We received this email from a "surfer" the other day. Dear Pastor Welder, Read this excellent article by Brother Kent Hovind that will show you you're wrong about the Gap Theory.

http://www.drdino.com/QandA/index.jsp?varFolder=Bible&varPage=TheGapTheory.jsp

God bless you, _________. 

[Note: If you want to take the time to read the article by Kent Hovind, it will help you understand our answer to this email.]

Dear _______,

We appreciate your desire to "help us out." However, after reading Hovind’s article, there are a few things we’d like to point out.

• We don’t believe the earth is millions of years old
• We don’t believe in "pre-Adamic" men
• We don’t believe in uniformitarianism
• We are not interested in harmonizing "science" and the Bible (1 Tim 6:20). Science will have to catch up to the Bible.
• We do not have a preconceived idea of the earth’s age.

Furthermore, when Hovind proposed his answer to the "gap theory" he used words like: "probably", "implies", "commonsense assumptions", "clues", and "most likely". He used those words because he was speculating. We are not interested in theories anymore than he professes to be. If he’s not sure of his answer he should just say, "I don’t know."

Here are a few of several problems that we have with Hovind’s "reasoning".

• "Let" still means hinder, if you know anything about tennis, even though it also means "to allow."
• "Gay" still means happy, even though it also means homo.
• "Replenish" means "to refill," even if it also means "to fill" (see Gen 9:1, in English).
• The words for "without form and void" in Hebrew are transliterated "tohu vabohu".  They only appear one other time in the Bible together like that.  They are in Jer 4:23 and they describe the condition of the earth in the future after the fierce anger of the Lord has caused destruction (Jer 4:19-27).  Without form and void is the condition of the earth after destruction not after creation.  In spite of this, you believe God made the earth without form and void. God never made anything without form and void.  It got that way because of a flood.
• In his handling of 2 Pet 3:4-6, Hovind said absolutely nothing about "from the beginning of creation … the earth standing out of the water." In Gen 1:2, the earth is under water. Yet "from the beginning" it was "standing out of the water." Hovind’s theory is that creation began on the first day. But the earth was "in the water" on the first day and stayed there until the third day. To have been out of the water from the beginning of creation, therefore, it would have to have been out of the water before Gen 1:2. The Bible says that it was out of the water before it was in the water. That is what the Bible says. We believe the Bible.
• In dealing with Satan’s fall he said, "The first clue, found in Isaiah 14:14, records the words of Satan at the time of his fall — ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.’ Since the clouds could not have formed prior to God's creation of water on day one, Satan fell after day one."
• Concerning clouds, there is no mention of them until Gen 9:13, following Noah’s flood. They came from the process of evaporation described by Solomon in Ecc 1. There was no rain prior to Noah’s flood (Gen 2:6). Is 14:14 then is not referring to the clouds in the sky. The clouds of Is 14:14 are those in the presence of God (Eze 1:4; Eze 10:4; Dan 7:13, Matt 17:5; Ex 13:21-22; Ex 40:34-38). The clouds above which Satan wanted to ascend are not clouds that resulted from water. Thus Satan and those clouds were there before Gen 1:2.

There are other things, but we are not trying to argue with you or Hovind. The point is simply that some of Hovind’s arguments are inconclusive, speculative and based upon assumption. We are not interested in looking to a man as our authority on these matters. We look to the words of God in the KJV as our authority.

We understand what Hovind is trying to do. He’s trying to eliminate any ammunition that the evolutionists can use to "prove" their theory. Truthfully, the evolutionists have plenty of problems with or without the gap. That should not be a motive for him to correct God’s words or teach as fact those things he assumes to be true.

To conclude, the earth was without form and void in Genesis because it had been flooded prior to Gen 1:2. It needed to be replenished in Gen 1:28 following a flood just like it needed to be replenished after Noah’s flood in Gen 9:1.

Hope this helps,

Pastor Welder