The Gifts of God

“The Gifts of God:” by Romans

Before I begin each Discussion, I link to the following video, which I regard as the Theme Song of the 4Gospels Network Chat Room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iyMjeVoP8s

For everyone who celebrates Christmas, we think of it as the giving and receiving of gifts. Houses,  churches, schools. businesses and stores are gaily decorated in the celebration of Christmas. The Federal Government has, for decades, been at the forefront of enforcing the “separation of Church and State.” Yet, the day on which Christ's birth is celebrated is a Federal Holiday, and all Federal employees get the day off with pay! This is known as the Season of Giving.  Gifts are given and received by millions of people, even those who neither worship nor even believe in God or Christ, or His Holy Bible. For them, their gift giving has nothing to do with the birth of the Savior. It is merely a cultural tradition that they have accepted, and partake in. Churches, including Westover Baptist Church, remind all of us that “Jesus is the reason for the Season,” or the reason for the decorating and gift-giving.

I would like to talk about gift-giving tonight from a very different perspective:

The title of tonight's Bible Study is, “The Gifts of God.” I did a review, and I am sure that, as thorough as I tried to make it, there have many things that I have missed. The list that I do have is one that had a powerful impact on me because it caused me to see all the incredible things in one place that God has done for His Creation in general, and His people in particular.

I would like to review my list of God's Gifts with you but I am going to begin with an unexpected quotation: Abraham Lincoln said of the Bible: “In regards to this great Book, I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it.”

The Bible is just One of many, many Gifts God has given us.

We read in James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights....”

From the very beginning, Genesis tells us God's love of gift-giving was already evident when He created the Heavens and the Earth:

The earth is in, what astronomers refer to as the “Goldilocks Zone:” We're not too deep inside the Milky Way where radiation levels are lethal. We're not too close to, or too far from the sun. Everything is just right. Mankind was given a home on a planet that is a part of a solar system that also sustains life. Our sun gives us light and heat. The regularity of sunrise and the phases of the moon allow us organize our days months, seasons and years. The moon also regulates the tides. Without the moon, earth would be uninhabitable. Much farther away in our Solar System, and not fully appreciated until recently, the massive planet Jupiter is another Gift of God. Jupiter is so large, that all the other planets, including Saturn and its rings, can fit inside this planet. It is a Gift because it is so massive, and its gravitational pull is so intense, it acts as a giant celestial vacuum cleaner drawing toward itself, and away from the earth, boulders, meteors, asteroids, and other interplanetary debris hurtling through space that could otherwise hit the earth and cause great climactic damage at the very least, and the potential for significant loss of life.  

But in the past few years, astronomers and astrophysicists have come to realize that the Universe itself is full of God's Gifts. Scientists have identified no less than 40 extremely fine-tuned Life Support Systems that are active in the Universe without which life on earth could not survive. In his book, “The Case For A Creator.” Lee Strobel interviewed Physicist and Mathematician Robin Collins who said, “When scientists talk about the fine-tuning of the universe, they're generally referring to the extraordinary balancing of the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe. Our minds can't comprehend the precision of some of them. The result is a universe that has just the right conditions to sustain life... Over the past thirty years or so, scientists have discovered that just about everything about the basic structure of the universe is balanced on a razor's edge for life to exist. The coincidences are far too fantastic to attribute to mere chance or to claim that it needs no explanation.”

The plants and vegetation on the earth not also provide food for us, but they also give us the air we breath by “exhaling” oxygen. Trees do the same,  but also provide various kinds of food, as well as providing the wood that many people still burn for heat in the winter. Wood is also used to build shelter from the cold and the elements, and is indispensable in the manufacture of many kinds of furniture, tools and musical instruments.

But let's zoom in and take a closer look at vegetables, herbs and fruit: We read God's words to Adam in Genesis 1:29: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

The vegetation on earth, itself, besides being a gift, comes with a gift of its own: seeds! Every apple, for example, has enough seeds in it to produce a four or five more apple trees! Not four or five apples but apple trees! Over the course of the growing life, five trees grown from the seeds of just one apple hold the potential for tens of thousands of apples, each one with four or five seeds of their own. Did you ever cut open a red or green pepper? It looks like there are hundreds of seeds in a pepper! If vegetables and fruit did not have seeds, Adam and Eve and their children would have eaten and completely depleted the entire supply of food that was there to eat. And that would have been it. The seeds from the plants and vegetables and fruit we eat are Gifts from God to keep us both alive and healthy as we plant them for the next harvest.

When God said that it was not good for the man He created to be alone, He gave him a wife. And then God gave both Adam and Eve access to every tree in the Garden of Eden... with one exception.  You know how that story ended. They disobeyed God and here we all are. But God was not done giving. Not by a long shot.

Though Abraham's wife was barren, God promised to raise up a people for Himself through him. But this was to be a great multitude, and they would need somewhere to live. So we read God's words to Abraham of another Gift in Genesis 17:8: “I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. We know it as the Land of Promise, Israel.

But there were people already living in the land of Canaan: After miraculously freeing the Hebrew slaves from centuries of bondage in Egypt, we see God giving to His people, again. Exodus 33:1: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it: And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: Unto a land flowing with milk and honey:”

There was a Promised Land to be given to God's people. But people living together in the same land need to have a set of laws to live by, or there would be pandemonium. So, We read in Exodus 24:12: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.”

After repeated disobedience and murmuring against God and Moses, God chose to deny access to everyone above the age of 20 who came out of Egypt, except for Joshua and Caleb. Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Those years of wandering are summed up in this account found beginning in Nehemiah 9:13, as God showered Gift after Gift to His people: “Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant: And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage: but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations; Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.”

The Word that came to Israel through the prophets was more than just a set of Laws. Notice this summary of God's Laws as another Gift from God, found in Psalms 119:97: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.  I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

The Word of God is an undeniable Gift of God. But there is a related Gift that applies to God's Word, and that is its enduring availability. Unlike any other book on earth, the Bible is a book, written by 40 authors over the course of 1,500 years, and, miraculously, is still readily available to us, in spite of all of the efforts to suppress it, defame it, discredit it and destroy it. In fact, it is more available now, and in more forms than ever in history. Jesus said in Mark 13:31: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” The thriving and enduring availability of the Word of God is another Gift.

Throughout their history as a Nation, God sent them Judges to throw off the oppression of their enemies, and Prophets to call them back to true worship when they fell into rebellion and idolatry.
This happened repeatedly but Israel was incapable of fulfilling their part in the Covenant to obey the Laws that God had given them. In spite of all of the gifts that God gave His people, His rescue of them from slavery, manna and water in the wilderness, a land flowing with milk and honey, His Laws and statutes and Divine protection from enemies, judges and prophets to bring them back when they sinned... they continued to disobey the Covenant, and to pursue and worship other gods.

That we is why we read in Hebrews 8:7: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:” Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 21:43: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

Which brings us to the next of God's Gifts... His most incredible Gift.

When Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice, we read beginning in Genesis 22:7: “And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering... “

Let's notice more closely what this verse says, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb...” Not “God will provide [i]for[/i] Himself...

No...

It says that God will provide [u]Himself[/u] a lamb...”And that is exactly what happened! Jesus was God in the flesh. John 1:29 tells us, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” This was in fulfillment of a prophecy spoken by  John the Baptist's father Zacharias in In Luke 1:76, “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins...”

In verse 79, Zacharias foretold that the Messiah would “... give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Far and above Jesus being the reason for the gift-giving Season, Jesus, Himself, is the Gift of the Season. He is the most precious Gift of many many, gifts from God to mankind.

In perhaps the most familiar prophecy of the birth of the Messiah, we read in Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:”

A son is given!  John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son... ”!

God gave as a Gift to all of mankind the most priceless Gift of all: His Son!

