Bible Survey - #3 - Genesis 3

Paradise Lost

God gave man a beautiful environment to live in, a wonderful helpmate, and above all Himself. Man heard the Voice of the Lord. The Paradise of God was on the earth. But when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they turned away from the Lord's Voice, preferring the word of a creature to that of the Creator. One of the consequences of this sin was the removal of man from Paradise. The way back to God would come, but many generations would pass before the day of glory would be decisively accomplished. For now, the suggestive announcement of the Lord's full future victory would have to do. Adam believed, and that is why he gave his wife a name that had to do with living.

The Fall of mankind is very significant. We cannot understand the world we live in unless we are aware that God has subjected it to much futility, misery, and death because of Adam's sin. Yet the news is not all bad in Genesis 3. There will be pain in childbearing, but there will be children. There will be frustrations and setbacks in work, but there will be food. Above all, there will come a descendant of the woman whose heel heel will be bruised, but He will bruise the head of the serpent. Paradise would have to come to mankind in a new way.

Through Adam, sin and death came to the world.

The life of man has never been the same.

Yet One would come from woman and prevail,

And earth and heaven would again be one.

Genesis 9

God's plan for the earth involves many generations and a wide variety of blessings that come upon both those who worship Him and those who do not worship Him. As the Lord establishes a pattern for Noah and his descendants, the blessing of the Lord is necessary for their existence. They are told to be fruitful and to multiply, just as the Lord had said in an earlier generation to the first of mankind.

Combined with this renewal of an earlier instruction is the Lord's assurance that in a world where everyone will be subject to the dangers of sin and misery, the life of mankind will mean something to God. Because of this, man must not have a callous disregard for the lives of fellow human beings. They matter to God, and they must matter to us.

God has made it in this new world after the flood that the other creatures that inhabit this planet will have an instinctual fear of us. Some will have more of that fear than others, and some will be more easily domesticated than others, but man will be over all the other creatures.

Not only that, the life of an animal will not be the same as the life of a human being. As the Lord gave the plant life explicitly to mankind in the time of his innocence, He now gives “every moving thing that lives” as food for mankind. Yet there is a restriction here against the eating of raw flesh. Throughout the Scriptures we notice instruction and commandments concerning blood. Little by little, we are learning that it is through blood that salvation will come.

A man is permitted to take the life of a beast for food, but neither beast nor man is permitted to take the life of a man. The penalty, perhaps surprisingly, for a violation of this command is death. In order to show a due regard for human life, a system of the taking of that life must be enforced against those who murder. The death penalty for murderers is not an invention of mankind. The Lord informs Noah and his descendants that He will require this.

To refuse God on this matter is to ignore the difference between man and beast. People are created in the image of God. Even after the fall and after so many centuries of all kinds of sin, we are still image-bearers of the One who created the heavens and the earth. We are to multiply upon the earth, for God is not yet finished with His plans for humanity.

As a sign of the Lord's intentions for the future, not only for mankind, but for all the creatures that inhabit this planet, the Lord has put the rainbow up in the heavens. The Lord has made a covenant with every beast of the earth. He shall never again destroy all flesh and all the earth with the waters of a flood. The Lord will remember this common blessing upon the earth as long as this age continues. We can take heart and consider His promise with every rainbow that we see in the skies.

Life goes on. All mankind descends from this ancestor Noah, and from his three sons. From these roots, the dispersion of the clans of humanity will take place, a story that will be told in a later chapter.

For now God speaks about a disappointing violation of decency and respect, and gives an amazing prophesy through Noah that touches upon centuries of conflict and blessing among the peoples of the earth. The event comes before the prophesy. Noah plants a vineyard. He drinks the wine of the vineyard and becomes drunk. (Why are we skeptical about such an event? Is it that surprising that a man would plant vines that would eventually yield grapes, or that he would drink too much of his fermented beverage and find himself passed out and naked in his tent?) There was a time when a man and a woman lived in the garden of paradise, and the were naked and unashamed, but that time is long gone. It is not right for a son to take advantage of the weakness of his father, and to make that sad situation an opportunity for entertainment at his own father's expense. Respect should cover a multitude of transgressions when sons deal with the weakness of those who are above them, especially their own fathers. Ham violates this standard of decency, while Noah's other sons honor their father.

This becomes the occasion for the extraordinary prophesy that speaks of the progress of mankind for centuries to come. Canaan, who is the son of the offending Ham, is cursed by Noah. “A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” The descendants of Canaan will be lower than others. But the word that God gives to Shem and Japheth is a blessing. In blessing Shem, Noah blesses Jehovah, Yahweh, the LORD, as the God of Shem, and he indicates that Canaan will be his servant. This is the story of the Old Testament, the account of the glory of Israel's God over all the gods of the Canaanites, and of God's works of mercy and discipline upon a chosen group out of the descendants of Shem.

But Noah continues, and now gives us a summary of the New Testament. God will greatly enlarge the descendants of Japheth, but they will mysteriously dwell in the tents of Shem.

In due time, the Lord God became a descendant of Shem, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish Messiah. This great Savior is building a tabernacle of His new Israel throughout the world. His death and resurrection is being proclaimed everywhere. In the first century, the Gentile descendants of Japheth filled up the tent of Shem as they came into the house of God through faith in Jesus Christ. May all the descendants of Noah from every tribe and tongue throughout the world find their rest in Him. Jesus is Lord! He has conquered death and secured the very best blessings of God for all who trust in Him.

Genesis 8

In every era of the history of salvation, men have needed to know that God was watching over them, and especially when they were in need, that God remembered them. Noah, and the floating sanctuary needed God. The waters of God's judgment had prevailed over the entire earth. Thousands of people had died. But God remembered Noah.

He also remembered all the beasts that would provide the new beginnings of the world that we live in today. God caused a wind to blow over the earth. As the dry land eventually reappeared, it was day three of creation all over again. God set the limits on the seas. They were once again put in their place. They could go so far, but no further.

Eventually the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. Then the tops of other mountains could be seen. This was not instantaneous, but a natural process of a fresh start emerging for the new earth, and for the people in God's ark who would be recommissioned as His servants.

The story of the receding waters is told to us with the Lord's gentleness and with the wonder of the fullness of the created order under the dominion of God, and His servant Noah. Ravens and doves are Noah's scouts. He reads their coming and going as messengers of a new day until the land is once again ready for mankind.

As there was a specific day when the rain had come upon the earth, and a specific duration when the waters prevailed upon the dry land, there is a day for Noah and all within the ark to come out again, and to feel the freshness of a new beginning. In the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, at just the right time, the Word of God came to Noah. “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

So Noah did this. What a wonderful moment! Noah and His family could reflect on many things. God's Word was true. His holiness demanded our response of righteousness. God was able to deliver a remnant upon whom the Lord's favor rested. God had judged the wicked, and had given a new beginning to the man who heard the voice of the Lord. Noah went out, with all his family, and with all the families of the beasts that would repopulate the globe.

