Telling God’s Story – Part 1
Creation to the Fall in the Garden of Eden and Banishment of Adam and Eve
Introduction
Before Creation, yet while in Heaven, God created other beings than man, such as the angels to serve Him as messengers for good and, unfortunately, fallen angels, or demons, that serve Satan’s evil purposes.
Lucifer was God’s brightest and most beautiful angel in Heaven. He was a guardian cherub of the Mercy Seat of God when he committed the first sin. He became arrogant and prideful and rebelled against God because he wanted to be worshiped. A war broke out in Heaven over it.
Lucifer, who became known as Satan, the adversary, and was cast down to earth by the Archangel Michael and his army of angels. Satan and his demons are one-third of Heaven. They hate God. They hate man. They are here right now!
“In the Beginning”, God’s Brilliance Shown in Creation
Volumes and volumes and volumes of books in thousands and thousands of libraries could not contain even a minute portion of God’s perfect plan and purposes. He created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath day.
Allow me to share a few of my favorite, but little known features of creation. These were just a few examples. God’s brilliance cannot be measured.
Man was created perfect. He would live hundreds of years until his DNA became more and more corrupted according to the curse of man and the ground. Life spans today are shorter and will get even shorter.
Knowing that “good” and “evil” would exist in the world and required their own place of existence, God created both light and dark, even before He created the Sun, Moon, Stars and the boundless darkness of outer space;
Knowing that a “flood” would be necessary, God stored up water in the springs of the ground and the heavens of the earth to be released later;
Knowing that the man would need immediate “sustenance”, God placed fully grown and fruit yielding trees in the Garden;
Knowing that crops and animals were needed to later “sustain” future population growth, He arranged for plants to reproduce of their kinds and also animals to reproduce of their kinds.
Adam and Eve, Innocence, Deception, and the Fall of Mankind
The following story, Part 1, takes place during the Dispensation of Innocence. Scriptures are in Genesis Chapters 1 through 3.
Meanwhile, down on earth, the man, and the woman were innocent and lived in the Garden of Eden. God Himself was in their very presence. Their relationship was perfect. However, they were given specific directions by God to tend the garden, subdue the animals in creation and procreate to fill the earth. By the way, do not eat the forbidden fruit.
Enter the serpent. Satan, still furious from his fall from heaven, deceived the woman about God’s instructions. She ate and convinced the man that he could eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, even though it had been forbidden by God, lest they die. They ate of the fruit anyway and committed the sin of disobedience. The “wages” of sin is death. Immediate spiritual death and physical death at its appointed time are now spread to future generations upon birth.
The knowledge of good and evil entered the world. Mankind has now fallen away from God and the perfect relationship with Him is destroyed. The rest of time as we know it is devoted to the restoration of that perfect relationship.
Sin Demands God’s Judgement and Punishment
God cannot be in the presence of sin. God punished the serpent, the woman, the man, and cursed the ground. He cast them out of the garden, where they could never eat from the Tree of Life.
The Fall Brings About Animal Sacrifice
One result of sin made Adam and Eve realize that they were naked. Since an animal was killed, so its skin could be used to clothe the two sinners, the requirement of “animal sacrifice” would be carried forward for the covering of man’s sin in the future.
The Fall Brings About a Need for Grace
However, God the Father, so loved the world that He provided “grace” moving forward for mankind to live a physical life with the chance for “redemption”. God promised that an offspring of the woman, a seed, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would crush the serpents head and be “the Way Back”.
Satan is just Getting Started
In all of Satan’s bitterness, still hating God and everything about him, he continues his rage. Satan can do nothing to God, so he will continue to attack man, who God loves and who is created in His image. Satan never stops. Both day and night, without resting, his constant war continues to this very moment.
Well, what have we learned so far?
Sin and deception have become the chosen weapons by the devil, in his war against God and mankind. Mankind fell and lost his physical home, spiritual life, and all semblance of paradise because of it.