Date of message: 13 July 2003 Issue
Subject: God Thinks Highly Of Us
Shalom, Boker-tov (good morning),
Is it not amazing that our God thinks so highly of mankind that He chose
to create Adam only on the sixth day and not earlier? Imagine Adam being
created on the first day and he would have to thread water for a long
time because there was no land created as yet on the first day.
Man was created last so that he could enjoy all the riches of God's blessings
on the very day that he was created. God had already completed his creation
of everything else by the time He created Adam. The garden was already
there and it had luscious fruits for Adam to enjoy. He did not have to
plant seed and wait for a long time before harvest came around. How the
Lord really loves us, His highest form of creation. No mention was made
in the accounts of His creation that He ever breathed into any living
creature except for Adam and Eve.
In fact the author of the Letter to the Hebrews described how even the
angels in heaven could not be compared with man and that the angels were
appointed to minister for those who will inherit salvation. (Hebrews 1:
14). Every time they look at us, they would wonder what it was, and still
is, that is so attractive to God that man gets such privileges that they
could only dream of. They could never understand why man was even given
the keys to this earth, to have dominion over it. Even more so, they could
not understand why the Son of God Himself came down from heaven just to
die for man to save him from eternal condemnation.
God love us - there is no doubt about that - He loves us with a great
passion. In Genesis 3, we read how Satan possessed the serpent, came and
tempted Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good
and evil instead of from the Tree of Life as God had intended them to
do at the onset. The argument had been - why did God create the Tree of
Knowledge of good and evil if He had no intention for man to eat of that
tree in the first instance?
When God created Adam and Eve, He created them with the capacity to choose;
He did not create robots that simply obey every instruction of his Creator.
No; man was created with the freedom to choose what he wanted to be in
life and for that to materialize God had to present both sides of the
coin - the good and the bad. And so God planted the two trees in the middle
of the Garden of Eden - the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of
good and evil. One would have empowered man to have eternal life whilst
the other would have empowered him to make decisions for himself independently
of God.
I believe with all my heart that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat of the
Tree of Life first and then eat of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil
so that they could make good decisions in line with the LORD after they
had attained eternal life. Unfortunately, they chose to eat of the wrong
tree and therefore had to face up to the consequences of their choice.
And God had to banish them from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from
ever eating of the second tree and thereby sealing their destiny eternally.
But God is a loving God. Even when man sinned against Him, His love for
man did not diminish. He came to Adam and Eve in the evening and sought
them out. Of course the Creator God knew exactly where Adam and Eve were
hiding on that day after they ate of the fruit but He still called out
to them, "where are you?" God treasured His fellowship with
man so much that He wanted to be with Adam and Eve at the time when they
needed Him most. They had just committed their first sin - the sin of
disobedience (for God had specifically forbidden them to eat of the fruit
of that tree) - and they needed His Presence. Running away from Him was
not an option as no one can ever run away from the Creator God.
Out of the abundance of His love, the LORD, in speaking to Satan, prophesied
in Genesis 3: 15, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head and you
shall bruise His heel." He did not have to but He chose to give that
promise to man.
And so, Satan had been worried since then and he tried all ways to prevent
the prophecy from coming to fruition. He caused Cain to murder Abel thinking
that Abel was the Promised One and when that did not succeed, he instigated
his fellow fallen angels to come down and to have sexual intercourse with
the daughters of man and the result were giants who roamed the earth.
But God, in His faithfulness, preserved for Himself, a family who were
not corrupted by these evil spirits and whom the LORD used to save the
world. Noah and his family found favor from God and they were spared when
God sent the Flood to drown and to kill every living thing on the earth
except those found inside the Ark of Noah.
And yet, after the Flood, the evil spirits revisited the earth and repeated
the same sin and produced giants in the land. Because of His covenant
with Noah, God could not send a second flood to wipe out these giants;
instead He decided to raise up a whole nation, the nation of Israel, to
wage war against these and eliminate them. Goliath was believed to be
the last of these giants (he was close to ten feet in height) and David
the young shepherd boy defeated him in the Valley of Elah with just one
stone shot from his sling. The whole encounter between David and Goliath
can be found in 1Samuel 17.
