Welcome to week 2 of our Continuing with Jesus series.

Our second lesson is around the Genesis account of creation and what is known as the fall – when man disobeyed God and sin entered the world. Let’s start by defining what is meant by the Genesis account of Creation and what is meant by the fall.

The Bible starts off by saying that, “In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. It goes on to list a day by day account of the things that God created over six days. God by His spoken Word created the whole world. God said, “Let there be light”... and there was light. Day, Night, land, water, stars, moon, trees, grass, fish and flying things, all spoken into being by the power of God’s spoken Word. Day six, God created all the animals on the earth, all living things, finally culminating in the Creation of man. It ends says, “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good”. On the seventh day God rested.

Now why is it important to believe the Biblical account of God creating everything if we are going to be Christians? This is one of the most consistently ‘attacked’ truths of the Bible especially in the past century or so. The theory of evolution, which is often taught as fact by schools and educational institutions, would try and state that everything actually came from nothing but rather an event known as the ‘big bang’ - nothing exploded. This started an evolutionary chain of random and accidentally events that happened over billions of year (add enough zeros to the time line and apparently anything can happen) and culminates with all that we have today. Therefore the devil has used this theory to persuade millions that if the first account of the Bible is not true then how can you trust the rest of the Bible – you might as well throw the whole Bible out.

Just as vitally, it means you don’t believe the very next encounter that the Bible speaks about and the entrance into the story of the main protagonist – the devil himself and evil itself. This is what is meant by the fall – when mankind, Adam and Eve, were tempted by the serpent to disobey God and they choose rebellion against God. Because true love and relationship involves free choice, God said to Adam and Eve could do anything, but eat fruit from one tree – the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The devil came and twisted God’s words – and then Eve followed by Adam ate the fruit from the tree. God’s perfect created world now had a virus – sin. This is what is known as the fall of mankind – the state of man from being in obedient and in God’s perfect plan to that of guilty disobedience and bring disconnected from God Who gives life.

So this is the truth that we believe, based on the Word of God. God created everything – including you! You are not an evolutionary fluke or accident – the Bible says before the foundation of the earth – God knew you, He planned you, gave you life and has a purpose for you.  But that truth also comes with the reality that sin entered the world and has separated us from God.  Man is not by default good; do you have to teach a child to be naughty or good? We have the seed of sin – and we need to be reconnected to our life-giving God.

Without Genesis, there is no Creator God, mankind has no sin, there is no morality and no ultimate authority, people can live however they want and do whatever they please, and there is no need for a Saviour to bring us back into relationship with God. This is why Genesis and the beginning are so pivotal in founding our beliefs.

This is why in our statement of believes we have: we believe that God created the universe and that all people are created in the image of God, to love and worship God. To have relationship with God.

We also believe in the existence and person of the devil, who actively opposes the purposes of God and through his influence brought in the fall of humanity. All people have rejected God through their sinful acts and are separated from God. This fortunately is not the end of the story – merely the beginning – which is what Genesis means – beginnings.

Read the Genesis Account of Creation in Chapters 1 & 2

Psalms 139:14 says “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. Jeremiah 1:5 has God saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you”.

How does the belief that you are created in God’s image and that you were formed by God for a special purpose influence how you might think about yourself and how you live?

How does believing, as evolution would say, that you are the result of random processes over a massive amount of time influence how you would think about yourself and how you would live?

Does knowing that you have inherent worth and value to God as being the crowning glory of God's creation, change your perspective and view of yourself?

A number of scientist in the scientific revolution upheld ‘that the physical laws he had uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God’.  The design and order seen throughout the natural goings of even our solar system, the earth rotating around the sun, the moon around the earth, tides, seasons; the perfect environment for live to flourish, both fauna and flora – and then add to that the complexity of a human – this would all point to, as the saying said, a Designer / Creator.

Would you agree with this? Why or why not?

Read Genesis chapter 3 - the Temptation and Fall of Man

Romans 3:23 states, that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Even though God created a perfect world and we can still see the 'goodness' of creation, sin has entered and brought the curse of death - which is also very evident in the broken and fallen state of humanity.

What do you think sin is? And what do you think is the result of sin?

Twin Rivers Identity Series - https://twinrivers.org.au/media/identity-11