Notes of a Preacher

Here is another fact the Bible describes concerning the beginning of creation: “...but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.” The word translated as “mist” refers to a thick, dense water mist that appeared before sunrise. Everything on the surface of the Earth became covered with moisture.

Because of the water that existed above the atmosphere, a greenhouse effect was created on Earth. As a result, there were no drastic temperature changes and therefore no seasonal change from summer to winter. The atmosphere was warmed evenly, and because of the greenhouse effect, excess moisture did not gather into clouds; therefore, there was no rain. There was more than enough moisture in the ground and in the atmosphere for the abundant growth of every kind of plant. The changing of the seasons began after the Flood.

“...while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, [and] day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

On the island of Greenland, which today is covered by many meters of ice and snow, fossilized redwood stumps are found in areas where the ground has become exposed. This indicates that the climate throughout the Earth was mild, like late spring. There were no changing seasons on Earth, nor were there deserts, whether sandy or icy, and the level of the oceans was much lower. Today we live among the ruins of what was once God’s beautiful creation—the planet Earth. Conditions were so favorable that before the Flood, human beings lived for more than nine hundred years. Animals were not divided into carnivores and herbivores; all of them were herbivores. This was Paradise. The land could be cultivated throughout the entire year. All that green vegetation, growing so rapidly, had to be continually renewed, and therefore every creature ate plants. No one died before the fall of man, and death for mankind was not part of God’s plan. For us, death is not a natural process. Large animals ate large plants, while smaller animals ate smaller plants. The enormous teeth of dinosaurs were designed for chewing wood. Have you ever seen the teeth of the shredding machines at a paper mill? The panda bear has powerful jaws, fangs, and teeth just like its relatives—the other species of bears. Yet it feeds exclusively on vegetation—bamboo.

fossilized resin with insects inside

vegetarian panda

Chapter 2

The First People on Earth

In the Bible, God tells us that He first created the star—the Sun—then a planet “out of water and by water,” suitable for life. He caused dry land to appear and brought forth plants, animals, fish, and birds upon it. And at the very end of His creation, He created man in His own image and likeness. Man may outwardly resemble certain animals, but man does not belong to any class or species of animals. Man is a being distinct from the rest of the animal world. No animal has ever built an altar or a structure for the worship of someone or something. This reveals a human need for the spiritual realm. No species or family in the animal kingdom has such a need.

The Bible reveals to us that man is not only a physical and soulish being, but also a spiritual one. We are able to function in the spiritual realm. The third chapter of Genesis describes events that cannot be explained in scientific terms: a conversation with God, and two trees that did not differ from one another in outward appearance, yet one carried a curse while the other gave eternal life. Neither tree was poisonous, and their fruit did not poison the body. The difference between them was spiritual. No animal was made in the image and likeness of the Creator of our world. What distinguishes human beings from all animals, fish, and birds is that, in addition to body and mind, we also possess a spirit—something animals do not have. In a general sense, the world in which we live can be divided into three basic components that interact with one another. The spiritual world—according to the biblical view, “the beginning of everything”; the soulish realm—our awareness of ourselves as persons and our communication with other persons; and the physical world, which we perceive and interact with through our senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

I will try to describe these interactions as briefly as possible. Man, like his God and Creator, interacts within all three aspects of our world—we are spiritual persons in bodies. God, as the cause and source of everyone and everything, governs all things from the spiritual realm. We human beings, through Adam, were deprived of that privilege, and therefore we live on Earth deprived of the glory and power of God. In the biblical understanding, angels interact only within the spiritual and soulish realms—they are spiritual persons without physical bodies. There are angels faithful to God, and there are also angels who rebelled against God’s rule—demons—yet even they can do nothing apart from God’s will. Animals, birds, and creeping creatures interact within the physical and soulish realms. This is why we can see animals and sometimes understand them, while we do not see angels and cannot perceive them through our physical senses. We may encounter them only through dreams, and not according to our own will. Plants have only a physical body in the physical world.

Eve spoke with the serpent. Before the Fall, human beings spoke with animals and could hear their answers because they had not yet been deprived of the “glory of God” (Romans 3:23). After sin entered the Garden of Eden, man ceased to understand the animals. The human spirit died in relation to fellowship with God. Man voluntarily surrendered authority over himself to the one who stood behind the Serpent—the fallen angel Lucifer. There is no such thing as being without a master on Earth: either you are a slave of sin and will answer for your own transgressions, or you are a servant of God through Jesus Christ, unto eternal life with Him.

“...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

“For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

“He who has the Son [of God] has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12).

Chapter 3

Faith in God

Faith in God does not arise in anyone by itself. The same is true of animals. No animal in the sea, on the land, or in the sky has ever built a place in which to worship God. God says through the prophet Isaiah: “I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me” (Isaiah 65:1).

Why do I believe the Bible? Because I have seen that the Bible tells the truth about the past, the present, and the future.

