Aliens, Dead Planets, a Spectacular Earth and the Gap Theory

We have interactive Sundays at our church. Once every month the congregation writes down questions on slips of paper. They are collected. And then the pastor answers the questions during his sermon time for that day. It's cool.

On a recent Sunday one of the slips of paper had a single word, “Aliens.” As our pastor read it there was some laughter. And then a bit more chuckling as to whether it had to do with illegals. (An inside joke in California)

Later that afternoon my son asked me, "The pastor said there are no aliens on other planets. That doesn’t make sense that God would create just one planet (earth) like it is and all the others dead?"

I get excited when my kids ask spiritual questions. It's a sign of the Holy Spirit at work. (1 Corinthians 12:3b)

I answered, "But wait a minute, Michael. What if God wanted to make a point? (I suggested He was.) What if God wanted to show just how spectacular and unique the earth was with people and life and everything else in it and the Son of God coming to die for the sins of the world, etc? It would be a proof that God exists, too. (The existence of a single, solitary and special planet in the midst of a universe of billions of dead planets is not a coincidence. It shows design and purpose.) And so that would be one reason why God would create just one planet like it is and all the others dead, Michael."

I went on, "Another reason ~ there are those who believe that Lucifer, who was created and the most perfect angel serving in heaven and was in charge of all the other angels and he became swelled up with pride and wanted to be 'God' and he was thrown out of heaven ~ some believe that it was at that point that the earth suffered the affects of Satan's fall. (Luke 10:18) And the 'creation' (Genesis 1:1-31) was God's restoring the earth afterwards. That's just one idea. We can't know whether it happened that way and will only know when we get to heaven."

My son acknowledged he understood. ("Yeesss." That's Michael.)

(My second point was a reference to the so-called "gap theory" that proposes a "gap" of years between the last part of Genesis 1:1 and the start of Genesis 1:2 where the earth descended into chaos as the devil came down.)

Jesus, continue your good work in my kids. (Philippians 1:6) \o/

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