4 1 1 V 4 reation
reation lose your eyes. magine an entire planet that is cold, dark and lifeless. his frozen, dark, dead world was planet arth! G et s go back in time. efore God created arth, e created many, many angels. hese were wonderful spirit beings who served God. hey were there when God created the arth, and they shouted for joy when they saw the new creation! God put some of the angels on arth to help make it more beautiful. ut something went wrong! ne of the greatest angels began to change his thinking; he began to think a lot about himself. e began to think he was so beautiful and smart that he could rule the universe better than God. his angel s name was ucifer. ucifer rebelled against God and convinced many other angels to rebel too. hese evil angels fought a war against God! ut God defeated them and cast them back down to arth. God changed ucifer s name to atan, which means enemy. y the time the war was over, atan and the evil angels had mostly destroyed the beautiful planets, moons and stars God had created. arth became dark, cold and dead. - bout 6,000 years ago, God turned is attention to arth. e had decided to prepare this planet for something very special! God was about to renew planet arth, not as a home for angels but as a home for a new kind of being. his type of being would look like God! his being could be born into God s Family! his special creation is called a human being and you are a human being! God chose to prepare the arth for human beings in seven days (one week). V F n the first day, God moved over the surface of the water and said, et there be light. hen light appeared on arth once again. God divided the light from the darkness. e called the light day and the darkness night. 2 M M
M n the second day, God melted and purified the frozen and murky water. s the water warmed, steam and vapor rose into the sky, turning into great billowing clouds. God filled the sky with air for human beings to breathe. n the third day, God raised vast pieces of land up from beneath the water. hese became islands and continents. he water flowed down off the land and formed seas and oceans. hen God created plants and trees on the land. e also made plants inside the lakes, seas and oceans. n the fourth day, God created a way for human beings to keep track of time. e caused the movement of the sun to show what a day is and what a year is. e caused the movement of the moon to he earth and universe are ruined after atan and the demons rebellion. show what a month is. nd e caused the movement of the stars to teach us more about how time passes. ut still there were no human beings on arth. n the fifth day, God made all the birds: eagles, ostriches, hummingbirds, kiwis and many others. God also made the creatures that swim in water: goldfish, puffer fish, dolphins, whales and many others. n the sixth day, God created land animals: dogs, leopards, bears, elephants and many others. God also made creeping animals, like tiny insects. nd now God was ready for is most important creation! e took some dirt and molded it into a male human being. God called this man dam. e breathed into his nostrils, and dam became a living person! dam was very different from all the other creatures God had made. e looked like God! e could also talk with God. God gave dam work to do: name the animals. s he named them, dam noticed that the male animals had female animals to go with them. ut there was no female human being yet! God was about to give dam an amazing blessing on top of all his other blessings! God put dam into a deep sleep. From one of dam s ribs, God created a woman! When dam woke up, God presented him with his own wife. dam named her ve, which means mother of all. n the seventh day, God rested. y resting, e created something else that V 4 1 3
he Garden of den was an ideal setting for dam and ve to learn. 4 M M
was new: the abbath. he abbath is a period of time that God has made holy so that human beings can rest, remember God s creation, worship im and learn how to be born into is Family. G F n the first abbath, God started teaching dam and ve about is plan for them. fter the abbath, dam and ve worked hard taking care of their home, the Garden of den. hey were very happy during this time as God continued to teach them about is way of life. God planted two special trees in the Garden of den: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. he tree of life represented God s way of give. God told dam and ve that they could live forever in happiness if they ate from this tree. he tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented atan s way of get, or selfishness. God told dam and ve that if they ate from this tree, they would die. M V God had renewed the arth for dam and ve. ut atan and his evil angels were still on arth too. hey wanted to turn dam and ve against God. fter God had taught dam and ve about is way of life, e let atan test them. ne day, ve was walking alone in the garden and saw a snake. nakes did not bite, so she wasn t afraid. ut this serpent spoke to her! ve probably didn t know it, but atan was speaking to her through the serpent. ve should have walked away especially when she heard what type of attitude the serpent had. ut she did not. he serpent told ve that God was lying. t said that if she ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she would not die like God said she would. nstead, she would become as wise as God. he could decide what was good and evil for herself. ve believed the serpent. he disobeyed God and ate a piece of fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. hen she took some fruit and gave it to dam. dam knew the serpent was lying, but he didn t want to tell ve she had done wrong, so he ate the fruit too. uddenly, dam and ve became ashamed of the fact that they were naked, so they hid themselves. ut God knew where they were. e asked them if they had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. dam said yes and that it was ve s fault. ve said it was the serpent s fault. nstead of saying they were sorry and trying to change, they blamed someone else. hey were already falling into a bad attitude. God was sad about what dam and ve did, but e let them make their own choice. God also lets you make your own choices. ike dam and ve, you can choose to live God s way of obedience and giving, or you can choose to live atan s V 4 1 5
