Joseph’s Alabaster Box

On the second day of creation, the Creator God made a firmament, and it was so. And then He divided the waters that covered the face of the earth. This is what we are told in Genesis 1:6 and 7: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.” This is actually quite a clear statement, and contains all the information we need to know about it, when we combine it with all the other information throughout the Bible.

It is not necessary for the LORD to describe in detail how He did this work. The details for making fudge takes more than half a page, and so there could hardly be room on the earth for the books that would be necessary to describe how God did the work He did do the second day. John tells us that the works Jesus did while on Earth

would require so many books to describe them that the world itself could not hold them (John 21:25): “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”

If God had skipped from Genesis 1:1 to 1:26, it would be almost sufficient for us, but I am glad He chose to give us as much information as He did.

The firmament, of course, is the atmosphere which is about300 miles deep all over the earth. The air thins out so gradually at thetop that it is very difficult to actually tell where the upper limit is.

Astronauts coming back into the atmosphere from space must come in at an exact angle or they will skip off the atmosphere like a rock skipping on water.

In verse 7 the Bible says that God divided the waters which were under the atmosphere (firmament) from the waters above the atmosphere (firmament). That simple little short statement describes an act by our LORD that required an enormous amount of energy.

There is about 1,400,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s 14 x1017) tons of water on Earth. About 3.5 percent of this weight is now minerals, mostly plain salt, but there was no salt water on Earth at thexbeginning. We can’t even conceive of that sort of weight, but the LORD placed a great mass of it on top of the atmosphere.Water is found in three states: liquid, solid, and gas. Which state the water that God lifted is not known, but it could have been either. When this ocean of water was resting on the top of the atmosphere no doubt the atmosphere was pressed down so that it did not reach as high as it does today. If it was water vapor (gas), then it must have reached a long way out into space. It was pure water without impurities of any sort, and so was invisible to those on Earth, and could not precipitate to Earth as rain because the air was free of particles.

This canopy over the earth would have done many wonderful things for life on Earth. The fossil record is a record in stone of creatures that lived before the great flood.

These fossils show that while the canopy was in place that many animals on Earth were much bigger than they are today. We have no fossils of giant humans that I know of, but I have seen a human foot print that is approximately inches long. It is the Burdick print kept in the Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. The print has been closely examined by geologists, and reported to have all the features of a genuine human footprint. If an evolutionist (like Mary Leakey who found what she claimed are human foot tracks in Africa) had claimed that this was a genuine human footprint, she would have been believed immediately by the world at large, while a creationist is heard with suspicion and disbelief.

If animals before the flood were much bigger than the same animals today, then certainly we should expect that humans were bigger then, too. Genesis 6:4 says “There were giants in the earth in those days.” Most people assume that those giants were the children of the sons of God who took the daughters of man to wife but no, the giants were in the land before and during that time.

The children of the sons of God and the daughters of men were “. . .men of renown.” That means they were widely honored or acclaimed, but not for honorable reasons. They were honored and acclaimed by an ungodly generation because of their violent nature. (Have you noticed the “wrestling” shows on tv lately?)

Besides being very large because of the canopy over the earth, men and animals would have lived a great deal longer. The dinosaurs became dominant on the earth because they grew bigger as long as they lived. Could a man live 969 years? One of the reasons man could live nearly a thousand years was because the water canopy overhead would raise the air pressure to about twice what it is today. Theincreased air pressure would enable living things to absorb more oxygen through both their lungs and through their skin and cause them to be much more healthy than modern creatures.

Studies have been done on hyperbaric conditions and the results have shown some amazing things. Dr. Edgar End of the University of Wisconsin in only one who has made such a study, which was done using a pressure chamber. He learned that higher air pressure will restore memory, energy, and zest to many older men and women.

“The most detailed study made to date on this subject was published by Dr. Joseph Dillow who enlisted the help of competent specialists in thermodynamics, optics, fluid mechanics, and all of the other sciences that bear on the subject. Their conclusion was that although many details still need to be resolved, the basic vapor canopy model is sound, providing an excellent explanation for a wide range of data in both science and the Bible.”1

“At the Agricultural and Mechanical University in College Station, Texas, they have a special chamber where they put medical patients with extreme problems.” In this chamber people with wounds heal rapidly, and toxins are removed from the cells. Hyperbaric treatment may become more widespread in the future.

Our gracious Creator intended for humans to live forever in a paradise, and He created such for man’s happiness. Man forfeited that privilege by lusting for more than he was entitled to have. Christ would have been altogether within His rights if He had allowed man to die at once, never to live again, but He just was not that sort of God.

God could have gone out in space somewhere, and created another sort of organism and left man and Earth to drift forever in isolation. But God placed such a value on men’s souls that it became worth more to Him than His own life. God made a canopy over man in Genesis 1:6,7 for the health and happiness of man. That canopy was an earnest of His divine love for man. He had to destroy that canopy in order to use the water for a great flood. He has made another canopy for our shelter, our health, and our joy. Song of Solomon 2:4 says “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” What joy and peace to be under the banner of His everlasting love. The old song says, “Under His wings I am safely abiding.” A coveringprotectsfrom the heat of the day, the frost at night, the rain, the snow, lightning and hail. Man has not the covering animals have. We are unclothed. The animal has his fur or his feathers, his scales or his hide. “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” (Psalm 91:4). Man has nothing. We are exposed to the elements. Our soul likewise is exposed to the stalking of the raging lion that goeth about seeking whom he may destroy. He throws fiery darts that sting so sharply.

