Creation: Day 6 - Land Animals and People

Introduction The glory of creation points to Something/Someone greater than ourselves.  Who is this Creator who made animals in such variety? Why did He make people so much like the animals and yet so very different?  What does the story of creation in Genesis tell us about the Creator’s character?

Genesis was written to help us know the Truth about God.  The creation story reveals the character of God and the life He offers us.  If you want to know God and why we are here, you can find out by studying the story of creation in Genesis.

Genesis 1:24-31

24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened. 25 God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings[a] in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

27 So God created human beings in his own image.

    In the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.

31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.

On the sixth day, God created land animals and people.

Science and religion have been embroiled in an unnecessary argument for at least 150 years.  Science argues that humans evolved from animals.  Religion argues this cannot be because it is not the way the Bible describes it.  Unfortunately, the debate misses the point.  Genesis was given thousands of years before the advent of science.  It was never intended to describe the creation of the world in scientific terms.  Genesis was written to speak to the mysterious longings within our hearts to know the Truth about God.  Science offers us information, but the Bible offers Truth that is far more profound than information.  

Why does it seem so important that the sequence of creation in Genesis does not match what the prevailing scientific theories of our time?  God must have told the story the way He did to reveal a wisdom that is different than that which science reveals.  It is unfortunate that science and religion have spent so much time trying to prove each other wrong.  It is much more fruitful to spend our time and energy pondering what God is really trying to tell us in the Genesis story.

We see in Genesis that God works systematically, day by day, to bring order out of chaos.  Day one is simply light. Day two is the sky.  Day three is land and vegetation.  Each day, God moves to more and more complex systems until He finishes with the most complex of all—humanity.  God is telling us something important here.  Humanity is special in all of God’s creation.

People are different from animals.

Each day when God reviewed what He created, He recognized that it was good.  But on the sixth day, after God made people, He reviewed His handiwork and recognized that it was very good.  What is it that sets people apart from animals?

Biologically, humans and animals are very similar.  We share the same basic structure and biological functions.  However, there is something special about humans.  It is more than intelligence.  There are animals that are smart too.  (One could make an argument that some animals are even smarter than people—depending on how you define intelligence.)  Some have said that being self-aware is the characteristic that sets humans apart from animals.

But we see that many animals are self-aware too.

Genesis tells us the difference between animals and humans in verse 26.  It says, “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.””  The Hebrew word for image is salem.  Salem is the same word people would use to say that a son is the spitting image of his father.  Salem is also the word used for idols and for idol worship.

God created us to be like Him.

Throughout the Bible, God continually forbids people to make or worship idols.  In the Ten Commandments, the second command is do not make or worship idols of any kind.  Yet this is a perversion that humanity struggles with over and over again—even to this day.  We can find insight in this—not just that we shouldn’t make or worship idols.  We can also learn something about ourselves and God from this prohibition.

We were made to be the image of God—the reflection, the representation of God in visible form. God wanted us to be like Him, as a son is like his father or mother.  No other image of God or representation of God is adequate or permitted.  We are the only authorized “idols” who may represent God.  We were created to represent Him.  

Out of all the extraordinary creations that came from the infinite imagination of God, people were the creatures God designed to represent Him best.

Idolatry is such an affront to God because it fundamentally goes against the very core of who God is, who we are, and our whole purpose for being.  When we make an idol, we attempt to change the whole order of creation.  We try to make God the way we want Him to be.  We make God in our image instead of recognizing we are made in His image.  We switch the roles of our relationship around until we pretend to be the creator while demoting the God of the universe to our underling.  It is a reversal that is an outrage to all of creation, and an abomination to God.

Idols are not just a thing of the past or primitive cultures.  Unfortunately, idol worship is alive and well in our modern world right here in America.  Some idols we worship today are: money, celebrities, power, and possessions.  People may be more actively involved in idol worship today than at any time in our history.  And it is just as abominable to God today as it ever was.

We engage in idol worship anytime we put something or someone (even ourselves) before God.  It is the very definition of Sin—letting something else besides God be the first priority in your life.  This is not what God created us for.  God created us to be a perfect representation of Him and to worship Him as the center of our lives.

Jesus succeeded where we failed.

We have lived as selfish, sinful people who do not fulfill our primary purpose in creation for so long that we can hardly even imagine what it is like.  What are we supposed to do?  What does the perfect human even look like?  Jesus is the one who shows us.

Jesus came to show the way.  He is the perfect, uncorrupted image of God.  If you want to see God, look at Jesus.  He represents God the way humanity was supposed to from the very beginning.  And the most wonderful thing is, Jesus offers a way to restore the image of God in us.

