July 31: The Last Word
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:3
The inspired word of God identifies Jesus in the role of Creator. After six days of creating (Genesis 2:1-3), He made another day and set it apart for rest, joyful fellowship and refreshment. Adam and Eve were only one day old when they spent that first Sabbath with Him. What a special time with the Maker that first Sabbath must have been! The weekly pattern of our first parents was a pattern of joy and delight in their fellowship with God and each other. We are not told how long the pattern continued before temptation was presented to go against God’s instruction in the Garden of Eden.
The first two chapters of Genesis show us that God’s plan for marriage was revealed at creation. The intimate relationship between the man and his wife came to be symbolic for the close relationship He desires to have with His people.
These three teachings—creation, marriage, and the seventh-day Sabbath—were put into place before sin entered the world. They came under attack by the archenemy of Christ in the early days of earth’s history. The cunning and subtle serpent through which Satan worked to introduce temptation was, at the time, a beautiful creature. Many believe he had wings and it is certain that he had legs; his jewel-like coloring and graceful movements had a hypnotic effect. His question, innuendos, and lie regarding death were enough to convince Eve to reach out and take of the one forbidden tree.
These last days are marked very distinctly with Satan’s intensifying attack against the precepts of God. God is allowing it, even as He is telling us about it in His word. Being confronted with specific tests has a way of bringing our decision-making into sharp focus. Daniel’s three friends in chapter 3 of his book were confronted with breaking the second commandment. But they chose to remain faithful, and as they were being punished for their “crime” Jesus was with them in the fiery furnace (see Daniel 3:25). Later, Daniel was punished for his faithfulness to God in prayer, but he was protected when the angel of God shut the lions’ mouths (6:22). Long before the commandments of the LORD were codified by His finger on stone tablets (Exodus 31:18), Joseph refrained from committing adultery, calling it a great wickedness and sin against God (Genesis 39:9).
You and I have the opportunity to become a child of God even if Satan whispers that we have fallen too far to be saved. God’s Holy Spirit gently woos us. Right now, I can ask the Lord who is to come into my life. He who was has the power to forgive my past. And He who is to come holds the eternal and unimaginably wonderful future as a promise for His children. The same Jesus who is the Creator and Giver of every good gift and every perfect gift (James 1:17) will have the final word!
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.” Revelation 1:8,11a