04.21.04

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Thus 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. So the evening and the morning were the second day. - Genesis 1:1-8.

So the evening and the morning were the third day. - Genesis 1:13.

It has now been 92 years since the tragic sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912. However, people are still fascinated by the Titanic, the people aboard who perished, and the people who survived. The wreck was finally located in 1985 two miles down in the North Atlantic Ocean about two miles off Newfoundland. The Titanic at that time was in a fair state of preservation and it was thought that little would be necessary to keep it in that state. They were wrong. Tourists and scientists are speeding the acceleration of the decay. Alfred S. McLaren, an ocean scientist and retired submariner dived to the wreck in 1999 and again in 2003. McLaren said about the state of the Titanic, “I was shocked! It’s much more heavily deteriorated. I expected her to be in about the same shape as 1999. But…there’s more rusticles everywhere.” Paul H. Nargeolet has explored the wreck more than 30 times in a minisub. He says that each dive reveals more damage. In regard to the accelerating decay he says, “Things are going quicker and quicker.”

From a human perspective, everything is continually in a state of deterioration. We start life in a state of youth and freshness moving toward a state of deterioration with death being the ultimate form of that decay. We see the same with plants, reptiles, and animals. It appears all of creation is moving from life to death. Not only does life decay but societies decay as well. The Titanic along with everything that we can see and sense appears to be in a state of decay. Some things decay at a very fast rate and some at a very slow rate but all things deteriorate.

God, however, has a different perspective. In the Kingdom of God things work differently than what we commonly perceive as the reality of decay of life and eventual death. God makes a statement of the spiritual reality in the opening passage of the Bible. God indicates that we are moving not from light to darkness but from darkness to light. “So the evening and the morning were the first day.” “So the evening and the morning were the second day.” “So the evening and the morning were the third day.” This continued through the sixth day and on the seventh day, God rested.

As children of God, we are not moving from life to death, from light to darkness. No, we are moving from darkness to light, from death to life. The apostle Paul encourages us to look beyond to eternity to see the spiritual reality. Paul says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).” Paul indicates also that someday the decay of all creation will be ended, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Roman 8:20-21).”

We are moving from death to life, from the decay of our bodies to the ultimate healing of our bodies. The apostle Paul puts it this way, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).’”