Dry land, green grass, juicy fruit!
Day 3
by Russell Grigg
‘Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens
be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas;
and God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation,
plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed
in them, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with seed in them,
after their kind; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and
there was morning, a third day’. Genesis 1:9–13
God made the earth a beautiful place for humans and animals to live.
On the third day of Creation Week, God continued His work of making the earth a
beautiful place for animals and humans to live. At that stage, the whole earth
was still completely covered by water. If you had been there, you would have
seen nothing but ocean, with no land poking up anywhere. Did you know that
if you leveled out the earth’s surface today, you’d see there’s
enough water in the oceans to cover the whole earth to a depth of almost 3 km (2
miles)?
The dry land appears
God commanded the dry land to appear. Suddenly large areas of the ocean bubbled
and foamed. Driven up by some unseen force, parts of the ocean floor began
rising up out of the water and kept on going until rolling hills were formed in
some places, as well as great stretches of land in other places. At the same
time, other parts of the ocean floor sank down to form underwater valleys and basins,
so that the water drained off the land and into one place. God did all this
by the mighty power of His Word. The Bible does not tell us how many
continents there were at first.
There might have been only one, with today’s continents forming later, at
the time of Noah’s Flood. If there was only one at first, it would have
been no trouble for all the different kinds of animals to have come to Noah before
the Flood, which once again covered the earth with water. Did you know that
seashells have been found near the top of Mt Everest? It was once low enough
to be under the sea!
Plants appear
On Day 3, God spoke again and commanded the land to produce all kinds of plants.
If you had been there, you would have seen green grass, tall palm trees, and other
vegetation spring up from the ground.
You would have seen all kinds and colours of flowers begin to bloom—daisies
and daffodils, roses and orchids, bluebells and sunflowers, and many, many more.
Bushes and trees also formed in all sizes and shapes, and the branches of fruit
trees grew heavy with juicy fruit—like apples, mangoes and mulberries, and
lots, lots more.
God made the first plants all fully grown, but each kind with its own particular
seed. This was so that they would reproduce themselves and not something else.
Grape vines did not change into mango trees, and peanuts did not change into coconuts.
Earth was now a very beautiful place. God had a good look at all that He had made.
He was pleased with what He saw, and He declared it to be good.
Could the Days of Creation Week have lasted for millions of years?
Answer: No!
Each day and night of creation week was a literal 24 hour period.
- The plain and obvious meaning of Genesis is that the days were days! God was
not writing in code nor giving us a riddle to solve. He was telling us in
simple and straightforward language that He took six ordinary days to create everything.
What better way could He have told us that He took six real days than what He said
in Genesis?
- In the Bible, the word ‘day’ with a number always means a real
day, like ‘third day’ used here. In the same way, Jonah was three
days inside the great sea creature (Jonah 1:17), not three million years!
- In the Bible, the words ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ always refer
to a real day.
- Many plants are pollinated by birds or bees, but these creatures were not made until
the fifth day. If the days lasted for millions of years, how could these plants
have reproduced and survived?
- If God had wanted to tell us that He took millions or billions of years, He certainly
could have used words that would have told us this. But He didn’t!
- Some people try to squeeze billions of years into the Bible account. They
say the days of Creation were long ages, or that there’s a ‘gap’
between the first two verses of Genesis. But everything we read in the Bible
disagrees with man’s ideas about the universe being billions of years old.
The universe is only about 6,000 years old.
Some people say that ‘God used evolution’. But the Bible makes
it clear that He did not. Just look at the differences between Genesis and
man’s theory of evolution:
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God’s record of creation in Genesis: |
Evolutionary long-age theory: |
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Earth before the sun and stars
Earth covered with water at first
Oceans before dry land
Life first created on the land as plants
Plants created before the sun
Fish and birds created together
Birds created before land animals
Whales created before land animals
Man and dinosaurs lived together
Creation completed in six days
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Sun and stars before Earth
Earth a molten blob at first
Dry land before oceans
Life started in the ocean
Plants formed after the sun
Fish formed long before birds
Land animals formed before birds
Land animals formed before whales
Dinosaurs died out long before man
Evolution going on into the future
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Memory verses
Print out the following PDF and memorise these verses. See who can remember them the
fastest, and who remembers them in a week, two weeks, or even a month!
Memory verses PDF
(Available in Chinese (Traditional))
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