WEEKLY
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An
international Sunday school lesson commentary
For
Sunday September 9, 2018
Over
172,000 readers worldwide
larrydalexander.blogspot.com
GOD
CREATES TIME, LIGHTS, AND LIFE
(GOD
brings order to the world)
(Genesis
1:14-25)
Many
people, who are currently on the road to destruction, consider the events in
the book of Genesis (especially chapters 1-11) as mythological. However, we
must remember that all myths derived from ancient man’s expression of his view of
reality. In other words, myths are born from actual events. Actual events are
not born from myths.
The Old Testament presents us with a radical
shift from the philosophy of the ancient world, and one cannot do these
writings justice by saying that ancient Israel borrowed from myths in order to
describe it’s faith in the only wise GOD. To ancient Israel, and, to believers
everywhere today, an absolute sovereign GOD brought all things into existence,
including them (Israel), as a nation, and every other human being, and all other
sources of life in the universe. The reality of Israel was based on what they know
about their history, and, it was actualized in their history, not in mythology.
At the heart of the biblical report of GOD
creating the world and everything in it, is the “Faith” that it takes to rely
on GOD as our provider, protector, guide, and redeemer. Everything was made by
HIM, and without HIM was not anything made. That faith was born out of the
reality of Hebrew history, and Hebrew history was not born out of myth.
This week
we’ll look at days four and five of the Creation account of the Christian bible,
and how GOD continued to harmonize the universe HE created. Here in Genesis 1, taking
up at verse 14, on day 4, GOD organizes “Linear Time” by establishing days,
weeks, months, seasons, and years.
GOD separated the day and the night by
creating the sun and the moon and all of the distant planets of the universe
that, at night, shines and sparkle because of the great light of the day, which
is the sun. However, during the daylight, they would all seem to disappear from
existence, because of the dominance of the same great light of the sun. The
lesser light, the moon, is used to govern the night, along with all of the
stars (distant planets and other celestial bodies). Together, reflecting the great
light of the sun, they perpetually light up the earth from Heaven, day by day
and night by night. And GOD saw that it was good.
On the fifth day GOD created all of the
various fish and marine life of the waters of the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers.
HE also created all of the birds of the air and distinguished them from the
various other animal creations that would reside on the land (Vs.20-23). And they
all increased in population until they filled the whole earth. And GOD saw that
it was good.
When looking at the book of Genesis, we
must keep in mind, that, it was not written just to chronicle events, and nor
was it written to be a book of history just for history’s sake. Instead, it is
a theological account of selected records of the ancient ancestors of Israel, GOD’s
chosen nation, which attempts to explain the divine causes behind all events,
human and otherwise. It is a part of the revealed Word of GOD which places it
above mere history, or pagan mythology.
The world we live in is not a product of “blind
chance”, for everyone in their right mind has to agree to that fact. A superior
and awesome, divine living GOD, had to very carefully, and very loving, design
all things that we see here on earth, and, throughout the universe, including we
ourselves.
A Sunday school lesson
by,
Larry D. Alexander
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