitly tells us that the heavens, the universe that God created reveals the righteousness of God referring to the fact that he is holy. When we look at that, and look at ourselves, we realize he's holy, I'm not. And what does that mean about me? However, as we go through some of these texts, it makes the point that God is the creator and the savior. Which communicates that God designed the universe in a way that we could gain the righteousness we don't have. So we're coming to that. Man, this is wonderful about this, but I argue if all you look at is Isaiah, you can see the plan of salvation laid out in the book of Isaiah just by looking at what God says about the creator of the universe. Which is why we're kind of going through all these passages, you know, step by step, it reveals us. But yeah, glory is basically talking about the great attributes of God and how much greater they are than what we have. I mean, we reflect the glory of God. There's a glory in every human being. In fact, one counselor told me the secret to being a good counselor is no matter how much trouble the person is in you're talking to look for the glory of God revealed in that person. They helped that person see how God has made them as a reflector of his glory. That's kind of step one. To actually say, you know what, I guess my problems aren't that big. There's a God out there as big as I am and I've got hope that I can get past these things that could be a problem. Okay. And Isaiah 40, verse 12. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with a span of his hand? Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure? God doesn't really have a hand. God is spirit. But this is a figure of speech that's being used to make the point that we have a creator who created the universe in such a way that every little drop of water every little speck of dust was created by God. It has a purpose. It's been measured by God. He knows exactly how much it is. And if he does that with a speck of dust with a drop of water what is it? He's got a purpose for it. He's determined it. What does it say about you and me? Aren't you bigger and more complex than a speck of dust or a drop of water? Okay, Isaiah 40, verse 22. And this is where we ended. So I'm going to have you get involved here because this is where we ended last week. Isaiah 40, verse 22. God isn't thrown above the circle of the earth. Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth and spreads them out like a tent to live in. Okay, what is this text saying about the universe, the creation event and about God and His role in creation? And it's saying a bunch of things. This is a very compact text here. And actually we're going to come back to it because I've got a question on that sheet for you where we talk about what does Isaiah say about the configuration of the earth? And this is one of the texts in Isaiah that addresses the configuration of the earth. So, okay. Earlier we were talking about how the Hebrew vocabulary is very much smaller than the English vocabulary. In English we got a separate word for circle and sphere. In Hebrew, they got one word that can mean either one. So you could translate this passage. God, it sits and throne above the orb of the earth or the sphere of the earth or the circle of the earth. Those are all legitimate translations of this text. Doug? Yeah, and that's Greek. So yeah. Well, yes but it's not as challenging as putting it into English. The Greek vocabulary was much bigger than the Hebrew vocabulary but nowhere near the size of the English vocabulary. Oh yeah, the grammar is more precise because, yeah, the problem with Hebrews, you don't have a very precise grammar but in Greek you got a very precise grammar. It's more precise than English. But you're doing the vocabulary size that's about a factor of four or five times bigger than biblical Hebrew. Rather than a factor of a hundred thousand times bigger like you got in English. So yeah, it's a challenge. And that's why it took the Hebrews so long to translate their Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. But what happened was after the destruction of the Second Temple or probably the First Temple the diaspora, you had Jews being scattered all over Europe and near Western Asia. And so in the second century B.C. a coin in the Greek was kind of the common language, kind of like what English is today where no matter what your native language is you probably know English as a second language. It was like, Greek was like that. The Romans knew Latin and Greek. The Hebrews knew Hebrew and Greek or Aramaic and Greek. So no matter what language was your native language you also knew Greek and why the New Testament was written in Greek because it could communicate to these people living in all these different provinces of Apartheia and the Roman Empire. But even in the second century the Jews said, hey we got synagogues all over the Greek Empire we need to translate the Old Testament into Greek. Certainly. Yeah. No that's definitely true. I mean that did not happen until after the Greek Empire. And that's what kind of inculcated Greek as a language into all these different national groups. So that became a critical vehicle for taking the Gospel message to all these different peoples because it was written in a language that most of them had some access to. Okay. God isn't thrown above the circle of the earth. We already talked about how that word or circle a number of scholars have made the point it really doesn't matter which one you use because it says God it sits enthroned above the earth. Okay. Think of some NASA photo of the earth from outer space where you actually get to see the whole of the earth what does it look like? It looks like a circle. Okay. So any photo of the earth from say hundreds of thousands of miles away is going to show the earth as a circle because you know it photographs two dimensions. So people have made the point hey forget about what is talking about the earth being a flat disc or being a sphere that God is