From the Start - Part 3 (A Genesis Sermon Series Part 4)

Last week we spent some time in science.

This week, guess what? We're going to do the same

thing. All parents know the value of

the great zoo. When we lived in the Bay, one of

our favorite things to do was to go to the San Francisco Zoo.

It's obviously great for the kids getting to see live

animals, but it was also cool for us parents as well.

Right? I don't know about you, but I

don't usually get to see tigers in my normal goings on of life

throughout the day. Perhaps you do, I don't.

Polar bears definitely don't get to see those huge snakes.

I think they're super cool. Other members of my family might

not necessarily agree with me, but I think they're cool.

All the different animals serve as a reminder of how creative

God is. Now, as we begin this morning,

it's important to remind ourselves of what has brought us

to this point. Days one through 3 of creation

set the framework for creation. On day one, God created the

lights. On day 2, God created the skies

by separating the waters above the earth from the waters below

on the earth. Then came the last piece of the

frame. On day three, God created dry

land, vegetation, and trees. Last week we looked at day four

and how how God created the sun, moon, and the stars.

Naturally, that brings us to day 5.

So this morning we'll cover 1 1/2 days, day five, and then the

first half of day 6. So if you're able, would you

stand as we read from Genesis chapter 1?

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

I guess I probably should have reminded you to turn to Genesis

1, but I think we know where we are right next week.

We'll still be in Genesis chapter 1, but we will finish.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

I think we'll finish chapter 1 next week reading at verse 20.

And God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living

creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the

expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea

creatures and every living creature that moves, with which

the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged

bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good

that God bless them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill

the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.

There was evening and there was morning the 5th day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures

according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things,

and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.

And it was so. And God made the beasts of the

earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to

their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according

to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

You may be seated. Day 2's framework creation of

the skies and the seas corresponds to to what we're

looking at here is day five and filling these areas as we begin

this morning, we start with filling the waters.

God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.

God spoke commanding the waters to be filled with inhabitants.

Then verse 21 picks up. So God created the great sea

creatures and every living creature that moves with which

the waters swarm according to their kinds.

God spoke into the world and he commanded the sea creatures to

be created. And it was.

So here again Moses uses the word burrah to speak to God's

creative act. Last week.

When God made the sun, moon and stars, he, he Assad them.

He, he made and formed the star stars out of the raw material of

light that was already on hand. But as God now continues with

creation, he he is barying. He is, he is creating something

out of nothing. There's no life existent before

this moment. Now sure, we we think of

vegetation as being alive, but the way that vegetation is alive

is a is a wholly different form of life than living, moving

creatures. The word for these living

creatures is is nephesh. And then this word is often

translated as soul, but it actually means throat or neck.

Living creatures are nepheshes. You will hear people say.

Oh living living creatures, we have a soul.

Actually we are a nephesh. We are, we are a soul.

We are, we are throats if we take it literally is what it

means. We breathe air through our

throats, if you will. Sure, sea life doesn't breathe

in the proper sense that that we breathe, but they still breathe

and take in oxygen. When nephesh is used, it speaks

of life. That which breathe in breathes,

and it refers to both animals and to humans.

All living beings are nepheshes. So here, on the 5th day, in a

single moment, God creates fish. In general, the these fish are

said to be swarms of living creatures.

Big, small, weird, highly unusual saltwater freshwater.

God created them all. On day five, let the waters

swarm with swarms of living creatures.

That word swarm speaks to an innumerable number of creatures

that, at God's command, filled the waters.

All the fish and sea life created that day could not be

numbered. There were swarms of them.

I'm sure you've seen videos of large schools of fish.

The whole school moves in unison together as and as they do.

You find yourself in awe of, first of all, how do they do

this? Like they all just instantly

move. And the fact that often times

there are so many you can't even begin to count them.

And it's interesting. It occurred to me that it's

essentially saying you can't count the fish.

But last week we talked about how God counted and named every

single star, which is absolutely amazing to me.

But here he's like, oh, there's way too many, don't even try.

You know you're not going to count all the fish stars.

Sure head sure, go ahead, try to count them fish, don't bother.

Now you could estimate how many there are, but good luck trying

to ascertain each individual fish that is out there in the

world. Now.