At God's command Noah had built a holy ark. It had carried his household safely and delivered them to a cleansed world. It was time to forget what was behind, and to stretch forward to make the whole earth a holy sanctuary for God. It was time to hear the Word again that God had once spoken to Adam. “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Never again would God ask Noah to build an ark. This great man would instead build an altar to the Lord. Why a place of animal sacrifice? Sin and death continued to be a part of life. A more permanent and fuller cleansing would have to come through blood. The demands of God could not be satisfied by the death of thousands of wicked men and woman in the flood. A righteous substitute would have to give His blood for us, and win for us a better world than even the fresh new earth that Noah found when he came out of the ark.

Noah took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. Noah knew that there would be forgiveness of sins through the shedding of blood. He knew that we still needed a savior. God was pleased with the testimony of that sacrifice which Noah offered. This was the way for fallen man to start again; to plead again for the mercy of the Almighty through the offering of a sacrifice.

The Lord would not destroy the earth again by a flood. To judge man every day according to what he deserved would have meant continual turmoil. God knew about the evil in the heart of mankind. The Lord wanted the environment that He had created to continue. He wanted all kinds of creatures to fill the earth. He wanted seedtime and harvest for mankind. He wanted seasons upon the earth as long as the age continued.

One day there will be a new heavens and a new earth. That world is reserved for us even now in the present heavens. The King of creation and redemption has given His life as a pleasing sacrifice to God. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and He is coming again.

For now we find our safety in the ark of Christ and His church. A day will come when the covering of this ark will be rolled back, and we will walk out into the perfect Paradise of God. What no eye has seen, and no ear has heard, these are the things that God has for His beloved people. Saved by His grace, we offer up our lives to Him every day as a living sacrifice, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Lord God knows us. He will remember us on the day when Christ returns. We will walk upon a completely renewed earth.

Genesis 7

Noah walked with God in his generation, and God called him righteous. The way that God works righteousness among human beings who live after sin entered the world would await further explanation in the days of Abraham and beyond. What is clear from this passage is that Noah was alone in His generation as the man who would bring his family into the ark which would be the only means of protection from the flood that was about to come upon the earth.

The ark was a holy sanctuary in a world that would soon face a deluge of the Lord's judgment. In a holy place, the distinction between clean and unclean becomes relevant. This is the first place in the Bible that the word “clean” is used. The number of animals of each species that Noah would bring on board the ark would depend on whether the animal was judged to be clean. Some of these would eventually be sacrificed to the Lord in the renewed world.

Two of every unclean animal would be brought on board, a male and “his mate,” but seven pairs of all birds. All of this planning, preparation, building, and gathering was necessary because of the event that was about to transpire. This event would seem most unlikely to a person judging likelihood based on his own experience or the reports of others. But to the man who walks with God, the Word is not a matter of what is probable. It is certain. Noah knew that in seven days God would send rain on the earth that would continue for forty days and forty nights. He would blot out every living thing from the face of the earth. The only place of survival would be in the sanctuary of the ark. Noah obeyed the Voice of God.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came. His father, Lamech, had died five years earlier, and his grandfather, Methuselah, died in the year of the flood. Noah, his sons, his wife, his sons wives, and all the creatures went into the ark with the man who was righteous before God in His generation. When everything was inside according to God's command, the Lord shut them in. When that door shut it would not open again until the waters of God's judgment had entirely prevailed upon the earth.

When God created the earth, on the second day he spoke the waters into their appropriate places, the waters above in the skies and the waters below in the seas. On the third day, His Voice commanded that the waters below would be contained to certain limits so that the dry land appeared. But in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, something remarkable happened. From both the waters below in the seas and the waters above in the skies, the judgment of God burst forth upon the dry land. It rained, and the waters flooded the dry land.

When God sends blessing upon the earth, blessing will prevail. When God sends judgment upon the earth, judgment will prevail. The waters prevailed upon the earth. But the ark, the holy sanctuary that was the only place of safety, rose high above the earth, and floated on the waters.

The waters prevailed, and all flesh died. God blotted out everything in an immersion of His judgment. The ark was the only place of life. This was not a local disaster. This was a worldwide move of God that resulted in death of all that once was. The line of Cain was gone. Most of the line of Seth was gone. Those who were descendants of any of the other sons and daughters of Adam were gone. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.

The waters prevailed on the earth 150 days, and Noah and the new world waited. This is the account of the flood, a worldwide judgment of God. The only place of safety was in the holy sanctuary of the ark that floated above the waters. Once God shut that door of the ark, there was no opportunity for anyone to get in.

How could people know that this kind of cataclysmic judgment would take place? A thing like this had never happened before. The only way to be adequately prepared for the event of the flood, was through hearing the Voice of the Lord. Noah heard the Word of God and believed.

The Voice of the Lord is powerful. By His Voice God made all things. By His Word He sent forth judgment on the world that once was. That world is no more. A new age has begun.

Many centuries later, the Voice of the Lord became flesh in order to accomplish a very powerful work of God's judgment and salvation. The flood and fire of God's wrath has prevailed over the Son of God, the Voice of God, the Word of God, on the cross, and through His willing sacrifice, all those who would be found in Him have been granted His salvation, a new life in a new age of resurrection glory.

One day the Voice of the Lord will come again. This time the judgment of God will not be upon Jesus. He did that once, never to be repeated again. Now His judgment will be upon the world as we know it. The only place of safety is in the holy ark of Christ and His church. He has faced the wrath of God for us through His death. Come to Him, and abide in Him forever.

Bible Survey - #2 - Genesis 2

Man and Wife

When a man and a woman make their life-long commitment to each other as husband and wife, the minister says these words: “I now pronounce you man and wife.” This expression, “man and wife,” goes back to the very first marriage, where Adam is called “the man,” and Eve is called “his wife.”

God created marriage. According to his direction, a “man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.” The Lord created us male and female, and he determined in the beginning of time that it was not good for the man to be alone. His kind provision for Adam was expressed in His creation of the woman, who was a helpmate for him; one who was like him in some ways, and yet different from him in other ways, with the two forming a wonderful partnership of love and service.

Throughout the ages of human history, God has provided men and women as special lifelong partners for one and other. Together they are to pursue what is good and right and honoring to Him. It has been God's good pleasure that marriage would be the building block of all human society. But marriage has this higher purpose; it is a living illustration of the special love of a Promise-Keeping Savior for His faithful and obedient people.

It was not good that man should be alone.

God made a helper like, but not like, him.

Now man and wife are two that God made one,

And Jesus and His bride are seen through them.

Genesis 6

The death of mankind is not only physical, it is also moral and spiritual. One evidence of our deep trouble is that we are more interested in what is concealed, than in what has been revealed. We may imagine that in heaven we will finally have the answers to all of our questions about the Bible and our own lives. Could it be that when our inner corruption is completely healed we will have no interest in what God has not revealed because our ears will long for what He has chosen to speak to us? I wonder. I suppose there is some irony there.

What God does reveal about mankind very early in the Scriptures is that the evil within our species was not just a problem among a few bad people. Cleansing the earth of all wickedness would not simply come from identifying a murderer like Cain, and then bringing him to justice. The problem of sin was deep and universal.

People were having sons and daughters for many centuries, the earth was being populated, and evil was growing. Beyond the visible wickedness on the face of the earth, evil existed in places that people could not sin, among those angels that had rebelled against the Lord. Angels can be referred to as “sons of God,” and so can men. The “sons of God” did something bad here. It could be that demonic powers were in league with those men who thought of themselves as beyond constraints, the demigods convinced of their own great renown. Like Lamech in the line of Cain, one woman was not enough for such heroes. They took for themselves wives, any that they chose. Whatever the details of moral decline, the Lord would not stand for it. The lives of human beings would be no more that 120 years.

There was much evidence of abuse everywhere, but the Lord knows more than could be gathered before human judges who weigh evidence. He knew of the depravity of all the descendants of Adam in a deeper way. He knew that every intention of the thoughts of the hearts of men was only evil continually. So much so, that God expresses His own deep grief concerning the creation of mankind, and His determination to express His eternal judgment against sin before the final Judgment Day that would come upon the earth. The Lord determined to save only a very small remnant from among the descendants of the line of Seth, and thus to blot out all the rest of mankind, the entirety of the line of Cain, and almost all the creatures on the face of the land. Only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord showed His grace, or “favor,” to Noah, and through association with Noah. to his wife, his three sons, their wives, and the animals that would form the seed of a new world.

Noah was counted as a righteous man. He walked with God, listening to His instruction, and obeying the voice of the Lord. Like Enoch before Him, and many others who would be counted as followers of the Shepherd of His chosen flock, Noah walked in the way that God led, and God counted Him as blameless in that generation.

The earth around Noah was far from blameless. It was covered with the violence of the proud, who will use whatever force they have to grab what has not been given to them; to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Everything was polluted because of the moral and spiritual decadence of mankind.

Therefore God announced to Noah a plan for judgment and salvation. He revealed His own settled determination to make an end of all flesh. When any land is filled with violence, when the powerful use their force to abuse the people that they are supposed to protect, the Lord is not happy. He will not stand by forever when men and angels destroy the innocent and reward the guilty. He will take action.

God spoke to His servant Noah, a man who listened to God's voice and who walked in the Lord's ways. He instructed Noah to build an ark that would be a very conspicuous testimony to a coming day when water would cover the dry land in a way that had not yet happened since the days when God pushed back the seas causing the land to first appear.

God told Noah to build a vessel that had its own story to tell. It would be a holy sanctuary in which those who believed the voice of the Lord could take refuge, together with their families. This ark was a Tabernacle, and Noah was a Moses who assembled it. It was a Temple, and Noah was its Solomon. It was a church, and Noah was the forerunner of One who would one day say, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

God told Noah exactly how to build this place of refuge to withstand the storm of the coming judgment. Christ, the Cornerstone of a greater sanctuary, has given us His Word concerning the ark of our day, His body. We do well to hear His voice, and build this great worldwide assembly according to His specifications. To be outside that ark is dangerous.

There is a judgment of God coming that is far worse than the flood. The very existence of the church throughout the world is a plea to all men that they should call upon the Name of the Lord, and thus take refuge in Jesus Christ in the assembly of His people while there is still time. He is the only Savior who is in accord with the specifications of God. He is our safe place of refuge for all who would pass safely through the coming distress and live forever in the new world of resurrection.

Genesis 5

God created mankind. He had His purposes in doing this. All of us fit into God's plan. We are not independent of Him, and our ease and immediate sense of well-being are not His highest goals. To have a realistic view of life, we must begin to look at the world from the standpoint of what God has revealed, and not merely from the view of our greatest curiosities and troubles.

According to what God has revealed, Adam and Eve had three prominent children. They did have other sons and daughters, but Cain, Abel, and Seth were the three that he has chosen to tell us about. Abel was murdered by his brother Cain, whose line of descendants would all perish in the flood. That line reached a point of great arrogance and evil in the seventh from Adam listed for that line, Lamech.

We are told that it is in the line of Seth that people began to call upon the name of the Lord. It is in the seventh from Adam in that line of Seth that a very unusual thing is noted for our consideration. Enoch, the seventh, walked with God. No explanation is given as to the meaning of this phrase, yet we understand that this is a good thing, true of Enoch, and later true of Noah, a blameless man in his generation, and true of the New Testament believers who have the Spirit of Christ at work within them. To walk in the Spirit is to live as child of God, hearing His Word and obeying His commandments. This Enoch lived 365 years, one year for every day that the earth rotates around the sun.

The words of God's original creation of mankind are repeated in connection with the line of Seth. Seth is a new beginning after the grief of one brother murdering another. In between Adam and Enoch we read of Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared. We know very little about them, only how long they lived before fathering the key figure who would be next in their line, how long they lived after that moment, and then the words that show us that God's warning to Adam was right: “And he died.” Death is now a sad fact in a broken world, even in a line of people that are being blessed by God. To ask that there be no death right now is to insist that there be no Fall of mankind. The Fall is a settled fact, but it is a fact that can be reversed, not through the erasure of the past, but through the giving of one perfect life as an offering to the Father.

God has done this for us in Christ. Early on in the story of our lives we may suppose that we will know how they will turn out. We do not know whether we will marry. We do not know if we will have children. We do not know if there will be future generations that will come from the children that we are granted. We do not know how long our line will continue. Nor do we know how long we personally will live. These facts of our existence are in the hands of the Almighty.

We do know that we are living in a world where death and loss are real. But we also know that death has been overturned forever in the the great Son of God, descended from Adam's son Seth. Jesus lives, and so shall you. How then are we to live in the world that now is?

We will be greatly blessed in this world of death if we live by faith in the Son of God, the Man of Life. Long before Jesus came, the Lord God Almighty was blessing people with consecrated lives in the midst of a broken world. They lived out their days for as long as God gave them breath. They had sons and daughters according to the Lord's sovereign will. They may have enjoyed certain things about their lives, and hated other things that they needed to accept as facts that they could not change. Through it all, they learned to call upon the Name of the Lord. They walked with God.

Enoch was among their number. He walked with God. His son Methuselah would live a very long life. Enoch had his 365 years, unusually brief for the list recorded in this chapter. But Enoch walked with God, and He did not die. One day he was, and the next day he was not. God took him. Years later God would take the prophet Elijah. This kind of end is very extraordinary. These men were translated for a new life in the house of the Lord above.

