Creation
Lesson Two - The Days of Creation
by Patricia Dailey

In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.
Genesis 1:1

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Genesis 1:1-27

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.  And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God 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, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: 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. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

The Bible starts with the verse in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Genesis is a book of beginnings. It records the origins of the following:

A RECORD OF OUR UNIVERSE
THE HUMAN RACE
SIN
REDEMPTION
FAMILY LIFE
CORRUPTION OF SOCIETY
THE NATIONS
DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
THE HEBREW RACE - ISRAEL

In this lesson we want to take a close look at the days of Creation. Other lessons will include - the 7th day; Adam and Eve, and the human family; sin and Satan; redemption.

WHEN DID THE CREATION TAKE PLACE?

We want to note that there is no date given for the creation of the world, nor for the creation of man.  In other words, nobody knows exactly when the world was created, nor when the first man was formed.

THE DAYS OF CREATION

Day One:
the day and the night

Day Two:
the heaven, dividing the waters

Day Three:
the dry land (earth)
the seas
grass
herbs (yielding after their kind)
the fruit tree (yielding after his kind)

Day Four:
the sun, moon, and stars

Day Five:
living things in the water (after their kind)
fowl
whales

Day Six
cattle (after their kind)
creeping thing (after his kind)
beast (after his kind)
people: male and female

AFTER HIS KIND
If you plant an apple seed,
you can expect an apple tree to grow,
not a watermelon.

AFTER THEIR KIND
You don find a monkey giving birth to a chicken,
nor a dog giving birth to an elephant

And God saw every thing that he had made,
and, behold, it was VERY good.
Genesis 1:31

AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD

If God saw that His creation was good - then it was good. And let us appreciate the good things He has made.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,
and all the host of them.
Genesis 2:1

ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM

The day is Thine, the night also is Thine:
Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth:
Thou hast made summer and winter.
Psalm 74:16,17

This is the day which the LORD hath made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

There is nothing we should fear at night, for the night is the Lord

People have a tendency to complain about the weather. It's too rainy, too dreary, too cold, too hot!  But when we do this, what are we actually doing?  We are complaining about our Creator Who made the day!

He giveth snow like wool:
he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.
Psalm 147:16

What beautiful pictures are painted on the windows when there is a frost.  It's not Mother Nature!  -  it's not Jack Frost!  It's God Almighty!

God gives the frost, and He also gives the snow. Each snowflake is a different lacy pattern. Just think of it! there are no two snowflakes exactly alike. Can you imagine that? It is the greatness of God.

Can man search that out and find out why each of these countless snowflakes is different? IT IS UNSEARCHABLE!

. . . many shall run to and fro,
and knowledge shall be increased.
Daniel 12:4

He hath compassed the waters with bounds
until the day and night come to an end.
Job 26:10

He stretched out the north out of the empty place,
and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Job 26:7

AND HANGETH THE EARTH UPON NOTHING! Nothing!! Just think of that. There is nothing underneath us - yet we don fall!  Man may create "explanations," but this is too much to really comprehend.

Through faith we understand
that the worlds were framed
by the word of God,
so that things which are seen
were not made of things which do appear.
Hebrews 11:3

By the word of the LORD
were the heavens made;
and all the host of them
by the breath of his mouth.
He gathereth the waters of the sea
together as an heap:
he layeth up the depth in storehouses. 
Let all the earth fear the LORD:
let all the inhabitants of the world
stand in awe of him. 
For he spake, and it was done;
he commanded, and it stood fast.
Psalm 33:6-9

Let the sea roar,
and the fullness thereof;
the world, and they that dwell therein.
Psalm 98:7

God made man out of dust (Genesis 2:7), not out of flesh and blood.  Man was made out of the dust of the earth, and will return to dust after he dies and the old body decays.  But the body that is evident while he lives, certainly doesn't look like the dust.

He layeth up the depth in storehouses.  In Genesis 1:6-8, we read that the Lord made the firmament, and divided the waters above from the waters beneath.  The next day God created the seas and the dry land by His spoken word.  He said, and it was so (Genesis 1:9-10)!

The ocean displays such power and majesty!  As we watch the breakers come crashing in,  it causes our hearts to look up in praise.  We can see the vastness of God's creation as we look out to sea.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,
and all the host of them.
Genesis 2:1

The Solar System
all the host of them

Our solar system is a group of heavenly bodies.  They are one star, the sun, and nine major planets:

1.  Mercury
2.  Venus
3.  Earth
4.  Mars
5.  Jupiter
6.  Saturn
7.  Uranus
8.  Neptune
9.  Pluto

And God said,
Let there be lights
in the firmament of the heaven
to divide the day from the night;
and let them be for signs,
and for seasons, and for days, and years
Genesis 1:14

The Sun, Moon and Stars

The sun is our nearest star.  It is about 93 million miles away from the earth.  It is practically our only source of light and heat.  The sun's surface is continually in motion.  Great flares of luminous gases leap outward many thousands of miles from the chromosphere. The chromosphere is a rarefied envelope of crimson gas, which can be seen clearly only during a total solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes between the earth and the sun and blots out the sun's rays from our view.  The photosphere is the visible part of the sun, and looks like an intensely bright sphere of white light.

The surface of the sun is exceedingly hot, with temperatures of about 6,000 degrees centigrade.  At its center, the sun can reach temperatures of 20 million degrees centigrade (for comparison, water boils at 100 degrees centigrade). 

