Man, God's Creation

   Let us move from the Bible, which is the basis for all I am going to post in this series ( as it is for all I post) to the supreme creation of God. I am of course talking about man.
   First off, man is not a thing nor is he a product of an evolutionary burp. As recorded for us in the Bible, Man is the pinnacle of God's creative work.
    For five days God was setting the earth up for hhabitation. He created the sun and the stars and the moon . He set aside day and night to mark the passage of time. He caused vegetation to grow. He created fish and fowl and four legged beasts. And on the sixth day, according to the report, God created animals and man.
     Once again, let me say, man is not a animal. For which animal did God look at and breath into its nostrils the breath of life? That is, to what animal did he give His image to?
      And what is this image? This Likeness? It is creativity. It is the ability to think. It is the ability to communicate. And so much more.
      Into this garden God had created He placed Adam and Eve. Was that their real names? Maybe not. Adam means man. Eve is mother of all living. The point is, they came fresh from the creative hand of God.
These two enjoyed fellowship with God, spoken of as walking and talking with God in the cool of the evening. During the day they would take care of the garden. Work was a pleasure. God had given to them the deed of co-ownership with Him of the earth. 
       They had fellowship with Him face to face.
        God didn't want them to obey Him just because He had created them. He wanted them to choose to obey Him. So He set up a quiz, sort of. They could eat the fruit of all the trees in the garden. They were not to eat of the fruit of the one tree in the middle of the garden. This was a quiz or test. Will they obey or will they decide not to obey? This was a direct command of God.
         One day, I don't know how long after creation, Adam and his wife were out taking care of he garden and they were walking around. They passed by the tree in the middle of the garden.
        They run into one of the animals. The Bible calls him a serpent. Maybe not an four footed animal. A reptile. This reptile was being used by a fallen angel, the chief of the fallen angels, named Satan.      
          This indweltt reptile spoke to Eve. Adam was close by.  But Satan spoke to Eve.She must have been an easy touch. Satan had no doubt been observing the couple and knew where the wickest link was. Adam had direct communication with God. Adam would then transmit what God said to the woman. This may have been the first instance of family devotions.
            Eve gave in. "Has God said...? And she took and ate. And then must have turned to Adam who by now had turned his attention back to his wife. She gave him the fruit. He ate also fully knowing where it had come from.
            So they disobeyed. God had to throw them out of the garden and they lost fellowship with Him. No longer could they walk and talk with Him. They now had to come through a sacrifice God had shown them this when He killed an animal and clothed them. "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." They had to transmit this truth to their offspring.
         But God also promised them a redeemer who was to come and shed His blood.
          God had said that in the day they ate of the fruit of that tree in the middle of the garden they would die. They ate, but physically they didn't die.Not that day. But they were separated from God. This is the first death. The second death comes to those who don't come to Him by the way He provided .. those who live a life separated from Him and who physically die. And that isn't always happening to the very old. A person can die at any time. God holds the years of your life in His hand. My brother was only twenty one when a snippers bullet in Vietnam cut off his life. You never know the time of your death.
   "There is a time for everything under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die..."