Flourish by Dr. Abidan Shah

FLOURISH by Dr. Shah, Clearview Church, Henderson, NC

Introduction:  One of our kids’ favorite movies is the computer animated science fiction WALL-E. It is set in the year 2805 AD when the Earth has become a barren wasteland, overrun with trash from years and years of mass consumerism. A 5-year plan to clean up the planet is initiated while humans are somewhere in space in a fleet of star liners. Unfortunately, the plan fails and the countless WALL-Es (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class) are shutdown, except for one. For 700 years, this one last WALL-E is still going about his day trying to clean up until one day he finds a seedling plant. As you know, he also meets a probe named EVE (she was given that name for a reason). What is relevant for our message is that the tiny green plant was the sign that Earth had become habitable. In today’s message in our apologetic series, we will also learn how God strategically began with the creation of the plant life. Here are some questions: “If the sun was not created until Day 4, how could plants survive on Day 3?” “I’ve heard of the bionic leaf. Does it mean that we can make plants now?” Main point: God has made every blade of grass, every flower in the field, every fruit on the tree, and every bush and mighty oak in the forest. They all testify to his SAP – his sustenance, his artistry, and his promises towards us. Let’s not forget – Jesus bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness.

Genesis 1:11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, andthe fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.

Context: After God created the waters and land on the third day of creation, he created the plant kingdom. Three things are mentioned: Grass (deshe), Plants (eshev), 3. Trees (ets). This does not mean that there are 3 different kinds of plants. The first (deshe) refers to vegetation generally. It emphasizes the lush greenery over a previously earthy land surrounded by water. The other 2 are the main classifications: plants that bear seeds outside and plants that bear fruits with seeds inside. The main reason for giving us plants is Genesis 1      29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Human beings (adults) require about 2000 food calories per day. That is about 8000 kJ (kilojoules). We need energy, especially from the sun. A plant produces about 100 calories per square meter of leaf surface facing the sun in one day. That is about 420 kJ. Plants are stationary and they can gain this energy. How about us? We gain that energy as we consume the plants that function as solar energy concentrators. God thought of everything! The phrase “according to its kind” is added to emphasize the “self-perpetuation” of the plant kingdom.

Can you imagine the change in the earth in just a matter of 3 days! At first, it was just plain black and white of the watery matrix. Then, comes the sky and the sea, which brings the blue color. Now, with the creation of the green plants, there is another color added to the spectrum. On day four, there will be the sun, which will bring yellow and orange. Finally, with the creation of the sea creatures and birds on day five and animals and humans on day six, there will be the red color and some of the variations. By day 7, there will be the entire spectrum of the rainbow colors – Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red. How beautiful!

Application: God is the only one who can bring color into our colorless world. The world has been trying to copy and steal this, but it belongs to him. He can do that in your life as well. It happens when you receive Christ as your Savior. Have you done that?

According to evolutionary theory, it could not be this simple (Roger Patterson listed the following development of plants according to evolution):

• Plants began as green algae and went through many adaptations to go from water to land.
• Fossil evidence for plants comes from 400 million years ago. By the way, there is not a single fossil series, transition from one form to another.
• Symbiosis helped plants survive on land.
• Initially, the forests were filled with giant ferns and cycads (thick and woody stem with large and hard leaves). These became our fossil fuels today.
• Next came the seed plants, followed by vascular plants (fossils around 375 million years ago), and finally flowering plants (fossils around 130 million years ago).

The main problem has to do with the process of photosynthesis. Simply speaking, it is the process by which plants take in carbon dioxide and sunlight and through the process of photosynthesis give out glucose and oxygen. This not only gives the plants the food they need to survive, but also gives us the oxygen we need to breathe. Top scientists from top institutions with top credentials and top technology have been trying to replicate it with very meager results. I did some research on the latest in plant physiology. Here are two I want to share:

1. According to the Harvard Gazette, Chemist Dan Nocera found a way to use sunlight to split water molecules and combine it with CO₂ to make renewable fuel. This is known as the Bionic leaf. Hopefully this will help people in poorer parts of the world, but so much more still needs to be done. Thus far, the focus is on oxygen because the project was with the Office of Naval Research to help generate oxygen on the fly for divers. There are so many issues that still have to be addressed and it is far from ready.
2. According to an article in the Heliyon, an open access science journal, Dr. Tanai Cardona from the Imperial College, London, claims by studying the enzymes involved in photosynthesis, instead of looking in ancient rocks and rock layers, that there must have been bacteria that evolved oxygenic photosynthesis and later evolved into anoxygenic photosynthesis. To have complex life-forms on earth, you need oxygen. God thought of everything. That’s why he made plants before he made animals and humans. Plants use photosynthesis (we will see that in a minute) to produce oxygen. According to the standard evolutionary theory, cyanobacteria developed the ability to do photosynthesis and produced oxygen about 2.3 billion years ago. This is based on some geochemical evidence. Don’t forget that, according to evolution, the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and earth’s atmosphere did not have any oxygen until 3 to 2.4 billion years ago. By the way, it was claimed that cyanobacteria evolved from green and purple bacteria which have only one photosystem compared to the two photosystems of cyanobacteria. What caused this evolution or replication? Never mind, there is no answer. Now it is claimed by Dr. Cardona that some ancient microbes came earlier, and it could have been as early as 3.4 billion years ago. The whole point is that if it its 3.4 billion years ago that oxygen was produced through these bacteria, then it’s only one billion years for photosynthesis to develop from the origin of the earth at 4.5 billion years. Also, life on earth began 3.7 billion years ago according to evolutionists. How does this impact their model? These gives barely 200-300 million years for all this to happen! By the way, originally his research showed that it was even longer than 4.5 billion years ago that photosynthesis began. So, he suggested that the process was faster in the beginning and then slowed down later since the earth had cooled down.

How complex is this process and God did this in less than half a day! Photosynthesis is probably the most important chemical reaction on earth, and it’s happening constantly everywhere since the beginning of time (from Jonathan Sarfati). On the surface, this is very simple, but, on closer examination, it is highly complex. The formula is six molecules of water plus six molecules of carbon dioxide produce one molecule of sugar plus six molecules of oxygen:

(6CO₂ + 12H₂O + Light Energy à C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ + 6H₂O)

The most important part of the reaction is the breaking of the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. Scientists refer to this as the OEC (Oxygen-evolving complex). This requires a lot of energy. Light in the form of photons does this, but it must be just right, not too much or too little. God designed this to occur inside the chloroplasts which contain the chlorophyll, which is necessary for photosynthesis. According to a system called Photosystem II, as the photon reaches the leaves, it is channeled through chlorophyll where it knocks out an electron from an atom and this electron helps convert sugars from CO₂. Now the chlorophyll (P680) must replenish this lost electron. This is achieved through a catalytic core present in all plants and algae – Mn₃CaO₄-Mn. This provides the redox potential, stores the energy from the four photons, and maintains the water molecules in the right positions.

Again, how awesome is our God!

Ultimately, he gave us plants, trees, and fruits for greater reasons. Here are the main ones:

1. It all started with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2        9 And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

2. It represented the curse of sin.

Deuteronomy 21      22 “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.”

3. It was on a tree that Jesus died

1 Peter 2:24 “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”

4. It is the tree of life that awaits us.

Revelation 22       1 “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations…14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.”

Invitation: Can you see God’s promises in his creation? Have you ever asked Christ to be your Savior? Are you saved? Will you have access to the tree of life?