Methuselah, his son, would live on, and then another Lamech (not the same as the one in the line of Cain) would come. This Lamech would be the father of Noah, another man who walked with God. Lamech would teach us a second lesson of how we are to live in an age of loss and death. When he fathered Noah, he looked forward. He believed in a future day of “relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” God did grant a powerful new beginning in the days of Noah. But even this great descendant of Adam and Seth would not be the one who would crush the head of the serpent.

Another man would come who would walk with God as perfectly as any man could ever have walked. Jesus, the second Adam, has brought us a new age and a new life and has secured for us the kingdom of heaven. Through him we have relief from all the pain that has come to us in this world where it is still said, “And he died.” Through His death and resurrection, the purposes of God are being accomplished. Through faith in Him, though we live in the age of death, we can still walk with God. And with our confidence in Him, we wait in joyful hope for the fuller coming of a day of perfect relief for the faithful in the age of resurrection.

Genesis 4

The descendant of the woman would defeat the power of evil, but who would this descendant be, and how quickly would he come? Eve's first child would be the murderer of Eve's second child. Neither one could be the savior that all humanity needed. Life did not come through Cain or Abel. Death came through the horror of one brother murdering another.

The two brothers were different. The first child worked the land and his younger brother was a keeper of sheep. Two lives are captured in just a few words. Both were bringing something to the Lord out of who they were, out of what they could do. Yet the Lord had regard for one offering, the blood sacrifice, and not for the other, the grain offering brought by Cain. But why? We are not told. Only that God, who knows what is in a man, had regard for the man, Abel, and for his offering. And this same perfectly wise and righteous God had no regard for the man, Cain, and for his offering.

So now what? A teachable moment for a humble heart. But for a proud heart, envy, and eventually, a plan, and an attack. God gives grace to the humble. If Cain had a heart willing to be low before the Almighty, he could have learned from his brother and changed. His stubborn pride would not allow this.

The Lord offered him the way out: “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” There was also a gracious warning: “If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” Sin must be resisted. Cain chose instead the destruction that comes from nursed hatred and unbelief. Cain knew that God was real, but he imagined that he could hide his sin from God.

Cain should have been a protector and helper of his younger brother. He should have rejoiced when God accepted Abel and his sacrifice. He should have found room in his heart to learn from his younger brother. But he rose up against his brother and killed him. He pretended ignorance and spoke with disrespect to Almighty God. The Lord asked, “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain lied, “I do not know,” and then added the phrase that still makes its may into conversations all over the world where Genesis is known: “Am I my brother's keeper?”

God knew what Cain did. Abel's blood in the ground spoke a word of envy, hatred, and murder to the One who could never be fooled. Cain had loved the ground, but now Adam's punishment of thorns and thistles would be further experienced by his firstborn, and Cain would have to flee.

Does he express to God remorse for his sin? He speaks of himself, and about his fears. He imagines that those fears are settled facts. He goes too far, assuming that God will not protect him. He believes that he will now be murdered. But the Lord has a plan for Cain and for his descendants, and he puts a mark on him that has some providential purpose in his continued existence. Then Cain did go away from the presence of the Lord.

We find indications of other people in this account, but we are not told of their origins. Cain was fearing that others would kill him. What others? Cain has a wife. Where did she come from? We need not answer these questions. Where God is silent, why should we feel obliged to speculate? The story of mankind proceeds on His terms. We don't need to have an answer for everything.

The generations move along. Cain and his wife have Enoch. He built a city and named it after his boy. This line of Cain continues on for generations. Eventually a descendant comes who is given the name Lamech. He has two wives. That is the first we hear of such a practice. There are at least three clans that come forth from his children, and they are known by what they are good at. Noteworthy developments are mentioned in nomadic living, music, and metallurgy.

Lamech asserts his pride in his speech to his wives. When a man wounded him, he killed that man. God had told his ancestor, Cain, that if anyone took his life, he would be avenged seven-fold. Lamech says that he will be avenged far more than that, seventy-seven fold.

The world has become a very dangerous place. Paradise seems very far away. We long for the arrival of the true Seed of the woman who will deal a death blow to evil. Yet we are reminded that when He comes, He will also suffer injury. But the blood that He sheds on the cross will speak a much better word than the blood of Abel. The blood of Christ declares a word of forgiveness before the throne of God for those who belong to the Lord. As those who have believed in the power of that blood, we move forward with forgiveness for others, not just seven times, but seventy-seven.

The line of Cain is gone from the earth today, entirely lost in the flood. But Eve bore another son, Seth. From that line would come Noah, and from the descendants of Noah, after many generations, would come the Redeemer. Through Him, all who, like Seth, call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved.

Bible Survey - #1 - Genesis 1

In the Beginning

Is there meaning and order in the universe? Can I rest upon a Rock that is higher than I, or am I alone king over my own insecure destiny, looking over my shoulder lest I be overtaken by some more fit creature who will usurp my shaky throne? I am created in the image of God. The sun, moon, and stars are kings over a kingdom of light and darkness. The sea creatures, and flying host fill the oceans and the skies. A vast array of animals and plants populate all lands, and fill my heart with wonder. But I am a man, a member of that species that rules over all the realms of this universe.

As man, I am the only image, but I am only an image. The God of creation rests over the eternal seventh day. He is Sovereign over all. I have responsibility as His image-bearer. I have duties of love and service appropriate to my calling in a plan that is far above me. I serve the great King, the One who made me, provides for me, and is far above me. I can trust the one Almighty God. He is my Father. He is the divine Voice and Word of Creation who has declared His work to be good. He is the Spirit who hovered over the face of the deep and has brought us the light of life. He is singular, yet He is Father, Word, and Spirit. I will worship, obey, and enjoy Him forever.

Light and darkness, sun and shining star,

Creature filling waters high and low,

Plant and beast, and image-bearing man,

Bow before the Word, the Lord, the King!

Genesis 3

Everything that we see and experience today is not “very good.” What happened to the world? Why do we see oppression, poverty, and pain? How is it that death came into this world?

God did say something about death in Genesis 2 concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” That day came, and the futility and death that we see all around us is an indication that we are living in the day that God spoke of to Adam.

There was a crafty serpent involved in all of this. He spoke to the woman first, and deceived her. He questioned the Word of God, and presented his own word as more reliable than the Voice of the Lord. Instead of executing judgment upon the serpent for insubordination to the glorious Creator God of the seventh day, the woman listened to the voice of an adversary, and Adam listened to the evil suggestion of his wife. The world has never been the same.

“You will not surely die,” this enemy claimed, and he suggested that God did not have their best interests at heart; that the Lord was trying to prevent them from experiencing all that life had to offer. Though the woman was deceived first, Adam was the one representative for all mankind. It was through him, that sin entered the world. With sin came great misery and even death. More than just an isolated incident of human biological system failure, all of creation has fallen into a day of death.