What are some examples of fish? Now as Iowans, we're familiar

with catfish and and trout, maybe even some northern or

muskie. But let's let's consider some

some different kinds of fish. First of all, there's the

archerfish. This is great for the kids

hopefully and adults too, but hopefully the kids appreciate

this. The archerfish is a predatory

fish that preys on land insects. It has a special mouth that

allows it to shoot out a jet of water, and they are quite

accurate with these streams of water and can shoot up to 10

feet above the water's surface. And adults mostly hit their

target on the first try. Think about this.

First of all, they're doing something really cool for a

fish. Secondly, their eyes have to

account for the refraction of lights as it passes through not

only air, but then the the light also passes through water.

Once the Archer fish has a victim in its sights, it rotates

its eyes a certain way. Its lips just break the surface

as it squeezes its tongue against the roof of the roof of

the grooved roof of its mouth, and that causes the water to

shoot out and hit the target. Pretty crazy, huh?

It's a fish. They're not supposed to do this.

Then there's electric eels. These things are ugly.

Despite their name, they're actually not eels.

They're actually more related to catfish.

But first of all, they're unique in that they come to the surface

several times an hour to breathe.

They get their oxygen from the air, not through their gills.

Then of course, on top of that, they're electric, right?

How electric? Well, their shocks, their shock

can be up to 860 volts. I would like to tell you 50

volts is considered dangerous, potentially harmful to us.

The the the outlet in your wall is 120 but these are 7 times

carry 7 times the voltage of what's in our wall.

That's crazy. Now God seems to have another

category of marine life and mind as well as verse 21 says, God

created great sea creatures. These great sea creatures have

been the subject of much speculation and imagination over

the centuries. What were they?

Do they exist now? What might they have looked

like? Of course we have monstrous blue

whales that that can measure up to 100 feet long and weigh in at

nearly 200 tons. But the thought is that these

great sea creatures are something different and

specific, and they're on a completely different level,

making them worthy to be called out specifically in the text.

The word used here is is tannin, and I'm intrigued by the fact

that the ESP translation committee chose to translate the

word tannin as a creature. Because you see, a tannin is

more than just a creature. The word tanin appears 14 times

in scripture and it's translated as sea monster, sea dragon,

dragon, occasionally as a serpent.

Most of the time, tanin is used to refer to something big and

and practically otherworldly and beyond our imagination.

It's best to understand the tanin as some sort of huge sea

monster. Isn't this cool?

Like I think this is awesome stuff.

In Job seven, Job is talking with God and and in verse 12,

Job says, am I the sea or a or a sea monster, a Teneen that you

set a guard over me. Job is saying, am I really that

large, that powerful that you allow so much suffering in my

life to to buffer me? I'm not, I'm not a sea monster,

is what he's saying. Ancient Egyptian and

Mesopotamian mythology had fantastic tales about sea

creatures. And these creatures were

considered gods and, and of course they feared the the

people feared these gods and these sea creatures, They were

the embodiments of evil. The Hebrew people knew about

these sea monsters, and they considered them the epitome of

all chaos. And God is here saying the

tannin. I created that, too.

And I can't help but wonder if maybe Captain Ahab might have

even experienced A tannin, you know, in Moby Dick, right?

That didn't fly over everybody's heads, did it?

A few people got it. OK OK.

Although when I hear Captain Ahab, I think of Veggie Tales

with Captain Ahab's Moby Blaster in Jonah in verse 20.

In verse 20, God commanded not only the waters to be filled,

but he also said let birds fly above the earth across the

expanse of the heavens. So here God was filling the

skies with birds. God fills the skies with birds.

Now when we were praying this morning, Paul prayed and

mentioned, oh, the answers that I would bring for Genesis.

And he said maybe you would also have some questions.

I got lots of questions. When we come to creation,

sometimes I wonder what happened as as I've said, it's important

for us first of all to remember Genesis was written from their

perspective of the world and not our 21st century scientific

knowledge. They didn't have all the

categories and and phyla that we now have.

But technically speaking, birds have wings, feathers, beaks and

they lay eggs. So we're bats created on this

day as well. Bats don't have feathers, they

have fur. They give birth to live young

and nurse them, since they're actually mammals.

But they do fly, of course, so they can fill the sky.

Were they created on this day or on day six?

What about ostriches, emus and Penguins?

They don't fly, they're incapable of filling the sky.

But they certainly are birds, right?