But how could we know when He arrived? Isaiah 7:14 gives us that answer: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Many have claimed to be Jesus, or the Messiah for the past 2,000. But only one baby in history was able to fulfill the sign that was given by the Lord, and was born to a virgin. God gave us a unique sign that could not be counterfeited or duplicated so we might recognize when His incredible Gift arrives. And when He does arrives, God's giving of Gifts not only continues, it increases!

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises in Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:” A few verses later He adds, Matthew 7:11: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

When He sent His disciples out to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom He said in Luke 10:19: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

Jesus reached out to all who heard His voice, offering gifts that only God could give:

We read in Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

John 14:27  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before His crucifixion prayed in John 17:8: “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.”

John 4:14: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Romans 6:23 tells us “... the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jesus promised yet another Gift in John 14:16: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;”

Jesus came to lay down His Life for the remission of sins.

Matthew 20:28: “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

John 6:51: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Luke 22:19: “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.”

Mark 14:24: “And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.”

Jesus was crucified, and was resurrected. He commissioned His Church to go out and preach the Gospel to the world. But the Gifts from God continued. His disciples were empowered with the promised Gift of the Holy Spirit to teach and preach with boldness.

The Church was established and gained members. As it did, God provided gifted teachers to lead His people. In Corinth, an “us and them” factionalism began to take hold. Various members of the Church in Corinth were aligning themselves with various leaders, Paul, Peter and Apollos. Paul asked the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” But I bring this up to highlight a particular Gift that Paul referred to, which God provides to all Churches. 1 Corinthians 3:5: “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”


So another Gift of God is the growth of a Church. Too often when we either attend, or become aware of a particular congregation that is growing in leaps and bounds, the minister is given the credit. Too often we credit the man in the pulpit, but such credit is misplaced. Jesus said in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” The Father gives the increase to the Church by opening a person's eyes to their own sinful state, drawing that  person to repentance.

Repentance, itself, is yet another Gift of God. Notice: Peter recounted to Jewish Christians how it happened that there were now Gentile believers, and Gentile members of the Church. After telling them about the vision of the sheet that he saw three times, he said beginning in Acts 11:11: “And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me. And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house: … And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”

How, then, did the early Church understand how Gentiles had come to repentance? They were granted repentance. They were not born with it, they weren't driven to it following a bout of regret about sin, they didn't work it up within themselves. God granted it to them. We read in Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” But repentance unto salvation is also a Gift of God.

 
When the Church encountered resistance and persecution, His disciples and followers had this promise from Jesus found in Matthew 10:19: “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.” Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would provide even the very words to be spoken in defense of their beliefs in Jesus as the Messiah, in Jesus being raised from the dead, and being the only Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The Gift of the Holy Spirit made Itself manifest with a variety of additional Gifts to different people: We read in 1 Corinthians 12:7: “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.”

God had given His Chosen People in the Old Testament both a Levitical Priesthood and a Civil Government to oversee the administration of His Laws and statutes. He did the same for His Church:
We read in Ephesians 4:11: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:”

2 Peter 1:3: “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”

Romans 8:32: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”

What makes God the greatest Giver of all time? He had everything at His disposal to give. And He gives all of it not only without hesitation, but with eager anticipation. Notice Jesus' words in Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Just as I opened with an unexpected quotation, I would like to close, tonight, with a completely  unexpected Gift from the Father: We read in 2 Corinthians 9:6: “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”

Why does God love a willing and cheerful giver? He wants us to be like Him. He wants to to be selfless like His dear Son. He wants us to give without reservation, and without selfish, ulterior motives, or a  “What's in it for me?” attitude.  The Bible says that believers should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. A married couple should be likeminded, and in harmony regarding the things of God. The Church is the betrothed bride of Christ. Christ is our future Bridegroom. One of the first gifts I mentioned this evening was in the Book of Genesis where God presented Eve to Adam in the Garden to be his wife. Well, I am going to close tonight with a Gift that God has given that I never heard or read anyone else name among the Gifts of God: The Father has given us to Christ as the bride of Jesus, Who is called the Last Adam in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 15:45).

In another part of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus spoke of this Gift that He had received from the Father: Beginning in John 17:6: “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word...” (9) “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” So the Father gave Jesus the original disciples, but what about all the believers from the time of Christ down to us living today? Did the Father also give us to Jesus as a Gift? Notice beginning in verse 20: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which (i)shall(/i) believe on me through their word..." (emphasis mine).

Just as God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, you and I are another Gift from the Father, but this time to the Son. We read in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” Believers are drawn to Christ,  and belong to the Father, Who, in turn, gives us to His Son Whom He sent to died for us. There is an incredible, almost indescribable intimacy not only between the Father and Son, but between the Father and Son and all of those who belong to them that transcends the human condition: In that prayer before His crucifixion, Jesus elaborated on how He sees our relationship to God with words that leave one speechless: We read in John 17:21-26: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

From the very beginning, God has given and given and given and given to His creation. I think it is fitting, not only at this Season of gift-giving, but perhaps on the 1st of each month, to set aside a special time alone with your Heavenly Father to acknowledge His Gifts, and thank Him for all all that He has given, for all that He has done, all that He is doing, for all that He is, and for all that He has planned for us into Eternity. He is worthy of Praise far beyond our ability to praise His greatness, His mercy, and Hid love for us. But, as His children, such praise is welcome, lovingly accepted and greatly cherished.

Do it before you go to bed, tonight.

This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “The Gifts of God:”
Originally delivered “live” by Romans on December 12th, 2013