That day of death includes a new awareness of nakedness and shame before Almighty God and one another. We long for better clothing than we can provide to cover our unrighteousness. We are lawbreakers. Where will we find an answer to our overwhelming guilt?

When God confronted the man and the woman after they had sinned, he came in the spirit of another day, a Day of Judgment that would now come upon the earth. That day broke into the world at this critical moment, and the man and woman were afraid, and they hid from the voice of God.

God spoke first to the man, then the woman, then the serpent, then back again to the woman, and then finally to the man. Notice the pattern. His message to the serpent is at the very center of this story, and it demands our careful consideration. But in the order that these words appear ...

God questions the man. The man blames the woman. The gift of God that was the divine aid that helped him in his aloneness has now become his problem. He does not own his own responsibility for sin. He can provide no real covering for his wife. He is afraid, and he is very ready to turn the gaze of a holy God away from his own guilt toward the one who is the weaker vessel.

God then questions the woman. She blames the serpent. She knows that she was deceived, and she is very aware that she ate what was forbidden. But she too will not own her fault.

God does not enter into debate or conversation with the serpent. He rebukes the dragon behind the talking animal in this amazing hidden jewel at the center of the chapter. Two points: First, the serpent will be defeated and brought very low. Did he think that he would be exalted up to the highest heavens? He will be cast down into the dust of the ground. Second, that defeat will come through a descendant of the woman he deceived. There will be an offspring of the woman who will suffer in order to crush the head of this evil one under his feet. Who is this promised descendant of the woman? How will he have victory over the evil one? How will he overturn the day of death that has come into the world through the sin of man? We will have to wait for these answers. They will come little by little and in various ways. For now, we can believe that the victory of God through a new man is as sure as the Word of God itself. What He promises will happen.

In the meantime, the world has suffered horrible change. Paradise is lost for the time being, whisked away from the day of death that has so stained everything. God now announces both grace and judgment to the woman. There will be children, but there will also be pain in bringing forth the next generation and discord in what should have been a perfect marital relationship of love and service.

God then turns to Adam and speaks grace and judgment to him. There will be food, but there will also be difficult toil and a battle against the ground itself. The ground will seem to win, as man dies and returns to the dust from which he was made.

How can we live in the day of death? Adam believed the word of God spoken to Him on that day. This is the way for us now. The just shall live by faith. God promised not only death, but life, and a Savior who would win the warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Don't miss the promise of life in this chapter. Adam did not miss it. That is why He called His wife Eve, the living one. New life would come, and Eve would be the mother of all living.

That life would come at a cost. Man would need a better covering than what he could sew together for himself. It would require the shedding of blood. These clothes given by God had a story to tell.

Heaven and earth were divided on that day. People of faith would have to wait for the second Adam to come. It was necessary for the Messiah, the seed of the woman to shed His blood for us and to win the war of the ages. The good Man has come. He has won for us a new day of true life. We hear His voice, and we believe.

Genesis 2

The creation of God was all very good. There were three days of created realms and three days of created rulers over those three realms. Then came the seventh day. Above all the rulers in all the realms of creation is the one Creator, the God of the seventh day. He rests on His great throne as the Ruler over all. There should be no doubt that He will accomplish all of His great purposes. As a sign of His sovereign authority, He put His seal on the seventh day. He set that day apart from all the other days, as His day, the day of the Lord, the Lord's day.

In this second chapter of the Bible God gives us a much closer look at the important events that fit within the sixth day, the day of the creation of mankind, who were made male and female in the image of God. There is more to tell in this story, and it will be important for us to hear it if we are to understand the society that God created on earth, our place in that order, and the Lord's intention to have a special relationship with His people over the course of the generations of mankind.

Man is presented as a creature of God within a given environment, the garden. God planned that man would cultivate the ground, making this good environment even more fruitful. Man was created out of the dust of the ground. There is an appropriate humility for us in this fact. If there is anything praiseworthy in us or in our labors, all the glory should be given to God. We have life because God, the God of life, has breathed into our nostrils the breath of heaven.

The garden was a paradise environment for man. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the midst of the garden, but we are not told immediately what they stood for. There was the water of life in that great place, and the glory of gold and precious minerals. It was the very cradle of life for a bountiful heaven and earth. It was a gift for man, a gift that required man to be a good caretaker for the glory of the one Creator who is God over all and is forever blessed.

God gave a commission to Adam. The man was to work and keep the garden of Eden. The garden had a bountiful provision for man in the fruit of many trees, yet there was a warning. God would not permit man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The pain for disobedience was certain death.

The garden was truly lovely, and life was so close by in the great tree of life, yet something was “not good.” The man was alone. There were many creatures, and the Lord showed them to Adam, and gave him the right to name them. But there was no help for man, no help like the help of the Name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Though God was with the man, there was no one of his own kind who could be to him just the right expression of the heavenly aid of God. This was not good. He needed a companion who would be like him, but who could also stand across from him as someone who was not entirely him. He needed a suitable help for true and deep intimacy, fellowship, and fruitful togetherness.

Man would not solve this problem. God alone would provide. After showing man the depth of the need, and displaying all the other creatures who were clearly not the answer, God put Adam into a deep sleep. The Lord took something from man's side, from the place of equality, and the place of deep sacrifice. From Adam's rib the Lord formed the woman.

When God brought her to the man, he was greatly pleased. He said, “This one! Now! At last!” She was from his own bone. His flesh needed to be opened up for her to be brought forth as the Lord's highest and best work of creation. She was the difference between the “not good” of the man's aloneness, and the “very good” that came at the end of the sixth day. She was taken out of Man, but she was different from man. She was woman.

Because of this great need to correct the problem of aloneness, because of the bountiful solution of this problem in the sacrificial gift of woman to man, because of the obvious and celebrated rightness of this blessing, the world would never be the same. As of this moment there were no children, so there were no mothers or fathers. Yet there would be future generations, and the way those generations would move forward for the expansion of the number of mankind would be through the Lord's gift of men and women for each other as lifelong partners. A man from one family would leave his father and his mother and he would cling to a woman from another family who would be his wife, and the two would be one flesh. For now, for this first man and this first woman, everything was right. There was no sin, only the fullest good will, and no one had anything to be ashamed about.

One day sin would come into the world, and mankind would stand in desperate need of a much fuller sacrifice. One rib would not do for our atonement. A full life would have to be given for our sake. God the Son would come to His people as the Husband of a bride, and He would die the death that was necessary for the restoration of eternal well-being. In this willing sacrifice, He would show forth the fullness of what marriage was all about. Our husband has now come to us, and He has rescued us from certain destruction. It is our great privilege to love Him and to serve Him with all that we are and all that we have. This restoration, an even fuller paradise of Christ and the church, is a central part of the purpose of our God. He is able to make all things new. We rest in His Son, and we wait for the fullness of the coming Day of the Lord.