The very beginning of man’s faith in God goes back to the Garden of Eden. Every day before the fall of man, God spoke with him. He told man how He had created our earthly home. The faith of Adam and Eve grew out of their relationship with their Creator. Living in Paradise, the first people did not understand what “good and evil” meant. Every single animal ate vegetation, while mankind was given as food the seeds of grasses, shrubs, and trees. There was no competition and no need to fear being eaten or killed by another creature. The weather was ideal: a warm, humid climate covered the entire Earth. There was no changing of the seasons. In a word, it was Paradise.

After man was tempted and fell into sin, the first thing he lost was fellowship with God. All the physical hardships that came upon Adam and Eve could not compare with this loss. But God explained how fellowship with Him could be restored for a time. A one-year-old lamb, without spot or blemish, was placed upon the altar as a burnt offering for the forgiveness of sins, and the way into fellowship with Him was temporarily opened. Adam and Eve had children, and their father explained to them why every seventh day he offered burnt offerings. He also told them about the fellowship he had enjoyed with God before sin entered the world. In the final verse of Genesis chapter 4, it is written: “...then men began to call on the name of the Lord.” Many passages of Scripture speak of calling on the name of the Lord (Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:4; Genesis 21:33; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 33:20). What does this mean? When “clean” animals were sacrificed, the entire family gathered together, and sacrifices were offered for everyone. They sang songs of praise to God, and in almost every case this was accompanied by dancing. Such celebrations were held regularly until the children of Israel departed from Egypt.

Before the Flood there were also two family lines descending from Adam and Eve: the line of Seth—the worshipers of God—and the line of Cain—the godless. Thanks to the line of Seth, we can now form a general picture of how God created Heaven and Earth, and we also know what happened to civilization before the worldwide Flood. Only eight people survived the Flood—Noah, his three sons, and their wives.

An amazing fact is that Noah had three sons, and today three major groups of people live on Earth: Africans, the peoples of the East, and Caucasians. The differences are only outward; together, all of us belong to the human race descended from one ancestor—Adam. This indicates that before the worldwide Flood there was a highly developed civilization that produced lasting changes in the human genome, resulting in people so beautiful and so different in outward appearance. The Bible says: “Noah begot three sons.” As we know, no man on Earth can give birth. Every man has a “helper” for the bearing of children—his wife. She is the one who gives birth to children for her husband. Therefore, when the Bible says that a man begot a son, it speaks of raising a child within the family. Whether the child was born into that family or received into it from elsewhere does not matter; the man is responsible for the children in his household. My view concerning Noah is this: until he was five hundred years old, he had no children. This does not mean that Noah had no wife or companion in life.

This also tells us that Noah remained faithful to his wife for many centuries, even though they were unable to have children of their own. We read in the Bible that all three of Noah’s sons appeared in the same year, when he was five hundred years old. In my opinion, they were adopted children. The Bible tells us that in Noah’s time human society “drank sin like water,” and the children Noah received into his family were being rescued from the fate for which those genetically altered infants had been born. To Noah, these children were neither slaves nor ornaments; he treated them as a loving father treats his own children. For this reason, God described Noah as “righteous in his generation”—faithful to his wife and accepting other people’s altered children as his own. Noah found the values of such a highly developed civilization repulsive: a society in which unfaithfulness to one’s wife was not considered sin, and artificially created human beings were treated as slaves or as decorations for the home. Jesus said, “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:37). And our civilization is slowly but steadily approaching the “standards” of that highly developed, sinful society before the Flood—a society that, because of its sins, was washed away by the waters of the Flood like filth flushed from a latrine, despite all its scientific achievements in every field and discipline. God is the Judge and Lawgiver, as well as the Owner of the Solar System in which our planet exists. And He is not indifferent to what we, as a society, do on Earth.

After the Flood, each of Noah’s sons chose a direction and went his way. Japheth went east, and from him came all the eastern peoples. Ham went south. From him came all the peoples of Africa, as well as those who inhabit the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Shem remained with Noah, and from him came all the peoples of the Middle East, Europe, and India. North and South America were later populated by the sons of Japheth, and all of Asia from the China Sea to the shores of the Arctic Ocean also belongs to the descendants of Japheth. Among all peoples, a tradition has been preserved concerning a worldwide Flood and an ark on which one family was saved. The belief in one God was also passed down. It was handed from generation to generation, but over time it became surrounded by philosophies and human speculation. Thus, in India, with its enormous population, there is roughly one god for every three people—one for every family. In Korea and Japan, people deify virtually everything they encounter in life. But why is the Hebrew faith different from all the others?

In Deuteronomy chapter 4, God Himself answers the question of why the Hebrews and the Jewish faith stand above all other beliefs and philosophies.

“For ask now concerning the former days, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? Or did any god ever try to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him. Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power” (Deuteronomy 4:32–37).

In the Book of Genesis, after the account of the worldwide Flood and its consequences, we also find the story of Abram and his family. God enters into a covenant with Abram, promising to care for his descendants through the ages and choosing for Himself a future people descended from Sarai and Abram. He gives them new names—“Abraham and Sarah”: the father of a multitude and the mother of a great nation. When the Israelites came out of Egypt, at Mount Horeb—also called Sinai—God Himself descended upon the mountain before the eyes of one and a half million people who had gathered there. He did this to establish and lay the foundations for understanding God and worshiping Him. None of the gods of the nations had ever done anything like this. They were all limited to philosophies. And at the appointed time, God sent His Son in human flesh to offer Himself as a sacrifice for Adam’s sin, so that He might give us not merely temporary fellowship with Him, but eternal redemption, restoring to us that fellowship with Him in Paradise which Adam had enjoyed before sin. And notice this: from the creation of the world to this very day, God has done everything on His own initiative. Without Him, no one can believe in Him.

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

Your response to His Word determines God’s further actions.

“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24).

“...those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12).

Seeing our response to His Word, God brings us to Jesus so that we may receive His sacrifice and His grace. Yet when this happens, and how it happens, we often do not even notice or see it. Faith arises in us only because we have heard the Word of God. The Word of God is like a seed: when it falls into our souls, it seeks to take root and grow. If the soil—the heart—is good, the seed grows and becomes firmly rooted. If the soil has been packed hard like a road—a hardened heart—the seed is rejected, and God waits for the next “sowing season.”

In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus explains this principle.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

When your mind is occupied with the Word of God, you naturally begin to expect God to move in your life. This is faith from God, born through His Word.

Chapter 4

God Speaks to Everyone in the Same Way

God is the Creator of everything we see and everything that surrounds us (Genesis 1:1). He is the Creator of angels, human beings, animals, and every plant on Earth, as well as the planets, stars, constellations, and the entire universe. Being the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the Ruler over all rulers, and having under His authority everything that can be called realms and territories on a universal scale, it was necessary for Him to establish laws governing EVERYTHING. We call them physical laws. There are also laws of the spiritual realm, but that is not our subject at the moment. The entire universe lives, moves, and exists according to these laws. Otherwise, nothing could exist or interact.

Therefore, being the Lawgiver, He Himself must abide by His own laws—that is, He must be responsible, honest, sincere, and open before His creation.

“For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever; Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens”; “because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Psalm 89:2; Romans 1:19–20).

And judging by God’s actions in the past, He is not only responsible and sincere, but also loving and merciful—something of great importance to the entire assembly and society of angels and human beings. In this way, He sets an example for everyone to follow.

“...take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them” (Job 1:6; 2:1).

God’s adversary, who rebelled against Him, has access to God’s council and influences the destinies of people. Here is another passage of Scripture showing that God is honest and open with everyone, even with His enemies:

“Then [Micaiah] said, Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and His left. And the Lord said, Who will persuade Ahab king of Israel to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead? So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. The Lord said to him, In what way? So he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, You shall persuade him and also prevail; go out and do so. Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you” (2 Chronicles 18:18–22).

The angels who serve the Lord will not lie or pretend. The lying spirit is an angel of Satan’s kingdom. In other words, Ahab chose prophets who told him what he wanted to hear. He deceived himself, and his ways ultimately led him to death.

“With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; with the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd...” (Psalm 18:25–26).

Here is another passage of Scripture showing that God Most High takes the adversary’s position into account in His plans:

“And the Lord said, Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31–32).

And from Holy Scripture we know what awaits, after judgment, the one who resists God and persists in lawlessness: “Hell and the lake of fire,” prepared for the devil and his angels.

“He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while” (Revelation 20:2–3).

How, specifically, does God speak to a person?

The Bible—66 books: 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. The Bible is also called the Word of God or Holy Scripture, which is exactly what it is—the written Word from God (Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:2; 2 Peter 1:19–21).

In the gathering of those who believe in the God of the Bible, when they speak about God and His Word (Psalm 89:5; Matthew 18:19; Luke 24:14–16).

“...and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator” (Galatians 3:19).

“For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward...” (Hebrews 2:2).

“And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:19–21).

“And the heavens will praise Your wonders, O Lord; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints” (Psalm 89:5).

“Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:19–20).

Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. (Job 2:1)

Chapter 5

God’s Adversary and the Enemy of Human Souls

The one reason God loves you, my dear reader, is that you are made in His own image and likeness. This is also the reason God’s adversary—the devil—hates you and hates your life. The adversary hates you because you bear the image and likeness of the Most High, and whenever he sees you, you remind him of God. Never underestimate God’s adversary. He is stronger than you in every way. The only thing you can set against him is to cry out in prayer to Jesus Christ for help. At your request, Jesus will send protection and help. There is no other way.

So who is this adversary? His name is the son of the Dawn, or the son of the Morning. The books of Ezekiel and Isaiah speak about him.

“...Thus says the Lord God: ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, emerald, and gold. The workmanship of your settings and mountings was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, until iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trade you became filled within with violence, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as profane out of the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you. You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the unrighteousness of your trade; therefore I brought fire from your midst; it devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a terror, and shall be no more forever’” (Ezekiel 28:12–19).