THINKING LIKE A CHRISTIAN IN A SECULAR WORLD II PETER 3:1-7

THINKING LIKE A CHRISTIAN IN A SECULAR WORLD II PETER 3:1-7  

INTRODUCTION: In 1963 Harry Blamires wrote a book entitle, The Christian Mind.  It was a challenge to the
Christians of the 60’s that needs to be heard in the 90’s. In fact it is more urgently needed in our
own situation in the 90’s than it was in the 60’s.  By this expression Blamires did not meant that
the Christian is to think only on religious topics all the time but rather they are to view every
topic from a Christian perspective.  This is another way of describing a Christian “world view.”  
Thinking like a Christian in a secular world was a concern of the Apostle Peter in the first
century.  He indicates he wrote this second letter to stir up the people so that they would do
“wholesome” thinking.  The word wholesome is a word that means unmixed, unadulterated,
pure.  The tendency in that first century was for those early Christians to mix their Christian
ideas of false ideas and the cultures around them to the degree that they allowed their thinking to
be mixed, their lives would become confused.  This is still our situation.  
In this call to a pure mind Peter emphasizes the importance of memory. “I want you to recall the
words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and that the command given by our Lord and
Savior through your apostles.”  Memory is an important part of walking with the Lord and doing
the work of the Lord.  Abraham, Joshua, Heschel expressed this in thirteen words that need to be
remembered – “Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one word, “remember.”’
Truly this is the way it is in the Christian life.  If you are to think like a Christian in our secular
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world there are some realities that must constantly be remembered.  They become spiritual
stack-poles around which you interpret everything that you see and experience in the world.  In
his warning about “scoffers” that will come in the last day and will scorn the idea that Jesus
Christ is coming again, Peter says of them, “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s
word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of the water and within the water.”  They
did deliberately forget means that they knowingly and intentionally refused to take into
consideration some dareities with which the Christian must approach life.  These things that they
intentionally forget are things that we must constantly remember if we are to survive in this
aggressively secular world.  
For our own preparation for thinking like a Christian in a secular world, let us consider these
three things that Simon Peter felt to be extremely important to be remembered.  
I.  REMEMBER:  THIS WORLD IS A WORK OF CREATION.
The first thing they were deliberately forgetting touches on the very nature of the world in which
we live.  “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s Word the heavens existed and the
earth was formed out of water and with water.”  In this direct word from Simon Peter we have a
reminder of the creation account in Genesis 1.  You will remember in that creation account that
the earth was covered with water until God by His Word caused the earth to rise up out of the
water and divided the water from the dry land.  This is the part of creation to which Simon Peter
specifically refers to in this statement.
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This should not be seen as a statement about how the earth began from a scientific perspective.
Rather, it should be seen simply as a restatement of the creation account as it is found in Genesis
1.  Peter seems to give emphasis to the place of water in the early creation because of the next
statement that he will make concerning the water.  The primary thing we should emphasize is
that it all happened “by God’s Word.”  The very heavens in which the earth exists came into
being by God’s word.  The very earth itself was formed and molded into it’s present situation by
God’s word.  The truth of creation is an important truth to remember if you are to have a
Christian mindset in a secular world.  
One of the things that sets the Christian apart from the secular world in which he lives is his
understanding of the beginnings.  Our naturalistic, secular world had a naturalistic explanations
for the beginnings of the earth.  In our day they are holding on to these understandings in spite of
mounting evidence that contradict their commitments to a revolutionary hypothesis.  Charles
Darwin himself wrote in The Origin of the Species, “If it could be demonstrated that any
complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive,
slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”  In our day the scientific
community has experienced some break throughs that indicate that Darwin’s theory never took
into consideration. Michael Behe, a biochemist and college professor, has written the book,
Darwin’s Box.  In the book he demonstrates something that Darwin never took into
consideration.  He writes, “To Darwin the cell was a black box – its inner workings were utterly
mysterious to him.  Now, the black box has been opened and we know how it works.  Applying
Darwin’s test to the ultra-complex world of molecular machinery and cellular systems that have
been discovered over the past forty years, we can say that Darwin’s theory has “absolutely
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broken down.’”  Darwin had no idea about the complexity of the cell.  Behe and other scientists
have demonstrated conclusively that there is no way that the cell could have just happened.  But
it is amazing how tenacious the scientific community is in holding on to the idea that the world
can be explained naturalistically and materially.  
If you are to have a Christian mind in this secular world, you must hold even more tenaciously to
the Biblical truth that God created the heavens and the earth.  This perspective makes all the
difference in the world when you began to interpret the world about you.  If this world owes its
existence to a personal and sovereign God, then man is not the master of his own fate.  He owes
his existence to another.  It is critical for us in our day that we prepare our minds to think
wholesomely and purely.  We must view everything in our world from the perspective that God
made it.  
II.  THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE IS A MORAL UNIVERSE.
The second reality that the secular world wants to ignore again relates to the nature of the world
in which we live.  They deliberately want to ignore the moral nature in the world in which we
live.  Peter brings this before us with his reference to the deluge that came in the day of Noah.
“By water also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.”  The same Lord that spoke in
creation spoke again in judgment when the world rebelled against him and moved to exclude him
from his own world.  Peter views the Genesis’ account of the flood that destroyed the civilization
of Noah’s day as being a matter of historic record.  He reminds us that the world of that time was
submerged and destroyed by the waters of judgment.  If the Genesis account is accepted as a
historic record of what God did in that ancient day, then it will change the way you view the
 5
world in which we live.  You can no longer view the world naturalistically.  You will have to
view the world as being a moral universe in which the deeds of man have serious consequences.  
One of the things that modern man has done is deny the historicity of the Genesis account.  They
have chosen to ignore the fact that there is a geological evidence for such a fact.  They have
chosen to deny evidences from an archeological perspective.  They have also chosen to deny or
ignore the different accounts of such a flood that surface among the ancient peoples all over the
world.  The names change and a few of the minor details from culture to culture, but almost all
the world’s cultures have a memory of such a flood that devastated the face of the earth.  
If you can deny the historicity of the flood, and can deny the moral nature of the world in which
we live.  It makes it a lot easier to pursue an indulgent lifestyle.  It is interesting that Peter
indicates that these scoffers who refuse to remember the nature of the world also are people who
“follow their own evil desires.”  Since they want to do the thing they want to do, it makes it very
convenient to deny or forget that there is God who holds human kind responsible for their deeds.  
This perspective will effect how you see the world.  If you accept the truth that this is a moral
universe in which the God of creation is still actively judging sin, then you see the things that
flow through history as being the out working of the wrath of God.   The explanation that the
Apostle Paul gives for what happened in the Roman culture of his day in Romans 1 begins to
make sense.  You begin to see the things that are happening in terms of moral deterioration as
being evidence that “God gave them up.”  This is a moral universe.  It is so because it was
created by a holy God and is still sustained by this holy and almighty God.
 6
III.  THE WORLD IS DESTINED FOR JUDGMENT.
The Apostle states the third sobering thing that we must always remember:  “By the same word
the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and
destruction of ungodly men.”  It is not the purpose of the Apostle to give us an eschatological
timetable, or the arrangement by which the events of the end time will take place.  Rather it is his
purpose to remind us of something that secular man chooses to forget.  Scoffing secular man
chooses to forget that the world is destined for judgment.  
The exact description that Peter gives leaves us with some unanswered questions.  It coincides
with what we find in other places in foreseeing a day in which the earth itself and the heavens
will be cleansed by fire.  He is talking about “the present heavens and earth.”  The word
“heavens” should be understood as referring to the physical universe in which we live.  The earth
is the home territory that we occupy day by day.  God by His word has them reserved for fire.
He is actively keeping them for a day that He has already appointed – a Day of Judgment and
destruction.  The focus of this judgment and destruction will be “ungodly men.”  These ungodly
men are those who have lived without giving God proper place in their lives, without reverencing
His name, without acknowledging Him as the creator and sustainer of the universe.  They have
chosen rather to do their own thing in their own way for their own pleasure.  They have denied
any responsibility to the creator of their lives.  They and the world in which they live are
destined for this rendezvous with divine judgment.  
 7
Do you think it would make any difference in our society if our society as a whole begin to look
at life with the recognition that the earth and its peoples are headed for a horrible Day of
Judgment at the hand of almighty God?  The loss of  the fear of God in our culture is leading us
to a horrible harvest of evil.  As I drove down our streets this week and passed a police car and
noticed that on the side of the police car it read Lubbock Independent School District.  This was
not a city police designated to control traffic on our streets, this was a policemen designated to
keep peace and fight crimes in our schools.  What brought about a situation in which our school
systems have become so violent and dangerous that it requires precious tax money to support a
police department just to keep peace in our schools.  I can assure you there was no need of a
policeman at the Bluff City High School when I was student there.  Mr. John Henry Pearce, the
principal, could walk down the hall with a long ruler in his hand and spread enough of the fear of
the Lord that there would be no crime in our school.  If there had been some breach of right,
there would have been a parent at home who would have backed up the action of the school and
been supportive of disciplinary action.  I was afraid to get in trouble at school because I knew it
would be worse trouble at home.  We did have problems in our schools – somebody would be
caught chewing gum in class, or passing a note to a girlfriend, or being tardy for class.  But there
was never any hint of violent activity or the bringing of illegal drugs into our class situation.
When you begin to explain the world naturalistically and you begin to deny God His place in
society, the harvest of evil is certain and sure.  
This is the reason that Peter is stirring up our minds.  He is calling on us to keep a Christian
mindset in the midst of a secular-thinking world.  The only way you can live a life that is
pleasing to God in a world like this is to keep fresh in your mind that you were created by God,
 8
you are responsible to God, and you are destined for a day of accountability before almighty
God. When you keep these things in mind they become a strong encouragement to holy living
and useful living.  

http://storage.cloversites.com/dllowrieministriesinc/documents/2%20Peter%203%201-7.pdf

“Genesis: A Deeper Look, Part 2"

“Genesis: A Deeper Look, Part 2:” by Romans

At our last Discussion, we reviewed the Book of Genesis. We focused in on the Account of the Flood as it is found in Genesis, and contrasted it with the Epic of Gilgamesh. In that Flood account, as you may recall, the gods decided, on a whim, to wipe out humanity because it was too noisy, interrupting the gods' rest. I also talked about the building of the Tower of Babel, and how God confused the common language so that mankind would spread out and replenish the earth, as God had intended.

