God lived in Heaven in splendor greater than all the pomp and ceremony of Great Britain. Talk about opulence! Wealth unsurpassed than anything you have seen on earth. Peace, with not a spot of disturbance. His Royal Majesty, Almighty God, in the Kingdom of Heaven. He ruled and reigned with his created heavenly beings.
And then! He made man like him, i.e. in his image, to populate, manage, beautify and rule over the lesser created beings that were part of the representative Kingdom of God on Earth.
The Glory light of God was man's clothing. Man basically had the freedom and legal right to govern. He had unrestricted access to Earth's resources, except the fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
If you know the story, man blew it. He took a chance on a lie and threw everything back into chaos.
He lost his glorified covering, caused environmental degradation and contracted a deadly disease. Worst of all, this incurable/terminal disease was passed on through the spiritual DNA of every human being born from the union of the very first man and woman.
SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)? No. SINS (Shared Inherited Nature Syndrome)! SINS have no cure--and here's where the story gets interesting. What I have just recapped is the resident thought--the baseline information a person must have to be able to share the gospel or good news to Jewish people and non-Jewish people alike. It is a message for atheists, religious and non-religious people. It is a message for mankind. Every human being was born under a death sentence because of a choice made for the human race by Adam and Eve.
The situation was hopeless. That was until God, in the Kingdom of Heaven, decided to provide a cure and restore mankind and the Earth to what he had originally wanted. God himself (The Father, The Word, The Spirit) decided that the Word would become the Son of God, go down to Earth in the form of a human being, be born from the womb of a virgin woman, grow to tell people about his rescue mission, then be killed on a cross. In dying on the cross, his blood would satisfy God's wrath for man's disobedience. He would make an exchange. His life for the life of every human being. His pure blood would be the purifier for human blood; it would take away sins, and his wounds (stripes--the horrible wounds that were inflicted before and at his crucifixion) would heal diseases. The requirement now is for every human being to believe that Jesus is real, that he is the Son of God, that he died that we might live forever (we first have to lose this old body so that we can get a new and imperishable one), he lives in Heaven where he first came from, and that he will come again. He is preparing a new Heaven and a new Earth. You are faced with a choice once again. Don't take a chance on a lie. Your sins can be taken away. If you eat now from the tree of Life, which Jesus now offers, you will surely live forever. But if you prefer to continue to eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, there will be good things in your life as well as evil, and there will be no escape. If you believe and trust Jesus to take away the sin disease from you, though evil may occasionally show up in your life, the power of God will help you overcome until you put off this old body and step into eternity where you can never, ever, be touched by evil.
You will rule and reign over the creation in the new Earth that is being prepared for you. That's how it should have been. And that's how it promises to be again for all who believe and obey. Make your choice.
Editor's note: The search for the Fountain of Youth, environmental protection, and the longing for perfect government and peace strike a common note with the fall of man. You can trace the story in its original source from Genesis Chapters 1, 2, 3 and Revelation Chapter 21. For easy access to an online bible reference see:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%201&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%202&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%203&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation%2021&version=NIV
