jan 1-5-08 the tempter & promise

There is no way to tell what length of time is

covered in our first 5 days of reading. Oh, there are ways to figure how many

years are in the human story we read about.

A Plan is Made A Plan is Made BeforehandBeforehand

Where the timing becomes a problem is in

the verses arranged for us to read first. The first is from Peter’s first letter.


1 Peter 1:18 NET You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your

ancestors you were ransomed —


not by perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but by precious blood like that of an unblemished

and spotless lamb, namely Christ.


20 He was foreknown before the foundation of

the world but was manifested in these last

times for your sake.


The translations I looked at used the phrase,

“before the foundation of the world” except the

CEV and it says; “before the world was created.”


Our next reading is from Paul’s letter to the

Christians in Ephesus.


Ephesians 3:10 NET The purpose of this

enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of

God should now be disclosed to the rulers


and the authorities in the heavenly realms. 11 This

was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ

Jesus our Lord,


The translations I looked at say, “according to the

eternal purpose,” Except the CEV says,

“according to his eternal plan.”


God made a plan for Jesus, God the Son, to

come to earth and fulfill God’s need to bring

humans (who had not yet been created) back to

Him.


God’s knowledge is so vast our human minds cannot comprehend.

The word for this ability to be “all knowing” is

omniscience.


OmniscienceOMNIS'CIENCE, OMNIS'CIENCY,

n. [L. omnis, all, and scientia, knowledge.]

The quality of knowing all things at once; universal knowledge;

knowledge unbounded or infinite. Omniscience is an attribute peculiar

to God. (Webster’s)


Omniscience is an attribute peculiar to God! This is a very important fact. Later in our reading

we will see how NO BEING, not even angels

have this attribute.


So from this we must conclude not even Satan

processes this ability.

We will not tarry on the Creation of all things.


We have faith God is all powerful and did create

all things.With this in mind I want

to make you aware, if you’re not already, of the word for “all powerful.”


Omnipotent OMNIP'OTENT, a. [supra.]

1. Almighty; possessing unlimited power; all powerful. The being that can create worlds must be omnipotent.

2. Having unlimited power of a particular kind; as omnipotent love. (Webster’s)


I want to get into the meat of why

The Omniscience Godknew He had to have a

plan in place before creating humans.


Genesis 2:8 NET

The LORD God planted an orchard in the east, in

Eden; and there he placed the man he had

formed.

Obey This One Obey This One CommandCommand

9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at

and good for food.


(Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in

the middle of the orchard.)


Genesis 2:16 NET Then the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat fruit from every tree

of the orchard,


17 but you must not eat from the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely

die."


A command has been issued, “Do Not Eat From That

Tree!”How hard could it be to obey

this one command?It’s not hard…until

temptation is introduced.


Genesis 3:1 NETThe Temptation and the Fall

Now the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the

LORD God had made.

The Tempter Goes The Tempter Goes To WorkTo Work

He said to the woman, "Is it really true that God said, 'You must not eat

from any tree of the orchard'?"


2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit from the trees of

the orchard;


3 but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle

of the orchard God said, 'You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it,

or else you will die.' "


4 The serpent said to the woman, "Surely you will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat from it

your eyes will open


and you will be like divine beings who know good and

evil." 6 When the woman saw that the tree produced

fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye,


and was desirable for making one wise, she

took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave

some of it to her husband who was with her, and he

ate it.

The Tempter The Tempter SucceedsSucceeds

7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they

knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made

coverings for themselves.

The Tempter The Tempter SucceedsSucceeds

Genesis 3:8 NET The Judgment

Oracles of God at the Fall

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the

LORD God moving about in the orchard

Your Sin Will Find Your Sin Will Find You OutYou Out

at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the

LORD God among the trees of the orchard. 9 But the LORD God called to the

man and said to him, "Where are you?"


10 The man replied, "I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was

afraid because I was naked, so I hid."


11 And the LORD God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you

eat from the tree that I commanded you not to

eat from?"


12 The man said, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some

fruit from the tree and I ate it."


13 So the LORD God said to the woman, "What is

this you have done?" And the woman replied, "The serpent tricked me, and I

ate."


14 The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts

and all the living creatures of the field!

Consequences of Consequences of First SinFirst Sin

On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your

life. 15 And I will put hostility between you and

the woman


and between your offspring and her

offspring; her offspring will attack your head,

and you will attack her offspring's heel."


16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children.

You will want to control your husband, but he will

dominate you."


17 But to Adam he said, "Because you obeyed

your wife and ate from the tree about which I

commanded you,


'You must not eat from it,' cursed is the ground

thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all

the days of your life.


18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to

the ground,


for out of it you were taken; for you are dust,

and to dust you will return."


There were consequences for disobedience to God’s command.

Let’s focus on the consequences given the

tempter, the serpent.

Consequences And A Consequences And A PromisePromise

15 And I will put hostility between you and the

woman and between your offspring and her offspring;

her offspring will attack your head, and you will

attack her offspring's heel."


Do you see God’s plan made before creation

starting to unfold?Humans are promised

salvation from the tempter .


God’s chosen will destroy the tempter.

Let’s read the same verse from the Message Bible and the Contemporary

English Version.


Genesis 3:15 MSG I’m declaring war between you and the

Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll

wound his heel."


Genesis 3:15 CEV You and this woman will hate each

other; your descendants and hers will always be

enemies. One of hers will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the

heel."


Notice the singular is used of Eve’s descendant here.