But tonight I would like to share something with all of you that I saw on the 700 Club at least 20 years ago. The amazing thing is that I never heard, again, ever referred to by anyone at any time. And that is not because it is controversial or unfounded. It is a startling confirmation of the events that took place in the Book of Genesis, but from a completely unexpected source. That source is the ancient Chinese language. The Chinese language has been a written language for thousands of years. Rather than use letters to form words, they use symbols called pictographs.


These pictographs are used singly to convey ideas, or they can be combined to make compound new words to describe more detailed ideas. For example, and this is just an example not actual Chinese, the word “duck” might be a combination of the pictographs for bird and water. But here is why I bring this up: ancient Chinese pictographs reveal a surprising reference to themes and occurrences familiar to us in the Book of Genesis, that reveals an unexpected  . The Chinese culture would not have been exposed to these these details thousands of miles from where they took place, and thousands of years before Christ sent out missionaries to preach His Word. These pictographs cannot be written off as mere coincidence.

Now let me share with you some of the details of these amazing pictographs.

Think of this: The ancient Chinese pictograph for the word safety was a layered combination of three seemingly unrelated pictographs. They started out pictograph for the word ship. The second symbol they added was the symbol for the word “people.” And that follows. Unless the ship is mysteriously abandoned and floating in the Bermuda Triangle, you expect to see people on a ship when it is out at see. But think of this: How many ships have been built with safety in mind. They are built to be safe on the water, but not to be safe from the water. Ships are built, exclusively,  to transport people and cargo from points A to B, when water divides those two points. But, remember, I said the ancient Chinese symbol for safety had a third added pictograph. And it's that third symbol that makes this so interesting. It is the symbol for the number 8. You may consider one person traveling safely on the water in that the ship is seaworthy. Maybe two people. But 8 people on a ship? And this pictograph is not the symbol for seaworthiness. The ancient Chinese pictograph for the word “safety” are the combined symbols which would read in sentence form: “8 people on a ship.” How many people were on the Ark? There was Noah and his wife. That's two. Noah's three sons. That's five. And Noah's son's three wives. That's  eight! Eight people on a ship, picturing the ultimate expression of safety... the safety of the Ark, while the entire population of the earth drowned all around them.

As I said last week, The Babylonian “Epic of Gilgamesh” also described a worldwide Flood. Was it just a fictitious Babylonian Myth on which the Genesis Account was based? Some 4,000 years after the Flood is supposed to have taken place, Jesus referred to it as an historical event: Notice His words beginning in  Matthew 24:38: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away;”

Noah entered into the Ark. Safety. Eight people on a ship while the entire rest of the population of the earth “knew not until the Flood came, and took them all away.” Jesus was alive when that event took place. He existed as a not only a member of the Godhead, but as THE member Who was the God of the Old Testament!  When we read in 6:6: “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart,” we are reading the reaction and emotions of the very One Who became Jesus Christ to die for our sins. Jesus knew that the Genesis Account of the Flood was not based on the pre-existing myths of any pagan culture. He knew that the Flood was a genuine historical event because He was the One in His pre-human God in Heaven state of existence Who sent it to wipe out mankind!

And the children of the survivors of the Flood, whose languages were confused by God to spread them out over the face of the earth, took that knowledge of the Flood with them in all the various languages that spoke in. And that is why sociologists have never encountered any culture, no matter how remote, that did not have an awareness that there was a Flood, a worldwide Flood. And that is also why and how we can see, recorded in the ancient Chinese language when they were developing written language, the unexpected and completely incompatible layer of symbols for the word “safety,” combined into a pictograph that reads, “Eight people on a ship.”

We will come back to the Flood Account, again, shortly, but I want to continue to share with you a few other amazing ancient Chinese pictographs. How about this one? The word is “create.” The pictograph for the word create is a combination of four pictographs: First there is the symbol for clay, added to the symbol for breath, added to the symbol for walking, added to the symbol for alive. If this were a sentence, the pictograph for “create” would read “Clay man received breath, and walked alive.” The very name, “Adam,” means “red clay.”This pictograph is the very scene portrayed in Genesis 2:7: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Is this also just another bizarre coincidence? Is this another accidental reflection of an event described in Genesis, but portrayed in an ancient Chinese pictograph? No. The knowledge that the children of the survivors of the Flood had, went out with them. Those who spread to Asia also developed written language. They were able to put their knowledge into writing, and incorporate what they knew into pictograph characters that comprised their language. These are not coincidences.

Here's another one: The pictograph for word temptation is a combination of the pictographs for a woman, added to the pictograph for tree, and the pictograph for serpent.

The pictograph for the word, “flood” are the pictographs for “eight,” “united,” “one earth,” and  “water.” Certainly the pictographs  for “water” and “one earth” might be expected to represent a flood.
But there's that number “eight” again, this time merged with the symbol for “united.” There was   knowledge among those who migrated to Asia when language was confounded, knowledge that there was a Flood, and that only eight people survived.

Here is one last pictograph that refers back to the Tower of Babel. The Genesis account tells us in Genesis 11:3: “And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower,” The ancient Chinese pictograph for “tower” is a combination of the pictographs for “bricks” “clay,” “grass,” “mankind,” and “mouth.” The first three, bricks, clay and grass easily point to a tower. But mankind and mouth add the element of speech being associated with a tower. And the Tower of Babel, of course, is where the language of mankind was confounded.

These pictographs are amazing. Their existence in ancient Chinese writings, before they had any contact with the West, really makes one stop to think about the veracity of the Bible, and the stories that are conveyed there.

There are other truly amazing pictures that the Book of Genesis presents as foreshadows of Jesus Christ that, can be easily read over and missed. I would like to review some of these with you now. These are the things that I have read from various authors who took the time let the Word of God speak to their hearts and minds on a deeper level. One of these authors is one whom I regularly quote, namely Matthew Henry. But there is another I would like to quote, tonight, whose name is likely new to all of you: Ada Habershon. She wrote a book that a friend of mine from the Church I was attending in Philadelphia told me about. The book is titled, “Study of the Types.” A type is a foreshadow of Christ found in the Old Testament which A type could be portrayed by a person or an event that highlights a facet of Christ, or something to do with Messianic events, or His Ministry.

Jesus, Himself, acknowledged and endorsed their existence. Notice, for example, Jesus' own words beginning in Matthew 12:38: :Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Most people, believers and unbelievers alike, are aware of the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale, or as it says in the Book of Jonah, a “great fish.” But few are aware of Jonah's having spent three days and nights in the fish's belly is actually a type of Christ's burial, and resurrection three days later.
 
In the book, Study of the Types,  the author displays keen perception and insight as she brings to light some amazing Messianic foreshadows. I would also like to bring to your attention something else about this author: She was born in 1861... yes, that's not a typographical error... 1861... in London. Abraham Lincoln was President when she was born. She died in 1918, so her book was written at a time when such a Bible Study reference was the exclusive domain of men. Her work, nonetheless, is a marvelous and edifying piece of writing. She was also a prolific author, as demonstrated by the page from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/191-9470092-9182051?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Ada+Habershon
Let me share with you from her book, how somwthing we have been reviewing for several weeks was a type of Christ, namely, Noah's Ark.

