God Makes Heaven and Earth

1 God Makes Heaven and Earth

                                         American Standard Version

Introduction: Please always bear in mind that we do not teach anyone because no one can be taught. The ability to know is in everyone but in order to know – especially true knowledge (truth) we must do as Jesus says: we must ask, knock and search. (Luke 11:9. “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”) 

Not even the Bible can teach anyone anything unless that person is ready to use his/her understanding. What spiritual Masters and Initiates do, is to merely point. Like the Buddha says: “Buddha can but point the Way, humankind must work out their own salvation.” So there is no such thing as ‘just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.’ The Law of Karma says, “There are no free lunches. You must ask, seek and knock for what you want.”

In Thessalonians 5:21 it says that we must “prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.” The Buddha says nearly the same thing except that He says that we must test all things. The two masters are really complementary because after we’ve tested something we have proved it to be either right or wrong. The Buddha says that we must believe nothing until we have tested it and found it to be good. He says that we should not even believe Him without testing what He says.

We do not have a religion. This gives us the freedom to search for Truth wherever we can find it, irrespective of from which Master or religious background it comes from. So, not having a religion of our own and neither belonging to anything (including cults), we cannot convert you to our way of thinking (religion). 

We are not going to teach you anything because, as we have said earlier, that we can’t. We will point like a signboard on the road. It says: ‘This way to Cape Town; that way to the Airport; you are now on the M10; if you turn right here you will be in Turfhall Road.’ The sign (pointer) cannot take you to any of those destinations. You have to travel the way and the distance yourself. 

Or as Jesus says in Matthew 7:24:- Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock: 25. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and if fell not: for it was founded upon the rock (foundation). 

26. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand:

27. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.”

This saying of Jesus is also the crux of everything that we do. We will begin nothing unless we have a solid foundation. Grades I to III in Primary schools are called the foundation phase. In this phase pupils learn the alphabet and construct words such this, say, is, the, of, that, we do. And so on. They also learn of numbers, units (0 to 9), tens (10, 20, 30 etc.) hundreds (100, 200 ,300 etc). It doesn’t matter how high up they n – even becoming a professor, they continue to use the words and numbers they learnt in the foundation phase.

The foundation phase is in the Primary school. Primary, just like a foundation means  the first in the order development: it is the first stage of civilization. And as we’ve said it is the first of rank, of importance, or value. It is derived from the word prime. Look this word up and add to the importance of the foundation phase.

When we in high school (from 1964 to 1961) the teachers would tell us at the end of the lessons which pages in our text books we had to read to get a notion of the next lesson. We have always done this so we could understand say about 50% of the text. 

When our teacher gave us the lesson, this background knowledge made it possible for us to understand up to 90% of the text. Then to fill in the other 10% we would ask questions about the parts of the lessons we did not yet understand. This took us to 100%.

The Supreme Master Ching says that knowledge without understanding is not knowledge. It is rote learning. You can get an A in the examinations for just repeating parrot wise what is in the book or Bible. When comes to religion this type of acceptance of everything we are taught, is called blind belief or blind faith. This is why people suffer so much because they do not know what is the good that they should hold onto.

So we will just be pointing. We will put the information there in front of you and you must decipher it yourself. The Supreme Master Ching Hai says that once you have come to a full understanding of something then the knowledge becomes yours. So, after we fully understood the whole lesson, the content then belongs to us. It doesn’t matter who wrote the book and who is the teacher. Unless we are able to understand everything that is in the book or what the teacher utters, everything remains unintelligible or meaningless.

So read up your own 50%. Ask questions about the parts you still do not understand from people who you know will know. And search. We are fortunate that all we have to do these days is to just type in a few words and Google will gives us a host of possibilities. Knock on the doors of the Masters like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu and a whole list of others. Buy second hand books on subjects you wish to investigate further. We are not going to tell you anything.  We will only point by giving some background information. And, we will ask. A spiritual Master (Timothy Friswell) we had in the 1960’s and 1970’s said: “We do not know the right answers because we do not ask the right questions. We will help you somewhat by asking you some questions or inviting you to examine the information before us yourself. If you are not ready, then drop out. We will understand. 9.1.2024

Genesis Chapter 1

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7. 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.

8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9. And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11. And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, [and] fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so.

12. And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that it was good.

13. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:

15. and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16. And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

17. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth,

18. and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20. And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21. And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good.

22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.

23. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so.

25. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good.

26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28. And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food:

30. and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, [I have given] every green herb for food: and it was so.

31. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis Chapter 2

1. And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.

Notes:  We have used the American Standard Version of the Bible because the compilers try to distinguish the different sources of the Bible. The first four verses from Chapter Two of Genesis obviously belongs to Chapter one. It is clear that it is the conclusion of the creation story by some deity other than Jehovah. Our focus will be on Jehovah so we will be brief with regard to other sources. (Type: Nyala 14)

Note that wherever the American Standard version uses the term God or Gods and even angel/s, judge/s, sons of God and others, the text was probably written by the writer who  uses El (singular) or Elohim (plural) for God. (The sourced is described as E by Biblical scholars.) We will discuss the four sources of the Bible at some later time. Note for example in Genesis 26. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

This the the foundation section of the Bible. If we can find the answers to some difficult question it will put us in a position to upgrade from the religious to the spiritual. 

Up to here, we are not going into detail. The spiritual practitioner would have many questions for example: Was there a beginning? If there were what was there before the beginning? Why did God create the heaven and earth at that particular time? Why not earlier? Or later? What did God do before He created the Heavens and the earth? What about the universe? Who made God?  Light was made on the first day but the sun, moon and stars were made on the fourth day. What’s the difference? He made the plants and trees on the third day; how could they grow if sunlight was only made on the fourth day? What about photosynthesis? And many more but we are not concerned with those questions now. If any of you have some answers we would like to hear them

Written by: Peter Snyders 

Sponsored by: Unison Music and Literature.