Lesson 10 Creation: Day 4
A. Overall Lesson Objective
•To assess what took place on the fourth day of creation.
B. Learning Competencies
•God returns His attention skyward by creating lights in the heavens and declaring their primary purposes (separating night and day; showing signs and seasons, marking days and years; giving light on the earth).
•The sun and moon are given specific attention in God’s creating, comprising the rulers of the day and night.
•The stars in their vast array are created during the same day. Everything in the celestial sphere is now entirely complete.
C. Lesson
Overview
The fourth day of creation results in the manifold beauty of the heavens. God’s magnificence and power shows in His created variety and size of things. The processes or laws He creates begin to shout of His depth of wisdom. By the time most believers consider what has been done by the end of Day 3 and now on Day 4, they will see a multi-faceted earth ready for living things and a display in the heavens for mankind to appreciate when they are created on Day 6.
Day 4 in biblical creation can come as a shock compared to today’s dominant belief that the innumerable objects in space took billions of years to develop. However, the findings from the last 50 years of the objects in space, including those from our local solar system neighborhood, suggest that the power of God to instantly create extends to the heavens like it extended to vegetation on Day 3 of creation. Further, the complexity, size, and types of materials, processes, and conditions defy any theory for accidental development. The day’s work by God is spectacular, and He points to it in several scriptures. Read Genesis 1:14-19.
🦕 CT? Using the Genesis reference as a starting point, explain what is further defined in the purpose of the heavens in Psalm 19:1-6. Explain what is confirmed in Genesis from Isaiah 40:25-26.
🦕 CT? Make a list of the things produced in day 4. Make a second list of the action verbs and relate these to the item created.
If you stand back from your list, you can see that God created an array of objects in outer space with purpose in mind. The solar system objects (other than the sun and the moon) would be included in God’s definition of stars. They were termed ‘wandering stars’ in older days because they do not stay in a relatively fixed location in the celestial sphere as stars do. The sun and moon are listed separately and are given purpose separately. They are most obvious to us and rule our skies, as God says they do, because of their size and influence.
Since the sun produces the dominant light we know now, yet light was produced on the first day of creation, God refines light sources on this fourth day of creation.
One could go on and on about the special nature of the sun, the ideal distance of earth to sun, the unique size of the moon along with its subtle effects on earth, and the magnificence of the host of types of deep sky objects that can now be imaged. Spacecraft in the last few decades have provided an immense amount of data on the planets showing them to be unique. Conjectures about origins, when they exclude God, have been subject to change after change as new data disturb the original assertions. Through all this change, God’s command and results are unchanged. The results are magnificent to study and declare the glory of God as stated in Psalm 19:1-6. In the end, we have a precise clock that measures time on earth, marks the seasons, and reminds us that the universe has direction in time. The beginning of time, of course, was created by God on day 1.
Note the closing statement of God in the record in Genesis 1:18 (last sentence) and 19, where He pronounces His fully accurate conclusion of day 4 of creation and marks the day with the same words used to mark the end of the previous days.
At the conclusion of Day 4, the celestial sphere is complete and ready for observation and study. The prescribed purposes and effects of the moon are also complete. The original source of light for the earth as described on Day 1 was removed.
D. Assignment
Read Genesis 1:20-23, Job 12:7, Ezekiel 17:23, Job 41. List 10 prominent features of the creature described in Job 41.
E. Learning Activity
Using the general knowledge of students who are learning about the solar system and stars, recall a list of categories of distinct objects in space and define them in general terms. Calculate the energy of one average star (E=mc2) and find the approximate number of stars in one ‘star city’ (galaxy) to obtain the estimated energy of one galaxy.
F. Concluding Assessment
Day 4 marks the creation of objects in space, ranging from our solar system to cities of stars in deep space. The size, distance, and characteristics of the objects are a direct confirmation of God’s glory and power.