enthroned above the earth there's only one object that always looks like a circle and that would be a sphere. A disc does not look like a circle from all different perspectives above. But a sphere always looks like a circle from every perspective above. So people have argued hey this idea that the Bible is a flat earth book you know many years ago I debated the president of the flat earth society on radio he was trying to claim that the earth was a flat earth book and it says well give me a passage interestingly he quoted this one and saying this proves that the earth is flat because it says it's a circle so he says it's a disc and it says oh you mean it doesn't have corners I said what do you do with a text to talk about the four corners of the earth and so he says well he basically got off the line and that was the end of the debate so I was hoping that he would stay on the radio a little longer because it's going to make the point you know the word for corners that you see used in Scripture because Hebrew is such a small language it can also be translated the four quarters of the earth and think of an orange that you cut up in the quarters okay you get a different figure of speech again the problem being is people were trying to discern the Bible as a flat earth book because they were looking at the English translation and taking a very narrow definition of the words rather than looking at the original Hebrew yes on the second yeah it's basically saying God is the one that does all this but let me stop for a minute because this whole debate about how to interpret the circle of the earth it says its inhabitants are like grasshoppers that tells you that God is far enough away from the earth and looking down on the earth as a circle that we creatures look like little grasshoppers so we're not talking God being just 5000 feet above the surface of the earth he's far enough away that we look like grasshoppers and basically making a point hey if you look at the universe we are in the words of Carl Sagan just an insignificant speck in the vastness of the universe but we're an important speck so in that context yes yeah that's true but if you're up on a high enough mountain you can actually see some of the curvature of the earth so some of you have actually done that although the flat earth people say oh that's just refraction you're not really seeing the curvature of the earth I'm saying well how do you explain the fact that when you're up high you get to see a lot farther away than if you're down in the plane in spite of the refraction because we can measure the refraction effect it's not just refraction you're actually able to see farther away and that's why they always put a sailor up in the crow's nest of a sailing ship except for them high enough above the deck that he could see a little farther away and the world was really flat he could see a little bit farther away but not much yeah not much yeah you don't need much so I mean I've been in airplanes of 45,000 feet it's really obvious at that elevation you can see see the curvature quite well so okay you were bringing the question up which is how the heavens like a thin clock and spreads them out like a tent to live in and I chose this translation because it actually makes the whole point that we're talking about the material that makes a tent but actually there is this connotation we're talking a thin clock layer rather than a thick clock layer so any comments on this? yes right and this passage is actually repeated you'll actually see other texts to talk about how God stretches out the heavens kind of like a tent which we can live in and there's debate is this just simply a figure of speech is it actually implying that the universe is a surface effect I could go either way on it because after all only talking about two texts in the Bible that address this thing but I find it interesting is that even if you take it literally rather than as a figure of speech it's accurate in the sense that, yeah all the stuff of the universe is on the surface there's nothing outside there's nothing inside if you keep in mind that we're talking a three-dimensional surface instead of a two-dimensional surface please don't try to visualize it it can't be done but analogy I've used with lay audiences is to say the universe as we astronomers measure it is kind of like planet Earth where planet Earth is three dimensions and we human beings live in the two-dimensional surface of the three-dimensional Earth when it comes to the universe all the stars, galaxies, planets all the space-time dimensionality all the energy is constrained to the three-dimensional surface of the four-dimensional expanding universe so just add one dimension to the Earth and it all makes sense as long as you don't try to visualize it but yeah and that sense is consistent with this text which is basically saying that the universe is akin to a tent because that's what a tent is right the reality of the tent is not what's inside the tent or beyond the tent it's the cloth that makes up the tent and it actually creates a space-time dimensionality and we can live well likewise because of the way God designed the surface of the universe the three-dimensional surface of the universe we can live on this universe because yeah what if it wasn't a three-dimensional surface in a four-space-time dimension you can't visualize it but we wouldn't be able to live here but if we were actually thinking of something that had interior and exterior to it so yeah you don't want to be there well one of the most common questions I get is this idea Hugh, you're an astronomer tell me where the center of the universe is and I said well that's akin to you asking me a question which city on the surface of the Earth is at the center of the Earth and the answer is the distance from the center nothing, no city, is at the center of the Earth well likewise there's no location on the space-time surface of the universe that's at the center of the universe I mean there's not even space and time there