The Apostle Peter writes about Noah's Ark. Breaking into a thought, we read  in 1 Peter 3:20: “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” Peter, here, tells us that “few... were saved.” Of those eight who were saved, it was their faith in God's Provision of the Ark, and their being on board that kept them alive, while everyone else perished. Christ is so pictured in a strikingly similar way. The Apostle John wrote in his first epistle in 1 John 5:12: “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
Peter added to that thought in his first public sermon, delivered on the Day of Pentecost, after being filled and empowered with the Holy Spirit. We read beginning in Acts 4:10: “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

Just as there was no other way outside the Ark for any of the pre-Flood world to be able to saved, so Jesus Christ is the only Way to Eternal Life, and to the Father. The Ark had but one door. Notice God's instruction to Noah on the Ark's specifications in Genesis 6:16: “A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door {singular} of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof;” Jesus identified Himself as “the only door” in John 10:9: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

Let's go to “Study of the Types” so I can give you an example of the author's insights. On the first page of the chapter titled, “Types of the Resurrection,” Ms. Habershon refers to the reference in Genesis where the waters of Flood have receded, and the Ark comes to rest. But Genesis tells us not only where the Ark came to a rest, but also a specific date. The average reader would simply look at this specific date and just move on to the next verse. Instead, Ms. Habershon writes, “It is remarkable that the date is given on which the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat... We are told that the Ark rested on the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month. The seventh month was the month Abib; but from the time of the first Passover, it became the beginning of months, and the “first month of the year.”

Let me interrupt the text for a bit of clarification. Before the observance of the Passover, Abib was the seventh month. Notice in Exodus 12:1: “And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” Later in that same chapter, details about observing the Passover during the month of Abib, are given. Exodus 12:5: “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.”

Back to Ms. Habershon's comments: “The lamb was killed on the fourteenth day of the same month; and the third day after this was the seventeenth, the day on which the ark rested.” Do you see what she is saying? Jesus was crucified on the daylight portion of the fourteenth of Abib. As He said He would, fulfilling the type established by Jonah, Jesus rose from the dead three days later... on the seventeenth, the same day that the Ark rested. Ms. Habershon continues, “The resting of the ark on Mount Ararat, and Noah stepping forth on to the new earth, would prefigure resurrection life.”

There are many other details and references in the Book of Genesis that can easily be missed as either types or powerful direct references of Jesus. Take this one pointed out by Matthew Henry. It is in reference to something most of us are familiar with. When Adam and Eve sinned, God imposed a number of penalties because they had sinned: One of the penalties that I never gave a second thought to was when God cursed the ground.  We read in Genesis 3:17: “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee... ”

Of this Matthew Henry writes, “God put marks of displeasure on Adam. 1. His habitation is cursed. God gave the earth to the children of men, to be a comfortable dwelling; but it is now cursed for man's sin. Yet Adam is not himself cursed, as the serpent was, but only the ground for his sake. 2. His employments and enjoyments are imbittered to him. Labour is our duty, which we must faithfully perform; it is part of man's sentence, which idleness daringly defies. Uneasiness and weariness with labour are our just punishment, which we must patiently submit to, since they are less than our iniquity deserves. Man's food shall become unpleasant to him. Yet man is not sentenced to eat dust as the serpent, only to eat the herb of the field. 3. His life also is but short; considering how full of trouble his days are, it is in favour to him that they are few. Yet death being dreadful to nature, even when life is unpleasant, that concludes the punishment. Sin brought death into the world: if Adam had not sinned, he had not died. He gave way to temptation, but the Saviour withstood it. And how admirably the satisfaction of our Lord Jesus, by his death and sufferings, answered the sentence passed on our first parents! … Did thorns come in with sin? He was crowned with thorns for us. Did sweat come in with sin? He sweat for us, as it had been great drops of blood. Did sorrow come in with sin? He was a man of sorrows; his soul was, in his agony, exceeding sorrowful. Did death come in with sin? He became obedient unto death. Blessed be God for his Son our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I had not previously realized that the very thorns that appeared as a curse in response to our first  parents' disobedience, became the crown used used by the Roman soldiers to mock Jesus as a king. The thorns were a curse for sin, and Jesus, Himself, became a curse when He accepted the punishment of death that Adam brought on all of mankind. We read in Galatians 3:13: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:”

Only God could have know the day and date that the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. Noah could not have been keeping track of the passage of time on the Ark. But God knew the significance of that date. And that is why the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to record it. After all, Jesus, the Lamb of God is said to have been “slain from the foundation of the world,” (Revelation 13:8)  All of these foreshadows can be seen as being woven into the picture by God, Himself.

The Church is pictured as being the Bride of Christ. Under what circumstances did God present a bride to the first Adam.  We read in Genesis 2:21: “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;” Sleep is a symbolic way that the Bible refers to death. Paul speaks of Jesus' resurrection with this symbolism in 1 Corinthians 15:20 “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.” After Adam was asleep, God open Adam's side to take a rib. In like manner, after it was known that Jesus was dead, or asleep, we read in John 19:33: “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side...” The Bride that Christ will take as His wife at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, was given Him by the Father after He caused Him also to “sleep,” and then be awakened, or raised, from that “sleep.” The Second Adam, as the first Adam, was awakened with a scar on his side, a scar necessary in order for Him to receive a Bride.  After His resurrection, Jesus said to Thomas in John 20:27: “Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.”

The rich foreshadowing symbolism is simply too significant and meaningful to be coincidental. It is written for us by a God Who knows the end from the beginning. The events of Genesis are not the product of an ancient writer with nothing more than a vivid imagination. Neither is the Bible a homogenized re-write of pagan myths. The Bible is like no other Book that has ever been, or can ever be written, where man is both the source and the author of what is written. Today, some of the most brilliant minds on the planet have rejected God's Word as myth, giving it no more respect than than stories from Greek Mythology. Yet, impossible details regarding the Creation and Flood Accounts found in the Book of Genesis, have been found, recorded in within the very picture-alphabet of ancient Chinese writing. God left us these wonderful little pieces of evidence to uncover and be uplifted by, and they defy the taunting doubt of the critics. Equally amazing and unmistakable Messianic foreshadows prove beyond any doubt that the Bible IS the inspired Word of the Living God Who Created us, Who loves us with an everlasting love, and Who longs to establish a relationship with us that will last into Eternity. It is the only Book on Earth that has revealed that Good News to mankind. And it is the only Book on Earth that could reveal to us the otherwise unknowable Truths of God.

This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Genesis – A Deeper Look”
Originally delivered "live" on December 5th, 2013

"Genesis: A Deeper Look"

“Genesis: A Deeper Look:” by Romans

Last week we reviewed the entirety of the Old Testament, summarizing one book at a time. I found it to be a most inspiring and edifying review as I prepared my Discussion Notes. For all of you who were hear for that, I hope the hour we spent together was also profitable to you.

Tonight, I'd like to take a closer look at the Book of Genesis, and examine the Account of the Flood:

First, there are many reservations  about Scripture, and rejection of the Bible as the Word of God from
many circles. During the the Nineteenth Century, the Bible came a under close scrutiny from scholars, especially from Germany. This is generally referred to as the “Higher Criticism” that went from interpreting Scripture from the perspective achieving a deeper understanding of it, to questioning it, or more accurately distrusting it from every angle. It was not only the inspiration of Scripture came into question, it was the authorship, and the time of authorship. What had been accepted as prophecy suddenly was basically being called a hoax, claiming that it was written AFTER the events happened.

In addition, other ancient writings came to light that included events that were similar to those found in Scripture. Has anyone ever heard of The Epic of Gilgamesh? It includes, among other things, an account of Flood that wiped out almost all of mankind. As I understand it, when the Epic of Gilgamesh was originally found, critics started accusing the Bible of plagiarism. The charge was that whoever wrote Flood story in the Bible, stole it from the Epic of Gilgamesh, and just changed a few of the details to make it look like the original. The account was changed from gods flooding the earth to one God. This was the beginning of monotheism, or the worship of one God. But there were a few other “details” that differentiated Genesis from the Gilgamesh Account of the Flood, as well.

