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This article is from
Creation 30(1):40–41, December 2007

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Creation clock

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Photo by Len Wallace Creation clock

There’s a clock in Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia, which is not your average timepiece.

Dubbed ‘The Creation Clock’ by its maker, local identity Len Wallace, it tells you not just the time of day but also the days of Creation—Genesis 1 being inscribed in brass on the right-hand side of the clock casing.1 Engraved pictorial relief depicts the Garden of Eden, and if you search intently, you will be able to find 66 birds (some are cleverly hidden!)—a reminder of the number of books in the Bible. Similarly, the roof of the clock’s ‘theatre’ has 66 stars. One star is silver—intended to represent the Star of Bethlehem.2 The Earth, which ‘hangs upon nothing’, is prominent in the top-left of the theatre, with Job 26:7 engraved nearby.

Photo by Len Wallace Creation clock

You need time to take it all in. There’s a sculpture of Eve admiring the fruit (with the serpent visible in the tree), a slain animal to provide coverings for Adam and Eve (a reminder too of death as a consequence of sin), and Noah holding a hammer as he works on the Ark. Different kinds of animals are depicted everywhere—including dinosaurs. You can also see Abraham with Isaac, Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, Samson bringing down the temple of Dagon, David and Goliath, Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar, and Jonah inside the big fish.

And suddenly … Eve moves! As the clock marks the hour, Eve reaches out and picks the fruit from the tree. Noah, too, springs to life, hammering away at his task. And, for a period of three minutes, two of each kind of animal move across the floor of the theatre, marching into the Ark.

Creation clock

Photo by Len Wallace

Len’s aim in building the clock (it took him three years, using recycled brass, copper, silver and jewels) was to draw people’s attention to the biblical truth of Creation—‘the foundation of the Christian faith’. He told us of his own personal struggle in the past3 with depression and how he found strength in his Christian faith. Len hopes that for passers-by4 the clock will jog their memories of these historical events in the Bible, ‘that they might seek out the account in Scripture, and thereby be opened to the Spirit’.

It’s certainly refreshing to see this ‘Creation Clock’, reflecting as it does a true history of time, rather than the widely-proclaimed evolutionary millions-of-years timeframe. And, just as this timepiece has obviously been designed (just as William Paley5 observed: a watch needs a watchmaker), how much more so living things, which are staggeringly more complex (see pp. 20–23).

Posted on homepage: 23 February 2009

References and notes

  1. The whole clock structure is about the height of an average adult. Return to text.
  2. Note that the star referred to in Matthew 2:9–10 was the ‘Shekinah glory’—not what modern astronomy calls a ‘star’. See DeYoung, D., What was the Star of Bethlehem?, <creation.com/starbeth>. Return to text.
  3. A Vietnam war veteran, Len ran a rural business for a number of years prior to his recent retirement. Return to text.
  4. The ‘Creation Clock’ is prominently displayed at his gallery at Fitchs Lane, Grenfell, New South Wales, 2810, Australia. Viewing by arrangement; phone: 0427 317 902 (International: +61 427 317902). Return to text.
  5. Paley, W., Natural Theology, first published 1802, republished by Bill Cooper as Paley’s Watchmaker, New Wine Press, Chichester, England, pp. 29–31, 1995. Return to text.