Sunday
Morning Bible Study
November
12, 2006
Introduction
:1-3 The Seventh Day
:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
:2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He
rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
God didn’t rest because He was tired. God rested because He was finished with
His work of creation.
:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He
rested from all His work which God had created and made.
This seventh day of rest would be the foundation of what the Bible calls
the “Sabbath”. Keeping the Sabbath was the fifth of God’s Ten Commandments (Ex.
20:8-11).
The Sabbath was specifically for the nation of Israel
(Ex. 31:16-17)
Keeping Saturday as a day of Sabbath rest was supposed to be one of the
ways that people could see the Jewish people honor their God.
One of the reasons the Jews were carried off to Babylon
for seventy years was because they had neglected the Sabbath. God told Jeremiah
that the seventy years were to make up for all the missed Sabbaths (2Chr.
36:21).
The Gentile church adopted Sunday as their day of worship.
There are folks who feel that true Christians must also worship on Saturday
rather than Sunday.
But we are not Israel.
We are the church.
From the very earliest days of the church, Christians practices gathering
together on Sunday rather than Saturday (1Cor. 16:2). They did this in honor of
the resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week (John
20:1).
Paul wrote,
(Rom 14:4-5 NKJV) Who are you to judge another's servant? To his
own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is
able to make him stand. {5} One person esteems one day above another; another
esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.
In other words, it doesn’t matter whether you worship on Saturday or
Sunday. In fact, you could worship God every day.
Lesson
The Sabbath rest
Jesus was often challenged with His concept of the Sabbath. The Jews in
Jesus’ day had developed a very strict understanding of what it meant to “keep
the Sabbath” and Jesus would break their rules by doing things like healing
people on a Sabbath day. That might seem silly to us, but to the Pharisee,
Jesus was a heretic. Jesus taught:
(Mark 2:27 NKJV) And He said to them, "The
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath
I think that for us Gentiles, even though we don’t have church on Saturday,
we still ought to consider the importance of the principle of the Sabbath. There
seems to be two principles within the concept of the Sabbath.
Holiness – “keep it holy”
Going to church on Sunday is a part of that concept.
But it goes beyond church. It carries the idea of honoring God on the
Sabbath.
Rest
The dangers of our busy society – Last week I was at a meeting of pastors
where we heard a message by Dr. Archibald Hart, clinical psychologist, dean of
psychology at Fuller Seminary, often heard on Focus on the Family, and a very
Biblically grounded Christian. He talked about a new book he just finished, “Thrilled to Death”, where he discusses
the new phenomena in our society called anhedonia
(“no pleasure”), a rising problem in the population where people are not
able to experience pleasure. The problem seems to be that we’re simply
overloaded. People are addicted to adrenaline, always looking for some new
thrill. We multi-task, we carry our cell phones everywhere, we are trying to
cram more and more things into our lives. People can’t drive in the car without
turning on a radio. We can’t live without having a TV making noise. Some
churches feel that to keep people coming to their church they have to keep
coming up with more elaborate productions. The music has to be louder and
faster. The message has to be shorter.
The problem is that we don’t leave any time for silence and reflection.
And we wonder why we have a hard time hearing from God.
When the prophet Elijah was running for his life, he ended
up in a cave in the middle of nowhere. And he had an encounter with God.
At first Elijah felt a strong wind, then an earthquake,
and then lightning. But God wasn’t in
those things (1Ki. 19:11-13). It was with a “still small voice” that God
spoke to Elijah.
If we’re expecting God to speak in a loud voice, we just
might miss it.
God often speaks with a “still, small voice”. We need to
learn to be quiet before Him. We need to give Him time in our lives to hear His
voice.
The prophet Ezekiel describes a river he saw in a vision coming from the
throne of God in the Temple (Eze.
47). I wonder if the river isn’t picture of the rivers of living water, the
Holy Spirit. Ezekiel finds himself wading into the river. At first the river is
only ankle deep. But the further he wades, the deeper the river goes until
finally Ezekiel can’t touch the bottom and is swept off his feet with the
powerful current.
Spurgeon writes, “Most Christians are only up to their
ankles in the river of experience. Some have waded till the stream is up to
their knees. A few find the water up to their shoulders. But a very few find it
a river to swim in – the bottom of which they cannot touch. There are heights
in experiential knowledge of the things of God the eagle’s eye of acumen and
the philosophic thought has never seen. There are secret paths that the lion’s
cub of reason and judgment has not as yet learned to travel. God alone can
bring us there, but the chariot in which He takes us up and the fiery steeds
with which that chariot is dragged are prevailing prayers.” (Spurgeon on Prayer, Day 11)
Take time to rest. Take time to be
quiet before God. Take time to pray.
:4-7 God forms man from dust
:4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
Dr. Henry Morris, in his book “The Genesis Flood” suggests that the word
“history” (KJV “generations”) speaks of a written record. When you study the
use of this word in Genesis, you see it at transitions from one section to the
next, associated with the main character of the section.
Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, but Moses didn’t live until
the time of the Exodus. How did Moses know about the events in the book of
Genesis?
I think Moses simply collected the existing written records of Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. We
call this collection “Genesis”.
:4 in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
:5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of
the field had grown. For the LORD God
had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the
ground;
:6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the
ground.
Before the flood of Noah, vegetation was watered by this mist rather than
rain.
:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 1 was a description of creation from a distance. Genesis 2 is a
close up on the events that took place when God creates man.
being – nephesh – soul. This
is what makes man different from the animals. God breathed His breath into Adam
and Adam was given a soul.
:8-14 God plants Eden
:8 The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden,
and there He put the man whom He had formed.
:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant
to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the
garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
:10 Now a river went out of Eden
to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads.
:11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land
of Havilah, where there is gold.
:12 And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are
there.
:13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around
the whole land of Cush.
:14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes
toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
Euphrates – Since we know where this river
is, could it be possible to find the Garden of Eden? Probably not. Remember that the earth of Adam’s day was
destroyed in the flood of Noah.
:15-17 Man given Eden
:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to
tend and keep it.
:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the
garden you may freely eat;
: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."
:18-25 God makes Woman
:18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I
will make him a helper comparable to him."
I’ve heard some gals claim that when God made Adam, He stood back and
exclaimed, “I can do better than that”. This is not true.
Up to this point in creation, everything that God has made has been “good”.
This is the first thing that is “not good”, for man to be alone.
:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and
every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.
And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
This gives us an indication that Adam had intelligence, language, and
speech.
:20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every
beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to
him.
This is really rather humorous. Can you imagine the process involved of
Adam seeing if any of these animals would be an appropriate companion?
Somehow I have this picture in my head of an audition for the “Honeymooners”.
Adam looks a lot like Jackie Gleason (Ralph Kramden) who walks into the
apartment and announces, “Honey, I’m home!” and in walks a turtle. “No”, Adam
says, “I don’t think this is going to work”.
:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and
He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
:22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman,
and He brought her to the man.
Illustration
At Sunday School they were teaching how God created everything, including
human beings. Little Tommy, a child in the kindergarten class, seemed
especially interested when they told him how Eve was created out of one of
Adam’s ribs. Later in the week his mother noticed him lying down as though he
were ill, and asked, “Tommy, what’s the matter?” Little Tommy responded, “I
have a pain in my side. I think I’m gonna have a wife.”
An Old Jewish Proverb:
Woman was not taken from man's head to rule over him, or from his foot to
be trodden on by him, but from his side to be his companion.
:23 And Adam said: "This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my
flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man."
In Hebrew the word for man is “ish”
and the word for woman is “ishah”. The word for woman is just like a man, but
with an “ahhhh” after it.
:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his
wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Who is marriage about?
God did not make Adam and Eve and Mabel.
Marriage is to be with one partner.
God did not make Adam and Steve, but Adam and Eve.
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
What is marriage about?
leave – ‘azab – to leave,
loose, forsake
No other relationship is to be as important as marriage. You “leave” in the
sense that all other relationships no longer are as important to you as your spouse.
One of the areas that cause trouble in marriage is when another person
becomes closer to you than your spouse.
It might be a parent. Sometimes one marriage partner can’t let go of mommy
or daddy.
It might be a buddy. There’s nothing wrong with having good friends, but
when your friend is more important to you than your spouse, something’s wrong.
It might be a person of the opposite sex. These days it’s not uncommon for
us to spend more time with a person at work than we do with our spouse. And
that’s dangerous.
join – dabaq – to cleave, to cling, stick, stay close, follow closely, join to
In marriage, this involves a sexual union.
Our society seems absolutely saturated with sex. There are some TV channels
where it seems that every show is about sex. Comedy today has to be sexual. And
everyone is expected to be sexually active. The other day I was at a high
school event and the boys in the row behind me were talking about the condoms
in their pockets and their sexual exploits.
Sex is a wonderful thing, but don’t cause yourself great pain by
experimenting with something that was designed for a specific relationship –
your spouse.
I heard Dr. Dobson explain it like this. God has given you
a gift worth a million bucks. And when you have sex with someone, you don’t
just share bodily fluids, you share an invisible part of you as well, part of
your soul with that person. You give away half of what you are.
If you’re married to the other person, it’s wonderful
because your spouse now has half of your treasure. But if you give your
treasure to someone you are not married to, when they walk away, they take your
treasure with them. Now you only have half a million bucks worth of you to
share with someone. The more people you share your treasure with, the cheaper
you become. Keep sex pure. Keep it valuable. Wait until you are married.
Cleaving goes beyond sex. It’s
learning to open your self up to another person. It’s sharing your heart, soul, mind, and
spirit with another person. It’s supposed to be such a tight, inseparable union
that Jesus said,
(Mark 10:9 NKJV)
"Therefore what God has joined together, let not man
separate."
:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
The goal of marriage
It’s not about how you’re dressed. It’s about openness. There should be
very few secrets between a husband and wife.
If you are still dating, looking for that special person, don’t try to
pretend to be someone you’re not. Be yourself. If that other person can’t
accept you for who you are, you certainly don’t want to spend the rest of your
life with that person.
Marriage is about being yourself and being completely accepted for just who
you are. Can he stand you without your
makeup on? Would she laugh if you
stopped holding your tummy in?
ashamed – buwsh – to be
disappointed.
You may not feel like this describes your marriage. How do you get there?
It starts with you being gracious. It starts with you accepting and loving
your spouse for who they are, not for who you want them to be.
You want to be loved for who you are. Do you love the other person for who
they are? It starts with you.