Right now, because of sin, our “God-image” is broken.  But Jesus offers a way to put the pieces back together again.  He says, “Repent of your sins and believe the Good News.” (Mark 1:15)

Invitation

Jesus laid down his life to pay the penalty for your sins.  The blood he shed on the cross washes away all your sins.  If you will accept this gift He wants to give you, you can be forgiven and made whole again.  All the things you have done that you regret—both the mistakes you’ve made and the things you did on purpose—can be forgotten.  All you have to do is believe, repent, and start following Jesus today.

Pray today to get your heart right with God.

Creation: Day 4 - Sun, Moon, and Starts

Introduction The world we live in is breathtaking and complex.  The glory of it all points to Something/Someone greater than ourselves.  Who is this Creator who hung the sun, moon, and stars?  What does the story of creation in Genesis tell us about the Creator’s character?

Genesis was written to help us know the Truth about God.  The creation story reveals the character of God and the life He offers us.  If you want to know God and why we are here, you can find out by studying the story of creation in Genesis.

Genesis 1:14-19
14 Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. 15 Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” And that is what happened. 16 God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

19 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day.

On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon, and stars.

Before we go any further, we need to consider the magnitude of this claim.  The Greeks and Romans and many others civilizations saw the sun, moon and stars and believed they were gods.  It is no wonder.  One cannot help but be in awe of these mysterious heavenly bodies floating across our sky.  However, Genesis claims that even these heavenly bodies are a creation of the One, True, and Living God.

This was an amazing testament to the early readers of Genesis about the power and majesty of God.  The Moon has a mass of approximately 81 Quintillion Tons.  Yet it travels around the earth at the blazing speed of 2,288 miles per hour.  At this speed, it still takes a little under 28 days to go all the way around the earth.  

 

Our Sun is even more impressive.  The sun looks small to us because it is 93 million miles away.  It’s so far away it takes about 8 minutes for sunlight to reach us.  It’s a good thing it is so far away or we would be incinerated.  The surface of the sun is 10,000 degrees F, but that’s nothing.  The core of the sun is believed to reach 27,000,000 degrees F!  The sun is huge!  If the Sun were a hollow ball, it would take 1 million earths to fill it up!

Genesis makes a stunning claim.  The creation of the sun, moon, and stars was no big deal for God.  He simple said, “Let lights appear in the sky…”  Psalm 33:6 puts it this way, “The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born.”  Wow…

The sun is only one of the gazillion stars in space.  There are so many stars in the Milky Way galaxy that if we counted one star every second it would take 2,500 years to count them all! *The Milky Way galaxy is so large, it would take 100,000 years to cross it if we could travel at the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second.

If our whole solar system—the sun with its 9 orbiting planets---was the size of a quarter, the Milky Way Galaxy would be the size of the North American Continent.  Where is the quarter?  All this God breathed into existence, but it gets even more mind boggling.

The Milky Way galaxy is only one among a hundred billion other galaxies—each galaxy filled with hundreds of billions of stars with orbiting planets!  This is a composite picture of the known universe.  Somewhere inside there is a dot that is the Milky Way galaxy.  Somewhere inside that tiny dot is our solar system of the sun and 9 planets…  “The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born…”  How great is our God!

The sun, moon, and stars point us to God.

Genesis tells us God created these “lights” to be signs for us.  Through them, we know the time of day and the seasons.  But the sun, moon, and stars can guide us to even deeper understanding.  

The Prophet Isaiah said in 40:25-26 – “To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One. Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.”

When we see the sun, moon, and stars, it gives us a sense of the magnitude of God’s power.  It reminds us how big God is and how small we are.  This—if anything—should cure us of our selfish misunderstanding that life is all about us.  And yet, the Bible also tells us God knows exactly how many hairs you have on your head (Luke 12:7).  God is infinite enough to create a universe too big for us to comprehend and yet He is personal enough to be interested in every single hair and the DNA inside every cell of your body!

God gives us guides so we can know Him.

All of Creation guides us to know God.  As Romans 1:20 says, “Ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

However, God doesn’t stop with astrological and natural witnesses.  God goes even further.  He gives us people to guide us to Him.  Think about your own life.  There have probably been people who have taught you, inspired you, encouraged you, and helped show you the way.  Do you realize that God put these people in your life to help you?  God wants you to know Him and He often uses special people to help you.  You will probably never know how many prayers have been said on your behalf by people who care about you?  

