“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ And he said, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ He said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.’ Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.’ So the Lord said to him, ‘Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.’ And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“Where is your brother Abel.” (verse 9) As He did when He asked Adam where he was (Genesis 3:9), so the Lord asked Cain concerning the whereabouts of his brother. In both cases the questions were not asked to elicit physical locations but to reveal spiritual conditions of the heart. Both Adam and His murderous son failed the test. Neither confessed with remorseful, godly sorrow, and Cain flat out lied—“I do not know.” Just like his dad, Cain thought he could hide from the Lord. He figured he could kill his brother, hide the body and God would be none the wiser.

Denis Prager observed: “Cain could have responded, ‘I killed him. What’s the problem?’ After all, God had not yet told people not to murder, so why did Cain feel he had to lie about what he had done? The implication in Cain’s response is that he knew that what he did was wrong… the human being has an inner voice—the conscience—that can perceive the difference between right and wrong. Clearly, however, conscience is not good enough for good to prevail in the world. It didn’t work for Cain…and it hasn’t worked much since.”

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” What a brash and shameful thing to say to the God of all life and love and benevolence. Especially after playing God by taking a precious life that only the Creator had the right to rule over. Maybe he was thinking of how his brother was “a keeper of flocks” (verse 2), and still stewing over God's delight in Abel's sacrifice, he scorned the Lord in his sarcasm for playing favorites. But, actually Cain convicted himself with his own, cold words. All human beings should view themselves as their brothers' protectors. It is true that no one is solely responsible for the health and safety of another full-grown, capable adult, but we deny our Maker when we selfishly and exclusively pursue our own personal interests to the neglect of the wellbeing of our brothers and sisters in the human family. “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:3-5)

“What have you done?” (verse 10) Not a question but an exclamation of shock and disgust! “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.” Nahum Sarna notes that the stem of the Hebrw word for “crying” has legal significance, and “connotes a plea for help or redress on the part of the victim of some great injustice.” James Burton Coffman made some keen observations about what the blood of Abel says as it figuratively cries out from the ground, and as Abel continues to “speak” through his faith:

“What does the blood of Abel Say? “Abel...he being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrews 11:4).

1. The blood of Abel says that God will one day avenge the crimes perpetrated against the innocent (Romans 12:19).
2. The blood of Abel says that the righteous are hated without cause (1 John 3:11-13).
3. The blood of Abel says that it DOES make a difference how men worship Almighty God.
4. The blood of Abel says that faith is the only key to winning approval of God (Hebrews 11:6).
5. The blood of Abel says that the only righteousness is in obeying the Word of the Lord (Romans 1:16, 17).”

Nahum Sarna commented on Cain's punishment recorded in verses 11-12: “A breach of moral law inevitably sets in motion countervailing forces that must ultimately prevail because they are sustained by God Himself. Cain, tiller of the soil, whose criminal act was the outcome of his offering the fruits of the soil, stained the earth with his brother's blood. It is fitting, then, that the earth be the instrument of his punishment. It will no longer yield him its produce, and so he can no longer pursue his vocation. He must perforce become a vagrant and an outcast.”

“My punishment is too great to bear!” (verse 13) Still no remorse. Still no acknowledgment of his wrong doing. Still no recognition of appropriate justice administered. As is typical of calculating, calloused criminals when faced with their just desserts, Cain complained that, “It's just not fair!” Cain lamented to the Lord in verse 14 that as a vagrant on the earth and isolated from God's protection, someone would likely seek him out and avenge his brother's blood. This, of course, would be another sibling or cousin avenging the death of a righteous relative.

Surprisingly the Lord responded with mercy and not further reprimand. God promised that He would “appoint a sign” or a “mark” for Cain to announce to the world that he possessed a protected status. Whether it was some external mark or aura or even some sort of signal that Cain would give to ward off a possible assailant, we are simply not told. But somehow God made it conspicuous to Cain's contemporaries.

Please read Genesis 4:16-25 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor

"Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, 'I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.' Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.' Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”

---End of Scripture verses---

In regards to the account of the first murder, James Burton Coffman suggested: “The great message of the chapter is that sin is a cancer that grows progressively worse and worse. Eating of the forbidden tree might have appeared to Adam and Eve as a minor event, but when they stood by the grave of Abel, the true nature of what they had done began to be visible. But even that heart-breaking sorrow was only the first pebble of that tremendous avalanche that would soon engulf all mankind in the floods of the Great Deluge.”

“The man had relations with his wife Eve” (verse 1), and there is no reason to assume that this was the first time the husband and wife were intimate with one another. “And she conceived and gave birth to Cain,” and we cannot necessarily infer from the text that this was the first child she gave birth to. The word “Cain” can mean “to acquire” or “to produce, create”. Eve had been “created” from the man through the power of the Lord, and now she “produced” a “manchild with the help of the Lord.”

“Again she gave birth to his brother Abel” (verse 2). The omission of any suggestion of further “relations” between Adam and Eve lead some to believe that Cain and Abel were twins. While this is certainly a possibility, it is by no means a foregone conclusion. “The Hebrew name for Abel, Havel, is usually translated as 'nothingness,' 'vanity,' or 'futility,' as in the verse in Ecclesiastes that reads, 'vanity of vanities, all is vanity' (havel havelim, hakol havel – Ecclesiastes 1:2).” (Dennis Prager) “The name may alternatively, or perhaps simultaneously, contain a reference to his vocation in that Syriac habla means a 'heardsman'.” (Nahum Sarna)

“Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” There is no suggestion that one vocation was superior to the other. Man's first food source was from trees and plants, and his first occupation, both before and after the expulsion from the garden, was gardening/farming. “Both of these occupations were shown to Adam by the Lord, the tilling of the ground by direct commandment, and the keeping of sheep through the provision of the clothing by the slaying of animals. It was natural that one of the sons would choose one department, and another the other.” (James Burton Coffman)

In the course of time both brothers brought offerings to the Lord (verses 3-4). From the beginning of time, people offered sacrifices to God, and God fully expected such from the beings He created, sustained and provided for. “The Torah states matter-of-factly that Cain and Abel brought offerings to God, suggesting the universality of sacrifice, prayer, and belief in a deity. We know of no pre-modern society that was atheistic and of no ancient society that did not have sacrifices to its god(s). The widespread extent of atheism and secularism in our time is unique to human history. Whether modern godless societies can long survive is an open question.” (Dennis Prager)

“And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.” (verses 4-5) The text does not divulge how God expressed His pleasure and displeasure with these sacrifices. Maybe He sent fire down from heaven to consume Abel's offering and left Cain's untouched. Or maybe it was in some other way. The immediate text does not give the reason for God's displeasure with Cain's sacrifice, but the New Testament provides great insight. Many people assume that the Lord rejected the elder son's offering because it was of “the fruit of the ground” instead of “the flock” like Abel's. But God would never expect us to give better than that which is in our possession.

Hebrews 11:4 tells us “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain.” Furthermore, Romans 10:17 states that, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” We don't know the details of what God told Cain and Abel about the offerings He commanded and expected, but they knew good and well. Abel responded in obedient faith to word of God, and Cain did not. It appears obvious from the wording of verse 4 that states Abel gave of “the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions,” that Abel offered the Lord the first and best of what he had to give as well, while Cain just gave something in his possession. God fully and rightly expects our giving to be sacrificial, meaningful and heartfelt.

“So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.” (verse 5) This expression of anger and dejection is telling of the man's poor attitude and condition of heart. But the story did not have to end the way that it did. The Lord gave Him wise and loving counsel and ample opportunity to turn his heart around and turn his frown upside down. God told Cain, “ If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?” (verse 7) God's displeasure with Cain would have turned to satisfaction if the begrudged offender would have just repented in godly sorrow and purposed to do better the next time. But it was all up to Cain. God did not require him to do “better” than his brother. Just to do “well”. To do the right thing. To do the best he could.

But if he didn't... If he decided not to... If he brooded over his hurt feelings and allowed his anger to turn to bitterness...his bitterness to hatred...then... “Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Sin is depicted as a wild, ferocious animal, concealed, crouching and poised for attack. “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith...” (1 Peter 5:8-9) Either we decide to master our anger, our emotions, our sins, or sin will master us. “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” (Romans 6:16)

Instead of humbling himself at the loving behest of the Lord and doing the right thing, “Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.” (verse 8) “Cain's depression gives way to an irrational act of aggression. The first recorded death is not from natural causes but by human hands, an ironic comment on the theme of chapter 3. Man and woman had striven to gain immortality, but their first-born brings the reality of death into the world. The narrative illustrates one of the most lamentable aspects of the human condition, one that is a recurrent theme in the Bible – namely, the corruption of religion. An act of piety can degenerate into bloodshed.” (Nahum Sarna).

Three takeaways from today's text: 1) God has given us all free wills to live our lives in the ways that we please. But we cannot escape the consequences of the choices that we make 2) Worshiping God in faith, in spirit and in truth, obeying Him according to His word is vital for a good, healthy relationship with Him and with other people, including our family members. 3) Control your anger, your emotions and your sins or they will become your masters and lead you to places you would never intend to or dream you could go.

Please read Genesis 4:9-15 for tomorrow.

Have a blessed day!

- Louie Taylor

“Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'—therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“The man called is wife's name Eve...” (verse 20) The man had previously given her the generic name “woman, because she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2:23) Now he calls her “Eve”, a personal name which means “life” or “living”. This was an appropriate designation “because she was the mother of all the living” – Excluding Adam of course. Some people believe that there must have been other people living on the earth for Adam and Eve's children to choose wives from. Verse 20 makes it clear that all people of the earth are descendants of Adam and “mother” Eve. All people of all colors and cultures are blood relatives because everyone's family tree terminates back at the first couple. There is only one race of people and it is the human race.

“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife...” (verse 21) “Despite their transgression and punishment, Adam and Eve are not wholly alienated from God, who now displays His parental concern for their welfare. Since nakedness now evokes shame, God restores human dignity by providing clothing. Also, the garments will afford protection against the harsh conditions of life they are to encounter outside Eden... a kind of long- or short-sleeved shirt...that reached down to the knees or even the ankles.” (Nahum Sarna) It appears that another consequence of Adam and Eve's sin was the killing of animals for the first time to make “skins” to cover the nakedness and vulnerability of humans.

God removed “the tree of life” from the “reach” of the first couple after they lost their innocence and gained “knowledge” that only left them filled with a sense of shame and disgrace. They had been left to live in a harsh world that was terminally cursed because of their transgression, and the worst outcome would have been for them to live forever in such a wretched condition. So the Lord mercifully removed that opportunity from their grasp. The tree of life disappears from the Holy Scriptures in the third chapter of the first book at the dawn of Creation, and does not reappear until the last book of the Bible in heaven after Final Judgment (Revelation 21).

Verse 23 says God “sent” man out of the garden and verse 24 says that He “drove” him out. After the expulsion from the garden the Lord set strong guardians, cherubim, to defend the entryway. These were angelic beings (Psalm 18:10; Ezekiel 28:4), whose likeness was fashioned from gold and set upon the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant kept in the most holy place of the tabernacle. W. E. Vine commented in his dictionary of Bible words: “The first reference to the 'cherubim' is in Genesis 3:24, which should read '...at the East of the Garden of Eden He caused to dwell in a tabernacle the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned itself to keep the way of the Tree of Life.' This was not simply to keep fallen human beings out; the presence of the 'cherubim' suggests that redeemed men, restored to God on God's conditions, would have access to the Tree of Life. (See Revelation 22:14 ).”

The “flaming sword which turned in every direction” is a bit of a puzzle and mystery, but we do see sword-wielding angels in the Bible from time to time (Numbers 22:23; Joshua 5:13; 1 Chronicles 21:16, 27). Verse 24 does not clearly state that the sword was in the hands of the cherubim, and the passages just listed do not confirm that the angels with swords were cherubim. It is just interesting to note that angels and swords are found together in other places in the Bible.

Friends sin is such a huge deal even though people have the tendency to downplay their own transgressions with frequency. The first sin simply changed everything, and sinfulness still ruins good things and people's lives today! It turned what was good and blessed and holy into pain and shame and isolation. Sin brought physical and spiritual death into the world, and it has separated people from God ever since. It even required the death of the Only Begotten Son of God, but through His sacrifice He provides hope for restoration and reconciliation. The tree of life is still available and within reach, but it can only be accessed through love for Jesus Christ and obedience to His word.

Please read Genesis 4:1-8 for tomorrow.

- Louie Taylor

The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.’ To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. ‘Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’”

---End of Scripture verses---

“God passes sentence; and he begins where the sin began, with the serpent. The devil's instruments must share in the devil's punishments.” (Matthew Henry) God didn’t interrogate the serpent as He did the man and woman. Its guilt was undeniable and inexcusable and the Lord just issued judgment. The serpent and its descendants were cursed to go on their “belly” and eat “dust” all their days. This suggests that prior to the curse the serpent’s original condition was walking upright or semi-erect. And while it is true that humans are overwhelmingly repulsed by serpent-kind, and as they slither along the ground, encounters frequently result in wounds to human heels and crushing blows to serpentine crowns, there is a much deeper meaning and spiritual fulfillment to the prophecy in verse 15 than that.

The “enmity” or “animosity” that the Lord pronounced was to be between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. No sooner than the curse had been pronounced, the cure was announced. This was a direct prophecy of the miraculous future birth of the Savior of the world to a virgin (Isaiah 7:14). The Apostle Paul wrote of it this way in Galatians 4:4: “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” The “bruise…on the heel” was to be delivered to Jesus with His death on the cross, and the fatal “bruise…to the head” was unleashed on Satan when Christ arose from the grave to defeat the great adversary of mankind and the sting of that very first and every subsequent sin committed.

The “enmity” between mankind and Satan is warfare waged by the Devil and those he influences against the children of the Lord who endeavor to keep His commandments and reverence His holiness. Matthew Henry further observed: “War is proclaimed between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It is the fruit of this enmity, that there is a continual warfare between grace and corruption, in the hearts of God's people. Satan, by their corruptions, buffets them, sifts them, and seeks to devour them.” Even though Satan has been defeated and he knows that his days are numbered, he continues his attempted onslaught against those created in the image of the One he detests the most. He knows he has lost but he is in a desperate frenzy to “devour” as many people as he can (1 Peter 5:8), and to condemn them to the anguish and misery of an eternity in hell with him.

James Burton Coffman wrote concerning the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 the following – “Thus, this 27-word promise of healing for the sins of Adam's race conveyed limited information, but the significance of it is unlimited. In the light of subsequent events, it comprises as comprehensive and definite a statement of God's Plan of Redemption as could have been devised in so few words. Here is a summary of what was included:

1. it outlines the doctrine of the Incarnation;

2. and of the Virgin Birth;

3. has a prophecy of the crucifixion; and

4. of the final overthrow of Satan in hell;

5. announces the ultimate overthrow of evil;

6. the long agony of the human race; and

7. provides a message of hope and salvation for fallen humanity.”

“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth…” (verse 16) This possibly suggests that the punishment decreed to the woman, and the consequences passed on to all women thereafter, is that some modicum of pain would have been a part of giving birth even in the perfection of paradise. “Multiplying” seems to imply “increasing” something that is already present and many Bible versions use that very word. It seems more likely, however, that this punishment is directly tied to God’s command for Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Genesis 1:27) The “blessing” of multiplying the population of the earth would henceforth be accomplished through the multiplication of pain. Nahum Sarna commented, “Intense pain in childbearinig is unique to the human species and generally unknown to other female mammals.” While the woman was taken from the man’s body painlessly, women must endure agony in bringing forth offspring from their own bodies.

“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (verse 16) “Historically, the woman was wholly dependent for her sustenance upon what her husband could eke out of the soil, in striking contrast to the situation in Eden where her food was readily and independently available at all times. It should be noted that the ‘curse’ is used in connection with the judgments on the serpent and the man, but not in relation to the woman. It is quite clear from the description of the woman in 2:18, 23 that the ideal situation, which hitherto existed, was the absolute equality of the sexes. The new state of male dominance is regarded as an aspect of the deterioration in the human condition that resulted from defiance of divine will.” (Sarna)

“Cursed is the ground because of you…” (verse 17) As is always true with the infinitely just Creator of the universe, the punishment is appropriate for the crime. Adam sinned by eating forbidden produce from the ground, and subsequently the earth would no longer yield up its fruit apart from his sweat and toil. The man’s backbreaking physical labor is regarded as the male equivalent of the labor of childbearing.” (Sarna) “God simply re-ordered this physical world in such a way that man would never be able to make himself too cozy in his state of rebellion against his Creator. There was a further destruction of the earth in the Great Deluge; and that also would appear to be an extension and development of the principle visible in these verses.” (Coffman)

If the punishments seem to be overly harsh, it is good to consider the magnificent love and care that God displayed for the first couple with their splendid living arrangement. The Lord brought Adam into a world that was formed and furnished specifically with his needs in mind. He brought all the animals to him to delight in and have dominion over. He fashioned a perfect compliment suitable for love and companionship to complete any possibly emotional need and desire for intimacy that had not been previously supplied. He placed the first couple in a garden paradise that He lovingly created specifically for them. He supplied them with a lush variety of nourishment that was tended to and harvested with very little effort on their part. He gave them a vocation to keep their bodies and minds occupied and their need for enterprise fulfilled. He also was ever actively, personally present in their daily lives. And still, they were dissatisfied and forsook their blessed Creator and Provider. But even from the foundation of the world, God anticipated and provided for a plan to save fallen man (Ephesians 3:11), and left the disgraced couple with a message of hope for better things to come.

Please read Genesis 3:20-24 for tomorrow.

Have a blessed day!

- Louie Taylor

“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’ And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”

---End of Scripture verses---

“The sound of the Lord God walking...” God associated with Adam and Eve in ways that they could physically observe, understand and relate to. Somehow God made His presence known to them in tangible ways, but the text does not reveal the nature of that manifestation.

Adam and Eve “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord…” Everything is laid open and bare and all people stand “naked” before Him with whom we have to do. There is nothing we can conceal from Him and there is nowhere to hide from Him. But oh do people give it their best shot anyway! Jonah attempted to flee from the presence of the Lord when He commanded him to go and prophesy to his sworn enemies the Assyrians (Jonah 1:3). God said of Israel in the days of Isaiah that they tried to “deeply hide their plans from the Lord, and whose deeds are done in a dark place, and they say, ‘Who sees us?’ or ‘Who knows us?’” (Isaiah 29:15) No dark room or back alleyway can conceal our deeds and ways from the Lord.

David declared rightly of the all-knowing, all-seeing God: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.” (Psalm 139:7-12)

“Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (verse 9) Of course the Lord was not ignorant of Adam’s whereabouts, but desirous to prompt a response from him. Friend, no more important question could ever be asked by our Creator. And even though He knows where we are at all times and what our spiritual condition is, He wants that probing question to plunge the deepest depths of our hearts. Where are you, in relation to where you should be, in the sight of the Lord? “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5)

“Who told you that you were naked?” (verse 11) This forced Adam to admit the truth, even though he did so in a very evasive way. “The woman You gave to be with me…gave me from the tree.” (verse 12) Adam got a two-for-one blame game special with this explanation (accusation)! “You gave her to me Lord so it’s really your fault I ate the fruit. And Eve gave it to me so it’s really her fault I ate the fruit. It’s anybody’s fault but my fault!”

God said to Eve, “What is this you have done?” (verse 13) Well…um…”The serpent deceived me.” “The devil made me do it” will never be a satisfactory excuse for our sinfulness with the Lord God Almighty! Now notice, there was truth in both Adam and Eve’s “confessions”. Eve was culpable in Adam’s sin, and the serpent was partly to blame in Eve’s sin, and the Lord did not deny it. But that did not alleviate the personal burden of responsibility for each of their selfish, sinful actions.

“I ate…but it wasn’t my fault.” This goes to prove that confession unaccompanied by repentance will not illicit the Lord's forgiveness. I can’t help but wonder if Adam and Eve had owned up to the responsibility of their actions and repented from a heart full of godly sorrow if things would have gone much better for them. We will never know the answer to that question this side of eternity, but there can be no doubt that in the mathematics of our relationship with God in Christ, Repentance (Acts 2:38) + Confession (1 John 1:9) = Forgiveness.

As we will see in tomorrow's verses, no matter how “tiny” the sin may seem, and no matter how much someone else might have contributed to it, sin cannot not go unpunished. Sooner...or later...and for eternity if not corrected. “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil. Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and may lengthen his life, still I know that it will be well for those who fear God, who fear Him openly. But it will not be well for the evil man and he will not lengthen his days like a shadow, because he does not fear God.” (Ecclesiastes 8:11-13)

Please read Genesis 3:14-19 for tomorrow.

Hope your day is blessed!

- Louie Taylor

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”’ The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

--End of Scripture verses---

“The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field…” (verse 1). We cannot know for certain what type of creature the serpent was or what it looked like, but was little doubt a member of the animal kingdom. Some or all of the animals must have looked and behaved much differently before the curse than they do today. It may seem astonishing to us when we read that a serpent was actually talking to a person, but to Eve this did not appear out of the ordinary in the slightest. We also know from the New Testament that the serpent was merely Satan’s fool and tool (2 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 12:9). Part of the serpent’s subtlety and craftiness is revealed in the fact that it targeted the woman first and not the man. She had not received the command directly from God to refrain from eating the fruit of the forbidden tree as Adam had, and therefore she was likely much more vulnerable to this slippery character’s exploitation.

The first device the serpent used here was to have the woman focus on the negative, on what she could NOT do and have, instead of on her ample blessings: “Has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree…?’” If Eve had kept her focus on and her appreciation for all the things that God said she COULD do and have, what a different story this would have been! The fruit of EVERY tree of the garden but ONE! If she had only thought of all the good things she had at her fingertips her heart would have been satisfied, grateful and filled with love for her Creator. But she listened to the negativity of the nay-sayer and was coaxed into focusing on the restriction. This has ever been the tool of our adversary and serves to keep our eyes off the eternal prize still today. Manufacturers, the media, politicians, neighbors and others strive to keep our eyes and minds consumed and distracted by the things that we do not have, while the Bible encourages and commands us to be thankful for what we have and who we are in Christ (Philippians 4:6; Colossians 3:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:18). Lust and dissatisfaction are parts of human nature that pose some of the greatest threats to our spiritual wellbeing.

Eve should not even have allowed herself to be engaged in this conversation, but once lured into it she offered herself up as easy prey. When she answered the serpent’s trick question she went a step farther than God did in His prohibition. Either Eve made the addition to not “touch” the fruit herself, or Adam told her this to make sure she would stay far away from it. In either case, it was not what the Lord had commanded. It is never good to add to the word of God and for a variety of reasons, and in this instance Eve made the Lord appear to be severely and unreasonably forbidding. She got the punishment right for eating the forbidden fruit even so: She would certainly die.

The serpents first tactical response was to flatly deny that punishment and call God a liar: “You surely will not die!” (verse 4). But most people know a flat-out lie when they hear one and won’t fall for it so it went on to explain the motivation for God’s dishonesty: He was selfishly withholding something good from her. “God knows that…your eyes will be open, and you will be like God” (verse 5). The serpent told her that she would see things that she had never seen before, and experience things she had never experienced. That she would be like God and therefore have no need of His governance and limitations. Dennis Prager astutely observed that, “These three steps offer a classic presentation of the way people are often led to do wrong: Exaggerate, then denigrate the other side’s motives, then promise a reward.” While it was true that her eyes were opened, she soon found out that her newly found awareness was neither a blessing nor a reward!

Satan still tricks people into believing that we should defy God’s laws if we want to be free, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. God has given each of us a free will to choose the road of rebellion against His loving commands or to serve Him in loving, trusting faith. But to opt for defiance and disobedience is to actually choose slavery of the worst kind. We are free to sin but there is no way to find freedom from the consequences, which often include earthly ramifications and always produce eternal, spiritual penalties.

But what does it mean to know “good and evil” (verse 5)? Adam and Eve already had some perception of right and wrong. They knew that disobeying God was the wrong thing to do and that eating from the fruit of that excluded tree was strictly forbidden. Deuteronomy 1:39, using the same Hebrew wording found in today’s text, states that “little ones” and “children” “have no knowledge of good and evil.” It seems clear that in this instance to have no knowledge of good and evil carries with it the connotation of possessing the innocence of children. To eat of the fruit forbidden by God would be to encounter evil in an experiential way, to despoil Adam and Eve's relationship with their perfect Creator, and to fall from their pristine state of sinlessness and innocence.

The woman “saw that the tree was good…” (verse 6). Everything that the Lord has made is good, but that doesn’t mean that it is good to do whatever we want with it. She perceived that it was “good for food” (lust of the flesh), “a delight to the eyes” (lust of the eyes), and “desirable to make one wise” (the pride of life). The Apostle John informs us that these three classes of sin comprise “all that is in the world” and will perish with world, will evoke God’s hostility, and will bring about our own eventual downfall (1 John 2:15-17). Unsurprisingly the Devil used the appeal to the same lusts and pride in his attempt to destroy our Lord and Savior Jesus and our hope of salvation with Him (Matthew 4:1-10, Luke 4:1-12).

The serpent told some partial truth. When they ate the forbidden fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened…” (verse 7). But instead of producing satisfaction it only brought shame. Satan promised them enlightenment, the ability to be free-thinkers, and independence from God. Instead sin delivered darkness, humiliation, and isolation from the One who loved them the most. Sin always promises delight but always delivers destruction.

Please read Genesis 3:8-13 for tomorrow.

Stay holy my friends!

- Louie Taylor

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’ Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. he man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“It is not good for the man to be alone.” Human beings are by nature social beings. God made us with the innate inner desire to associate, communicate, integrate with other people. Animals (also made “out of the ground”) were brought to Adam to give names to in order to demonstrate his sovereignty over all the creatures of the earth (Genesis 1:28), but also to show him that he did lack one thing that was necessary for his fitting fulfillment—a suitable companion. A dog may be called “man’s best friend”, but no animal was “found” to be a “helper suitable for him.” With all the living beings surrounding him, Adam was still alone. Of all the things that God described as “good” in chapter one, He declared being alone to be just the opposite.

“The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man” (verse 21). Anyone who has undergone a serious operation can appreciate this! The Lord was about to perform major surgery and extract a rib! The Lord God “fashioned” or literally “built” the woman from the rib of the man. The man was “formed” from “dust” but the woman was “fashioned” from a segment near unto the heart of man. The woman was not taken from man’s feet to walk over her, but from his torso, to forever be by his side, in an earthly union that is more intimate than any other should be. She was taken from his body and given for his body. The Lord “brought her to the man” (verse 22). God presented Adam his bride, his greatest gift, his helpmate, his companion, his completion.

James Burton Coffman quotes Doctor Elton Stubblefield in an interesting “side” note: “The rib is the only portion of the human body that carries within it every type (of which there are several) of cell to be found in a human body, and that theoretically, it is absolutely possible to clone an entire human being from a single rib!” Of course God could have formed woman from whatever substance or whatever part He wished. But this is a very intriguing observation.

The first recorded human utterance conveys words of pure delight and utter jubilation! “This is now” (verse 23)! This exclamation is lost in most English translations. Adam is literally saying “At last!” “Finally!” This statement always reminds me of the opening lyric to the old Etta James classic: “At last, my love has come along. My lonely days are over”! No animal companionship, no perverted masculine "relationship", no material or monetary possess can offer man the earthly fulfillment that woman can (and vice versa). She is the only suitable “helper” for him. This is not an expression of condescension because the same Hebrew term is used in the Bible to describe God as our Helper (Psalm 54:4).

Nahum Sarna observed about Adam calling his mate “woman”: “Insofar as the power of naming implies authority, the text voices the social reality of the ancient Near East. Yet the terminology used here differs from that employed in verse 20 for naming the animals. Here the man gives her a generic, not a personal, name, and that designation is understood to be derived from his own, which means he acknowledges woman to be his equal. Moreover, in naming her ‘ishah, he simultaneously names himself. Hitherto he is consistently called ‘adam; he now calls himself ‘ish for the first time. Thus he discovers his own manhood and fulfillment only when he faces the woman, the human being who is to be his partner for life.”

“For this reason” (verse 24). Because God originated the institution and covenant of marriage from the creation of woman from man’s rib, “a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife.” This is the divinely ordained natural order of things. The marital relationship naturally, and by the will of the Lord God Almighty, takes precedence over a man and woman’s ties to their parents. This is why the two “leave and cleave” to become “one flesh”. The closest of all physical and emotional bonds. God intended marriage to be one man and one woman until death separates them from each other, and Jesus confirmed this truth in Matthew 19:1-9. “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (verse 25). "Adam and Eve were as innocent as children who are not aware of their nudity and therefore not embarrassed by it. One might even say they were similar to animals in this way—they, too, have no shame regarding their lack of clothing.” (Dennis Prager).

James Burton Coffman opined about the spiritual implications of this passage: “The mystery hidden before all times is inherently a part of God's revelation here. The sleep coming upon Adam was a prophecy of the death of Christ, the God-Man, on Calvary; and just as the wife of Adam I was taken from his side during that sleep, so that Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride of Adam II was, in a figure, taken from the side of Jesus Christ...” Jesus is called the “last Adam” in 1 Corinthians 15:45 and the church is referred to as the bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7, 21:2, 9), and since Jesus is at the heart of all biblical revelation, this is a compelling observation.

Please read Genesis 3:1-7 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor

“Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’”

---End of Scripture verses---

From yesterday’s text we read, “the tree of life” was “also in the midst of the garden” (verse 9). Nahum Sarna opined the following: “It is clear from 3:22 that the fruit of this tree was understood to bestow immortality upon the eater. What is uncertain is whether a single bite was thought to suffice or whether steady ingestion was needed to sustain a process of continuous rejuvenation. Either way, the text presupposes a belief that man, created from perishable matter, was mortal from the outset but that he had within his grasp the possibility of immortality.”

Also quoting Nahum Sarna on the “four rivers” – “A single river ‘issues from Eden.’ Its source appears to be outside the garden, which it irrigates as it passes through. Here, as in Genesis 13:10…the garden is made independent of the vagaries of seasonal rainfall. Somewhere beyond the confines of the garden the single river separates into four branches that probably represent the four quarters of the inhabited world. In other words, the river of Eden also nourishes the rest of the world with its life-giving waters."

Two of the four rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are well known. They both originate in modern day Turkey and converge in Iraq before terminating at the Persian Gulf. That’s why some scholars place Eden in eastern Turkey, and others in southern Iraq, but no one can be certain of its original location. The area between the two rivers formed the heart of the Fertile Crescent, so named for its lush farmland, and it served as the hub for ancient civilizations. The capitals of both the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires were located on these rivers—Nineveh on the Tigris and Babylon on the Euphrates. Not much is known about the Pishon and the Gihon but there are two locations cited in the Bible with the name “Havilah” (“sandy land”). One was near Egypt (Genesis 25:18) and the other in Arabia (1 Samuel 25:7). “Cush” is another name for Ethiopia but there was probably more than one location with that same name.

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (verse 15). Man’s first occupation was cultivator of the land and he lived on a vegetarian diet. He was not to live a life of idleness or slothfulness but of productivity and responsibility. From the beginning God also required man to practice a healthy degree of self-control and self-denial. Adam could “eat freely” of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God told Him “you shall not eat.” The Lord informed Him upfront what the consequences were for transgressing that commandment: “In the day you eat from it you will surely die.”

