Sarah Bears Isaac, Banishes Ishmael (MP 23)

Sarah gave birth to a son, when God had said;
His name was Isaac, for he brought laughter
To all who thought her womb for birthing dead,
And to her, whose heart sang ever after!
But poor Ishmael and Hagar had to go,
For their presence Sarah would not abide;
She made Ishmael’s claim to be heir zero—
Sent to the desert without any guide!
With no water left, by a bush he lay;
Hagar could not stand to watch Ishmael die;
An angel called from heaven with this to say:
“Look up, Hagar, and see the well nearby!”
Muslims in droves visit the well each year,
Believing Ishmael lay exactly here!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 21:8-13 (NIV)
"The child grew and was weaned and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, ‘Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.’ The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, ‘Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ “

Commentary on: Genesis 21 (NIV)
“Is anything impossible for God?” (Genesis 18:14) God had said to Abraham when He had heard Sarah laughing inside her tent about His promise that she would bear a son at age 90. Evidently nothing is too hard for God to do, for Sarah certainly did have a child, just as He said. His name was Isaac, meaning “laughter”, for everyone who heard about the miracle birth laughed about it. Hebrew names usually had a meaning relevant to something in their lives.

Sarah’s attitude toward Hagar, her maidservant, had been hostile ever since she got pregnant with Abraham’s first son Ishmael. Now it grew more so, since she had finally borne her own son. At the great feast Abraham gave on Isaac’s day of weaning, she demanded that her husband get rid of the mother and Ishmael her son. Abraham was distressed, but the next day he gave Hagar a skin of water and some food, then banished them from the camp. They wandered deep into the southern Arabian desert, until the water ran out and they were at the point of death. She bade Ishmael lay in the shade of a bush; then she went off about a hundred yards, for she could not stand to see the 13-year-old boy die, But God was watching; He had an angel call to her from heaven and tell her to open her eyes; when she did so, there was a well. They were saved, and Ishmael became a father of the Arab race.
In the seventh century A. D., an Arab named Mohammad claimed to have heard from the angel Gabriel who dictated the Qur’an, purportedly from God, whom they called Allah. The Islamic religion was launched, and today it has over a billion adherents. The spot at which Ishmael lay was identified as the well Zamzam, which is located in the heart of Mecca, the holy city of Islam. Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Mohammad. The huge Grand Mosque of Islam is there, and within it is the revered well Zamzam. Their belief is that as he lay under the bush, Ishmael kicked the ground with his feet, and God sent the water gushing forth. Muslims also believe Christians and Jews collaborated in fabricating the Bible; one of their supposed perversions of truth is that the chosen son of Abraham was Ishmael, not Isaac. This false claim is the chief basis of their hatred of Jews and Christians and one of the causes of terrorist acts against Israel and the United States today. As they see it, their suicide-murder attempts are holy jihad, or holy war, against infidel Jews and Christians. I believe Satan fostered Islam by masquerading as Gabriel and invented it all. Satan counterfeits everything God does, in a futile effort to put himself in God's place; Islam is Christianity's counterfeit.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Why Jewish And Arab Males Are Circumcised (MP 22)

When Abram became ninety-nine years old,
And his first wife Sarai was eighty-nine,
God confirmed His former promises told
Of land and offspring coming through his line!
“Your name is now Abraham, and Sarai’s
Is Sarah; by this time of the next year,
You’ll see her bear you a son with your eyes,
Isaac, chosen, this covenant next to hear!
But you must be circumcised, as a sign,
Between you and me; all male offspring
As well, to show them to be of your line;
Or else, be cut off, denied ev’rything!”
Abraham obeyed, and Ishmael, his son;
And males in his camp, all had cutting done!

Scripture Quoted: Selected from Genesis 17 (NIV)
V.1-2—“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.’ “
V. 5a-6—“ ‘No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham… I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.’ “
V. 8—“ ‘The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you.’ “
V. 10—“ ‘This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you; this covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.’ “
V. 15-16a—“God also said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife you will no longer call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her,,,’ “
V. 21—“ ‘But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.’ “

Commentary
Ishmael, Abram’s son by Hagar the maid, was 12 years old when Abram was visited by God and reminded that Ishmael was not to be the son promised as his heir and chosen to inherit the covenant of blessing coming to Abram’s offspring. It must have come as a surprise to Abram. He was now 99 years old, and Sarai 89 and presumably too old to conceive a child. He even laughed to himself (which God, of course, was able to detect). There was already considerable conflict in his tent between the puffed-up Hagar and Sarai, who had regretted her suggestion that Abram use the maid for a surrogate mother. You can imagine how much worse things became when Sarai learned that God would miraculously allow her to become pregnant with Isaac. It brought about the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from Abram’s household. The descendants of Ishmael, the Arab race, have never accepted Isaac as the rightful heir. It even brought into existence a new religion, Islam, in the seventh century A.D., which claims that Jews and Christians corrupted the Bible, and that Ishmael was the true heir of Abram. I believe that Islam is a counterfeit religion concocted by Satan to delude men and women and keep them from becoming Christians.

