Genesis (Part 5)(BST 6-29-08)

Genesis (Part 5)
Bible Study Time 6-29-08
(From James Roberts 9-1-96)

This morning we’re going to continue in our Journey Through the Scripture. We trust that you have gotten on board with us as we take this Journey Through the Scripture each Sunday morning at 8:30. We are now at Genesis, Chapter 4, where we see Cain and Abel, the children of Adam and Eve. Let’s begin by reading Genesis, Chapter 4 and verse 1:

Genesis 4:1-12 NKJV
1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the Lord."
2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord.
4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering,
5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
6 So the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."
8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said,"I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
10 And He said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground.
11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth."

When God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in the garden where He dealt with them in innocence. Every day He came into the garden, and He walked and He talked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. This speaks of the great time of fellowship that they had one with another.

But Satan came into that garden and tempted Eve. She disobeyed God and then gave to her husband the forbidden fruit, and he ate. Then, suddenly they became conscious of their sin, and they knew that they were naked.

Later, when God came into the garden, He called out for Adam, saying, Adam, where are you? God sought for Adam and asked Adam what he had done. When their sin was confessed, God placed a curse upon Adam and Eve and upon the ground and upon the serpent.

A part of the curse which was placed upon the serpent was that the Seed of the Woman would bruise the head of Satan, even though Satan would bruise the heel of the Seed of the Woman. This was actually the first promise of the Redeemer who would come as the Seed of the Woman.

Now we know that the prophecy concerning the Seed of the woman was fulfilled when the Lord Jesus was born. He came as the Seed of the Woman who was born of the virgin Mary. When Jesus Christ came into the world, He suffered on the cross and this bruised the head of the serpent who was Satan. In the book of Hebrews, we read that Jesus Christ took upon Himself flesh and blood that He might destroy or set at naught the work of Satan. In His death, burial and resurrection, Christ bruised the head of Satan.

As Christ suffered on the cross, Satan was also able to bruise the heel of Jesus Christ. Satan did this by causing the people to reject the Lord Jesus and nail Him to the cross. This was a nonfatal wound, however, because Christ was raised from the dead. Satan did not realize it before the cross, but it was the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus that was going to seal Satan’s fate in the lake of fire along with all those who follow after him.

Eve knew very well this prophecy that the Seed of the Woman would bruise the head of Satan. So when she had her first son, Cain, it seems that she thought that Cain was the promised Seed. At the time of Cain’s birth, she said:

Genesis 4:1 NKJV
1 . . . "I have acquired a man from the Lord."

Eve may have thought at first that Cain was the promised Seed, but she would soon learn that that was not the case. We now know that the fulfillment of that prophecy was not to come for many centuries. In fact that prophecy was not fulfilled until the Lord Jesus was born. However, it’s wonderful to see that Eve did believe God when God said that one of her descendants would bruise the head of the serpent.

Later, when Eve conceived another son, she called his name Abel. It seems in verse 3 that Cain and Abel are adults because we see that Abel was a keeper of sheep while Cain was a tiller of the ground, and we read in verse 3 that:

Genesis 4:3-4 NKJV
3 . . . in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord.
4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering,

When this says that Abel brought of the fat of the flock, this probably means that Abel brought the fattest of all the sheep of his flock. As it turned out, God accepted Abel’s offering, but God did not accept Cain’s offering.

For the rest of the time that we have this morning, I’d like for us to think about the three things that God required of those who brought an offering to the Lord. First of all, God had a prescribed a time. Verse 3 says that in the process of time Cain brought his offering. God also had a prescribed place where they were to offer their offerings, and then God also prescribed the kind of offering that they were to bring.

The book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, tells us that it was by faith that Abel offered up a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. How is it that Abel offered up his offering by faith? Undoubtedly, God had told Adam what was required of those who would approach God and be accepted by God in fellowship.

Before the fall of man, Adam and Eve had walked in fellowship with God without any kind of prescribed offering, but now that they had been driven out of the garden because of their disobedience, they had to offer up a sacrifice which would bring them back to the place of fellowship with God.

Undoubtedly, as Cain and Abel grew up, they saw Adam and Eve offering sacrifices to God, and so they knew what God had prescribed. It is likely that as Adam offered his sacrifices, he would explain to Cain and Abel what God had instructed him to do.