Man needs the shelter of God’s divine love, and God in mercy has provided it. Every person can have the blessing of God’s covering. Love needs only a recipient to perfect it. Love is a wandering thing until it is secured in the soul. God’s love reaches and beckons. God loves you, dear friend. Do you love Him?

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1 Henry M. Morris, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1984), p.280.

Greetings.I realize that the ordinary citizen has little to do with what bureaucrats in Washington do. Many of us hicks out here in the boondocks see the machinery of our government as a loose canon – rolling around busting up everything  they get close to with little regard for our national heritage, culture, or treasures. The best ordinary citizens can do is complain to deaf ears, and enjoy the blessings we have left while the government and its bureaucracy destroys them as fast as they can.

A case in point is when the Roosevelt and Eisenhower monuments were being designed. Somebody up there in the Land of Lunacy got out of his straight jacket, and decided to do some historical redesigning while he did the designing. He simply shaved off a few words he didn’t like from historical, factual speeches. Of course, those words were about God. Talk about revising history! Talk about a total disregard for everything this country stands for, and was built upon! Those who think they can dismiss God by leaving off a few words from a monument don’t understand God very well. At the rate we are being forced down the path of other nations who forgot God, it won’t be long until our baby-blood sodden soil will feel the tramp of hob nail boots as enemy troops march over it. They’ll proceed to soak the soil with our blood as we shoot at them from our front porches with our hunting rifles – that is if the democrats don’t succeed in taking them away from us before then.

People should not have the right to change people’s lives when the changes are not wanted. But I understand the old “might makes right” principle. America was a fine place to live while she was good. Here in Alabama it is still good for most of us. Our state government is not as good as it could be, but at least we hicks have not run our state into bankruptcy like some of high and mighty sophisticates have done to other states. And irrational politicians are about to do to the country if they can.

I am still cognizant enough at 82 to know that this letter I worked a long time on, will be briefly perused by somebody who will then take a form letter off a stack, and mail it to me telling me how much my missive is appreciated. A mad citizen is the first person beauracrats want to get rid of.

When a nation gets over 50% looney, you can expect bad things to happen. They’ll even elect a smooth-talking snake oil  salesman with no citizenship.

Joseph Kennedy
2106 Keenum Drive
Southside, Alabama
JosephsAlabasterBox.com
256 442 1466

 ”Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto [this] generation, [and] thy power to every one [that] is to come.
Psalm 71:18
This letter was sent to the National Park Service on Monday, July 20, 2009. Below is the address of the service:

Director of the National Park Service
Dan Wenk (Acting)
National Park Service
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: (202) 208-6843

I urge you to copy this letter, edit it to suit yourself, put it in an envelope, and mail it to the park service. I will let you know if anything happens as result of this letter. I’d like to know if you get any results.

I am sick of people we didn’t elect, and people we don’t know running our lives. It is not bad enough to have people ruling us who are living in the dark, we have to have a horde of bureaucrats who take the laws congress passes, and if possible, make them much worse as they write the regulations under which the laws operate. Remember, there is an army of bureaucrats standing between congress and us, and too many of those people have as little sense as some of our congressmen. Can you imagine anybody sending the likes of Nancy Pelosi to Congress?

But I have strayed too far from my mission.

The second day of creation is described in Genesis I:6-8. This
passage contains information that anybody can meditate upon for
many satisfying and happy hours. Obviously, many questions are left
unanswered by the Creator, but a prayerful search of the whole Bible
will reveal many fascinating bits of truth that add immeasurably to
our understanding of creation, and our happiness. We must always
remember that the LORD did not provide the Bible as a science book.

The Scriptures were given so that man could understand that he is
lost, why he is lost, how he can be saved and how he should live until
he dies. Such information covers the entire history of the universe
and so includes many peripheral subjects. These subjects that run
along with the mainstream of text in the Bible are understood in
different ways by different people even though all of these people are
almost equally consecrated before the LORD.

The details of the creation story in Genesis which affect our
redemption are clear. Chief among these details is the truth that
Adam and Eve sinned. It is also important to know that not one single
creature died before Adam and Eve sinned. Sin was the ruin of the
universe, and has always been the ruin of the individual life. Because
of that sin, even God had to die.

Let’s read these verses and think about them for a few minutes.
“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the
waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And
God made the firmament and divided the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the
firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were
the second day.”

First of all, early on that second morning God made a
firmament. It is important to note that God made the firmament. The
atmosphere, which is the firmament, is composed of two elements:
nitrogen and oxygen, plus a tiny fraction of a few others. The
atmosphere is made up of about 79 percent nitrogen, and 21 percent
oxygen. There are also tiny amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, neon,
helium, and methane in the atmosphere. It is amazing to read about
how these elements work together to make life on Earth possible, yet
how delicately balanced they are.

