The Sword & Time in the Beginning

By RW Touchton

Someone once asked: When Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden they saw two angels standing guard at the entrance of the garden with flaming swords. How could this be when swords (a creation of man not god) had not been invented yet and would not be for several hundred more?

As for the flaming swords, Adam and Eve did see something they knew to be flaming in the Angels hands and they knew these articles to be weapons. For all we know these could have been a laser type sword, as seen in the Star Wars Movies. In any case they knew that the instruments in the hands of the Angels could destroy them.

Strong's Concordance interprets from the Hebrew: 2719. chereb, kheh'-reb; from H2717; drought; also a cutting instrument (from its destructive effect), as a knife, sword, or other sharp implement:--axe, dagger, knife, mattock, sword, tool.

We can't always give man the credit for creating what he has from the ideas in his head. He emulates and forms things from the idea-pictures in his mind. However, no where do we ever see, according to science, just where these pictures originate.

In Gen 1:27 27 So God created man in his own IMAGE, in the IMAGE of God created he him; male and female created he them.

After thought and mediation, I truly believe that one aspect of this image is in our imagination. God created the mind as a powerful tool for man. So powerful that when the families of the sons of Noah and their nations used it, God became concerned as to the degree that man became one force without Him. They had one language, became united and used their imagination together as one and in doing so made themselves the center of all of life. Because of this powerful tool --the mind and imagination mixed with their perverted attitude, God knew that He had to do something…

[Gen. 11:6] "And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." 

Two powerful tools worked for them: their power of imagination and their understanding of "oneness." We get mere glimpses of this principle when we join together in prayer or work together in one common cause, but nothing to the extent as with days of the Tower of Babel.

Ex Beatle: John Lennon did understand both of those principles and projected a dream through his song Imagine, which placed images or word-pictures into the minds of the listeners. The theme of the song consisted of two major points.

1. The power of the mind to imagine and

2. Suggesting, to a collective imagination, a dream.

We produce much of the world around us from our imagination. Look around you and note, your car, television, telephone, why even this computer which we are using to communicate right now. They all came from the imagine of someone(s) mind(s). He, John Lennon tried to ( I call it ) "take everyone there." In the same way a good novelist projects the pictures of the scenes for his or her story, he suggested that everyone think of the images and then he merely projected a "wouldn't that be nice?"  I remember, though, a line where he said: "Imagine, no possessions, I wonder if you can." Although the words were hardly scripture, the principle of the dream is a very old one.

Jesus said for us "to have peace with each other" [Mark 9:50] and [Matt 5:9] "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." We know that not enough people can imagine strongly enough for total Peace on Earth because man has made a business of war by making it an economic necessity throughout the years. Therefore, mankind would not be willing to sacrifice self (possessions) to gain Peace on Earth.

Only the Prince of Peace will bring that total Peace to Earth. [Luke 2:14 ] Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (The angels sang of the coming of the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace.)

We must understand that many of God's works deal with the infinite realm and therefore finite minds cannot comprehend those things of God. One of the greatest examples of this is in the time of creation. The Bible states that God created the Earth in six days. Many believe it to be twenty-four hour days. We don't know exactly how long the days were but this verse of Peter and the description of creation on the fourth day in Genesis, tells me that it was NOT twenty-four hours days, although if God wanted to create the world and it's universe in 6 24 hour days, He could.

First of all Peter says: [2 Peter 13:8] "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Secondly, consider the days of creation. [Gen. 1:3] "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."

However, it wasn't until the fourth day of creation [Gen. 1:14]

"And God said, Let there be LIGHTS in the firmament of the 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 the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16] And God made 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 the 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 the evening and the morning were the FOURTH day."

These lights, the Sun, moon and the stars, govern time as we know it: days seasons and years.

Therefore, the relation of the twenty-four day wouldn't happen until the fourth day of God and his creation. As it is a marking of the minutes/hours it takes the earth to travels around the Sun, one of the lights created on the fourth day. Also, notice that in these increments of times that no where is the week measured by the natural phenomenon. Dating by weeks is common in America as well as European countries; and it is becoming increasingly more common worldwide. Where did it come from? (This is true even in God's days, as he took six to work and the seventh he rested.)

So, man need not be so arrogant to believe that he created what he has, all by himself. The sword, the wheel and the fishing hook :-), were all discovered,  and not necessarily created as the thought cannot be proven as original. I believe that it is not original, many of us have what we call creative juices, where we allow this inspiration to flow (we're inspired).

Can we honestly say that God hadn't already imagined the automobile, the television, the fishing hook and even the computer, before we ever received the first thought about them?