Bible Study Text for New Christians
Chapter 5. God's Judgment
"After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24)."
* Last Message
In the beginning, people were created as a being who does not know good and evil. But after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they got to know good and evil. People changed after they sinned. Those who know good and evil try to distinguish good from evil. They consider something beneficial for them as "good " and something bad for them as "evil. " By the way, why does God want people not to know good and evil? For example, let 's assume that God let a man be born as a handicapped person. The handicapped man won 't think his condition at all if he is in the condition before people sinned. He only will try to live in accordance with God's words. But if he knows good and evil, he won 't like his condition and consider him shameful. He will complain to God and think that he is unhappy. In other words, he won 't thank God and be satisfied with his condition. God hates this aspect of man.
*Today's Message
From people's point of view, we may consider it nothing or trivial that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But it is not that simple event like you picked and ate one apple from the tree of your neighbor, because people became a different being due to this event and all kinds of evil things such as wars, fights happens due to this change.
In chapter 3 of the book of Genesis, God calls Adam. Then Adam answers, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid. (v. 10))" God asks him again, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? (v. 11)" Thereafter Adam answers, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. (v. 12)" About Adam's answer, what ideas come across your mind?
Before Adam sinned, he confessed toward Eve, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man. (Gen 2:23)" Then these words follows "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)" We can see that Adam considered Eve as one flesh that is the same as himself. But after he sinned, he tried to deny his sin and blamed Eve. The relation of one flesh disappeared.
And what does Eve say? God asked her, "What is this you have done?" and she answered, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." She blamed the serpent, too. Like this, after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil people changed to those who make their best efforts to protect themselves.
We can find this aspect of the changed person from everyone. For example, if parents say to their children who made a mess, "You did this, didn't you?" most children will deny what they did because they are afraid of being rebuked. Then they may blame a dog if they see a dog and blame their sisters if they see their sisters. This shows that the world is still in the sin of the Garden of Eden. People think they can do anything to survive even though it is harmful to others. Since this resulted from eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this event cannot be considered as a simple one that is confined to man's simple behavior. That was the critical event that made the world under the influence of sin. Like the relation between God and people is broken, person to person relation is also broken. That's Satan 's intention that it seduced Eve. The purpose of seducing Eve is not to only make Eve sin but to break the good relation between God and people and between people.
Therefore, God judges humans who have sinned. If so, what are the contents of God's judgments? The answer is in Gen 3:16-19. To the woman God said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam God said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." These are the contents of God's judgments.
People's future destiny has been determined due to God's judgments. As people cannot change a natural law that the sun rises in the morning and the sun sets in the evening, so they entered such a destiny that they cannot change their destiny for themselves. They cannot get out of the destiny even though they beg God's pardon. As spilt milk cannot be put back into the bottle, they cannot be simply restored after they sinned.
God brought the judgment of increasing pains in childbearing on women and He judged men so that they can eat only through painful toil or hard laboring. Even though men do farming, the ground won't produce much. They have to get rid of weeds and fertilize the ground. So men are supposed to work hard in order to eat from the ground.
Therefore, if you are trying to find a way that you can live without toil, you are thinking of something impossible. Men have to work hard to eat and this is the destiny of men who have sinned. This is the result of being far away from God. But people cannot realize their destiny at all if they do not know God. They can just think they are in trouble because they do not have a good environment and situation, and they bewail their lots. They sing the blue but they do not think about God at all. Therefore if someone gets to think about God through toil and labor, it is evidence that God determined to save him or her. So it can be considered blessed.
For both men and women, returning to dust is included in God's judgments, which means they are supposed to die. Dying is the God's unchangeable law that people cannot avoid. According to this principle, all people in the world are supposed to die. Even the richest person in the world will die, too. The president of a nation dies. Bad people die and even good people die. People cannot be exempted from dying even though they have money and power. In other worlds, all people are fair and equal in front of death.
By the way, God did not let people end up with just death. Gen 3:24 says, "After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." God hid the tree of life from people. That means that God did not let people get eternal life but let them go to the Hell instead. Eventually, people's physical death is not the end and people are supposed to suffer eternal pain in the Hell. This is God's awful judgments.
Like this, for sinner God is a target of fear. But from the beginning, God had a different plan for His chosen people. The plan was to save His chosen people from the judgments. But people who have sinned do not have an ability to clear their sins and save themselves. Therefore God sent someone who can solve the problem of sin. The "someone" is Jesus Christ. So, we can see God's love through God's judgments.
The world does not know about this and people just consider that living a happy life in the world is the best life. But people live 70 or 80 years on average even though they live long. And they will enter the world of eternal pain and then never get out of it. But the world does not know the world of pain that became far away from God.
Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart." Generally, there is grief in a house of morning and joy in a house of feasting. Enjoying in a house of feasting is better than getting depressed in a house of mourning, isn't it? By the way, why does the bible say that it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting? In a house of mourning we can see not only the end of our lives but also people's destiny under God's judgments.
Those who have already seen the people's destiny do not put their hope in the world, because they know anything in the world cannot free them from eternal pain. They put their interests in something that can free them from the world of pain rather than hoping for something in the world. Ultimately, they get to believe in Jesus Christ who came to this world.
No one except Jesus Christ can be the Savior because the Savior must die because of sins of all people. Even Maria, Jesus' mother, died due to her sin, too. Therefore, Jesus Christ without sin is the life and the only hope.
