The Way the World BeganAugust 1

3,

2016

SundayHERE’S WHAT I THINK

From time to time people will sit down and debate in a formal setting. To begin the debate, each opponent has a long opening argument in which they outline their position and a few of the supports of their argu-ment. Suppose that you were asked to defend the position of creation at a debate in your school. You want to show both the logical necessity of creation and the beauty of God’s love. For your opening argument, what ideas would you use to promote the truth of creation over evolu-tion? How would you combine God’s love with scientific fact?

Log on to www.guidemagazine.org/rtf to post your responses. Be up-front and honest. Say what you think.

MondayWHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO SAY?

Read the quotations listed below and think about how they con-nect to the topic of the lesson. Then write your own statement that reflects your position with regard to the topic of the lesson.

“The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and domain of an intelligent and powerful Being.”—Isaac Newton, 17th-century English mathematician and natural philosopher.

“The theory of undirected evolution is already dead, but the work of sci-ence continues.”—Michael Behe, American biochemist, author, and intelligent design

advocate.

“As the depth and breadth of human knowledge increases, it washes over us a flood of evidence deep and wide, all pointing to the conclusion that life is the result of design. Only a small subset of evidence, chosen carefully, may be used to construct a story of life evolving from nonliving precursors.”— Timothy Standish, professor of biology.

“God created man in His own image. Here is no mystery. There is no ground for the supposition that man was evolved by slow degrees of de-velopment from the lower forms of animal or vegetable life. Such teach-ing lowers the great work of the Creator to the level of man’s narrow, earthly conceptions. Men are so intent upon excluding God from the sovereignty of the universe that they degrade man and defraud him of the dignity of his origin. He who set the starry worlds on high and tinted with delicate skill the flowers of the field, who filled the earth and the heavens with the wonders of His power, when He came to crown His glorious work, to place one in the midst to stand as ruler of the fair earth, did not fail to create a being worthy of the hand that gave him life. The genealogy of our race, as given by inspiration, traces back its origin, not to a line of developing germs, mollusks, and quadrupeds, but to the great Creator. Though formed from the dust, Adam was ‘the son of God.’” —Ellen G. White, 19th-century inspired writer and cofounder of the Seventh-day

Adventist Church.

THE MISSING LINK

In the early 1900s Charles Dawson, an amateur geologist, found the first of a series of bones that would come to be known as the Piltdown man. Dawson took the bones to the British Museum, where they were ex-amined by the keeper of the Paleontology Department, Arthur Woodward, and pronounced to be the famed missing link, the evolutionary link be-tween apes and modern man. For the next few decades the Piltdown fos-sils kept their place as the premier example of man’s nearest ancestor.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, other similar discoveries seemed to bring into question the authenticity of the Piltdown man’s remains, and so in 1953 the Piltdown remains were intensely reexamined. During those reexaminations it was discovered that instead of belonging to the famed missing link, the bones were a combination of a human cranium, the jaw and teeth of an orangutan, and the tooth of what was probably a chimpanzee. The bones had been artificially stained with chemicals and the teeth had been filed down to simulate a human pattern of wear. All this had been done in a temporarily successful attempt to fool research-ers into thinking that the bones came from the missing link.

While it is not known for certain who planted the bones, some well- substantiated theories have been proposed. The most likely of these involves a former employee of Arthur Woodward’s. In 1996 a trunk bearing the name of Woodward’s former employee, Martin A. C. Hinton, was discovered among the effects of the British Museum. The trunk contained other samples of bone stained by using the same process as the bones of the false Piltdown man. It is supposed that Hinton, who had been denied a pay raise by his employer, Woodward, planted the hoax in an effort to discredit his boss.

Copyright © 2016 General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists®

Key Text: Choose one of the texts from Wednesday’s section of the lesson. Write it here and memorize it this week.

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Write your own quotation.

What I say is . . .

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WednesdayGOD SAYS . . .

Genesis 2:4 (NIV) “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were cre-ated, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”

Genesis 5:2 (NIV) “He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them ‘Mankind’ when they were created.”

Psalm 148:5 (NIV) “Let them praise the name of the Lord, for at his command they were created.”

Isaiah 40:26 (NIV) “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

Isaiah 42:5, 6 (NIV) “This is what God the Lord says—the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: ‘I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles.’”

Romans 1:25 (NIV) “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV) “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Titus 1:1-3 (NIV) “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness—in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior.”

1 John 2:20-22 (NIV) “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.”

TuesdaySO WHAT?

The idea that we have a Creator who loves us should affect every part of our lives. It means that not only did God send His Son to die for us, but He envisioned us and the whole world. We look around us and see so much beauty. Even in a sinful world we are surrounded by God’s majesty and splendor. When we believe in creation instead of evolution, we can be sure that we have a purpose on this earth; we are all part of God’s plan. Instead of just believing that we evolved from koala bears or mon-keys, we can think of God in the same way we can think of our parents, as someone who loved us enough to create us.

The reason so many people believe in evolution is that it appeared to be the product of facts instead of faith. For many, running from God was not an option until they had something to run to. Many people chose to “be-lieve” in the premise that the world could have started that way, and the snowball grew as it bounced down the hill in the past 100 years.

Genesis says everything started with God, and in Revelation it will end with God. In Psalms we are challenged to worship God as our Creator. In the Ten Commandments, the universal body of truth, we have a reminder of our Creator. In John 1:1-3, 14 the Creator is connected to the Savior who came to earth to live and die for us. For centuries believ-ers have never questioned the origin of the earth or belief in God—until lately. Why? Because we are smarter? Well, in some ways we have dis-covered amazing things that make life better. But how much smarter can humans be when they can’t even tell that they are putting their hands over their ears and covering their eyes to hide from God’s truth? Evolution is on the way out, and the knowledge of God is the only an-swer that fits the questions.

THE WAY THE WORLD BEGAN / August 13, 2016

Copyright © 2016 General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists®

Friday HOW DOES IT WORK?

Look for more information about creation and evolution. For a Christian perspective on the Internet go to www.answersingenesis.org. If you are interested in the science behind creationism and evolution, a nonreligious book by Richard Milton entitled Shattering the Myths of Darwinism is likely the most thoroughly researched and scientifically respected work on the subject. Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe, comes at the issue from both a Christian and a scientific perspective. Summarize what you learn in the space below:

ThursdayWHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ME?

God couldn’t conceive of living in a world without you, and so He created you. You are the crowning work of God’s creation. The Creation story tells us not only how the world began, it tells us also that God loved us enough to create a whole world for us, and to make us in His image. The Bible tells us that we are all the children of God, and the Creation story explains that thought in a literal way.

More important than the significance of the geological column, or at what depth fossils are buried, is the simple message of God’s love that the Creation story brings. When we corrupted the perfect world God had created for us, God decided that He would rather let His own Son die than to let us, His children, be lost forever. The beauty of the Creation story is in God’s love for you.