In the process of time indicates two things. First of all, Cain and Abel had become adults who were responsible to God for their own sacrifices. Before they became adults they were covered by the sacrifices that Adam offered for his family. But in the process of time indicates that Cain and Abel had grown to adulthood so that they were responsible to God for their own sacrifices.

May I just say this to you? From the fall of Adam, man has been individually responsible to God for his own relationship to God. Nobody can be accepted by God because of the faith of their parents. Each person is individually responsible to God for exercising faith in what God has revealed.

God had revealed to Cain and Abel the prescribed sacrifice through Adam and Eve. They were to bring the firstborn of the flock of the herds. This indicated the shedding of the blood of an innocent animal. At the prescribed time and at the prescribed place, God had them to bring the prescribed offering. Abel believed God, and he brought the sacrifice that God had ordained for him to bring.

It is important for us to realize that today there are not many, many ways to be accepted by God. There is only one prescribed way whereby man can be accepted by God, and that is the way of the cross. There is a prescribed time. There is a prescribed place. And there is a prescribed offering today.

We can now see as we look back at the writings of the New Testament scriptures that there was a prescribed time for the coming of the Lord Jesus. In the process of time, at the very moment that God ordained, the Lord Jesus came to be born of a woman. He came to go to the cross which was God’s prescribed place for Christ to die. The cross was a place of shame where criminals were crucified, but the Lord Jesus came and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The death of the Lord Jesus upon the cross was God’s prescribed offering for your sins and for mine.

This was all ordained by God in eternity past. The book of I Peter speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb that was slain since before the foundation of the world. It was in God’s eternal plan that the Lord Jesus would come at a particular time to go to the cross and there die for your sins and for my sins.

However, there are many people today who are going in the way of Cain. They want to bring their own offerings to God. They want to bring whatever seems right to them.

Because Cain was a tiller of the ground, it seemed perfectly logical to him that he should bring the first fruits of his harvest to the Lord. So Cain brought to God what was probably the very best of what he had raised. But God could not accept Cain’s offering because Cain had walked in his own way rather than walking in the way that God had prescribed.

As we leave the air today, I want to ask you this question. Are you walking in the way of Cain? Do you have something in your hands that you are trying to bring to God, expecting God to accept you because you have done this and this and this? Or have you come the way of Abel, coming to God, accepting His offering of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for your sins and was buried and rose again? If you have accepted God’s offering of the Lord Jesus as your sacrifice for sin, God has saved you and has made you one of His children.

Well, I see our time is gone. The Lord willing the next week, we will continue in our Journey Through the Scripture.

Church links:

http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/

http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/

http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/

Genesis (Part 4)(BST 6-22-08)

Genesis (Part 4)
Bible Study Time 6-22-08
(From James Roberts 8-25-96)

In our previous lessons in our Journey Through the Scripture, we saw how God presents Himself as the creator of all things. Make no mistake about it, the heavens and the earth and man and all of the things that are in God’s creation did not just happen to be. The creation did not just come about through some accidental joining of certain elements. In the book of Genesis, God presents Himself as the creator who by a divine purpose and a divine will created the heavens and the earth.

After the rebellion of Lucifer, who was the highest of all of God’s angelic creation, there was chaos that came into the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

Then God began to recreate the heavens and the earth. He created the animal and the plant life, and then He created the highest aspect of the creation, even man himself.

God placed the man and his wife in the Garden of Eden, and He gave them only one prohibition and that was that they were not to eat of the tree which was in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said:

Genesis 2:17 NKJV
17 . . . in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

In Genesis, Chapter 3, we saw that Satan came into the garden and tempted Eve, so that Eve disobeyed God. Then Eve gave the forbidden fruit to her husband, and he also disobeyed God. As a result of this disobedience, all of Adam’s descendants became sinners.

That first rebellion by Lucifer brought sin into the universe, but the sin of Adam brought sin into the human race. The book of Romans tells us that:

Romans 3:23 KJV
23 . . . all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:12 KJV
12 . . . (for) by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

This disobedience of Adam brought also a curse upon all of God’s creation. The book of Romans, Chapter 8, tells us that the creation itself groans and travails together under this curse but that God placed the curse in hope. The creation will continue its groaning and travail until the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, comes back.

In the regeneration, when the Son of Man comes back in His glory, He will set things right, and the curse will be lifted. Instead of briars and thorns, the desert will blossom like a rose, and the myrtle and the fig tree will blossom; paradise will be restored once again.

