TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
Trusting God, The Creator
Part 2 - February 27, 2022
Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The Holy Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called Rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1 JOH 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on The Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
We are going to start today’s message with a reading directly from God’s Word, the Bible, in the first book, Genesis 1:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth didn’t have any shape. And it was empty. There was darkness over the surface of the waves. At that time, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good. He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day.” He called the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning. It was day one.
6 God said, “Let there be a huge space between the waters. Let it separate water from water.” 7 And that’s exactly what happened. God made the huge space between the waters. He separated the water under the space from the water above it. 8 God called the huge space “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning. It was day two.
9 God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place. Let dry ground appear.” And that’s exactly what happened. 10 God called the dry ground “land.” He called all the water that was gathered together “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce plants. Let them produce their own seeds. And let there be trees on the land that grow fruit with seeds in it. Let each kind of plant or tree have its own kind of seeds.” And that’s exactly what happened. 12 So the land produced plants. Each kind of plant had its own kind of seeds. And the land produced trees that grew fruit with seeds in it. Each kind of tree had its own kind of seeds. God saw that it was good. 13 There was evening, and there was morning. It was day three.
14 God said, “Let there be lights in the huge space of the sky. Let them separate the day from the night. Let the lights set the times for the holy celebrations and the days and the years. 15 Let them be lights in the huge space of the sky to give light on the earth.” And that’s exactly what happened. 16 God made two great lights. He made the larger light to rule over the day and the smaller light to rule over the night. He also made the stars. 17 God put the lights in the huge space of the sky to give light on the earth. 18 He put them there to rule over the day and the night. He put them there to separate light from darkness. God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening, and there was morning. It was day four.
20 God said, “Let the seas be filled with living things. Let birds fly above the earth across the huge space of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures. He created every kind of living thing that fills the seas and moves about in them. He created every kind of bird that flies. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them. He said, “Have little ones so that there will be many of you. Fill the water in the seas. Let there be more and more birds on the earth.” 23 There was evening, and there was morning. It was day five.
24 God said, “Let the land produce every kind of living creature. Let there be livestock, and creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals.” And that’s exactly what happened. 25 God made every kind of wild animal. He made every kind of livestock. He made every kind of creature that moves along the ground. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings so that they are like us. Let them rule over the fish in the seas and the birds in the sky. Let them rule over the livestock and all the wild animals. And let them rule over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created human beings in his own likeness.
He created them to be like himself.
He created them as male and female.
28 God blessed them. He said to them, “Have children so that there will be many of you. Fill the earth and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the seas and the birds in the sky. Rule over every living creature that moves along the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I am giving you every plant on the face of the whole earth that produces its own seeds. I am giving you every tree that has fruit with seeds in it. All of them will be given to you for food. 30 I am giving every green plant as food for all the land animals and for all the birds in the sky. I am also giving the plants to all the creatures that move along the ground. I am giving them to every living thing that breathes.” And that’s exactly what happened. (GEN 1: 1-30 New International Reader’s Version)
Do you know what evolution is? It’s defined as the process of growth and development or the theory that organisms have grown and developed from past organisms. An example of evolution is how cell phones have changed over time.
Many non-Christians deny God’s work in Creation and believe that man evolved from organisms that already existed. Also, many Christians reject God’s Work in Creation. They may agree that God got it started, but then, to one degree or another, they say that evolution took it from there. However, evolution is a bankrupt philosophy that is contrary to actual science and has no part in Creation in any way, shape, or form.
Some argue that God could use evolution if He wanted to. While God can do what He wants in any manner He wants, He only does what is consistent with His Own Nature and Character. Since God can do what He wants, then that includes Him doing it the way He said that He did it in GENESIS 1. That would be in keeping with His Character of Truth.
Evolution contradicts both. If the philosophical speculation of evolution is true, then GENESIS 1 is not true. In fact, it would even be a bad story since the sequence of events, and not just the exaggeration of time, would be wrong. Notice that He makes the plants on Day 3 before the sun and moon are made on Day 4. He makes birds on Day 5 before He makes land creatures on Day 5. In simple terms, chickens come before dinosaurs.
The only reason people advocate evolution as part of the Creation is presupposing that evolutionary scientists are more honest and truthful than God’s Revelation. Evolution is bloated with “just so” stories, speculation, and humanistic philosophy. It doesn’t even qualify to be a theory since it is neither testable nor observable nor repeatable, and it completely lacks as history since the only eye witness was God, and He contradicts it!! True science seeks to understand the real world and so welcomes criticism so that its hypotheses and theories can be confirmed, modified, or rejected. Evolution is not science because it does not do this. It is a philosophical hypothesis and its speculation.
So, either God is the Creator and created all things as He claims, or He is a liar. If He is a liar, He cannot be trusted and you are on your own to make sense of your existence and the purpose of life. That has a lot of ramifications. Think about this for a moment: those who hold to atheistic evolution have no meaning in life since it is simply a random set of chemicals reacting over a short period of time, and the only purpose in life is to pass down your genetic information to the next generation and perhaps seek to help it survive. Those who hold to any form of theistic evolution have a god who is something other than the God who reveals Himself in the Bible. Those who hold to any of the false religions have to deal with all its falsehoods and contradictions, and the one common denominator in all false religions is that the favor of the god or gods must be earned. As you know, that is not true in Christianity.
Everything in Creation points back to the Creator. God is Our Creator, and that has many ramifications including that He is Worthy of our honor, thanks, and worship, and that we are responsible to Him to fulfill the purposes for which He created us. That should cause each of us to have the proper respect for Him. That is a good starting point because of what PROV 9:10 teaches us: If you want to become wise, you must begin by respecting the Lord. To know the Holy One is to gain understanding.
Recognizing that God is your Creator is the starting point of being able to trust Him since it’s also the starting point of recognizing that His Claims about Himself and His Actions are true. That trust quickly increases as you gain knowledge of God’s Character and Promises.
{to be continued}