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Category: Pentateuch Genesis-Deuteronomy

IN THE BEGINNING… Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy – Pentateuch [5 books] It’s the LAW of GOD!
Forgive us our trespasses. Jesus teaches many lessons from these books of the Bible and we have forgotten MANY of the issues and applications to our 21st century life. How can you SHARE from the beginning of the Bible with your SOCIAL ‘Friends’ and talk of Jesus as Lord? Please TITLE your post by the topic, not the verse. Include links to scriptures and helpful references. — Please post or tell us in a COMMENT how you talk of Jesus through this topic and these Old Testament scriptures.

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 7

    By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. – Hebrews 11:7 KJV

    Godly Fear

    Most of us have a challenge to our faith in God from one of two extremes. Some fear God so much that they cannot relate to the Lord’s Fatherly love for those who love Him.

    Other believers assume an automatic entry into heaven because, they say, “I am a Christian,” or I was born into a godly family. They assume a personal acceptance by a loving God they do not know and fail to follow. May God have mercy on their souls.

    And of course in addition to believers in between these two extremes are those who have no fear of the Lord. These are godless fools turned toward evil with no desire for the wisdom of God or desire to do good in place of their evil.

    He said to mankind, “The fear of the Lord is this: wisdom. And to turn from evil is understanding.” – Job 28:8

    Adam and Eve and their early descendants had a personal relationship with the Living God even after the fall. They could ask God personally for the wisdom to do good rather than turning toward evil. Yet through the generations refusal of the Lord’s advice to choose good over evil has fallen on more and more deaf ears.

    Genesis 5:

    4 Adam lived 800 years after the birth of Seth, and he fathered other sons and daughters. 5 So Adam’s life lasted 930 years; then he died…

    23 So Enoch’s life lasted 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him…

    32 Noah was 500 years old, and he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

    Time passes (hard to know how many score of generations by today’s lifetimes) and man forgets God. Almighty God our Creator becomes as irrelevant to their sin-filled lives as the Lord is to many in these last days.

    And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” – Genesis 6:3

    Apocalypse of Impending Disaster

    If you do not have a relationship with the all-knowing God, who will tell you with accuracy the disaster which draws near? And now that man has the discernment to judge between good and evil, how can you know what is good without listening to God?

    In fact, as it was in the later days of God’s true Prophets, no man listened to the Living God except one.

    Judgment Decreed

    5 When the Lord saw that man’s wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe off from the face of the earth mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” 8 Noah, however, found favor in the sight of the Lord.

    Man has not only disobeyed the Creator, but grieves the most loving heart of the Father of man created in His own image.

    Now a different relationship with the Living God will begin, one of fear.

    Genesis 6:17 “Understand that I am bringing a flood—floodwaters on the earth to destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will die. 

    Of course for those who disdained God lost in the flood, fear was short-lived until their terrible deaths. But for all who would witness the great power of the LORD in the days since Noah, the Lord God Almighty evokes fear.

    Genesis 7:

    Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before Me in this generation.

    You know the rest, or at least you think that you know the rest.

    6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood came and water covered the earth.

    It seems like a fearful children’s story. All the men and women and children of the earth were destroyed in the Lord’s cleansing flood. The potter has begun again with one man, Noah, from which He will reform the clay of His own creation.

    Are you like those who perished having no fear of the Lord or respect for the only man to hear God’s heart? (Read above of the potter and the clay, heading the fear of righteous men.)

    24 And the waters surged on the earth 150 days.

    Genesis 8:

    5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

    The Lord’s Promise
    15 Then God spoke to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—

    20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

    You and your family are the only living survivors of the earth’s worst disaster. And the Lord had warned the the evil of mankind had brought man to our own destruction. What does Noah then do? Worship! Noah thanks God for His great mercy.

    21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, He said to Himself,

    “I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though man’s inclination is evil from his youth. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done…

    Thank God, I say; thank the Lord, re-formed clay of our Creator.