Photograph taken in Jerusalem near the garden tomb where Jesus was buried.
This place is called, in the Hebrew, Golgotta, or the Place of The Skull.
Some Hebrew scholars believe that this was the place where Goliath's head
was buried after he was killed by David in the Valley of Elah, a place
not too far away from Jerusalem.
Notice the eye sockets, the bridge of the nose and the holes of the nostrils.
The mouth is a little obscured.
The trees above the skull are Olive trees and it is believed that there
were more trees growing there and Jesus was nailed to one of those trees.
David took the head (severed from Goliath's body) back to Jerusalem and
he buried the head in the place called Golgotta and so when Jesus, the
Promised Seed of Genesis 3: 15 was crucified on Golgotta, that prophecy
was fulfilled. Satan was able to only bruise Jesus' feet but Jesus crushed
Satan's head when He was crucified on the tree above the skull.
The devil and all his schemes have been dealt with on the cross. He had
been defeated and his hold on us is no more. He will always attempt to
deceive us but he will not be able to prevail over us when we know our
position in Christ Jesus. That is why Paul wrote to the Believers in Rome
reminding them that they (and us) are more than conquerors (Romans 8:
37) through Christ who loved us.
The choice is now before you - choose Life or reject His plan for your
life. Choose wisely for it will affect the way you will end up for eternity.
Rejection of what Jesus had done for us on the cross signifies the rejection
of God's Gift of salvation and if one rejects the Gift, there is therefore
no more hope.
Choose Life and put your faith in our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. Received
Him into your life and He will come into your heart and give you eternal
life. By believing in Jesus and receiving His Holy Spirit into our lives,
God confers on us the position of sons and daughters in His Family, special
positions reserved only for those whom He loves dearly (John 1:12).
The Lord cannot lie. For Him, whatever He speaks come to pass and He had
promised us in the Bible that those who have put their trust in Him will
not be condemned but have passed from death into life (Romans 8:1).
Pray this simple prayer and invite Him into your heart and immediately
you will experience the peace of Jesus coming your way.
Our heavenly Father, thank you for Your great love for us and it is out
of this love that You declared Your great Salvation Plan right at the
very beginning. Thank you for sending Your Son, Your Only Son, the Son
that You love so dearly to come and to die for all our sins so that we
can enjoy all Your blessings.
Lord Jesus, thank you that You became that Sacrificial Lamb for us and
because of Your death, the judicial righteousness of the Father had been
satisfied. And now, because You rose from the dead, we who believe in
You as our Lord and Savior will no longer have to die but we receive Your
eternal life. Thank you for coming into my heart and making my heart Your
home.
Thank you that I am now a child of God the Father and as His child, I
am now eternally forgiven, greatly blessed, highly favored, deeply loved
and completely protected in the Lord and in the most precious name of
Jesus Christ, Yeshua Ha' Mashiah, I pray.
Amen.
If you have prayed this prayer for the first time, welcome to the Family
of the Father (and it is a very large universal family). It is important
that you are not alone facing your personal trials but that you can obtain
good help wherever you are. Why not take the time to find your own local
Christian family (local church) and worship the Father together? You will
be greatly encouraged when you meet together to worship the Father, for
fellowship and for the study of the Word of Christ.
Start receiving the blessings of the Father as you walk with Him in faith.
It is your inheritance in Christ and He wants you to start enjoying these
blessings right now and there is more from where they come from.
The Lord blesses you and keeps you,
The Lord makes His face shine upon you and be gracious to you and all
your loved ones,
The Lord lifts up His countenance upon you and gives you His shalom peace.
Numbers 6: 24 -26
Have a blessed week ahead, Shavrou-tov
Shalom,
Andrew L W Lee
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