And then there's insects. They don't fit all the

descriptions, but they can fly some of them, which can be scary

when things are flying at you. I'm going to guess maybe they

were created on Day 6. I don't know.

I have lots of questions. I have so many questions,

especially as I've been doing all this research and stuff.

I just have so many questions. They won't get answered until

the other side of this world. Now I'm going to be speak very

strongly against evolution this morning.

I understand that in a room with this many people, there may be

some people who hold to an evolutionary perspective.

I hold to God's Word as supreme. And so it is the authority in my

life should be the authority in our lives.

And so I will speak very strongly against evolution this

morning. We can have further

conversations, but I think some of the things I say make a lot

of sense. So, all right, evolutionary

theory would have you believe that dinosaurs turned into

birds. I, I, this blows my mind.

I, I'm not sure how this works, but so their arms grew,

remember, because T Rex is like this, you know, so their arms

grew, they grew out, their bones got lighter and, and they

developed feathers and wings and organisms that had never

experienced flight, never even seen flight, yet were instantly

given the capacity to fly. I'm going to be honest and say

it seems utterly preposterous to me that something without wings

could adapt and eventually fly. I know I could say this about

all the created beings, but flight is quite literally on a

whole other level. This is flight is just one of

these things that blows my mind. Got the privilege the other day

to go up in an airplane with a member of ours here.

Every time I'm in an airplane I'm always just like, how do we

do this? It's absolutely astounding that

we can take a huge piece of metal and make it fly in the

air, right? We're talking about things that

have never flown, suddenly growing the capacity to fly.

I can't, can't swallow that now, all right?

I think about when I look at God's creative order, I look at

birds like eagles, condors and albatrosses.

Their flight, it's just effortless.

Right as they soar through the sky, they hardly ever flap their

wings. Albatross has traveled thousands

of miles before they ever set down on the earth.

That just blows my mind. I can't fathom that something

like an eagle could come about through evolutionary processes.

But then there's a Hummingbird. We're going back to the other

end of the spectrum. These were the biggest ones.

Now we have the smallest ones. These things blow my mind as

well. If you want to know how old I

am, I am now at the age where I think it's cool that my friends

have bird feeders. I, I, I suspect a number of you

can relate. I even have a friend who has a

camera inside her bird feeder and she's constantly posting

pictures on Facebook, pictures, videos, she's posting videos of

the birds coming to her bird feeder.

So you were literally face to face with these birds coming to

eat at the bird feeder. It's really weird.

It's trippy. But so I, I was, I was at a

friend's house not too long ago and, and I was admiring the

hummingbirds that were stopping by to feed and one stops and

stands there. I've never seen this before.

Like, I guess like, obviously hummingbirds must stand, but

I've literally never witnessed this because I've only seen

hummingbirds flying around, you know, from flower to flower or

to the feeder. You know, they just buzz by and

hover there for a moment and then fly away.

But it was standing there tripped me out.

It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen.

And I know it's really simple. I can be easily amused.

So there was that. But you know how amazing these

things are. They hover and they fly

backwards due to their unique wing design utilizing most birds

fly with. They generate lift with an up

and down pattern. The Hummingbird does not do

that. The Hummingbird uses a Figure 8,

that's how it flaps its wings and at one point its wings are

upside down when it's coming back and so flaps its wings in a

Figure 8 and it does this 80 times a second.

Like blows me away to think about this.

This. This study has been super cool

for me. It's taken a lot of work

researching all these things that I've been researching, but

it is super cool. I'm not a scientist, but I think

it's awesome. So here on day five, God filled

the waters with various types of fish and filled the skies with

birds. Now we come to day 6.

God filling the earth. He filled the earth or or the

dry land. Day three had prepared the land

for what was to come on day 6. The third day's vegetation in

the trees all provided sustenance for the 6th day.

Animals. The first animals mentioned in

verse 24 are livestock, or we'll just call them cattle here.

Now, to be honest, I think cattle or cows are lame.

I'm not a farmer. I don't make money from them.

They just seem lame to me. They seem boring to me.

They just lay there or stand there just chewing their cud,

right? But it's that cut chewing that

makes them so amazing. They have I'm sure you're aware

of this. They have a complex 4 stomach

digestive system that allows them to gain nutrition from hay,

something that is impossible for animals that that lacks stomachs

with multiple chambers. So this design converts

cellulose, which we can't process, We can't use cellulose.

