In the creation account of Genesis chapters 1-3 God gives a great and profound lesson that deals with relationships and what makes them work and grow into the blessings He intends them to be. In reading over the creation story in the first three chapters in Genesis, the first book in the Bible, you will notice that God created the man, Adam, first, then God spent time with Adam and established a relationship with Adam. That was the first and most important relationship for Adam; he first spent time alone with his creator, establishing that most important connection. Later God had Adam name the animals during which time Adam saw that every kind of animal had a mate, male and female. This must have given Adam a longing for companionship, well God had already made plans to provide a mate suitable for him. Here’s an important lesson. You see, God made Adam fall into a deep sleep then took one of his ribs and made Eve from the rib of Adam; this gives us an indication of closeness that should exist between husband and wife. This important lesson is that God did not create Adam and Eve together but separately. After God created Eve he established a relationship with her, like the important connection He established with Adam. Only after the first two most important relationships were established (between God and Adam then God and Eve) did God bring Adam and Eve together.
Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating of the forbidden fruit and sin entered the world. When they disobeyed God they both did not value their relationship with God as they should have. When they compromised their relationship with God selfishness entered the picture and has been causing problems to relationships ever since. The only way to have and maintain a strong and loving relationship is to take heed again to the most important one, the relationship between men and God and women and God. This alone will allow us to form and keep loving relationships as God intended them to be. You may ask, well, how can this be? Well, the Bible plainly teaches that ” he that knoweth not God knoweth not love, for God is Love (1 John 4:8). True and unselfish love comes from God and must be learned of Him (see 1 Corinthians Ch. 13). This, dear friends, is the key to forming relationships that grow, last and thrive. We must all first tend to the most important relationship between each one of us and God our Creator. Take care and God Bless. Helpfinder1

By Tunji Adeeko

I grew up in a region of Nigeria that included several religions–idol worshipers and animist, Muslims and Christians.  I wondered which faith contained the truth.  I observed and took part in several religious ceremonies, but still I wondered.

One day some friends and I passed an Adventist church.  Someone in our group made fun of Seventh-day Adventists saying they worshiped on Saturday.  Everyone else laughed, but I wondered.  Do some Christians really worship on Saturday?

I couldn’t get to the church to learn about the Sabbath, so I read the Bible looking for answers.  I searched for the word Saturday, but I couldn’t find it.  I understood Sabbath to mean Sunday, so I didn’t find a satisfactory answer there either.

Then I found a tract about the Sabbath and read that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day.  As I studied the Bible texts, I became convinced that the Sabbath was God’s creation, and Sunday was man’s tradition.  It made perfect sense.

I began to sense that God was someone I could relate to, someone who created me and wanted a relationship with me.  As I continued studying I understood how God so wanted a relationship with us that He stepped into human history and shared what He wanted humans to know about Him.

I found the Bible text that tells us to obey the commandments and have the faith of Jesus.  I realized that Jews accepted the commandments but do not accept Jesus.  Most Christians accept Jesus but don’t keep all the commandments.  I just knew God had a church that had the faith of Jesus and kept all the Ten Commandments.

I realized that to worship God in spirit and in truth I had to keep the Sabbath.  I remembered the Adventist church I had seen on the road that day and found an Adventist church near where I was studying.  I began attending worship services there.

When I went home for vacation I visited the Adventist church I had seen months earlier.  My sister was upset when she learned that I was attending the Adventist church, but I knew that I had to find my salvation in Christ, not through any other person.  I would sneak away to church as often as I could.

I praise God for showing me the truth.  He used a simple church building, my sister’s ridicule, a Bible, and a tract to lead me to Him.

Tunji Adeeko lives in western Nigeria.

By Benjamin Schoun

In some places in the world it’s illegal and often dangerous to share one’s faith with others.  Sometimes radio and television signals may be the only means to reach people with the gospel.  New believers risk their lives to follow Jesus.

Not long ago Adventist World Radio received the following emails from a young man living in one these difficult areas.  We share his messages with you, for through your mission offerings, you help make these broadcasts possible.

“My name is Amin.  I am 19 years old and live in ”

Two months later

” I have received Jesus Christ as my personal savior, and my life has changed.  Every day I read the Bible on the internet, and I’m learning more.  God’s Word makes my heart come alive.  It’s true what He said, ‘I am the light of the world.’  ‘I’m the way, the truth,  and the life’ .  I wish I could share the Word of God with someone and pray with them.”

Two months later

“Every day they abuse me.  My father tore up my Christian books and said, ‘If I see one more book like those in your hands, I will bury you.’  I know that Jesus said, ‘Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you.’  I pray and read the Bible every day, but I can’t receive any letters because my father will read them.”

A few days later

“They’ve  taken my computer, and I must go to the cyber cafe’.  Yesterday, two policemen came to our house and threatened me, calling me a terrorist for being a follower of Jesus Christ.

” I’m sure I’ll be taken to prison soon.  I’m not asking for help.  No one can help me but the Lord.  I don’t know what will happen to me.  Maybe this e-mail will be the last one.  I love Jesus, and am ready to die for Him.”