God confirmed His covenant with Abram and his descendants through Isaac. He changed Abram’s name to Abraham, and Sarai’s name to Sarah. He commanded Abraham to become circumcised, as well as all males in his camp and all male offspring as a sign of the covenant, This included Ishmael and his descendants, the Arab race, as well as the coming Isaac and the Jewish race. When Jesus came 2000 years later bringing the gospel of Christianity, He established the spiritual Kingdom of God; each Christian is considered a descendant of Abraham also, but his circumcision is spiritual, said by Paul to be “circumcision of the heart”. Combining Christians, Jews, and Arabs all as descendants of Abraham verifies how numerous his offspring actually was as it was prophesied.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

A Wild Donkey Of A Man (MP 21)

“Abram, could you not wait upon the Lord,
To sire the son of promise by your wife?
When she gave her maid of her own accord,
You could have refused to bring the wrong life!”
But in Abram’s veins blood of Adam flowed,
And the lives of all such by sin are stained;
At her words his secret lust but pious clothed;
Ishmael was conceived; endless war ordained!
The maid with child despised the barren wife;
Conflict erupted in Abram’s own tent;
“Why,” asked Sarai, “did you bring on such strife?”
Of Abram, like he did the plan present!
The sinful union fired the lethal fuse,
Of hatred between the Arabs and Jews!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 16:11-12 (NIV) [Brackets added]
“The angel of the Lord [the pre-incarnate Christ] also said to her:
‘You are now with child and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael [meaning God hears], for the Lord has
heard of your misery.
He shall be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against
everyone,
And everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.’ “

Commentary on Genesis 16 (NIV)
People ask, “Why can’t the Palestinians and Israeli’s make a lasting peace treaty? Why is there so much hatred between the Arab nations and the Jews in the Middle East?” The answer is clearly explained in the Bible. The beginning of it all is found in Chapter 16 of Genesis. The fuse that started it was when Abram tried to help God solve the problem of promising him offspring as numerous as the grains of dust in the world (Genesis 15:4) when he had no child at all; his wife Sarai was barren and beyond the age of childbearing. Anxious to help solve God’s problem, Sarai offered her Egyptian maid Hagar to Abram, saying he could have sex with her; maybe they’d have a child through a surrogate. Abram should have refused the offer; if he had known the internal conflict it would cause in his own tent, much less the 3600 years of warfare between the descendants of his two sons—Ishmael, the sinfully conceived, and Isaac, the righteously conceived of him and Sarai—he surely would have. Even though God had instituted marriage between one man and one woman as righteous (Genesis 2:24), the custom of a man having several wives or concubines was prevalent in that day. At any rate, the Bible doesn’t say that Abram hesitated to accept Sarai’s offer.

So Ishmael was born to Abram and Hagar, but he was not the son God had promised, and certainly not His chosen who was to sire the race of which Jesus (God) was to be born. The chosen son was Isaac, who was born to presumably barren Sarai 12 years later. Conflict between Sarai and Abram over Hagar and Ishmael was the first of the endless warfare between Arabs and Jews in world history. Abram finally expelled Hagar and the older son from his tent and drove her into the desert. God led her to water and helped their survival, and Ishmael became the leader of the first Arab tribe. Every word of the Lord’s promises about his being “a wild donkey of a man” came true. The spring God led Hagar to is named Zamzam, located in Mecca today, in the Grand Mosque of Islam, the holiest site of Islam.

If Abram had had more confidence in God and had not fathered Ishmael, it would have made a vast difference in world history and in God’s Master Plan for man. God knew in advance Abram would sin in this way, and His plan took enmity between Arabs and Jews into account. God did not plan for Ishmael to be born; that part was wholly the doing of Abram; but God knew in advance it would happen. The Bible, totally inspired by God, provides clear prophesies of the chosen nation Israel’s future. Though the first nation Israel was annihilated in 70 A. D., God promised they would become a nation again, and in June 1948, the second Israel was launched by a grant of the new United Nations. See Psalm 85:1-8 for a clear prediction of today’s Middle Easter conflict.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

The Promised Land (MP 20)

When God marks it off and gives you the land,
It need not be filed with the county clerk;
Woe be unto the nation or the man
Who claims it by some man-made legal quirk!
God gave Abram the land that Canaan had,
To belong to his offspring forever;
God helped them take it, and they dwelt there glad,
Till sin caused God from them it to sever!
For two thousand years they’d no home on earth;
Hounded, killed, and driven from place to place;
A thin slice of that given them at birth,
God caused the U.N. to grant Jacob’s race!
Now, Abram’s offspring huddle in defense,
Surrounded by Satan’s Muslim offence!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 13:14-17 (NIV)
“The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, ‘Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.’ “

Commentary
The land that God promised Abram in 2000 B.C. was not large in comparison to the influence it has had on world affairs. To this day it has been a powder keg, a threat to world peace and the cause of countless wars. When God promised it to Abram, it was called Canaan, and it was occupied by several tribes. Abram was childless at the time and must have wondered just where his “offspring” could possibly come from. Nevertheless, he believed God in faith and obeyed Him, and that’s why God blessed him and made it all come to pass.

Actually Abram had a total of six sons; his son Isaac by his wife Sarai, was the Chosen of God; he then fathered Jacob and Esau, with Jacob being the chosen one that fathered the Hebrews and the nation of Israel. Abram’s other five sons, Esau, and the sons of Lot all sired tribes who became known as Arabs; they have been deadly enemies of Israel throughout history. All Jews and Arabs are included in the “offspring” of Abram, but so are all Christians. When Jesus brought Christianity to the world in the first century A. D., He established a spiritual kingdom, the Kingdom of God; by adoption into Christ’s Kingdom, every Christian is considered spiritually to be a child of Abram. When God likened Abram’s offspring to be like the “dust of the earth” in number, the total number of Israelites, Arabs, and Christians is what God meant; over one half of the population living in the world today are Abram’s “offspring”.