From an article I found at the website http://www.voices.yahoo.com, about this subject, we read thus about the varying Flood accounts found in each: “Both tales include one man chosen by the gods (or God) to survive the flood, and this man builds an ark, which he fills with his family and pairs of all living creatures. The rest of mankind is eliminated because God (or the gods) was displeased with them. In Gilgamesh, the gods found the people to be too noisy, interrupting their rest, so, on a whim; they decided to bring forth the flood to rid them of their nuisance. In Genesis, God was displeased with mankind because he found them to be wicked, and decided to eliminate them by means of a flood.”

There is a significant difference between the motives for the Flood found in Genesis as compared to the Gilgamesh account. In Gilgamesh, humans were “noisy,” and interrupted the gods' sleep. The Flood which destroyed almost every human being on earth, was sent on a whim. In stark contrast, the motivation in Scripture for the Flood was not over something petty like noisiness, or even over mere wickedness. It was a all-encompassing wickedness that almost defies the imagination. We read beginning in Genesis 6:5: “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth...”  

“Noisiness,” on the one hand, and “ every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” on the other. That is quite a contrast.

Y'all know that sooner or later I am going to bring Matthew Henry into this mix, so it may as well be sooner.
Here is what he wrote regarding God's motivation for the Flood, and the description of the state to which  mankind had sunk:

“The most remarkable thing concerning the old world, is the destroying of it by the deluge, or flood. We are told of the abounding iniquity of that wicked world: God's just wrath, and his holy resolution to punish it. In all ages there has been a peculiar curse of God upon marriages between professors of true religion and its avowed enemies. The evil example of the ungodly party corrupts or greatly hurts the other. Family religion is put an end to, and the children are trained up according to the worldly maxims of that parent who is without the fear of God. If we profess to be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, we must not marry without his consent. He will never give his blessing, if we prefer beauty, wit, wealth, or worldly honours, to faith and holiness. The Spirit of God strove with men, by sending Enoch, Noah, and perhaps others, to preach to them; by waiting to be gracious, notwithstanding their rebellions; and by exciting alarm and convictions in their consciences...”

Continuing, “But the Lord declared that his Spirit should not thus strive with men always; he would leave them to be hardened in sin, and ripened for destruction. This he determined on, because man was flesh: not only frail and feeble, but carnal and depraved; having misused the noble powers of his soul to gratify his corrupt inclinations. God sees all the wickedness that is among the children of men; it cannot be hid from him now; and if it be not repented of, it shall be made known by him shortly. The wickedness of a people is great indeed, when noted sinners are men renowned among them. Very much sin was committed in all places, by all sorts of people. Any one might see that the wickedness of man was great: but God saw that every imagination, or purpose, of the thoughts of man's heart, was only evil continually. This was the bitter root, the corrupt spring. The heart was deceitful and desperately wicked; the principles were corrupt; the habits and dispositions evil. Their designs and devices were wicked. They did evil deliberately, contriving how to do mischief. There was no good among them...”

Continuing: “God saw man's wickedness as one injured and wronged by it. He saw it as a tender father sees the folly and stubbornness of a rebellious and disobedient child, which grieves him, and makes him wish he had been childless. The words here used are remarkable; they are used after the manner of men, and do not mean that God can change, or be unhappy. Does God thus hate our sin? And shall not we be grieved to the heart for it? Oh that we may look on Him whom we have grieved, and mourn! God repented that he had made man; but we never find him repent that he redeemed man. God resolves to destroy man: the original word is very striking, 'I will wipe off man from the earth,' as dirt or filth is wiped off from a place which should be clean, and is thrown to the dunghill, the proper place for it. God speaks of man as his own creature, when he resolves upon his punishment. Those forfeit their lives who do not answer the end of their living. God speaks of resolution concerning men, after his Spirit had been long striving with them in vain. None are punished by the justice of God, but those who hate to be reformed by the grace of God.”

The story of the Flood is not just a story invented by pagans. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written after the Flood, by descents of Flood survivors, namely the children and great grandchildren of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah's children who were on the Ark, itself. The similarities between the two stories were because they Flood actually happened. The major difference is the trivialization of the motive for the Flood from the Genesis Account to the Gilgamesh account. In Genesis, it was described as wickedness on an unprecedented scale. In Gilgamesh it was making too much noise, and interrupting sleep. Genesis is not an embellished version of what happened. Gilgamesh is a trivialized down-playing of the grievous nature of sin, at a time of rampant and ceaseless evil so out of control that God had to intervene and put an end to it. The charge from critics of the Bible, that the fabricated Gilgamesh account was the original,  implies that there was no Flood, nor anyone named Noah whom God called upon to build an Ark to save mankind and land animals.

But in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, Himself, spoke of both the Flood as an historical event, and the Ark as an actual ship was built to preserve life. Notice Jesus' words in Matthew 24, as He responds to a question about the signs that would accompany His return to earth: We'll begin in Matthew 24:37: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”


I know a man who is an agnostic. He does not accept the notion that the Bible is inspired. One day he told me something that I found fascinating for several reasons which I will explain in a minute. He said that anthropologists, or scientists who study the cultures and social environments of people all over the world have said that they have never encountered a culture, no matter how remote, that did not have a knowledge of the Flood as a part of their history of folklore. We're not talking about some local flood that happened in their own lifetimes, I mean THE Flood... the Flood that wiped out all of mankind.
So my agnostic acquaintance asked the following question in light of that statement about the Flood. He asked, “IF there really was a Flood that wiped everybody out... then how can it possibly be true that remote cultures  all over the earth are aware of it, thousands of years later? I thought the Bible said that everyone was wiped out.”

Before I answer his question, I would like to throw it out to all of you. How can the Flood be universally known in the remotest cultures all over the world?

Yes. Here is the answer. My friend hopes that when he asks a question like that, that he is talking to someone who just believes the Word of God because someone told him to. He thinks I was led to the water, and so I just started drinking without asking questions. Well, I DO believe the Bible. But I also ask plenty of questions, not from the point of you of disproving it, but putting it through its paces, and allowing it to speak to me. I have found the Bible to be a inexhaustible mine of precious jewels. When you start digging into Scripture, you find more and more and more wealth of every description.

Let's get back to my agnostic friend's question. If you look at world history as it is presented in the pages of Genesis, you see the Flood in Chapter Six. The Flood did not wipe out everyone. Noah, and his wife, his three sons, and their three wives, along with all land animals, were all saved by boarding the ark. And the ark touched down on the peaks of Mt. Ararat, and all the people and all the animals got off the ark.

But something else happened that you don't read about until five Chapters later in Genesis 11. Verse one tells us, “Genesis 11:1 “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.”
This, as you may already know, is the account of the Tower of Babel. We read in Genesis 11:4: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

As I said earlier, these were people who would have been aware of the Flood, but not because they read about it in a book; they had living parents, grandparents or other close relatives (uncles and aunts) who had survived the Flood. The people build that Tower  were told first-hand accounts about how every person and land animal died in the waters of the Flood. But their relatives were spared death by drowning by being a passenger on the Ark which was able to just float away when the waters rose. We read a pre-Flood description of what human society had degenerated to, in Genesis 6:11: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”

There is another description that almost defies the imagination in its scope of depravity and rebellion against God that was rampant on the earth at that time: We read in Genesis 6:5: “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Everyone on earth who chose to go their own way of rebellion against God's rule over man, was drowned.

Let's focus in on the descendents of the survivors building of the Tower, first. What purpose do you suppose the Tower was supposed to serve?

Bible commentaries have suggested a variety of purposes. The first one that came to my mind was this: When a Flood threatens, where is the place that people are always advised to seek? Higher ground, or at least a place above the water level. A tower could serve that purpose. Not everyone could be saved, but certainly more than were saved when the first Flood wiped out everyone but eight people. Other commentaries suggested that the Tower may have been a religious idol dedicated to the sun in the heavens, (the Tower was supposed to reach the heaven) for drying up the waters of the Flood.

