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Books are a tremendous benefit to humanity and the Bible is the greatest book of all. Unlike all other books, this book is divinely inspired. Every word is accurate, faithful and true. This Book of books teaches us everything we need to know to live a successful life in this world followed by eternal life in the World to Come. It corrects us when we are wrong, equips us to serve God, and produces peace, joy and hope.

The Bible is like the tallest, most beautiful skyscraper ever built. Every beam, every floor and every room depends on the strength of its foundation. In the same way, Genesis is the foundation of the Bible. If we understand Genesis, the rest of God’s Word is clear and our lives are built on a firm foundation. But if we misunderstand Genesis, the rest of Scripture grows dim, and the foundation of our lives crack and crumble.

Genesis starts with: In the beginning God created: The Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is a plural noun, which is followed by a singular verb – a hint of the plural yet singular nature of God. This is a truth that is progressively revealed until the arrival of the Son of God, who gives us the clearest understanding of the Three-In-One nature of God.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. Here’s how: God started with a dark, empty and formless Earth which was covered with water. The Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water, bringing the presence and power and wisdom of God to His creation.

During the next six days, God brought light and form and filling to that which was dark and formless and empty. He did so by speaking. The Father spoke and the Son carried out the word and will of His Father.

First there was darkness and then there was light. Since darkness came before light, God’s days begin with the evening.

God continued speaking, bringing more form and filling to His creation. He separated the light from the darkness, the waters above from the waters below, the land from the sea. He filled the Earth with plants and animals, the oceans with living creatures, the sky with birds and the sun, moon and stars. The sun, moon and stars not only add beauty to the sky, and give light to the Earth, they serve as signs and mark days and seasons and years.

Finally, God made the highest of His creation. Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” Notice the plurals – us and our. This hints at the divine fellowship within the nature of God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit were united in creating beings made in the image of God who could know and love them and live forever with them.

To be made in the image of God means we share some of God’s attributes. We can think, reason, choose, create, speak, and love. We have moral awareness and spiritual capacity. Being made in the image of God enables us to know God and have a close, personal relationship with Him. Every human being, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or ability, is made in the image of God and has divine dignity and inherent worth.

God created humanity male and female. Two genders, distinct yet complementary, together display the fullness of God’s image. In our generation, this truth is under attack. Yet Genesis stands firm: the male‑female distinction is not a cultural invention but a divine design. To embrace that design is to live in harmony with the Creator’s intent. To reject that design is to rebel against the will of the Creator.

God created the universe and everything in it in six literal days. The universe was complete. Order, beauty, and goodness filled every part of it. On the seventh day He rested – not the rest of tiredness but the rest of satisfaction and contemplation. God blessed the Sabbath and set it apart for special treatment. It’s a weekly reminder that life is not about constant work and striving but about communion with the One who provides. Ultimately, the Sabbath is fulfilled in Yeshua, the Lord of the Sabbath. When we are united to Him, we find spiritual rest in the One who completed the work of redemption and invites us to enter His rest.

God entrusted humanity with governing the Earth: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it.” We are called to govern the world as God’s representatives. When we live under God’s rule, we rule the Earth well and it prospers. When we rebel against the Lord’s authority, our management becomes destructive and the world suffers.

In chapter two, Moses focuses on the creation of man. The Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Man’s body is made from physical elements, but man is more than physical elements. He has a non-physical part – a soul, a spirit.

The Lord planted a garden in Eden, which means pleasure or delight, and placed Adam there. His responsibility was to take care of the garden.

The Lord put two special trees in the garden – the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God is eternal and made it possible for those made in His image to live eternally with Him by creating the Tree of Life. The knowledge that we can live forever with the eternal God prevents us from thinking that life must end and therefore is meaningless. The knowledge that we can live forever with God keeps us sane and happy and hopeful and moral.

The Tree of Life teaches us that we are not born with immortal souls – souls that can’t die. We need something outside of ourselves to live forever. Adam and Eve had to eat from the Tree of Life to live forever. For us today, we must believe the truth about Messiah Yeshua and become loyal to Him to live forever.

Adam was physically mature but morally and spiritually immature. He was given a precious gift – free will – but needed to learn how to use it. He needed to learn what is good and what is evil, and choose what is good and reject what is evil. As part of his moral and spiritual education, the Lord commanded Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And He warned Adam that if he did, the consequences would be catastrophic. Mot tah-moot – dying you will die. You will surely die.

