January 22, 2021 — The Showdown

Some folks say they’re not afraid of God (like I’m not afraid of lions), but wait till they show up!

In Genesis 3:8, Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” It was His regular custom to visit with His creatures. What an honor! The Hebrew phrase for “cool of the day” is literally “in the evening breeze.” God designed the calendar. Remember this? “The evening and the morning were the first day.” So sunset was the beginning of a new day. God designed the day by spinning the earth on its axis every 24 hours. The months were arranged by cycling the moon around Earth, and years by orbiting Earth around the sun. God arranged the day so it began with an evening meal, a time of relaxation, then a good sleep, and finally sunrise to begin the work day. What a thoughtful God! Anyway, on this particular day, when God arrived, His creatures panicked! Sinners now, they were naked and ashamed. Hiding among the trees, they showed that the fig-leaf outfits didn’t fix things. Their shame wasn’t just a body problem; it went right to their guilty hearts. What would God do? We don’t have to guess. The Bible says in Genesis 3:21, “For Adam and his wife the Lord God made coverings of skin, and clothed them.” So what’s the difference between fig-leaf and animal skin coverings? The first, like man-made religion and self-help psychology, were human efforts, and failed; the second was entirely God’s provision—imagine Him working like a seamstress for His creatures! These skin coats meant the shedding of a substitute’s blood, the first in a long line of sacrifices leading to that moment when, shockingly, God Himself would come, in the person of His Son, to provide the ultimate solution for our deepest need: “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). Have you thanked Him for this?

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