This design in the cow allows them to take hay and convert

that to milk, which is something that is a staple in our lives,

right? Something that we find highly

beneficial. Without it, I wouldn't have my

ice cream. So I am incredibly grateful that

the cow can take hay and turn it into ice cream.

That is fantastic. And I would suggest that the

primary purpose of of cattle of of livestock is it seems, is to

serve humanity. They they don't do much else but

wherever humanity is you will find livestock.

They are incredibly useful and value valuable to us.

Next is the creeping things. Some people are like you can

just skip over this. I know there are many people who

could do without all the creepy crawlies.

Creepers are obviously insects, worms, arachnids, reptiles,

maybe even small mammals. Like I'm going to disclose

something here. Everybody's going to be like

you. What?

So in a number of years ago, probably about 12 years ago,

maybe 10, I don't know. In an attempt to not buy, not

get a dog or a puppy, we got, I did some research, we got rats.

And I know some of you just checked out, like, no way, I'm

out of here. We got 2 rats.

They were friendly, they were fun.

They are incredibly docile. Yeah, it was, it was, it was

neat. Except that these people that

said, oh, we'll help take care of it.

You know how it went. So who did it?

Yeah, it was mostly me that took care of them.

Everybody else changed their minds once once they came home

and they eventually of course died.

But but I think rats are probably in view here on on the

6th day of creation as creeping things.

Now I feel the need to remind you what God said of His

creation. It was good.

All of God's creation was good in its original form.

I know a majority of us tend to be repulsed by creeping things,

but God said they were good when he created them.

Why God created gnats and mosquitoes though, we will never

know. They are the reason why I the

largest reason I put up with summer.

Summer is my least favorite. I'm not sure, but I'm going to

guess most of you don't experience too many bug bites in

the winter. So yeah.

But they were originally declared good.

It's worth reminding ourselves that creeping things also

revealed God's creativity, wisdom, and power.

Now we're going to get really weird here.

So first of all, let's consider the Bombardier beetle.

This thing shoots explosives from its butt or something like

that. It has a defense mechanism where

when it's threatened, it shoots a hot chemical spray at its

threat. This is a mixture of two

different chemicals that are catalyzed in its abdomen.

When hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide are mixed together,

there's a chemical reaction that brings the resulting chemical to

nearly the boiling point of water.

However, in order to effectively mix the chemicals, the

Bombardier beetle must be able to produce the right chemicals,

keep them in separate reservoirs, and bring them

together at the precise right time with the necessary

catalytic enzymes and immediately shoot them out

before they explode in order to not destroy itself in the

process. Right.

And not to mention having the ability to aim this spray and

hit the target. Such a complex system with many

interdependent parts. What about chameleons?

You know, they can change colors to blend in with their

environment, but but they also have eyes that move

independently of each other. One eye looks one way and the

other eyes look in the other way.

They can move independently and look around in completely

different directions. Oh, but if the chameleon

supposedly developed this ability, and then why didn't

other organisms further up the evolutionary chain develop this

ability as well? So like I said, I have questions

even on the evolutionary side of things.

If you want to maintain an evolutionary perspective, how

does this lead to this? These traits would have no doubt

serve them well in their survival of the fittest, if

evolution is to be believed. So now we move on to other

creatures that God created on day 6.

The beasts of the earth. Beasts of the earth.

Of course, we naturally think of lions, tigers and bears.

Thank you. It occurs to me though, that

like in a generation or two, I might not be able to do that and

get get that response. Wolves, elephants, drafts, you

know, all all the things, but did you ever stop to think about

dinosaurs? We hold God's word to be true,

but we also know that dinosaurs existed, right?

So where do they fall in creation?

Probably right here on Day 6. I know what I just said is

preposterous to the world. I know that because the world

has has a lens that they look through.

But from a biblical perspective, our perspective allows for this

to be the case. And I might touch on dinosaurs

more in a couple months. I don't know.

We'll see when, when we get to the flood, we'll see.

So but if if God created the world as Genesis tells us, and

we know that dinosaurs existed and must have been here on day

six. We already heard about the

Tannin, God's special sea monster.

But the book of Job mentions a couple other huge creatures as

well. One of them is called Behemoth.

In Job 40, God is explaining his greatness to Job.