As Adam passed by the Tree and chose to trust God and obey His command to not eat its fruit, he would learn that trusting God and obeying His Word is the essence of good, and not trusting God and disobeying His Word is the essence of evil. If Adam disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the Tree, he would also learn good and evil – but from the perspective of falling into evil and experiencing all the harm that evil brings – which is, of course, what happened – and what God knew would happen.

In this chapter, Moses records the first marriage. From it, we learn the principles for a successful marriage:

Marriage is between a man and a woman.

Marriage is for those who are equally yoked. Adam and Eve shared the same faith. They believed the same things. They were committed to the same truths.

Adam and Eve did not engage in sexual activity before marriage. Sex is designed by God to help us bond with the opposite sex, remain in a life-long, covenant relationship with our mate, and reproduce and raise others who have the image of God so they can know and fear God and live forever with God. Sexual activity before marriage or outside marriage is against the Creator’s will.

To have a successful marriage, a man and a woman need to be independent from their parents.

Marriage means a man and a woman are united into one. They are to unite physically, spiritually, emotionally, financially.

In chapter three, Moses teaches us about the Fall of Man, and the curse, and the first prophecy of redemption and God’s provision of a temporary and limited atonement, and the exile from Eden.

Even though the world was new and free from sin, Satan, the Adversary, who had already fallen into evil, was allowed access to Earth. The leader of the fallen angels appeared to Eve in the body of a snake. He spoke to her. He deceived her. He tempted her. He undermined her faith in God and in the Word of God. He told her that she wouldn’t die if she ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He told her that the reason why God forbid her from eating the fruit of the Tree was so that she would not become like God, knowing good and evil. That, of course, was a lie. God wanted her to know good and evil – but not by eating from the fruit of the Tree.

Eve yielded to the temptation. She ate the forbidden fruit and gave some to her husband, who also ate it. This one act of faithlessness, rebellion and disobedience brought sin, misery and death in to the world.

Immediately everything changed. The world changed. Adam and Eve changed. Their nature changed. They felt shame because of their nakedness. They sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Their relationship to God changed. Instead of coming to God when they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid from Him. That alienation from God was passed on to all of their descendants. That’s the human condition – estranged from God, avoiding God, hiding from God.

There were very serious consequences for this first sin. The Lord punished the snake, and the fallen angel who was speaking through the snake, and Adam and Eve with punishments that fit their crimes – humiliation for the snake by crawling on it belly and groveling in the dust; a promise of defeat for the Devil through the seed of the woman, a descendant of Eve – the Messiah. He would defeat the Adversary and reverse the damage Satan had caused. However, in this conflict the Redeemer would be wounded – a reference to Messiah’s death. This is the first Messianic prophecy and the main theme of the rest of the Bible – redemption through Messiah.

The Lord punished Eve by promising her pain in childbirth. In spite of that, she would desire her husband, who would rule over her – and that husband-wife relationship with the man as the head of the family – has never changed.

Adam was punished by the Earth being cursed. Life would no longer be a delight like it had been in Eden. Life would include hard work, pain and suffering followed by death. His body would return to the Earth from which it was taken.

The Lord was tough with Adam and Eve, but He was also merciful. Instead of their own inadequate efforts to cover their nakedness with fig leaves, He made clothes of animal skins for them. There in beautiful Eden, the first animals were killed, their blood was shed and their skins were used to provide a better covering.

An exchange of life took place when the animals died. The innocent animals absorbed Adam and Eve’s sin and died. Adam and Eve received the life of the innocent animals and were able to live. However, this exchange of life and the covering of animal skins was only temporary and limited since the death of animals, which are of less value than man, can never fully atone for man. It takes the death of the Son of God, who is more valuable than man, for full and final atonement. His sacrifice took away the sins of the righteous of all the ages, including those who sins were temporarily covered by the death of animals.

Adam and Eve could not be allowed to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in their fallen condition. So the Lord exiled them from Eden and stationed angels at the eastern entrance of Eden to prevent anyone from returning and eating from the Tree of Life. The good news is that those who end their part in the rebellion of the fallen angels and transfer their loyalties to the Father and Son, will be allowed to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in Paradise.

In chapter four, Moses informs us about the consequences of the Fall. Cain and Abel were born to Adam and Eve. Abel was a shepherd. He understood the truths about atonement experienced by his parents. He sacrificed some of the first and best animals from his flocks. Both Abel and his sacrifices were accepted by God.

