July 19, 2015
Questions from Sermon
GOD IS GOOD: “Straight
Arrow” Righteous
Answers
from Pastor David Staff
1. Was it common for
animals to talk since the snake spoke to Eve?
I would say probably. There was a talking donkey too. But I thnk it was
only when God made them talk through the HS.
Not all the time. BUT not sure about
Garden of Eden?
As you’ve observed, it
was NOT common for animals to talk.
Interpreters of this passage (Genesis 3:1f) have noted that this should
have been a troubling signal to Eve (and Adam, who was with her, vs. 6) that something
was amiss. But how could this serpent
speak?
A common theme in
Scripture is that evil spirits in the spirit world seek to find or have a
physical habitation (cf. Matthew 8:30-31, 12:42-44). Here, it seems, Satan himself was allowed to
inhabit and even transform a snake’s natural capabilities, and suddenly, you
have a created animal with the ability of language communication. Elsewhere in Scripture, spirits that are
aligned with Satan do find an abode in physical bodies, and even communicate
through them (cf. Mark 1:23-25, where unclean spirits speak out through a man).
Since using the snake
(or serpent) as his instrument of deception, Satan has been ever since
identified as “that ancient Serpent” (cf. Revelation. 12:9, 20:2), God’s
fallen-angel arch enemy. His end has
already been determined.
2. I wonder if Adam
after asking God what he should have do instead of listening to Satan, if he
could have asked God to just remove that tree from the garden if God would have
removed it?
While removing the tree would have been one way to, perhaps,
eliminate the possibility of a wrong choice, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil was necessary, in order that a true and loving relationship between
man and God could happen. As I mentioned
in one service’s Q-A, for true and mature and enriching relational love to
develop in us, choice must be present.
Otherwise we are nothing but robots, and not truly human nor made in God’s
image.
3. Is faith a work of
righteousness?
No. Faith in never presented as a work of
righteousness, or a work that merit’s righteousness. It is always spoken of in Scripture as simple
trust in God’s promises, and not a meritorious act. Cf. Romans 4:3-5.
4. It is stunning how
SPONTANEOUS Adam & Eve's choice seems. Apparently they had no idea of the
cosmic cost of that choice. Are we any better at choosing God's Way of Shalom?
Not without the enabling help and power of the Holy Spirit, to be
sure.
Did Adam and Eve have an idea of the “cosmic cost” of their
choice. We’re not told directly, but
Adam and Eve were brilliant individuals.
The crippling effect of sin had not been imposed on the physical world
nor on their human capacities. One might
argue that they did know the stakes involved, and chose to believe that Satan’s
suggestion would impact the “cosmos” better than God’s way. Admittedly, speculative thinking about this,
but the first human beings were very smart.
5. Wasn’t it in God’s
plan that adam and eve would sin? HOW
else would the story of the bible have unfolded? What would our life be like now if adam and
eve had not sinned?
This is a VERY interesting question.
Let’s break it down abit.
Was it in God’s plan that Adam and Eve would sin? No, and Yes…I would offer as the right answer. “No,” in the sense that God’s plan did not
coerce or require them to sin. Had they
not sinned, but remained sinless and unchecked in their growth in God, a whole
different story could have been told.
But “Yes,” God’s plan certainly anticipated that they would sin, and
thus before the foundation of the world, it was planned that God the Son would
come and be the Lamb-of-God sacrifice for the world that He had created
(Revelation 13:8). There is a mystery
in this “no” and “yes” answer that we cannot fully explain or reconcile.
Life without sin could have been extraordinary….and will be in the
new heavens and new earth (cf. Revelation 21-22)!
6. I desperately want
to follow God's plan for my life to honor His righteousness, but struggle
greatly in understanding what that plan actually is. Why might it be so difficult to discover His
plan?
When the Scripture
speaks of God’s “plan” or “will” for our individual lives, it appears to speak concerning
several aspects of that plan.
One aspect – the primary
one – is that it is the Father’s plan that we become like His Son (cf. Romans
8:29-30)…in our character, thinking, obedience, kingdom-living. The details of what it is like to grow in
Christ and become like Him in our daily living are very clear – outlined
and taught in the New Testament books (or epistles) from Romans – Revelation.
A second aspect of God’s
plan for each of us has to do with specifics concerning things like where to go
to school, who to marry, what vocation to choose and work in, where to live,
etc, and the timing of all those things.
This part of God’s will for us is more driven by the wisdom we
get from the Holy Spirit THROUGH God’s Word (application of) and God’s people
(who mentor us). Scripture urges that we
listen for wisdom and use it, in all of the choices God presents to us in life.
Both parts of God’s “plan”
for us can be discovered if we patiently use the resources of truth and people
that He places in our lives.
7. How and why was
Satan created if he was around in the beginning to be able to tempt Adam and Eve?
Scripture suggests that Satan was originally one of God’s most
beautiful and capable angels (“Lucifer”), who had been given the power of
choice even as an angelic being. If the
boastful careers and words of two ancient monarchs (who may have well be led
and directed by Satan) are a revelation of what originally happened (cf. Isaiah
14, and Ezekiel 28), the “star of the morning” (in Latin, “Lucifier”) became
proud of his beauty and capability, and attempted to dethrone God. Unsuccessful in his pride and rebellion, he
and angels who were aligned with him were cast out of heaven and confirmed in
sin/unrighteousness.