The plan of Jesus,God the Son, dealing with

the tempter and the disobedience, (sin,) that comes from yielding to

temptation is set in motion.

The Plan Set In The Plan Set In MotionMotion

The tempter has been warned and humans have

been promised relief.The tempter continues to

tempt.You see the tempter is not

omniscience.


He does not know all so does not foresee the plan

made ready before creation. He has been warned so is aware one of Eve’s offspring will

do him damage.


But he can’t know who the offspring is, how or

when harm will be done. With this in mind we

understand his continuance to tempt

humans into sin.

The Tempter Works The Tempter Works HardHard

The tempter is good at what he does and he

works hard at it. So hard that approximately 1652

years later God had enough of human’s sins.

The Tempter Works The Tempter Works HardHard

Genesis 6:5 NET But the LORD saw that the wickedness of

humankind had become great on the earth. Every

inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil

all the time.

The Lord’s Drastic The Lord’s Drastic MeasuresMeasures

6 The LORD regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was

highly offended.


7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe humankind, whom I have created,

from the face of the earth everything from

humankind to animals,


including creatures that move on the ground and

birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them." 8

But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.


The tempter was so good and so many sins were

being committed by humanity, God decided to wipe them all off the

face of the earth.


But then there was Noah. Noah was living rightly and found favor in the sight of God. So God decides He will rid the

earth of humanity except Noah and his family.


Here we find the commission to build the means of escaping death

that would destroy everything in the world.


Genesis 6:13 NET So God said to Noah, "I have decided that all living creatures must die, for the earth is

filled with violence because of them.


Now I am about to destroy them and the earth. 14a

Make for yourself an ark of cypress wood.


We all know the story of Noah and the ark well.

It is important to note the plan laid out before

creation is still needed.


Noah’s family was barely off the ark before the

tempter struck again and Noah’s son Ham fell to temptation and sinned.

Tempter Strikes Tempter Strikes AgainAgain

After this event Noah pronounces curses and blessings on his sons. With these words it is indicated the promised one of Eve will now come from Shem.

Noah’s Curses And Noah’s Curses And BlessingsBlessings

Make note before we read about the curses and

blessings that Canaan is from the family of Ham.Genesis 9:25 NET So he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves he will be

to his brothers."


26 He also said,

"Worthy of praise is the LORD, the God of Shem!

May Canaan be the slave of Shem!


27 May God enlarge Japheth's territory and

numbers! May he live in the tents of Shem and may Canaan be his

slave!"


Canaan was to be the slave to both Shem & Japheth. Japheth was to live in the

tents of Shem. Share in the blessings

bestowed on Shem. (NIVStudyBibleNotes)


Japheth’s territory and numbers will be

enlarged.Many commentaries say

this indicates gentiles will come from Japheth.


Of Shem he says: "Worthy of praise is the LORD,

the God of Shem!” Commentators say this

shows the Jews will come from Shem.


By the way this is where the word Semites or

Semitics comes from. The Semitics, Jews, turn out to be God’s chosen

people.


Later in our reading we will see the Messiah,

Jesus Christ, is to come from God’s chosen

people.


With the tempter getting a toe hold on Ham he

works hard again and before long it’s time for God to shake things up.

The Tempter Doesn’t The Tempter Doesn’t RelentRelent

Genesis 11:1 NET

The Dispersion of the Nations at Babel

The whole earth had a common language and a

common vocabulary.


2 When the people moved eastward, they found a

plain in Shinar and settled there.


3 Then they said to one another, "Come, let's make bricks and bake

them thoroughly." (They had brick instead of

stone and tar instead of mortar.)


4 Then they said, "Come, let's build ourselves a

city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for

ourselves.


Otherwise we will be scattered across the face

of the entire earth."5 But the LORD came

down to see the city and the tower that the people

had started building.


6 And the LORD said, "If as one people all sharing a common language they

have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be beyond them.

The Lord Takes The Lord Takes Action AgainAction Again

7 Come, let's go down and confuse their language so they won't be able to understand each other."


8 So the LORD scattered them from there across

the face of the entire earth, and they stopped

building the city.


9 That is why its name was called Babel — because

there the LORD confused the language of the entire world, and from there the

LORD scattered them across the face of the entire

earth.


God promised to never kill everything on the earth by flood again. This time He, being

omnipotent, easily takes care of the present

problem by limiting


the ability to communicate with speech, and also

proximity. He confused their language and

scattered the people all over the earth.


God prepares a plan before creation for His Son Jesus to shed His blood for humanity.

In a short time span a tempter successfully tempts humans to break a command they’ve been

given.

Now A RecapNow A Recap

A promise is made to the tempter and the humans that one will come

from Eve who will crush the tempter. Not knowing who, when or where the tempter works fast

and furious enough that God cleanses the world in a great flood.


Noah is a righteous man so he and his family are saved along

with pairs of animals all to repopulate the earth.

Barely out of the ark the tempter strikes again and Ham falls to

sin.


In Noah’s curses and blessings we find

indication the one who will crush the tempter will come from God’s people, Semitics, Jews, descendants of Shem.


The tempter works fast and furious again. This

time causing The Omnipotent to confuse

humanities’ language and scatter them around the

entire earth.


In the next couple week’s readings we will see how God allows the tempter to really test a servant of

God’s named Job.

Tempter Tests Job Tempter Tests Job HarshlyHarshly

Satan, the tempter is still always at work. It’s

good to know The Lord followed through with

His plan. Jesus did pay the price to redeem us because we all have

given in to the tempter at one time or another.

jan 1-5-08 the tempter & promise

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