What Happened Between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? (The Genesis Gap Explained)

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have you all back, and we're going to go right on in our study in Genesis chapter 1, only we're going to move out of verse 1 now. We're going to go to verse 2, and we'll see how far we can get. I'm a proponent as—how should I put this? I'm a proponent of what they call the gap theory, that there is a gap in time between verse 1 and verse 2, but I'll show you why I think that in just a moment. And again, for those of you joining us on television, we are just an informal Bible study, and I stress the informality of it. And after each half-hour taping, we have a coffee break, and that's why you see the coffee cups on the table, there's a reason for it all. And we're here from various denominational backgrounds, and we've got people here from—mostly from Tulsa, of course. We've got people from Muskogee and McAllister, and of course Iris and I are from the big city of Kinta. But anyway, we're from all various backgrounds, and we're just here to study God's Word. You know, I've often said I would have much sweeter fellowship with a saved individual from some other denomination than someone from my own denomination that's unsaved. And I mean that, because I don't care what your background, if you're in Christ, we have a fellowship bond that the world knows nothing of. All right, we have all the past programs, of course, available on video, audio, and the printed page, and if you're interested in any of that, you just give us a call. This shocks people a lot of time, but all of our ministry work is done out of the home, so when you call on the 800 number, why, you call right into our everyday living abode, and usually you'll get my little wife, and if I'm around, I'll answer the phone. But whatever, we're not big or anything like that. We're just sort of a family-run ministry, and the Lord has been blessing it beyond our fondest dreams. All right, Genesis chapter 1, we might as well read verse 1, that in the beginning God created heaven and earth. We've been talking about that for the last three programs, and now as we move into verse 2, years ago this shook me up, and of course I didn't have an answer for it, but the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now, from my understanding of the word created in the Hebrew, bara, and I've even read some Hebrew commentary on it not too long ago, that the word meant perfect creation. In other words, He did not create the mess, as I call verse 2. It's under flood water, it's void. Now you all know what void is. It's of no use. It's just simply blah, and yet that which evidently God had created perfectly in verse 1 must have been without a flaw, and yet in verse 2 here it is, void, and it's under water. Now I've learned to call this, of course, the first flood, Noah's is the second. But what happened? Why did God destroy that original, beautiful earth that He had created by the word of His mouth? Well, naturally something cataclysmic had to happen, and I think the best way we can find the answer for it is to go to the Scripture itself, and I know some theologians will disagree with me, just as many will agree, but this is the way I feel the most comfortable with this whole idea that between verse 1 and verse 2 something terrible happened, and that God had to destroy it with a flood. Ezekiel chapter 28, and we're going to look down at verse 13. Now I do not take this approach just simply to pacify the evolutionist concept of the billions and billions of years of time, no way at all. I do not do this to simply insert the geological ages of time, which I do not agree with. I do not agree with the evolutionary approach whatsoever. I am a creationist. I believe that in the beginning God spoke the word and everything was created as He wanted to create it. But I do have to feel that after a certain period of time, and I don't know how long it was, might have been 5 years, might have been 500, it may have been 5 billion, I don't know, and again my answer is, so what? What difference does it make? But I do feel that there was an interruption because of something that drastically took place. Ezekiel chapter 28, verse 13, and God is speaking through the prophet Ezekiel, and He says to this personality, Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering. The sardis, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, emerald, the carbuncle, and gold. And you know what's amazing? So many things that are introduced in this book of Genesis won't be heard of again until we get to the book of Revelation. And here's one of them. All of these beautiful gemstones repeat again when we have the description of the holy city coming down. And so you'll see this so often that what is introduced in this book of beginnings, we may see mention of it as we come up through Scripture, but we may not. The tree of life is another one. We're going to see the tree of life in the garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve sin, they're cast out of the garden, not another reference to the tree of life. But you get back to the book of Revelation in eternity, what's there? The tree of life. And so the book of beginnings ties in so beautifully, of course, with the book of ending. All right? So Ezekiel 28, this individual, this personality has been in Eden. And all of these beautiful gemstones were a part of his makeup, I think, of his very outward appearance until, see, until, now I'm jumping ahead, the carbuncle, the gold, the workmanship that was prepared in the day that thou wast created. Now verse 14, thou art the anointed cherub. What are cherubs in Scripture? They're angelic beings. And so we have an angelic being that God is talking to, and he was anointed. In other words, he had a place of special responsibility amongst the angelic host. All right? Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. Now if I understand the Hebrew translation of that, the word covereth really meant ruleth. Thou art the anointing angel that ruled. Now when you speak of rule, you speak of a kingdom. So this angelic being evidently ruled over a kingdom of angelic beings. Not mankind. Now get this straight. We're not talking about humanity. We're talking about an angelic kingdom. All right? Thou hast, I have set thee so, for thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. Now here's another place I usually have to stop. In the Old Testament use of symbolism, a mountain in Scripture is a kingdom. Over and over the word mountain is used in place of a kingdom or symbolically as a kingdom. So this individual to whom God is speaking has been placed in a place of authority over a kingdom. Now reading on in verse 14, thou hast walked up and down in the midst of these stones, these gemstones of fire. In other words, they were brilliant. All these stones that are listed up here in verse 13 were just fiery in their brilliance. Now I'm not much on stones, gemstones so far in authority, but I have heard people talk about the fire of a diamond. Well, what are they talking about? It's brilliance as it responds to the entrance of light. It has fire. All right, now you have the same thing here. This angelic being lived and moved in the midst of such fiery gemstones. Verse 15, God goes on to say, you were perfect, he was sinless in thy ways from the day that thou wast, what's the next word, created. So we have here a created angelic being whom God had put over a kingdom. And so he says, you were perfect until iniquity was found in thee. In other words, this angelic being by virtue of his own free will rebelled against God. All right, now let's come back, if you will, to Isaiah. Now that will be back to the left. Come back to Isaiah chapter 14, and I think we have the answer to what took place that was the iniquitous act of this angelic being, and we also have him named, at least in the King James. Now I know some of the new translations have taken it out, but the King James still has the name of this angel very much intact. In Isaiah 14, verse 12, Isaiah 14, verse 12, wait until you all find it, because that's one of the requests I get from our TV audience. Give the Scripture references and wait a minute so I can find them here at home. All right, Isaiah 14, beginning at verse 12, how art thou fallen? Fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, there he is, son of the morning, he was an angel, the cherub that covereth. How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations? Now here we have already the hint that he has fallen from his place of rule. Verse 13, for thou hast said in thy heart, see here becomes the evidence of what this angelic being did, thou hast said in thy heart, I will. You see that exercise of will? I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. Now again symbolically, who are stars in Scripture? Angels. So he is going to exalt his position above the angelic host. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north, you see all of his I wills, in total rebellion against his creator. Now verse 14, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, and he's not going to stop there. What does the verse say as it continues on? I will be like the most high, and in the Scripture who's the most high? Again the God of creation, see. Alright, this upstart, this angel that God had given dominion over an angelic kingdom that I think was on that earth created in verse 1, a beautiful earth filled with all the glitter of the gemstones, but also an earth beautiful with all the things of God's creation, the trees and the flowers and the grass and you name it. It was all there. It was beautiful beyond description. And it was an angelic host that populated it, not mankind but angels. And this Lucifer was ruling over it. But Lucifer, Satan as we now know him, was never satisfied. He still isn't. And so in his heart he lusted to take the place of God himself. And he honestly thought he could pull it off. And so we also now can go back, have I got enough here? Yeah, alright, let's go back to Revelation chapter 12. Revelation 12, and we pick up a little tidbit of information here concerning this rebellion. And that's what it was. This Lucifer, who was not content with the role that God had given him, now wanted to usurp the throne of God, but he was going to entice the angelic subjects that were under him to go with him in his rebellion. And we find here how many went. Chapter 12 of Revelation, and let's drop down to verse 3. Revelation 12, and you can drop down to verse 3. Now this again is a whole chapter of symbolism. Of course the whole book of Revelation is symbolism, but it comes back to a literal truth, remember. And so here again we look at the symbolism, but we're going to dig out the literal truth. There appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head. Now we know that those are descriptions of Satan, alright? And his tail, now remember this is symbolic of a dragon. And his tail drew, or encompassed, the third part of the stars, what did I say stars were? Angels. So his enticing language, depicted here as a tail, literally drew the third part of this angelic host. And he did cast them to the earth, and the dragon, Satan, now stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, and that of course jumps up all the way to Bethlehem. But how many, fraction wise, of the angels followed him in his rebellion? One third. One third of the angels followed him in his rebellion. Alright now since you're in Revelation, just back up a few pages to the left, the little book of Jude. And we find these angels again. The little letter of Jude, only one chapter long, and drop down to verse 6. The little letter of Jude, verse 6. Remember Jude is referring to people who as false teachers, and as various other ways of rebelling against God's sovereignty, that they are to beware of them. They're warning us about them. And so that's the whole idea of this little book of Jude. And so one of them that he uses as an example are these angels, verse 6. And the angels who kept not their first estate, what does that mean? They didn't stay in that kingdom that Lucifer was ruling back there in verse 1 of Genesis. Alright, and so the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. In other words, they followed Satan in his rebellion. God has what? He's reserved them, he's prepared