1441 - "The Story of the Crimson River begins" Gen 3:15; 4:1-5; Hebrews 11:4

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1441. Today we're beginning the story of the great crimson river, the river of sacrifice and substitutionary atonement that runs from Genesis all the way through the book of Revelation. And today we're going to start with our first parents. We're going to start with Adam, our father, and Eve, our mother. God placed them in the garden, a garden that was absolutely perfect, pristine, no sin, only that which is good. And God said you can have anything in the garden, anything except one thing, one prohibition. And Eve, our first mother, was deceived. That's right. The Bible says when Paul was speaking to Timothy, he said Eve was deceived. Adam was not, he knew full well what he was doing. He chose deliberately, knowing what he was doing was wrong, and was rebelling against God. He chose his own way, he chose his wife over the will of God and the way of God. When he did that, according to Romans chapter five and verse eight, sin entered into the world by one man and death by sin. And when Adam fell, the entire universe fell. That is, everything became warped and corrupt. Did it destroy everything? Absolutely not. But our world is marred, our cosmos is marred, and certainly our own human hearts and minds and wills are distorted and corrupt and depraved. And so the Bible says as soon as this happened, God had already told Adam, In the day that you eat of this tree you will surely die. And he did. He died spiritually. That is, he was separated from the very sense of God's presence, from the very presence of God. And guilt came into the human race for the very first time. And they tried to deal with it in their own way. They tried to cover up their nakedness because for the first time they realized that the protection that God had placed upon them, the innocence that they had was now departed. It was gone. The Bible says in verse twenty, and Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics, that is, robes as such, coverings, if you will, of skin and clothed them. You say, Well, I didn't see any sacrifice there. It's understood. You see, the scripture says that God took skins. Where did he get the skins? From the sacrificial animal. This would become the pattern all the way through Scripture. It is, as we're going to see, in Adam's son Abel. And Abel knew exactly what it was. We don't read either that Adam passed on to Abel that he should bring the first of his flock, the best of his flock, the fat of the flock. We don't read where Adam told him anything, but that's exactly what Abel did. Did he just come up with that on his own? Absolutely not. He came up with it because it was passed on through his father when he told him the story of how he had sinned and how God had made a sacrifice and had covered them, covered their sin, and made the promise that a redeemer was coming. You see, back in chapter three and verse fifteen, God made a promise to Adam, and he was speaking to the serpent, and he said, I will put enmity. That is, there's going to be war against you, there's going to be animosity against you, from the humans, from man and woman. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. That is, woman doesn't have a seed, but the seed of woman is a messianic promise all the way through scripture. As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul deals with this in the New Testament and his epistle to the Galatians. And this Messiah, this seed of the woman that'll be born of a virgin, that's how that this came about. He shall bruise your head, Satan, but you will bruise his heel in the process. In other words, he's going to be wounded, he's going to be hurt. And all of this was a mystic promise, a promise that one day God would redeem man. And Adam knew full well what it was, and you can read about this in the New Testament. It's not laid out in the Old Testament, but it is in the New, and we'll see that in just a moment. And so God fashioned skins. Where did he get those? Well, it doesn't say that he barra, he created them because he had already created all the animals. He had already created everything that he was going to create as far as life is concerned, as far as the animals and nature itself. And so he killed one of those sheep and he skinned it. That's exactly what the priests were instructed to do later in the tabernacle and in the temple. And so he skinned it and he fashioned clothes for them. That's what the word made is. It is the word Asa. Asa has a lot of different translations, about 30 altogether in the Old Testament. But Asa's basic meaning, that's A-SAH, basic meaning is to do or to make, or in this case to fashion. God was the designer, and he clothed them and covered their nakedness. But in order for that to happen, an innocent animal had to give its life. Now I'll tell you now, and I'll say it over and over again in the coming weeks and months. The book of Hebrews, chapter ten, says, It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats, rams and lambs, any animal whatsoever can take away the sin of a man. It is only substitutionary not just by shedding of innocent blood, but also it is a type of the lamb of God that would one day come and take away the sin of the world. Now in chapter four, we have this reiterated in the story of Cain and Abel. Now Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain and said, I have acquired a man from Yahweh, from the Lord, from Hashem. Then she bore again, and this time his brother Abel was born. Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Now there wasn't any problem with Cain tilling the ground. It was not that Abel was a shepherd that granted him favor before God, not at all. But in the process of time that it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Now in the Torah we're going to see that wheat and grain and vegetation is sometimes offered to the Lord, but not in this regard. Abel also, on the other hand, brought the firstborn of his flock, the very best of his flock, as a sacrifice. Now where would he have known to do that? And where would Cain have known to do that? From their father and their mother. It was passed on as knowledge, just like all of the Torah. It was given by God and then it was passed on. By the way, this is the same way that it's done today, if it is done in the order that God has given down through the centuries. We bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is, we teach them. And according to Moses in Deuteronomy chapter six, we are to do that when we lie down, when we get up, when we're eating, when we're walking by the way, as we're doing life together. And so Abel brought the firstborn of his flock, the best of his flock, and all of their fat, everything that goes with it. And it says the Lord Yahweh, Hashem, respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering, and Cain was angry and stubborn and mad at God, and he was crestfallen because he didn't like it that God didn't like what he did, because after all that's what he wanted to bring. But here is the kicker. It's not what God wanted him to bring. You see, you and I can come up with a lot of ideas about what would please God and we feel like, well, I know what God says, but I believe if I did this, God would be just as pleased. No, he's not. God has a way, and we need to get in line with his way, not our way, because our ways are not God's ways. And we need to follow what God says. Why? Because that's faith. Faith is not some ethereal something out here that you cannot see and touch. Oh yes, it's abstract, but it always manifests itself by obedience to God. Faith produces obedience. Let me say it again. Faith produces obedience, not some of the time, not most of the time, but all of the time. Faith and trust in Jesus does not breed and produce disobedience. Ever. No exceptions. This is why in the great hall of fame of faith of those who lived faithfully and trusted God and did what God said. And by the way, when you're living in trust, you're living in obedience. The two cannot be separated. As a matter of fact, James deals with this and devotes almost a whole chapter to this. Faith without works is dead. It's dead faith. In other words, it produces nothing. It's not living faith. In Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 4, it says, by faith, by faith, by trust, by keeping God's word. What is faith? Faith is knowing what God says and acting on it. All you have to do is read Hebrews chapter 11, and you'll see by faith, Abel did this, by faith, Noah did this, by faith, Enoch did this, by faith, Abraham did this, by faith, Sarah did this, by faith, on and on and on. In other words, faith is trusting God's word and acting on God's word more than what our experiences are, more than what we can understand, more than what we can see, more than what we can experience. Because all of that is phenomena that can be misconstrued. God's word is clear. God's word is plain. And we act on that. That's walking by faith. Faith is walking in obedience. It's not just doing what you believe God told you to do. Well, God told me to do this, God told me to do that. Well, if what God tells you in your own mind contradicts what God says in the Word of God, you're listening to somebody else, maybe yourself, maybe the devil, maybe a demon, maybe the world, maybe your own flesh, whatever the case is, but it's not God. God will never tell you to do anything that's contrary to what the Bible clearly teaches. And so by faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. In other words, he was following God's pattern. God's pattern was sacrifice. God killed an innocent animal, and he took that in place of Adam's death and Eve's death, and he clothed them. That means there would have been a couple of sacrifices, one for each, and he would have then taken the skins and clothed each one of them to remind them that indeed something innocent had to die in order for them to be spared. Now that did not take away their sin. Again, they were saved in trust, trusting that God one day would send one to crush the head of the tempter, Genesis three fifteen. And so by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained a witness that he was righteous before God, and God testifying through his gifts, and through it, that is, those gifts, and through faith, he being dead, still spoke. Remember, God said, Cain, where is your brother? And he said, I'm not my brother's keeper. Is that who I'm supposed to be? And God says, I hear the voice of your brother's blood crying from the soil itself, from the earth itself. And so Abel offered to God by trust and faith. Why? Because that's what God had told his dad and shown his dad through the actual sacrifice and clothing that he gave them, and now they had passed it on down to their son, and so begins the story of the crimson river, drenched in blood from the book of Genesis, chapter three, all the way through the book of Revelation. And we're going to see it in sign and symbol. We're going to see it in shadow and type. We're going to see it in living color, because throughout the book of God is the great story of substitution that finds its ultimate end in Jesus, the great substitute who made reconciliation before God possible. And indeed, by the blood of his own cross, he paid the debt for our sin. I'm glad you're with me. Let's go together through the Word of God. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.