It required about 500 years, until the time of Moses and Joshua, for the twelve tribes of Israel to acquire the land of Canaan, which was 1500 B. C., approximately. The zenith of the nation Israel occurred under King David (1000 B. C.) and his son Solomon. If you have access to a current map of the Middle East, Israel occupied all the lands of Jordan, much of Iraq, and all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. But it was not to last; man’s old nemesis sin by Israel so angered God that His aid to them turned into judgment. The nation split into two kingdoms, each of which were captured, leveled, and plundered, and most people were hauled off into captivity. Though always under conquest by Persia, Babylon, Alexander the Great of Macedonia, and finally the Romans, a couple of million were in the land when Jesus was born of a virgin in about 4 B. C. He was their promised Messiah, but in one last great sin they rejected and crucified Him. That was the last straw for God; He brought the Romans under Titus to besiege and destroy Jerusalem in 70 A. D. Titus killed more than one million Jews; sent 300,000 into slavery for a penny each; cut down all the trees along the Jordan River; plowed all the land and sowed it with salt. The land that “flowed with milk and honey” turned into desert; Israel had no homeland. For 2,000 years they lived as aliens in other countries; suffered persecution; were hounded from place to place; and Hitler sent 6,000,000 to their deaths.
But God had not forgotten the “apple of His eye”. With the undisputed leading nation of the world, the United States, He caused the new United Nations to end Israel’s milleniia of horror by granting Jews a small slice of land along the Mediterranean and a large chunk of desert in 1949, and the second Israel was launched June 15th. The Arab world went to war against Israel that same day; 200,000 Jews who had clung to a bare existence in Arab lands disappeared overnight. God’s Master Plan spelled every detail of this long struggle out, and the Bible prophesied it all before it came to pass. What is more, the Bible tells also what is to happen to Israel in the future.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life,” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 19:9)

Abram, The Obedient (MP 19)

In Ur of the Chaldeans Abram was born,
A man destined to sire many nations,
Among which was one with reason to mourn—
For piercing Him who brought men’s salvations!
Yea, Abram was one man who obeyed God
In faith, when God was but a wee, small voice,
“Leave this place, and go to where strangers trod;”
By those few words Abram made God his choice!
God told Abram, “I will make your name great.”
He promised, “I will bless those who bless you;
Who curses you will meet a curs’ed fate;
Much blessing to earth will through you accrue!”
For descended from him would Jesus be,
To redeem men from sin and set them free!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 12:1-4a (NIV)
“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless them who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ So Abram left as the Lord had told him; …”

Commentary
Ten generations after Noah, a large population scattered about the earth, and God called Abram to leave his father’s home in Mesopotamia and go to a land that would be shown him. Abram obeyed the voice of God and became the world’s most important man, at least from God’s perspective. He sired the Chosen People, Israel, the nation of which Jesus was born, as well as all the Arab nations. He is the spiritual father of all Christians, too, some of which belong to every nation on earth; in fact, during the “millenium”, a thousand-year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ prophesied in the Bible, Abram will be the spiritual father of all nations on earth. Abram’s name was changed by God into Abraham later in his life. His obedience to God reveals him to be the kind of man God desired all men would be; if you compare Abram’s righteous behavior to the unrighteous lives of most other men, it is easy to see why God was disappointed many times by others. Of course, Abram committed sins, also. In Hebrews 11:8, we find that Abram is one of those whose obedience God counted as faith in Jesus Christ, and for it he was “elected” into salvation. We shall have several blogs about the historical acts of Abram and his importance to God’s Master Plan for the world.

The phrase, “Ur of the Chaldeans” (See Genesis 11:31), has been and still is, misunderstood by most Christians; it has also led critics of the Bible to claim that the first five books of the Bible, called the “Pentateuch”, were not written by Moses (about 1400 B.C.) but fabricated by a writer known as “J” about 1000 B.C. Until the mid-1970’s, only one city called “Ur” was known to exist, and it was a large seaport on the Persian Gulf in the south of present-day Iraq. In 1600 B.C., a people called Chaldeans migrated from northwest Mesopotamia down the Euphrates River to the area about the Persian Gulf. Therefore, everyone seemed to choose the Ur in the south as Abraham’s birthplace. If you look in the back of the New International Version (1978) of the Bible, and some others also, you will find a map showing Abraham’s journey to Canaan beginning at the Ur in Babylon, proceeding up to Haran in Mesopotamia, and thence back southwestward to Canaan. That map is incorrect; the Bible itself, though, is accurate.

We should have caught the error; when Abraham sent his servant to the place of his birth to bring back a wife for his son Isaac (See Genesis 24:10), he went north to Nahor, a city near Haran in Mesopotamia. The truth was discovered in the 1970’s at an archeological “dig” at Asshur. A batch of inscriptions were found mentioning “Haran” and several small towns near it; one was named “Ur”. That is the correct birthplace of Abraham; that long journey up the Euphrates in the backs of Bibles is incorrect. The nation of Israel was not sired by a Babylonian, but a Chaldean; or, to be precise, an Aramean, descendants of Shem, so of Noah.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

The Tower Of Babel (MP 18)

Speaking one tongue and working together,
Noah’s seed multiplied and grew much advanced;
By group-think they even wondered whether
Man needed God; alone, he’d be enhanced!
Men made brick and planned a tow’r to reach God,
Thinking, “We don’t need Him!” The fruit of sin—
“Success’ in science; tech-gadgets e’er more odd—
Forbidden lore did Adam bequeath men!
So God confused their language, stopped the work;
They scattered from Babel, founded nations;
But from doubting God group-man did not shirk;
His ego could not bear the deflation!
Modern Man undid some atoms God made;
How long will God let Man His realm invade?