Consider: Flood waters abated, and dry land appeared. When the eight survivors of the Flood left the Ark, God blessed them with the very same words with which He blessed Adam and Eve, the only humans on the earth. We read beginning in Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”

Notice, now, in Genesis 9:1, God's words to the only human beings on earth: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” From the Online Merriam-Webster dictionary, we read the following definition for the word, “replenish.”

Replenish: transitive verb: a. to fill with persons or animals; b. archaic: to supply fully

In blessing the survivors of the Flood, it is apparent that He wanted them not only to have children, but to spread out over the face of the earth and fully populate the waste places of the entire planet. That is what it is to replenish. God blessed the survivors to both multiply, and fully supply the earth with people.  

Let's take a deeper look, and see what Matthew Henry had to say about the activity by mankind at the time of the building of the Tower: “How soon men forget the most tremendous judgments, and go back to their former crimes! Though the desolation of the deluge were before their eyes, though they sprang from the stock of righteous Noah, yet even during his life-time, wickedness increases exceedingly. Nothing but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit can remove the sinful lusts of the human will, and the depravity of the human heart. God's purpose was, that mankind should form many nations, and people all lands. In contempt of the Divine will, and against the counsel of Noah, the bulk of mankind united to build a city and a tower to prevent their separating. Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats. They made one another more daring and resolute. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works.”

Keep in mind that, at this time, a city as well as a tower, was under construction. Some other commentaries suggested that the Tower would provide a point of reference that people could see from far distances, and, in so doing, keep them from wandering off, and becoming separate from the population. The reference that “they were of one voice,” implies more than mere similarity of language.  The leadership of the day wanted everyone marching in locked step to established and approved customs. Separation and migration could lead to conflicting beliefs, and the rise of distant local leaders who could then challenge the new world order. We read of one such leader in the Chapter previous to the account of the Tower being built.  Nimrod was the grandson of Noah, and the son of Ham. Of Nimrod we read in Genesis 10:9: “He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” The term “before” in the phrase “before the Lord,”  has a variety of meanings. In Hebrew, the word is  “paniym”  -- pronounced: paw-neem.' Besides meaning “before,” translations into English from the Hebrew “paniym” have included the words  “against,” “anger,” and “battle.” This puts a whole new face on understanding how Nimrod is being spoken of. The people may well have given their allegiance to Nimrod “before the Lord,” or “in defiance of the Lord,”  as it also might have been transliterated. If you think this might be a stretch of the Hebrew on my part, consider Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, and how he described Nimrod, and his position in established society: We read in Genesis 10: 9: “he (Nimrod) hath begun to be a hero in the land; he hath been a hero in hunting before Jehovah;”

Let's continue in the account of their building the Tower of Babel. We discover further, beginning in Verse 5: “And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.”

The confounding of their language brought about what God had wanted the survivors to do all along, namely, replenish or fully supply the vacated earth with people. But it was only their language that was confounded. As they spread out upon the face of the earth, their memories of the first-person accounts of the Flood, spoken to them by their relatives who had survived it, went with them. And that is how it can be true that thousands of miles and thousands of years removed from the time and location of the Flood, every Culture on Earth has an awareness of a great Flood.

Apparently, my agnostic friend never applied the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel which took place soon after the Flood, and the resulting dispersion of people, to explain how every Culture on Earth knew about the Flood. No Western missionaries had been to visit them. They had not been given copies of Gideon Bibles. Billy  Graham never held a revival meeting in their village. They never saw a Bible. They never read Genesis. But they all know about the Flood. And that is true all over the earth.

It is our responsibility, as individuals, and collectively as the Body of Christ to know the Word of God. It is available to us in such a wide variety of formats: It is everywhere in paper book form, it is online, we can download it into our smartphones, we can get it in pocket-sized MP3 Players, we can get it on CD's and DVD's.

The entire Bible is available right here at the4gospels in a dramatized format for you to listen to daily. Go to

         http://the4gospels.net/current/audiobible/ipadplan2.php

Click on that day's assigned portion, and you can finish listening to the Bible in a year. Then, simply start over. You may have heard it once, but there is MUCH more to learn! The Bible will always be a Source of NEW revelation and understanding when you review what you thought you already knew and understood! I have been studying it for over 40 years, and the lights are STILL coming on for the first time, illuminating things I never saw before, or fully understood before!

The Word of God is everywhere, AND more than affordable! They make it so you cannot afford NOT to have it! There are websites like http://www.biblos.com, that provide it for FREE!! They offer multiple translations so you can use that one that is clearest to you. And there are automatic cross-references so you can see what other verses apply to what you're reading. This website also offers a variety of Bible Commentaries. And it is all FREE!

You have no excuse to not know what God wanted you to know in His Word!

The Bible is an inexhaustible gold mine! The more you dig, the richer you WILL get!
Get into the Word of God, and get the Word of God into you.

This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Genesis: A Deeper Look”
This was originally aired by Romans “live” on November 21st, 2013

Jealousy

Jealousy
James 3:16
New King James Version (NKJV)
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
James 3:14
New King James Version (NKJV)
14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
Joseph Dreams of Greatness
37 Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. 2 This is the history of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
5 Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. 6 So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
9 Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”
10 So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” 11 And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Joseph Sold by His Brothers
12 Then his brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. 13 And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.”
So he said to him, “Here I am.”
14 Then he said to him, “Please go and see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks, and bring back word to me.” So he sent him out of the Valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem.
15 Now a certain man found him, and there he was, wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, “What are you seeking?”
16 So he said, “I am seeking my brothers. Please tell me where they are feeding their flocks.”
17 And the man said, “They have departed from here, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.
18 Now when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. 19 Then they said to one another, “Look, this dreamer is coming! 20 Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”
21 But Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands, and said, “Let us not kill him.” 22 And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit which is in the wilderness, and do not lay a hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hands, and bring him back to his father.
23 So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. 24 Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.
25 And they sat down to eat a meal. Then they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing spices, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry them down to Egypt. 26 So Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh.” And his brothers listened. 28 Then Midianite traders passed by; so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
29 Then Reuben returned to the pit, and indeed Joseph was not in the pit; and he tore his clothes. 30 And he returned to his brothers and said, “The lad is no more; and I, where shall I go?”
31 So they took Joseph’s tunic, killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the tunic in the blood. 32 Then they sent the tunic of many colors, and they brought it to their father and said, “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s tunic or not?”
33 And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt Joseph is torn to pieces.” 34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. 35 And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.
36 Now the Midianites[a] had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.

Galatians 5:19-21
New King James Version (NKJV)
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,[a] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders,[b] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
There is another person in Scripture that comes to mind who displayed ,Jealousy!  WE will however touch on that later.
When we use the word “jealous,” we use it in a sense of being envious of someone who has something we do not have. This kind of jealousy is a sin and is not characteristic of a Christian; rather, it shows that we are still being controlled by our own desires (1 Corinthians 3:3). Galatians 5:26 says, “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other

The Bible tells us that we are to have the perfect kind of love that God has for us. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). The more we focus on ourselves and our own desires, the less we are able to focus on God. When we harden our hearts to the truth, we cannot turn to Jesus and allow Him to heal us (Matthew 13:15). But when we allow the Holy Spirit to control us, He will produce in us the fruit of our salvation, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).


Today Brothers and sisters we are going to discuss and see how we can overcome jealousy ,of which everyone has experienced from time to time in thier Christian walk. God is a jealous God , was it wrong for Him? NO. He has a righteous jealousy. He did not want His people worhipping idols! They were however , were  prostituting themselves to false God's. Even a golden calf! King Saul was a bad example of jealousy, as he hated and was jealous of David becoming the New King. He had no right to be jealous of him, as he brought on his own demise. He disobeyed God and put people before God's orders, so he himself could be worshipped by the people. He wanted to be noticed for himself and not for the glory of the Lord. This kind of jealousy is sinful!