When this fall happened vis-à-vis the original creation of the
universe, world, and humanity, is not precisely know. But it seems to have happened before
Adam and Eve were created, because Satan was present (in the Serpent) to get
the man and woman to fall in sin the way he had.
8. How do I navigate
a sinless life when that's all that around me?
Scripture teaches that
we CAN navigate a life that is pleasing to God when we (1) seek to become like
the Lord Jesus Christ, (2) daily depend on the Holy Spirit for God’s work in
our life, (3) stay connected for prayer and encouragement with other followers
of Jesus. Psalm 1, for example, suggests
that there is blessing for the one who “delights in the Law (or Word) of the
Lord, and in that law (word) he meditates day and night.”
9. So why do you
think God put the tree as a (test) or forbade them to eat of it? He had to know what they were going to
do....right?
See the answer to #5. Above.
10. Psalm 11:7 states
that God loves righteous deeds. Does God
loves these deeds because they *are righteous*, or are these deeds righteous
*because God loves them* ?
Interesting
question. I’d say, I guess, that God
knows when a deed is “righteous” (that is, conforms to His standard of what is
right, good, and excellent), and thus loves to see them done!
11. Are believers
"declared" righteous or "made" righteous?
First, “declared” (or
reckoned) righteous by grace through faith, and then “made” righteous through
an increasing Christlikeness in living through the power of the Holy Spirit and
application of the Word.
12. I understand why
we need a new earth, but why do we need a new heaven?
God knows we need a new
universe which is not under the curse and frustration of sin. The whole universe was impacted by the moral
choice of Adam and Eve (cf. Romans 8:20-23).
13. Why did God give
us free will if he knows that some people would just do evil? Why does God let our loved ones die when they
are sick especially when we pray so much for their healing? What are somethings
to do to set my soul on fire and be all in for Christ?
See answer to #5. above.
We die in this world
because we are part of a fallen creation which is subjected to death. Adam was told that his moral choice of
disobedience would result in death. We
are encouraged to pray for healing, but we also know that God can and does say “no”
to some requests for healing because He knows that what is coming, in the next
life, is “very much better” (cf. Philippians 1:23 – “to depart and be with
Christ is VERY MUCH BETTER”). In other
words, healing and staying alive in this life is not always the better
result! How about that!?
“Your soul on fire for
Christ” – the more you know Him, the more your soul and your life will be all
in for Christ (cf. Philippians 3:12-17!).
14. Is there any idea of how long Adam and Eve lived before
sinning?
We don’t know. But it was before Eve conceived for the first
time, and given the command God gave them to be “fruitful and multiply,” one
might suspect that Adam and Eve began to be intimate very soon after they were
created for each other. That would
suggest that the pre-conception temptation by Satan occurred fairly soon after
the events of Genesis 2.
15. Were animals created male and female? Before humans were?
It appears so,
yes. They were to also “be fruitful and
multiply,” which would necessitate the complimentary genders in order to
facilitate reproduction.
16. How do you respond to Intelligent Design evolutionists who
claim that God imparted Spirit and humanness to a hominid to make modern man?
It’s an interesting
theory, and I’ve heard it before. The
problem I have with it is that there is no literary or linguistic indication of
it in the text of Genesis 1-2. In fact
the text of Genesis 2 teaches that God did NOT use a living animal of any kind
as the entity from which a human being was created. God did a unique work “of the dust of the
ground” (Genesis 2:6) in creating (“bara” – to create from nothing) the male. Nor was the woman an existing hominid, but “fashioned”
(different word, the word of an artist) the woman from the rib taken from the
man.
17. July 19 question #1. If God loves it when things are right,
why do those that choose righteousness still feel the effects of a sinful
world? Why do some that live righteously still suffer horribly?
There are several
facets of the answer to your questions.
First, Jesus is the model for us.
No one lived more righteously; no one suffered more in this world as a
righteous person. Righteousness suffers
in a fallen, not-right world, and God does not choose to alieve the suffering
of the righteous. In fact, He chooses to
use their suffering as a powerful
testimony both to the awfulness of sin, and to the hope alone found
in the death/burial/resurrection of Jesus.
Second, if God had
decided to simply alleviate the suffering of the righteous, we might be very
much tempted to both be satisfied with this fallen creation, and to trust God
in order to get from God what we want in this world – success and no
suffering. The bottom line is that God
does not want us attached to a fallen world (note…he kept the tree of life from
fallen Adam and Eve in the garden, Genesis 3:24, so that Adam and Eve would not
attempt to live forever in their sinful bodies)…but asks us to anticipate a
future, recreated one “in which righteousness dwells, 2 Peter 3:13).
18. July 19 question #2. It seems every day we see the world
(and more specifically our nation) reject Christ more and more. Are we
experiencing a slow progression of turning away from Christ or have there been
worse times in the past?
We are in the “last
days,” the days between Christ’s Ascension (Acts 1) and Christ’s Personal
Return (Revelation 19-20). Here’s what the
Spirit says about these “times” – 1 Timothy 4:1-4, 2 Timothy 3:1-5).
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