In the beginning God created everything we see around us
from nothing. He made a man in His image and then from the rib of the man
created a woman to complete Him. In order to know if the man and the woman
would love Him, God allowed them to be tempted by a fallen archangel. The man
and the woman sin as God sets a curse on humanity but also promising to send
the solution in the form of the Blessed Redeemer or Messiah. God covers the
couples’ nakedness with the skins of animals the man was entrusted to care for
and instructs them on the correct way to worship and how to approach Him.
In the process of time, two brothers are born. One obeys God
in the acceptable way to worship by bringing a lamb to the altar while the
other brother attempts to worship God in his own way by bringing the fruit of
the field. When his sacrifice is rejected, jealousy fills his countenance as he
murders his brother. Meanwhile the earth is becoming filled with selfish, destructive
people who have completely turned their back on their Creator. God shows His
grace and mercy and saves a small
remnant who love and trust in Him, as the heavenly floodgates and
fountains of the deep open up, covering the earth in a catastrophic worldwide
deluge.
Safe aboard the ark, eight people wait for God’s deliverance
as a dove returns with an olive branch in its mouth. Once again God blesses His
creation and commands them to go spread out and fill the entire earth,
promising never again to destroy the earth with water. Generations pass as
people forget about God and decide that the fertile plain below the ark is
probably a better place to stay, build cities and towers to their newly
invented gods of creation; gods made of earth, wood and stone.
God, wanting to reveal Himself to the entire world, chooses
one family line through which the promised Savior would come into the world.
God promises that his family would prosper, eventually becoming as numerous as
the stars in heaven or the sands of the sea shore. One descendant is blessed
with twelve sons who become the twelve tribes of this new God-led nation.
The youngest son, being mistreated by his other brothers, is
sold into slavery and bought by a wealthy Egyptian noble. Because of his
obedience to the One True and Living God he is blessed and prospers, eventually
becoming second in command of the entire Egyptian nation. In God’s time, a
famine devours the entire land of Canaan, forcing the other brothers to look
for food down in Egypt. Unknowingly, they are granted an audience with their
brother who they do not recognize. They end up being fed, cared for and
eventually relocate to Goshen, Egypt.
Four hundred and thirty-two years pass as the small family
of twelve brothers grows into a nation of Hebrew slaves. Because of their growing out-of-control population,
the Pharaoh commands that all male children be thrown into the Nile River. One
male baby escapes death by being put into a small ark of bulrushes and floated
down the river where the Pharaoh’s daughter finds him. This Hebrew baby grows
up as one of Pharaoh’s own sons with all the luxury and entitlement that one
can dream of.
When he is older, he kills an Egyptian who is beating a
Hebrew slave. Now the young man is banished from Egypt and escapes into the
desert of Midian. At the age of eighty, the shepherd is sent back to Egypt to
demand that the Pharaoh let his people go! After ten plagues that were focused
on the Egyptian gods of nature, gods of wood and stone, the death of the first
born is the last straw as Pharaoh lets the fledgling nation of Israel go.
The people grumble and complain and are sentenced to walk
for forty years in the desert. After this generation passes, they are allowed
to go into the Promised Land. Soon mighty kings are building a very large and
powerful nation. However, they once again forget the God who has led them there
and begin to worship the gods of nature, gods of wood and stone.
So, when the moment was right, God sent His own Son. He
opened the way so that everyone who had hoped and believed that when time was
done, God would be able to make us one! But the selfish and destructive people
grabbed hold of the Son of God and they beat Him, mocking Him until He died as
the angry crowd nailed Him to a tree.
So the promise in a garden ended as a gift on a cross.
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