In the beginning God created everything we see around us from nothing. He made a man in His image and then from the rib of the man created a woman to complete Him. In order to know if the man and the woman would love Him, God allowed them to be tempted by a fallen archangel. The man and the woman sin as God sets a curse on humanity but also promising to send the solution in the form of the Blessed Redeemer or Messiah.
In the beginning God created everything we see around us from nothing. He made a man in His image and then from the rib of the man created a woman to complete Him. In order to know if the man and the woman would love Him, God allowed them to be tempted by a fallen archangel. The man and the woman sin as God sets a curse on humanity but also promising to send the solution in the form of the Blessed Redeemer or Messiah. God covers the couples’ nakedness with the skins of animals the man was entrusted to care for and instructs them on the correct way to worship and how to approach Him.
In the process of time, two brothers are born. One obeys God in the acceptable way to worship by bringing a lamb to the altar while the other brother attempts to worship God in his own way by bringing the fruit of the field. When his sacrifice is rejected, jealousy fills his countenance as he murders his brother. Meanwhile the earth is becoming filled with selfish, destructive people who have completely turned their back on their Creator. God shows His grace and mercy and saves a small remnant who love and trust in Him, as the heavenly floodgates and fountains of the deep open up, covering the earth in a catastrophic worldwide deluge.
Safe aboard the ark, eight people wait for God’s deliverance as a dove returns with an olive branch in its mouth. Once again God blesses His creation and commands them to go spread out and fill the entire earth, promising never again to destroy the earth with water. Generations pass as people forget about God and decide that the fertile plain below the ark is probably a better place to stay, build cities and towers to their newly invented gods of creation; gods made of earth, wood and stone.
God, wanting to reveal Himself to the entire world, chooses one family line through which the promised Savior would come into the world. God promises that his family would prosper, eventually becoming as numerous as the stars in heaven or the sands of the sea shore. One descendant is blessed with twelve sons who become the twelve tribes of this new God-led nation.
The youngest son, being mistreated by his other brothers, is sold into slavery and bought by a wealthy Egyptian noble. Because of his obedience to the One True and Living God he is blessed and prospers, eventually becoming second in command of the entire Egyptian nation. In God’s time, a famine devours the entire land of Canaan, forcing the other brothers to look for food down in Egypt. Unknowingly, they are granted an audience with their brother who they do not recognize. They end up being fed, cared for and eventually relocate to Goshen, Egypt.
Four hundred and thirty-two years pass as the small family of twelve brothers grows into a nation of Hebrew slaves. Because of their growing out-of-control population, the Pharaoh commands that all male children be thrown into the Nile River. One male baby escapes death by being put into a small ark of bulrushes and floated down the river where the Pharaoh’s daughter finds him. This Hebrew baby grows up as one of Pharaoh’s own sons with all the luxury and entitlement that one can dream of.
When he is older, he kills an Egyptian who is beating a Hebrew slave. Now the young man is banished from Egypt and escapes into the desert of Midian. At the age of eighty, the shepherd is sent back to Egypt to demand that the Pharaoh let his people go! After ten plagues that were focused on the Egyptian gods of nature, gods of wood and stone, the death of the first born is the last straw as Pharaoh lets the fledgling nation of Israel go.
The people grumble and complain and are sentenced to walk for forty years in the desert. After this generation passes, they are allowed to go into the Promised Land. Soon mighty kings are building a very large and powerful nation. However, they once again forget the God who has led them there and begin to worship the gods of nature; gods of wood and stone.
So, when the moment was right, God sent His own Son. He opened the way so that everyone who had hoped and believed that when time was done, God would be able to make us one! But the selfish and destructive people grabbed hold of the Son of God and they beat Him, mocking Him until He died as the angry crowd nailed Him to a tree.
So the curse that started in a garden ended as a gift on a cross.