God also gave us the Bible to guide us to Him.  Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”  The Bible is an amazing tool to help you know God.  Everything you need to know for salvation is written there.  Even more amazing, the Bible is the Living word of God.  That means you can read it as God speaking to you at this very moment.  If you open your heart to hear God’s voice, you can hear Him guiding you in your moment of need.

The greatest guide God gives us so we can know Him is Jesus Christ…

We can look at creation and know that there is a God and that He is incredible and that we are so small.  But God sent Jesus so that we can know for sure that this incredible God is deeply concerned about us.  John 3:16 says, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Imagine, God made a universe that is 96 billion light years in diameter.  (It would take 96 billion years for a beam of light to get from one side of the universe to the other).  We cannot even comprehend how incredible God is, and yet He is so interested in you that He sent His one and only son to personally guide you to know God.

You might be thinking, “A God like that could never be interested in me.”  YES HE IS!  He would do anything to have a personal relationship with you!  He has done everything to have a personal relationship with you.  The only thing left is for you to choose to have a relationship with God.

Invitation

On behalf of this incredible God, I have the privilege today of inviting you to have a relationship with the One, True, and Living God of the Universe.  The One who made it all, invites you to choose a relationship with Him. Why don't you pray to Him right now? You don't have to use any special words. Simply talk to Him the way you would talk to a loving father. He'll listen and understand.

Creation: Day 1 - Light

Introduction
The world we live in is breathtaking and complex.  The artistic genius of it points to Something/Someone higher, greater, more wonderful than we can even imagine.  How did it all come to be?  Was it merely an accident or does nature’s harmony point to a Higher Power?

Come along with me on a journey back to where it all began—Genesis Chapter 1.  Over the next 7 weeks, we will explore the depths of the Creation story as told to God’s people for thousands of years.]

Genesis 1:1-5
¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

³ Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. Then
he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.”

And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.

God created the heavens and the earth – everything!
Much debate has surrounded the origins of the universe, planet Earth, and life.
However, there is something we can all agree on.  This world is amazing!  

The farthest known star is 13.2 billion light years from earth.[i]  In other words, it would take you 13.2 billion years to go there if you could travel at the speed of light!

The smallest living organism (the porcine circovirus) is only 17 nanometers in diameter.[ii]  3,000 of these organisms could easily fit on a single grain of sand.[iii]

The blue whale is the largest living animal, weighing 180 tons or 360,000 pounds (that’s as much as 13 school buses)! 

Much more impressive than facts about any single specimen, is the intricacy of how the whole of creation works together.  Plant life absorbs carbon dioxide and uses it to live.  Plants produce oxygen so animals can breathe.  Animals absorb the oxygen and turn it into carbon dioxide so plants can live.  Fungi live in the soil producing chemicals that allow plant roots to take up important nutrients and even enable roots from one tree to communicate with other trees by chemical signals!

Countless fragile ecosystems work in perfect harmony with every living thing—from the smallest bacteria to the largest blue whale—playing a crucial part to contribute to the success of the whole.  Many have looked at the amazing interconnectedness of these living systems and describe the whole system as living organism in its own right.  So one could describe Creation a one BIG living organism made up of millions of tiny little parts instead of a planet made up of many different living organisms.

Within the infinite vastness of space, planet earth stands as the only known haven of life.  We are so small, and yet so incredibly precious.  Whether you believe this is all a happy accident brought on by chance or the result of an intentional act of creation by a Divine Power, is a matter of faith.  Science cannot contain something so unfathomable. 

The account in the book of Genesis of how it all began was given thousands of years before the advent of science.  It was never intended to describe the creation of the world in purely rational, scientific terms.  Genesis was written to speak to the mysterious longings within our hearts to know the Truth about God.  In these verses, the creation story reveals the character of God and the life He offers us.  If you want to know God, you can know Him by studying the story of creation in Genesis.

On the first day, God created light.
The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.  The original Hebrew describes a place that is a wasted, worthless thing.  Darkness (in Hebrew:  ḥšeḵ) figuratively describes misery, destruction, death, or ignorance.  These things are contrary to the character of God.  One might say the creation of the universe was inevitable.  For the Creator to abide in formless, empty darkness, was as unnatural as for a rooster not to crow at the dawning of new day.  And so God said, “Let there be light: and there was light.”

This light is not necessarily the light of the sun.  It is simply light.  It is illumination.  It is the ability to see things clearly.  It is the ability to perceive.  It is the opposite of darkness, misery and ignorance.  Light is cheerfulness—as when your spirits brighten when the sun breaks through the clouds—even for just a moment-- n an overcast and gloomy day.  Light is understanding—as when a light turns on when you get a new idea.  Light is the symbol of Truth.  Not scientific information.  What God gave the world swallows up scientific information as one small part of His larger Wisdom.