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 11:5-7 (NIV)
“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so that they will not understand each other.’ “

Commentary
The first few generations of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, tended to dwell together, for they spoke the same language. They gathered in a flat land called Shinar, which later became Babylon, and today is Iraq near the capital, Baghdad. As their numbers increased, so did their skills and knowledge. They discovered how to make better brick with which to build instead of animal skins for tents or crude stone. Having inherited the knowledge gained by Adam when he disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden tree, they became reckless in material development to the neglect of wisdom and maturity in the constructive uses of new technology. They built a city before learning to cope with the new problems a city instigates. With their new brick, they egotistically sought to build a tower to heaven and show God what man can do without His aid and counsel. God was not opposed to Man’s science or his progress in new technology. He is opposed to Man’s self pride and ambition to make himself equal to God or his desire to achieve sufficiency within himself by ignoring God. At Babel, He gave each man a different language; what would prove simple to overcome today proved an impossible obstacle then.

This experience at Babel, or Babylon, is indicative of the story of Man and science: Every time a new technology is achieved, its promise of making life easier is countered by the new problems Man faces brought about by the use of the new device. In no other half century in history has this conundrum been more glaringly illustrated than in 1950-2000. Television: We would see news events live while happening; watch movies in the comforts of home; invaluable aid to teachers in educating children; etc. Well, yea, all that, but more, too; pornography in the playroom; costume mishaps at the Super Bowl; profanity in elementary schools; married adults in America down to 52%, and break-up of the family; average time per day viewing TV per person 3.5 hours; etc. God is not opposed to technology; He is opposed to using new inventions without preparing safeguards to suppress the evil that comes with indiscriminate use of technology/

Add the internet and computers; cell phones, Ipods, and Blackberrys; patdowns and body scanners at every airport; and wars all over the planet, while North Korea and Iran develop atom bombs, just because the pressures of war led America to develop and use the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! How long will God allow Man to reverse what He did in putting atoms together with the Big Bang? The Genome Project: Man is trying to create life in a lab, and he’s not using dust of the earth, like God did. The heart of creation is combining atoms of varying weights into various combinations that produce new matter. Man is experimenting with creation, and he is much less prepared or able to cope with the results of what he creates than God was.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Covenant From God (MP 17)

The first covenant God made with mankind
Came after the flood, when there were but eight;
His rainbow would be to all men a sign—
God would ne’er cause flood to bring earth such fate!
He gave beasts, birds, and fish as food to Man,
Along with plants. grain, and fruit from the tree;
Then God gave to men another command:
“Don’t eat meat if still in it blood can be!”
He told them, “Be fruitful, and multiply;
Increase the number of people on earth;
Who spills the blood of man, by Man must die;
For Man in God’s own image has great worth!”
Where’er you go, God’s image goes as well;
You should not take it where evil does dwell!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 9:12-15 (NIV)
“And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”

Commentary
Several times in God’s pre-made Plan for the world, He included a “covenant”, which is a promise made by Him to one man, a tribe of men, or all men. A covenant may have conditions requiring men to fulfill responsibility. In this case the covenant was unconditional, meaning that God would keep His promise without any requirement for men. To Noah after the flood God gave His promise that never again would He cause flood waters to destroy all life on earth, and He placed the rainbow in the clouds as a sign to all men and all creatures they would not have total destruction ever again. This does not preclude destruction by any other method; 2 Peter 3:10 prophesies that the “elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth laid bare”. This will occur at the end of time, before the Last Judgment.

He also issued a second commandment (the first was to Adam “not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) to all men. God commanded Noah and the following generations not to eat meat that still had blood in it. Since the life of any creature, men or animals, comes from the blood in its veins, the life of Jesus, who was God Himself come to earth in the form of a man, was taken by His crucifixion and the spilling of His blood. He was resurrected on the third day and lives now and forever; but the same God giving Noah this command was God in the form of Jesus. Therefore, He wants mankind to have a very high regard for blood of all kinds, especially since it is the blood of Jesus by which Man is redeemed from condemnation. This is also why salvation is given ONLY to those who believe in Jesus as Lord. Simon Peter, chief of the apostles, told the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” He was referring to Jesus of Nazareth whom he had named in preceding verses.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Noah's Ark And The Flood (MP 16)

It took Noah one hundred twenty years
To finish the ark, a giant floating craft;
He never slacked, despite the taunts and jeers
Of all from far and near, who thought him daft!
God sealed tight the door, so none could break in;
The floodgates of heaven poured out much rain;
Drowned were all beasts and birds, women and men;
Those in the ark lived, that life start again!
The ark came to rest on a high mount’s top;
All within came out when the ground grew dry;
Noah’s first act was to thank God for their lot,
That he and his were not allowed to die!
Across the sky God curved a rainbow,
As token never more to flood earth so!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 7:13-16 (NIV)
"On that very day Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kinds, and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut the ark.”

Commentary
How Noah was able to build the ark at all is a mystery. Built of cypress, it was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high; it had three decks and rooms enough to house Noah’s family of eight, pairs of every living type of creature, and food storage to last seven or eight months. Many ocean liners are not that large. The place where it was built was nowhere near the ocean, lake, or river, and it is doubtful if the people knew anything about boats. For 120 years Noah worked on it, enduring taunts and jeers of scoffers.

When the ark was ready, God caused the pairs of animals and birds to come to Noah and enter the ark. He, his wife, three sons, and their wives entered, and God shut and sealed the door, so that others could not break in. It had not rained on the earth, but now it poured rain for forty days; water also gushed up from beneath the ground. The ark rose upon the water until all the mountains were at least twenty feet under water. After 150 days God brought a great wind that helped dry the ground, and the ark landed high on Mount Ararat in modern-day Turkey. Several explorations have climbed the 16,000-foot mountain searching for the ark. Some have reported that they found it, lodged in ice and snow at a very high level.

