Last week I left you with the principle from Genesis 3:14 that God addressed the serpent first
after giving Adam and Eve a chance to repent, because He knows who the real
enemy is.
I hope during this past week that you have taken to heart
that principle and have been able to acknowledge that your spouse is not the
enemy. When we recognize this truth, it helps stop some of the craziness in our
homes and helps us to come together to fight against the true enemy of our home:
Satan.
Today, we are going to look at how God clothed Adam and Eve.
But, before we do, there is one more principle I want you to see. While God addressed Adam first in the garden
with the opportunity to repent, He did not address Adam first when it came to
consequences of sin. He addressed first the serpent as the real enemy, and then
He addressed Eve. He held Eve responsible for her sin and gave her consequences
accordingly. He then addressed Adam and gave him consequences as well. We will
be held accountable for our sin as individuals. Doesn’t matter who started it!!
Notice when He spoke to Adam, He said, “Because you have
listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you ‘Do not eat of it’. . .”
(Genesis 3:17).
I love that picture of God addressing Adam. I believe we
deal with this same issue in our lives at times as we follow God in our journey
here. God tells us something very clearly. But someone comes along that we
choose to listen to instead of God. I have watched ministries and churches
experience serious problems because those in leadership heard from God but
listened to the voice of others. Oh, but for the grace of God, go I! It is
difficult sometimes to stick to what you KNOW God has told you when others
around you may appear to know more, be a more mature believer, or have more
knowledge, or
when you don’t want someone to be upset with you. But, woe the consequences of disobedience when
we walk away from His direction.
Enough on that. Let’s look at God’s wardrobe for Adam and
Eve versus their loincloths of fig leaves. Several weeks ago, we talked about
how Adam and Eve tried to cover their guilt and shame that resulted from their
disobedience. We talked about how we try to cover our guilt and shame. Today, I
want you to understand something very important about what happened next in the
garden. God
clothed Adam and Eve to take away their shame and guilt from their recognition
of their nakedness. Adam and Eve tried to clothe themselves,
but it wasn’t enough. Our way to righteousness will never be enough. We can’t
go to church enough, pray enough, worship enough, do enough good works, etc. Blood
had to be shed, and death had to take place. I like what Matthew Henry says:
The beasts whose skins
they were must be slain, slain before their eyes, to show them what death is,
and (as it is Eccl. 3:18) that they may see that they themselves were beasts, mortal and
dying. It is supposed that they were slain, not for food, but for sacrifice, to
typify the great sacrifice, which, in the latter end of the world, should be
offered once for all. Thus the first thing that died was a sacrifice or Christ
in a figure, who is therefore said to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. These sacrifices
were divided between God and man, in token of reconciliation: the flesh was
offered to God, a whole burnt-offering; the skins were given to man for
clothing, signifying that, Jesus Christ having offered himself to God a
sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour, we are to clothe ourselves with his
righteousness as with a garment, that the shame of our nakedness may not
appear. Adam and Eve made for themselves aprons of fig-leaves, a covering too
narrow for them to wrap
themselves in, Isa. 28:20. Such are all the rags of our own righteousness. But God made
them coats of skins; large, and strong, and durable, and fit for them; such is
the righteousness of Christ. Therefore put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we
accept and believe Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross, we have put on
the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ll never forget when I came to an understanding of the
truth of the statement Jesus made from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.” When I was doing a Beth Moore study, she
identified that word forgive as a
continuous verb. That was life changing for my spiritual growth at that moment
in time. I saw the truth of the power of the word forgiveness! I saw the power of His spilled out blood! I came to
understand that I had no righteousness apart from Him, that He is my
righteousness!!
Do you
understand the power of the word “forgiveness”? If you haven’t been forgiven,
you can’t possibly understand grace. And if you understand grace, you are
without excuse to extend forgiveness to others.
Many
homes are in chaos right now as I write these words, because they are too hurt
to forgive, too prideful to forgive, too selfish to forgive, too angry to
forgive. And all of these eventually lead to bitterness and destruction of
self, others, marriages, and families. Forgiveness is a choice, not an
emotion!!!
Prague News . . .
Well,
pray for us this weekend in Arkansas as we do our bake sale and enchilada sale
to raise money for the missionary women. We still need 20 women to be sponsored
as of this writing. We are in the last leg of preparations for the trip, so
please step up those prayers!!
I wrote
the missionary women and asked if any of them would like to share anything with
you guys, and a couple of them wrote back with the following links to blogs
they themselves write if you’d like to check them out.
Stacy gave
us these two stories from her blog:
http://dyckczechin.blogspot.co.at/2012/07/austrian-police-report.html
http://dyckczechin.blogspot.co.at/2012/07/romanian-adventures-aka-near-disaster.html
One of our Rachels (we have a few from this bunch) sent the
following links to her blog and a story:
Enjoy the reading, and don’t forget to be praying for all
the missionary women who will be in attendance!
Love you all!
His,
Vickie