Bret- "If you want to believe (B Lee V) that God created the land with the ability to automatically sprout out the Grass & Trees ... I can handle that?"
That is exactly what God did! And whatever the land and waters couldn't do on their own automatically, God made happen by stacking nature's deck to deliver biological aces! It wasn't based on chance as the Darwinists claim.
I'm so happy that you finally see how God actually uses nature to create all life forms. Excellent, we are making progress!
Now if you disagree with my last remarks, please tell me how you rationalize your version whereby God performs the creation directly and leaves nature out of the loop.
Besides the 'let the waters swarm', 'let the earth sprout', and 'let the earth bring forth' verses, here are some other verses, that support God slowly creating generation by generation according to His plan throughout antiquity and divinely pruning the tree of life that He has grown. Examples are from the NET.
Examples of God creating all things and the creation not left to chance:Colossians 1:16 for all things in heaven and on earth were created in him—all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers—all things were created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him. {Referring to Jesus Christ}
John 1:3 3 All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.
Isaiah 29:16 Your thinking is perverse! Should the potter be regarded as clay? Should the thing made say about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?
Examples of God's foreknowlege of His creation:Isaiah 46:9 Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! Truly I am God, I have no peer; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 who announces the end from the beginning and reveals beforehand what has not yet occurred, who says, ‘My plan will be realized, I will accomplish what I desire,
Jeremiah 1:4The Lord said to me, 5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”
Examples of God's creation generation by generation:Isaiah 41:4 Who acts and carries out decrees? Who summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end—I am the one.
Psalms 145:13 Your kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.
Ecclesiastes 1:4 A generation comes and a generation goes, but the earth remains the same through the ages.
Lamentations 5:19 But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation.
Examples of God's control over procreation:1 Corinthians 15:37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed—perhaps of wheat or something else. 38 But God gives it a body just as he planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. 39 All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another.
Psalms 139:13 Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb.
Job 40:15 “Look now at Behemoth, which I made as I made you; it eats grass like the ox. {God talking to Job}
Job 31:15 Did not the one who made me in the womb make them?
Luke 1:35 And the messenger answering said to her, `The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also the holy-begotten thing shall be called Son of God;
Examples of divine selection and God's ability to prune the tree of life:Isaiah 37:7 Look, I will take control of his mind; he will receive a report and return to his own land. I will cut him down with a sword in his own land."'"
Jeremiah 17:10 I, the LORD, probe into people's minds. I examine people's hearts. I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done..
Genesis 7:4 For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”
Isaiah 46:3 “Listen to me, O family of Jacob, all you who are left from the family of Israel, you who have been carried from birth, you who have been supported from the time you left the womb. 4 Even when you are old, I will take care of you, even when you have gray hair, I will carry you. I made you and I will support you; I will carry you and rescue you.
Job 38:41 Who prepares prey for the raven, when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?
Isaiah 40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant. 24 Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw.
Ge 20:17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children. 18 For the Lord had caused infertility to strike every woman in the household of Abimelech because he took Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
Mt 10:29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 Even all the hairs on your head are numbered. 31 So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows.