Whenever you go to the doctor, the doctor will examine you and ask you several questions hoping to diagnose you correctly and therefore, give you the proper treatments to solve your issue. Well, it’s no secret that mankind has a sin issue and needs to be properly treated for it. But where do we turn to understand that problem? You guessed it – Genesis. Genesis chapter 1 records the week of creation and Genesis 2 records the creation on man on day 6 of creation. Adam and Eve were living in perfect paradise, however, a dramatic turn of events occurs in chapter 3. Adam and Eve eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God said they were not to eat of. Think of this: they had all the freedom in the world and could eat of any other tree’s fruit, but just not this one. What happened? Exactly what God said would happen – they died. God told Adam in Genesis 2:17 that, “in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” But how did they die? Physically? No… well, at least not immediately, but eventually. So how did they die that day? It was a spiritual death. Both eventual physical death and immediate spiritual death would ensue as a result of this decision to disobey God and forfeit their perfect relationship with Him. As their descendants, we’re all born into sin and spiritually dead. This is a biblical view of anthropology (the study of man). We are dead in our trespasses and sins and must be made alive again spiritually. This is what Jesus meant when He said we must be born again. In John 3:3, when He said this to Nicodemus, Nicodemus was confused, “How can I be born again? Do I have to re-enter my mother’s womb?” Nicodemus wasn’t comprehending the biblical reality of the Fall and man’s spiritual death. He was confused, thinking literally, while Jesus meant spiritually. It’s the same thing in John 6 where Jesus is teaching the crowds that in order to live they must eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood. He wasn’t going against the Law which said not to do those things – His words were spiritual – teaching them that by faith in Him they could have their spiritual hunger and thirst satisfied completely. In John 6:33 He said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. Most folks go through life trying to treat their sin problem with religious activity and good deeds. Others go the other route and treat their longing for something more through negative things like drugs and alcohol or positive activities like adventure and exercise. But whether it's a non-religious and rebellious man or a religious and moral man, it doesn't matter if they don't have Jesus because only Jesus can fill the emptiness vacuum created by the removal of God's Spirit. We must be born again by faith in Christ to live. Jesus is Life. To properly treat your sin problem once and for all – I mean really be cured – you must go to Jesus, trusting Him as your Savior who died for your sins. He is the Life that reverses sin’s curse of death on us. Only when we believe in Him are we born again by the Spirit of God. Ephesians 1:13-14 says, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, This has been another devotional reminding you that
nothing makes sense except in light of Genesis. Pastor Justin
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In this Sunday’s sermon we took an in-depth look at the significance of water baptism. Water baptism signifies Spirit baptism, which happens at the moment of salvation when we trust Christ as Savior. However, whenever the subject of the work of the Spirit comes up, I feel it is necessary to clear up some of the confusion surrounding the two different works of the Spirit: indwelling and filling. What is the difference? How can Paul urge us to be “filled” with the Spirit if He is already in us (Eph. 5:18)? This can be a difficult concept to grasp at first, but it is incredibly important for every believer to get a handle on. I believe that as a new Christian and in any discipleship program, this is one of the first things one should learn. Thankfully, in John 13, Jesus gave us a perfect illustration for understanding the difference! During the last supper there is a dramatic scene where Jesus gets up, humbly takes a towel, and girds Himself with it to wash the disciples’ feet. He pours water into a basin and starts washing the disciples’ feet – yes, the same disciples who keep arguing about who is the greatest! Right now, the Greatest One is teaching them how to be great in the Kingdom of God. The greatest are the servants! When Jesus came to the feet of Peter, who was still living according to the world’s value system (the idea that to be served is to be great), he pulls his feet away! “Never shall You wash my feet!” Peter said. But Jesus responded, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter then said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and head.” You’ve got to love Peter, going from one extreme to the other! “Then give me a whole bath!” Jesus replied, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean.” Jesus is teaching here on the difference between the Spirit’s work of baptism, coming to indwell, and the Spirit’s work of filling, a repeated process. Spirit baptism is like a full bath that you only need to take once. From the moment you believe, you are washed clean, indwelt by God, and sealed by God for eternity (Titus 3:4-7; Eph. 1:13-14). You are God’s own possession for His eternal glory by grace through faith in Christ. Because the Spirit never leaves you, you will always be clean. When He looks at you, He sees you with the righteousness of Christ. That is your position, or standing, before God. These terms denote something fixed and permanent. Positionally, we are saved and have a right standing on a judicial basis before God. However, the filling work of the Spirit deals with our condition or state before God as a Christian, which fluctuates from moment to moment. It is a matter of fellowship and harmony with God. When we grieve the Spirit by sin or quench the Spirit by a sin of omission (not doing what we know we should do), that causes a break in our intimacy similar to the way a child’s disobedience might cause a break in their relationship with their parents. The disobedience brings discipline, but it does not mean that they aren’t still that parent’s child or out of the family. Neither does it mean that parents don’t love them. The discipline is proof they do love them (Heb. 12:6-11)! This is what Jesus is saying to Peter. If you’ve believed in Christ, you are clean. However, there will be times when you will sin and grieve the Spirit of God and when you do, that sin needs to be “cleaned up” in the sense that you need your feet washed. It doesn’t mean you need to take another full bath to be rebaptized by the Holy Spirit, getting saved all over again. It just means you need to have your feet washed that have stumbled in the muck of sin. Memorize this verse for your day to day Christian life. 1 John 1:9, “For if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins When we sin, we don’t need to think in terms of loss of salvation but of the fact that in order to have an intimate, flowing relationship with God, that sin needs to be dealt with by confession and repentance. We just pray in our hearts to God, saying something like, “Lord, what I just did was not walking in the Spirit and I confess it as sin. Thank you for Your forgiveness and filling me with the Holy Spirit again.” This is very simple and should be something that begins to be as natural as breathing for the Christian. One man many years ago popularized it that way – he called it spiritual breathing! Have you lost your cool and said something you shouldn’t have? Let your mind wander into lust? When that happens, we need to breathe out the junk, confessing the sin. But don’t stop there! Remember God’s promise in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse. Breathe out, but then breathe in by faith God’s promise to forgive and refill and restore our fellowship and our joy (1 John 1:3-4). When you do this, you are breaking down a sin-barrier wall that keep us from connecting closely. The same is true for any relationship – wrongs must be dealt with in order for there to be intimacy, for hearts to heal, and for each to be open to receive love again. Ephesians 4:30 says, “And do not grieve [cause sorrow to] the Holy Spirit of God, Also, 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit” Rather than quenching or grieving the Holy Spirit, causing His power and comforting presence and fruit (Gal. 5:22) to be drained out of our lives, we are to yield to Him and be filled! But remember, too, that when we are filled, it’s not that we get more of His infinite Spirit, but that He gets more of us! Here are some key distinctions between Spirit baptism’s indwelling and the Spirit’s filling. (1) Did you recognize here any sort of patterns that reflect the two ordinances of baptism and communion that Christ gave us in the Church? Water baptism is a one-time act of identification & symbolizing salvation. Communion is a repeated act of rededication (2). Our Lord sure knew what He was doing when He gave us these ordinances us to teach us how to relate to Him in our daily lives! Believe and be filled!
Pastor Justin Cited:
I’ll be real frank with you. This question seems a little strange and a little too basic at first, but… “Why do wear clothes? Even though it’s strange and basic, many today have never really stopped to think about why we wear clothes. Is it just for practicality and comfort? Warmth? Protection? Certainly not in tropical climates! Many have never stopped to think about why we feel the need to wear clothes in the first place. This shouldn’t surprise us though because there are many big decisions we make in life before we know the foundational reasons why. For example, many people every day get married who reject God and Christianity and want nothing to do with the Bible even though marriage is something thoroughly biblical. God designed it to reflect our relationship with Him (Gen. 1:26-27; Eph. 5:22-33) and rests on the truths of Genesis, going all the way back to the first man and woman. Many decisions are made each moment that are unfounded. In his book called The Lie: Evolution/Millions of Years, Ken Ham says, “Ultimately, the only reason for insisting that clothes must be worn is a moral one. What is that basis? God’s character. Where is the basis explained? Genesis chapter 3. Not knowing the Genesis foundations, more than one teenage daughter has been told to change her clothes and put on something a little more modest before going out of the house. The typical response from the teenager is, “Ugh… why!? What’s wrong with my clothing?” And the typical parental response is something along the lines of, “Because that’s just what we do as Christians. We dress modestly.” Furthering the response from the teenager, “You guys are so old-fashioned!” Parental responses like these are an unreasonable response that cause these kinds of reactions from children. This is because our children need real answers and foundational reasons why we do what we do and believe what we believe. I’m afraid that too often, because we don’t really know why, we’ll get defensive and threatening, or shout even louder back at them to demonstrate our authority. Or, we become legalistic about it and tell them, “Just do what I say,” as we quote Ephesians 6:1 or Exodus 20:12. But be careful with this because even though it's an easy way out, imposing standards our children without any basis is what leads many to rebel. Yes, children are exhorted to obey their parents, but how necessary is it for parents and children to recognize that the ultimate authority doesn’t originate in the parents, but in God and His Word! Parents and children need to know that neither of their opinions or the culture’s opinions are what matter. What matters is God’s opinion. A better response to the questioning teenager would be to ask them to change and tell them you will sit down with them another time and explain from Genesis why we wear clothes in the first place. And it’s not only the teenagers who question why we wear what we wear. The “progressive” culture we live in is asking the same question. Listen to this quote from Harrianne Mills: “Since the demise roughly one hundred years ago, of the biblically based theory that clothes are worn because of modesty, various theories have been put forward by anthropologists concerned with the origins and functions of clothing.” Even secular anthropologists want to know the historical answer to our question. And with the path that our LGBTQ+ culture is on, I wouldn’t doubt that we’re going to have to defend why clothes are necessary and not just some product of western society - that it's not cultural, but theological. Now, I hope this is not prophetic, but in a morally relativistic society with no God as the basis for standards, anything goes! Where does it stop without God? Hey, I’m just being realistic here. There are places already where clothes are… excused. The foundational reason for clothes really began back in Genesis, chapter 2-3. Before the Fall, the last verse of chapter 2 tells us, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." Adam and Eve had both a physical nakedness and spiritual "nakedness". Adam and his wife Eve had an openness and innocence about them. They were in harmony with each other and unashamed, something only experienced between a husband and wife today doing things God's way. Notice too, their focus was on their spouse and their relationship with God before the Fall. However, notice where their focus goes the minute they sin against God: “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." Where did their focus go? From serving their spouse and a relationship with God, to themselves. Their perfect relationship degenerated, and they noticed they were naked. It was no longer proper and guilt ensued because sin distorted nakedness. Now, with man having a sin nature, we are tempted to lust. Jesus said, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully When Jesus said this, He was upping the standards of the Pharisees who thought they were “good enough” and were keeping God’s Law. He was showing them that they too, are sinners like everyone else. Remember that we are tempted to lust. Temptation is not sin but when we go back for a second look and succumb to the temptation, it becomes lust and is then sin that must be confessed and repented of (1 John 1:9). But point being, man was designed to be respond to one woman (his wife) and that is necessary for procreation (reproduction). However, sin has distorted that perfect relationship and clothes are necessary to guard against the sin of lust and adultery that wrecks relationships. This is not a form of punishment, but the means by which a man and woman can enjoy a healthy and abundant marriage God’s way in a sinful world. To disregard the moral need for clothes or modest clothes, results in disaster. As one man said, even soft porn plays hard ball. It destroys families. The fig leaves Adam and Eve sewed together for loin coverings weren’t going to last long so God, in verse 21, makes new ones that are much superior. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, Leather clothes made of animal hide will provide a much superior covering than fig leaves. This was also the first blood-sacrifice for sin, a type that would be carried out throughout the entire OT until Christ comes and offers Himself as the most superior, acceptable offering to cover sins for all time (Heb. 10:10). By faith in Christ we have a perfect righteous covering for our sin that lasts, unlike the "fig leaves" of our own works. It is Christ’s work that saves, not our own. But now that we have a perfect and righteous standing or position before God, it should be our desire in Him to see our condition catch up to that position. Romans 13:14 now encourages us to keep from giving the flesh (our sin nature) unnecessary opportunities to be tempted. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. Christ is the new clothes we wear in a spiritual sense (we are clothed in His righteousness), and one of the things we can do to prevent unnecessary battles with the sin nature is to stop making provisions for it (the flesh). Certainly, modest clothes-wearing is part of that, and could be applied in a number of ways to keep us from being a stumbling block to others, or others to us.
Pastor Justin 4/25/2021 Cited: Ken Ham, The Lie: Evolution/Millions of Years: 25th Anniversary Edition (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2012), 103-105. There's no milk without manure! Maybe some of you were reminded of this phrase more than once as a grumbling child that was forced to scoop manure and feed the animals. Before today where most of us buy our milk from the grocery store, more people had to take care of dairy cows and they are hard work! They require a lot of time and energy but when you go drink that milk or eat the cheese, it makes it all worth it. Everything good in life seems to come with a cost. It takes a toll on us but it’s worth it. Proverbs 14:4 puts it this way, “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, Keep in mind that when this was written, the ox was the diesel pickup and John Deere of the day. It would haul heavy loads and pull the plow, doing the hard work that saved your back and brought an increase in harvest, but you had to put up with mess the ox makes and do the regular maintenance oxen require. I have scribbled in the margin of my Bible next to that verse, “Sometimes you’ve got to make a mess to get things done.” As a man who likes a clean shop and every tool in its place and wiped clean of grease, I knew that there were times during the busy seasons where that just wasn’t going to be the case and that’s fine. The shop floor would have to get dirty and tools would have to be scattered around the shop benches, but there’s no profit without the mess. Most of us don’t enjoy the maintenance work on vehicles, but we’d rather drive than walk! We don’t like vet bills or buying bags of food for the animals, but we enjoy the company of our pets that bring life and joy to our homes. We don’t like the upkeep required on our homes, but we sure enjoy a warm and safe place to live. Kids seem to make everything in the house sticky, their toys clutter the house, their diapers fill the trash cans, but they become the pride and joy of your life. Having a spouse requires us to give up some of our own wants or desires, but it sure is wonderful to have a companion to go through life with. It’s hard to get to church on time some Sunday mornings, but the fellowship in the Word is so good. Remember that when it comes to hard work and discipline: good things come with a cost. That’s one of the reasons God created work in the first place. He created it for us to find a sense of purpose, accomplishment and reward in. In fact, if you study Genesis 2:15, you’ll see that we were created to work! “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden So much of the world has us thinking that work is a drudge and something to be thrown off. Man is tempted to despise work and desire the rewards of hard work without the work. But notice that right there, in the beginning, God created Adam and placed him in the garden to work at cultivating it. Notice this was before the Fall into sin! Work is a good thing and a major element God designed to be a part of our lives. Also, we work because God works and we’re made in His image. He worked hard for six days creating the world and is always working (Jn. 5:17). God wants us to enjoy the work of our hands as He does.
Now, granted, work has become much harder after the Fall into sin. The land was harder to cultivate for Adam and weeds sprang up, making us work by the sweat of our brow (Gen. 3:17-19). But the preacher of Ecclesiastes says hard work makes sleep pleasant (Ecc. 5:12). He was the wisest man who ever lived and said that it is good for man to eat and drink and enjoy his labor under the sun – it’s his reward (Ecc. 5:18)! Our Savior worked as well in some form of construction while He lived! The apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians some firm words, telling some of the unproductive citizens to work and not be lazy, and to bring shame to Christ’s name. He commanded them to keep away from a brother in Christ who was leading an unruly life by not working. Paul himself, by working night and day and not eating anyone’s bread without paying for it, set a good example for them to follow. “If a man is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either. He actually goes on to say we shouldn’t associate with someone living an undisciplined life. Not being a productive individual for Christ is sin. On the contrary, work is worship when it is done with a heart for God. In whatever we do, we are to do it for the Lord, as serving Him and not men. Our work is part of our calling in life and our intention should be to glorify God (Col. 3:23-24). This puzzles many who just don’t find satisfaction in work. But let me ask you: have you prayerfully asked God what He would have you do with the gifts and talents and interests that He has given you? Have you asked Him to accept your work as worship? With a right heart before God, work is worship Looking back, before I trusted Christ, I remember only working for the money – go for the biggest bucks and best retirement. That’s a good way to waste your life and your unique, God-given gifts, talents, and interests. As a pastor, I encourage people to do what God made them to do. When I became a Christian, I was empowered to be able to leave the job I didn’t enjoy to do something I did. Even though I didn’t make near as much, it was still worth it! I’ve never regretted it and God has blessed. But what about beyond this life? Many people seem to think that Heaven is going to be one big retirement party where was just sit around on clouds and drink wine and play harps. In fact, I’ve heard people talk as if the idea of work in Heaven or on the New Earth is repulsive and if we get there and find work, we’ll want to leave! On the contrary, I think the Bible makes it clear that we will be serving God uniquely as individuals, as His servants throughout all of eternity. It won’t just be one giant, eternal worship service of singing songs. On the New Earth, the curse will be totally lifted and work will be even more satisfying than ever (Rev. 22:3). Revelation 22:3 says about the New Heaven and New Earth, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God Serve is a verb. It is active. And sometimes it [latreuo] is translated worship and work. We will be work-worshipers! Maybe this illustrates for us again the idea that work and worship shouldn’t be separated. As one man said, “None of us can separate our lives into sacred and secular, People who serve have tasks and things to do that keeps them busy and finding reward in. Those who are faithful in this life with what the Lord gives them will actually be put in charge of more work to do according to Jesus’ teachings (Matt. 24:19; 25:23). “Well done, good and faithful servant! In other words, if you are faithful, you are entrust with more! In a world where hard work is despised or man is tempted to greed and laziness, Christians ought to stand out by the way they work hard for the Lord with joy! We should be the most creative and boldest workers in the world! It’s part of our fruit-bearing in this life! In the Creation Mandate of Genesis 1:26-27, God said to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Let’s be fruitful vocationally, treating work as a calling for God’s glory!
Pastor Justin In this Sunday’s sermon, we learned that the most important question someone must answer is, “Have I trusted in Christ as my Savior?” Our answer to this question determines both where we will spend eternity and the motives for everything we do that is related to God. As we saw in the illustration of the two men who had very similar lives – both born about the same time, both grew up in the same town, same church, both tithed, both were baptized, both took communion, both served in church and in their communities - but at the end of their lives God only accepted one of them because everything they did was from two very different motives. One did what he did for salvation, in his own effort, having rejected Christ’s free gift of eternal life while one did what he did from salvation, by depending on God’s Spirit he received when he trusted Christ alone as his Savior from sin. God is not pleased with us trying to “work” for or “earn” His grace. Grace, by definition, is free. It is undeserved favor from God and not based on what we do, but upon what Christ did for us! The good news of the gospel says that God has offered us one “life-raft” – that is Christ – to be saved from our sins. Filled with the Spirit, Peter preached to the religious leaders in Acts 4:12 the same exclusive message, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” It’s settled, then. If Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, then there is no other way, truth, or life. But is this kind of gospel exclusivity found in the first few chapters of Genesis? I think it is, and specifically in Genesis 4:3-8. “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.” So just like the two men in our sermon’s illustration, one man’s offering (Abel’s) was accepted but the other man’s (Cain’s) was rejected. God accepted one and excluded the other. But why? To be honest, the exact answer will have to wait until heaven, but there are some solid clues we can pick up on in Genesis and a comment on it from Hebrews. For one, God may have set the standard for acceptable sacrifices in Genesis 3:21 by offering a blood sacrifice to cover sin. He slaughtered an animal to make clothes for Adam and Eve, a covering of His own choosing and a much superior covering to their fickle fig leaves of their own making. By offering fruit of the ground instead of an animal, it may not have been an approved sacrifice for sin at this time. Secondly, it could have been that he didn’t offer a quality sacrifice. Abel, we know, offered the firstlings of his flock but we don’t know if Cain honored God with the first fruits of crop. Maybe he was just giving God some leftovers and not of the top. In the Law, it was the first of a certain harvest or flock that was to be given, typifying Christ the first fruit and the first and only Son of God. Another mark of quality was that the sacrifices had to be without blemish or defect like our spotless Lamb too (Heb. 9:14). It may have been a combination of things that didn’t make Cain’s sacrifice acceptable, however, I think Hebrews 11:4 gives us the sufficient clue we need. It says, “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” If the gift of a blood-sacrifice was required for sin like in the Law, sin was something clearly standing in the way between Cain and God (Gen. 4:6). So not only was it likely not an approved sacrifice, but it was also not offered with the right motives – God’s way, and by faith. When Abel looked at his sacrifice, he saw his own sin and that he deserved death. He saw his helpless condition as a sinner and his need to be saved by it – his was by faith. Cain, however, it just doesn’t seem saw the seriousness of his sin problem. He was offering the work of his hands and wasn’t taking sin seriously – he does, after all, murder his brother after this out of a fit of jealous rage! Something tells me this man’s heart was unrepentant and offered his sacrifice with religious pride – by works. Many works-based and not faith-based sacrifices are offered to God every day by those going through the motions of church activity and religious service. They don’t understand that things like communion, baptism, tithing, witnessing or serving is to be done from salvation and not for salvation. Whatever the exact case with Cain and Abel, it does reminds us that we must approach God His way and not our own, and His way, the Bible says, is by grace through faith in Christ. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Pastor Justin
The other day my wife called me from the store and asked if I wanted any seeds for our garden. Even though I’d already purchased some last fall, I realized there were some seeds I still needed if I wanted to have a fruit-filled garden. This time of year has a lot of folks thinking about planting seeds which, biblically speaking, could remind us as believers of Christ and the first time the gospel was ever alluded too. As I mentioned in the last devo, I want to take us back to Genesis to rediscover the foundations for what we believe. And since we talked a lot about the gospel from 1 Corinthians 15, I thought we’d go back to the gospel in Genesis. Since the Bible is one giant story about God’s plan to create, redeem and restore man via the gospel of Christ, we should not be surprised to find it prophesied as early as Genesis 3. Remember that in the first 2 chapters of Genesis God created a world that was good and perfect and sinless. It was paradise! Adam and Eve were happily married, and they were cultivating fruit in the garden God had put in their care, meanwhile enjoying fellowship with God. They only had one command: to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had all the freedom in the world and the ability to eat from all other trees except this one, maybe to express their love of God by obeying Him. As we know, paradise is lost. Satan came along in the form of a serpent and deceived them into eating the forbidden fruit. Because of this disobedience God was forced, by His holy and just nature, to bring the curse and this is referred to as the Fall. Now, in Genesis 3:14-24, the criminals, Satan, Adam, and Eve are all standing before God. God curses the serpent and tells Satan, “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.” This is sometimes referred to as the Proto Evangelium, or first gospel. They didn’t understand the gospel as we do with such clarity, but they did understand a redeemer was coming in their line of descendants. What you find throughout the course of history and described in the Bible is just what God has said – a battle between two different seed lines. Satan is always trying to squash the godly seed line through which Christ the “Seed” would come, just as he wars against the Church today in various ways (Matt. 3:7; John 8:44; Rom. 16:20). At times it appears as though Satan has won! One such occasion was when Israel was taken into captivity for 70 years in Babylon. But even though the “tree of David” is felled, left as a stump (Is. 6:13), God said the “holy seed is its stump” and a “shoot” would spring forth from the “stem of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1). This “Shoot” is none other than Christ, who came from the family of David, son of Jesse (1 Sam. 17:12). The “Seed” is not a small or insignificant type of Christ in Scripture. Paul even argues over the singular use of the word “seed” in Genesis 22:17-18, that the nations would be blessed through the “seed of Abraham” that is Christ (Gal. 3:1). Jesus also describes Himself as a seed that must die in order to bear much fruit (John 12:24). To bear much fruit, the “seed of the woman” who is Christ must have His “heel” bruised by His real but temporary death but in so doing, He delivers Satan a fatal blow to the “head”. A bruise to the heel is much less a wound than a blow to the head. Christ triumphed over Satan through the cross and rendered him judged (John 16:11). We rejoice in this! The seed element is not the only gospel expression in Genesis 3 either. I think it’s also seen in the way that God removes the self-made fig leaf clothes of Adam and Eve (self-righteous coverings) and provides garments of skin (animal hide) as a superior covering of His choosing, which meant an animal had to be slain for them. The point is, we cannot cover our sins by our own works but by the work of God, the Lamb slain. Covering for sin requires a death because death is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23) and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22). Another act of gospel-centered grace was for God to drive man out of the garden and appoint an angelic-cherubim to keep man from eating of the tree of life in his fallen state (3:24). It’s a sign that God doesn’t desire us to live in sin forever, but to be restored and redeemed from it. For everyone who trusts the “Seed” of Christ who was slain as the Lamb of God to provide covering for sin, they will be born again and allowed access the fruit of the tree of life forever in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:2)! It’s no wonder Satan has tried so hard to discredit the Genesis record of the history of the world. Even atheists know that without it, all Christian doctrine crumbles and become meaningless. The good news that Jesus came and died and rose again is pointless without paradise and the Fall of Genesis 1-3. In a world of evolutionary theory, let’s rebuild these Genesis foundations for our children because as Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Working to rebuild the Genesis foundations, Pastor Justin If you’ve ever watched NCIS or crime scene investigation shows like it, you know that what the investigators do is try to gather all the evidence they can for making an effective case as to what happened at the crime scene. Since they weren’t there when the crime took place, they try to reconstruct the scene and course of events from the evidence they have in the present, usually involving key witnesses. The same thought process can be carried out in the debate about our origins and the history of the universe. The present evidence is going to give us clues about what happened in the past. The past determines the present and not the present, the past. And because God was actually there at the His creation of the world, we can trust His witness in the Bible to give us an accurate record of what took place. This is one of the reasons that evolutionary scientists are always changing their minds about the past and God’s account stays the same. He was there and He knows. Evolutionists were not and thus are guessing and making ever-changing assertions. I guess after going out to Kentucky recently and visiting The Ark Encounter that the Answers in Genesis ministry has marvelously and miraculously put together (you should check it out sometime! It’s worth it!), it has me all fired up to get back to get back to Genesis because Genesis explains the present reality! It explains this universe and all areas of life. It explains who we are, why we are the way that we are, why this world is the way that it is, and how we should live in it. In Genesis, we find the foundations of all Christian doctrine. As one man, Del Tackett, said, “Nothing in the world makes sense except in light of Genesis.” Think about these big questions: Where did this world come from? Did we evolve or were we created? Why did Christ die? Who are we? Why do wear clothes? Why is abortion wrong? Why is lying wrong? Is it okay to eat meat? Why are there so many languages? Why do we have human government? Why do we get married? Where did this Jewish nation of Israel come from? Is there an answer to racism? All of these, and more, can be answered by understanding the Genesis record! This is important because our belief about the past is going to determine how we live today and we should want to know why we do what we do. We should also want to be able to give reasonable and logical answers to those who have questions about the Christian worldview. We should want to be able to answer our kids with foundational reasons as to why we are raising them the way we are. Many kids have rebelled against God as their Creator and Redeemer because they simply weren’t given reasons as to why they should believe in the first place. As one girl, Lisa Baker at age 20 said, “All I want is reality. Show me God. Tell me what He is really like. Help me to understand why life is the way it is and how I can experience it more fully and with greater joy. I don’t want empty promises. You see, for young people like Lisa, we need to not just be able to tell her what to believe, but why she should believe it. More than one teenage daughter has been told to change her clothes and put on something a little more modest before going out of the house. The typical response from the teenager is, “Ugh… why?! What’s wrong with my clothing?” And the typical response is something along the lines of, “Because that’s just what we do as Christians.” Responses like these are an unreasonable response. Quite often, because we don’t really know why, we’ll even get defensive and threatening. A better response would be to have them change, and tell them you will sit down with them later and explain from Genesis why we even wear clothes in the first place. With the path that our LGBTQ+ culture is on, we’re going to have to defend to the “plus” people in LGBTQ category why clothes are necessary someday, believe it or not! I hope this is not prophetic but in a morally relativistic society, anything goes! Over the next several weeks or off and on throughout this year, I plan on taking us back to our foundations in Genesis for why we believe what we believe. We’ll get to the clothes-wearing issue later, but since we’ve talked a lot about relationships and how important it is for us to be building bridges to share the gospel through them with our neighbors, I want to go back to Genesis and explain why it is foundationally critical to build relationships with our neighbors. Have you ever thought about why we are relational beings and sense the need for relationships in our lives? Have you noticed how depressing and dark life has been since the mask wearing and isolation mandates? We just weren’t made for isolation and loneliness. Genesis explains why. In Genesis 1:26-28, 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 bless them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.” One of the things that stands out to pretty much anyone who reads this passage is the significance of the plurals and singulars. For the first time in the Bible, God is talking about Himself as plural and singular. This is because God is a Trinitarian God. We know that from the Old Testament and New Testament He is One God in 3 Persons – not 3 modes or 3 forms – but really, 3 different Persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God – but the Father is not the Son and the Son not the Spirit and vice versa. All 3 Persons are also eternal. They’ve always existed. There is a plurality and oneness to God and these 3 have been in perfect harmony and unity in community throughout all of eternity. God is a relational being by nature and always has been – even before man or angels were created. This is the answer to our question: We are relational beings by nature because God is by His very nature, Some theologians call what we’re talking about here “The Dance of God”. One theologian writes this, “The persons within God exalt each other, commune with each other, and defer to one another. . . . Each divine person harbors the others at the center of his being. In constant movement of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others….God’s interior life [therefore] overflows with regard for others.… The Trinity is utterly different. Instead of self-centeredness, the Father, the Son, and…the Spirit are characterized in their very essence by mutually self-giving love. No person in the Trinity insists that the others revolve around him; rather each of them voluntarily circles and orbits around the others. Life-shaping and glorious implications it is! It’s foundational in Genesis too! Notice that right after God says that He’s going to make man in His image, He creates both Adam and Eve. First Adam and then Eve, because it is not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). Adam and Eve on their own were created with a personality that is able to communicate with God and also with each other. We were made as relational beings as He is relational. Marriage is designed to be the most perfect and intimate picture of God’s plurality and oneness, where Genesis 2 explains that Adam and Eve became one flesh from one flesh. Eve was taken from Adam and for Adam. They are different persons and yet from the same person. Remind you of something? God is 3 in one! It’s a very powerful reality and picture of God’s nature. Only the Trinity explains relational beings. No other singularly monotheistic god like Allah or Jehovah’s witnesses idea of God or the Mormon’s distortion of God can really explain at a foundation level why we are relational. Neither can a mindless cause of evolutionary forces and natural selection explain it, and how we’re built, male and female, for relationships. The reality is that it’s because we have a Trinitarian God who even before time, space, matter, people, or angels, has been and always will be a relational being. With many not recognizing this creative reality of human design today, it has led many into times of great spiritual and social darkness and loneliness. Maybe because of hurts in our past, we’re afraid to get too close to someone again, but listen closely – we were made for relationships. This is why in the long term, it is more loving to break the barriers of isolation and reach out to our lonely neighbors. People need to see your smile. They need to spend time with others. Our governments who have prescribed isolation and social distance out of “love” for too long really don’t understand man (biblical anthropology). God Himself said in Genesis 2:18... “It is not good for man to be alone” ...because we were made like Him for love, communication and fellowship.
So here’s my challenge to you that goes along with the sermon: Pray for opportunities to love your neighbor (and be ready for them!). If you have to, get out of the house and knock on your neighbors door and invite them over for a barbeque. Intentionally run into them while they’re outside. We weren’t made for isolation so love your neighbor in ways that they are comfortable with at this point. By doing this, you’ll also fulfill the law of Christ and the greatest commandments (Mark 12:28-34; Galatians 5:14, 6:2; James 2:8). Show them the love of Christ that He showed you. Pastor Justin The first series of sermons I ever preached at Chadron Berean was a series on the life of Noah. The reason or origin for the series all started when I was a senior at Frontier School of the Bible, where one of my assignments was to do a biographical sermon and I chose to study the life of Noah. That study changed my life – no joke. Since studying the life of Noah and his story, I find myself constantly rehashing the principles in my life that I learned even to this day. I consider it my favorite study that after going on the trip to the Ark Encounter, hope to turn into a short book to pass on to others. Please pray about that and thank you for doing so. Up to this point in my life, I find this series to be one of the greatest compound messages God has ever given me to share with others. Biographical sermons have become one of my favorites in general because they’re sermons that concentrates on the study of the life of a person from Scripture, studying how they lived and how they walked with God and how God worked in their lives and responded to the things they did in life. So, by studying their life and their walk with God we learn to relate to God in our own lives with some of the situations we face in life. The ever-relevant Bible has a way of bringing us to where we come to sympathize with them and relate with them in an intimate way even though they lived 2,000+ years ago and on the other side of the world in a different culture. I love that about God’s Word! In light of my voyage to Kentucky this week, I want to take us back to one of those amazing marks of “A Man of the Flood”. You know, when we think of Noah we typically think of him as a man of God, but I want you to think of him as a man of the flood. Noah was the man of the flood. He lived in light of an impending judgment – a coming judgment. But you know what? So do we. You and I both know that there is a flood of judgment coming upon those who have not placed their faith in Christ. And so Noah is going to be our example today as to how we should live in light of a coming judgment as men and women of the flood. Mark #1 in the story of Noah is that “A Man of the Flood Walks with God.” You see this in Genesis 6:5-12. “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe out mankind whom I have created from the face of the land; mankind, and animals as well, and crawling things, and the birds of the sky. For I am sorry that I have made them.” The Bible says all flesh on earth was corrupt in the sight of God. It was filled with violence, its wickedness was great, and every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually – the reason for the flood itself. Every intent of man’s heart was only evil continually. The book of Jude adds to this by saying that during Enoch’s time (who would’ve been Noah’s great grandpa), the people were ungodly grumblers, fault finders, and lust followers who spoke arrogantly, trying to flatter people only for the sake of gaining advantage (Jude 1:16). So from Enoch to his great grandson Noah, nothing had changed and at this time in history it was accompanied by zero moral restraints and zero social restraints. It reminds me of the days of the Judges, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6). Sin just went unchecked in this limitless and lawless world of corruption. One of the sinful cities of that time, mentioned in Genesis 4:17, was the industrious and innovative City of Enoch. Ancient man was not as clueless as he is usually portrayed to be, walking around with clubs and dragging his knuckles. He was smart, built musical instruments and forged implements out of bronze and iron (4:21-22). This city of Enoch was built by Cain, murderer of Abel, when he went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. It was named after his son, Enoch (not to be confused with the godly son bore to Jared and called Enoch also) and was the birthing center of a God-rejecting, self-sufficient society. According to Charles Ryrie the city had its, “sense of guilt eased by cultural development and geographical expansion,” and Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe also says, “In the city of Enoch, they had everything but God.” Satan desired to use Cain’s line to destroy the godly line of Seth, through whom Christ would come, which is a key reason for God to flood the world as well. But thank God for Noah! Because while the rest of the world was walking according to their own way, following their own lusts that come from their wicked hearts, here he is – standing out as a flower among thorns in the eyes of God. In fact, the word used for favor, when it says Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, is the same word for grace in the OT and it’s the first mention of grace found in the Bible. Even in the most wicked moments in history, you still find God’s grace, just like man’s greatest wickedness and God’s greatest grace both met on the cross. Noah found God’s grace. The Bible says Noah was righteous man and a blameless man. That doesn’t mean he was perfect, as we’ll see, but that he hungered and thirsted for righteousness and took our holy God seriously. He wasn’t mindlessly falling in line with the ways of the world and the pattern of this world. He wasn’t doing what everyone else was doing because it was the cool thing to do or because it was the normal thing to do. He actually thought about what God would think of his life’s choices. He didn’t chase what was the latest and greatest devices or fads to come out the City Enoch. He used his mind. He actually thought about what God would think of his choices and made decisions based on that, and not on some personal, temporal pleasure. And that’s just it: to walk with God you have go against the grain of this world. You have to ask God that question, “God, what would you think if I did this or that?” To be a man of the flood means being more concerned about what God thinks of you than what people think of you. Noah’s decision to go against the grain and walk with God in a corrupt culture reminds me of a couple other biblical characters who did the same. One is Daniel, who instead of enjoying all the great luxuries of Babylon, made up his mind not to defile himself with the king’s requests (Dan. 1:8). The second is Moses, whom Hebrews 11:24-26 tells us, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.” Moses had eternal perspective that saw through the chintzy and fleeting and misleading pleasures of the best Egypt could offer, (which, by the way, was the best in the world at the time!) and had a conviction to live for something greater. He wanted riches that would last forever. When me and my wife spent some time in South America doing missionary work there, I noticed several billboard signs in the city that read, “Solo escucho mi corazon,” which means, “I only listen to my heart.” These signs usually had someone on them drinking hard alcohol and with a big smile, having what appeared to be a great time. Those signs really irritated me because I was an alcoholic for years, even being voted the biggest alcoholic in my graduating high school class, I can tell you that those signs are lies. They are not the long-term reality. The reality of alcohol is your friends rolling their car on a back road and dying prematurely. The reality is your uncle nicknamed ‘Whiskey’, lying on a hospital bed and turning a yellowish color from toxins as his liver fails to filter them out. The reality is broken homes and fatherless children because “I don’t have a drinking problem” suddenly becomes an addiction. Following the lusts of the heart is the way that seems right, but leads to death (Proverbs 14:12) because and the heart is desperate for wickedness (Jeremiah 17:9). Following the heart is a sure-fire way to self-destruct and walk the path of God’s judgment. Noah and Moses decided against it and were preserved for it 1 John 2:17 illustrates the precept perfectly: “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” Do the will of God while you can in this world. One day it will pass away, but not with water. God said He would never flood the world again. Next time, the Bible says, it will be destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3) and those who’ve trusted Christ as their Savior can live with God on a New Heaven and New Earth (Rev. 21-22).
The question we must ask ourselves in light of all of this is, "Am I a man of the flood who is living in light of a coming judgment?" Those who are living like a man of the flood are those who are walking with God even when no one else will. Even when it’s not cool, not acceptable, and worthy of being canceled in our cancel culture. Even when it's hard and will cost us much personal sacrifice. Men of the flood realize they have an unceasing daily responsibility to walk with God, to keep short accounts with Him when they sin by confessing it and repenting of it, while recognizing it is only His enabling Spirit who gives them the grace and power to walk with Him and to work with Him in building the ark that is Christ’s body, the Church. Unless you are shut in Christ as Noah was shut in the ark, you will not survive the coming judgments and that’s all the more reason to tell others about Him and live for Him. Noah, my dear friends, is evidence that just because the world is corrupt that we live in, it cannot be used as an excuse for not walking with God. Noah made up his mind to walk with God in a corrupt culture and found God’s favor. Have you? Folks, I’m just being real honest with you here. This world doesn’t need any more men and women who walk in the ways of the world and the flesh. It needs real men and women of the flood who walk with God, even when the rest of the world is walking the other way. Anyone can walk in the ways of the world and the lust of the flesh… but to walk with God? That takes a real man... A man of self-sacrificial love like Christ. I challenge you, for your sake and for the sake of your children and for the sake of others and for the sake of the glory of God – be a man of the flood. Building the “Ark” with you today by His grace, Pastor Justin A couple of summers ago, we studied the doctrine of “Heaven” and as we talked about the future reality of receiving our resurrected bodies this Sunday, I want to revisit one of the questions we asked: “What will our resurrected bodies be like?” Our resurrected bodies are the last, ultimate, perfected glorious state of our bodies that Christ will grant us when He comes to get us and what we will be like from then on forever. To sum up what our bodies will be like, we could say that our resurrected bodies will be like Christ’s resurrection body. Philippians 3:21 says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with His glorious body, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” 1 John 3:2 says, “We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is." And Romans 8:29-30 says, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” These verses make it clear we will have a resurrection body like His. But what do we know about His body and what can we learn from it? Physically speaking, there are some basic observations we can make from Luke 24. For one, we know that He was able to stand among people like the disciples on solid ground (v. 36). He urged them to examine Him with their eyes and by touch, even showing them His scarred hands and feet (vv. 39-40). He also asked from something to eat and ate on more than one occasion the same food that the disciples were eating (vv. 41-43; Jn. 21:10-15). In Luke 24:39 He even said, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
