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HOW TO BE RIGHT WITH GOD…
When God put Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, He only gave them one rule to obey. In Genesis 2 we read:
16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17But 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.
God said Adam and Eve could eat of every tree except one, and that’s because that tree belonged to God. Only God decides what is good and what is evil, or what is right and wrong. When man ate it he was essentially saying that he could decide what is right and what is wrong. When we put ourselves in God’s position and start deciding what is right and wrong independently of what God has said, we cut ourselves off from God and become spiritually dead.
Before Adam and Eve sinned, they would walk around naked without any shame as we read in Genesis 2:25:
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Not only were Adam and Eve physically naked, but they were naked on every level such as emotionally, spiritually, and mentally before God and each other. But once they sinned, their self image changed immediately and they felt ashamed of themselves as we read in Genesis 3:
6And 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.
7And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
They knew they had sinned and they decided to deal with their sin by covering themselves with an apron made out of fig leaves. Even after covering themselves with the fig aprons, they still felt ashamed of themselves which caused them to hide themselves from God.
8And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
The fig leaves were not able to remove the guilt they felt deep in their hearts. Everyone on earth feels this guilt and shame and we all have our own ways of dealing with our sin. But God did not find Adam and Eve’s method of dealing with their sin to be acceptable, nor does he find anyone’s method to be acceptable, except His own method. God revealed His method of how sin was to be dealt with when He told Adam and Eve about the coming of JESUS Christ in verse 15:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Here we see God promising to send a Savior into the world. The Savior would be a human being who would come through the seed of Eve. God is talking to Satan in verse 15 and He says that Satan is going to cause JESUS great pain, but also that JESUS is going to defeat Satan. We Christians are forgiven our sin by looking back upon what JESUS did for us on the cross. People could likewise become right with God by looking forward to the coming Messiah.
In verse 21, God demonstrated what JESUS was going to do.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
In order for God to provide Adam and Eve with coats of skins, God had to kill an animal and pour their blood out. In Hebrews 9:22 we read:
…without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin.
Therefore the only way to be right with God is to accept JESUS as the Lamb of God who has come to wash away the sins of all who receive what He has done for them.
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