Genesis Ch 2

Genesis Chapter 2
vs 1-3
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

One of the Ten commandments is to "Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy". Why is this so important to God? First I think it is important to note that God did not rest from all of his duties as God when it says that he rested on the seventh day. It's not like God told Michael the Arch angel to take over for the day and God went off to go fishing or something silly like that. Here God rested from "all His work that He had done in creation." The one thing that is so amazing about our God is that he knows us better than we know our selves. And God loves to set good examples for us to follow. Jesus tells us to love our enemies, and Christ loves His enemies. Jesus tells us to be baptized, Jesus sets the example and is baptized. God tells us through is servant Moses to rest our physical bodies, and Christ here rests from the work he had been doing. In the American culture we don't appreciate the Sabbath as the Jews did that first heard these words. Those people would literally have worked themselves to death seven days a week if God had not mandated that they take one day off to rest,and worship him with their family. In our society we work 40 hours and are done, 60 hours is brutal. Ancient Jews worked sun up to sun down 6 days a week. No paid vacations, no 401k's no pension. God is glorified when His people work hard and diligently. We are to work as if Christ is our employer, but God does insist that we rest our bodies and take a break from our work. As Christians, we have great freedom in Christ. I don't believe that we need to be legalistic about this issue and say that your sabbath has to be Sunday, or has to be any set day. Really we should rest in Christ every day and be renewed by his Spirit. That being said, we do need to make sure that we are not working so hard, that we burn our selves out to where we are useless to our families and most importantly God.(I HOPE MY FELLOW PASTOR FRIENDS HEAR THAT!)

vs 4
These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Interesting that this is the first time in our Bible(of course we are only in chapter two) that we read the "Lord God" as apposed to just "God". Could also be translated Yahweh. We know in the New Testament that Jesus is referred to as "Lord", So when we read about the Lord in the Old Testament, this is again evidence that Jesus is God, eternal and involved in all of the Bible not just the New Testament. The word Genesis comes from the word Generation.

vs 5
When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,

We just talked a minute about working, and about how God expects His people to work hard, and faithfully. It is important to note that "work" predates the fall of man into sin and death. God has always designed his creation to have jobs and responsibilities. We will talk more about this when we reach the actual fall a little further down the road, but dont let the preachers in white suits on TV fool you, we have always been designed to work for our God(not toil). And that when we enter into God's Kingdom we will work for him throughout eternity.Not hard work, work that we will love and do with glad hearts!
Rev. 22:3- No longer will there be anything accursed, but^B)"> the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants^a]"> will worship him.

vs 6-7
6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

The creation of man. First we read that Jesus does not merely speak man into existence, rather as a potter shapes his clay Christ picks us up, forms us from the dust of the ground, makes us in His image and breaths mental, physical and Spiritual life into mankind. We are not highly evolved animals. Our great ancestors are not monkeys or tad poles. We are all sons and daughters of Adam.

vs 8-13
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

I love that we serve a God that values beauty, and takes personal time in His creation to make things just the way he wants them to be. Here we read that the Lord God planted a garden. I have just blown by that verse hundreds of times in the past but when I stop to think about that, our God cares about details. He is artistic and values beauty more than we can know. I believe this is why He shares just a glimmer of His beauty with us here on this earth, and when we enter His Kingdom we will be even more blown away at the awesome beauty of heaven, and of our creator Himself!

vs 15-17

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

In the above verses we saw that in the middle of the Garden of Eden are two important trees that God had made. The tree of Life and the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In these verses we read that God gives tremendous freedom for Adam, eat what ever you want, but stay away from this one tree. God is not a cosmic joy kill that just wants to make our lives miserable. All sin leads to death. God's love wants us to live abundant fruitful lives. We are to take his commandments very seriously. As a parent with a child who wants to play near a busy street, we know things that child does not know. God as our father knew things that Adam did not know. We will come back to these two trees in the next chapter and see how Satan can twist God's word and try to kill us with it. For now these two trees are at the center of this beautiful garden, and God absolutely forbids Adam to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

vs 18-23

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

Everything that God had made so far has been "good". Now God says that it is NOT good for man to be alone, he needs a helper. Now this is sometimes an extremely touchy subject in our modern society, but let me say that this is in no way degrading towards a woman and their invaluable role that they play in human history. God sees that man was incomplete without woman. Any married couple if they were honest would say amen to that. This is why marriage is so important because women complete men, and are a huge help in men fulfilling their God given callings.(Women have callings as well, but their first and most important calling is to worship Jesus by supporting their husbands and raising their children. That is a GREAT and awesome calling!) We read here that one of Adams responsibilities was to name all of Gods creation,signifying the superiority of humans over all other creation. We also read that Adam was doing job interviews so to speak in looking for a soul mate, and a helper, and he did not find any animal that was suitable to meet the needs that he had. This is no surprise to Christ, and He already has a perfect plan ready and in place. Now I have heard a joke that the reason why men cannot figure out women is because God caused a great sleep to overcome Adam while He was making woman....I think it goes a little deeper than that! However God does take the rib out of Adam's body, and again the potter goes back to work and creates a suitable helper. Now one of my favorite teachers when he speaks of this passage makes a very interesting point, one worth considering for sure. The first recorded human words are in the form of a song.

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

This is sheer speculation but wouldnt it be awesome if humans "sang" as their form of communication before sin entered the world? All we know for sure is that once Adam saw Eve, he said "woman"(Woe-Man!)

vs 24-25

24Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This verse is quoted at almost every Christian wedding. This places extreme responsibility on men everywhere. We are to provide, leave our fathers and mothers and make sure that we are able to take care of our wives. The Bible talks here about a wife and husband becoming one flesh. One big misconception in many peoples minds is that God is anti sex. WRONG, God is very much for sex, and created sex for pleasure pro creation and as a great symbol of His awesome Trinity. The two while still individuals, also are one. This is why sexual immorality of any kind whether it be adultery, homosexuality, rape, molestation of a child, or any sexual relationship outside of marriage is sin in the eyes of God(all equally by the way, we need to stop beating up the homosexual community as if they are worse than the "straight" couple having sex before marriage!) God is not anti sex He is pro marriage, and wants there to be no shame when a husband and wife are together in a sexual relationship!