Morning Musings

Noah’s Obedience Rewarded.

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   Noah had prepared the ark and provisioned it with enough food for every creature on board just as God had told him to. What a sight it must have been to see all the animals loaded on board!

   Seven pairs of clean (eatable) animals, and all birds, with one pair of all other animals and all the creepy crawlies too! Finally Noah and his family (eight people) went in and God shut the door of the ark. There wouldn’t have been any handle on the outside. Then it began to rain….imagine the panic of the people on the outside as they saw the waters begin to rise. They would remember then all the times that Noah had warned them this would happen! The tide too kept on rising and people could now see that Noah’s prediction was right after all, but it was too late! It was no use banging on the door to be let in….God had shut it and there was no outside handle.

   The water kept rising until the highest mountain was covered by fifteen cubits (seven metres ). All moving life died and the earth was cleansed of all the filth and evil that man had brought on it. The water covered the earth for just over five months before it began to recede.

This is a real lesson to us as we read this account….God’s invitation has an end. Just as the people in Noah’s time found that they couldn’t go into the ark when they wanted to, so people today will find that if they put off accepting God’s invitation to come NOW, the time may come when they won’t be able to come. Just like the man who kept putting off the chance he had to turn to Jesus, but kept resisting it. One day he dreamed that he could see God in heaven, and a big blind came down between them blotting out the sight. He said that he knew then that he wouldn’t be able to come even if he wanted to….it was too late! We must make sure that we don’t pass this point of no return!

Man’s sin brought judgment on the earth, Such as never  seen since its birth,

The earth was cleansed all through and through, So then it could start fresh and new.

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Morning Musings

Noah, a Dope?

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Genesis Six….          

Verses 13-22….

   God’s patience with mankind had come to an end, and man needed to be taught a harsh lesson….”I’m going to make an end of this evil, and man will be destroyed from the earth”…..

   God revealed to Noah 1his plan and gave him a massive job to do…build this large ark (boat) capable of saving all species of animals  and all people who would be willing to join it. What an object of derision Noah must have been! Here he was, miles from the ocean, and no one knew what rain was as it had never fallen prior to this time. The boat was 450 feet long by 75 feet high and had three decks….each storey would have been over ten feet high, high enough to accommodate elephants and giraffes!

    God had not only told Noah what to do, but what was going to happen, so Noah would no doubt have told all who came to see what he was doing, why he was doing it. Peter says he was a “preacher of righteousness”  (2 Peter 2:5). It is also interesting to note that Noah was the eighth generation down from Adam (eight being God’s number). The warning in this is that God ALWAYS judges sin, no matter how long it takes to come, it WILL come.

Man had fallen deep in sin, His every thought was wrong within; God’s patience went and judgment came, the earth was cleansed to start again.

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Morning Musings

Who Were These People?

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Genesis Six….(v.1-12)      

   These early verses give rise to all sorts of speculations….did angels REALLY come down to earth and live with humans? In conjunction with this thought, we must read Mark 12:25 where our Lord specifically says that angels do NOT marry…..

   Who then were these “sons of God”? Back in chapter five we see the godly line of Seth and follow it down. In chapter four we read of the ungodly line of Cain who totally left God out of his life. It was Seth’s descendants who began to call on the name of the Lord (chapter 4:25-26), and this reached a peak of communion with God that a human can reach when God took Enoch bodily, and not by death (Hebrews 11:5).

   Now we see what happens when godly people marry ungodly spouses….they nearly always get dragged down by them. In this time we are reading about, this is what happened and the wickedness of man became very great, and all they could think about was wicked thoughts. Paul very definitely says that believers are NOT to marry unbelievers because it can’t work….there is too much conflict in spiritual things (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).

   Things on earth became so bad that God now cut back a person’s life span to the average of 120 years, and people’s lives got still shorter from Noah’s time on. Noah was God’s man for a specific purpose, and he was the only one who looked to God and lived a good life….everyone else was corrupt and violent. It wasn’t safe to walk out on the road! What a wonderful testimony Noah had…just and upright! (verse 9)

As time passed by this world so fair,  Men left their God, in wickedness shared, God’s Spirit with them no more strived, God gave them up as judgment arrived.  

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Morning Musings

Which Sacrifice?

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Genesis Four….(v.1-7) 

   Cain and Abel, the two eldest sons of Adam and Eve, were very different in character. Both had the same background and upbringing, and both would have heard the same stories that Adam and Eve told of the garden and their fall from grace….

   Cain loved growing plants and had a wonderful garden. Abel loved animals and tended his animals lovingly. We can only assume that Adam and Eve continued to have further children while these two boys were growing up.

   Both boys had the desire to bring God an offering, and both would have known that only a sacrifice where blood was shed was acceptable to God. God still says for us today, that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin” (Hebrews 9:22)  We do not have to bring a lamb, because when Jesus Christ came to earth, He was put on the cross, and His pure sinless blood was shed then to cover our sins.

     But Cain stubbornly refused to accept this, and instead of buying an animal from his brother, he brought of his fruits that he had produced. They may have been beautiful, but he thought he knew better than God what to bring.

   When God accepted Abel’s offering of a lamb but refused to accept Cain’s vegetables, he (Cain) became very angry and resentful. On the surface, we might wonder why God didn’t accept Cain’s offering, but he knew the boys’ hearts. Abel was prepared to please God while Cain only pleased himself and thought he knew best.