Noah did not open the door and release the animals for about 40 days, when he was sure the water was gone from the surface of the land. The first thing he did after leaving the ark was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice to God in gratitude for their deliverance. There were no survivors, other than his family of eight persons and the animals and birds he released from the ark.

Had God planned before the beginning of time to destroy the human race and animal life after only ten generations? The answer is yes; God had foreknowledge of everything that was going to happen. But why did He cause the flood at this particular time? All these people, presumably with the exception of Noah (by God’s special “election”), were condemned already by the sin of Adam when he ate fruit of the forbidden tree; they were also spiritually dead by their own great sin. God had not yet come to earth as a man (Jesus) and announced the good news of redemption by faith through grace. From His perspective, these people were already physically dead as well.

I think there were two reasons why God brought the flood when He did: (1) To give the race a fresh start in a world uninfluenced by the great sin that had multiplied in the pre-flood culture; and (2) To cap man’s life span at 120 years rather than the near-millenium that existed in the first ten generations. We know the first reason failed to produce a race who sinned less than the one destroyed; the newborns, if anything, sinned more than those before the flood. The second reason did take effect; after the flood; men’s life-spans were decreased sharply in length. You may well ask, Okay, but why did God also wipe out all animal life? After all, they do not commit sin; their destruction was unwarranted. It may be a shock to your concept of God, but He is not a “save the poor whales” environmentalist; animal life exists to provide food for Man. They weren’t needed in large numbers to feed Noah’s family of eight; as the number of people increased, so did the animal life needed to feed them. Besides, how could God destroy Man by drowning and save the lives of the animals?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Why God Sent The Flood (MP 15)

As people multiplied quickly on earth,
God watched their wickedness grow ever more;
Men had no law save that inborn at birth;
Their hearts were lustful to their inner core!
God grieved for creating the race of Man,
Who defiled God’s own image by their sin;
“I will destroy them according to plan;
My Spirit won’t always with Man contend!
The people of earth had never seen rain;
Their water all came from beneath the ground;
God planned by flood the entire race be slain,
Save for Noah and kin, who’d a new one found!
Men’s sin caused God’s wrath to almost destroy
The race, which ought cause men God’s word employ!

Scripture Quoted (NIV)
Genesis 2:5b-6—“… for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth … but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground …”

Genesis 6:5-8—“The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth … But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

Commentary
Ten generations of human beings were descended from Adam and Eve when God’s Master Plan called for Him to send a great flood on the earth and drown them all, except for Noah and his family. The number of people had greatly increased because of the longevity of all these people; their wickedness had grown geometrically as well, as God had known it would. The people born to Noah’s three sons on a gradual scale would be limited to an average span of 120 years, and perhaps could live with less wickedness also. Some might ask, “How could God expect less evil among the new beings if there were no new commands from Him?” He had not given Adam’s first descendants any new law, like the one He gave Adam about not eating fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; in fact, He had taken the Garden out of reach of men; they could not break that commandment, for the Tree was unavailable. All of them were already condemned by reason of Adam’s sin, and God had not yet revealed to them His plan of redemption coming with the Lord Jesus Christ thousands of years in the future. God's Plan called for Him to develop a particular tribe of people by selecting and revealing Humself to individuals who would be instrumental in forming the new nation, and one by one He gave them knowledge of blessings that He would bestow upon them for obedience.

However, Adam’s son Seth lived with him 800 years, and Seth’s parents had plenty of firsthand knowledge of God’s nature and expectations of good behavior from members of the race He had created. Enosh, son of Seth and grandson of Adam, began to “call on the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:26); others of his generation did, too. They knew about God’s desires for men to live righteously, because Adam and Eve were alive and must have told them much. The great increase in wickedness (sin) among the first ten generations was caused by man's inherent desires to seek pleasures of this world; they chose sin instead of choosing to live for God. This was known to God before creation, and His plan for the flood to destroy those ten generations was made long ago; yet He gave them freedom to choose. Adam’s sin alone was not the cause of the destructive flood; it was caused by the free choice of men and women to live wickedly,and by the necessity to curb population growth. The purpose of human life on earth was to test every man and woman for his or her choice of good or evil; it did not require a long life-span, such as that enjoyed by the pre-flood generations.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

"That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord', and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)

Man's Shrinking Life-Span (MP 14)

Righteous, Adam would have lived forever,
As God’s first man created on earth.
When he sinned, God did his life-span sever—
He died nine hundred thirty years from birth!
When his quintuple-great grandson came,
God foreknew man’s life-length would have to fall,
Else earth could not long men’s huge host sustain,
So He decreed six-score years for them all!
Despite wars, famines, plagues, earth’s numbers grew,
Until Moses wrote, “three-score years and ten”
Man has to serve God, or evil pursue,
Or four-score, if added strength extend!
Adam, you brought us death, and so much more—
Fewer years life’s adventures to explore!

Scripture Quoted: (NIV) [Brackets added]
Genesis 5:5—“Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, then he died.”

Genesis 6:3—“Then the Lord [God] said, ‘My Spirit [God] will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.’ “

Psalm 90:3—“You [God] turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’ “

Psalm 90:9-10—“All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, but they quickly pass, and we fly away.”