But what was the nature of this death sentence? Immediate physical death? The certainty of future physical death? Spiritual death? Some combination? It appears to me that physical death was a future consequence and spiritual death was the immediate consequence. When a person sins he is “dead” in his “trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 6:1), and he stays that way until he takes the necessary steps of reconciliation. This is true for all people now and it was also true for the very first people. Spiritual death is sin-induced separation from God (Isaiah 59:1-2). More on this as the story unfolds.

Please read Genesis 2:18-25 for tomorrow.

Have a wonderful day!

- Louie Taylor

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

---End of Scripture verses---

In six days God spoke the heavens and the earth into existence. There is ample evidence that this is true but it must be received as a matter of faith as Hebrews 11:3 tells us: “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Notice the rhythm and pattern of creation and the use of sets of three:

· On days 1,2 and 3 God created realms or habitats.

· On days 4, 5 and 6 God filled those realms or habitats.

· On day 1 God created light – On day 4 the Sun, Moon and stars.

· On day 2 God created earth's atmosphere – On day 5 the birds to fly in it.

· On day 3 God created dry land – On day 6 creatures to inhabit it.

· On day 1 – Light, day and night.

· On day 2 – Heaven, separation of the waters above and the waters below.

· On day 3 – Dry land, seas and vegetation.

· On day 4 – Sun, moon and stars for seasons, days and years.

· On day 5 – Sea monsters, swimming creatures and flying creatures.

· On day 6 – Cattle, creeping things and beasts of the field

“By the seventh day God completed His work...” (verse 2). That is not to say that the Lord had stopped working completely, but His work of creation had thus been concluded. When Jesus was accused of violating the Sabbath Day commandment by healing the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, He responded by saying, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working” (John 5:17). The Creator moved into a different phase of His “work” by sustaining and providing and nurturing and teaching. But no new “kind” of animal has been created. No new law of nature has since been added. God “rested” or more literally “ceased” on the seventh day from all His creative work.

“Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it...” (verse 3). Moses tied the 4th commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day with Genesis 2:3 – “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:11). Be that as it may, it is obvious that the mandate to keep the Sabbath day holy was not commanded or the observance kept by any person until Moses led Israel out of Egyptian bondage. We read no example of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham or any other Old Testament figure keeping the Sabbath and no commandment to do so before Exodus 16:23 after the Egyptian Exodus.

Exodus 31:13-17 tells us that the Sabbath is an ordinance unique to the people of Israel and a symbol of the covenant that God made with the Israelites. “The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today” (Deuteronomy 5:3). The New Testament does not place a mandate upon keeping the Sabbath Day holy for followers of Christ, nor does it even suggest that we do so.

God “sanctified” or “declared holy” the seventh day. Nahum Sarna observed that “God, through His creativity, has already established His sovereignty over space; the idea here is that He is sovereign over time as well... The first use of the key biblical concept of holiness relates to time.” Our time is God's time. The ways in which we use it determine whether we are living holy lives as He would have us to do and that are pleasing to Him.

Verse 4 makes a notable transition in the text. Genesis chapter 1 is the initial account of God's Creation. In Genesis 2:4-4:26 God gives us a glimpse at the further developments of His “very good” creation in more specific detail. “This is the account of the heavens and the earth...” “Account” in verse 4 is rendered “generations” in other Bible versions and is the Hebrew word “towledah” (transliteration) or “toledot”. It is used 10 times in the book of Genesis and introduces histories. In seven of those instances it introduces a genealogy of a particular person (Genesis 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 36:1). In the other three occurrences it denotes a record of following developments (Genesis 2:4; 25:19; 37:2).

The general account of overall creation was revealed in chapter 1. Chapters 2-4 tell us the “account” or “towledah” of what became of it. Before man arrived on the scene no field shrub or plant yet existed, which are desert shrubs and cultivated grains. James Burton Coffman wrote of verses 5-6, “These verses refer to a past time in creation, particularly the third day. The interesting statement that...no herb had sprung up appears to indicate that the seed were in the ground for a period of time before plants appeared, giving the Biblical answer to which came first, the plant or the seed. It was the seed... The coming up of the mist from the ground to water 'the whole face of the earth' was an event preceding the springing up of the vegetable kingdom.”

In verse 7 Moses, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, returns to day 6 of Creation. “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground...” The Hebrew word for “man” is “'adam” and the word for “ground” or “earth” is “'adamah”. Nauhm Sarna observed, “This word play...once more expresses man's essential bond to the earth. An oft-cited equivalent is 'homo...humus.” Sarna also noted about God breathing “the breath of life” into Adam the following: “The uniqueness of the Hebrew phrase...matches the singular nature of the human body, which, unlike the creatures of the animal world, is directly inspirited by God Himself.” “The image simultaneously expresses both the glory and the insignificance of man. Man occupies a special place in the hierarchy of Creation and enjoys a unique relationship with God... At the same time, he is but dust taken from earth, mere clay in the hands of the divine Potter, who exercises absolute master over his Creation.”

The Lord “planted a garden” and “placed” the man in it (verse 8). Man's first habitat was a wonderful paradise (the Greek equivalent is “paradeisos”), located in the area of “Eden”. He lived in a lush paradise and did not need to toil by the sweat of his brow in order to cultivate it. In the Garden of Eden Adam had everything that he needed to live a wonderful and meaningful life. Almost. He had every tree that grew and looked and tasted good to supply for his nourishment. A river flowed through the garden to water all the vegetation and Adam was placed in the midst of it to cultivate and keep it. He was only forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the penalty for doing so was death.

But then we are getting ahead of ourselves! More on this story a little bit later!

Please read Genesis 2:10-17 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor

“Then God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.’ God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind’; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food’; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

---End of Scripture verses---

On days five and six God created all animal and human life. “The process of Creation is now sufficiently advanced to sustain life, which is classified according to its habitat; creatures that colonize the waters and creatures that populate the sky.” (Nahum Sarna)

God created all the living sea creatures and birds that swarmed the air and He “blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’” God’s gift of fertility and sexual reproduction is a great blessing for both beast and mankind. The proliferation of plant life is a marvel and beautiful to behold, but their splendor cannot compare to the next level of creation. The explosion of vegetation from day three only serves to provide suitable food and habitation for the moving, breathing, calculating creatures created on the fifth and sixth day.

Of course, the pinnacle of God’s creative process is when He provided existence to the human being. Only people are said to have been created “in the image of God” and according to His “likeness” (verses 26-27). This gives humankind an unmatched nature and a unique relationship with the Creator. Of all the created beings, none comes close to the intellectual capacity of man to “subdue” the earth and “rule over” all of God's earthly creation, and only people have (are) eternal spirits that live on after their stint on earth is over. Of course, with this great privilege comes great responsibility to rule well and ethically, and the accountability to answer for the way he lives and rules.