and beyond the surface there's no space and time space and time is constrained to the surface of the universe just like our transportation system is constrained to the surface of the dimensional Earth you can't drive a freeway to the surface to the center of the Earth and you can't take a freeway to get to the Moon you have to use other means of transportation to get there so if you've got a car and it doesn't have wings you're constrained to the surface of the Earth well okay if you go back in time to the very beginning of the universe from which everything came from there's no more well it's because the universe is expanded from that so quote the center of all of its beginning is simply not accessible when we astronomers look out at the universe we're constrained to look along the surface however we can get a little closer to that point than you can looking out across the street here because as we look far away from time as we look back in time we're looking at the surface of the universe being smaller than it is today and that sense being closer to that point of beginning which some people refer to as the center but the while astronomers really don't like the analogy that the universe is like an exploding bomb or a grenade because whenever you explode a grenade some pieces of the grenade would move faster than other pieces but we see with the universe everything is moving at the same velocity which is why they prefer the word picture of blowing up a balloon because you blow up a balloon that surface of the balloon moves away from the center of the expansion at the same rate everywhere assuming you got a balloon that doesn't have weaker surfaces on it and so everything is the same distance from that center but there's no access to that center well yeah I mean if you get the crater in the cosmos the latest addition I talk about how we now, we astronomers can now measure the shape of the universe and our measurements tell us it doesn't look like it's spherical it looks like it's saddle shaped it looks like it's flat but it's flat in four dimensions not in two dimensions four dimensional flat universe don't try to visualize it keep this in mind one of the reasons why we know Christianity and the Bible is from God it contains teachings we can't visualize one reason why we know all the other holy books are not from God their content is limited to that which we can visualize that's evidence that they came from a human being because it shows limitations a human visualization the Bible as you notice is unique in claiming that God is a trinity it's unique in claiming that God controls everything but gives us free will you don't see that in the other religions it's unique to Christianity because it's beyond what we can visualize so we know that's true physics and astronomy are loaded with all kinds of things we know for certain are true but we can never visualize it so yeah one of the things you have to do in trying to communicate the Christian gospel to people who are not yet Christians is say there is truth out there that you can't visualize because I know in a lot of people say I won't accept this gospel yeah go ahead Steve right yeah you're right astronomers don't like that analogy they prefer an analogy where all the raisins are on the surface of the expanding loaf that's actually closer to reality okay good computer, browser yeah they all have limitations because what all these astronomers are trying to do is kind of give you an analogy the geometry the universe is like the problem is almost every lay reader doesn't like the analogy yeah well one thing I can share with you is that the loaf with raisins in it that's rising as the yeast expands it that's a not as good an analogy as a balloon with raisins on the surface well there's lots of websites Steve that use the balloon analogy where they put dots on the balloon that's the best but keep in mind those analogies also are incomplete and I'd like to follow up too about what your astronomer friend at Carnegie said where we got some idea of the geometry of the universe and you'll see this in the crater in the cosmos fourth edition yeah we now can measure the geometry of the universe the fourth place of the decimal but that's probably the best we'll ever be able to do regardless of there's actually things inherent in big bang cosmology that make it impossible to determine the geometry any more accurately than that but the fourth place of the decimal it looks like it's flat but it still leaves the door open that it could be slightly spherical or slightly saddle shaped and the sad news is we'll probably never know expanding flat balloon where the balloon has four dimensions at the same time that's close I think what I said earlier is significant in the sense that if we're any different than this thing we can't visualize or imagine or come up with a decent analogy to communicate it we wouldn't be here it's got to be in this unimaginable context for there to be a possibility of physical life in the universe so stop trying to visualize it and you'll find the best analogies you can on the web as I think the ones that come the closest are basically the balloon but it's spherical yeah I mean well I mean some of the better websites I've looked at so you know it could be an expanding saddle shape but you can't blow up a saddle so the bottom line is all analogies for the expanding universe breakdown and don't be surprised about that all analogies we have for the trinity at some point breakdown I mean that's kind of what I did beyond the cosmos is give you what I thought were the best analogies for the Biblical doctrine of the trinity but even the best analogies fail to communicate what the trinity is really all about so we have to be satisfied with communicating some of the truths of Big Bang cosmology don't try to explain it all it can't be done the astronomer you talked to said it right I mean we have some understanding but there's limitations yeah go ahead there's a big difference between flat and sphere and you know how