Note:  This was the last message received from Amin.  Pray for him and for thousands like him who face persecution and death for their faith.

Amin is not his real name.

Benjamin Schoun is president of Adventist World Radio.

Christ said that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the time of the end.   His exact words were “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.  For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.” Matthew 24: 37,38.  In other words the vast majority of people had no clue what was about to happen until destruction was upon them.  Even though Noah preached and warned them for 120 years, they refused to pay attention and were so ingrained in their unbelief that they didn’t heed the warning even after they witnessed the wild animals entering the ark in orderly fashion two by two.

So what can we learn from Noah that allowed him to escape the destruction of the world at that time. Some Bible scholars say that there were over a billion people on the earth at the time of the flood. Just think about this; at that time the earth was 1,656 years old. Men were living seven to nine centuries in years of age. The oldest man recorded in the Bible, Methuselah, live to be 969 years old. He was the grandfather of Noah and actually outlived his son Lamach who was Noah’s father. The point here is that you can have a lot of kids if you lived 700 to 900 years. That’s why the population grew at a much faster rate than even today, because of the greater lifespan of men and women back then.

But what made Noah so special?  Why was he saved while so many others perished in the flood? A good lesson right off the bat here is that being in the majority is not the place you want to be at the time of the end. You see, all but Noah’s family died in the flood. Lesson one:  Beware of what the majority or everyone else is doing.  Seek the narrow road and not the broad one.

Now let’s look at what was specifically going on right before the flood came. You can follow along in Genesis chapters 6 and 7.
This is from the NIV Bible.  In Genesis chapter 6 we read “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they married any of them they chose.  Then the Lord said ‘My Spirit (the Holy Spirit)will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” Let’s stop here to analyze what is going on.  We see that there was a lot of marrying going on, even between those who believed in God and followed Him and those who did not believe in or follow God.  This is what the verse is telling us referring to the sons of God marrying any of the daughters of men that they chose or wanted.  And we can look back in Genesis chapter 4 and see that the baleful practice of polygamy was started by a descendant of Cain whose name was Lamech.  We also see that the Spirit of God was contending with these people to show them His ways, but they continued in their rebellion against God despite having the visual evidence of the Garden of Eden, which was still on the earth in those days with the cherubim (angels) and the mysterious flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.  They had all this evidence and yet they did not turn to God.  There is an important lesson here.  We must trust God’s word and develop a relationship with Him.  What we see, no matter how spectacular, is not enough to save anyone from certain destruction at the time of the end. We all must trust in God’s Word over and above anything else!

When sin is in the heart it takes control of the judgment and shapes the thinking, holding its’ victims fast.  Only God can rescue us from sin.  Many lost their lives in the flood because they refused to turn to God for salvation from sin.  They chose sin over God.  The condition will be similar at the close of this earth’s history.

Scripture continues to tell us that the Nephilim (Giants) were on the earth before the flood.  The men and women who lived at that time were of great mental and physical strength and the Bible says that they were the heroes of old, men of renown.  Yet in spite of these apparent advantages they drifted farther from God and rebelled against Him.  Scripture continues to tell us that because of the sins of man, violence filled the earth.  All of this grieved the Lord God and He was sad that He had created man on the earth.  But God had a plan to save mankind from itself, from the natural results of sin and disobedience.

God planned to wipe mankind from the face of the earth, along with the animals, except the ones that were in the ark.  Some scholars believe that men in those days practiced Amalgamation, where men would cross breed animals for experimentation and violent sport; could explain why some of the dinosaurs were so big and violent and had to be destroyed for our own safety. Men still train the smaller animals for cruelty in our time. This evil practice may have been one of the reasons the earth was full of violence before the flood.  And looking at the practices of later civilizations like Nineveh and Rome where men and women were thrown to wild beast for sport and entertainment, it is not difficult to see that this probably happened before the flood also.

Let’s turn our attention to Noah. The Bible says the Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time.  And Noah walked with God, like his great grandfather Enoch did.  Notice that Noah “Walked With God”. Now to walk with someone implies a desire to spend time with the other.  There is a relationship there that is meaningful and important to both parties.  This was the kind of relationship that Noah formed with God over the years, just like Enoch did.  This more that anything else made the difference as to why Noah was saved and so many others perished.  And Noah did everything God commanded him to do in building the ark, though rain had not fallen on the earth till that time.  You can read in Genesis chapter 2 that streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.  So Noah walked with God and developed a strong relationship with Him and, as a result, Noah knew that God’s word was sure.  And Noah was obedient to God’s Word.  This is a key point we should not miss.  A relationship that grew between God and Noah allowed Noah to come to trust in God’s Word completely and to know that God had Noah’s best interest in mind.  Noah knew that God’s word was true regardless of what was going on around him.  Obedience separated those who lived from those who perished.  Noah had great faith, but it would have been impossible for Noah to develop that faith unless he invested time in that most important relationship with God.

What can we learn from The Ark itself?  God instructed Noah to build the ark with exact dimensions.  He was to make the ark of cypress wood and it was to be 450ft. long, 75ft. wide and 45ft. high with three stories or decks.  Dr. Stan Hudson from the 3ABN series “In The Beginning” describes the ark as being a big box crafted to float on the waters of the flood. This makes sense as we consider the dimensions; if we had never seen a boat before and were given the dimensions that Noah was given by God, we would end up with a box of cypress wood that was 450ft. by 75ft. by 45ft. He makes an apt comparison to another box, the Ark of the Covenant, which served as a chest that housed the Ten Commandments in the Most Holy Place within the sanctuary in the days of ancient Israel.

Dr. Hudson gives us insight into just how big Noah’s ark was on the inside.  That box/ark could hold 522 train cars.  That’s a lot of space!  In fact, it would hold 8,000 different kinds of animals, male and female or 16,000 animals and also one years supply of food for the animals and also food for Noah and his family and still only take up half the room in the ark.  Here we see God’s intention that more people would heed the warning and enter the ark to be saved.  But men didn’t listen, though the animals did.  Half of the ark was empty!  Is sin really worth it? Is it worth losing everything over?

I will tell you now about the final box or Ark.  In Revelation (the last book of the Bible) chapter 21, the Bible tells of a city shaped like a box, in fact the city is a perfect square (you can’t get a more perfect box than this).  It is the New Jerusalem and its’ dimensions are amazing.  It is 1,400 miles square on each side and also 1,400 miles high; I know this is amazing and you can read it for yourself.  In this city/ark, like the one Noah built, there is room enough for you, just accept Jesus and spend time walking with Him, studying His word like Noah did.  It’s all about a relationship with Him.  I can imagine God saying to the people before the flood  “There’s room enough for you!  You don’t have to die!  Why would you perish?”  In the history of Noah and the flood God is reaching out and saying the same to us.  This is why Jesus directed us to look at the flood and learn what the condition of mankind will be at the time of His return and the end of the age.  And just as Noah’s ark was a refuge against the destruction of the flood so the New Jerusalem will be a refuge against the destruction of the world by fire.  You can read about in Revelation chapter 20.  Everyone not within that city will be consumed by fire.  My question is this:  Where will you be?  You don’t have to perish. Draw near to Christ now.  There is room for you within the City!

Take care and God Bless,                                                                                                   Helpfinder1

What can we learn from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? The other tree is straightforward enough in name; the Tree of Life in Genesis chapter 2 was the other tree placed by God in the Garden of Eden. What was God trying to convey to Adam and Eve in the name given to the forbidden tree? Was there a warning there for them? Is there a warning for us today?

First let’s look at what took place in the Garden. You can follow the story in the second chapter of Genesis. Good and Evil, a deadly combination if ever there was one for sure. This is how Satan approached Eve in the Garden; by assuming the form of a serpent eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now the serpent was one of God’s most interesting and beautiful creatures in the animal kingdom, it could even fly and was a sight to behold when in the air. But snakes could never talk and when Eve heard the serpent speaking to her from the tree, no doubt she was intrigued by the animal; one of God’s creatures made in perfection. That’s the Good part, let’s call it the Bait! Now the serpent was in the forbidden tree eating fruit and talking. Curious situation here. In the first chapter in Genesis you will read that God commanded that the animals were to eat the green plants only, but here we see this snake disobeying God’s express command. But the snake could speak, which was amazing enough (this was also part of the bait). Then the snake calls God’s word a lie by informing Eve that she would not die if she ate the fruit but would rather become wiser (more bait), and by the way, this is the evil mixed with the good. Anything, no matter how good it may seem, if it is contrary to God’s Word it is a Deadly Lie. And so Eve took the bait and ate the fruit, then came the hook; sin brought in its wake all the death and misery we’ve seen in the world from that time to the present day.
The lesson here is that there can never be any compromise or acceptance of evil mixed with good. The work of the gospel is to call sinners to Christ and He enables them to repent when they ask for His help to turn from sin. Christ offers each one His grace to become like Him by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

So if the gospel’s work is to make us more like Christ then we should find out what Christ is like; herein is the key that contains the lesson of the danger hidden within the name of the forbidden tree:  About Christ it is written, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.  YOU HAVE LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATED WICKEDNESS; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”  Hebrews 1:8,9.    In Romans 12:9 the apostle Paul admonishes us, “Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”  In these two verses of scripture we see what God is like and that we are to emulate Christ’s character by His grace.

The conclusion is that there can be no mixing or compromise with good/righteousness and sin/evil, the same as light and darkness cannot dwell together.  But Satan will try to trick us like he did Eve into accepting evil cloaked in something that appears good or harmless.  We can know for certain what is good and what is evil if we pray to God and ask Him to help us study His word(The Bible) and know the truth for ourselves.  This is the only safe path to take. The Bible and the Bible only is our only sure guide to distinguish between light and darkness, truth and error.  “To the law and to the testimony!  If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.”   Isaiah 8: 20 .
Hope this helps, God Bless.
Helpfinder1

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