Creation Day 4 Series

A great deal of this sermon leans heavily on a sermon/Bible study taught by John MacArthur – June 6, 1999. Accessed online Jan 8, 2014 (http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/90-215)

Wed Night Bible Study - Creation

Lesson/Sermon 3 - Days 4

Genesis 1:14-19 (ESV)

Creation Bible Study - Creation: Day 4

Let's look back at Day 1-3 & remember what we’ve learned:

We learned our world did not just happen but it was created

We learned that creation was God speaking the universe into existence from nothing...

We learned that our finite minds cannot comprehend total nothingness – so we will never be able to fully comprehend the infinite nature of what God did in the creation event.

We also learned that God created light itself...God did not create a source of light, but He created light itself.

At the end of what Scripture describes as day 1 we find that God has spoken and what was NOT… was now created! Light was created by God's powerful creative WILL and God had laid the template for the entire universe...

On what Scripture describes as days 2-3 we find Moses writing about God's actions, "...separating water from water..." and we learned what that meant -- God built the atmosphere for earth.

We learned that the word "atmosphere"? It is a combination of 2 Greek words... 1st is ATMOS which means vapor and…2nd is SPHAIRA which means sphere...

Atmosphere = A vapor around a sphere... our atmosphere is a vapor that wraps around and protects our planet... and God created it for us…

So on Day One the Universe and template for all creation was spoken into existence by God and on Day 2 God spoke the Atmosphere for our planet was into existence, but what happened on Day 3?

In v9 God takes a planet covered with water…and begins to terra-form it… He brings forth land and separates the waters on the surface of the earth.

God names the dry ground ‘earth’ and the gathering of the waters ‘seas’. After God has created light, an atmosphere and then separated the waters on the surface of the earth to create land… and he then begins to create vegetation with seed to fill the earth…

At the end of Day 3 God has spoken our world into existence, created an atmosphere where the world is protected from the harsh cosmic weather and radiation from our sun… and has spoken into existence every kind of plant/vegetation…

Now tonight I want us to take a look at Gen 1:14-19 where day 4 of creation is described and see what God did on this day:

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

Evolution has always struggled to explain all the celestial bodies that exist in the universe. How they could these celestial bodies have evolved out of spontaneous generation (all on their own).

All of our trips to the moon, all the satellites sent into space, all of the orbiting paraphernalia have given absolutely no insight into how the universe, the bodies in the universe could have possibly evolved. And that's understandable; since they didn't… they were created!!

Now I am no scientist but this verse is where I believe God completed and set into motion the universe which would include our solar system and earth’s orbit around that solar system! Let me try to explain what I mean…

At this point God had spoken the universe into existence, he had created light and he had created an atmosphere, dry land and vegetation… it is clear that the light he had created and the atmosphere he had created was sufficient to sustain vegetation, but God was not finished.

Scientists have balked at this order of creation by saying, "If there wasn't any sun there couldn't be any plants on day three. So how could God create plants on day three and the sun on day four? You know that without the sun “photosynthesis” is impossible, so this doesn't make any sense."

I find this a bit disingenuous and trivial by scientists because light was created by God on day one. And where there is light there is heat. And where there is light and heat there is the capability of photosynthesis. Light was present, it just hadn't been specifically attached to any celestial bodies at this time.