Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: Genesis

  • The First Family

    The First Family

    I have gotten a man from the LORD.

    These are the words of Eve from Genesis 4:1 KJV.

    The relationship is with her husband: “And Adam knew Eve his wife…” the conception is by her husband and the birth is through the woman. She conceived and bare a son, Cain, who is a man created in her womb by God.

    Cain and Abel

    4 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.”

    Some time passes. Adam knew Eve, again (yada`).

    2 And again, she bore his brother Abel.

    More time passes as their boys grow up, as happens seemingly quickly in all families. Description of these young men now is of their vocations – work. It is a description of the purpose of their work and their attitude of relationship toward God in this land East of Eden.

    Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

    (No specifics here, just that both came to worship the Lord – a relationship and a thankfulness of an offering. Yet how thankful? God must judge.)

    And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

    (Imagine that! God likes someone else better than ME!) Is envy not also evil?

    So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

    6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?

    7 If you do well, will you not be accepted?

    And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

    Is the Lord God, your Creator who knew you in your mother’s womb not the loving Father who will accept what you do when you do well?

    Of course. Do not compare your offering to your brother. Do what is good in the eyes of the Lord.

    Again, a rule so simple. Yet Cain failed to rule over his sin.

    Skipping over (though not lightly) his murder of his brother and continuing in the story of Adam and Eve and the first generation of this first family, evicted from Eden. Cain is driven even further from Eden and further from his biological parents, Adam and Eve.

    How they must have grieved over the loss of the younger brother. And now God drives the older brother even further from the first parents of this first broken family.

    13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

    Genesis 4 continues the story of Cain, but let us remain on the ground absorbed with the blood of Abel and the grieving parents, Adam and Eve. (O, to be back in Eden; but it can never be.)

    Adam and Eve age, even as Cain, a grown man continues to age and have children and grandchildren of his own in another place. (The Bible does not relate the beginnings of most of the women married to these men.)

    25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

    100 year old man and family26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.

    Grandchildren, blessed grandchildren; and they call on the name of the Lord.

    Adam and Eve have not forgotten the Lord. They obviously raised Seth in the knowledge of the Lord.

    Adam’s Descendants to Noah

    5 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.

    3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

    (Adam, 130 years old and his slightly younger wife, Eve, had another baby!)

    We can barely imagine a mortal man living nine centuries, instead of struggling to survive just one… generally even fewer years of our mortality.

    4 The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. 5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

    The generations of the cursed ground are then counted in this first Book of Moses through the sons of Noah.

    Then the Lord would have need to cleanse the earth and begin once more…

     

     

     

  • By the sweat of your face

    By the sweat of your face

    “By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
    till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
    for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.” –     Genesis 3:19

    worker thirstHad a rough day at work? Or maybe you have had a tough time finding work. Do you find as many women and teens in the workplace sweating to win the bread of this world?

    It is the result of sin. Punishment. We are not just a caretaker in the pleasant garden anymore, but God has cursed the ground where we must make our living and sustain our wives and children.

    grill girlgrill cookYes, even the wife with the jobs of the household and mother of the children complains of her sweat of the job where two incomes will not even provide the bread that once only the husband would sacrifice his sweat for his loved ones.

    Even now some women will choose this curse over obedience to a husband and obedience to God.  Teens with cars and cell phones and money for entertainment compete with Godly and ungodly family men in the marketplace of jobs, while they boast that they are “in a relationship” with another teen (an evil sexual relationship outside of marriage and responsibility of a God-led family).

    We have wandered far from Paradise. Many have run far from obedience to God’s will.

    Where did the journey of sin begin after original sin?

    Genesis gives us an insight as we observe a conversation between God the Trinity. (We will not dwell on the Trinity, the plurality of the One God at this point; yet hear God’s motive to expel mankind from Paradise.)

    Genesis 3:22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.

    Adam and Eve have become like Jehovah Elohim: like God the Father; like Jesus when He would later walk the earth as the second adam; like the Holy Spirit, the Life of the soul. yada`yada`yada` – Knowing, knowing, knowing good and evil.

    Gen. 3:22b Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

    God IS.

    This is representation of eternal life with no beginning and no end.

    God created.

    This is representation of life with a beginning (man or animal, plant or mineral).

    Does the life of an animal have an end?

    Did God intend for man, created in His Image, to have a life that would end?

    The soul and life of Man is connected to God through God’s Fatherly act of creation.

    Hear God’s words to the Prophet Jeremiah [1:5]:

    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
    and before you were born I consecrated you;
    I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

    We are sons and daughters of God! We have a beginning in Him. God intended for us to remain as faithful children of His heavenly family. For His children He created Paradise on Earth. Adam, before sin, could have remained in Eden.

    What is the concern of God at this point?

    It is that evil could live on. Evil could have life eternal.