astronomers do this they measure something called the critical density of the universe and so it's less than one it is saddle shaped more than one it's saddle shaped it's more than one it's a spherical less than one it's saddle shaped if it's exactly one it's flat so flat is that boundary line between a saddle shaped universe and a spherical universe and so it's either flat or very very slightly saddle shaped or very very slightly spherically shaped and as I was just mentioning earlier here we may never know what it is but it's got to be really close to flat for us to be here now I think what's fun there's actually research being done now that might establish that it slightly departs from flatness and they're actually looking at it in terms of context what do we need to get advanced life in the universe if it's perfectly flat does that eliminate the possibility of life and maybe there's a very slight departure and then again how many places of decimal does that have to be flat these are still unanswered questions get a comment well you know how Peter Brad has a little hollow face oh Peter Brad okay I'll be Peter Brad I'm going on record now where are you going to put the raisins no raisins okay over here so what's this class going to be like when we're in the new creation is that your question well I'll go to first Corinthians 329 it's going to be beyond anything that any of us can think or imagine I don't think we're going to be talking about this kind of stuff at all we're going to be talking about something far more wondrous and yeah I don't think our curiosity will ever go away you know God made us curious and we get a new creation we're going to be in a non-stop college course learning about the glory of God and it's going to be really fun and we're going to be excited about it but the stuff we're talking about now it's like an old hat we had that figured out a long time ago there's a question here somewhere okay yeah well I think what's going to happen God's going to say you know you probably wondered why I made the universe the way I did and I know you got some good answers but let me tell you the whole story so he'll tell us that why you made it this way or you might want to say well what was my role in all of this I can understand why you made all these angels and all these other people but why me and God will explain to us why we played a critical role and then we're going to want to know everybody else's critical role I mean hey you got eternity so there's going to be a lot of stuff for us to explore okay over here while you're making a good point we're going to be sitting on harps or on clouds playing harps God's got a task for each one of us to do he says I'm going to make you caretakers with me of the new creation so every one of us is going to be a manager and we're going to have a task in managing a component of God's creation so I've explained here in the class before our life here in these few decades we have on this planet all training, preparing us for future careers in the new creation why we're not to take lightly lightly over here and then I want to get back to because I'm running out of time go ahead okay new Jerusalem the new creation Revelation 21 speaks about a time when the universe will fulfill this purpose God created the universe to be a tool to eliminate evil and suffering and when that happens as he spoke the universe into existence he'll speak it out of existence and then he brings in the new creation as it tells us in John 14 Jesus told his disciples I'm going away to prepare a place for you it's a brand new creation not this universe I say this because there's a lot of teaching going on today saying we're going to spend eternity here on earth one reason why I think that can't possibly be true I think God's going to save a lot more than just one or two billion of us in which case we need something bigger and that's where the new Jerusalem comes in because it tells us in Revelation 21 that here's this new earth and the new Jerusalem comes out of heaven and sits on the earth but it talks about this angel with a measuring rod and he measures the size of the city that comes out of now keep in mind we're probably not talking length width and height but it is a realm of dimensions because you see in Revelation 21 that it's actually measuring the sizes of the different features talks about this angel with a measuring rod and when you look at the measurements given there it tells us that the new Jerusalem measures 1500 miles approximately on one side 1500 miles on another and 1500 miles on a third now I don't know how many dimensions of space there are in the new creation but it tells us this is a structure that in the equivalent of our three dimensions of space measures 1500 miles by 1500 miles by 1500 miles now again in the context of what we can visualize in three space dimensions that means a structure is either a pyramid or a cube or maybe some other exotic three dimensional object but that thing wouldn't really fit on our earth our earth is too small to accommodate something of that size this is a single building that resides on the new earth which tells me the new earth has a whole lot more living space than our planet and well yeah it tells us there's no darkness and if you've got this building it tells us there's no gravity because if there's gravity you're not going to have a building 1500 miles by 1500 miles by 1500 miles gravity will remove the corners and the text is explicit this building has corners because it talks about the different corner stones of the building now there's certain jewels at the base of those corner stones so that tells us there's no gravity or we're talking a very different kind of force than the force of gravity because this is something that can sustain structures of those great dimensions and some scholars have speculated that the new Jerusalem might be an apartment complex where we all get a flat and you can leave that flat anytime you want so in large cities of the world for example they have