way of disobedience and selfishness. ecause dam and ve chose to disobey God, e sent them out of the Garden of den. e stationed a righteous angel with a flaming sword at the garden s entrance to keep them from getting back in and from eating from the tree of life. ut when God sent dam and ve away, e gave them hope. e told them that someday a avior would come. his avior would have to die for their sins. Without this avior, they could never repent, never eat from the tree of life and never have eternal life. o remind them of how much they needed this avior and how much they needed to repent, God told dam and ve to kill a lamb and burn it on an altar at certain times of the year. fter eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, dam and ve are driven out of the garden. 6 M M
oon, dam and ve had two sons. hey named the firstborn ain and the other bel. When ain and bel were older, the time came to offer a sacrifice. bel brought his best lamb to give to God. ut ain didn t want to give up his best lamb, so he brought some vegetables instead. God was upset by ain s disobedience. ain became angry at God for rejecting his sacrifice. e grew jealous of bel. God told ain that if he did his best in the ain became jealous when God accepted bel s sacrifice and not his. V 4 1 7
future, e would accept his sacrifices. ut instead, ain s jealousy toward bel turned into hatred. ventually, ain murdered his own brother! When God asked ain where bel was, he lied and told God he didn t know. ut God knew what ain had done. God sent him away from the rest of his family. ut ain never apologized for or repented of killing bel. ain s family and his children became very evil. dam lived for 930 years and had many other children. y the time he died, the world was full of people. hese children of dam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. hey did what they thought was best, not what God said was best. ecause of this, they were selfish and hateful and became liars, thieves and murderers. God helped oah and his family put all kinds of animals into the ark to save them from the Flood: seven pairs of every animal that was clean to eat and one pair of every animal that was unclean. oah and his family joined the animals inside the ark. hen God sealed the door shut! ays passed with no sign of rain. he evil people outside laughed: oah and his family were stuck with thousands of animals inside a useless boat, they said. ut after one week, the sky grew dark. ain began to fall, and water began to shoot out of the ground! eople became terrified as water began rising When God looked down and saw all the misery and evil in the world, e decided to end it. e chose to send a great flood to drown everyone. (housands of years later, God would resurrect these people and teach them is way of life.) ut God found one man who was still trying to follow is laws. is name was oah. God told oah about the coming flood and instructed him to build a giant ship, called an ark. oah obeyed. For about 120 years, he warned the evil people around him that they would die in the Flood if they did not repent. ut they refused to change and obey God. o one else on arth believed the warning God delivered through oah. 8 M M
dove returns to the ark with an olive branch, a sign of dry land. V 4 1 9
eople construct the ower of abel in an act of defiance against God. 10 M M
everywhere. he rain fell for 40 days, and every person on arth drowned except for oah and his family. For many months, the water gradually drained away. hen one day, there was a great crunching sound as oah s huge ark settled on Mount rarat. When God let oah, his family and all the animals out of the ark, oah took some of the clean animals and offered them as a sacrifice to God. God accepted oah s sacrifice and promised that e would never flood the whole arth again. s a sign of is promise, God put a rainbow in the sky. o whenever you see a rainbow, remember God s promise! W F ears passed, and oah s sons and their wives had many children. he land was again filled with people. God told the people to spread out across the arth. ut they disobeyed God, just like dam and ve and the people before the Flood. ne of oah s great-grandsons became a king in a place called hinar. is name was imrod, and he was against God. eople started obeying him instead of God. he people did not believe God s promise that e would never send another flood. hey decided to build something they thought would allow them to disobey God and avoid is punishment: a tower higher than any flood could reach. imrod told the people to stay in one place and to build this tower in a land called hinar. God saw what the people were trying to do, and e knew how to stop them. t that time, people everywhere spoke the same language. ut at the tower, God caused family groups to speak different languages. eople could not understand each other; they started to argue and fight. he tower became called the ower of abel, which means confusion. fter God confused the languages, work on the tower stopped. eople began to talk only to those who could speak the same language. hey began to separate from people who spoke different languages, and they spread out across the arth as God intended. ow God would use another plan to teach the world about is way of life. We will learn about it in the next lesson. V 4 1 11
MM ooks of the ld estament Genesis xodus eviticus umbers euteronomy Joshua Judges uth 1 amuel 2 amuel 1 Kings 2 Kings 1 hronicles 2 hronicles zra ehemiah sther Job salm roverbs cclesiastes ong of ongs saiah Jeremiah amentations zekiel aniel osea Joel mos badiah Jonah Micah ahum abakkuk Zephaniah aggai Zechariah Malachi ublished by the hiladelphia hurch of God and produced in cooperation with mperial cademy. editor in chief Gerald Flurry opyright 2016 ll rights reserved. Word earch F J M V Q Z W W Q W G F G K F M M V J Q G V W M W K G M Z V Z V F G J V M K V Z M M G W