Genesis 1

In the beginning… God. This had to be. Our present material universe cannot have come to us from some supposed infinite regression of impersonal material causes. Something cannot come from nothing, and it will not do to suppose an infinite chain of somethings going back into eternity past. There must be an uncaused Cause; the Cause of all things, Himself being uncaused. This being is God, and we do not understand Him, but He has revealed Himself to us in what He has made, and especially in His Voice.

This God rules over everything, and in this first chapter of the five books of Moses, He is introduced to us. He is One, yet we read of the Spirit of God, and we have come to know the Voice of God, or Word of God, as a separate person within the one uncaused Cause. This God made everything out of nothing. He created and He ordered. Moses tells the Israelites about this great work of God as they prepare to go into the Promised Land.

This God is able to take what is “formless and void” and bring forth order and beauty. His work is described to us in three days of places followed by three days of peoples… three days of kingdoms and three days of kings… three days of realms and three days of rulers. In this way He prepares us for the announcement of a seventh day in Genesis 2:1-3, where this God rests and rules over all creation.

Day 1 goes with day 4, day 2 goes with day 5, and day 3 goes with day 6. These are the orderly pairings of realms and rulers. We begin with the kingdom of light/darkness, and we are told on the fourth day about the sun and the moon and stars that rule over these kingdoms as kings. We then hear of the kingdom of waters above/waters below, and we are told on the fifth day about fish and birds that fill these realms like invading armies establishing their dominion by force of numbers. We finally learn of the kingdom of the dry land, and then in day six we read about the animals that fill the earth, and then especially about man. Man will both rule and fill all of the realms of creation under the authority of God, the Lord of the seventh day. This is the order of creation according to the Scriptures given to Moses as the people of God were being sent into a new world by God’s command.

What would that gift of a new land be like? How would they bear up in their conquest when the people in that place had their own gods, and their own artistic images of their gods? Moses is assuring the Israelites, that the God of creation, the God over all kingdoms, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is their God. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He set up the days, the seasons, and the years. He brought forth the vast oceans that teem with living creatures, and filled even the expanse of the skies with winged life. He made such a great variety of useful vegetation and wonderful animals of all kinds, each with lessons to teach us in their behavior and appearance, and with great aid for us as human beings, so that we might fruitfully live as those who would rule for God, and would worship and serve the Creator.

He determined what was good, because He is God, and there is no higher authority above Him. This One highest of all rulers made man in His image, male and female. The further details of this important act of creation, the creation of mankind, are left to the second chapter, which provides a close-up of the sixth day of creation. Here we see that we are to be image-bearers of the Almighty; the only image, but only an image.

What can it mean for man to be an image-bearer of God? As He is a great ruler, we are to rule. As He is wise, righteous, and holy, we are to imitate Him, shining with the glory of the Original that we proclaim with our being, the Source, the uncaused Cause.

God made everything, and God made us, and God saw that it was all very good. This is where it all begins, with the complexity and wonder of God. He knows what He is doing. He knows that into this world of life that death will come through an enemy, and the first man, the representative image-bearer will fail God's test, and much will be marred in this great creation. But God also knows that at just the right time, He will send a second Image-Bearer, the Voice of God. The Word through whom all things were made will become Man, and will accomplish what only He can do, to the praise and glory of the God who rules over all.

No matter what we may face over the course of our years on this damaged planet, we know that there is a King who rules over every kingdom. His purposes will be accomplished. He has secured the most perfect world for us now through the blood of His Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The new chapter of life for the people of Israel entering the Promised Land was somewhere in the middle of the story. That story had a beginning, and it has an ending, but the God who wrote the story is from eternity past, with no beginning and no ending, and He has determined that we will be with Him forever and ever.

Psalm 50

The God we worship is the Judge of heaven and earth. How can we stand in His presence? If we just come and go, returning to the dust with no immortal soul, then we can comfort ourselves with the idea that there is no judgment ahead of us. But Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Not only that, but there is an eternal testimony within us that our destiny is not over with our death. See Ecclesiastes 3:11. When we begin to consider that there may be more to life than the beginning and end of our biological existence as we know it, this can be very disquieting. We can regain peace only when we are assured that our future life has been secured. But if God is the judge of heaven and earth, how can we stand in His presence? How can we have true peace with Almighty God, the God presented to us in the Bible as the only true God?

What is the God of the Bible like? His voice goes out to all the earth. The Bible begins with these words: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” According to Ephesians 1:10 God has a final purpose. The bookend to the word of beginning at the opening of Genesis would be that in the end God has purposed “to unite all things in Him (Jesus Christ), things in heaven and things on earth.” The Lord created the world for a purpose. The greatest harmony of a reunited heaven and earth is coming. In between the beginning and the end, God has been ruling over all, for He (Jesus Christ again) “upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3).

This God is holy and just. He is the One who said to Adam in the garden, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). We have seen the evidence of God's judgment all around us in the death that came into the world with sin. If we imagine that God has no judgment, we are talking about a god that we made up, not the God who has supremely revealed Himself in Christ, who came to pay that penalty of death for all who would believe. Christ is at the center of the revelation of God, and has satisfied the demands of God's justice for all who will worship the Lord through Him.

You have an existence beyond this world. There is a true God. He is a Savior because He is also a judge. If you think that the judgment of God is a fiction, then the cross must be a fiction, because on the cross Jesus faced the wrath of God that we deserved. Without the judgment of God, the cross makes no sense.

God calls to the earth in His great works of creation and governance. He calls from the glorious Zion above in the present heaven. He calls through His gathering of worshipers on earth. He shines forth in all He does, and He speaks forthrightly in His Word. The division between heaven and earth at present is necessitated by our sin and God's holiness. We could not stand to be in His presence without a Mediator. His coming in person will mean judgment for the present earth and the fullest rescue for all who take refuge in His Son, the one Mediator between God and man. See 1 Timothy 2:5.

Even those who claim to take refuge in Him will be tested. He knows His own. He will judge His people, for judgment begins with the household of God. See 1 Peter 4:17. He gathers together those who perform the rituals He commands. In the days of Israel, the people brought sacrificial animals before His altar. In New Covenant worship, we remember the Lord's death and have communion in the body and blood of the Lord around His table. In all eras of God's saving work, the Lord demands the sincerity of true thanksgiving and praise. He knows the truth and can see the hypocrite who honors Him with His lips, but whose heart is far from Him. The heavens declare the Lord's righteousness, and His Word tells us that the heavens are correct in that declaration. He Himself is judge.