With the pronouncement of the curse in Genesis, Chapter 3, we also find the promise of the Redeemer. In verse 15, God speaks to the serpent and says, you will bruise the heel of the Seed of the Woman, but the Seed of the Woman will bruise your head.

Throughout the Old Testament scriptures, we find hints and types and shadows of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to come into the world as the Redeemer of the human race. It was part of God’s plan for the Lord Jesus to bring man out from under the curse of sin and bring him back into a place of fellowship and righteousness with God through His death.

God knew even before the time of the creation about this plan of redemption, but this great truth was hidden in the scriptures. In the book of I Peter, we read that the Lord Jesus came as the Lamb that was slain since the foundation of the world. We read that the prophets could not understand God’s plan for man’s salvation, and in fact, even the angels desired to look into this great truth because they could not understand it.

This truth was in the scripture, but it was covered in such a way that Satan, who is an astute student of the scripture, could not see the fact that it would be the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that would crush the serpent. Satan knew only that the Seed of the Woman was going to destroy him. In other words, He knew that the Seed of the Woman was going to bruise his head and set his work at naught.

All through the Old Testament scriptures, we see Satan trying to do away with the Seed of the Woman so that he can prevent His work of redemption. When Jesus Christ appeared on the scene, Satan thought that the crucifixion of Christ would be the perfect opportunity to put the Seed of the Woman to death. Satan thought that if he could put the Seed of the Woman to death, the Seed of the Woman would not be able to bruise the head of the serpent.

However, Satan did not know the details of God’s perfect plan concerning the work of Christ on the cross. The fact that Christ would come to die on the cross for the sins of man had been carefully hidden in the Old Testament scriptures because this was the very work that was going to bruise the head of Satan.

Jesus Christ came to be made a curse for us by taking our sins upon Himself. The work of Christ on the cross makes it possible for man to be set free from the curse and to be set free from the dominion of Satan. This great promise concerning the coming of the Redeemer was first given in Genesis, Chapter 3 and verse 15.

In all of this I trust that you can see the changes that God makes in His dealings with the creation in different circumstances. God remains the same but His dealings with the creation change as the circumstances change.

This is a pattern that we are going to see many times in our Journey Through the Scripture. God is the same yesterday, today and forever, but He deals with man in different ways in different time periods. In the book of II Timothy, Chapter 2 and verse 15, we are told to:

2 Timothy 2:15
15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

On aspect of this right division is to see the different ways in which God deals with the human race in accordance with His eternal plan and purpose. So let’s review a few of the changes that we have already seen in our Journey Through the Scripture.

God created the heavens and the earth as a perfect creation which was meant to be inhabited. God also created the angelic beings with Lucifer as the head or the highest of the creation. However, when Lucifer rebelled against God, he was cast out of heaven, and he became Satan, which means adversary.

Instead of guarding the throne of God as Lucifer, the highest of the creation, he became Satan, the adversary of God. God began to deal with Lucifer in a completely different way after Lucifer’s rebellion. God remained the same but His dealings with Lucifer changed.

God created the heavens and the earth to be inhabited, but the earth became chaotic as a result of Satan’s sin. Therefore, God began to recreate the heavens and the earth. God made man in the image of God, and man lived in an innocent state. Man was undoubtedly covered with a garment of light which reflected his innocence. At this point, man did not know good and evil; he lived in perfect harmony with the creation and with God.

However, when man disobeyed God, man became conscious of his sin. At that point, man lost the garment of glory which had covered him, and he knew that he was naked. He sewed fig leaves together to make for himself an apron. He ran to hide from God, but God sought him out and placed the curse. What a difference this made in God’s dealings with man.

As we continue on in Genesis, Chapter 3, we read that:

Genesis 3:20-21 KJV
20 . . . Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

Notice here again a difference in God’s dealings with man. Man is no longer an innocent being who displays the perfect likeness of God. Man has lost the spiritual glory of the image of God so God makes garments made of animal skin for them to wear.

Genesis 3:22-24
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:
23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24 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.

Once again, notice the change in God’s dealings with mankind. When man became conscious of good and evil, God drove him out of the Garden of Eden. Even though God, Himself, remains the same yesterday, today and forever, God’s method of dealing with man changes according to man’s circumstances.

However, any time God changes His method of dealing with man, these changes are always in accordance with His eternal plan and purpose. God is omniscient. Nothing takes God by surprise. God knows the end from the beginning, and God formulated His plan for the ages even before the foundation of the world.

