MANY years ago, there was no earth, nor plants, nor animals, nor sun, nor moon, nor people. But God was. God is eternal; He had no beginning, and He will have no end.
God spoke in the beginning and created the heaven and the earth by His wonderful power. Sometime after that, we know not how long, the earth was in darkness, and was without form, and void (or empty) and water covered the whole earth; then God began to prepare the earth for man. The first day, He created light; the second day, the blue sky; the third day, the seas and dry land, and trees; the fourth day, He said, Let there be light; the fifth day, the birds and fishes; the sixth day, beasts, and insects and creeping things and man. Then all was finished, and “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” The seventh day, God ended His work and rested on that day. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. God gave to the animals beautiful bodies, but to man He gave more; He gave him a soul also, which could never die. God gave wonderful instinct to the animals; but He gave reason to man; power to know, and love and worship Him. He created him in His own image, after His likeness, without sin and happy. The man’s name was Adam.
The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put man. The garden was full of beautiful trees and flowers, the little birds sang sweetly, and the animals all played together upon the green grass, they did not fight, nor hurt one another; all was love and happiness, because there was no sin.
The Lord God took man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it, and to keep it. But God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet.” When Adam was asleep, God took a rib from his side, and made it into a woman, and brought her to Adam, and she was his wife. Her name was Eve. She, like Adam had a soul, and was innocent and happy. God said to them, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Adam and Eve walked in the beautiful garden without pain or sorrow, or fear of God, who spoke with them. It is sin that makes us afraid of God, for He is so holy that He cannot bear sin in His presence. That is why He had to give His dear Son, the Lord Jesus, to die, that His precious blood might wash us from all our sins. For God loves us and did not want us to perish, so He chose rather to punish the Lord Jesus in our place, and now all we have to do is to receive Him in our hearts. Was not that a wonderful way of saving our souls? How we should thank Him and seek to please Him in return for His great love!
ML 01/10/1909