Job 40 verses 15 through 19. Behemoth, which I made as I made

Job 40:15–19

you. He eats grass like an ox.

Behold his strength in his loins, in his power, in the

muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a

cedar. The sinews of his thighs are

knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze,

his his limbs like bars of iron. Some have suggested, oh, this

is, this must be a hippo or or a crocodile.

And you're like, yeah, like, OK, I can see how you might arrive

at that. Except I'm pretty sure

crocodiles don't eat grass last time I checked.

But there's a good chance that the word behemoth actually

refers to something bigger, like a sauropod of some sort.

A sauropod like a brachiosaurus fits the description well.

It eats grass like an ox has strong hips or loins, and it

moves its tail like a cedar tree.

This is just one of the beasts of the earth.

We could go on and on about all sorts of other beasts, but you

probably don't want to be here all day.

Looking again at verse 24, God said let the earth bring forth

living creatures according to their kinds, living livestock

and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their

kinds. And it was so.

And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds,

and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that

creeps on the ground according to its kind, God saw that it was

good. So God was very clear when he

created the plants, the fish, the birds, the land animals that

each would produce after its own kind.

They produce after its own kind. God wanted to make sure his

people understood that that each kind produces after its own

kind. There's there's purpose and

intention in God's design of all these creatures.

Animals coming into existence wasn't random and purposeless,

but rather serve the purpose for which God designed them.

Moses wrote down the phrase according to its kind 9 times in

five verses. We can only speculate why why

God had Moses write this phrase down 9 times, but we do know

that theirs was a culture steeped in paganism and

idolatry. As I've mentioned, they had

Pagan ideas about the origins of life, and it's also possible

that they needed to understand the created order that Pagan

deities didn't, didn't control or or bring each Organism into

existence. Each living creature reproduced

more of the same because that was its purpose.

This is the way God designed creation from the very

beginning. It shows intent and purpose in

God's work. Also, the fact that this phrase

precedes God's declaration of goodness speaks to his desire to

communicate goodness in his design for biological

distinctions, to communicate his goodness in in purpose and

goodness in the reproductive boundaries.

Each Organism reproducing after its own kind isn't just

necessary, but it's also good. God's creation reproducing after

its own kind also runs contrary to evolutionary theory.

It runs contrary to evolutionary theory.

It's highly unlikely Moses had Darwin's survival of the fittest

in mind when he wrote the words according to their kinds, right?

But this phrase handily serves as a refutation of Darwin's

evolutionary theory that one kind of creature can turn into

another kind. One genus does not yield

another. Even within a genus, fertility

is spotty. When crossbreeding occurs,

horses and donkeys can be bred together, but the result is a

sterile mule. Lions and tigers can be bred

together, but the result is well, it's impressive when you

look at a Liger, but it also is sterile.

Lions and tigers are cats, Horses and donkeys are equus.

However, a horse doesn't become a cat, and a cat doesn't become

a horse. Why is this the case?

Because of each living organisms DNA.

Every living thing has a complex genetic code stored in its

DNADNA determines the fundamental building and

maintenance instructions for living organisms.

Each Organism passes on the instructions to the next

generation. These instructions determine

what the Organism is and traits of that Organism.

Geneticist Doctor Lane P Lester writes in the middle 1800s, some

scientists believe that variations caused by the

environment could be inherited, that is, they could be passed

down. Charles Darwin accepted this

fallacy, and it no doubt made it easier for him to believe that

one creature could change into another.

He thus explained the origin of the giraffes long neck in parts

through the inherited effects of the increased use of parts in

seasons of limited food supply, Darwin reasoned giraffes would

stretch their necks for the for the high leaves, supposedly

resulting in longer necks being passed on to their offspring.

However, it's important to say that reaching for a higher

branch does not change one's DNA.

So this is scientifically illogical and we could go on and

on about the wonders of DNA. Evolutionary theorists also like

to point to mutations as being the tool used for each Organism

to move up the evolutionary chain.

The problem is that mutations don't cause organisms to become

more complex. Mutations reorient the

information that is coded in the DNA.

So the evolutionary theorist needs to add more time to

history in order to accommodate what they perceive as the

capacity of organisms to mutate enough in order to progress up

the evolutionary chain and become new types of organisms.