He telleth the number of the stars;
he calleth them all by their names.
Great is our Lord,
and of great power:
his understanding is infinite.
Psalm 147:4-5

When I consider thy heavens,
the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which thou hast ordained;
What is man,
that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man,
that thou visitest him?
Psalm 8:3-4

Though there are countless millions and millions and millions of stars - God has numbered them, and calls them each by name!  Explain that to me!!

It's too vast, isn't it!  Truly His understanding is infinite.

There are stars which are thousands of times brighter than our own (the sun) - while other stars are too dim to see.

A galaxy is a collection of stars, dust, and hydrogen atoms. The average galaxy consists of about 10,000,000,000 (10 thousand million) stars!

When photographs of the sky are studied in detail, there appear to be far more galaxies than stars. The reason for this is that individual stars forming a galaxy are widely spaced in relation to their size, while whole galaxies are spaced comparatively close together.  The average spacing between galaxies is about 100 times the galaxy diameter (about 100,000 light years).  The average star is about 4 light years distant from its nearest neighbor in space (about 10 million times the star's diameter).  In the universe, there are a great many more individual stars than there are galaxies.

The Moon

THE MOON is the earth’s satellite and its constant companion. It travels with the earth, held to the earth by earth’s gravity. A constant pull on the moon holds it to the earth, while the centrifugal force throws it out - caused by speed in orbit.

The balance of these two forces (gravity, and centrifugal force) holds the moon in its proper orbit, so that it doesn’t collide with the earth or the sun.

The moon orbits around the earth in 27.32 days, and revolves once about its axis during the same time.  During its monthly journey around the earth, the moon’s orbital and axial positions get slightly out of step, causing it to present a slightly changing face to the earth.  It moves fastest when nearest to the earth, and slowest when farthest away.

 The gravitational attraction of the moon, which is the chief cause of our tides, is very noticeable on earth.  The highest tides occur when the moon is either new or full, while the lowest tides occur when it is in either the 1/4 or 3/4 phases.

The moon has no atmosphere, and it airless (or almost airless).   Day temperature is 100 degrees centigrade along the moon’s equator. At night it is colder than Antarctica is in mid-winter. It has a north and a south pole.

The moon appears to be dazzling white in the night sky, but actually it is quite dark, reflecting only 7% of the sunlight that illuminates it. It reflects the glow from all the sunrises and sunsets that are taking place on the earth.

The moon has a much smaller mass than does the earth, with a diameter of 2,160 miles. On the average, it is just 239,000 miles from the earth.

Other Creations in the Heavens

Also found in our solar system are . . .

SATELLITES: moons
PLANETOIDS: thousands of bodies resembling planets
ASTEROIDS: thousands of small planets between Mars and Jupiter. These are anywhere from 1 mile to nearly 500 miles in diameter. They resemble stars
COMETS: a fuzzy head, usually surrounding a bright nucleus. When part of its orbit is near the sun it often develops a long tail pointing away from the sun.
METEORS: small particles of matter (fragments of stone) observable only directly when they fall into earth’s atmosphere
SHOOTING STAR: a bright line of fire which flashes momentarily across the sky

The Earth - Home of Man

The earth is the third planet in line from the sun. It is the only planet in our solar system where conditions are exactly right for life as we know i, to exist.

The earth orbits around the sun at an average distance of 93 million miles. Spinning on a tilted axis, it takes 24 hours to complete one revolution, and about 365 days to complete one orbit of the sun.

The earth’s atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, which shields us from much of the sun’s fierce heat.

Over 2/3rds of the earth is covered with water.

And God said,
Let US make man in OUR image,
after OUR likeness.
Genesis 1:26

My substance was not hid from Thee.
When I was made in secret,
and curiously wrought
in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect;
and in Thy Book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:15,16

Man Created in Image of God

This was a manifestation of the Godhead. In our last lesson, we saw the Godhead in I John 5:7 - For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: AND THESE THREE ARE ONE.

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood,
by man shall his blood be shed:
for in the image of God made He man.
Genesis 9:6
also see Genesis 5:1

I will praise Thee:
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
marvelous are Thy works:
and that my soul knoweth right well.
Psalm 139:14

How precious life really is. The very fact that God would create man in His own image should cause us to praise Him!

Which of you by taking thought
can ad one cubit unto his stature?
Matthew 6:27

Before I formed thee in the belly
I knew thee:
and before thou camest forth out of the womb
I sanctified thee,
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5

The Lord made some short, some tall; some thin, some fat - and some in between.  God is the one who made us. We should be satisfied with His handiwork, and praise Him for it. We certainly have to admit that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

The body is so complex in the way it works. Every part has its particular job in causing the body to function. The brain sends out orders to the rest of the body; the blood continuously flows throughout the body and through the heart; the lungs breath life-giving air in and out.

When one area of the body ceases to function, the rest of the body suffers. For example: if the nervous system isn’t working up to par then the rest of the body can’t function as it should.

The Seventh Day of Creation

We have seen in this lesson that the creation took six days, and on the seventh day:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,
and all the host of them.
And on the seventh day
God ended his work which he had made;
and he rested on the seventh day
from all his work which he had made.
And God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it:
because that in it he had rested from all his work
which God created and made.
Genesis 2:1-3

There will be a lesson in this Bible Study series that is devoted to the topic of the seventh day.