Commentary
We do not know how many sons and daughters were born to Adam and Eve. The Bible reveals the names of three—Cain, Abel, and Seth; since Adam lived 930 years, and Seth was born when he was 130, while Cain and Abel were born earlier; we cam reasonably deduce that these years were not very much different in length than years today. We know that later in the Old Testament, the Jews used 30 days for every month, 360 for a year. Adam and Eve had other children (See Genesis 5:3); they could have sired as many as 100 children, and so could have each of them in those early days. Hence, in ten generations, the total population of the earth could have been in the millions. Well, God knew all of this in advance, and He planned to reduce the length of man’s life to only 120 years. Since Adam’s sin of eating forbidden fruit had brought death for him and all his descendants, it also bequeathed to us all a sinful nature. After just ten generations, wickedness pervaded all the people, except for Noah. In God’s pre-made plan, it called for Him to bring a deluge of water on the earth that drowned everyone but Noah and his family, who numbered eight people total. The newborns after the flood were limited to 120-year life-spans, after a winding-down span of ten additional generations..

Even this relatively short length didn’t curtail population totals. A number of generations later, Moses, the prophet who under God’s guidance brought the descendants of Jacob (Israel) out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land (Caanan), wrote that man’s life-span, because of God’s wrath, was down to seventy years. Despite millions killed by wars, famines, and plagues, that is still the number of days that people can expect to live today. The average in America now is slightly more than seventy. Population of the earth is still increasing; it is now more than six billion. God’s Master Plan will not let it grow much more, I don’t believe.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

When Will God Return To Redeem Man? (MP 13)

Many thousand years would pass before God
Came back to earth to redeem fallen Man;
Great spans of history emerged from fog;
Millions died, as sin did the race command!
God prepared men for His saving return;
He chose a tribe which spawned His virgin birth,
Gave them laws and prophets, that sin they’d spurn,
Called them, “the apple of His eye” on earth!
He would come back in the fullness of time;
“Jesus”, meaning “He saves”, was His human name,
For men’s lives will He save, and yours and mine;
Yes, all who believe, absolving of blame!
With God, a thousand years is like a day;
Not like men, who briefly live, then pass away!

Scripture Quoted [Brackets added] (NIV)
Ephesians 1:9-10—“And he [God] made known the mystery of his will [plan] according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ [Jesus] to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

Romans 5:6,8—“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless [condemned because of Adam’s first sin, with no remedy to keep ourselves from death], Christ [Jesus] died for the ungodly [the entire human race]. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ [God] died for us.”

2 Peter 3:8-9—“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends, with God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord [God] is not slow in keeping his promise [prophets’ predictions of the coming Messiah (Jesus)] as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance [belief in Jesus as Lord].

Commentary
Jesus (God) was born as a baby in Bethlehem, Judea, of a virgin about the year 2 B.C. and lived until 32 A.D. The entire human race had been under condemnation since the sin of Adam, and most had lived and died facing eternal life separated from God. Jesus brought the “good news” of salvation through faith in Jesus as the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. All men and women who believe in Him have their condemnation nullified and have been given eternal life with God. God’s apparent “slowness” in bringing the remedy for fallen Man is due to His foreknowledge that world conditions would converge into the opportune time for the gospel of faith to spread quickly to the whole world. The Roman Empire was in control of most of the known world—Europe, north Africa, and western Asia. The Romans had built good roads throughout the Empire; travel by foot and by sea was relatively easy and safe. Thanks to Alexander the Great, the Greek language had become the main means of communication through all these nations three centuries earlier. Paul and the other disciples were able to extend the gospel throughout the Empire and beyond. Thomas the apostle went to India; others went deep into Africa; James, the brother of John, sailed into Spain. Despite fierce persecution, there were so many millions of Christians that in 325 A.D. Emperor Constantine adopted the faith as the official religion of the Roman Empire. God chose the time to redeem Man because He knew all this before He launched the universe.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

All Of Us Condemned At Conception (MP 12)

Had one lesser than God designed the plan
To create a race whose wills remained free,
And the first chose sin that doomed ev’ry man,
He may have decided, “That’s all for me!”
Our God foreknew what Adam would do,
And that his progeny would do the same;
All would choose to sin; not one would live true;
So His pre-made plan the puzzle did tame!
God volunteered Himself to be a man;
His human will, with no power divine,
Did not yield, though none was tried harder than;
Sinless, He died, for your sins, and for mine!
We are dead through sin, but can live again;
Through Him, eternal life we can obtain!

Commentary
Why is every person ever conceived condemned by the imputed guilt of Adam? Because from God’s perspective, Adam, the first man created, was considered by God as the “federal head” of the human race. We are every one descended from Adam, the same as a son is descended from his father, grandfather, or great grandfather. If my great great great grandfather, Thomas Crittenden, had not migrated by land and river raft from Virginia to Louisiana, and my grandfather from Louisiana to Mississippi, I would not have been born in Mississippi. Thomas Crittenden’s actions had a great influence on me; so did Adam.

Why did God have to become a man (Jesus) in order to be “eligible” to go to the cross and die for every man’s redemption from the penalty brought by Adam’s first sin? Because Adam was a man, created by God; only the God/man could be another “federal head” of the human race He created like Adam (See Eph. 1:9-10). By living as a sinless man through a human lifetime, the Creator of man could assume the headship of the race and die in man’s place. God pre-planned to return, live, and die as a man before He started the universe. What a God is ours!


Scripture Quoted: Romans 5:12-21 (NIV) [Brackets added]
Note: In the following paragraphs, the Scriptures are enclosed by quotation marks; added explanations are enclosed in brackets.

Verse 5:12—“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man [Adam], and death [meaning physical death, spiritual death, and the ‘second death’ (See Rev. 20:14)] through sin, and in this way death came to all men [you, me, and every human], because all sinned [you, me, and every human]—“

Verse 5:13— “for before the law [Mosaic], sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account [meaning the first sin of Adam is all that was needed to impute sin to all his progeny, and they are condemned; there is no added condemnation for sins committed before Moses; and the sovereign God had given no way to have them forgiven, or to redeem the lost] when there is no law [but Hebrews 11 describes God’s ‘election’ of some whose obedience counted for faith; they were redeemed by His imputation of Christ’s righteousness to them].”

