Post by The Ambassador on Aug 17, 2019 10:54:24 GMT
CHAPTER TWO
GOD RECREATES THE EARTH
For many years (perhaps millions), Satan the devil and his demons roamed a darkened, lifeless earth, which was covered with water and poisonous gases (Genesis 1:2). Then one day, after years of careful planning, God decided it was time to recreate the face of the earth. He knew that the conditions and surroundings had to be just right, so that it could support physical life.
- On the first day, God, using the tremendous power of His Holy Spirit, cleared away the poisonous smoke, vapors, gases and clouds that filled the sky. This allowed some sunlight to shine upon earth for the first time in many years (verses 3-5).
- On the second day, God cleared away a layer of water and replaced it with healthy, fresh air and clean clouds, which swirled in the sky (verse 8). This is known today as the atmosphere (the Bible refers to it as the first heaven).
- On the third day, the Creator pushed back the waters into sections of oceans, seas and lakes across the earth. This cleared the way for dry land to appear and prosper with plant-life. God also formed sections made up of mountains, hills, plains, valleys, islands and continents (verses 9-10). Then He created grass, plants, trees and other vegetation (verses 11-13).
- On the fourth day, God swept away the last layer of dust and gases. This allowed the stars to twinkle and shine down from the blackness of space into the night sky. God calls this space the second heaven (verse 14). His throne is in the third heaven (Acts 7:49).
- On the fifth day, He created fish, whales and other creatures of the sea (Genesis 1:20-21). He also created birds to fly through the sky (verses 21-23).
With the waters and sky populated with life, God was now ready to create man.
God Creates Man From Dust
On the sixth day of the week, God created animals of every kind: Horses, cows, lions, deer, elephants, reptiles, insects and many more—anything that walked, crawled or moved about the earth (Genesis 1:24- 25). Each animal was made after its own kind. This is why horses give birth to baby horses (foals); cows give birth to baby cows (calves); lions give birth to baby lions (cubs).
Likewise, God created man after His own kind. Like a piece of clay, man was sculpted into the same image and likeness as his Creator (verses 26-27). Just as you have hair, eyes, a nose, a mouth, arms and legs like your parents, God created human beings to look like Him. However, God is Spirit (John 4:24). Man is flesh and blood, created from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). God lives forever. He can never die. But humans are temporary, physical; eventually, all human beings die.
After God formed and shaped the first man, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Man then became a soul—a living, breathing being, just like animals.
Animal Brain Versus Human Mind
Human beings and animals have temporary, physical lives. Both must rely upon food, drink and fresh, clean air in order to survive. But there are two major differences between humans and animals: First, humans were made to look like the God kind. Animals were made to look like the animal kind.
Second, animals live by instinct. Like a computer, God programmed animals to automatically know how to survive. Through instinct, a colt automatically knows how to walk almost as soon as it is born. Through instinct, a calf automatically knows exactly where and how to get milk—from its mother. Through instinct, birds automatically know how to build nests.
But God did not give humans instinct. Instead, He gives each person a human spirit (Job 32:8). This means that we must learn to walk, speak, build things, and so forth. We do not automatically know how to do these things.
However, the human spirit empowers the brain to become a mind. This is why man can build and design towering skyscrapers, produce beautiful works of art, and create wonderful, awe-inspiring music. Animals cannot do these things. Man can produce powerful, super-fast computers of all shapes and sizes. He can build spacecrafts that can visit other planets—and even take people to the moon and back. He can create vast libraries of books that record thousands of years of human history.
Animals can do none of these things. The human mind is greater, higher and better than the animal brain. And yet the human mind is far, far lower than God’s mind!
Next Sabbath: Part Two God Recreates The Earth
Bible Reading
The Book of Tobit or Tobias
Absence of Tobias mourned by his Parents
Tobit Chapter Four
7 'Set aside part of your goods for alms-giving. Never turn your face from the poor and God will never turn his from you.
8 Measure your alms by what you have; if you have much, give more; if you have little, do not be afraid to give less in alms.
9 So doing, you will lay up for yourself a great treasure for the day of necessity.
10 For alms-giving delivers from death and saves people from passing down to darkness.
11 Alms-giving is a most effective offering for all those who do it in the presence of the Most High.
12 'My child, avoid all loose conduct. Choose a wife of your father's stock. Do not take a foreign wife outside your father's tribe, because we are the children of the prophets. Remember Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our ancestors from the beginning. All of them took wives from their own kindred, and they were blessed in their children, and their race will inherit the earth.
13 You, too, my child, must love your own brothers; never presume to despise your brothers, the sons and daughters of your people; choose your wife from among them. For pride brings ruin and much worry; idleness causes need and poverty, for the mother of famine is idleness.