  They would have been taught by Adam that sin needs a blood sacrifice….Abel accepted this and parted with his lamb. Cain rejected this and thought his way was good enough. God gently pointed Cain in the right direction, but he still refused it. His attitude didn’t make him feel any better….standing on one’s rights never does. It does not bring happiness or joy before God.

Cain and Abel both had the same start, One loved God, and one hardened his heart,

Cain was rebuked but refused to heed, While Abel was blessed in his giving indeed.

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Morning Musings

Blood Had to be Shed.

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Without Shedding Blood, there is no Remission of Sin.

Verses 20-24….

   God had said to Adam, “The day you eat the fruit of this tree, you will die”. Satan said to Eve, “You won’t die!” What happened?

     They had eaten the fruit in disobedience to God and they were still alive, BUT they had died to free access to God, the seed of death in their body began to grow and they began to age from that moment on. Not only did their disobedience affect them, but it affected the whole of creation.(Romans 8:21-22).

   The first death occurred when God took the skins of animals to cover their nakedness. Clothes to cover our nakedness is a God-given thing and we do well in this day and age of immodesty to dress modestly to God’s glory! We are not to overdress, and not to under dress….both draw attention to ourselves which is only glorifying ourselves, not glorifying God. God says He will not share His glory with another  (Isaiah 42:8).

    But this was not the end of Adam’s punishment….now he was expelled from God’s beautiful garden where the tree of life was growing and had to make his own garden from scratch, and so human life as we know it had begun. The toil that went into producing food was set in motion. Angels now guarded the tree of life and in time it was removed and the place where God’s garden had been, was no more seen and became a desert.

Sin destroys, brings death to all, To all creation through man’s fall, God says sin’s wages all are sure, Death comes to all, for none are pure.

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Morning Musings

Sin Brings Judgment!

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Genesis Three…               

Verses 15-19….

   Man was created a glorious creature, shining and surrounded with God’s glory and able to talk to God face to face. Now that he had sinned, that glory faded and he saw his nakedness as something to be ashamed of.

   The serpent was the first to receive sentence….there would be perpetual enmity between snakes and humans just as there is perpetual enmity between the children of God and the children of Satan.

   The woman’s sentence was in child bearing and the woes of motherhood and the fact that she would be subject to her husband’s leadership. The man’s sentence was the cursing of the ground that he would now be dependant on for life….it would be hard work to get a living from the soil.(Romans 5:18)

   He had come from dust, he would live from the soil and his body would eventually return to the soil and become the dust once more. In the light of all this, we can only cry with the Psalmist, “Oh Lord, What is man that You are mindful of him? And the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:4)

Satan first was judged for sin; The serpent now made long and thin;

The woman subject to her man, Both now from Eden ever banned.

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Morning Musings

Sin Brings Fear…..

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Genesis Three…..

Verses 11-14….

   Sin brought fear, being afraid, of God. It also brought self centredness….”I was afraid”; “I heard”; “I” hid from You. God made man to be God centred, and now sin had blotted God out of man’s heart. God says, “Your sins have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2) There is only one prayer that God will hear from a person in this condition and that is, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!”

   God confronted man about his disobedience…He didn’t sweep it under the mat as it were, or make excuses for his weakness….man had a chance to repent there and then, but what did he do? He made excuse after excuse and admitted nothing.

    How often we do the same thing! “Not my fault, I didn’t do it!” or else we lay the blame on someone (or something) else. Adam immediately said, “It wasn’t my fault, it was the woman that YOU gave me who gave me the fruit!” How weak can a man be! But Eve was no better. She said, “Wasn’t MY fault, it was the serpent that made me do it!” Satan made no excuses….he had achieved his purpose, but the vehicle of his voice (the serpent) was immediately cursed. It was no longer a creature of beauty, but was now a creeping, slithering thing of horror that was hated by all other creatures.

   Satan had already fallen in God’s sight, with his place already waiting for him, so he had no reason to make any excuse. He had ruined God’s highest creation and he was satisfied with that for the time being.

Now man had sinned, he was afraid, And hid in trees that God had made,

Covered up in leaves that fade, And then faced God in sin unpaid.

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Morning Musings

Be Sure Your Sin Will You Out!

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Genesis Three….         

Verses 7-10….

   Adam and Eve had both disobeyed God’s instructions and eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and immediately they knew they had sinned. Their conscience came surging to life and the seeds of death in their body began to grow. From that moment on they began to age.

  Before this, they hadn’t known or experienced evil or sin, but now they were caught in its web….there was no going back or undoing it.. God had seen it all, in fact He knew it was going to happen, and that these creatures He had made with a free will had chosen to rebel against Him!

   They knew now that they were naked and made coverings for their nakedness out of fig leaves, not realising that these too were now decaying. How futile are man’s efforts to cover his sin!

   So too, it is today….man is incapable of covering his sin from God’s sight. The seeds of Adam’s sin are passed on from generation to generation and everyone is born with that ”I want to” do their own thing and have their own way which God calls sin! (Romans 5:12)

  By covering their nakedness, they gave themselves away before God and hid among the trees not wanting to face Him for the first time since their creation. No longer could they face God in their sin.

Eve disobeyed and ate the fruit, which God had told her didn’t suit,

Now she and Adam both could know, What shame was like as time did show.

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See what God has to say to YOU.