Young People’s Blog

“And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land” (Genesis 13:7).

Lot was Abram’s nephew, and Lot had accompanied Abram when the Lord called him out of the city of Ur, and led him into the land of Canaan. It was very sad that their herdmen quarreled with one another, but why does the Spirit of God mention that the Canaanites and the Perizzites were then in the land? A verse in the previous chapter had already told us that the Canaanites dwelt in the land.

I believe that the Lord wants to remind us that whenever the people of God do not get along with one another, the world around us is watching. It was true in Abram and Lot’s day, and it is true today too. The world knows very well how Christians should act, and they can be very critical of us when they see us behaving in a wrong way. It not only brings shame to us, but also dishonors the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us remember this, and be careful how we act before the world.

“Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Matthew 18:7).

The Lord recognized that in a world that had been spoiled by sin, offences would come. By offences the Lord Jesus meant something that would trap someone, or cause them to trip and fall in a moral way. He is speaking here particularly of children, as well as about things that might occur in our own lives, and stumble us in a spiritual way.

The Lord Jesus knew that as long as sin was in the world, these offences would come. However, the Lord is not blind to all this, and He notices those who may be the cause of these offences. He says, “Woe to that man!” God will remember what has been done to harm or take advantage of others, and surely there will be judgment for them in a coming day.

God has a special love for little children who are helpless, and who are sometimes badly treated in this world. People may cause offences against them, but God will not forget.

“Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (Genesis 3:17).

“Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them” (Deuteronomy 27:26).

“He that is hanged is accursed of God” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

There is one more judgment of God on sinful man that our Lord Jesus Christ suffered from, and that is a curse. God pronounced a curse on the ground because of man’s sin, and later pronounced two other curses under the law of Moses. A Jew was under a curse if he did not keep the law, and was also under a curse if he were hanged on a tree.

Although the Lord Jesus kept the law perfectly, He suffered under the curse of a broken law. He also was under a curse when He hung on the cross, for He was hanging on a tree. He was “made a curse for us [the Jew],” and now has “redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13).

Although He was perfect, the Lord Jesus suffered under all that man suffered from, apart from sin. He took His place in this world as a man, and then suffered all that man had suffered because of his sin. Then He suffered at the hands of God to put away our sins. What a Savior we have!

“For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19).

Here is one more judgment that God pronounced upon man—he would have to die. He had originally been made of “the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7), and now God said that he would return unto dust when he died. If man had not sinned, he would never have died, but with sin came death, just as God had said. When God gave man the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He told man that he would die if he did so. Now what God had said came to pass.

Again, our blessed Savior for our sakes took part in this judgment also. He died for our sins. It is true that in the grave His body never decayed, but Scripture records that He said, “Thou hast brought Me into the dust of death” (Psalm 22:15). Dust speaks in Scripture of desolation—a state of misery and loneliness, and the Lord Jesus felt all this keenly when He died on Calvary’s cross. He felt the isolation, as He suffered there all alone, for your sins and mine.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19).

Here is another part of the punishment that God pronounced on Adam, and on the human race. From that time on, man would have to sweat when he worked, in order to eat. Prior to that time, in the Garden of Eden, he had something to do—to dress and keep the garden, but he did not have to work hard enough to sweat. Now his work would be harder, and he would sweat.

Once again, our blessed Savior took part in the suffering that resulted from this punishment. In the Garden of Gethsemane, it is recorded that “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). His sweat was greater than that of any other man, for He felt very much what lay before Him. Not only was there the physical suffering of the cross, but also His being made sin for us. This prospect was so awful that His sweat became as great drops of blood. In contemplating the cross, the Lord Jesus entered into the suffering that God had pronounced upon man in the Garden of Eden.

“And unto Adam He said…cursed is the ground for thy sake…thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee” (Genesis 3:17-18).

When Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God pronounced judgment on Satan, Eve, and Adam. We see one of those judgments in our verse today; the ground would produce thorns and thistles. If you have ever weeded a garden, or been pierced by a thorn, you know what that judgment means. In particular, thorn trees often have beautiful white flowers on them, but if you try to pick them, the thorns are right there to pierce you.

When He was on the earth, and when He went to the cross, the Lord Jesus had to deal with thorns. You will remember that the soldiers made a crown of thorns and placed it on His head, and then mocked Him by bowing down to Him and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Yes, God had to pronounce judgment on man for his sin, but the Lord Jesus shared in the results of that judgment too, when He was here on earth.

“And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

God created man as the last thing He made, and He made him quite different from all the animals. Animals live and act by instinct. That is, their minds are “programmed” to act in a certain way; they do not know any right or wrong. But man is different. He has a mind that can think and decide how to act in different ways. He also has a spirit which makes him conscious of God, and gives him an ability to communicate with God.

Man was made in the image of God, for man was to be God’s representative on this earth. Man was given “dominion” over all the various animals—quite a responsibility! Sadly, man has not done a very good job of governing this world, for he introduced sin into the world, and has often misused the authority God had given him. But he continues to have the place of dominion in this world.

But man is a moral creature; he was also made in the likeness of God. This means that he had a nature capable of recognizing right and wrong, and capable also of having a relationship with God. Again, what a privilege it is to be made like this!

“And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground” (Genesis 4:2).

When you study the story of mankind in school, sometimes you may be taught that men were originally “hunters and gatherers,” living in primitive dwellings like caves, and not knowing how to grow crops and keep animals. Then they will tell you that later, men progressed and began to grow crops, keep domestic animals, and settle down in one place.

However, we do not read this in the Word of God. Right from the beginning men like Cain and Abel knew how to keep domestic animals like lambs and sheep, and how to work the ground and grow crops. However, when men gave up God, in some cases God allowed them to decline in their knowledge, and then they lived as hunters and gatherers. When man gives up God and decides to worship idols, he often loses what knowledge he has, and tends to live a degraded and a somewhat disorderly life. However, this is not what God intended for him, for God is a God of order.

“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15).

When people think of the Garden of Eden, many think of it as a place where Adam and Eve had nothing to do, and that they were simply able to sit around and enjoy it. According to today’s verse, this was not so. It is true that none of the effects of sin were there, so that there were no plant diseases, nor were there weeds in among the good plants. Everything brought forth bountifully, and food was plentiful.

However, there was still something for Adam and Eve to do; otherwise they might have been lazy and perhaps bored. Adam was to dress and to keep the garden, so that there was some work for him to do. But there was no anxiety about it all, and no stress involved in it. It was a wonderful paradise, yet man spoiled it by disobeying the one command that God had given him.

“And when Herod saw Jesus…he hoped to have seen some miracle done by Him…and Herod with his men of war set Him at nought, and mocked Him, and arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate” (Luke 23:8,11).

The Herod mentioned in this verse was the son of the Herod who had tried to kill the Lord Jesus when He was a young child. He had heard of the Lord Jesus, and knew that He performed many miracles. At one point, he even thought that the Lord Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead. When Pilate sent the Lord Jesus to Herod, he was anxious to see a miracle. But when the Lord Jesus would not answer him nor perform a miracle, he treated Him shamefully, mocking Him, and putting a gorgeous robe on Him.

Herod was curious, but He did not care for the Lord Jesus. Although all His miracles proved who the Lord Jesus was, yet Herod would not believe. A few years later the Roman Emperor took away Herod’s position and banished him to a distant part of the Roman Empire.