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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Morning Musings

Eve’s Fault?

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Genesis Three….(v.1-8)                       

   Everything in God’s garden was perfect! The man had his wife for company….they delighted in each other, in the beauty all around them, the birds and animals, and best of all the perfect communion they had with God as He came to walk and talk with them in the garden each day.

   They both knew God in a way that no other human ever has because at this stage they had never known sin, they were perfect in every way. It was an idyllic time in history.

   God had only given them two stipulations….they were not to eat of the fruit of the two trees in the centre of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. It never entered their heads to disobey, why should they? They had everything they needed!

   But there was another being watching jealously in the shadows. He hated God and everything that He stood for, and was determined to wreck this beautiful situation. He is still involved in this work of undermining God’s authority and work at every turn. He knows our every weak point and strikes where and when we are most vulnerable. We are to be continually on our guard and resist his every ploy, and he will leave us alone for the time being (“flee from us” as Peter says in his book, 1 Peter 5:8-9).

Satan knew just what to do to get Eve to disobey God’s command….he sidled up to her when she was just looking around, and whispered in her ear, “Has God REALLY said you weren’t to touch this fruit?” Eve now made two mistakes….first of all she listened to him, and then she answered him. If she had just turned her back on him at that first whisper, and walked away, no harm would have been done. But she opened the door to more of his insinuations by standing around and answering him. What a lesson to each of us….Eve lingered there and answered Satan back. He cast more doubt into her mind by his next comment, “No, that’s not right, you won’t die at all! God knows that you will be like Him if you eat that fruit….you will know as much as He does!!”

Eve now had a second look. Yes, she thought, that fruit DID look delicious! Just a little tase wouldn’t hurt surely! That was her undoing. Not only did she have a little taste which led to another taste, but she told Adam, he should have a taste too. There was no doubt about it, the fruit WAS delicious. But it was forbidden. In tasting this, they had disobeyed God, their Creator.

It is the same with us…..if we listen to temptation when we know we shouldn’t, we will fall for sure. We are all born with the tendency to disobey God, and in doing so, we seal our own fate. Not one of us can say we have always done the right thing. Remember, there is no such thing as a big sin and a little sin….sin is SIN! And God says that the soul that sins shall die! There is an old saying that “you can’t stop the birds flying over your head, but you CAN stop them landing there!”

 Because of their disobedience, they were afraid to face God that evening, and hid themselves among the trees, thus breaking their time of fellowship with Him. Sin will always keep us from wanting to talk with God. Satan’s attack was no surprise to God….God had always known this would happen as He knew the evilness of Satan’s heart and his hatred of everything good. Knowing what it would cost Him personally, God was still prepared to go ahead with His plan of making man and then having to redeem him from sin’s penalty to achieve the end result of having someone to fellowship with Him for eternity. How humbling is that!

The world complete, the garden made, Man enjoyed the plants and shade,

But Satan lurked and tried to foil, God’s plan for man with sin to spoil.

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Morning Musings

The First Wedding.

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Genesis Two….Verse 21….

   Have you ever wondered at the strong attraction between the sexes? It is far more than mere sexual attraction, it is the need to be one with another person, to have someone to love and be loved by. This is God-given….

   God looked at Adam and  said, “It is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper fitted for his needs”. Adam was formed from the dust of the ground, but God formed the woman from his side.  God put him into a heavy sleep and gave the first operation performed on earth. One of Adam’s ribs was taken out of his side and fashioned into a woman  Imagine Adam’s thoughts as he first saw Eve…”Mine! Isn’t she lovely!”

   God gave His blessing on this union and said that from then on a man should leave his parents and become a separate unit, one flesh with his wife, and that they have no shame in delighting with each others’ bodies. They are to remain together for life with nothing and no-one coming between them (Matthew 19:4-6) and the marriage unit is to be a picture on earth of the unity between Christ and His Church in heaven (Ephesians 5:22-33)

   The husband is to love his wife with all his heart and to consider her needs….the need to be loved, listened to and treated with respect and consideration….after all she isn’t as strong physically as he is! The wife is to respect and consider her husband’s needs, to be thoughtful and look up to him taking notice of what he says and sticking to what he wants. A wife is not told to love her husband….she will do this automatically if he loves and treats her as he should.

Love is more than feeling good, It’s being kind just as we should,

To think of others and all THEIR needs, To put them first in words and deeds.

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Morning Musings

Man’s First Job…

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Genesis Two….Verses 4-20….

   The writer of Genesis now gives a resume of creation and adds a few more interesting facts. Notice that in verse 5 it says that every bit of vegetation was made and THEN planted….our God is a Master Gardener!

   Rain was unknown then….mists kept the ground damp. We are told in verse 7 that man was made from something, the dust of the earth. This is in  contrast to all other creation which came into being from nothing, as God spoke,. God made this man and then breathed into his nostrils, not just oxygen, but the breath of life, the capacity of eternal life. Every baby that is born will live for ever somewhere!

   God planted a special garden with every sort of shade and fruit tree for this man to enjoy. Among these were two trees that God specifically told him he was not to touch….the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life.

    It may surprise you to know that working for one’s living is part of God’s plan for humanity. In fact, being able to work and enjoy the results of it, is spoken of as being one of God’s gifts to man,  (Ecclesiastes 3:13). Here,  man was given the job of looking after this garden as well as naming all of the animals and birds. What a variety of these, there were!

   The land was described and the four great rivers that came from Eden to water that part of the world reminds us of God’s provision for man’s spiritual needs as well as his physical needs. Christ is the Water of Life, and in the book of Revelation we see the great River of Life that flows from God’s throne with the tree of life growing there for the healing of the nations, which must be the spiritual healing since all disease and sickness has already been done away with.

God planted His garden and made it complete, With rivers and mist to dampen the heat, Everything perfect, with sin never known, God’s greatness and power to all clearly shown.

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Morning Musings

Why the Sabbath Day?

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Genesis Two….(v.1-3)               Why the Sabbath Day?

   We may wonder why God made a thing about the seventh day…He had completed creation in six days and on the seventh day He rested. What was so special about the seventh day?

   God has made time to revolve in blocks of sevens, and creation conforms to this. Have you taken notice of the periods of gestation and eggs hatching of all living things, that there are so many weeks of seven days. People have tried to make a ten day working week, but it doesn’t work. There is better work production in six days with one day off. This is the way that God has ordained it to be…six days work, one day rest for both man and beast as clearly stated in Deuteronomy 5:12-15.

   What are people to do on this seventh day? It is to be a time of rest and reflection….in Israel’s time it was clearly demonstrated by no manna falling on the seventh day….they were to sit down and think about the great things that God had done in bringing them out of Egypt, (and was still doing in giving them the promised land) Exodus 16:22-30.

   Isaiah tells us it was a time specially set aside for the Lord, to think of His things, to delight in Him, to sing His praises and not do our own thing or have our own pleasures (Isaiah 58:13-14). In the New Testament , this time was transferred to the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the day when people are to gather together to remember Him and what He has done for them (Acts 20:7).

To remember our Lord is surely no chore, As Israel remembered their deliverance before;

To keep one day for the Lord we love, To rest from our labours for the One from above.

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See what God has to say to YOU.