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:

God’s record of creation in Genesis:	Evolutionary long-age theory:
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	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

Activity

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))