    To be continued…

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 6

    Instruction in Good and Evil

    This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. – John 15:12

    The Lord loved the work of His creation, especially man, made in his own image. Adam and Eve were more special and blessed than any of God’s created ones. The Lord had been like a father instructing them and walking beside the man and the woman in Eden.

    In our last look at Adam’s temptation and original sin we established the radical change required now that man knew good and evil. At first Adam had only one rule to obey. The Lord commanded. DO NOT desire the knowledge of good and evil. That’s it; don’t eat that fruit! Everything else? Fine.

    Now man will require some instruction as to what is good and what is evil. Not so easy. The Lord will instruct them.

    Adam and Eve have children (after all, not only was it pleasurable and fulfilling, but the Lord had commanded it). These first parents had a relationship with God and could ask the Lord for help with their children.  (We do that, right? … or at least we should.)

    God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” – Genesis 1:28

    God had instructed them like a loving father; now these original parents will instruct their children in that same love. Children who know nothing of evil and have never seen paradise will learn of good and evil, with God’s help.

    Godly Instruction in Good and Evil

    You will recognize sin leading to a later Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not murder;’ but note other sins present here as well.  Our familiarity with two of Adam’s sons, Cain and Abel, could obscure some of the Lord’s instruction. 

    Your full consideration of Scripture linked here is always welcome, however let’s read just an excerpt.

    Genesis 4:

    6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent?

    For our instruction in good and evil, note the Lord’s two descriptive emotions: furious and despondent. Think of your own emotions related to jealousy or envy of another, as was the case with Cain of Abel.

    “Why art thou wroth,” reads the King James, for translation from Hebrew of Charah  חָרָה  speaks of a burning anger.

    Do you suppose that Adam, also now knowing good and evil instructed his sons in righteousness? What parent doesn’t? And for that matter what parent does not also need the help of the Lord?

    (God help me with this child! What parent has not made this plea?)

    The other emotion mentioned also causes us much anguish, perhaps as consequence of our powerless ability to please others. Again, the King James translates, “and why is thy countenance fallen?”

    Despondent is apt image of the fallen face of one so disappointed. If we have eyes to see the face of another we can always see it, just as a face may also reflect radiant joy.

    Our sin and guilt will cause a fallen countenance, translated from the Hebrew: פָּנִים paniym or face נָפַל naphal or fall. After man’s fall, a fallen face due to our inability to please the Lord.

    What instruction could the Lord have for the son of Adam about his fallen condition?

    A Caution to choose Good and not Evil

    Genesis 4:7 If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? 

    We do not automatically receive God’s blessing. The Lord instructs us to consider our choices. 

    In this case, Abel had received blessing, but Cain’s offering to the Lord was not accepted. It begs a weighty question for us when we fall short of the Lord’s expectation (and we all do at times).

    What should I do to be accepted by God?

    The Lord’s answer seems so simple, ‘do what is right,’ yet it comes with a caution as well.

    But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.

    Again, a helpful picture, ‘sin crouching at the door.’ This is actually the Bible’s first reference to sin, חַטָּאָת chatta’ath, from the root word חָטָא, meaning ‘to miss the mark.’ I can easily picture the Lord’s caution to not trip over the obstacle of sin before the doorstep of heaven.

    Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

    Do you also find it interesting that the Lord personifies sin here as having desire for you?

    Desire is certainly a human trait; but as we learned from Satan’s fall, also an angelic trait. 

    Sin! crouching at our door: its desire is for you and for me.

    But we must rule over it, says the Lord. We must defeat sin in the great and ongoing battle between good and evil.

    Cain failed and sinned. Yet do not condemn Cain like the son of another, but rather have pity for him like you would your own son. And have compassion on other sinners. With God’s help some who fall short will do good and gain the Lord’s acceptance. And in Christ even a sinner like you and me has hope.

