Christian Social Witness has increasingly become about SOCIAL MEDIA platforms & sharing live preaching & local Bible studies virtually. Stories in this category address 21st c. Christian issues of communication. Here’s where I need your help:
Would you email Roger@talkofJesus.com and tell us how, when & especially where you TALK to others online? Thanks for your COMMENTS & ideas. – Roger
Today’s Scriptural Rerun from the first of a three-post series in A.D. 2013 only includes one verse, Genesis 1:2a from the King James Version; however I share much about the history of King James, sovereign forefather to the current queen celebrated today, 2 June, in the year of our Lord 2022.
FYI
HRH (Her Royal Highness) Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Mountbatten-Windsor was born in AD 1923 (the same year as my deceased father)
Elizabeth became Queen of the realm when her father King George VI died 6 February AD 1952
Queen Elizabeth’s coronation took place 2 June in the year of our Lord 1953 in Westminster Abbey
The Queen married Philip Mountbatten in 1947 but did not adopt his surname as is usual.
Prior to 1917, royals did not have a surname and instead used the name of their father’s “House” for example, Tudor. – source
The Queen’s titles include:
Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith
Careful when equating Jesus to a King or Queen of this temporal earthly realm
When some quote Scripture, often King James will honored for his English translation of the BIBLE. READ MORE about King James and others connected with the early English Bible below:
You showed me a scene I had never seen of the death of Abel.. and Eve mourning the loss of her son murdered by her other son… and about sin in Eden. Was this story of Moses true?
I have shown you scenes revealed to Moses from near the beginning of time. His story was true, though Moses was not there.
Tell me, why did Moses leave Egypt?
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter..
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he persevered, as though seeing Him who is unseen.
Hebrews 11:27 NASB
Moses was sort of a shepherd then, wasn’t he?
Yes, in a sense.. But a later shepherd led his followers to the right answer from Scripture to your question. Do you recall what David said?
מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד יְהוָה רֹעִי לֹא אֶחְסָֽר׃
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Moses followed the unseen Shepherd as he led the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.
So is this place like when you showed me what happened east of Eden?
These scenes take place in the unseen places above the heavens — or beneath the earth — places connected to the timeline of man yet separate from the mortal life of any one man or woman.
I don’t think I understand, I thought as my Guide explained unseen places where He has evidently led me.
Allow me to show you one such unseen scene from around the time of Moses. The actions here impact a righteous man who lived in a different land. But this scene does not take place there.
superhuman adversary, הַשּׂ׳ : a. of Job, one of בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים Job 1:6, 7 (twice in verse); Job 1:8, 9, 12 (twice in verse); Job 2:1, 2(twice in verse); Job 2:3, 4 (twice in verse); Job 2:6, 7. b. of high priest of Israel before י׳, Zechariah 3:1, 2(twice in verse); Greek Version of the LXX. ὁ διάβολος. c. as proper name שׂ׳ Satan 1 Chronicles 21:1 (interpret 2 Samuel 24:1), Greek Version of the LXX διάβολος (Greek Version of the LXX σατάν 1 Kings 11:14, 23; Σατανᾶς Matthew 4:10; Mark 1:13; Luke 10:18 + 33 times NT).
And as Moses said, this Tempter is cunning; and as a spirit shepherding evil in the unseen places he has many names, sometimes even appearing as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
שָׂטַן
śāṭan – verb
Outline of Biblical Usage (Qal) to be or act as an adversary, resist, oppose
Strong’s Definitions שָׂטַן sâṭan, saw-tan’; a primitive root; to attack, (figuratively) accuse:—(be an) adversary, resist.
Job seemed helpless; not able to do anything about the evil.
Satan requested permission from God to contend with him on earth.
My thoughts and countenance were really quite dejected by now..
Remember what David said about the valley of the shadow of death? .. It is the place of evil.
I recalled briefly the Lord’s words to Cain before he murdered Abel.. The LORD cautioned Able BEFORE he turned against his brother and against the LORD who was with him and leading him along the valley of the shadow…
So how can any man resist evil from these unseen places and remain faithful to the LORD?
Do you know how David petitioned the LORD when God was angry at him for his sin?
Just like Moses, I thought, David had murdered a man. He had blood on his hands.. NO LESS THAN CAIN!
LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.
Psalm 38:1 NIV
Some prayers are praises to God who we cannot see, while others are petitions from our place near the valley of the shadow to the unseen place — a place above time and circumstance where the Lord sits on the Throne of justice and the Mercy Seat of redemption.
Eve encountered an adversary opposed to God! As did the first adam and the sons of adam.. Job.. and David.. And yes, so have you. And WHY? David tells us.
Because those who follow God and do what is good suffer evil by the hand of the adversary of the LORD God lurking in the unseen places. For Satan is an enemy of all Light which overcomes the darkness.
21 Do not abandon me, Lord; My God, do not be far from me! 22 Hurry to help me, Lord, my salvation!
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
An illustration of times in life beyond the bounds of time and place.
We learned (with our eyes closed) that sometimes the only way for the blind to see beyond the ends of the infinite line of time is to listen to our Guide rather than than embrace the false vision of a fallen world.
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.
Genesis 2:15 NASB20
The Characters
Narrator
a Guide, who has led our Narrator through scenes so far near the beginning of time and engages us in conversation and thought about God’s word and character
Cahyin– קַ֫יִן proper name, masculine Cain, Kain eldest son of Adam and Eve
a farmer (or a gardener)
Abel – הֶבֶל Hebel, heh’-bel; , the son of Adam:—Abel.
a shepherd
the LORD – יְהֹוָה Yᵊhōvâ
Eve – חַוָּה khav-vaw’ Eve = “life” or “living”
(living with the grief of the death of her son Abel and the sin of her son Cain)
the Serpent – נָחָשׁ naw-khawsh’, From נָחַשׁ nâchash, naw-khash’; a primitive root; properly, to hiss
the Hunter, cunning, constantly questioning God and known by many names
Now Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground.
He has sown the seeds of envy and will harvest the thistles of thanklessness.
Insight of the Guide about the Gardener, Cahyin
“Not only is this tragic death of their son Abel new to them,” my guide pointed out to me, “the impact of DEATH itself has just gripped Adam and Eve — two parents who the LORD had told many years before,
You open your eyes in a place of darkness. And darkness and deception are the place where the hunter hides.
If you look closely you will find the hunter wherever there is disobedience to God.
Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made.
Genesis 3:1a NASB20
Introducing the first adam:
COMMENTARY: Adam did not create Eve.Some Bibles translate 'Adam' as 'man' because Scripture commonly uses the word to mean (literally) mankind (by contrast to creatures of God not in His image).
COMMENTARY: Note that WIFE and WOMAN are the same word: אִשָּׁה 'iššâ
Once upon a time…
… there was a woman. She was wife of the man. They both sinned. And almost immediately their own children (even as grown men) also sinned.
It was only then that Eve would have wailed wantonly with tears of remorse.
For by their sin, she and her husband would first witness death — as the LORD God had warned — DEATH of their son by the blood-stained hands of the first son of the first adam who disobeyed God.
They had ALL been deceived by the constant, cunning questioning by the hissing hater of God.
