A.
Find Out:
1.
What did God do on the seventh day? v.2
2.
How did He view that day? v.3
3.
What sort of plants had not yet been grown? v.5a
4.
What had not yet happened? v.5b
5.
Why had they not yet grown? 5c
6.
From what was man formed? v.7
B.
Think :
1.
What was the world like at this time before man was made?
2.
How is the world very different now?
3.
What does this origin of man say about him?
C.
Comment :
First of all we see the origins of a day of rest
every seventh day. Later in the Bible the Lord refers to this, wanting
us to rest up in reverence for Him, and because He designed us to need
that rest. We disregard this to our own peril.
Second, we move from the general description
of creation to specific description of the making of man. We see the
state of the earth in its earliest days - uncultivated. Man has not
been made and "fields" have not been formed as the sign of
his activity. Cultivated plant life is not yet seen. Interestingly the
rain cycle has not yet started. Rain has not yet occurred; water only
came from underground streams.
Finally we see the making of man. If man is elevated
by being made in God's image, he is humbled in that he came from dust.
God takes the impersonal and inert and breathes life into it to make
it "Man". Whatever else we may see in this we see that man
was NOT a follow on from monkeys but was a specific act of creation
by God. God may have made monkeys in the same way but man is special
and distinct from all other creatures on earth.
D.
Application?
1.
Thank the Lord that YOU are the peak of God 's creation, that you
have
a destiny far higher than that of the animals
of the earth.
2.
Observe the fields today and note that man has done what God
instructed and subdued the earth. Thank Him for
our food.