Verse 5:14—“Nevertheless, death [all three kinds—physical, spiritual, and second] reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a commandment as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one [Jesus(God)] to come.”

Verse 5:15—“But the gift [God’s grace in saving mankind] is not like the trespass [Adam’s first sin]. For if the many [every person that lived between Adam and Moses] died by the trespass of one man, how much more did God’s grace [God’s unmerited favor to mankind] and the gift that came by one man [Jesus(God) who gave His life as atonement for the sins of all men, and their redemption] Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

Verse 5:16—“Again, the gift [God’s grace in salvation] of God is not like the result of one man’s [Adam’s] sin. The judgment [God’s condemnation of the entire human race] followed one sin and brought condemnation [eternal separation of all mankind from God], but the gift [of Jesus’(God’s) salvation] followed many trespasses and brought justification [relief from condemnation and acceptance to eternal life with God].”

Verse 5:17—“For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam], death [physical death, spiritual death, and ‘the second death’ (See Rev. 20:14)] reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace [unmerited favor to mankind] and of righteousness [Jesus Christ imputes His righteousness to men and women who believe, for not one person can be righteous on his or her own] reign in life [eternal life with God after physical death] through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

Verse 5:18—“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass [Adam’s first sin] was condemnation [the ‘second death’, eternal separation from God] for all men, so also of one act of righteousness [Jesus Christ’s spilling His blood, dying on the cross] was justification that brings life for all men [all mankind is eligible for justification, but only those who believe in Jesus will be].”

Verse 5:19—“For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus] the many will be made righteous [sinless].”

Verse 5:20—“The law [Mosaic Law] was added [given by God to Moses and the Israelites at Mt. Sinai; the Law could not justify] so that the trespasses [sins] might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,”

Verse 5:21—“so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life [after physical death, to dwell with God forever] through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘’Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

God Confronts Adam And Eve (MP 11)

God watched them commit the sin and was sad,
Yet He foreknew it would be as it was;
For Him to remain just, Man’s free will had
To choose sin for himself, and he still does!
God straightway came and confronted the three:
The Man, the Woman, and the serpent, too,
For it had housed Satan and willingly,
Inducing the Pair God’s command eschew!
All were assigned stiff penalties to bear:
The Garden was lost to them forever;
Death must they and all their descendants share!
Adam’s sin seemed God’s great plan to sever!
Is this the end of His plan for the world,
To dwell with men, if all to Hell are hurled?

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 3:14-19 (NIV)
“So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, 'Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.' "
“To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pain in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ “
“To Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to your wife, and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, You must not eat of it, Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.' " [Brackets added]

Commentary
What drastic changes came to the lives of Adam and Eve, and to their destiny, as well as to progeny, the whole human race, as a result of their disobedience to God! Those changes apply to you and me and our descendants, too! Because of this first sin, God, to keep His word and remain just, was obliged to issue strict judgment upon all men and women, including physical death and condemnation to Hell for eternal afterlife! Hell is the place of torment prepared for Satan and the fallen angels; it is a burning lake of fire. Also, the earth was cursed by God; henceforth there was no easy living in a Garden full of fresh fruit; instead the fields had to be worked by man to produce his own food without rain and prone to produce briars and thistles. Animals became dangerous to each other and to Man. These conditions continue to this day, except rain was added by God later after a catastrophic deluge.

Why did God create the universe, angels, earth, and man? Because He desired creatures in His image, men and women, that were sinless and, of their own free wills while living here on earth, chose to live as taught by His word—the Bible—to dwell with Him, adopted into His family, in an eternal after life. Since Adam was the “federal head” of the whole human race, Adam’s sin was imputed to every one of Adam’s descendants. Therefore no one who ever lived could qualify to be adopted by God, for in His sight all were sinners, and all God’s preparatory work up to this point would be useless, a waste of His time and power. His plan was ended with the first man of the new creatures! Or was it?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

The Sin That Changed The World (MP 10)

God gave Adam freedom of choice to make;
He did the same for the rest of mankind;
But God foreknew which fork each one would take,
So the First Man’s choice stained all those behind!
God gave one command to Adam and Eve;
It was, “Do not eat of a certain Tree!”
Their fitness, eternal life to receive,
Was being tested; would they remain free?
Satan, as a serpent, told them a lie;
It was that God would not do what He said;
“If you eat this, you will not surely die!”
As if God were too kind to see them dead!
So they ate, disobeying God’s command,
And they died, and the entire race of Man!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 3:1-7 (NIV)
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, 'You must not eat of any tree in the garden?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say ’You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will surely die.‘ 'You will not surely die,’ the serpent told the woman, ‘for God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made covering for themselves.”

Commentary
Adam and Eve were created by God innocent as small children, who believe anything anyone tells them. He preferred that they remain that way. God knew, however, that Satan was on the earth, and that he was the father of all lies (See John 8:44). As a test for the First Pair, God put a tree in the middle of the garden and commanded Adam that he must not eat its fruit. He foreknew that Adam would disobey, for He knew that Satan would convince Adam to do it. Please note what the effect of eating the forbidden fruit was, because it was very deliberately planned by God, so that its effects would spread to the entire human race, including all of us today. It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—not the Knowledge of How to Tell Good from Evil; just that there are both good and evil in the world. The first result of eating in defiance of God upon Adam and Eve was that they realized they were naked; this meant that nakedness was now not only noticeable to their minds, but that lust entered their thoughts. Lust is Satan’s way of inducing erotic sin into a modern-day obsession, all of it evil, except between husband and wife, in God’s sight. pride, jealousy, envy, hatred, covetousness, contentiousness, and a million other emotions that lead to sin entered into Man when Adam and Eve disobeyed. The serpent (Satan) had a field day with the human race after the first sin in the Garden!