Chapter 5. God's Judgment
"After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24)."
* Last Message
In the beginning, people were created as a being who does not know good and evil. But after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they got to know good and evil. People changed after they sinned. Those who know good and evil try to distinguish good from evil. They consider something beneficial for them as "good " and something bad for them as "evil. " By the way, why does God want people not to know good and evil? For example, let 's assume that God let a man be born as a handicapped person. The handicapped man won 't think his condition at all if he is in the condition before people sinned. He only will try to live in accordance with God's words. But if he knows good and evil, he won 't like his condition and consider him shameful. He will complain to God and think that he is unhappy. In other words, he won 't thank God and be satisfied with his condition. God hates this aspect of man.
*Today's Message
From people's point of view, we may consider it nothing or trivial that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But it is not that simple event like you picked and ate one apple from the tree of your neighbor, because people became a different being due to this event and all kinds of evil things such as wars, fights happens due to this change.
In chapter 3 of the book of Genesis, God calls Adam. Then Adam answers, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid. (v. 10))" God asks him again, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? (v. 11)" Thereafter Adam answers, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. (v. 12)" About Adam's answer, what ideas come across your mind?
Before Adam sinned, he confessed toward Eve, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man. (Gen 2:23)" Then these words follows "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)" We can see that Adam considered Eve as one flesh that is the same as himself. But after he sinned, he tried to deny his sin and blamed Eve. The relation of one flesh disappeared.
And what does Eve say? God asked her, "What is this you have done?" and she answered, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." She blamed the serpent, too. Like this, after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil people changed to those who make their best efforts to protect themselves.
We can find this aspect of the changed person from everyone. For example, if parents say to their children who made a mess, "You did this, didn't you?" most children will deny what they did because they are afraid of being rebuked. Then they may blame a dog if they see a dog and blame their sisters if they see their sisters. This shows that the world is still in the sin of the Garden of Eden. People think they can do anything to survive even though it is harmful to others. Since this resulted from eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this event cannot be considered as a simple one that is confined to man's simple behavior. That was the critical event that made the world under the influence of sin. Like the relation between God and people is broken, person to person relation is also broken. That's Satan 's intention that it seduced Eve. The purpose of seducing Eve is not to only make Eve sin but to break the good relation between God and people and between people.
Therefore, God judges humans who have sinned. If so, what are the contents of God's judgments? The answer is in Gen 3:16-19. To the woman God said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam God said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." These are the contents of God's judgments.
People's future destiny has been determined due to God's judgments. As people cannot change a natural law that the sun rises in the morning and the sun sets in the evening, so they entered such a destiny that they cannot change their destiny for themselves. They cannot get out of the destiny even though they beg God's pardon. As spilt milk cannot be put back into the bottle, they cannot be simply restored after they sinned.
God brought the judgment of increasing pains in childbearing on women and He judged men so that they can eat only through painful toil or hard laboring. Even though men do farming, the ground won't produce much. They have to get rid of weeds and fertilize the ground. So men are supposed to work hard in order to eat from the ground.
Therefore, if you are trying to find a way that you can live without toil, you are thinking of something impossible. Men have to work hard to eat and this is the destiny of men who have sinned. This is the result of being far away from God. But people cannot realize their destiny at all if they do not know God. They can just think they are in trouble because they do not have a good environment and situation, and they bewail their lots. They sing the blue but they do not think about God at all. Therefore if someone gets to think about God through toil and labor, it is evidence that God determined to save him or her. So it can be considered blessed.
For both men and women, returning to dust is included in God's judgments, which means they are supposed to die. Dying is the God's unchangeable law that people cannot avoid. According to this principle, all people in the world are supposed to die. Even the richest person in the world will die, too. The president of a nation dies. Bad people die and even good people die. People cannot be exempted from dying even though they have money and power. In other worlds, all people are fair and equal in front of death.
By the way, God did not let people end up with just death. Gen 3:24 says, "After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." God hid the tree of life from people. That means that God did not let people get eternal life but let them go to the Hell instead. Eventually, people's physical death is not the end and people are supposed to suffer eternal pain in the Hell. This is God's awful judgments.
Like this, for sinner God is a target of fear. But from the beginning, God had a different plan for His chosen people. The plan was to save His chosen people from the judgments. But people who have sinned do not have an ability to clear their sins and save themselves. Therefore God sent someone who can solve the problem of sin. The "someone" is Jesus Christ. So, we can see God's love through God's judgments.
The world does not know about this and people just consider that living a happy life in the world is the best life. But people live 70 or 80 years on average even though they live long. And they will enter the world of eternal pain and then never get out of it. But the world does not know the world of pain that became far away from God.
Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart." Generally, there is grief in a house of morning and joy in a house of feasting. Enjoying in a house of feasting is better than getting depressed in a house of mourning, isn't it? By the way, why does the bible say that it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting? In a house of mourning we can see not only the end of our lives but also people's destiny under God's judgments.
Those who have already seen the people's destiny do not put their hope in the world, because they know anything in the world cannot free them from eternal pain. They put their interests in something that can free them from the world of pain rather than hoping for something in the world. Ultimately, they get to believe in Jesus Christ who came to this world.
No one except Jesus Christ can be the Savior because the Savior must die because of sins of all people. Even Maria, Jesus' mother, died due to her sin, too. Therefore, Jesus Christ without sin is the life and the only hope.