In Genesis 3:24, we read that God drove man out of the Garden of Eden, and He placed a guard there so that man could not get back into the Garden of Eden. At one time, God placed man in the garden, but now God has to place man outside the garden. At one point, God had fellowship with man in the garden, but now God places a guard at the gate of the garden with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep man from going into the garden.

Personally, I believe that this gate became the appointed place that God gave to Adam and Eve so that they could continue in their fellowship with Him, and by the animal sacrifice God provided the way whereby they could come to that place to have fellowship with God. Next week we are going to see how that two of Adam and Eve’s children represent the two main categories of people that exist outside the Garden of Eden.

I trust that you have been able to see today that even though God is the same yesterday, today and forever, He has changed His method of dealing with man from time to time. At one point, God dealt with man on the basis of man’s innocence, but now God deals with man on the basis of man’s knowledge of good and evil.

I trust today that you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, as the promised Redeemer who has now come to provide the way for us to have fellowship with God. Well, I see our time is gone. The Lord willing, we’ll be back with you again next week so until that time we bid you goodbye.

Church links:

http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/

http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/

http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/

Genesis (Part 3)(BST 6-15-08)

Genesis (Part 3)
Bible Study Time 6-15-08
(From James Roberts 8-18-96)

Now we’re going to continue our Journey Through the Scripture. If you missed the first two Sundays, you have missed a couple of miles on this journey, and we would like to encourage you to get your Bibles and study along with us today and then to be with us each Sunday morning as we continue this Journey Through the Scripture.

On the first Sunday of this journey, we saw God set forth as the creator of the universe. God is not the creation. Rather God is over and above the creation; God transcends the creation. From the very beginning, Satan has tried to get man to worship the creation rather than the creator. Pantheism tells us that God is the creation, but the Bible declares that the creation is the handiwork of God. The creation did not just evolve from nothing, but God created the heavens and the earth.

Last week, we saw something of the creation of man when God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. In this we see first of all a refutation of the devilish doctrine of evolution.

Secular science tells us that man just evolved from a speck of protoplasm that was there in a primordial slime. It says that over billions of years this speck of protoplasm evolved through the dinosaur stage and all of the other stages until man evolved into what he is today. I want to tell you that this doctrine is of the devil. The devil wants man to deify man in order to displace God from His throne. According to the Bible, man was created by God, Himself.

Another reason that the doctrine of evolution is so devilish is that it does away with the necessity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer. You see, if there was no first man, Adam, who was created by the very hand of God, then there is no need for the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. If there was no literal, historic Adam, then there was no historic fall by which man became a sinner; and if man is not a sinner, then he has no need for a savior. However, the Bible declares that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

In the first week of our Journey Through the Scripture, we saw how Lucifer became Satan, the enemy of God, or the adversary of God. This occurred when Lucifer introduced sin into the universe. We also saw that God created man in His own image. By a direct, creative act He formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so that man became a living soul. This happened instantaneously, not by means of evolution through ions of time, but as an instantaneous, creative act of God. As God breathed into his nostrils, man became a living soul.

In our studies we have seen that the first man, Adam, disobeyed God and through that act of disobedience all of Adam’s descendants became sinners. Well, that’s where we left off in our journey last week, and I want us to take up with that thought this morning as we move on into the next truly significant event in the scriptures.

Before Adam sinned, God was accustomed to walking in the garden in the cool of day, communicating and having fellowship with Adam. But when Adam disobeyed God, Adam felt the need to run and hide. When God came looking for Adam, God called out, saying:

Genesis 3:9-11 NKJV
9 . . . "Where are you?"
10 So (Adam) said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."
11 And (God) said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?"

Now, did God ask this question because He didn’t know what Adam had done, or was He simply trying to bring Adam to the place of acknowledging his guilt? I believe that it was the latter. God knew that Adam had been disobedient, but He came into the garden, seeking Adam, so that He could draw Adam back into a place of fellowship with God. So what was Adam’s response the Lord?

Genesis 3:12 NKJV
12 Then the man said,"The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."

In so many words, Adam said, God, this is all Your fault because You gave me this woman. I ate the fruit only because she gave it to me.

Well, then the Lord turned to the woman and asked:

Genesis 3:13 NKJV
13 . . . "What is this you have done?" (And) The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

Clearly, Eve was trying to put the blame on the serpent, saying that she had eaten the fruit because the serpent deceived her.