these big buildings where maybe 20,000 people live in the building because they all have flats and say the first fixed floors are movie theaters and restaurants and department stores laundromats lawyer offices all that kind of stuff doctors offices and basically you don't have to leave the building everything's there and if you go to the big Asian cities or places like Toronto you can see those kinds of building structures and people say well maybe the new Jerusalem is like that it's a place where you've got a flat but it's not a place where you can find you've got access to the entirety of the new earth and the new heavens so you can come and go but what's interesting you can put 30 billion human beings in that building if it's got a cubicle type shape where every one of us in just our apartment flat could have two championship golf courses and a ski run with 10,000 vertical feet every individual can have something that big so it just shows you this new Jerusalem actually has a larger living space than the entire surface of planet earth and yet we're not limited that's just where there's really a mansion for you we're talking way bigger than the mansions you see in Arcadia way bigger all redeemed humanity are living inside that new Jerusalem then who or what is outside on the left of the earth what will we be managing well interesting question because all I see in the text is that we're going to be ruling over the angels and the kingdoms God creates and you know what are those kingdoms are that new species of life forms so are we going to be managing the equivalent of bears and lions that are existing in multiple dimensions and are you know eating whatever or maybe they don't eat at all I don't know so God may be creating and people have speculated maybe he's going to create intelligent life forms after all he made the angels maybe he's got in mind another species and we're going to be ruling over them who knows what that means that word a kingdom means leaves a lot of room for speculation I like to go back to 1 Corinthians 2 9 whatever God does in that new creation is greater more glorious more loving more rewarding than any one of us can think or imagine which tells me let your imagination run wild and realize it's greater than that and incidentally that's an exhortation from both the author of Hebrews and the apostle Paul both of them made the point every day as a follower of Jesus Christ spend some time meditating about how great you think your future reward will be whatever you come up with it's better than that so I'm out of time but I'll take one more quick comment all there is and so for example scholars are making the point that this planet earth is going to be our eternal home they're basically pointing out to that passage narrow as a gate you know we're not talking 10% of humanity becoming followers of Jesus Christ we're talking 0.1% well what does that say about all of us here in the class and it's only 0.1% but the passage I lean on is the one in Zachariah 13 where it says a day will come when a third of all the living Jews will recognize the one that they have pierced and they will worship him which communicates a day will come when a third of all living Jews will become followers of Jesus Christ now Jesus did make the point repeatedly narrow as a gate it will not be a majority but I think he was also making the point that it will not be a tiny minority it's going to be a big minority so it won't be 50% it won't be 80% but it could be 30% it could be 35% in which case this planet is way too small and you know my friends who have this idea that this is going to be our permanent home I say what are you going to do with the physics of the sun because the sun will continue to get brighter and brighter in fact as an astronomer I can tell you within less than a million years this planet will be uninhabitable for human beings because it's not going to be possible to go with that reaction and pull more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere yeah we can pull more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with all these fur trees and all the rain falling on the silicates the problem is right now if that continues much more into the future it will pull so much carbon dioxide and the photosynthetic life everywhere on planet Earth dies and with all photosynthetic life dies we have nothing to eat and we die but we'll go first the photosynthetic life will last longer than us but because we have to eat so much we're going to be one of the first to go so but don't be discouraged I think God's going to redeem humanity in a lot less time than it's going to take for the sun to make our planet uninhabitable and hey if you wait long enough the sun will get so big it will include the orbit of the Earth a time will come when our sun will incinerate vaporize the Earth so hey when you go home tonight just tell your children that that'll get them all excited about the future well let them know that's not going to happen for another 4 billion years and that God's got plans to take us out of this universe and a whole lot less than 4 billion years we actually got some texts talking about that but we'll get to that next week let me close this in a word of prayer Father in Heaven we thank you for this rich text of the book of Isaiah thank you Lord for how Isaiah in the midst of great chaos and doubt about God spoke so clearly to the people of Israel about who you are and Father those of us today we live in a century where there's just so much uncertainty and chaos in the world where all of us are impacted but even the smallest of events that exist thousands of miles away Lord I pray you would dispel our fear that you would help us recognize based on what we see here in the text everything is under your control everything including human beings is under your control we control the specks of death you control us but Father I pray you give us a spirit of humility to follow you as you carve out the path for each one of us to follow in Jesus' name, amen