God is a God of perfect order, and He had to go through certain calculated steps to create, in the same way he had to go through certain steps to save. The story of our lives is prefigured in two cities.
In genesis the Bible talks about Salem. And this city became Jerusalem. Jesus came to Jerusalem (city of God) to bring in everlasting righteousness but they were not willing, they rejected Him and crucified Him. Jesus said (O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how have I tried to take you under my wings but you were not willing) Jerusalem pointed to the New Jerusalem in heaven, it is a shadow of things to come
God had to go through a progression of steps to bring in perfect righteousness
When the Old testament people hindered Gods plan of salvation had to eliminated them and He did; He started over with Noah.
Every step God took was geared towards salvation and He gave more liberty and grace as time went on
Not everyone would accept him though,
God change not and the God of the Old testament is the God of the New Testament. (God of love)
God predestined us all to be in heaven but Adam sinned. God had to let this cancer of sin run its course to develop a perfect church. (A body of believers to
God created everything that exists. God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger. He designed the heavenly sanctuary (blueprint/copy) pointing to Christ as our hope and our salvation. God wanted to dwell with us.
God created a new covenant only after they had rejected His old Covenant, Why? Order
We proclaim the message and we tell people “God is love” and we say “God change not” He is the same yesterday today and forevermore. But Skeptics dismiss us as being irrational and ridiculous believing in “a mystic war God of the Old Testament” When we tell them that God is love, they come right back at you and say. Well the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament, in other words – God is schizophrenic and mean and The Bible contradict itself. So, what do you have to say about that? Huh?
Then, trying to defend God, we answer and it would sound something like this. “Well, I don’t understand it myself” So we become doubtful and we question our own beliefs. We picture God as a General at war and we see Jesus as a Lamb ready to be slain and we can’t seem to reconcile the two.
Have you ever wondered about the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament? Why the change of character / or did it?
What have you imagined against the Lord? (verse)
God created the human race in his image giving them the power of choice and He asked them to obey Him. God knew they would fail, but He also knew, given the opportunity to recover from rebellion, some would actually choose to follow Him out of free will. In order for God to establish a perfect race it was essential for Him to do everything in His power to create the perfect environment to foster spiritual growth. He could not start at the end of time. Doing this would eliminate an entire history of Growth. He could not start off by saving us either – saving us from what? You say noting, there is not sin yet, so all works out good. Wrong! there is not sin because there was no decision. Besides, Jesus could not have identified with us if God created us at the final stages of History; nor could He have sacrificed His life for us. We were not created yet. And God could not put us on probation before we had rejected Him – Anyhow the beginning must precede the end (Logic) Thus, in order to afford a Savior you must first be lost and in order to be lost you must first reject – are you tracking.
In other words, failure precedes salvation.
So, God started, and as with creation; He Had to go through a progression of steps to make salvation possible and perfect. So, He created a perfect sinless human being and placed Him here on earth in a perfect environment. He refused to allow another Lucifer to be created. When God placed the tree of knowledge and good and evil in the perfect garden He visited them and he guided them to accept Him as Lord of their lives. They found themselves in the perfect conditions in a perfect world with a sinless nature and they had every opportunity to succeed and to make a perfect decision by being loyal to God instead of Lucifer... But, it took only one temptation to lead them astray and they listened to the devil. It was bound to happen, sooner or later.
The power to choose to love is the essence of real love. Creating someone without the power of choice is involuntary love. It’s forcing love, and forced love is an assault on ones liberty. It is not real love (not by a long stretch) So, God had a problem. He wanted to create a human race and He wanted them to love Him with their whole heart, their whole might and their entire being. He wanted them to accept Him out of their own volition and their own choice. But it is impossible to unite every human being to make the right choice.
What am I saying? (I’m talking about the entire human race deciding to submit under God; Obedient and united as one, refusing temptations, committed to the Law of God right from the get-go and staying faithful, forever and ever and evermore~) To choose Gods love unconditionally even when exposed to the lust of the eyes, the desires of the flesh and the pride of life. These things can get you into deep trouble and it leads people into many different directions.
This is why God allowed the devil to tempt us. In the beginning God started His plan of salvation with Adam. God gave Adam the easiest way of escape. It was impossible for God to create us, to die for us, and take us to heaven at the time of creation. This will eliminate the time and the opportunity for decision making and character building. Also God could not have started out by giving people the new covenant. How could He? In order for us to receive a new covenant you need an old covenant first, Right? Also, we could not choose to obey God out of free will unless we had an opportunity to exercise that free will through a history of temptation. We needed and an opportunity to choose Gods love over our own will. This is the test of loyalty and devotion and it is the essence of real love.
So, they were tempted and they ate from the tree. They chose to disobey God and this disobedience caused sin.
Things have changed now. God could not walk with them in person anymore and He removed Adam and Eve from the Garden: then He removed the tree of life also. He did so to shorten our sinful existence (Blessing) They were contaminated by sin and living in sin forever would be disastrous. But, God was still gracious, and He designed the plan of salvation. Thus God went to plan B. Not because He had failed but because we had failed Him.
Satan our adversary and the father of lies effectively replaced the tree of knowledge and good and evil. (By disobeying God we choose to obey Satan as our Lord and master) God knew many would choose to reject Him but He also knew what He was doing. He created everything perfect to facilitate perfection. But knowing that it would not work He decided to redeem those who would willingly choose to obey Him by choice. But He had to stand back and allow us to reject Him first. He had to allow us to fail before He could save us and after a time of character shaping.
