Who can I blame?

“And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

Another important principle about the way people deal with God is established in this passage. In spite of what we are taught today by many experts, each person is responsible before God for their own actions (see 2 Chron 25: 4). Both Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned but they both tried to blame someone else. Adam blamed Eve and, indirectly God Who gave him the woman, while Eve blamed the serpent. In this case, however, God gave both Adam and Eve the chance to own their own sin before God. Even today every person is responsible for their own sin and the only way to deal with our sin is to begin by confessing our sin to God and then repenting. We can not become a Christian without first acknowledging that we are sinners. Unless we are willing to take that step we will spend eternity burning in the fires of hell.

Modern mind science teaches us that we can blame other people and we can be cures of our issues if we can find someone to accept the blame. No one can change what other people do to them but everyone has control over what they think. I choose my attitude and I am responsible for my attitude. If I choose to think in a certain way, I may well erode my mind and then be incapable of thinking in any other way but I am still responsible for causing the erosion of my own mind.

There is good news for people with eroded minds. We can come to the Lord Jesus Christ and own our sin, repent of that sin and then submit to Him and by the power of the Holy Ghost we will find healing for that erosion.

Are you naked, hiding in the folly of your own wisdom or are you willing to be clothed in the garments of the Lord Jesus Christ’s righteousness?

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

The Naked Emperor

“And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”

There is an old story about a vain emperor who went out one day wearing no clothes at all. He had been persuaded by some cunning people that only clever people could see this particular material and he didn’t want to admit that he was not intelligent so he pretended to see the material even though it didn’t really exist. No one else wanted to be seen as not being clever so no admitted that they didn’t see the material either. However, one child in the crowd wasn’t concerned about looking clever, just telling the truth, suddenly the awful truth was published abroad, the emperor was completely naked. I wonder if that story had its roots in the story of the Fall. Adam and Eve wanted to look clever before the talking serpent so they didn’t point out that he was telling lies. However, by the end of this historical episode we see that they are exposed, completely naked. The father of lies doesn’t care if we look stupid, he just wants to take the glory and honour that belongs to God and give it to himself. However, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6: 7). They chose not to believe God and were exposed before God as being fools. God knew exactly what they had done and they couldn’t hide from Him microscopic forensic gaze.

God knows every thought that we have but we have been redeemed by the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. We may look well dressed before all our friends but if we do not believe the truth then we will be naked before the Judge of the Earth and be exposed as fools.

Are you naked, hiding in the folly of your own wisdom or are you willing to be clothed in the garments of the Lord Jesus Christ’s righteousness?

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Where art thou?

“And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Why would God ask Adam where he was if God is supposed to be omniscient? Surely God must have known that Adam had sinned and was ashamed? We read in the New Testament that the Lord knew what people were thinking (see Matt 9: 4) but He had to ask Adam where he was in this case. A proper understanding of God’s approach to people is needed before we can properly consider this issue. God is gracious and He always give people a chance to repent or to own what they have done (compare Matt 9: 20). In this case God was demonstrating grace rather than ignorance. He gave Adam an opportunity to own the fact that he had transgressed God’s instructions. However, he did not make any admissions. It is useless to speculate as to what might have happened if Adam had owned up to his sin because he did not and we have to deal with facts rather than assumptions.

The whole field of Biblical Studies has been polluted today by people who make assumptions and then “emend” (that is change) the text so that the text suits their assumptions rather than changing their theories to fit the truth as revealed in God’s text.

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Their eyes were opened.

“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.”

Some people tell us that we will get whatever we wish for as long as we believe that we are going to get what we wish for and we have enough desire. That is not always true for Adam and Eve wanted to be like gods and be able to define what is good and what is evil. However, they didn’t get what they wanted for God still defined good and evil. They did have to live with the consequences of what they had done because God had promised them that there would be consequences to their actions. It is impossible for any government to legislate against behavioural consequences, no matter how politically correct and desirable it may be.

The first thing that these people experienced was shame. They knew that had done wrong and they realised that they were naked. This led to shame and they hid themselves from God, I suppose they were hoping He would not realise that they had sinned. They tried to cover their shame by making clothes out of fig leaves.

In spite of their efforts, God was not fooled and He came to the garden, as was His habit, to bring them face to face with the consequences of their actions. Shame is one of the consequences of sin but it is not the hardest issue that we have to deal with.

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Feelings or facts?

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

God is the God Who deals in facts. As soon as we start to rely on our feelings we get ourselves mired in sinking sand. Everything Eve did in this episode is governed by feelings. She looked at the tree and is looked good to eat, this is a subjective viewpoints. The fruit also looked pleasant to her eyes, another piece of subjective information. She believed it would make her wise, again information based on subjective information that Satan, the serpent, had just given her. After this great flood of feelings she was swept away and disobeyed God.

The other things that we can do is accept the facts. God was the only witness to the entire creation drama and He gave us His eyewitness account. Having made Adam and Eve in His own image He gave them the information they needed to live a successful and enjoyable life. They were given all the information they needed to be at rest with God and His goodness but they didn’t take advantage of the facts.

All we have to do is look at the facts, as described by God in His inspired word and we can escape forever from the arbitrary and random yoke of our feelings. If we resist the devil he is sure to flee from us (James 4: 7) but we must use our sword in order to fight against him.

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Ye shall be as gods.

“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

This is the way Satan, the serpent always works: he encourages us to question God’s Word and then manufactures his lies by using part of the truth. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, their eyes were opened but they didn’t become like gods. They were still restricted to their own human frailties but they didn’t have the advantage of Gods’ loving protection and oversight. They were just left to the random and arbitrary world that exists outside God’s care. God is able to control the future but no one else is, even Satan. We just have to wait and hope that things will turn out as we hope but we can’t do anything about it if they don’t.

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)