14 'Do not keep back until next day the wages of those who work for you; pay them at once. If you serve God you will be rewarded. Be careful, my child, in all you do, well-disciplined in all your behavior.
15 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. Do not drink wine to the point of drunkenness; do not let excess be your traveling companion.
16 'Give your bread to those who are hungry, and your clothes to those who lack clothing. Of whatever you own in plenty, devote a proportion to alms-giving; and when you give alms, do it ungrudgingly.
17 Be generous with bread and wine on the graves of upright people, but not for the sinner.
18 'Ask advice of every wise person; never scorn any profitable advice.
19 Bless the Lord God in everything; beg him to guide your ways and bring your paths and purposes to their end. For wisdom is not the property of every nation; their desire for what is good is conferred by the Lord. At his will he lifts up or he casts down to the depths of the dwelling of the dead. So now, my child, remember these precepts and never let hem fade from your heart.
20 'Now, my child, I must tell you I have left ten talents of silver with Gabael son of Gabrias, at Rhages in Media.
21 Do not be afraid, my child, if we have grown poor. You have great wealth if you fear God, if you shun every kind of sin and if you do what is pleasing to the Lord your God.'
Next Sabbath: Chapter 5
The Book of Tobit or Tobias
Absence of Tobias mourned by his Parents
Tobit Chapter Four
1 The same day Tobit remembered the silver that he had left with Gabael at Rhages in Media
2 and thought, 'I have come to the point of praying for death; I should do well to call my son Tobias and tell him about the money before I die.'
3 He summoned his son Tobias and told him, 'When I die, give me an honorable burial. Honor your mother, and never abandon her all the days of your life. Do all that she wants, and give her no reason for sorrow.
4 Remember, my child, all the risks she ran for your sake when you were in her womb. And when she dies, bury her at my side in the same grave.
5 'My child, be faithful to the Lord all your days. Never entertain the will to sin or to transgress his laws. Do good works all the days of your life, never follow ways that are not upright;
6 for if you act in truthfulness, you will be successful in all your actions, as everyone is who practices what is upright.
2 and thought, 'I have come to the point of praying for death; I should do well to call my son Tobias and tell him about the money before I die.'
3 He summoned his son Tobias and told him, 'When I die, give me an honorable burial. Honor your mother, and never abandon her all the days of your life. Do all that she wants, and give her no reason for sorrow.
4 Remember, my child, all the risks she ran for your sake when you were in her womb. And when she dies, bury her at my side in the same grave.
5 'My child, be faithful to the Lord all your days. Never entertain the will to sin or to transgress his laws. Do good works all the days of your life, never follow ways that are not upright;
6 for if you act in truthfulness, you will be successful in all your actions, as everyone is who practices what is upright.
Alms-Giving
7 'Set aside part of your goods for alms-giving. Never turn your face from the poor and God will never turn his from you.
8 Measure your alms by what you have; if you have much, give more; if you have little, do not be afraid to give less in alms.
9 So doing, you will lay up for yourself a great treasure for the day of necessity.
10 For alms-giving delivers from death and saves people from passing down to darkness.
11 Alms-giving is a most effective offering for all those who do it in the presence of the Most High.
12 'My child, avoid all loose conduct. Choose a wife of your father's stock. Do not take a foreign wife outside your father's tribe, because we are the children of the prophets. Remember Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our ancestors from the beginning. All of them took wives from their own kindred, and they were blessed in their children, and their race will inherit the earth.
13 You, too, my child, must love your own brothers; never presume to despise your brothers, the sons and daughters of your people; choose your wife from among them. For pride brings ruin and much worry; idleness causes need and poverty, for the mother of famine is idleness.
14 'Do not keep back until next day the wages of those who work for you; pay them at once. If you serve God you will be rewarded. Be careful, my child, in all you do, well-disciplined in all your behavior.
15 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. Do not drink wine to the point of drunkenness; do not let excess be your traveling companion.
16 'Give your bread to those who are hungry, and your clothes to those who lack clothing. Of whatever you own in plenty, devote a proportion to alms-giving; and when you give alms, do it ungrudgingly.
17 Be generous with bread and wine on the graves of upright people, but not for the sinner.
18 'Ask advice of every wise person; never scorn any profitable advice.
19 Bless the Lord God in everything; beg him to guide your ways and bring your paths and purposes to their end. For wisdom is not the property of every nation; their desire for what is good is conferred by the Lord. At his will he lifts up or he casts down to the depths of the dwelling of the dead. So now, my child, remember these precepts and never let hem fade from your heart.
20 'Now, my child, I must tell you I have left ten talents of silver with Gabael son of Gabrias, at Rhages in Media.
21 Do not be afraid, my child, if we have grown poor. You have great wealth if you fear God, if you shun every kind of sin and if you do what is pleasing to the Lord your God.'
Next Sabbath: Chapter 5