Cain, however, ignored the truths about atonement. He cultivated the ground and offered the Lord some of the crops he grew – a convenient and bloodless offering. Both Cain and his offering were rejected by the Lord. Cain became angry and depressed. The Lord warned him that he needed to turn from the dangerous direction he was headed to or he would be overpowered by sin.

Instead of acting on the Lord’s warning, Cain yielded to his anger and killed his brother. The Lord punished the man who lived by growing things by exiling him from his land, and promised him that wherever he might try to grow things, the ground would be cursed and he wouldn’t be able to grow crops.

Over the next several generations, humanity multiplied and advanced in many ways. We learned how to build cities, work with metals, raise animals, and create music and poetry. However, at the same time, we deteriorated morally and spiritually. The majority did not fear God. The one man-one woman principle of marriage was ignored. Men began having more than one wife. People became violent. Meanwhile, a minority, who came through Seth and Enosh, remained faithful to God. God always has His faithful remnant.

In chapter five, Moses informs us about the 10 generations between Adam and Noah. All of them lived much longer than we do today. All of them had children. All of them died – except for Enoch, who walked with God. He lived with God and was close to God did what was right. Instead of dying, the Lord took him – which lets us know there is another place where the faithful remnant who live with God will be taken to.

In chapter six, Moses teaches us that the “sons of God” had sexual relationships with women. If these sons of God were fallen angels, and I think they were, this was a terrible sin. If the sons of God were people, it means that the faithful remnant married the descendants of Cain who were rebelling against God. And Moses informs us that the n’feeleem – the “fallen ones” – strong and famous men were alive in those days.

By the tenth generation from Adam, humanity was so corrupt, so rebellious against God and His ways, and so violent that the Lord was sorry He made us. He decided to destroy humanity with a world-wide flood. However, a faithful remnant – Noah and his wife and their three sons and their wives would survive the watery judgment by building an ark.

God’s plan to redeem a chosen remnant who would become His beloved and eternal sons and daughters would continue.

Some lessons:

Before anything existed, God was. He is eternal, self‑existent, and the Creator of all things. Wisdom begins with this foundational truth: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

The heavens, Earth, plants and creatures reveal God’s reality, wisdom and power. Observing creation is meant to result in humility, awe and worship.

The Earth was formless and empty, but God’s Spirit and God’s word brought light, beauty, and purpose to it. Every human life begins in a similar way – formless and empty. But when God speaks His Word to us, and we hear it and believe it, formlessness and emptiness are replaced by order. God’s Spirit brings peace, structure, and purpose to our lives.

After six days of work, God rested. Sabbath reminds us life is not about endless labor but communion with God, trusting Him as the Provider of all things.

Immortality is not part of fallen human nature but is a gift from God. Only through faith in Messiah, the true Tree of Life, can we receive eternal life.

The first sin began by not believing the Word of God. That unbelief brought ruin into creation. Don’t doubt any part of God’s Word. Believe every word of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

Human solutions to sin always are inadequate. Only God can provide true atonement. Fig leaves couldn’t cover their guilt, so God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins a foreshadow of the sacrifice of the Son of God who alone can atone for sin.

There is one true religion and many false religions. Abel and his sacrifice represents true religion based on God’s principles of faith and atonement. Cain and his offering represents all the false, made-made religions that will not save anyone.

Enoch walked with God and was taken. Real religion is daily walking with God, having a close personal relationship with Him, having companionship with the Creator so that it seems like we’re already taken to Heaven.

In Noah’s day, wickedness filled the Earth, yet Noah was able to remain faithful. It’s possible to walk with God – even in the most wicked circumstances.

When people reject God’s ways, violence, immorality, and injustice increase. Spiritual decay spreads rapidly, impacting families, cities, and nations. Faithfulness to God’s Word protects us from cultural collapse.

Judgment and destruction are the inevitable consequences of sin, rebellion, disobedience and unbelief – but the faithful remnant who get on the ark will be saved from judgment and destruction – and that ark is Yeshua.

Let’s pray:

Lord God, Your divinely inspired Book is the greatest of books. It is faithful and true like You are faithful and true. Help us build our lives on these foundational truths so we can have successful lives in this world, followed by eternal life in the World-To-Come. And help us teach these truths to others so that they can have what we have. Amen.