All Others Fail

So God started from the beginning with the cross in mind. It wasn’t a backup plan, it wasn’t a fail-safe. This was the best plan to save humankind. It was our stubborn state of being that caused God to lovingly show us that no other way would suffice, all others fail.

So God started with isolation, but in a good way. He isolated man and woman in a perfect garden. Nothing they desired was out of their reach. There was just one rule, and the temptation to break that rule won out. This is what caused man’s relationship with God to be broken. As God confronted the two of them in the garden, we see a foreshadowing of the cure for man’s fallen state, the sacrifice of blood. God took the skin of an animal (which inevitably killed it) to make a covering for the two of them. So, in essence God used the shed blood of an innocent to cover the sins of mankind. A perfect environment with only one rule, but sin still prevailed.

Later on, we see disobedience to God getting to such a strong point that God couldn’t find but one man that remained faithful to Him. Because of Noah’s faithfulness, God put His hand of blessing on Noah’s family and allowed them to be saved from the flood that destroyed the earth. This devastation was another plan to bring His people to obedience. But God knew it wouldn’t work. Although we hear of Noah’s faithfulness, we know nothing of his children or their spouses. We can assume that Noah taught them to follow God but what other influences shaped them? It wasn’t long before obedience to God was an afterthought once again.

The story continues as we see the birth of a nation. More on that next time. (click here)