What this tells us is that we will not be just some out-of-body spirit floating around on clouds somewhere or drifting through some distant galaxy like many have imagined, but there will be a real and tangible reality where we will be able to walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, eat the fruit of the tree of life and bread in the kingdom of God, and drink from the water of life and heaven’s wine (Lk. 14:15; Rev. 19:9; 21:6, 21; 22:2, 14). I don’t know about you, but I simply can’t wait! Personally, I have a great distaste for the idea of an only spiritual, transparent existence like many have imagined so I’m excited to spend eternity on a New Earth doing real and adventurous things together with you! These new bodies will be able to serve the Lord with complete energy and ability (Rev. 22:3) in a place where the sun never sets (Rev. 22:5). Spiritually speaking (we’re talking about the inner man here), we know that we will be absolutely perfectly pure like He is! No longer will we have to battle it out anymore with this fallen sin nature because the war between flesh and Spirit will come to an end! We will simply walk by the Spirit in perfect communion with God at all times! What a relief that will be! Christ will give us new, bright and clean white robes that signify that we have been washed pure and spotless in the blood of the Lamb and have glorified Him through righteous deeds (Rev. 19:8; 22:14). This corruptible will have put on the incorruptible (Rom. 7:24-25; 8:29-30; Rev. 21:4, 27; 1 Cor. 15:52). Sin will not even exist in the eternal Heaven (Rev. 21:8; 22:15). These new bodies will be immortal, have new capabilities, be healthy, powerful, have emotional stability, be able to shine, and much, much more! For more on how great our resurrected bodies will be go to: www.chadronberean.org > Resources > Heaven Study > Download DoctrineOfHeaven.Notes.pdf > Page 32-36. Also, if you’re looking for a good read on what heaven will be like, be sure to check out Randy Alcorn’s book called Heaven. In Christ, our risen Savior, Pastor Justin How did Hitler convince the generation that would become the Nazis to murder 6 million Jews? It's fairly simple really. He just convinced them through propaganda and control of the schools’ education programs teaching evolution, that Jews weren’t really humans – that they were really animals. In his book When a Nation Forgets God, Pastor Erwin Lutzer writes, “Hitler believed that the Jews were subhuman – parasites that needed to be exterminated. In a 1923 speech in Munich, he said, It’s not murder if they’re not a human legally, right? Sound familiar... The same thing is happening in our country with unborn babies. However, just because something is legal, doesn’t make it moral or lessen the evil of it. There is an unseen law of God that prevails over any made-made laws allowing something evil to be considered legal. Like Hitler and the laws of our land, Satan loves to downplay how precious humanity is through the evolutionary lie that we’re just another beast that evolved from random matter and processes without a purpose. He loves the depressing, dark evolutionary lie that steals purpose, kills dignity, and destroys hope for so many today. In God’s Word, however, we find quite the opposite – and the answer to today’s cries of racism – because it reminds us that man is made in God’s image as the pinnacle of His creation! After a great break in the creation narrative of chapter 1 of Genesis, there is a divine deliberation in the Godhead in Genesis 1:26, “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.” The ‘Us’ and ‘Our’ in this verse are plural forms of majesty found even back in Genesis 1:1 that allow for and point to a plurality in the Godhead this early on in the Bible already. It reveals the doctrine of the Trinity in seed form. There are similar dialogues to this one in Genesis 3:22, 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8, but the dialogue here is certainly new and surprising to the text. It tells us something big is happening that didn't happen with the rest of creation. Mankind's creation is special to the rest. The plural references to God remind us that God is a relational Being even within Himself. He is and always has been a God of relationships because He is three Persons in one, the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit. The relationship essence of God is a great part of what it means to be made in God’s image. God is a relational being with a mind, emotion and will. So are we! We are not like the beast who primarily functions with other beasts through instinct, but are uniquely made and have been given authority over the beasts. We have a much more complex personality created with God’s communicable attributes – His nature and moral likenesses – able to express love, mercy and grace, and make decisions that are good and righteous. Unlike animals, we also have a spiritual nature that gives us the ability to have a relationship with God.
When he painted the creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel, Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo depicted God as outstretched with hand extended to a lounging and lackadaisical Adam who receives God touch of life. But from Genesis 2:7 we find a more thorough account of this act of creation where God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and very personally, almost awkwardly, breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life. I'm not demeaning Michelangelo's work of art, but the creation account is quite the opposite in its personal touch of God. Genesis, in contrast to the Sistine Chapel, tells us God is very personal with man and that we were made by Him and for Him – awkwardly up close and personal. If society really believed that mankind was made in the image of God, what problems would that solve? What are the consequences of believing what evolution teaches, that we were made in the image of lesser animals? You’re seeing it today. There is struggle for the dignity of man though there is nothing to base it on because without a belief in God, nothing is unconditionally wrong. As Christians who stand firmly and lovingly on the Word of Truth, we proclaim as the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence does, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We stand firmly and lovingly on the truth that no matter who it is – every man is made in the image of God and for a relationship with Him. Being made in His image is the basis for the protection of all lives. Actually, the first form of human government, capital punishment, was established on the fact that man is made in God's image and if anyone shed's blood, by man his blood shall be shed (See Genesis 9:6-7). God is serious about the sanctity of every human life. Because of sin, our relationship with God has been fractured and the image of God in man has been marred, but not totally destroyed. And God Himself provided the remedy for man to have an up close and personal relationship with Him again by taking on flesh Himself through the virgin Mary in the person of Jesus Christ and by living a perfectly sinless life was able to offer Himself on the cross for our sins so that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life with God, starting now through a born again relationship by His Spirit. Have you placed your faith in Christ? Pastor Justin 1 Erwin Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God (Chicago: Moody Press, 2010). |
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