In this Sunday school lesson we’ll study the third through fifth day of creation.
The Third Day, Gen 1:11-13
At the beginning of the third day, God let the waters (Seas) be gathered together and he let the dry land (Earth) appear, Gen 1:9-10.
Then he said, “Let the earth bring forth…
- Grass,
- The herb yielding seed, and
- The fruit tree, yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself
The earth brought forth exactly what God commanded it to bring forth, grass, herbs and trees.
While some grasses propagate through seed production, most grasses propagate through vegetative spread, where the plant spreads horizontally through stems and runners.
While some herbs can be propagated from cuttings, all herbs can be grown from seeds. Thus, the Bible says, “herb yielding seed”.
The trees yield fruit. These are our fruit trees and nut trees. They yield fruit whose seed is in itself. Thus, you find seeds in fruit.
Notice the expression “after his kind” mentioned three times in v.11-12. This clearly expresses what we observe to be true. Apples come from apple trees, oranges come from orange trees, pecans come from pecan trees, etc. This statement is absolutely contrary to the theory of evolution. You know the tree by its fruit.
God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. Even though it may be hard for some people to believe, the dry land appeared and was covered in vegetation in one day.
The Fourth Day, Gen 1:14-19
God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven…
- To divide the day from the night, The sun and light from the sun are visible in the daytime. The moon and stars and light from the moon and stars are visible at nighttime. Ps 104:19-23 describes nocturnal animals coming out at night and men working in the daytime. Day is day and night is night.
- To be for:
- Signs, From the sun and the moon, we get signs for planting, weather, fishing, hunting, etc.
- Seasons, the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter are determined by the earth’s orientation to the sun and moon. The seasons vary by hemisphere.
- Days, A complete cycle of sunset to sunset is one day.
- Years, 365 1/4 days mark a complete year. A leap year of one day every four years is added in the month of February.
- To give light upon the earth, Sunlight is an active source of light while moonlight is reflected light from the sun. Though the sun is intensely brighter than the moon, you can still see shadows from moonlight on clear nights between the moon’s first and third quarters.
- To divide the light from the darkness, this is the fourth time that the Bible says God divides light from darkness and day from night. See Acts 26:18, Eph 5:8-11, 1 Thes 5:4-5, 1 Pet 2:9.
God made two great lights to rule the day and night. To rule here is to be predominate in. The greater light, the sun, rules the day and the lesser light, the moon, rules the night. They divide the day from the night. Because the moon is “new” from cycle to cycle, Ps 136:9 says, “The moon and stars to rule by night”. The stars rule when the moon is new.
And v.16 says “he made the stars also”. Ps 8:3 says, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained”. Imagine the magnitude of God that he could make all that’s in the firmament with his fingers. No wonder he says that the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and less than nothing, Is 40:15-17.
The greatest sign of all regarding the sun, moon, and stars, and the day and night are their testimony to Israel that God will keep his covenants with them for ever, Jer 31:35-36, 33:20-21.
And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Imagine, all that starry host of innumerable stars in the heaven with the sun and moon, God made in a day. Not only that, he has every star numbered and named, Ps 147:4.
The Fifth Day, Gen 1:20-23
On the fifth day, “the waters bring forth”. By contrast, on the fourth day, the earth brought forth. The waters brought forth abundantly:
- The moving creature that hath life, these are the fish and other creatures in the waters
- Fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, these are “every winged fowl”.
And God created whales. Whales are very different from fish. Whales have lungs and must surface to breathe. Fish extract oxygen from the water. Whales are mammals that give birth to live young and nurse their calves. Fish lay eggs. Whales are warm blooded and fish are cold blooded. Whales’ tails are horizontal and fishes’ tails are vertical.
Notice that every living creature that moveth and every winged fowl brought forth “after his kind”. Evolution is not true.
And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth”. They did what God told them to do. Even an estimate of the numbers of living creatures in the seas and fowl in the earth would be off by millions. The total count is countless.
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.