What happened? As expected the first Adam failed and he sinned. Then God made a 490 year Covenant with the Israelites. They were Gods chosen generation. They were supposed to be a blessing to other nations, to be the ambassadors of God. They were supposed to take the Gospel to the entire world). This became the best way to save the world. But things went south (They were caught up in pride and idolatry and they became haughty and condescending and they chose against God. God stepped in and implemented faze three of the plan of redemption. Up to this time, He did everything He could to save us. So he implemented his rescue mission. God knew He had to send Jesus as the propitiation of our sins. He instructed The Israelites to make Him a sanctuary (a copy of what is in heaven) (foreshadowing redemption in heaven) It introduced them to Gods plan of salvation to them. He wanted to give them hope and He wanted them to know that He would send Jesus (Hosea and gomer) – hope remained. God wanted to be with His people but He couldn’t- sin spoiled everything. By this time God could still communicate with us through His prophets, and He did just that. Then God did what He could and He freed them form bondage and slavery and He journeyed with them through the desert to the Promised Land. Sin had put a separation between God and man, thus the only way for God to meet with them was behind the veil in the Ark of the Covenant (if you sin/die) (a law like gravity) So, God led them through the desert to the Promised Land. (Signifying our life on earth and heaven as our destination) He would send His son to atone for our sins. He gave them the chance to be redeemed from sin by keeping his covenant giving them the chance to be saved by grace. At this stage of the fight this would be the best way for them to be saved. But as expected they broke the covenant. God implemented the next step. By now sin was so ugly that God could not connect with us in person anymore. So He sent His one and only son in the form of man to proclaim the love of the Father and to redeem us from sin. This is the lengths God went through to save you (He has send His only Son on a suicide mission so that you can live) by doing this, Jesus sealed up the prophecy and He made atonement for sin to bring in everlasting righteousness. God needed a substitute to eradicate sin from our lives but things were really bad by this time. Later sin would escalate to the point where they would actually crucify their long awaited Savior. (God’s chosen people would crucify their Savior, and they did just that) Then, after this had failed, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit as our comforter to lead us, to empower us and to convict us of sin and unrighteousness. The Holy Spirit lives within us. He is our schoolmaster leading us to heaven.
So, God made a covenant with them, they broke it! Then God took the next step and he made a new covenant. This covenant was based on better promises. It was the same as the old covenant except for the fact that the new covenant was contingent on God’s grace and not our efforts. God wrote His law on our hearts. He did away with the ceremonial laws of Moses, the ones that was against us. However God did not abolish the Ten Commandments though - Never. Look at matt 5:16, 17
Did you notice what has happened? God created man in His own image. He gave them a test of Loyalty and they chose to reject Gods love. God still wanted to save us and He gave us His plan of redemption. But we plunged into sin. The earth started off perfect, it got contaminated by sin, and its deteriorating more and more each day, the earth is growing old like a garment. But in contrast to this- Gods plan of redemption started of Perfect, it was rejected. God is determined to save us though, so He took the next step in the plan and it got better and better each step of the way.
The Gospel went to the world, to every nation kindred tongue and people on the face of the earth. God gave us the Gift of His son. By dying for us, Jesus would save us, enabling us to inherit eternal life if only we would decide to accept Him. It is made possible by God’s grace through faith; by our decision to accept Jesus. Works won’t help you; it’s through God’s gift of grace alone. We would be saved by believing in Jesus; it is the gift… of God. Jesus loved us so much that He committed Himself to die for us. So the Gospel went to the world. Now up to this point God has done everything He could have done to save mankind. He killed His son for your sake. Unfortunately, many would refuse the gift. This is why John 3:16-17 is there. By now the only thing we have to do to be saved is accepting Jesus and He would accept us by grace not of works lest anyone should boast. By accepting Jesus we would become the children of God, Heirs of the Kingdom. In the end Christ will declare us righteous by giving us the robe of righteousness to make us perfect before Him. (Heirs/family)
So, now we find ourselves at the end of time. It is our time to shine by accepting Jesus. Our probation is almost over. God is fulfilling the last phase of the plan of salvation. It is just a matter of time; the next step for us in God’s plan of salvation is to stay sincere, committed and wait. Why wait? It’s simple; God is waiting for us to make our decisions. (Longsuffering) Time must be fulfilled. And then He would fill heaven with those who accepted the Gift of His son. He would take us to heaven. There will be rewards there. But only those who would accept Him; He will not drag you kicking and screaming. Time is far spent; the time of Judgment has come and the Day of Atonement is at hand. The next thing on the calendar is the close of probation and the coming of Christ. He will take us to heaven. He will show his love to us. Then He would perform His act His strange act. Jesus promised to recreate everything for us. We will start over. Sin will be no more and we would not fall again. However, this gift is given, only to those who wanted God so much that they chose Jesus even through hardship, persecution, and self-denial to be loyal to their God; only they will be saved.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel; it is the salvation unto Christ.
Things will be perfect again. Choosing to love him will be easy then. We are going through all of the steps that lead to salvation. God wants to work in and through us and He wants to give us a heart of flesh with His character. This will transform our lives’. Those who go to heaven will never fall again. And God is looking into the future and He says. Sin will not arise a second time.
It is necessary for God to exhaust all of His options and allow us to go through these steps of rejection before Jesus could die for us. He wants to refine us through the fire, eliminating the “dross”
Jesus could not die for a nation who did not sin yet. He can and He will clean us up and give us glorified bodies when He comes and not before that. (at the last trump)
At the end God gave everything. He gave us promises He led us through the wilderness of life and gave us gifts empowering us to follow him. He gave us His Word. He asked us to keep it.
God made a covenant with us, a covenant based on better promises, He promised us everlasting life and what is our part, just except the Savior as the Lord of your life and go where He leads and remember to A.S.K and to spend time with God. God will complete it unto the end when He saves us through His son. Then He will give us the gift of eternal life, but only to those that loved Jesus and each other.
Do not neglect such a salvation