⦁ In  order to overcome something , we have to first , admit what we are doing when  , God is showing us what we are doing, 2nd , we have to ask for forgiveness and third we need to strive with God's help to over come this sinful act.




Being jealous indicates that we are not satisfied with what God has given us. The Bible tells us to be content with what we have, for God will never fail or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). In order to combat jealousy, we need to become more like Jesus and less like ourselves. We can get to know Him through Bible study, prayer, and fellowship with mature believers. As we learn how to serve others instead of ourselves, our hearts will begin to change. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).
Rebellion against God is all the sins named in Galatians 5:19,  Therefore my brothers and sisters, we must take a look at this further, rebellion is a form of witchcraft, which leads to many other sins as mentioned there.
1Sam 15:23--- Who is Samuel talking to here? Saul ,king Saul, who was more concerned with himself than serving the Almighty God who chose Him to be KING> what were the results of this sin that Saul would not let go of!??
God turned him over to a spirit of heaviness. what is this heaviness? lets take a look.
Hopelessness, gloominess, depression,
Self-pity, (the self-indulgent feeling that your life story is harder and sadder than everyone else's), Desolation, (feeling pitiful through being without friends or fellowship), dashing hopes, (a notion of sadness or defeat because something was not as good, attractive, or acceptable as expected, or because something hoped for did not happen) insomnia, (inability to fall at rest or to stay at rest long enough to experience rested, particularly when this is a problem that continues over time), internal hurts, (relating to somebody's individual feelings or happening in somebody's head), and bruises, (emotional injury - an injury that is not physical, e.g. hurt feelings or discredited self-pride.)
Wow! did He bring this on himself? Yes why < cause He refused to give up His fleshly desires and give God All the Glory and also for disobeying God and refusing to do what He was asked . He was serving HIMSELF.

1 Samuel 15:23
New King James Version (NKJV)
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
He also has rejected you from being king.”




What ever happened to the days when people were genuinely happy for one another? Do you remember those days when nobody ever wanted something that someone else had? Oh, wait! Those days never existed.
Jealousy is probably one of the world's oldest emotions. It's been around since the beginning of time. Look at Cain and Abel. Now there's a prime example of jealousy run amok.
Many times we place unrealistic expectations on ourselves and the people around us. Often times we feel things should come easier and faster to us. Then if things don't happen when we think they should, we inevitably run into someone who already has what we want. All of a sudden, we feel this surge of ugly, green emotion called jealousy.

It is so easy to look at other people and wish we had what they have. And so many times it doesn't stop there. We start berating ourselves for not having what they have. Then we begin to believe negative junk ourselves. The next thing we know, we've developed insecurities in our relationships
⦁ Stop comparing yourself to other people. You were created as a very unique and special person. God had a plan for you long before you took your first breath. Relish that thought. Love the fact that you're special. What God has in mind for you isn't the same as for someone else. So you don't have to feel bad that you don't have all the qualities, features, money, or anything else that someone else has. Your journey is just that — yours.
⦁ Stop worrying about you all the time. Find a way to be a blessing to someone else. When you change your focus away from yourself, all of a sudden your self-image improves. You get to experience the feeling of satisfaction that only comes when you're a blessing to someone else. Your priorities start changing, and one day you realize that the things that used to make you so jealous and so nuts, don't bother you so much anymore.
Stop wanting what other people have if you're not willing to go through what they did to get it. When you see a person who is physically fit and looks positively great, it's easy to feel really jealous. But are you willing to work out every day? Are you willing to eat healthy and look for ways to be healthy? If you're not, then there really is no reason to feel jealous, is there?
Start focusing on all that's positive in your life. God has given you so many wonderful gifts that many other people don't have. Focus on using those gifts to help someone else. Since your mind can only consciously think about one thing at a time, doesn't it make sense to make sure that "one thing" is positive and is moving you toward the really great things in life? Breaking free from jealousy starts with your thoughts. When you change the way you think, you change the way you feel and act. The easiest way to change your focus is to begin by helping others. It will definitely be time well spent.
Folks Jealousy is like a cancer it feeds off of other things that you have not dealt with in your life and you think you have , such as insecurities. Jealosuy is not righteous . God's Jealousy is righteous , it protects us from idols! His love for us is so evident there.
Joseph was rewarded for hIs perseverance                all the while He was treated with hate by his brothers , and gotten rid of, there jealousy was cancerous , it hurt them , not Joseph, in the long run God Blessed Joseph for his service to Him and for His forgiveness of what they did to him. Joseph is a perfect foreshadowing of Christ here. They treated Jesus ,sold his clothes , turned him over to  jealous people, he was even put to death. He forgave them, and He as like  Joseph  sat at the right hand of a KING!  A pharaoh is not a King of Kings , he was an earthly king, lets clarify that! If you want to go even further Joseph fed them as well! Jesus fed the hungry ! Awesome or what? Clear foreshowing for me.
God’s character is perfect, above reproach. He is holy, just, loving, merciful, and long-suffering, but is He also jealous?
Humans are adept at expressing jealousy with selfishness, suspicion, and distrust. We find jealousy repulsive because it creates tension and discord while damaging relationships. How does God display an intense emotion such as jealousy?
The marriage relationship is one way to understand the difference between sinful jealousy and righteous jealousy. A husband who responds with anger simply because he sees his wife talking to another man shows unreasonable domination and self-centeredness—sinful jealousy. Selfishness and insecurity control his possessiveness, rather than a commitment to his wife and the sanctity of their marriage vows.

Now suppose another person is trying to alienate a husband or wife’s affections, tempting either spouse to violate the purity of their marriage relationship. Just as God has established holy standards for marriage, He takes every commitment as binding (Hebrews 13:4). He expressed His devotion and dedication to Israel as permanent. “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord” (Hosea 2:19-20).

No dedicated husband or wife having integrity wants to share their spouse with a substitute—neither does God. God
expects our exclusive devotion. When we give preference to anything instead of God, it is idolatry. We are committing spiritual adultery and God displays divine jealousy. “. . . Do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24). God is zealous for His holiness. Both in His wrath and His love, God remains holy.
God’s jealousy serves to guarantee His people’s ultimate deliverance and security, even during the harsh discipline the Israelites had to endure from time to time. Although the Israelites frequently displayed their spiritual infidelity towards God, He spared them because He is merciful, even though He is a jealous God.

God’s name exemplifies who and what He is. He is holy, deserving of glory. “. . . Among those who are near me, I'll show myself holy so that I'll be glorified before all people” (Leviticus 10:3). Jealousy is not a capricious mood with God. It is the ultimate expression of His being. In His infinite holiness, God is supremely dedicated to preserving His honor with exclusive devotion and worship. To require less would relegate Him to a lesser position of glory. “I, the LORD, am the one, and I won't give my name and glory to another, nor my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8).

This concludes my lesson for today , I pray that you will let it settle into the tablet's of your heart and know that God is speaking to all of us ! He is still busy reigning us , so we can experience the joy and Peace He has to give us. God is so giving even in a fallen , world that is getting worse , He still alive and on His throne , taking care of You and I! Teaching us to stop wanting to be #! . Stop trying to share the Mercy seat with God and . God
expects our exclusive devotion. When we give preference to anything instead of God, it is idolatry. We are committing spiritual adultery and God displays divine jealousy. “. . . Do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24). God is zealous for His holiness. Both in His wrath and His love, God remains holy.
God’s jealousy serves to guarantee His people’s ultimate deliverance and security, even during the harsh discipline the Israelites had to endure from time to time. Although the Israelites frequently displayed their spiritual infidelity towards God, He spared them because He is merciful, even though He is a jealous God.

Pray for one another !