God - The Book Part II.
Creation To Eternity
The Broken Family of Cain and Abel
When Adam's wife Eve conceived, she bore a son. Eve said, "I have received a man from the Lord." So she named him Cain.
Then she bore another child, a boy called Abel. He chose to be a shepherd, while Cain became a farmer. At a time appointed by God, Cain brought his harvest from the field as an offering unto the Lord, but Abel brought a lamb. The Lord showed respect toward Abel and his offering, but He did not honor Cain and his offering.
Cain was furious, so the Lord asked, "Cain, why are you so frustrated and angry?" God then reminded Cain that the death of an animal was required for sacrifice. Just as fig leaves did not cover Adam and Eve's sin, a gift of bloodless plants and vegetables could never cover sin either.
God said that refusal to bring an animal for sacrifice displayed Cain's rebellion, because he was not worshiping as God had instructed. The Bible says that Abel's sacrifice showed faith in God's words, but Cain's sacrifice did not. Throughout the Scriptures, God reveals that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.
But Cain still refused to obey God and bring an animal sacrifice. Instead, he blamed the problem on Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain attacked Abel and killed him.
Then the Lord asked Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"
Cain answered, "I don't know: Am I my brother's keeper?"
God said, "What have you done? I hear the voice of your brother's blood crying to me from the ground. Now you will be cursed on the earth soaked with your brother's blood which was drawn by your own hand."
God cursed Cain for killing his brother, and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.
Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. His rebellion against God caused the first murder and the first broken family. But Adam and Eve had many other sons and daughters.
Noah and the Great Flood
As the years passed, people began to fill the earth. But when God saw that man's wickedness covered the earth, and that every imagination of his heart was only evil continually — it grieved the Lord.
And the Lord said, "I will destroy mankind, which I created, from the face of the earth." But the Lord looked on Noah with favor. Noah, a righteous man, perfect in his generations, walked with God.
So God said to Noah, "The end of all mankind is coming. Because people have filled the earth with violence, I will destroy them along with the earth.
Make yourself an ark of wood. Build rooms in it and cover it with tar, inside and out. Build the boat four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high, but make only one door.
You, your wife, your three sons and their wives must go into the ark. Bring also a male and female of every animal into the ark, to keep them alive with you.
Two of every sort will come to you, but you must take by sevens all the animals which I have declared holy."
Noah and the Great Flood (Part 2)
While building the ark, Noah preached to the wicked people, saying; "Those who refuse to honor God shall be destroyed." Sadly, everyone mocked Noah and laughed at God's warning.
But Noah and his family believed God, so at the appointed time they entered the ark, and the Lord shut them in.
During the Flood, the waters covered everything on the earth, including the hills, and even the mountains. All living creatures on earth died, except for everything in the ark.
Then God caused it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. From underground, water spouted up like fountains and the waters increased on the earth. The waters kept rising, until the ark floated.
Finally, the water covered everything on the earth, including the hills and even the mountains.
Birds, cattle, walking and crawling animals, and every person on earth -all were destroyed, drowned in the flood.
The waters covered the earth for one hundred and fifty days. But God took care of Noah and every living thing in the ark. Then God made a wind to pass over the earth causing the water level to begin to go down. The waters continued to recede from the earth.
Noah and his family made an alter and offered a sacrifice to the Lord. When the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat, and the plants began once again to grow, God spoke to Noah, saying, "Go out of the ark, you and every living thing with you." And they went out.
Then Noah erected an altar and offered a sacrifice to the Lord.
Afterward, God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful, have many children, go out and refill the earth. Also, besides the plants I gave you for food, animals are now delivered into your hands to eat. But anyone who kills another human being must forfeit his own life, because man is made in the image of God."
Then God said, "Behold, I am establishing My promise with you, and with your descendants after you. Never again will all people and animals die from a flood.
I am putting My rainbow in the clouds as a token of My promise.
Whenever I bring rain clouds over the earth, you will see the rainbow and I too will see it, and honor My covenant."
NOTES
The Bible indicates that the Ark was designed to prevent the extinction of man and all air-breathing, LAND animals. God did not send other creatures to the Ark because representatives of all types of water creatures could survive on their own to reproduce after the Flood. There are over 1 million species of animals in the world. God only provided the Ark for the protection of humans and land-dwelling, air-breathing creatures. A huge number of animals would not need to be taken aboard the Ark because they are water dwellers.
The vast majority of these are capable of surviving in water and would not need to be brought aboard the ark. Noah need make no provision for the 21,000 species of fish or the 1,700 tunicates (marine chordates like sea squirts) found throughout the seas of the world, or the 600 echinoderms including star fish and sea urchins, or the 107,000 mollusks such as mussels, clams and oysters, or the 10,000 coelenterates like corals and sea anemones, jelly fish and hydroids or the 5,000 species of sponges, or the 30,000 protozoans, the microscopic single-celled creatures.