The Bible defines death in three ways: Physical death, meaning the end of this life in the flesh upon the earth; “second” death, meaning God’s penalty after the Final Judgment suffering condemnation to hell with Satan and the fallen angels (See Revelation 20:14); and spiritual death meaning those living human beings whose lives are being lived while rejecting God. The devil lied; Adam and Eve and all who lived between Adam and Moses died all three deaths (See Romans 5:14), except for some who God specifically “elected”, counting their obedience as faith (See Hebrews 11).

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Satan Shows Up (MP 9)

Before the Garden was, Satan was there;
Unseen, watching all that the Lord God did;
He smirked to see Man made with such great care,
Noting weaknesses in him not e’en hid!
He hated Adam and the race of men,
For God made them to be higher than he;
To snatch them away by their love of sin,
Became his plan, the more Satan did see!
With their unaided wills, men must oppose
The tempts and tests the devil throws at them!
Satan could assume any form he chose,
But God knows just what’s going on with him!
He makes evil most attractive to men;
Few will resist or with success contend!

Scripture Quoted: 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV)
“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same sufferings.”

Commrntary

Lucifer began as God’s chief angel in heaven, but as we have seen in an earlier blog, he rebelled against his Creator, tried to topple Him, lost, and got cast out of heaven. He and millions of supporting angels were hurled to the newly formed earth. Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan. Instead of giving up his foolish idea of fighting God for supremacy, he continued opposing God by trying to ensnare the souls of men and women, that they might be condemned as he and the other fallen angels were. Knowing that God detests sin, cannot abide it, and has decreed that the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), he surrounds human beings with opportunities to engage in sinful actions. He and his helpers, called “demons”, furnish the evils by which people are tested while living on the earth.
You may wonder why God did not execute all of the traitors instead of allowing them to continue doing damage against His effort to create the human race and adopt them into His family to dwell with Him for eternity. Had God executed them, the earth would be happier; there would be no evil and no temptation to do evil. But if that were so, how could God be sure that those who He adopted chose the good? If there was no evil in the world, man would not be forced to choose between evil and good. Lucifer was created for the express purpose of providing evil. I must say he does a wonderfully “good” job of providing evil to the world. Most men and women prefer his “broad road” to hell rather than God’s “narrow” path to heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). The battle between God and Satan, far from being cut short, as would have happened if God had slain him by Satan’s abrupt eradication, started in heaven before time began; resumed in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were tempted; has continued growing with the human race; is now raging, even in visible warfare, as the Middle East conflict between Muslim nations and tiny Israel; and will continue until the end of Time; at which point Satan and his demons will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, along with all the human beings that have chosen sin over God (Revelation 20:14).

In the Scripture quoted above Peter graphically describes Satan as a roaring lion devouring people; of course, that is not literal, but a person who ignores God and fills his or her time with worldly pursuits is certainly “devoured” by condemnation to hell. Modern-day culture frowns on Christian gospel by its philosophical stance against anything which is not inclusive of all religions as “truth”. “There is no other name under heaven given to men through whom we must be saved than Jesus Christ,” Peter told the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 4:12); in postmodernity (the philosophy that governs today's society), this statement is a no-no, because it is dogmatic and absolute. It is true though.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

The FIrst Marriage (MP 8)

God saw that Adam needed a helpmate;
He caused the man to fall deeply asleep;
From Adam one of his ribs God did take,
Made a partner for his company keep!
Adam said, “We shall be husband and wife;
She’s bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”
Man shall leave his parents for a new life;
The two shall be one, sharing all afresh!
Man and woman only shall for life mate;
Adam and Eve were the first ones so to do;
What God joins, man’s law cannot separate;
God said, “Be fruitful,” and increase from two!
They were naked, yet did not feel ashamed;
Innocent and pure—would they had remained!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 2:21-25 (NIV)
“So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

Commentary
This passage from Genesis 2 describes the first marriage, which is an ordinance instituted by God. All nations’ civil law includes definitions of marriage and how they are to be recorded. In America each state regulates marriage. Until recently all used the Bible’s definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Priests and ministers are authorized to conduct Christian marriage; justices of the peace, ship captains, and certain others are also licensed to do it and sign a wedding certificate.
Recently a few states have authorized same-sex marriages. God does not approve of homosexuality; the Bible clearly calls it sin in both the Old and New Testaments. God loves the homosexual man or woman as much as He loves any man or woman, and he or she receives the gift of salvation exactly as does any person, but God hates sin in everyone. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). A homosexual believer is commanded to admit his or her sin, confess it to God, and ask forgiveness. Also, like all sins, he or she is expected by God to work to eliminate his sexual sin; despite what modern psychology holds, a person can rid himself or herself of it. Even if the effort is not made, though, a sincere believer in Jesus Christ, homosexual or not, will be admitted to heaven by receiving the righteousness of Christ imputed to him or her. No person will ever earn the right to enter heaven by his own effort.

Divorce can be sinful for both partners, or by either, or by neither. Every married person should vividly realize that his and her wedding vow was made to God; breaking your vow to Him is a sin, one that He especially hates. God makes to the divorcee the same promise of salvation made to all—it is given to any who sincerely believe in Jesus Christ. Remarriage may also be sinful, but doing so will not take away a person’s salvation who believes in Jesus.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)