Here we see that even at this time, Adam and Eve were doing what man is doing so effectively today. They tried to portray themselves as victims rather than confessing their guilt.

Today we often see people who are brought up on some kind of charge, whether it’s murder or lying or some other charge, and they will try to place the blame for their actions on someone else. They may claim to be the victim of society or the victim of child abuse or some such thing. They will go to any length to keep from admitting that they are the guilty party.

Here in Genesis 3, the man said, the woman that You gave me, she gave me the fruit and I did eat. Then the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I did eat.

Admittedly, there was a little bit of truth in both of these statements, but neither statement expressed the whole truth. It was true that the woman did give the fruit to Adam, but in fact, Adam was a free moral agent. He had the ability to choose, but he chose to disobey God. Therefore, he was the guilty party. Not God. Not the woman.

According to Genesis 2:18, we read that in His goodness and mercy God created the woman for Adam because God saw that it was not good for man to live alone. God made the woman as the perfect companion for Adam, but Adam cast a reflection upon the goodness of God by stating that the woman that God had given him had caused him to eat the forbidden fruit.

The woman said, the serpent deceived me, and that was true, but the woman had the word of God that forbad her from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, she was guilty of sin even though she was deceived.

If you have sinned, don’t allow yourself to play the victim. When you sin, don’t blame someone else. That is just following in the footsteps of Adam. God wants us to acknowledge our sin before Him, and He tells us that:

1 John 1:9 NKJV
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

In verses 14 and 15 of Genesis, Chapter 3, we see God’s goodness and grace to mankind in His promise of a Redeemer. Because the serpent did deceive the woman, God placed a curse upon the serpent, saying:

Genesis 3:14-15 NKJV
14 . . . "Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

In this first promise of a Redeemer, we find that the Redeemer was to come into this world as the Seed of the woman in order to bruise the head of the serpent. This prophesy was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 4 says that:

Galatians 4:4-5 NKJV
4 . . . when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

You see the Lord Jesus Christ had no earthly father; He was the Seed of the Woman. The serpent did bruise the heel of the Lord Jesus by orchestrating the crucifixion of Christ. However, the crucifixion of Christ was all a part of God’s overall plan and purpose which we find hidden in the scriptures such as Genesis 3:15. According to Genesis 3:15, it was part of God’s eternal plan that one day the Seed of the woman would come into this world to bruise the head of the serpent with a deadly wound.

We read in the book of Hebrews, Chapter 2, that by the grace of God the Lord Jesus Christ became a partaker of flesh and blood so He could taste death for every man. This chapter goes on to say that by doing this, Christ became the destroyer of the one who has the power over death, even the devil.

This passage in Hebrews carries the idea that God will set the work of the devil at naught. The serpent bruised the heel of the Lord Jesus by orchestrating the crucifixion of Christ, but it was the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus that inflicted a mortal wound upon the devil, destroying the devil’s master plan to overthrow the plan and purpose of God.

Because of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the doom of Satan is sealed. One day the devil will be cast into the Lake of Fire where he and all of those who follow after him will remain day and night, forever and ever. However, those who put their trust in the Redeemer and believe that Christ died on the cross for their sins will have eternal life and will live with God for all eternity.

In Genesis 3:16, God places a curse upon the woman and institutes the headship of the man over the woman. He says:

Genesis 3:16 NKJV
16 . . . "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you."

Then, to the man the Lord says:

Genesis 3:17-19 NKJV
17 . . . "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.

18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field.
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."

We see that a curse was placed upon the earth, but someday that curse will be lifted; and when that curse is lifted, the earth will be blessed forever and ever. This time of blessing will be made possible by the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and this is pictured for us in Genesis, Chapter 3, when God offered up a lamb to provide coats of skin for Adam and Eve. After being clothed with the clothing that God provided, Adam and Eve were once again able to fellowship with God.

As the Lamb of God, Christ shed His blood to provide the clothing of righteousness for those who believe in the Lord Jesus. The blessing of fellowship with God is now available to those who wear this clothing of God’s righteousness, but someday even the curse that is upon the earth today will be lifted and all of creation will be redeemed by the blood of Christ. Today, God is simply waiting for the perfect time to bring His glorious plan of redemption to its ultimate conclusion.

Next week, we’re going to continue our Journey Through the Scripture. I see our time is already gone for this morning. We’ll look forward to being back with you again next week. Until that time we bid you goodbye.

Church links:

http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/

http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/

http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/