    In the beginning, God created… and it was good.

    Evil must NOT have eternal life!

    How often does the Bible warn of a mortal man: “… and he did evil in the sight of the Lord?”

    Evil souls and evil men must be banished from the good of God!

    “Behold, the man has become like one of  Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—

    Did the Lord God not caution: “or you will surely die?”

    So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. – Genesis 3:24 KJV

    salinastodayTwentieth Century author, John Steinbeck, focuses on this in his (1952) novel about a family and their attitudes toward work in “East of Eden.” We have choices, knowing good and evil.

    Therefore God has guarded the gates of righteousness against the entry of evil men.

    The Cherubim, also creatures of God’s creation (but not for this earth), serve God. Angels (yet not all angels, for some rebelled to follow Satan) serve God.

    Mankind, but not all men and women, serves God (as best we can in this sinful mortal flesh).

    God had a relationship with man. Man had a relationship with God.

    God restored the relationship of righteousness, that we might once more have eternal life in relationship in the family of God our Father. He restored life to our souls by the Living Sacrifice of the Blood of Christ Jesus, Son of God, on the Cross.

    We have been banned in the nakedness of our many sins to a land east of Eden, dust beneath the feet of our descendants, and struggle of the sweat of our brow to remain in relationship with God and each other.

    The challenge of the grace of Christ is that it requires the harvest of our faith. Faith requires obedience.

    Jesus IS Lord.

    Do you believe this?

     

     

     

  • And they knew that they were naked

    And they knew that they were naked

    Genesis 3:7  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

    SIN – Original Sin. Let’s talk about the relationship of man and woman. Let’s talk about the relationship of a husband and wife to God.

    The question is always: Good or Evil?

    Righteousness or Lawlessness? Obedience or Disobedience? God or Satan?

    We are free to choose in each circumstance of life.

    What will it be: Life? Or will we choose sin and death?

    Let us look back to the creation of mankind before sin and the consequence beyond.

    The Creation of Man and Woman

    7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (soul).

    15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.”

    One Commandment. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    Why would you want to know that? God will tell you what is good. You have no need to know of evil. (Surely the angel Satan plots evil against God. Satan has already fallen from heaven as far as the earth, though this is yet paradise before sin.) “You will know good from evil, like God. Choose whatever you want. You do not have to obey God.”

    18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

    It is NOT good that a man should be alone, nor is it good that a woman should be alone. God creates a special intimate relationship. The KJV states: ‘ I will make him an help meet for him.’  That is: one who helps the man.

    21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

    “This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

    The woman is NOT made from the dust of the earth, but from part of the man. She is near to him – part of him. And she is his helper.

    Note now that the Bible calls the woman his wife. They were naked and were not ashamed. (It was not evil to be naked.) They were naked before God, in whose image they were made.

    Enter Satan and evil (of which Adam and Eve had no knowledge). One commandment from God: Do NOT eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Simple. No other rules. Paradise! Obey God’s one rule and that’s it. The man and his wife had complete blessing from God and they knew nothing else.

    The Fall

    3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

    He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

    Obedience does not require knowledge, only discernment to obey.

    The tempter will always question God. “Did God really say…?” The tempter will always seek your disobedience to God’s will by causing you to question God’s motives.

    Thy will be done? Yes but, MY will be done first! The sin of disobedience.

    6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

    The tree looked to be good for food. The fruit was a delight to the eyes. No, Eve was not blind prior to this, nor was Adam. They beheld the glory and beauty of each other. They beheld the glory of paradise, of all of the garden of God’s creation which they tended as gardeners or caretakers – God’s garden, with man the caretaker. Yet the only commandment of their Lord they willingly disobeyed: original sin.

    And now, consequence.

    Adam and Eve now know that their disobedience is evil. In fact, they see and know all good and all evil. They were naked and ashamed (perhaps not of the desirable site of each other, but certainly of being looked on by God their Lord and Maker).

    They make excuses to God for their sin. (Sound familiar?) Then God pronounces judgment.

    16 To the woman he said,

    “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
    Your desire

    (We are talking ‘sexual desire here.)

    shall be for your husband,

    (Perfectly natural: a woman for her husband and a man for his wife.)

    But now, more than being his ‘help mate,’ the punishment of authority (since she did not accept God’s authority).

    and he shall rule over you.”

    17 And to Adam he said,

    “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

    (rather than obeyed the voice of God)

    and have eaten of the tree
    of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
    cursed is the ground because of you…

    This is the first use of cursed in the Bible in relation to man. The very first use was in the condemnation of the serpent. Good and evil; blessing and curse. We must hear much more of these in the Law, now that we have knowledge of good and evil. We must discern what is good to obey God and discern what is evil to avoid further sin.

    Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. Now mankind would learn the consequences of knowing good and knowing evil.

    To be continued…