them in everlasting change. Now I always have to stop from time to time when the Scriptures use a word that seemingly doesn't make sense. Just always be logical. Now we're dealing with spirit beings than we deal with angels. And you know that you can't confine an angel with an iron chain, because he's a spirit being. But, let God be God. Does God have a material that will confine a spirit? Yes. And so whatever material God uses to make this particular chain, that's what He used. And so they are. They are encompassed with something that God can call a chain. And so they are in everlasting change under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Now where's that going to be? Well the great white throne, when men and angels will be judged as unbelievers or as rebels. And so these angels are locked up. And I make a point of that because the angels that fell at Satan's rebellion are not the demons that Jesus dealt with and that Andre deals with and so forth. So far as Scripture is concerned, the origin of the present day demons, I do not feel, are revealed. They are not the angels that fell when Satan rebelled, but they are instead under chains of darkness. All right, now just to show you, now come back with me all the way to Matthew, just to show you that Satan, even though he was passed out of his place of authority over that beautiful kingdom in Genesis chapter 1, verse 2, yet he has never changed. He has not given up. And his whole role and his whole reason for existing is to constantly thwart the plan of the sovereign God. In other words, again coming back to my timeline, just as soon as God put that perfect pair in the garden, who came in to throw a monkey wrench in the whole caboodle? Well Satan did, and he caused those human parents to sin. Now then, as soon as God brings Adam and Eve out of the garden and promises that of the seed of the woman would come the Redeemer of the human race, Satan immediately puts in gear everything at his disposal to stop the coming of a Redeemer. He does it by first, of course, bringing to death and murder of Abel, who was in the line of the coming of the just one. And then when Abraham comes on the scene and God makes that covenant with Abraham, Satan turns on that little nation that's going to come out of that covenant agreement like no other group of people on earth. And if you ever look at what has happened to the Jew down through their history, never forget that it's been the attacks of this same Lucifer, this same Satan, who is trying to thwart the very plan of God because, you see, since God placed everything concerning prophecy on this little nation, everything concerning Christ's first coming rested on the little nation of Israel. And so if Satan could destroy Israel, he could destroy God's plan of bringing a Redeemer. All right, I think that when Christ was on the cross, Satan must have almost jumped with glee, thinking that he had finally succeeded. But resurrection morning, he found out differently. He was defeated, but he still hasn't quit. All right, now if you'll come with me to Matthew chapter 4, as Christ begins His earthly ministry. And He's been 40 days and 40 nights out there in the desert, and the first thing Satan comes up with is the temptation to satisfy His hunger. All right, but I want you to come with me for sake of our speaking of ruling and reigning and so forth, to come up to verse 8 in Matthew 4. Matthew 4, verse 8, and again, the devil, Satan, taketh him, Jesus, up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them. Now you want to remember, Satan is a spiritual being, Christ was spiritual, even though He was in the flesh. And so from that high preeminent area, not only could they look physically all four directions, but spirit beings that they were, they could look all the way back to the Garden of Eden, they could look way up to the very end of time. And all of the empires and the kingdoms that had come on the scene, and look what old Satan has the audacity to offer. And he took him up into the high mountain, verse 9, and he saith unto him, All these things, all these earthly kingdoms, I will give thee, if you will fall down and worship me. Now let that sink in. Satan is offering all the empires of the world, past, present, and future, to the Lord Jesus if he will just fall down and worship Him, where he can honestly now say that he had ascended above the Almighty. Fantastic, isn't it? He never gives up. All right, now I usually ask my classes when I'm teaching this, were these kingdoms his to give? Yes. He is the God of this world. He has been the head of the nations ever since Adam left the garden. And he is ruling and reigning the nations of the world today as well as any time before. You're in your New Testament, turn with me. A verse just comes to mind, 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 3 and 4. And this says it all better than I can, that this Satan, this Lucifer, who rebelled and wanted to usurp the very throne room of God, was cast down, and his beautiful kingdom was destroyed with water. But even though the angels were locked up, God in His omnipotence again and in His sovereignty permitted Satan to roam free. But He had at the same time permitted him to become the God of this world. All right, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, beginning of verse 3. But if our gospel be hid, now when Paul says our gospel, he's talking about 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1, 2, 3, and 4, how that Christ died for our sins, and He was buried, and He rose again the third day. That's what Paul refers to here as our gospel. All right, if that gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. It's not lost if you're a believer. You know it all too well. Now look at verse 4. In whom, that is the lost of this world, in whom the God of this world, do you see that? In whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. Now you see how plainly that puts it? Who is the God of this world, even tonight? Satan. He is in charge of the kingdoms of this world, and he'll promote good as well as evil until the day that he is finally removed as the God of this world. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.