While people are higher and nobler than all the rest of God's creation, Nahum Sarna notes concerning verse 26, “At the same time, the pairing of the creation of man in this verse with that of the land animals, and their sharing in common a vegetarian diet, focuses attention on the dual nature of humankind, the creatureliness and earthiness as well as the Godlike qualities.” When those created in the very image of the Creator choose to separate themselves from His presence, directives, guidance and standards, they tend to descend to the level of creatures of instinct (2 Peter 2:12), and even worse: purveyors of evil. This led to God's destructive judgment of the earth and nearly all of its lifeforms by the universal flood (Genesis chapter 9), and will ultimately lead to the destruction of the earth by fire and Final Judgment for all human beings.

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (verse 27). Nahum Sarna observed: “No such sexual differentiation is noted in regard to animals. Human sexuality is of a wholly different order from that of beasts... it cannot of itself be other than wholesome. By the same token, its abuse is treated in the Bible with particular severity... Both sexes are created on the sixth day by the hand of the one God; both are made 'in His image' on a level of absolute equality before Him.”

Sarna wrote further, “It is noteworthy that the recurrent formula 'of every kind,' hitherto encountered with the emergence of every living thing, is here omitted. There is only one human species. The notion of all humankind deriving from one common ancestry directly leads to the recognition of the unity of the human race, notwithstanding the infinite diversity of human culture... God, in order to promote social harmony, intended that no person have claim to unique ancestry as a pretext for asserting superiority over others.”

“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (verse 30). With the genesis of man and the climax of His Creation now achieved, God observed and declared that the totality of His creation was not only “good” (verse 3, 10, 12, 18, 21 and 25), but “very good” (verse 31)! God put humans here to make the world a better place! Do your best to do good in His sight! Live faithfully unto death and in the end He will say to you, “Well done good and faithful servant... Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:23)!

Please read Genesis 2:1-9 for tomorrow.

- Louie Taylor

“Then God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them’; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day. Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.”

---End of Scripture verses---

On day three God made the dry land appear from the water that covered the entirety of the earth’s surface. The Lord used winds in subsequent times to part and dissipate large accumulations of water (Genesis 8:1; Exodus 14:41) so He possibly did here as well, but the text does not divulge the method God used so it must not be necessary for us to know. It is interesting to note that verse 9 tells us the waters on earth were “gathered into one place,” and yet God refers to them as “seas” in the plural. All of the earth’s oceans are connected to each other and yet distinct from each other at the same time. The only one who could possess knowledge of this fact at this time of antiquity is the God who created them.

In a separate act of creation, but on the same third day, the Lord generated the plant kingdom. Nahum Sarna observed concerning the phrase “let the earth sprout vegetation” the following: “This creative act constitutes an exception to the norm that God’s word directly effectuates the desired product. Here the earth is depicted as the mediating element, implying that God endows it with generative powers that He now activates by His utterance. The significance of this singularity is that the sources of power in what we call nature, which were personified and deified in the ancient world, are now emptied of sanctity. The productive forces of nature exist only by the will of the one sovereign Creator and are not independent spiritual entities. There is no room in such a concept for the fertility cults that were features of ancient Near Eastern religions.”

On day three of creation God enacted the natural law that living things, and later living beings, produce seed “after their kind,” and that has not ceased to be an axiomatic, inviolable rule governing all of life. Evolution does not and cannot adequately explain the varieties of species of life on earth. Plants, animals and humans did not evolve from one, common, microbial ancestor. They did spring forth from the mind and design of one common, all-powerful Creator.

On day four God either “made” the sun, moon and stars in the “expanse of the heavens,” or He merely “placed” them there to give life-sustaining light to the earth. The text may allow for the starry, heavenly host to be a part of God’s creation on day one when He “created the heavens and the earth,” but I am not certain. Nahum Sarna wrote concerning the creation of plant life before the shining of sunlight on earth the following: “The emergence of vegetation prior to the existence of the sun” has “the common purpose of emphasizing that sun, moon, and stars are not divinities, as they were universally thought to be; rather, they are simply the creation of God, who assigned them the function of regulating the life rhythms of the universe.”

God created these lights “for signs and for seasons and for days and years” (verse 14). Our Creator set these heavenly lights to shine and perfectly serve the purpose that He created them for. Are we shining the light of God into the darkness of this sinful world and fulfilling the purpose for which He created us and recreated us in Christ Jesus?

Please read Genesis 1:20-30 for tomorrow.

Have a blessed day!

- Louie Taylor

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. Then God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.”

---End of Scripture verses---

James Burton Coffman wrote concerning Genesis chapter one: “This marvelous chapter is not history, for it provides information concerning events that antedate all history. It is not myth, because it carries within it a credibility that never belonged to any myth. It is not science, because it deals with the BEGINNING, which no science has ever even attempted to describe. It is INSPIRATION, a revelation from Almighty God Himself; and the highest and best intelligence of all ages has so received and accepted it.”

Moses wrote Genesis 1:1 under inspiration of the Holy Spirit around 1500 B.C. In 1820 A.D. a scientist named Hubert Spencer gave us five scientific principles to study the unknown by: Time, Force, Energy, Space and Matter. We see them present at the creation of the Universe in the first verse of the Bible:

· "In the beginning" – Time

· "God" -- Force

· "Created" – Energy

· "The heavens" – Space

· "And the earth" – Matter

In the beginning, God, the only uncreated, beginning-less Being, created the heavens (the “far expanse” or outer space) and the earth – the totality of cosmic creation. Only Yahweh can call into being that which previously did not exist (Romans 4:17). The Bible neither explains nor defends the existence of God, but only expresses that He is the all-power, eternal Creator. Some things simply cannot be adequately explained and should need no defense. Someone or something has always existed because something exists now. The only thing that can produce nothing is nothing and the only thing (or person) that can produce something is something (or someone). An omnipotent and omniscient spiritual Being is the best and most logical explanation for the existence of the Universe and all its orderly, complex, intelligent design.

The complexity of the human genome demands that an intelligent designer exists because only a supremely brilliant code writer would be capable of writing an infinitely complex gene code. Code does not and cannot write itself. To quote Dennis Prager: “To be an atheist is to believe the universe came about by itself, life came from non-life by itself, and consciousness came about by itself. On purely rational grounds – the grounds on which I believe in God – the argument for a God who created the world is far more intellectually compelling than atheism."