His concern with Old Covenant Israel and with the New Covenant church is not merely that we have made ceremonial errors. Those could be easily corrected. Our deeper transgression comes from a heart that will not give to God the thanksgiving that we should. God demands that we give Him what we have promised. He seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. This is more than our best attempts at religious devotion. We must worship Him in the complete consecration of His perfect Son Jesus Christ. He commands that we call upon Him in the day of trouble, and He promises to deliver us. He promises us that we will glorify Him. God has not given up on His eternal purpose. He will unite all things in Christ. There will be a reunited heaven and earth. We will glorify God.

This will not be the story for those who have only taken God's words on their lips in unbelief. They hated His discipline on earth, they despised His Word. They were pleased with the ingenuity of clever thieves, and enjoyed the company of those who seduce the wives of other men. They filled their mouths with lies, even slandering their own brothers. They imagined that even God was the same as they were. But they will face Him one day and will see that they were wrong.

Do not believe that your life ends when your body dies. This is a false peace. Do not invent a God who would never judge. That would be a denial of the cross. Embrace a bigger end than going from dust to dust. God has a better eternal purpose than that. Hold on to the Man who faced the justice of God in your place. God will unite all things in Him. Worship God through Christ, and consecrate your life to Him, ordering your ways rightly as is fitting for those who believe. God will show you His salvation. You will glorify the great I AM forever. This is a much better and fuller way of life than comforting yourself with the lie that this world is all that there is.

Psalm 49

The God of Israel is not merely the God of a small part of the world. Though He chose Israel to be His own nation, He is the Creator of all, and He has a message for the nations, the Gentiles, even in the Old Testament. He calls all the inhabitants of the world to hear His voice.

Among all the people that have inhabited this planet, and among all the nations that have had their moment under the sun, some have been high above the rest, and others have been low. Yet the Lord God Almighty is above everyone and everything. He is able to take the lowliest and lift him up, and He can take the mightiest and cast him down. Everyone, everywhere, should listen to what he has to say to the nations.

He breathes out His message to the world through people who speak His Word. Their mouths speak, but it is God who raises them up to be His ambassadors for that moment. People have claimed to speak for God who have not really spoken His Word. The true servant of the Lord speaks the wisdom of God. Not that such a man is anything in himself. God is the Almighty One, and He has chosen to speak through His servants. He has further chosen to record some of their words as the permanent record of His speech in the Scriptures.

When Jesus, the Son of God, came as the ultimate Prophet, He opened His mouth with proverbs. He understood the riddle-speech that He was called to give to Israel, but many who heard His voice did not comprehend His message. It was only to His close circle of disciples that He explained the meaning of His words, and even they had great difficulty discerning what He was really saying.

The Word of God Incarnate came speaking the speech of God. If that voice of God is to be received, the hearer needs the Spirit of the living God within him. God's Word is the greatest wisdom, but many reject it as foolishness. We want to incline our ears to the Word of God, and so we ask God to give us ears from heaven, so that we can comprehend and embrace His heavenly Word.

There are aspects of life in this current age that should trouble everyone deeply. Troubles are real. Cheaters are ready to deceive. Those who trust in what can be stolen from them can lose in a moment the way of life that once supported their personal well-being. But when the worshipers of God daily hear the Word, it is fresh air for our hearts and minds. Then we remember again that we do not need to live in fear of what might happen today, and we do not need to be seething with anger at what someone did to us yesterday.

There is a place for a fear that keeps us from irresponsible and useless dangers. There is also a place for anger that leads us to prayer and appropriate words and actions. Yet we all know that fear and anger can easily get out of hand. When we remember the Almighty God, His perfect love casts out fear, and His promised perfect justice and grace turn us away from our overzealous anger.

The man who has rejected the Word of God does not have this refuge that restores sanity to the Lord's people. His sense of well-being is grossly exaggerated. He may be counting on his wealth. How secure is that? How will he stand before God when he has spurned the Lord's way of grace? Who will bail him out of God's jail? Who will be this man's ransom when he continues to scoff at Jesus?

God has provided a ransom for us in Christ. Jesus does for us what no amount of wealth could ever do. What is the price of your life? What is the debt of your offense against God? What is the bill for your eternal life? Who will provide the ransom for the man who has rejected the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and who has supplied the perfect righteousness that God requires? All men go to the grave. How will the man live forever who has rejected the Word of the Man who rose from the dead as the Firstborn of many brethren?

The wisest and the wealthiest men still die one day. This is a fact. They may have estates with special names, but that will not rescue them from the grave. As the beast of the field falls, so will the owner of thousands of heads of cattle. He too perishes. What will his sense of confidence do for him then if he has rejected true forgiveness that comes through the life and death of Jesus Christ?

Yet people who are too wise to humbly receive God's wisdom still hang on to their small piece of harmony to the very end. When their possessions go to someone else, people left behind are still foolishly talking about them as if they had it all. Were they really great winners? The most wretchedly poor man who had an ear for the speech of God is infinitely better off than the richest man who dismissed the Word of the Lord to his dying breath. The proud man has death for an eternal shepherd. Better the poor man who hears the voice of the Good Shepherd and lives.

When Jesus came to die as the Lamb of God, He did so trusting and knowing that His Father would not forever abandon Him to the grave. This one Man of Resurrection is the salvation of the one who will hear His voice.

The story of life and death is all around us for our obvious observation. Man, even the richest man, cannot keep himself alive forever. If He dies without understanding, he is like the beast that perishes. But we have a secure hope in Jesus Christ. Let the nations hear this Word, and let people everywhere rejoice in the true God. He has provided a ransom for us in His Son.

Psalm 48

Is this life all that there is? That seems to be such a natural thought for so many, even a peaceful thought. According to this idea, just as there was a time when you did not exist, there is coming a time when you will once again not exist. There is no need to trouble yourself about what happens to you after you die. After you die you are nothing.

Yet there is a testimony within mankind that longs for more than non-existence. There is a presence within your soul that seeks eternal life, and even eternal joy. But just desiring something does not make it true. It is in the life, death, and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, that we have a firm foundation for a present experience in this world that includes a solid and secure hope of a life to come.

This life that is ours in Christ is testified to throughout the psalms. When we read of a world of glory, and look around ourselves at the present difficulties, we know that the Lord caused His servants who wrote the psalms to speak of an age that would one day be revealed. That age has begun in the resurrection f Jesus Christ, and it is even now reserved for us in the heavens, where Christ lives at the right hand of the Father. Even today, there is a heavenly Zion, and it is the city of our God.

That city is great because the God of the city is great, and He rules and reigns there. During the time of Israel's preparation for the coming of the Messiah, the Lord established a city below, and within that Jerusalem was a temple at a high point of elevation. Within that temple, especially within the holy of holies, the most sacred place in the temple, the Lord Almighty dwelt.

But there is a Zion above in the heavens where God dwells forever. That city will descend from heaven upon the earth. It will be the joy of all the earth, and will be the city of the Lord, the King, who is the fortress of this eternal city.

When Christ returns, the kings of the earth that will not submit to God, will take their final stand against the Lord, and against His Anointed. Yet when they see Zion descend upon the earth from the heavens, they will be astounded. They will be in panic, and they will perish.

The Lord will destroy His enemies. The God who knows the number of hairs on your head, and who saved you through the life and death of His Son has no intention that you should face His wrath forever, or that your life should be utterly extinguished when your mortal body breathes its last. He will make the earth a place of perfect peace, shattering enemies who would distress you. He has a place for you even now in that land that will one day come down upon this earth when the Lord makes all things new.

We hear about the Lord's great city even now in the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as we worship the Lord our God, we see that promised Zion with the eyes of faith. We hear the word of the King, we have communion with Him at His table, and we believe His ancient promise, that the Lord of heavenly hosts will establish His city on earth forever.

For centuries before the coming of the Messianic Lamb of God, the people of Israel congregated in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Like the church today throughout the world, they listened to the proclamation of God's steadfast love in their synagogues and they saw that love displayed in the sacrificial offerings and festivals that brought so many thousands into the Jerusalem of their day. But now a new day has come, and the message of the love of God stretches far beyond the borders of Israel. The synagogues of the diaspora have now given way to the worshiping assemblies of Jesus Christ, not only in the Mediterranean region of the first century, but into all the continents of the earth, just as the Lord promised.

Now the praise of Israel's God truly reaches to the ends of the earth. Yet presently the church lives in an era of trial and faith. The Zion of the Lord's assemblies here face many dangers and setbacks, not only from outside oppressors, but from internal troubles, and from those whose love has grown cold. Yet our God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, and He will fully accomplish His eternal purpose. His right hand is still filled with righteousness. Therefore, we can rejoice in Him even now.

Through the exercise of faithful hearts, we can hear the Word of the Zion to come, and we can believe. We can even explore the wonder of the heavenly Jerusalem. We can get up from our bed of sickness, despair, or apathy. We can take in the fresh air of the heavenly Zion, and find our souls revived.

May the Lord grant to His church a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, the Son of God. By that Spirit may we know the hope to which we have been called, may we see the church throughout the world as the true temple of the Lord, and may we believe in the resurrection power of God displayed in the miracles of Jesus, and in His own coming forth from the grave.

Walk around the coming Zion today through this Word proclaimed to you. See her towers and her walls. Pass on to the next generation the message of eternal life in a renewed world won for us by the blood of the Lamb of God. Speak the Lord's joy forward to the next generation. The city of God has been secured for you by the great God of the city. He is the eternal God and your eternal life. He will guide you forever. He will guide you beyond death.

Bible Survey Course - Year One

We begin a new round of our three year Bible Survey Course on September 16th. There will be two sections offered, both on Thursdays at the church, one meeting at 9am, and the other at 3pm. Any questions?

Here's the syllabus:

Bible Survey – Year One – Law and History

I – LAW

Genesis 1-11, 12-50

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers

Deuteronomy

II – HISTORY

Joshua, Judges, Ruth

I/II Samuel

I/II Kings, I/II Chronicles

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

16-Sep	Genesis	1	Creation
23-Sep		2	Adam and Eve
30-Sep		3	The Fall
7-Oct		4-5, 6-9, 11	Death
14-Oct		12, 14-19	Abraham
21-Oct		21, 22	Isaac
28-Oct		No Class
4-Nov		27, 28, 32, 35	Jacob
11-Nov		37, 39, 40-44, 50	Israel
18-Nov	Exodus	1, 2, 3, 4	Moses
25-Nov		No Class
2-Dec		7, 12-14	Plagues and Exodus
9-Dec		16, 17, 18	Introduction to Trouble in the Wilderness
16-Dec		19, 20	The Law
23-Dec		No Class
30-Dec		No Class
6-Jan		24, 32, 34-40	Sacrifice and the Old Covenant Sanctuary
13-Jan	Leviticus		Levitical Holiness
20-Jan
27-Jan	Numbers		Wilderness Experiences
3-Feb	Deuteronomy		The Covenant
10-Feb
17-Feb	Joshua		The Conquest
24-Feb	Judges		The Downward Spiral
3-Mar			No King in Israel
10-Mar	Ruth		The Coming King
17-Mar	1 Samuel		The Birth of Samuel to the Death of Saul
24-Mar	...		...
31-Mar	2 Samuel		David the King
7-Apr	1 Kings		Solomon to the Death of Ahab
14-Apr	2 Kings		After the Death of Ahab to Judah's Captivity
21-Apr	1 Chronicles		Adam to the Death of David
28-Apr	2 Chronicles		Solomon to the Proclamation of Cyrus
5-May	Ezra		The Temple and the Priesthood
12-May	Nehemiah		The City and the Wall
19-May	Esther		The Struggles of Exile
26-May		--	Conclusion

Theology Course - Year Three

We start up our final year of our Theology Course on September 16th. The class meets at the church on Thursdays at 4pm. We use Dr. Robert Reymond's A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Any questions?

Here's the syllabus:

Systematic Theology – Topics Four and Five

IV – THE CHURCH

Chapter 20 – The Nature and Foundation of the Church

Chapter 21 – The Attributes and Marks of the Church

Chapter 22 – The Authority and Duties of the Church

Chapter 23 – The Government of the Church

Chapter 24 – The Church’s Means of Grace

V – LAST THINGS

Chapter 25 – Biblical Eschatology

Chapter 26 – Downgrade Trends in Contemporary Eschatology

16-Sep	20	805-810	The Nature and Foundation of the Church – The Assembly – OT
23-Sep		810-836	The Assembly – NT
30-Sep		...	….
7-Oct	21	837-849	The Attributes and Marks of the Church – Attributes
14-Oct		849-860	Marks
21-Oct		...	….
28-Oct		No Class
4-Nov	22	861-867	The Authority and Duties of the Church – Authority
11-Nov		868-880	Worship
18-Nov		...	….
25-Nov		No Class
2-Dec		880-893	Other Duties
9-Dec	23	895-904	The Government of the Church – Presbyterianism
16-Dec		904-910	Other
23-Dec		No Class
30-Dec		No Class
6-Jan	24	911-917	The Church's Means of Grace – The Word
13-Jan		917-923	Sacraments
20-Jan		923-955	Baptism
27-Jan		...	….
3-Feb		955-967	Lord's Supper
10-Feb		...	….
17-Feb		968-976	Prayer
24-Feb		…	…
3-Mar	25	979-986	Eschatology - Introduction
10-Mar		986-988	Old Testament
17-Mar		988-1008	Jesus
24-Mar		…	...
31-Mar		1009-1040	James, Paul
7-Apr		…	...
14-Apr		…	...
21-Apr		1040-1065	Hebrews, Peter, Jude, John
28-Apr		…	...
5-May		…	...
12-May	26	1067-1093	Problems in Contemporary Eschatology
19-May		…	...
26-May		--	Conclusion