Good morning,
This week we celebrate two extremely important holidays, Passover and the Resurrection.
To understand why these holidays are important to us as believers in Jesus, we must determine why we need a Savior (Monday), why the blood was important and the Passover holiday (Tuesday), birth and ministry of Jesus (Wednesday), the cross (Thursday), and the Resurrection (Friday).
Why do we need a Savior?
In Genesis 1, God created everything perfect. He stated in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
During the sixth day God created Adam and Eve. He put them in a garden called Eden. He gave them one command found in Genesis 2:16-17, which states, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
So far all is well. In chapter three, a new character is introduced to the narrative, the serpent. The serpent has various names in Scripture. He is called Lucifer, Satan, the devil, etc. He is well described in Ezekiel 28:13-19, “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. 18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. 19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”
So then, the serpent strikes up a conversation with Eve. Genesis 3:1-7 states, “Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Man has disobeyed God. THIS IS THE FIRST SIN.
What happens next? Genesis 3:21, states, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” The blood sacrifice of an innocent animal was required.
Tomorrow we will look at the blood sacrifice at the Passover and its significance.
Tom Stearns, WASI Chaplain, 907 715-4001
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