Today, we think so highly of science (as if it has all the answers).  Science has only been part of our culture for a few hundred years.  We don't know what new discipline might replace science in 100 or 500 year.  But the human longing for Divine Truth has been in with us from the beginning and will last forever. 

God brings understanding and Truth.
We see something important about God’s character in the very way that Genesis tells the story.  God works systematically, day by day, to bring order out of chaos.  Day one is simply light.

Day two is the sky.  Day three is land and vegetation.  Each day, God moves to more and more complex systems until He finishes with the most complex of His creation—humanity. 
This was not a random act.  It was purposeful and ordered, because the Creator is enlightened.

It is God’s intention for you to know understanding and Truth.  When we open our lives to Him, God does the same thing for us that He did for all Creation.  God offers you understanding about your purpose in life.  God seeks to awaken you so that you live your life on purpose in an enlightened state of being.  While animals may wander the earth according to their instincts in a lower state of consciousness, you were meant to live for so much more. 

You were meant to know God.

Seeing God in Creation
Romans 1:20 says, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

When I was a young man (18-19 years old), I moved away from home to attend college in Marietta.  I was studying to be an engineer.  For the first time, I felt I was an adult and trying to really decide what I believed about life and religion and my purpose.  I was studying a lot of science and wondering (as many young adults do) if all that I'd been taught about God and faith as a child was just myths and superstition.  Was it time for me to leave behind those outdated, childish ideas?

I thought of this often as I studied in my classes and lived the life of a college student.  One day, I was contemplating all this as I walked across the beautiful campus.  The grass was freshly cut and birds and squirrels were busy gathering their food.  And as I walked through a thin stand of pine trees, I saw a parking lot through the trees filled with cars.  And it struck me how different people are from all the other animals.  Biologically, we are the same material--flesh and blood and bone.  And yet, of all the animals on earth, we are the only ones who can take the minerals and materials from the earth fashion them together into rubber and steel and plastic and make a car with and internal combustion engine and an electrical system.  Humans are so different from the other animals; so special.  And it occured to me that it could not have come to be this way by accident.

About this time, I also read an illustration that made so much sense to me.  It told the story of a man walking along the shoreline on a beach who found a watch in the sand and he picked it up.  He came to the logical conclusion that someone was walking on the beach and dropped the watch. Now, it is true that all the elements and materials that makeup the watch are present in the ocean.  However, it would be ludicrous to think the elements naturally present in the ocean randomly and spontaneously came together in just the right way and in just the right amounts and order to accidentally form a watch.  The idea would be ludicrous and no one would believe it.  

The world is far more complex than a watch.  Yet science would have us accept that this incredibly complex and amazing world randomly and spontaneously came to be after an explosion.  The theory requires far more faith than any religion!  And so it confirmed for me that there must be Someone, Something higher and greater and beyond creation that made it all.  And these thoughts drove me to dig deeper and want to know more about this Higher Power that must be in charge of it all.  Soon, through my searching, I came to believe at the core of my being that the God of the Christian Bible is indeed the One Tre and Living God.  The realization set my feet firmly on the path of seeking Him and soon serving Him and led me to the life I live today, working as a Christian minister, living as a child of God putting all his hopes in Jesus Christ.

Invitation
The first day of spring in only 4 weeks away. I already saw a cherry blossom tree blooming yesterday.  As we see new life beginning to bloom, I challenge you to open your eyes and look for the Truth about God in nature—His invisible qualities, His divine nature, His eternal power.

Look at the birds in your yard and see the incredible creativity of a Master Craftsman who designed them.  Study your pet dog or cat, whose ancestors started out as wild predators, but now is your companion and understands you better than most people.  Contemplate how the flowers and grass grow from the warmth of the sun and live their own life while also providing food for animals and a virtual forest ecosystem for billions of tiny bugs and microorganism we never even see or consider. We literally walk by them every day without a care or thought. Yet without them, we could not exist.

And through all your observations, consider the God who made it all. 
I invite you to pray to God now and ask Him to reveal Himself to you as you study His creation.

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[i] Abell 1835 IR1916 - http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_far_away_from_earth_does_the_farthest_known_star_in_the_universe_lie

[ii] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_Smallest_living_organism&isLookUp=1

[iii] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_small_is_a_grain_of_sand&isLookUp=1#Q=how%20small%20is%20a%20grain%20of%20sand