We learn from John chapter 1 that Jesus was there in the beginning, with God, existing as God, creating the universe that He would later visit in the form of human flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being… And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3, 14) In today’s verses we learn of God the Father (verse 1), God the Spirit (verse 2), and God the Word (Jesus the Son in John 1) are the three personalities that comprise the one infinite Creator “God” (Hebrew, Elohim – a plural noun joined to the singular verb “created”).

On the earth being “formless and void,” Nahum Sarna wrote in his Jewish Publication Society commentary on Genesis: “That God should create disorganized matter, only to reduce it to order, presents no more of a problem than does His taking six days to complete creation instead of instantaneously producing a perfected universe. The quintessential point of the narrative is the idea of ordering that is the result of divine intent. It is a fundamental biblical teaching that the original, divinely ordained order in the physical world has its counterpart in the divinely ordained universal moral order to which the human race is subject.”

On day one God created light. Or did He? Since the Bible tells us that God is Light (Psalm 104:2; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 1:5), I’m uncertain whether He called light into being or called it forth from himself to shine in the darkness of the bleak, formless, void earth. Either way you look at it, light was indispensable in supporting and sustaining the rest of His Creation. It is interesting to note that God created or called forth light before He spoke the Sun, stars and moon into existence, proving that light is independent of these powerful energy sources and superior to them.

On day two God created the earth’s atmosphere in the complex and orderly fashion that we know it. He separated the waters on the earth from the waters (gasses, vapors) above the earth and placed those upper waters in the “firmament” or sky. James Burton Coffman wrote: “Jamieson pointed out that the term ‘firmament’ carries the meaning of ‘an expanse ... the beating out as of a plate of metal,’ suggesting the utility of a shield, an apt figure indeed when it is recalled that the earth would long ago have been destroyed by showers of meteorites (as upon the moon) had it not been for the protection of our atmosphere… Men should marvel indeed at this creation, when it is remembered that millions and billions of tons of water are constantly suspended in the atmosphere in the form of clouds; and of course being much heavier than the atmosphere, only an act of creation could have accomplished such a thing. The patriarch Job marveled at this wonder: ‘Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?’ – Job 37:16”

God “saw” or “perceived” that the light and all of His creation was “good”. “Reality is imbued with God’s goodness. The pagan notion of inherent, primordial evil is banished. Henceforth, evil is to be apprehended on the moral and not the mythological plane” (Sarna)

By the way, these “creation days” must be literal 24 hour days and not indefinite periods of time. While it is true that the word “day” can mean different things in different situations, the wording of the context strongly suggests literal days. The passing of an evening and a morning constitute a day in the shortest, literal sense. The wording of Genesis chapter one, where evening precedes mornings, is also the reason that in the Jewish method of time keeping, a day begins at sunset and not midnight.

Let us marvel with the Psalmist as he is awe-struck by the contemplation of God’s greatness expressed when He spoke the universe into existence in Psalm 33:6-9 – “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

Please read Genesis 1:9-19 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor

Genesis is the first and foundational book of the Bible. A good knowledge of Genesis is essential to make the rest of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the meaning of human existence understandable. It explains the origin of all things, therefore the meaning of all things. According to Jesus, Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible (Luke 16:31; 24:27), and therefore Genesis – under inspiration of the Holy Spirit of course (2 Peter 1:20-21). Genesis is an unparalleled literary work that chronicles the creation of matter, space, time, and humankind as well as man’s fall from God’s good graces. The word “Genesis” means “origins” or “beginnings” and Genesis has been referred to as the “Book of Beginnings”. We find recorded within its pages the origin of the Universe, the earth and its atmosphere. We have documentation of the beginning of plant, animal and human life. We read about the first day, the first couple (marriage), the first sin (and its consequences), and the first murder. We learn how languages, government, cultures, nations and religions began. We also read about the origin of God’s chosen people that He brought to being through Abraham, the founding forefather of our faith.

The first book of the Bible begins with the Creation of a suitable environment for human beings to live in. Moses then chronicles the creation of human beings, the brightest jewel in the crown of God’s Creation, but soon afterward, their disobedience to God and consequent expulsion from the perfect environment that the Lord created for them to live in. But, as quickly as God decreed judgment and punishment upon Adam and Eve for their transgression, He also pronounced the seed promise and plan of redemption and spiritual restoration of mankind to his Creator through God’s chosen vessel, Abraham, and his descendant Messiah Savior who would bless the whole world that He created. Jesus is the common thread woven throughout this inspired tapestry, and all who desire to understand Genesis must do so through the prism of the Son of God and the New Testament that illuminates His story (2 Corinthians 3:14-16).

After sin hardened the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants, Moses recorded the global flood that the Lord sent to punish them and provide a new beginning for humanity through the person of righteous Noah and his faithful little family. After the earth was repopulated, a second hardening of the collective heart of humanity at the tower of Babel required the scattering of peoples to the four corners of the earth and the formation of languages and nations. The book of Genesis can be broken down into two major components. The first is the general history of God’s dealings with humankind (including the creation account), constituting the first eleven chapters. The second part, chapters 12-50, is the special story of the specific family that God choose and used to execute his plan of salvation for all the world. Even though Israel was hand-selected and beloved by God, Genesis still records their sins and misdeeds, and does not whitewash the story of this very dysfunctional family. Not only does this truth make Genesis all the more believable, it also gives us hope that our heavenly Father will not abandon us or stop loving us when we stumble because of poor judgment and through the weakness of our flesh.

We will close with a quote from James Burton Coffman from his commentary on Genesis: “This unity of Genesis pertains not merely to that single book but to the whole Bible as well. It opens the OT with God seeking man, “Adam where art thou?” The NT opens with another question, “Were is he that is born king of the Jews?” – man seeking God. The tree of life appears at the beginning of Genesis; but because of sin it was lost, appearing again only at the end of Revelation. The whole Bible is a unified discussion of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. The OT has the record of the Old Israel; the NT has the record of the Spiritual, or the New Israel. The Twelve Patriarchs of the OT are matched by the Twelve Apostles of the New. The types and shadows of the OT become the divine realities of the NT. The Wilderness Wanderings of the First Israel are typical of the Wilderness of Probation for God’s Church. Only God could have constructed such a unity line, bit by bit, throughout sixteen centuries of time with forty different writers from all times, occupations, and races of men! In the broad view, Genesis and the whole Bible reveal a single purpose, that of redeeming fallen man from the curse of sin.”

Please read Genesis 1:1-8 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor