Category: Adam and Eve

Shallow #4

Friday, October 25, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

Man’s fall into sin resulted because of his deliberate disregard for God’s Word. What was the result of this fall? It did not take very long for the degradation of human marriage (Adam turning on his wife, Eve), the decline of the family (Cain murdering his brother, Abel), and the collapse and nearly complete obliteration of human civilization (the wicked world destroyed in the Great Flood). We will briefly focus on the last two events.

Cain refused to bring the blood sacrifice that God commanded, so when his brother Abel confronted him, Cain murdered Abel (Genesis 4:1-7; Hebrews 11:4; 1 John 3:12). Not only did Cain reject God’s Word to him that Abel spoke, but Cain was unconcerned about his brother and he showed no remorse when God asked him where Abel was (see Genesis 4:8-15).

In Genesis chapter 6, some 1,600 years after the Fall of Man in Eden, we read: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (verse 5). Here, the human population may be as high as four billion, and nearly every soul is cooperating with Satan’s policy of evil. Amidst this worldwide corruption and violence (verses 11,12), we find one man, Noah, “a just [righteous] man and perfect [upright] in his generations, and [he] walked with God” (verse 9).

Of all the billions in the world, God commissions Noah to build an ark, in order to save the animal species and the human seed-line. There is a worldwide flood coming, and for 120 years, Noah preaches God’s Word to the world (Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:18-20; 2 Peter 2:5). Instead, they ridicule and ignore God’s Word through Noah. As Noah constructs the huge ark, the world just continues—gleefully and deliberately—in its wickedness….

Shallow #3

Thursday, October 24, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

In the moments following Adam’s consumption of the forbidden fruit, he and Eve realized that Satan’s policy of evil was infiltrating creation. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). They knew what happened as a result of their abandonment of God’s Word. The effects of sin were felt immediately.

On the very day of man’s fall, we see the cessation of Adam and Eve’s perfect marital relationship. Man’s perfect relationship with his Creator also vanishes. When the LORD God asked Adam if he had eaten of the forbidden tree, Adam replied, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12).

Adam has now turned against Eve. Notice how he blamed Eve for his deliberate mistake in following her in her ignorance! Eve was tricked, and so she ate; however, Adam knew better and he ate anyway. Also, see how Adam shifted the blame from himself, to Eve, and ultimately, to God—“the woman whom thou gavest to be with me.” Adam blamed God for his sinful action because God had given him Eve. Again, recall, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:14).

We must not look down upon Adam. To this very day, we all, at some time or another, deliberately reject God’s Word, sin, and then blame someone else—often God! Yes, Genesis chapter 3 is the best authority on human psychology!

As time passes, Adam and Eve have sons, Cain and Abel, with Cain eventually and unapologetically murdering Abel in a fit of religious rage (Genesis 4:1-15). Here, we see the breakdown of the family. By the time we get to Noah’s day, 1,600 years later, there is worldwide wickedness (Genesis 6:1-8). Now, we see the breakdown of civilization….

Shallow #2

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

The significant cultural changes occurring today are unmistakably identical to three turning points in human history. Each of these turning points can be studied in the Scriptural record, and we would do well if we looked at them, considered them, and learned from them.

Undoubtedly, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). The first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, whose body was taken from Adam’s body (Genesis 2:21-25), were not just physically alive, but spiritually alive, too! They lived in harmony with each other and with their Creator God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Like the three Persons of the Godhead, Adam and Eve loved each other, living for and seeking each other’s good. Selfishness, war, hate, and sickness and suffering were absent. Indeed, they had eternal life—they enjoyed God’s life!

Unfortunately, Satan successfully destroyed that perfect life Adam and Eve had. Eve, unable to adequately remember God’s Word to her (or perhaps Adam failed to properly communicate it to her), was confused and tricked, and in ignorance, she participated in Satan’s rebellion by eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:1-6). Verse 6 says, “and [Eve] gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Adam made no objection whatsoever! “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:14).

Satan tricked Eve (2 Corinthians 11:3), but the Apostle Paul made it very clear in 1 Timothy 2:14 that “Adam was not deceived.” Adam was completely aware of what he was doing in the Garden of Eden, but he actually preferred to join his wife in rebellion against God than lose her. Adam’s deliberate refusal to believe and apply God’s Word ushered in this fallen creation, one that knows nothing of that original eternal life….

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #4

Sunday, September 29, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

Satan’s rebellion against God, which started in heaven, then infiltrated the earth with the fall of man. Adam—actually all of mankind—was to be God’s vessel in fulfilling His will in the earth (Genesis 1:26,28), but Adam sinned and failed (Romans 5:12). God then created the nation Israel to do in the earth what Adam failed to do (Exodus 19:5,6), but Israel also sinned and failed (Jeremiah 31:32).

Once Israel reached the point where she adamantly and continually rejected God’s will for her—the culmination of her unbelief was Acts chapter 7 with the stoning of the prophet Stephen—God set into motion a plan for the heavenly places, a plan that He had kept secret during the entire time He was revealing to man His purpose and plan for earth (Romans 16:25 cf. Acts 3:21).

In today’s Scripture, the Apostle Paul is preaching in Athens to remind these lost pagans that their idols of silver, gold, and stone that they have invented and carved and molded, are the results of their spiritual blindness. God, having given these Gentiles over to Satan in Genesis chapter 11 (so He could form the nation Israel in Genesis chapter 12 with Abraham), is now reaching out to them through the fall of Israel and through Paul’s ministry (Romans 11:11-13).

Paul urged these Gentiles, whose spirits were dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3) and whose souls were darkened by Satan the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:3,4), to receive the light of God’s Word that he is preaching to them. They are to recognize their error, change their mind (repent), and start thinking of the triune God as the living and true God, not as some worthless, inanimate idol.

By faith, they are to submit to the construction of JEHOVAH’S new temple….

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #2

Friday, September 27, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

“For by him [the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Colossians 1:16). God created and placed angels in heaven to serve Him there, and He created and placed man on earth to serve Him there.

Man was to govern earth for God’s glory as Genesis 1:26,28 explain: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God blessed them [Adam and Eve], and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish [fill up] the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Psalm 8:4,7-9 elaborate: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”

Adam was to prepare earth for God to come down and dwell on, but Adam sinned, delaying the construction of that “temple….”

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #1

Thursday, September 26, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

Job, the oldest Bible book (predating Moses and his books of Genesis to Deuteronomy), summarizes the hope of every believer who lived in the “Old Testament” economy (although, technically, this was also the hope of believers in Christ’s earthly ministry and the early Acts period):

“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:25-27).

As a representative of the believers living in Israel’s program, Job shows us that the hope the believer in the God of the Bible had was not to go to heaven, but rather to be resurrected bodily to live forever in an earthly kingdom with that God reigning. As opposed to them expecting to go to heaven upon death, these saints expected heaven to come down to earth (literally, “heaven on earth”)! This was the hope believers had prior to the salvation and ministry of the Apostle Paul.

In early Acts, the Apostle Peter offered to Israel that earthly kingdom which was “spoken by the mouth of all [God’s] holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). That earthly kingdom was the heart of “the Gospel of the Kingdom” that John the Baptist preached, that Jesus Christ Himself preached in His earthly ministry, and the Gospel that He commissioned Israel’s 12 apostles to preach (Matthew 3:2; Matthew 4:17; Matthew 9:35; Matthew 10:7; Matthew 24:14; Mark 1:14; et al.).

Note how Peter says that God’s promise of that earthly kingdom goes right back to Adam, the first man. That kingdom prophesied “since the world began” is still postponed.…

Where Was God? #3

Monday, September 16, 2013

“Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1 KJV).

One of the most common questions ever asked….

Adam, the federal head (representative) of the human race, exercised his free will, and he deliberately made the wrong choice (1 Timothy 2:11-15). Today, all of creation, especially man, suffers the consequences, as the Apostle Paul explains so clearly: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:… for if by one man’s offence death reigned by one… therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation… for as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…” (Romans 5:12,17-19).

By Adam, sin infiltrated the original, perfect (sinless) world system: hence, the Scriptures speak of “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4). The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). God had already warned Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). After partaking of that forbidden fruit, however, Adam continued to physically live another 930 years (Genesis 5:5). And yet, he and Eve died right there in the Garden of Eden just as God had foretold (in Eden, they died spiritually, unable to commune with God, which is the natural state of man right from birth).

Where was God on September 11, 2001? In the same place He was when Adam sinned that first time. From heaven’s glory, God Almighty watched man make a choice to follow Him or Satan. God’s wrath against the world’s sin is coming, but the 9/11 terrorist attacks were just sinful man’s actions (remember, where there is sin, there is death). Our world has never seen God’s wrath, yet.

Thankfully, just as God was there to provide man with a free will, and He was there to observe man exercise that free will, He was also there to graciously make provisions (Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork) for the inevitable sins that man would commit….

Where Was God? #2

Sunday, September 15, 2013

“Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1 KJV).

One of the most common questions ever asked….

How in the world did the world ever get the way it is? Does God really care about us? If so, why does He not do anything to make it better? Or, as the deists claim, is God completely unconcerned with the universe He created? Will God ever intervene and set things right?

One of the most basic teachings of Scripture is the concept of sin and death. Wherever we find sin, we find death; wherever we find death, we find sin. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a).

When the Lord Jesus Christ placed Adam on planet earth, He instructed Adam: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16,17). Notice the word “freely,” as in, free will—God refused to have man be a robot. The Lord knew good and well that, by giving man these choices, there was the risk of Adam making the wrong decision.

Once God made Eve, Adam repeated God’s instructions to her. At this point, either Adam failed to properly communicate God’s Word to Eve, or Eve just did not remember God’s Word correctly. Whichever the case, the serpent (Satan) tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Genesis 3:6). The Bible says Eve was “deceived,” but Scripture also says Adam knew exactly what he was doing (1 Timothy 2:11-15).

Again, God knew full well what would happen. He watched the fall of man occur in the Garden of Eden, and did not prevent it. Man had to choose, and choose he did….

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
NOTE: 333 Words of Grace is pleased to announce the launching of two new pages, which will make site navigation easier. You can also find these links at the top of the homepage. 🙂
Master List of Devotionals (Alphabetized)
Master List of Devotionals (Chronological)

Mercy and Not Sacrifice? #4

Monday, September 9, 2013

“But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:7,8 KJV).

What did our Lord mean in today’s Scripture?

Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11, and Hebrews 4:3-11 explain how the Sabbath day (the day of God’s “rest”) was the sign of God’s earthly kingdom (God’s “rest”). Psalm 132:5,8,13,14, the words of King David, enlighten: “Until I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob…. Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength…. For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.”

The Sabbath-day rest reminded Israel of God’s original purpose in creation, and her role in His plan to reclaim the earth. Had Adam not sinned, God’s earthly kingdom would have been established 6,000 years ago with Adam and Eve. God created the nation Israel to do what Adam failed to do in the earth, but Israel too fell into sin, so again, God’s earthly kingdom was postponed. That earthly kingdom was in David’s mind when he sought to build the Temple, God’s house (Psalm 132 in the previous paragraph, and note how God declared, “This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.”).

Unfortunately, 600 years after David, at the close of the “Old Testament” Scriptures, sinful Israel has been scattered among the nations, JEHOVAH’S glory has left the Temple, and the Temple has been utterly destroyed. For the next 400 years, God is silent toward Israel (John the Baptist’s ministry breaks that silence).

When we come to the context of today’s Scripture, we find Jesus Christ, the LORD of Psalm 132, now come to His nation Israel. The mighty JEHOVAH has now arrived in human flesh to offer Himself as their King, to usher in that kingdom whose establishment has been repeatedly interrupted by sin.

The Pharisees, blinded by their religious fervor, fail to see Jesus as “Lord of the sabbath day….”

The Thing Which is Good

Monday, September 2, 2013

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth” (Ephesians 4:28 KJV).

On this Labor Day, we talk about work, “the thing which is good.”

In this day and age of increasing “government assistance,” people are becoming less and less aware of our hard work being the Lord Jesus’ preferred method of the source of our incomes. While the physically and mentally disabled are obvious exceptions, the God of the Bible expects all of us to contribute labor in order to provide for ourselves. For children and young adults, even being a student in school is work enough!

Observe the doctrine being communicated in today’s Scripture. The grace life does not merely teach us to quit doing bad things, but it also instructs us to start doing good things (Titus 2:11,12). Once a thief trusts the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished crosswork as sufficient payment for his sins, then God expects that thief to quit stealing and find a job so he can provide for his needs!

The God of creation calls work “the thing which is good” (today’s Scripture). Work is not something to be avoided; it is something to be embraced for the Lord’s glory!

When the Lord Jesus Christ put the first man, Adam, on earth, that man had a divine commission. Adam was not to simply loaf around and do nothing: “And the LORD God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Adam was to protect that garden, to till its ground, to prepare it for Jesus Christ to come down and dwell in with he and Eve (because of sin, that earthly kingdom over which Jesus Christ will rule is still awaiting fulfillment!).

Saints, may we work to provide for our families (1 Timothy 5:8), and may we work to help those who truly are needy (today’s Scripture). In the words of God the Holy Spirit, that is “good!” 🙂