    Now That We Have the Knowledge of Good and Evil

    Perhaps on occasion your face falls at the thought of our past and inevitable sin. For the task of our earthly knowledge of good and evil weighs heavily upon us. ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’

    For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. – Romans 3:23

    Do you recall that Adam and Eve had more sons? For we are sons of Seth, Son of Adam. Therefore our instruction in good and evil must progress.

    The Lord will not only give us the Law through Moses, but also redeem us from our sin by the Son of Man.

    To be continued…

     

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 5

    Temptation: “Did God really say…?”

    Genesis 3:

    The Temptation and the Fall
    3 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

    Here it begins, original sin.

    I might have easily named this series, ‘Temptation Before Disobedience,’ yet we shall not fall into this pit. Rather than taking the more traveled path of placing blame on the already-fallen Satan, we shall examine the progression of our own disobedience to God.

    Genesis 2:17 .. but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

    One point of my previous post, knowledge of good and evil comes to man with overwhelming responsibility, as well as consequence for sin. Returning to Genesis 3 and Satan’s temptation for man’s disobedient fall:

    “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:5 

    So yes, we know of good and evil independently of obedience to God. Yet are we like God?

    In so many ways this frail, fallen flesh created in God’s imagine no longer reflects the Lord’s righteousness. Each reflection of our sin clouds the clarity of the Lord’s gleaming glory.

    And the Lord said of creation, “It is good;” yet in so many ways since man’s temptation to judge good and evil, it is not so good.

    Before we proceed past original sin, let’s briefly consider the relationship between Adam and Eve with the Lord prior to their temptation.

    God in the Garden Paradise

    No one has ever seen God. – John 1:18

    Image yourself as Adam if you are a man, or as Eve if you are a woman, walking in paradise with the Living God. (You have not yet sinned.) 

    Can you describe your personal relationship with the One who has created you and walks with you in Eden? What is the Lord like? 

    He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. – John 1:2-3

    In this paradise of Eden, the Person of the Lord seems to nurture a newborn existence in a vast and wonderful place. 

    Colossians 1:

    15 He is the image of the invisible God,
    the firstborn over all creation.
    16 For everything was created by Him,
    in heaven and on earth,
    the visible and the invisible…

    17 He is before all things,
    and by Him all things hold together.

    John 1:1

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    How would Adam or Eve described God before the fall?

    The Creator walks with us! He IS the image of the invisible God in whose image we are also created. The Lord is not an angel (though some later descriptions call Him ‘The Angel of the Lord’). God is a loving Person, a Father if you will, to both of us.

    But then… we both sinned…

    7 “Then the eyes of both of them were opened,” Moses records. It’s not that they were literally blind, but by their new-found knowledge they now saw, heard and realized things they never needed to know.

    Eyes Opened to our Sin

    We heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and we hid  from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. We were naked. Although we had always been naked, something told us that no one else should see us that way, so we clothed ourselves with leaves.

    We heard the familiar voice of the Lord:

    “Where are you?”

    We had never hidden from Him. Adam called out from behind the trees for both of us:

    10 And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

    “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

    Of course… we had.

    And somehow we knew that it was wrong. Never before had we ever considered that anything we had done had been either right or wrong. We just did it and lived with great joy in paradise.

    Well, you know the rest. Excuses, punishment for our disobedience… 

    We then began our schooling in the differences between blessing and curse. But now it was too late, for we could not go back to the Paradise where we had lived in overflowing joy with the Lord God.

    When the Lord had blessed us He had commanded, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” Now beyond Eden these words to fill the earth, and subdue it seem burdensome rather than a blessing. And the Lord has said that we now have only a lifetime to begin that which once seemed timeless.

    The Lord says that we now have eyes to see and ears to hear what is good and what is evil. Be careful to do all that is good and shun what is evil He has said. 

    How long, O Lord, until you will return us to your glory? More than a lifetime? 

    And what must it be like to first return to the dust…

    To be continued…

     

     

     

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