Oxygen is the gas that living things require to burn their food.
We can live for weeks without food; many hours without water; but we
die in minutes without oxygen. Oxygen is very explosive and if
animals and humans got a tiny bit too much in the atmosphere, they
would soon burn up. That is the reason that there is nearly three
times as much nitrogen in the air. Nitrogen sort of dilutes the oxygen,
so that we don’t get too much.

The atmosphere is divided into five layers according to
temperature. We live in what is called the “troposphere,” which is
about 6 miles deep. Next going up is the stratosphere, which extends
up to 25 miles high. Up there is where the jet stream is, and the ozone
layer, too. We arrive in the mesosphere next on our elevator trip up.
The mesosphere goes up as high as 40 miles. The fourth floor is the
thermosphere, which goes up to 300 miles high, where the auroras
glow. The highest layer of our atmosphere is the exosphere, which
goes on beyond the thermosphere, and where the air is so thin that
temperature loses its meaning. Ultraviolet rays fill the exosphere, and
zodiacal light glows faintly.

The atmosphere protects the earth from incoming meteorites
which strike the atmosphere thousands of times every day. The dust
of these meteorites sprinkles down on the earth all the time. It has
been estimated that 14 million tons of meteorite dust settle on the
earth each year. If the earth is around 5 billion years old as the
evolutionist claims, then the dust on the surface of the earth would
be about 182 feet thick.1 Creationists call this scientific evidence that
the earth is not billions of years old.

The helium in the atmosphere is another interesting bit of
evidence for a young earth. Helium enters the atmosphere through
the decay of uranium and thorium, and the rate of accumulation is
well known to scientists. Simple arithmetic with the results of these
very complicated test results reveal that all the helium in the
atmosphere could have accumulated in only 8 million years, which is
not even a tick on the evolutionists’ time scale. Why, it probably takes
1.8 million years for an ape to lose one hair from his tail on the way to
evolving into a human being!

The atmosphere cannot be seen, cannot be tasted, cannot be
smelled, but yet it is a system so complex that it required an
omnipotent Creator to design and build it. The preacher knew about
the wind after the Creator told him to write, “The wind goeth
toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it
whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again
according to his circuits.” (Ecclesiastics 1:6). The wind does flow
north and south to mix cool air and warm air to make life more
salubrious on the earth. Jeremiah thought of the wind as coming out
of a treasury, Jeremiah 10:13: “When he uttereth his voice,
there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he
causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth;
he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the
wind out of his treasury.” Rain is only possible when there are
particles in the atmosphere. Water vapor is condensed on these dust
particles until the water on them is so heavy that they can overcome
the updraft, and then they fall to the earth as raindrops. What a joy to
know the God Who designed all of this wonderful system, and put it in
place. God called the firmament “Heaven.” Adam wasn’t present at
that time to name this space, and so God named it.

This now is two heavens in existence. In verse 1 God created
the heaven that is His own abode. God did not need an abode until He
was ready to create a universe, and then He needed a place where man
could think of Him as residing. He also needed a place from which to
govern the universe He was about to create. There must be a place for
the throne, and places for those to live who would be redeemed from
the fall by their faith in the Lamb that God would provide in His own
time.

This second heaven is the abode of the birds, and above them
an area which would serve the earth and the creatures on it in many
different ways, some of which we have already discussed. This year I
will be 82 years old if I live to June 17, and I am comforted by the
knowledge that I am prepared to leave this world and enter the next.
Dr. Isaac Asimov declared that he was not afraid of death because he
was an atheist. But did Dr. Asimov ever think of the possibility that he
might be wrong! What if he was? If I am wrong, then I will enjoy the
eternal nothingness that Dr. Asimov expected. What will he enjoy if
he is wrong?

Heaven is very real to me. Like Paul, I “… am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto
him against that day.” (II Timothy 1:12). I would warn others
about wrong roads. Those who say that all religious roads lead to
Heaven must somehow be brought to understand that all religious
roads lead into perdition. There is no such thing as a religious road
that leads to Heaven. Those who have that notion in their head are
worshiping a false god, for the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ never
said anything like that. The message from God is “…no man
cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6)
Some day this firmament and all the elements must burn.
What a fireball that will be! Don’t risk being in that inferno. God has
provided a way for man to escape the condemnation that is upon the
human race. God’s original firmament had no harmful microbes in it.
No dust particles. God’s crystalline firmament will be enjoyed again
when our LORD reclaims His creation.

Isaiah 33:14: “The sinners in Zion are afraid;
fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us
shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall
dwell with everlasting burnings?”
Deuteronomy 32:22: “For a fire is kindled in mine
anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall
consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the
foundations of the mountains.”

Mark 9:45: “And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is
better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to
be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.”
God is a God of love and mercy, therefore He will not allow
persons into Heaven who have not eschewed the lifestyle of the world
by trusting His only begotten Son as their Saviour. He cares too much
for those who trust Him to deliver them from the hell sinners have
created on this earth.

_____
            Scott M. Huse The Collapse of Evolution (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker
            Book House, 1983), p.22.