When Darwin studied his finches, he used them as as proof of his

theory and natural selection. He maintained that natural

selection would drive rapid evolutionary responses to

environmental pressures. What Darwin observed is what we

refer to as micro evolution. Microevolution is a is a change

in the frequency of genetic variance within a population

over short periods. This occurs at the population

level and and it can be observed during your time of research.

You can see these changes. Darwin observed changes within

the population of Finches on the Galapagos Islands, and he could

witness these changes during his time there.

This is something creationists believe in.

We believe in microevolution. It makes sense, but it needs to

be differentiated from macroevolution.

Macroevolution is large scale evolutionary changes occurring

over long periods and which lead to diversification of species

and the origin of new higher taxonomic groups, that is,

groups that are above the species level.

It's a result of, they would say, microevolutionary changes.

Now, if macroevolution is to be believed, then Darwin's finches,

his proof of natural selection, should have yielded a higher

taxonomic group, a different genus.

Rather, Darwin's research with finches still yielded finches,

right? We learned this in in school.

They were just different sorts, different varieties of finches.

This has been offered as evidence of macroevolution, even

though it is not actual evidence of macroevolution as a whole.

Creationists do not believe in macroevolution.

There are theistic evolutionists, but that's a

different animal. No pun intended, actually.

And I can't support that viewpoint of macro evolution

with the theistic evolutionist. The fact is, science has never

observed, never will observe, the evolution of one species

into a new life form. It's a genetic impossibility.

I could go on about missing links, but then we'd be headed

down a rabbit trail. Scientists who believe in

evolutionary theory always talk about missing links.

So there, there, there, there's, there's something there,

there's, they're out there. But we can't find these missing

links because I would suggest they don't exist.

So God filled the waters, He filled the skies, He filled the

earth, and he gave it all the capacity to reproduce according

to its own kind. In verses 21 and 25, God looks

upon his creation and He declares it good.

Simply put, this is God's own assessment of His creation.

God said it's good. I'm pretty sure that God would

know if His creation was good or not, right?

God's original creation lacked deformities.

It lacked mutations. The world, the world changes

when sin enters the scene. But prior to Adam's fall, things

are drastically different than they are now after the fall.

Natural selection and survival of the fittest aren't necessary

in God's original creation, as as all of His creation lives in

harmony originally with each other.

There were no unfit animals, no imperfections or or inferiority.

They were all good in their design and creation.

The fact that creation was good can also be found in the fact

that there was no death prior to the fall.

There was no death prior to the fall.

Scripture is clear that death did not come into the world

until sin entered the human realm, Romans 512 says.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and

death through sin, so death spread to all men because all

sinned. Death entered the world through

sin, impacting not only the human world but also the animal

Kingdom. This doesn't simply tell us

about the past, but also points to a future reality.

There's a future reality, Isaiah 11 verses 6 through 8.

Isaiah 11:6–8

Now I will say this passage has been variously interpreted to

refer to either a millennial Kingdom or to the new heavens.

Either way, it doesn't matter. The results is the same, and it

shows a return back to God, the state of God's original

creation. The wolf shall dwell with the

lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goats, and

the calf, and the lion and the fattened calf together, and the

little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall

graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion

shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play

over the whole of the cobra, and the winged child shall put his

hand on the adder's den. All creation will one day return

to that place of peace under the Messiah's reign.

The wolf and the lamb will live in harmony.

The leopard opts to not eat the goats, the cow and bear graze,

and the lion eats a straw. Someday we will live the zoo

life together. Humanity will get along with

creatures that have long been considered threats.

The vegetarian idea ideal that we'll see set up in the garden

will be realized as we live in the goodness of what God

intended the world to be at the beginning of His creation.

Everything will be good and there will be no more death.

You see, this book doesn't just cause us to look back, but it

gives us hope as we look towards the future reality as we reign

with Christ. Let's bow our heads and close

our eyes. Father God, we we thank you that

we can look into your word, that your word teaches us of your

greatness, how awesome you are. How awesome it is that you feel

the waters, you feel the skies. You, you filled the earth and

you declared it all good. Life was complete, so there was

no, no death in the original creation.

And God, we long for the day when we will return back to the

way things were. Life will be much easier.

Life will be perfect, complete. No more conflict, strife.

We say, God, Jesus, would you come?

Would you return back? We look forward to that future

reality being in your presence. Thank you for this time.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.