2 - God the Father Created and Cares for His World

Welcome back to our lessons on what being a Christian means. If it’s your first time here, welcome, and might I suggest you start at lesson one where I explain a little about myself and the mission of these lessons. In this lesson we take an in depth look at God’s creation of our planet and the way He takes care of it.

I thought for a while on how I want to do this and decided the best way to go would be to go through Genesis 1 and explain what we’re reading. Starting at verse 1 of chapter 1:

“₁In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ₂Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ₃And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ₄God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ₅God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

These verses are pretty common knowledge for most people but we can learn some interesting things and disprove some popular arguments in the first few sentences. The first thing we learn is that the Earth has a definite beginning. There was nothing, just darkness and emptiness. We can also see that the trinity of God is there also. God says let there be light and it is there, miraculously(more on this in a moment) and the light goes away through a separation and there is night. One of the most important things you will read here though and it repeats itself throughout the chapter is verse 5, part b: “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

What does this mean for Christians? My pastor once told me that he believes God inspired this writing from Moses so that when one day, when through sin a theologian says that the Earth was shaped over billions of years, or that some pseudo-Christian logic says, to God a day is like a thousand years, we can point to this verse and say, no, right here it says day, evening, then morning. This being that the Hebrew day started a sundown as opposed to modern midnight timelines. A full 24 hours. Let’s move on to see what God blessed us with the rest of His creation.

“₆And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." ₇So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ₈God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. ₉And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. ₁₀God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.”

At first it appears as God repeats Himself on the third day by once again separating the waters. What happens is God, in His infinite wisdom, separates water on the ground and water in the sky. What you have a planet surrounded by an atmosphere made of water creating this perfect greenhouse effect regulating the temperature and weather on Earth. On the third day he creates actual dry land in between the water.

“₁₁Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. ₁₂The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ₁₃And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.”

Once again we can see God’s knowledge of creating plant life, ultimately for our nourishment and assigning appropriate seeds to each plant so that it may provide abundantly in the future and assigning it correctly. Lemon trees have lemon seeds, tomatoes had tomato seeds. Everything perfect. The thing we have to understand is that at this moment, God is creating the perfect living quarters. Everything is in its place and nothing is wrong.

“₁₄And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ₁₅and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. ₁₆God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ₁₇God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, ₁₈to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ₁₉And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.”

Another point in God’s creation where it appears He has repeated Himself and probably the most misinterpreted part of creation. God said let there be light and there was. God created light and night and it was so. Now God has decided and has always known the best way this is accomplished is by creating the Sun, for our day time, and a moon and stars for our night time.

“₂₀And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." ₂₁So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ₂₂God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." ₂₃And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. ₂₄And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. ₂₅God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”

On the fifth and at the beginning of the sixth day, God gives us animals, birds, fish, and all of the animals of the fields, jungles, deserts and even modern day farms and households along with some that aren't around anymore. God creates them to be able to mate and increase in numbers. The past few days are important in that God leaves nothing to evolution or future correction. What He has made is good and that it works, and will work and will sustain itself.

“₂₆Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." ₂₇So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ₂₈God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." ₂₉Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ₃₀And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. ₃₁God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

There’s a lot to consider in this text. God makes mankind in His image. What that is saying is not that God created man with two eyes, a nose and a couple of arms because that’s what God has. He made us perfect. That is holy, to be without sin. The same for woman, and He gives them the same ability as His other creatures, to increase in number, a beautiful blessing, especially for me and you today. He gives them authority, to rule over the animals and allows them to eat any plants, essentially leaving them and future generations to use the Earth as needed. Take a moment to think about what this means, God, who has been alone in a shapeless nothingness for eternity finally creates something, and He wants us not only to have it, but to use and rule it as we see fit.

“2 ₁Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. ₂By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ₃And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

What we see happen on the Seventh day is God creating the Sabbath which we learn about in a future lesson. But once again to emphasize what the Holy Spirit, writing through Moses is trying to get across. That being that God created all things. He created the Earth and everything in it from nothing using His Word in six 24 hour days and everything in it was perfect. Understanding this we can see why these truths do not coincide with modern teachings of big bang and evolution, which is nothing more than a lucky happenstance. It also shows that a theistic view of evolution meaning God used things like big bang and evolution to get things to where they are today are also not compatible with these teachings. The Bible makes it clear that in six days the universe is shaped and mankind is 5 days younger. God created what is called a mature Earth meaning it was ready for us. Think of it as drawing a picture of the planet, you wouldn’t start by drawing a picture of the Sun be created and the Earth splitting off into orbit while the crust cools down and primordial ooze forms. You would draw a circle, some green for land, and some blue for water. Hebrews 11:3 reiterates, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Evolution is a popular teaching and it’s important that we as Christians understand its major flaws. I’d like to quickly list of some points that we’ve already learned and some that we’ll be learning in the second part of this lesson. The first that point that has been stressed multiple times already is that evolution teaches the world was created over billions of years to get to modern humanity, where as ours is only six days. That being said, it wasn’t due to some major cosmic event or accident, it was due to God speaking it into existence. Man is a special creation of God. Evolution would suggest that we’re just a superior creature due to intelligence and that we come from a series of monkeys. Monkeys are only older than us by less than 24 hours. In evolution, man’s purpose is to survive, to serve what is best in his interest. We know that our purpose is to serve and honor God and we have a responsibility to thank and obey Him. In evolution man has no responsibilities.

I think this lesson emphasizes our natural knowledge of God by looking at nature and the great opportunity we got to have Him share with us how He created this for us. I pray that these words lead you to respect God’s great power and lead you to be gracious for these wonderful gifts. In the next lesson we’ll go further into God’s creation of man and just what it means for us to be special creations and how we should reciprocate it.