In addition, some of the mammals are aquatic. For example, the whales, seals and porpoises. The amphibians need not all have been included, nor all the reptiles, such as sea turtles, and alligators. Moreover, a large number of the arthropods numbering 838,000 species, such as lobsters, shrimp, crabs and water fleas and barnacles are marine creatures. And the insect species among arthropoda are usually very small. Also, many of the 35,000 species of worms as well as many of the insects could have survived outside the Ark.
The Tower of Babel
Many generations after Noah, when the whole earth still spoke the same language, people traveled to a plain in the Middle East and settled there.
Then they said to one another, "Let's build a city and a tower, and let's make a name for ourselves, so we won't be scattered around the whole earth."
The people made a tower designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself.
This decision was a direct refusal to obey God's command to go out and fill the earth. Also, the tower was designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself. The Lord looked upon the city and tower which these people were building.
And He said, "Behold, the people are organizing as one group and since they all speak the same language, nothing they imagine to do will be held back from them. Let us go down and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand each other's speech." And the Lord mixed up their language, causing them to stop building the city.
Therefore the name of that city became "Babel", which means confusion; because there the Lord multiplied language on the earth, causing people to scatter abroad.
The Birth of a Nation
Now about four hundred years after the Great Flood, God appeared to a man named Abram, who lived in the Middle East, in a city called Ur.
God said to him, "Leave your country and your relatives, and travel to a land that I will show you. There I will make a great nation from you, and I will bless you, and make your name great; I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you: and through you shall all families of the earth be blessed."
So Abram departed, as the Lord had instructed, and entered into the land of Canaan.
And again the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, "I give this land to your descendants; Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able. In the same way, your descendants shall be countless."
Even though Abram and his wife, Sarai, had no children, Abram believed God; and God counted Abram's faith as righteousness.
Then Abram said, "Lord God, how can I know that I will inherit this land?"
And God answered Abram, "It will happen like this. Your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be mistreated for four hundred years. A nation will use them as slaves, but I will judge that nation, and afterward your descendants will come out with great wealth, and by the fourth generation they shall return to this land."
The Birth of a Nation (Part 2)
But Sarai, Abram's wife, still bore him no children, and she was getting old. So Sarai said to Abram, "I beg you to go have children by my Egyptian maid, Hagar, and I will just consider her children to be mine.
Abram agreed with Sarai's plan. Though he loved the Lord, Abram failed to believe that God would give him a child through his wife. So Hagar bore Abram a son named Ishmael.
Thirteen years later, when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared yet again to him, and said, "I am the Almighty God; walk before Me. I am giving you the new name of Abraham, which means, 'Father of Multitudes' and Sarai shall be called Sarah meaning 'Princess.' Now I will bless Sarah and give you a son also from her, and she shall be a mother of nations."
Then Abraham pleaded with God, "O that Ishmael might live before You."
God answered, "As for Ishmael, I have heard you: Behold, I have also blessed him, and will greatly multiply his descendants; and I will make him a great nation." God fulfilled his promise to the descendants of Abraham and Ishmael through the Arab nation.
God then said, "But with Sarah's son, and with his descendants after him, I will establish my covenant which is everlasting."
After that, Sarah gave birth to Abraham's son whom they named Isaac. Now when Isaac was grown, the Lord asked Abraham to demonstrate his faith.
The Birth of a Nation (Part 3)
God said, "Abraham": and he answered, "Yes, I am here." And God said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the
mountain which I will instruct you to use."
Then Abraham got up early in the morning and took Isaac his son, as God had told him.Then, on the third day, Abraham looked and, in the distance, he saw the appointed place.
So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac to carry. And he took a torch in his hand, and a knife; and they both went up the hill together.
Then Isaac asked Abraham, "Father? We have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"
Abraham said, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering."
So they both continued up together until they came to the place where God had instructed Abraham to go. There Abraham built an altar and laid the wood in order.
Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
And Abraham stretched out his hand with the knife, preparing to kill his son.
The Birth of a Nation (Part 4)
Then the angel of the Lord called out of heaven, saying, "Abraham, Abraham."
And he answered, "Here I am." And the Lord said, "Do not lay your hand on Isaac for now I know that you revere Me, since you did not withhold your only son."
And Abraham lifted up his head and looked, and there, behind him, was a ram caught in a bush by his horns. So Abraham took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
The Bible says that Abraham knew that God would fulfill His promises about Isaac, even if God had to raise Isaac from the dead.
Then because of Abraham's faith, God said," I will bless you. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of all heaven; And through your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because you obeyed my voice."
Then Abraham rejoiced as he understood that the Savior, promised long before in the Garden, would come from his descendants.
God's test of Abraham also illustrated how, one day, God, the heavenly Father, would offer His only beloved son as a sacrifice for the whole world.